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CHARACTER AND CONDUCT
[Illustration: FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH
SIR E. J. POYNTER, BART., P.R.A.
_This picture represents a Roman Guard on duty at one of the palaces
during the destruction of Herculanaeum, who, although he might perhaps
have made his escape prefers to remain at his post, faithful unto
death._]
CHARACTER AND CONDUCT
A Book of Helpful Thoughts by
Great Writers of Past and
Present Ages
Selected and Arranged for Daily
Reading by the Author of
"Being And Doing"
With a Frontispiece by
Sir E. J. Poynter, Bart., P.R.A.
Liverpool
Henry Young & Sons
London
Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co. Ltd.
1905
First Edition, 2000 copies, printed November 1904
Second Edition, 1000 copies, printed December 1904
TO
_E. K._
_"It is more_ men _that the world wants, not more systems. It is
character that our modern life waits for, to redeem and transform it;
and conduct as the fruitage of character."_
_The Citizen in his Relation to the Industrial
Situation_, BISHOP POTTER.
PREFACE
This collection of noble thoughts expressed by men and women of past and
present ages who have endeavoured to leave the world a little better
than they found it, is similar in arrangement and purpose to my former
volume "Being and Doing"; and has been compiled at the request of
several readers who have found that book helpful.
It is obvious that without the kindly co-operation of many authors and
publishers such books could not exist, and I tender sincere and hearty
thanks to those who have made the work possible. All have treated me
with unfailing courtesy and generosity.
Where I have occasionally used short quotations without permission I ask
forgiveness.
It would be impossible to name separately each one to whom I am a
grateful debtor, so special mention must only be made of the more
heavily taxed, and of those who have asked for a formal acknowledgment,
namely:--
The Literary Executors of the late Mr. Ruskin, _per_ Mr. George Allen,
for extracts from Mr. Ruskin's works.
Mr. Edward Arnold for those from _Red Pottage_, by Mary Cholmondeley.
Canon Barnett for those from _The Service of God_.
Messrs. Deighton Bell & Co. for those from _Pastor Pastorum_, by the
Rev. Henry Latham.
Mr. James Drummond for those from the writings of Professor Henry
Drummond.
Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench, Truebner & Co. for those from Sir Edwin
Arnold's _Light of Asia_.
Miss May Kendall for those from _Turkish Bonds_, &c.
Messrs. Longmans, Green & Co. for those from the works of Bishop Paget,
and from Canon MacColl's _Here and Hereafter_.
Professor MacCunn for those from _The Making of Character_.
Messrs. Macmillan & Co. for those from the works of Bishop Westcott,
Mrs. Bernard Bosanquet; Tennyson's Poems; from the present Lord
Tennyson's Life of his father; from the _Mettle of the Pasture_, by
James Lane Allen; and from Mrs. Humphry Ward's translation of _Amiel's
Journal_.
Messrs. Methuen & Co. for one from the _Life of R. L. Stevenson_.
Mr. Lloyd Osbourne for those from R. L. Stevenson's works.
Messrs. Wells, Gardner, Darton & Co. for those from Bishop Winnington
Ingram's _Under the Dome_ and _Friends of the Master_.
Dr. John Watson for those from his writings.
Permission was kindly given me before by Messrs. Macmillan to quote from
the works of the late Archbishop Temple and of Matthew Arnold. By
Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. for quotations from Robert Browning. By Mr.
C. Lewes for quotations from George Eliot; and from Lord Avebury and the
Rev. Stopford Brooke for those from their works.
In my experience the reading of extracts often leads to the reading of
the books from which they were taken, and I hope and believe many of
these gleanings will serve as introductions.
CONSTANCE M. WHISHAW.
SUNNY BANK, ARNSIDE,
CARNFORTH.
New Year's Day
JANUARY 1
"Here you stand at the parting of the ways; some road you are to take;
and as you stand here, consider and know how it is that you intend to
live. Carry no bad habits, no corrupting associations, no enmities and
strifes into this New Year. Leave these behind, and let the Dead Past
bury its Dead; leave them behind, and thank God that you are able to
leave them."
EPHRAIM PEABODY.
"WOULD'ST shape a noble life? Then cast
No backward glances toward the past,
And though somewhat be lost and gone,
Yet do thou act as one new-born;
What each day needs, that shalt thou ask,
Each day will set its proper task."
GOETHE.
"No aim is too high, no task too great, no sin too strong, no trial too
hard for those who patiently and humbly rest upon God's grace: who wait
on Him that He may renew their strength."
_Faculties and Difficulties for Belief and
Disbelief_, BISHOP PAGET.
Purpose
JANUARY 2
"You did not come into this world by chance, you were not born by
accident. You all came charged with a mission to use your best efforts
to extend the frontier of your Master's Kingdom by purifying your own
hearts and leavening for good the hearts of all who come within the
sphere of your influence. Your business here is not to enjoy yourselves
in those fleeting pleasures which perish in the using; not to sip as
many dainties as you can from the moments as they fly; not to gather as
many flowers as you can pluck from the garden of this perishing earth;
not even to rest in the enjoyment of those nobler delights which come
from the exercise of the intellect in the investigation of the works of
God and man; but rather to do your best to fit yourselves and others for
the new heavens and new earth, which God has prepared for those who love
Him."
_Life Here and Hereafter_, CANON MACCOLL.
"Do not despise your situation; in it you must act, suffer, and conquer.
From every point on earth we are equally near to heaven and to the
infinite."
_Amiel's Journal._
A Noble Life
JANUARY 3
"A man's greatness lies not in wealth and station, as the vulgar
believe, nor yet in his intellectual capacity, which is often associated
with the meanest moral character, the most abject servility to those in
high places, and arrogance to the poor and lowly; but a man's true
greatness lies in the consciousness of an honest purpose in life,
founded on a just estimate of himself and everything else, on frequent
self-examination, and a steady obedience to the rule which he knows to
be right, without troubling himself about what others may think or say,
or whether they do or do not do that which he thinks and says and does."
GEORGE LONG.
"Whether a life is noble or ignoble depends not on the calling which is
adopted, but on the spirit in which it is followed."
_The Pleasures of Life_, LORD AVEBURY.
"Every noble life leaves the fibre of itself interwoven for ever in the
work of the world."
TRENCH.
Holiness
JANUARY 4
"Jesus and His Apostles teach that the supreme success of life is not to
escape pain but to lay hold on righteousness, not to possess but to be
holy, not to get things from God but to be like God. They were ever
bidding Christians beware of ease, ever rousing them to surrender and
sacrifice."
_The Potter's Wheel_, DR. JOHN WATSON.
"The end of life is not to deny self, nor to be true, nor to keep the
Ten Commandments--it is simply to do God's will. It is not to get good
nor be good, nor even to do good--it is just what God wills, whether
that be working or waiting, or winning or losing, or suffering or
recovering, or living or dying."
_The Ideal Life_, HENRY DRUMMOND.
"Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. Death
hangs over thee. While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good."
MARCUS AURELIUS.
The Power of the Holy Spirit
JANUARY 5
"We are haunted by an ideal life, and it is because we have within us
the beginning and the possibility of it."
PHILLIPS BROOKS.
"The power of the Holy Spirit!--an everlasting spiritual presence among
men. What but that is the thing we want? That is what the old oracles
were dreaming of, what the modern Spiritualists tonight are fumbling
after. The power of the Holy Ghost, by which every man who is in doubt
may know what is right, every man whose soul is sick may be made
spiritually whole, every weak man may be made a strong man,--that is
God's one sufficient answer to the endless appeal of man's spiritual
life; that is God's one great response to the unconscious need of
spiritual guidance, which He hears crying out of the deep heart of every
man.--I hope that I have made clear to you what I mean. I would that we
might understand ourselves, see what we might be; nay, see what we are.
While you are living a worldly and a wicked life, letting all sacred
things go, caring for no duty, serving no God, there is another self,
your possibility, the thing that you might be, the thing that God gave
you a chance to be."
PHILLIPS BROOKS.
A Symphony
JANUARY 6
"To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury,
and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and
wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act
frankly; to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open
heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry
never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow
up through the common--this is to be my symphony."
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING.
"Heed how thou livest. Do no act by day Which from the night shall drive
thy peace away. In months of sun so live that months of rain Shall still
be happy."
WHITTIER, _Translation_.
Patience with Ourselves
JANUARY 7
"To be honest, to be kind--to earn a little and to spend a little less,
to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence, to renounce
when that shall be necessary and not be embittered, to keep a few
friends but these without capitulation--above all, on the same grim
condition, to keep friends with himself--here is a task for all that a
man has of fortitude and delicacy."
_Across the Plains_, R. L. STEVENSON.
"People who love themselves aright, even as they ought to love their
neighbour, bear charitably, though without flattery, with self as with
another. They know what needs correction at home as well as elsewhere;
they strive heartily and vigorously to correct it, but they deal with
self as they would deal with some one else they wished to bring to God.
They set to work patiently, not exacting more than is practicable under
present circumstances from themselves any more than from others, and not
being disheartened because perfection is not attainable in a day."
FENELON.
"One is so apt to think that what works smoothest works to the highest
ends, having no patience for the results of friction."
Mrs. EWING.
The Foot-path to Peace
JANUARY 8
"To be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love and to work
and to play and to look up at the stars; to be satisfied with your
possessions, but not contented with yourself until you have made the
best of them; to despise nothing in the world except falsehood and
meanness, and to fear nothing except cowardice; to be governed by your
admirations rather than by your disgusts; to covet nothing that is your
neighbour's except his kindness of heart and gentleness of manners; to
think seldom of your enemies, often of your friends, and every day of
Christ; and to spend as much time as you can, with body and with spirit,
in God's out-of-doors--these are little guideposts on the foot-path to
peace."
HENRY VAN DYKE.
"O Lord, that lends me life, lend me a heart replete with thankfulness."
SHAKESPEARE.
Purpose
JANUARY 9
"He who lives without a definite purpose achieves no higher end than to
serve as a warning to others. He is a kind of bell-buoy, mournfully
tolled by the waves of circumstance, to mark the rocks or shoals which
are to be avoided."
"Surely there is something to be done from morning till night, and to
find out _what_ is the appointed work of the onward-tending soul."
FANNY KEMBLE.
"I ask you while hope is still fresh and enthusiasm unchilled to gain
some conception of the solemnity, the vastness, the unity, the purpose
of life: to pause in the street or on the river bank and ask yourselves
what that strange stream of pleasure and frivolity and sorrow and vice
means, and means to you: to reflect that you are bound by intelligible
bonds to every suffering, sinning man and woman: to learn, while the
lesson is comparatively easy, the secret of human sympathy: to search
after some of the essential relationships of man to man: to interpret a
little of the worth of even trivial labour: to grow sensitive to the
feelings of the poor: to grow considerate to the claims of the weak."
Bishop WESTCOTT.
Life, a School
January 10
"All life is a school, a preparation, a purpose: nor can we pass current
in a higher college, if we do not undergo the tedium of education in
this lower one."
_Tennyson--a Memoir_, by his Son.
"Life is a succession of lessons, which must be lived to be understood."
EMERSON.
"We never know for what God is preparing us in His schools, for what
work on earth, for what work in the hereafter. Our business is to do our
work well in the present place, whatever that may be."
LYMAN ABBOTT.
Character and Service
January 11
"Never should we forget the close connection between character and
service, between inward nobleness and outward philanthropy. We are not
here to dream, or even to build up in grace and beauty our individual
life; we are responsible, each in our own little way, for trying to
leave this sad world happier, this evil world better than we found it.
In this way slackness is infamy, and power to the last particle means
duty. Each of us, in some degree, must have the ambition to be an 'Alter
Christus'--another Christ, shouldering with the compassionate Son of God
to lift our shadowed world from the gates of death."
"What men want is not talent, it is purpose; not the power to achieve,
but the will to labour."
BULWER LYTTON.
"'Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall
give thee light.' This is the principle with which we should look forth
upon the world and our own life at the beginning of this year. We look
upon the world; it seems as if it were sleeping still, like Rome, as if
it needed as much as ever to hear the shout, 'Awake, thou that
sleepest.'"
STOPFORD BROOKE.
Present Circumstances
JANUARY 12
"Everywhere and at all times it is in thy power piously to acquiesce in
thy present condition, and to behave justly to those who are about thee,
and to exert thy skill upon thy present thoughts, that nothing shall
steal into them without being well examined."
MARCUS AURELIUS.
"Such as are thy habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of
thy mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts. Dye it then with a
continuous series of such thoughts as these: for instance, that where a
man can live, there he can also live well. But he must live in a
palace;--well then, he can also live well in a palace."
MARCUS AURELIUS.
"Of nothing can we be more sure than this: that, if we cannot sanctify
our present lot, we could sanctify no other."
MARTINEAU.
Circumstances
JANUARY 13
"Occasion is the father of most that is good in us. As you have seen the
awkward fingers and clumsy tools of a prisoner cut and fashion the most
delicate little pieces of carved work; or achieve the most prodigious
underground labours, and cut through walls of masonry, and saw iron bars
and fetters; 'tis misfortune that awakens ingenuity, or fortitude or
endurance, in hearts where these qualities had never come to life but
for the circumstance which gave them a being."
_Esmond_, W. M. THACKERAY.
"It always remains true that if we had been greater, circumstances would
have been less strong against us."
G. ELIOT.
"A consideration of petty circumstances is the tomb of great things."
VOLTAIRE.
The Ifs of Life
JANUARY 14
"If it were--_if_ it might be--_if_ it could be--_if_ it had been. One
portion of mankind go through life always regretting, always whining,
always imagining. _As_ it is--this is the way in which the other class
of people look at the conditions in which they find themselves. I
venture to say that if one should count the _ifs_ and the _ases_ in the
conversation of his acquaintances, he would find the more able and
important persons among them--statesmen, generals, men of
business--among the _ases_, and the majority of conspicuous failures
among the _ifs_."
_Over the Teacups_, O. W. HOLMES.
"It is sad, indeed, to see how man wastes his opportunities. How many
could be made happy, with the blessings which are recklessly wasted or
thrown away! Happiness is a condition of Mind, not a result of
circumstances; and, in the words of Dugald Stewart, the great secret of
happiness is to accommodate ourselves to things external, rather than to
struggle to accommodate external things to ourselves. Hume wisely said
that a happy disposition was better than an estate of L10,000 a year.
Try to realise all the blessings you have, and you will find perhaps
that they are more than you suppose. Many a blessing has been recognised
too late."
Lord AVEBURY.
"The pleasure of life is according to the man that lives it, and not
according to the work or the place."
EMERSON.
Harmony
JANUARY 15
"... Have good will
To all that lives, letting unkindness die
And greed and wrath; so that your lives be made
Like soft airs passing by.
... Govern the lips
As they were palace-doors, the King within;
Tranquil and fair and courteous be all words
Which from that presence win.
... Let each act
Assoil a fault or help a merit grow:
Like threads of silver seen through crystal beads
Let love through good deeds show."
_The Light of Asia_, E. ARNOLD.
"The Past is something, but the Present more;
Will It not, too, be past? Nor fail withal
To recognise the Future in your hopes;
Unite them in your manhood, each and all,
Nor mutilate the perfectness of life!--
You can remember; you can also hope."
A. H. CLOUGH.
Harmony
JANUARY 16
... "THIS is peace
To conquer love of self and lust of life,
To tear deep-rooted passion from the breast,
To still the inward strife;
For love to clasp Eternal Beauty close;
For glory to be Lord of self; for pleasure
To live beyond the gods; for countless wealth
To lay up lasting treasure
Of perfect service rendered, duties done
In charity, soft speech, and stainless days:
These riches shall not fade away in life,
Nor any death dispraise."
_The Light of Asia_, E. ARNOLD.
"WE are all of us made more graceful by the inward presence of what we
believe to be a generous purpose; our actions move to a hidden music--'a
melody that's sweetly played in tune.'"
GEORGE ELIOT.
Ideals
JANUARY 17
"It is not the ideals of earlier years that are the most unattainable.
'The petty done, the undone vast' is not the thought of the youth, but
of those who, having done the most, yet count themselves unprofitable
servants, because it is to them only that the experience, the knowledge,
and the reflection of maturer years have opened up the far vistas of
moral possibility."
_The Making of Character_, PROF. MACCUNN.
"In doing is this knowledge won,
To see what yet remains undone.
With this our pride repress,
And give us grace, a growing store,
That day by day we may do more
And may esteem it less."
TRENCH.
"Comfort me not!--for if aught be worse than failure from over-stress
Of a life's prime purpose, it is to sit down content with a little
success."
LYTTON.
The Celestial Surgeon
JANUARY 18
THE CELESTIAL SURGEON
"If I have faltered more or less
In my great task of happiness;
If I have moved among my race
And shown no glorious morning face;
If beams from happy human eyes
Have moved me not; if morning skies,
Books, and my food, and summer rain
Knocked on my sullen heart in vain:--
Lord, Thy most pointed pleasure take
And stab my spirit broad awake;
Or, Lord, if too obdurate I,
Choose Thou, before that spirit die,
A piercing pain, a killing sin,
And to my dead heart run them in."
_Underwoods_, R. L. STEVENSON.
Influence of Great Men
JANUARY 19
"The thirst for memoirs and lives and letters is not all to be put down
to the hero-worship which is natural to every heart. It means, perhaps,
a higher thing than that. It means, in the first place, that great
living is being appreciated for its own sake; and, in the second, that
great living is being imitated. If it is true that any of us are
beginning to appreciate greatness for its own sake--greatness, that is
to say, in the sense of great and true living--it is one of the most
hopeful symptoms of our history. And, further, if we are going on from
the mere admiration of great men to try and live like them, we are
obeying one of the happiest impulses of our being. There is indeed no
finer influence abroad than the influence of great men in great books,
and all that literature can do in supplying the deformed world with
worthy and shapely models is entitled to gratitude and respect."
_The Ideal Life_, HENRY DRUMMOND.
"Glimpses into the inner regions of a great soul do one good. Contact of
this kind strengthens, restores, refreshes. Courage returns as we gaze;
when we see what has been, we doubt no more that it can be again. At the
sight of a MAN we too say to ourselves, Let us also be men."
_Amiel's Journal._
Influence of Great Men
JANUARY 20
"We cannot look, however imperfectly, upon a great man, without gaining
something by him. He is the living life-fountain, which it is good and
pleasant to be near; the light which enlightens, which has enlightened,
the darkness of the world; and this not as a kindling lamp only, but
rather as a natural luminary, shining by the gift of Heaven; a flowing
light-fountain, as I say, of native original insight, of manhood and
heroic nobleness, in whose radiance all souls feel that it is well with
them."
CARLYLE.
"My sole fear was the fear of doing an unrighteous or unholy thing."
SOCRATES.
"The truly honest man, here and there to be found, is not only without
thought of legal, religious, or social compulsion, when he discharges an
equitable claim on him, but he is without thought of self-compulsion. He
does the right thing with a simple feeling of satisfaction in doing it;
and is, indeed, impatient if anything prevents him from having the
satisfaction of doing it."
HERBERT SPENCER.
The Habit of Admiration
JANUARY 21
"'We live by admiration, hope, and love,' Wordsworth tells us,--not,
therefore, by contempt, despondency, and hatred. These contract and
narrow the soul, as the others enlarge it. The more a man heartily
admires, the more he takes into his nature the goodness and beauty which
excite his admiration. His being grows up toward what thus evokes his
enthusiasm. And the habit of admiration is the outcome of a moral
discipline which represses peevish and fault-finding dispositions, and
seeks the admirable in every situation and every person that life brings
to us. 'Be ye enlarged' implies 'learn to admire and to praise.'"
"Learn to admire rightly; the great pleasure of life is that. Note what
the great men admired; they admired great things: narrow spirits admire
basely, and worship meanly."
THACKERAY.
Character of Henry Drummond
JANUARY 22
_Of Henry Drummond._--"He seemed to be invariably in good spirits, and
invariably disengaged. He was always ready for any and every office of
friendship. It should be said that though few men were more criticised
or misconceived, he himself never wrote an unkind word about any one,
never retaliated, never bore malice, and could do full justice to the
abilities and character of his opponents. I have just heard that he
exerted himself privately to secure an important appointment for one of
his most trenchant critics, and was successful.... The spectacle of his
long struggle with a mortal disease was something more than impressive.
Those who saw him in his illness saw that, as the physical life
flickered low, the spiritual energy grew. Always gentle and considerate,
he became even more careful, more tender, more thoughtful, more
unselfish. He never in any way complained. His doctors found it very
difficult to get him to talk of his illness. It was strange and painful,
but inspiring, to see his keenness, his mental elasticity, his universal
interest. Dr. Barbour says: 'I have never seen pain or weariness, or the
being obliged to do nothing, more entirely overcome, treated, in fact,
as if they were not. The end came suddenly from failure of the heart.
Those with him received only a few hours' warning of his critical
condition.' It was not like death. He lay on his couch in the
drawing-room, and passed away in his sleep, with the sun shining in, and
the birds singing at the open window. There was no sadness nor farewell.
It recalled what he himself said of a friend's death--'putting by the
well-worn tools without a sigh, and expecting elsewhere better work to
do.'"
_Character Sketch by_ W. ROBERTSON NICOLL
_in "The Ideal Life."_
Character of R. L. Stevenson
JANUARY 23
"I Have referred to his chivalry only to find that in reality I was
thinking of every one of the whole group of attributes which are
associated with that name. Loyalty, honesty, generosity, courage;
courtesy, tenderness, and self-devotion; to impute no unworthy motives
and to bear no grudge; to bear misfortune with cheerfulness and without
a murmur; to strike hard for the right and take no mean advantage; to be
gentle to women and kind to all that are weak; to be very rigorous with
oneself and very lenient to others--these, and any other virtues ever
implied in 'chivalry,' were the traits that distinguished Stevenson."
_The Life of R. L. Stevenson_, GRAHAM BALFOUR.
"Through life he did the thing he was doing as if it were the one thing
in the world that was worth being done."
_The Life of R. L. Stevenson_, GRAHAM BALFOUR.
Being and Doing
JANUARY 24
"Upon the man who desired to be His disciple and a member of God's
Kingdom were laid the conditions of a pure heart, of a forgiving spirit,
of a helpful hand, of a heavenly purpose, of an unworldly mind. Christ
did not ground His Christianity in thinking, or in doing, but, first of
all, in being."
_The Mind of the Master_, DR. JOHN WATSON.
"History and literature furnish many instances of men who have made
their mark in virtue of a striking _personality_; whose reputation
rests, not on any visible tokens,--not on kingdoms conquered,
institutions founded, books written, or inventions perfected or anything
else that they _did_,--but mainly on what they _were_. Their merely
having passed along a course on earth, and lived and talked and acted
with others, has left lasting effects on mankind."
_Pastor Pastorum_, HENRY LATHAM.
Being and Doing
JANUARY 25
"Perfection is being, not doing--it is not to effect an act, but to
achieve a character. If the aim of life were to do something, then, as
in an earthly business, except in doing this one thing the business
would be at a standstill. The student is not doing the one thing of
student-life when he has ceased to think or read. The labourer leaves
his work undone when the spade is not in his hand, and he sits beneath
the hedge to rest. But in Christian life, every moment and every act is
an opportunity for doing the one thing of _becoming_ Christ-like. Every
day is full of a most expressive experience. Every temptation to evil
temper which can assail us to-day will be an opportunity to decide the
question whether we shall gain the calmness and the rest of Christ, or
whether we shall be tossed by the restlessness and agitation of the
world. Nay, the very vicissitudes of the season, day and night, heat and
cold, affecting us variably, and producing exhilaration or depression,
are so contrived as to conduce towards the being which we become, and
decide whether we shall be masters of ourselves, or whether we shall be
swept at the mercy of accident and circumstance, miserably susceptible
of merely outward influences. Infinite as are the varieties of life, so
manifold are the paths to saintly character; and he who has not found
out how directly or indirectly to make everything converge towards his
soul's sanctification, has as yet missed the meaning of this life."
FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON.
Life-Giver, not Deed-Doer
JANUARY 26
"Christ was not primarily the Deed-Doer or the Word-Sayer. He was the
Life-Giver. He made men live. Wherever He went He brought vitality. Both
in the days of His Incarnation and in the long years of His power which
have followed since He vanished from men's sight, His work has been to
create the conditions in which all sorts of men should live."
PHILLIPS BROOKS.
"Therefore with all the strength God has given us, let us be fulfillers.
Let us try to make the life of the world more complete. What can we do?
First, each of us can put one more healthy and holy life into the world,
and so directly increase the aggregation of righteousness. That is much.
To fasten one more link, however small, in the growing chain that is
ultimately to bind humanity to God beyond all fear of separation, is
very much indeed. And besides that, we can, with sympathy and
intelligence, patience and hope, bring up the lagging side in all the
vitality around us, and assert for man the worth, the meaning, and the
possibility of this his human life."
PHILLIPS BROOKS.
Seeing One's Life in Perspective
JANUARY 27
"If we wish to cultivate our higher nature we must have solitude. It is
vitally necessary at times that we should be able to get away from every
other being on the face of the earth. What thoughtful person does not
love to be alone; to be surrounded with no objects but the fields and
the trees, the mountains and the waters, to hear nothing but the
rustling of the foliage and the songs of the birds, and to feel the
fresh breeze of heaven playing upon his cheeks? Moreover, when we are
very much in contact with human life, when we are mingling with it, we
are liable to become too conscious of its turbid side, or drearily
oppressed with its commonplace features. To see human life, and weigh it
in its many aspects, we need at times to go away and be as it were on a
pinnacle, where we can take it all in with one sweeping glance. Solitude
can affect us somewhat as religious worship does. It can take us out of
the consciousness of where we belong, away from the ordinary selfish
instincts by which we may be dominated.
"Too much solitude may be dangerous, just as too much of the sense of
mystery may be. Yet something of it is essential to our advance in
spiritual life. A man must go away where he can feel the mystery of his
own being. Moreover, a certain degree of solitude seems necessary to the
full growth of the mind, and it is in solitude that great principles are
first thought out, and the genius of eminent men formed, for solitude is
the nurse of enthusiasm, and enthusiasm is the real parent of genius.
Solitude, moreover, is essential to any depth of meditation or of
character, and is the cradle of thoughts and aspirations."
H. W. SMITH.
"One sees one's life in perspective when one goes abroad, and to be
spectators of ourselves is very solemn."
HENRY DRUMMOND.
Triviality
JANUARY 28
"Triviality is the modern equivalent for worldliness, the regard for the
outward and the visible. The trivial mind is enmity with God, and it is
of many kinds. There is the triviality which concerns itself with
'nothing,' which gossips about 'him' and 'her,' and becomes serious over
a form, a phrase, a dress, a race or a show. There is the triviality to
which the working people are forced by the cares of this life, who all
day and every day have to think of the bread which perisheth, while
their souls starve for lack of knowledge which endureth. The cares of
life as often choke the growth of the Word as the deceitfulness of
riches. There is also that most insidious kind of triviality which tends
to haunt the more serious circles, wrapping itself in talk about social
schemes, Church progress, policies and philosophies, passing itself off
as serious, when all the time the concern of the talker is to achieve a
wordy success or to get notice for his little self or his little
system."
_The Service of God,_ CANON BARNETT.
"I believe that the mind can be profaned by the habit of attending to
trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with
triviality."
THOREAU.
Triviality
JANUARY 29
"They that use to employ their Minds too much upon Trifles, commonly
make themselves incapable of any Thing that is Serious or Great."
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
"Be still and cool in thy own mind and spirit from thy own thoughts, and
then thou wilt feel the principle of God to turn thy mind to the Lord,
from whom cometh life; whereby thou mayest receive the strength and
power to allay all storms and tempests. That is it which works up into
patience, innocency, soberness, into stillness, staidness, quietness up
to God, with His power. Therefore mind; that is the word of the Lord God
unto thee, that thou mayest feel the authority of God, and thy faith in
that, to work down that which troubles thee; for that is it which keeps
peace, and brings up the witness in thee, which hath been transgressed,
to feel after God with His power and life, who is a God of order and
peace."
GEORGE FOX.
"It is not sin so much as triviality which hides God."
_The Service of God_, CANON BARNETT.
The Art of being Quiet
JANUARY 30
"It is only when we begin to _think_ about life, and how we should live,
that the art of being quiet assumes its real value; to the irrational
creature it is nothing, to the rational it is much. In the first place,
it removes what De Quincey, with his usual grand felicity of expression,
calls 'the burden of that distraction which lurks in the infinite
littleness of details.' It is the infinite littleness of details which
takes the glory and the dignity from our common life, and which we who
value that life for its own sake and for the sake of its great Giver
must strive to make finite.
"Since unconscious life is not possible to the intellectual adult, as it
is to the child--since he cannot go on living without a thought about
the nature of his own being, its end and aim--it is good for him to
cultivate a habit of repose, that he may think and feel like a man
putting away those childish things--the carelessness, the thoughtless
joy, 'the tear forgot as soon as shed,' which, however beautiful,
because appropriate, in childhood, are not beautiful because not
appropriate in mature age.
"The art of being quiet is necessary to enable a man to possess his own
soul in peace and integrity--to examine himself, to understand what
gifts God has endowed him with, and to consider how he may best employ
them in the business of the world. This is its universal utility. It is
unwholesome activity which requires not repose and thoughtful quiet as
its forerunner, and every man should secure some portion of each day for
voluntary retirement and repose within himself."
The Art of being Quiet
JANUARY 31
"One of the special needs of our day is more time for meditation and
reflection."
_Life Here and Hereafter_, Canon MACCOLL.
"We are too busy, too encumbered, too much occupied, too active! We read
too much! The one thing needful is to throw off all one's load of cares,
of preoccupations, of pedantry, and to become again young, simple,
child-like, living happily and gratefully in the present hour. We must
know how to put occupation aside, which does not mean that we must be
idle. In an inaction which is meditative and attentive the wrinkles of
the soul are smoothed away, and the soul itself spreads, unfolds, and
springs afresh, and, like the trodden grass of the roadside or the
bruised leaf of a plant, repairs its injuries, becomes new, spontaneous,
true, and original. Reverie, like the rain of night, restores colour and
force to thoughts which have been blanched and wearied by the heat of
the day. With gentle fertilising power it awakens within us a thousand
sleeping germs, and, as though in play, gathers round us materials for
the future, and images for the use of talent."
_Amiel's Journal._
Inward Stillness
February 1
"Let each of us sit still, and keep watch for awhile in the silent house
of his spirit.... As near as is the light to one sleeping in the light,
so near is Christ, the Awakener, to every Eternal man, deeply as he may
be asleep within his outer man."
JOHN PULSFORD.
"Let us then labour for an inward stillness,
An inward stillness and an inward healing;
That perfect silence where the lips and heart
Are still, and we no longer entertain
Our own imperfect thoughts and vain opinions,
But God alone speaks in us, and we wait
In singleness of heart that we may know
His will, and in the silence of our own spirits,
That we may do His will, and that only."
LONGFELLOW.
Commune with your Own Heart and be Still
FEBRUARY 2
"Perhaps one very simple, but alas too often neglected rule, may be
suggested to those who are indeed desirous of realising through all the
petty vicissitudes and monotonous or trivial round of their daily life,
the Divine presence and power. 'Devotion early in the day _before the
day's worries begin._ It is the _only_ way to keep the spirit Godward
through them all.' Devotion, it is needless to add, is not 'saying
prayers' in words either of our own or any one else's--nor is it only or
chiefly 'making request.' It is pre-eminently _worship_, the deliberate
homage of the mind and heart--of the whole being to God who is its
source. And here steadfastness of will, showing itself in determined
concentration of attention, is the indispensable condition of success;
for such concentration is by no means always an easy matter to attain,
even when the effort is 'made early in the day before the day's worries
begin.' Sometimes there are sleepless 'worries' which assert their
presence with the first dawn of consciousness; sometimes we are mentally
or physically lazy, inert or languid. Well, if we habitually give in to
such difficulties in a way of which we should be utterly ashamed were
any other object of mental effort in question, we must not be surprised
if the entirely natural result ensues that we fail to 'realise' what we
have never honestly set ourselves to treat as real.... Amid the
thronging duties, the ceaseless cares, the toilsome or pleasurable round
of daily life, we must take and we must keep time to 'commune with our
own hearts and in our own chamber, and be still.'"
E. M. CAILLARD.
The Receptive Side of Life
FEBRUARY 3
"To all who are active in Christian work I would say, ever remember that
there must be fidelity to the receptive side of life if you are to
exercise any real abiding influence. How often do we hear men say that
they have worked hard in their district, or their school, or their
class, and yet there is no result.
"Perhaps they have worked too hard. There are a multitude of Marthas in
modern English life; but it were good for such if, at times, they would
follow the example of the wiser Mary, and sit down quietly at Jesus'
feet, and draw in from Him that power which cannot by any possibility be
given out, before it is taken in."
Canon BODY.
"The problem set before us is to bring our daily task into the temple of
contemplation and ply it there, to act as in the presence of God, to
interfuse one's little part with religion. So only can we inform the
detail of life, all that is passing, temporary, and insignificant, with
beauty and nobility. So may we dignify and consecrate the meanest of
occupations. So may we feel that we are paying our tribute to the
universal work and the eternal will. So are we reconciled with life and
delivered from the fear of death. So are we in order and at peace."
_Amiel's Journal._
Regulation of Time
FEBRUARY 4
"No two things differ more than hurry and despatch. Hurry is the mark of
a weak mind, despatch of a strong one. A weak man in office, like a
squirrel in a cage, is labouring eternally, but to no purpose, and in
constant motion, without getting on a jot: like a turnstile, he is in
everybody's way, but stops nobody: he talks a great deal, but says very
little; looks into everything, but sees into nothing; and has a hundred
irons in the fire, but very few of them are hot, and with these few that
are he burns his fingers."
COLTON.
"Hurry belongs to the mortal who wants to see the outcome of his work,
while eternity is lavish of time."
_Pastor Pastorum_, HENRY LATHAM.
"Unfaithfulness in the keeping of an appointment is an act of clear
dishonesty. You may as well borrow a person's money as his time."
HORACE MANN.
"Punctuality is the politeness of kings."
LOUIS XIV.
Business-like Habits
FEBRUARY 5
"It is very important to cultivate business-like habits. An eminent
friend of mine assured me not long ago that when he thought over the
many cases he had known of men, even of good ability and high character,
who had been unsuccessful in life, by far the most frequent cause of
failure was that they were dilatory, unpunctual, unable to work
cordially with others, obstinate in small things, and, in fact, what we
call unbusiness-like."
LORD AVEBURY.
"A 'bustling' man is, to a man of business, what a monkey is to a man.
He is the shadow of despatch, or, rather, the echo thereof; for he
maketh noise enough for an alarm. The quickness of a true man of
business he imitateth, imitateth excellently well, but neither his
silence nor his method; and it is to be noted that he is ever most
vehement about matters of no significance. He is always in such headlong
haste to overtake the next minute, that he loses half the minute in
hand; and yet is full of indignation and impatience at other people's
slowness, and wasteth more time in reiterating his love of despatch than
would suffice for doing a great deal of business. He never giveth you
his quiet attention with a mind centred on what you are saying, but
hears you with a restless eye, and a perpetual shifting posture, and is
so eager to show his quickness that he interrupteth you a dozen times,
misunderstands you as often, and ends by making you and himself lose
twice as much time as was necessary."
H. ROGERS.
Time and Method
FEBRUARY 6
"The thrift of time will repay in after life with usury of profit beyond
your most sanguine dreams, and waste of it will make you dwindle alike
in intellectual and moral stature beyond your darkest reckoning."
GLADSTONE.
"One of the striking characteristics of successful persons is their
faculty of readily determining the relative importance of different
things. There are many things which it is desirable to do, a few are
essential, and there is no more useful quality of the human mind than
that which enables its possessor at once to distinguish which the few
essential things are. Life is so short and time so fleeting that much
which one would wish to do must fain be omitted. He is fortunate who
perceives at a glance what it will do, and what it will not do, to omit.
This invaluable faculty, if not possessed in a remarkable degree
naturally, is susceptible of cultivation to a considerable extent. Let
any one adopt the practice of reflecting, every morning, what must
necessarily be done during the day, and then begin by doing the most
important things first, leaving the others to take their chance of being
done or left undone. In this way attention first to the things of first
importance soon acquires the almost irresistible force of habit, and
becomes a rule of life. There is no rule more indispensable to
success."
Concentration
FEBRUARY 7
"The marked differences of working power among men are due chiefly to
differences in the power of concentration. A retentive and accurate
memory is conditioned upon close attention. If one gives entire
attention to what is passing before him, he is not likely to forget it,
or to confuse persons or incidents. The book which one reads with eyes
which are continually lifted from the page may furnish entertainment for
the moment, but cannot enrich the reader, because it cannot become part
of his knowledge. Attention is the simplest form of concentration, and
its value illustrates the supreme importance of that focussing of all
the powers upon the thing in hand which may be called the sustained
attention of the whole nature.
"Here, as everywhere in the field of man's life, there enters that
element of sacrifice without which no real achievement is possible. To
secure a great end, one must be willing to pay a great price. The exact
adjustment of achievement to sacrifice makes us aware, at every step, of
the invisible spiritual order with which all men are in every kind of
endeavour. If the highest skill could be secured without long and
painful effort, it would be wasted through ignorance of its value, or
misused through lack of education; but a man rarely attains great skill
without undergoing a discipline of self-denial and work which gives him
steadiness, restraint, and a certain kind of character. The giving up of
pleasures which are wholesome, the turning aside from fields which are
inviting, the steady refusal of invitations and claims which one would
be glad to accept or recognise, invest the power of concentration with
moral quality, and throw a searching light on the nature of genuine
success.
"To do one thing well, a man must be willing to hold all other interests
and activities subordinate; to attain the largest freedom, a man must
first bear the cross of self-denial."
Concentration
FEBRUARY 8
"Strive constantly to concentrate yourself; never dissipate your powers;
incessant activity, of whatever kind, leads finally to bankruptcy."
GOETHE.
"All impatience disturbs the circulation, scatters force, makes
concentration difficult if not impossible."
C. B. NEWCOMB.
"They have great powers, and they waste them pitifully, for they have
not the greatest power,--the power to rule the use of their powers."
F. W. ROBERTSON.
"Concentration is the secret of strength."
EMERSON.
Readiness
FEBRUARY 9
"To know how to be ready--a great thing--a precious gift,--and one that
implies calculation, grasp and decision. To be always ready, a man must
be able to cut a knot, for everything cannot be untied; he must know how
to disengage what is essential from the detail in which it is enwrapped,
for everything cannot be equally considered; in a word, he must be able
to simplify his duties, his business, and his life. To know how to be
ready, is to know how to start.
"It is astonishing how all of us are generally cumbered up with the
thousand and one hindrances and duties which are not such, but which
nevertheless wind us about with their spider threads and fetter the
movement of our wings. It is the lack of order which makes us slaves;
the confusion of to-day discounts the freedom of to-morrow.
"Confusion is the enemy of all comfort, and confusion is born of
procrastination. To know how to be ready we must be able to finish.
Nothing is done but what is finished. The things which we leave dragging
behind us will start up again later on before us and harass our path.
Let each day take thought for what concerns it, liquidate its own
affairs and respect the day which is to follow, and then we shall be
always ready. To know how to be ready, is at bottom to know how to die."
_Amiel's Journal._
Order
FEBRUARY 10