Character and Conduct Part 12

March 11

"We shall not do much of that which is best worth doing in the world if we only consecrate to it our gifts. We have something else to consecrate for our work's sake, for our friend's sake, for the sake of all for whom in any way we are responsible. Beyond and above all that we may do, is that which we may be. 'For their sakes I sanctify, I consecrate, Myself.' So our Blessed Lord spoke in regard to those whom He had drawn nearest to Himself--His friends; those whose characters He would fas.h.i.+on for the greatest task that ever yet was laid upon frail men. And even when we have set apart all that was unique in the nature and results of His Self-consecration, all that He alone could, once for all, achieve; still, I think, the words disclose a principle that concerns every one of us--the principle of all that is highest and purest in the influence of one life upon the lives it touches: 'For their sakes I consecrate Myself.' There is the ultimate secret of power; the one sure way of doing good in our generation. We cannot antic.i.p.ate or a.n.a.lyse the power of a pure and holy life; but there can be no doubt about its reality, and there seems no limit to its range. We can only know in part the laws and forces of the spiritual world; and it may be that every soul that is purified and given up to G.o.d and to His work releases or awakens energies of which we have no suspicion--energies viewless as the wind; but we can be sure of the result, and we may have glimpses sometimes of the process--surely, there is no power in the world so unerring or so irrepressible as the power of personal holiness. All else at times goes wrong, blunders, loses proportion, falls disastrously short of its aim, grows stiff or one-sided, or out of date--'whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away;' but nothing mars or misleads the influence that issues from a pure and humble and unselfish character."

_The Hallowing of Work_, Bishop PAGET.

One by One

MARCH 12

"Nothing is more characteristic of Jesus' method than His indifference to the many--His devotion to the single soul. His att.i.tude to the public, and His att.i.tude to a private person were a contrast and a contradiction. If His work was likely to cause a sensation Jesus charged His disciples to let no man know it: if the people got wind of Him, He fled to solitary places: if they found Him, as soon as might be He escaped. But He used to take young men home with Him, who wished to ask questions: He would spend all night with a perplexed scholar: He gave an afternoon to a Samaritan woman. He denied Himself to the mult.i.tude: He lay in wait for the individual. This was not because He under-valued a thousand, it was because He could not work on the thousand scale: it was not because He over-valued the individual, it was because His method was arranged for the scale of one. Jesus never succeeded in public save once, when He was crucified: He never failed in private save once, with Pontius Pilate. His method was not sensation: it was influence. He did not rely on impulses: He believed in discipline. He never numbered converts, because He knew what was in man: He sifted them, as one winnoweth the wheat from the chaff. Spiritual statistics are unknown in the Gospels: they came in with St. Peter in the pardonable intoxication of success: they have since grown to be a mania. As the Church coa.r.s.ens she estimates salvation by quant.i.ty, how many souls are saved: Jesus was concerned with quality, after what fas.h.i.+on they were saved. His mission was to bring Humanity to perfection."

_The Mind of the Master_, Dr. JOHN WATSON.

One by One

MARCH 13

"Our Lord ... does not, on entering a village, ordain that all the lepers in it shall be cleansed, or all the palsied restored to the use of their limbs. He condescends to take each case by itself."

_Pastor Pastorum_, HENRY LATHAM.

"'One by one' is not only the safest way of helping, it is the only possible way of ensuring that any real good is done."

_Rich and Poor_, Mrs. BERNARD BOSANQUET.

"Love cannot be content while any suffer,--cannot rest while any sin."

"I would not let one cry whom I could save."

_The Light of Asia_, E. ARNOLD.

Interruptions

MARCH 14

"So long as there is work to do there will be interruptions--breaks in its progress. The minister at work on his sermon, the merchant at his desk, the woman in her household duties--all must expect these calls to turn aside from the work in hand. And it is a part of one's character growth to bear these timely or untimely interruptions without any break in good temper or courtesy. A young student who was privileged to call often upon Phillips Brooks in his study, told the writer that he could never have learned from the Bishop's manner or words, that the big-hearted, busy man was ever too busy to receive him. To bear interruptions thus serenely is an opportunity for self-control not to be overlooked by any one who wants to do G.o.d's work in the right spirit."

"He threw himself spontaneously, apparently without effort and yet irresistibly, into the griefs and joys, the needs and interests of others. He had the happy gift of taking everybody to his heart. He was never inattentive. As you talked to him you always felt he was listening and really trying to understand your case. In the light of sympathy you saw yourself reflected in the mirror of his heart. Nor did he forget you when you were gone from sight. His was not the cheap sympathy of an outward manner, but the true emotion of the inward self. To your surprise, when you had left Bishop Fraser with a sense of shame at having occupied, in your interview, so much of his overcrowded time, you would find the next morning a letter upon your table giving his fuller and more mature opinion of your plans or course of action."... "Tender and loving, in sympathy with the lowliest, forbearing with the most unreasonable, often interrupted, but never resenting, the sacrifice of self crowning all."

_Bishop Fraser's Lancas.h.i.+re Life_, Archdeacon DIGGLE.

Mechanical Work

MARCH 15

"Miss Keane took but little heed of the presence of Rachel and Hester in her brother's house. Those who work mechanically on fixed lines seem as a rule to miss the pith of life. She was kind when she remembered them, but her heart was where her treasure was--namely, in her escritoire, with her list of Bible cla.s.ses, and servants' choral unions, and the long roll of contributors to the guild of work which she herself had started."

_Red Pottage_, MARY CHOLMONDELEY.

"Any man seeking to be holy who does not set himself in close live contact with the life about him, stands in great danger of growing pious or punctilious instead of holy."

PHILLIPS BROOKS.

An Ideal Guest-chamber

MARCH 16

"In Mrs. Charles' well-known book, 'Chronicles of the Schonberg-Cotta family,' there is a beautiful pa.s.sage where Fritz and Eva, beginning their young life together, take into their house a penitent woman who was thought to be near death. Eva writes: 'There is a little room over the porch that we had set apart as a guest-chamber, and very sweet it was to me that Bertha should be its first inmate; very sweet to Fritz and me that our home should be what our Lord's heart is, a refuge for the outcast, the penitent, the solitary, and the sorrowful.'"

"We all say we follow Christ, but most of us only follow Him and His cross--part of the way. When we are told that our Lord bore our sins, and was wounded for our transgressions, I suppose that meant that He felt as if they were His own, in His great love for us. But when you shrink from bearing your fellow-creatures' transgressions, it shows that your love is small."

_Red Pottage_, MARY CHOLMONDELEY.

"Radiant with heavenly pity, lost in care For those he knew not, save as fellow lives."

_The Light of Asia_, E. ARNOLD.

"To be Trusted is to be Saved"

MARCH 17

"No one can perish in whom any spark of the Divine life is still burning. No one can be plucked out of the Saviour's hands who still struggles towards Him, however feebly and falteringly."

_Life Here and Hereafter_, Canon MACCOLL.

"To be trusted is to be saved. And if we try to influence or elevate others, we shall soon see that success is in proportion to their belief of our belief in them. For the respect of another is the first restoration of the self-respect a man has lost; our ideal of what he is becomes to him the hope and pattern of what he may become."

_The Greatest Thing in the World_, HENRY DRUMMOND.

"Coa.r.s.e treatment never wins souls."

G.o.d's Children

MARCH 18