Character and Conduct Part 57

"_Finally_, punishments ought to insist upon, and to define indemnity, so that the wrong-doer, in things small or great, may be forced to repair, so far as this is possible, the irreparable mischief which offence implies."

_The Making of Character_, Professor MACCUNN.

Rebuking

DECEMBER 15

"The gentleness of our Lord in rebuking, has an effect which gentleness often has, it awakens compunctions in those to whom it is shown. A child, who by severity is set on its defence or drawn into falsehood, is often melted into full confession by being loved and trusted more than it deserves."

_Pastor Pastorum_, HENRY LATHAM.

"Our Lord's reply is again gentle; to be hard on a fault that was confessed would have dried up that confidence which flowed so freely."

_Pastor Pastorum_, HENRY LATHAM.

"Better make penitents by gentleness than hypocrites by severity."

S. FRANCIS DE SALES.

Example

DECEMBER 16

"Children have more need of models than of critics."

JOUBERT.

"It is by imitation, far more than by precept, that we learn everything; and what we learn thus we acquire not only more effectually, but more pleasantly. This forms our manners, our opinions, our lives."

BURKE.

"Meanwhile there is much that we can do. It need not be said that home is the most effective school of character. On the duties of home I cannot dwell now. But there is a more general influence of common tone and habits of which serious account ought to be taken. We are at all times unconsciously educating others by our own example. Our standard of duty in the discharge of business and in the use of leisure necessarily influences the desires and the actions of those who look to us for guidance. The young are quick-eyed critics, and the sight of quiet devotion to work, of pleasure sought in common things--and all truly precious things are common--will enforce surely and silently some great lessons of school. We do not, as far as I can judge, rate highly enough our responsibility for the customary practices of society. Not infrequently we neutralise our teaching through want of imagination by failing to follow out the consequences of some traditional custom. We seem to be inconsiderate when we are only ignorant."

Bishop WESTCOTT.

Wealth

DECEMBER 17

"Christ did not denounce wealth any more than He denounced pauperism. He did not abhor money; He used it. He did not abhor the company of rich men; He sought it. He did not invariably scorn or even resent a certain profuseness of expenditure. With a fine discrimination, He, while habitually discouraging it, yet recognised that, here and there, there was place for it. What he denounced was the _love_ of, the _l.u.s.t_ of riches; the vulgar sn.o.bbishness that chose exclusively the fellows.h.i.+p or the ways of rich men; the habit of extravagance; in one word, greed and luxury and self-indulgence. He taught men, first of all and last of all, that they were stewards, that in the final a.n.a.lysis of men and things neither they nor theirs were their own.

We must not only affirm the brotherhood of man: we must live it. For then the State, and in the State, the home, the Church, and the individual shall become the incarnation of a regenerated humanity, and earth, this earth, our earth, here and to-day, the vestibule of heaven!"

_The Citizen in Relation to the Industrial Situation_, Bishop POTTER.

The Limit of Luxury

DECEMBER 18

"The expenditure of money is no easy matter. It is wrong to let the poor want. It is wrong to starve the nature which asks for other things than food. There is only one principle of guidance. Whatever is done must be done in thought for others, and not in thought for ourselves. Money on luxuries which end in ourselves is wrongly spent; money spent on luxuries--on scents, sounds and sights--which directly or indirectly pa.s.s on to others is rightly spent. The limit of luxury is the power of sharing."

_The Service of G.o.d_, Canon BARNETT.

"All that depends on individual choice--our recreations, our expenditure--can be brought to one test, which we are generally able to apply: Does this or that help me to do my work more effectively? To us most literally, even if the confession overwhelms us with shame, whatsoever is not of faith is sin."

Bishop WESTCOTT.

"Imitate a little child.... While you gather and use this world's goods with one hand, always let your other be fast in your Heavenly Father's hand, and look round from time to time, and make sure that He is satisfied."

S. FRANCIS DE SALES.

Expenditure

DECEMBER 19

"I will take heart to lay down what I hold to be a fundamental rule, that, while we endeavour to gain the largest and keenest power of appreciating all that is n.o.blest in nature and art and literature, we must seek to live on as little as will support the full vigour of our life and work. The standard cannot be fixed. It will necessarily vary, within certain limits, according to the nature and office of each man.

But generally we shall strive diligently to suppress all wants which do not tend through their satisfaction to create a n.o.bler type of manhood, and individually we shall recognise no wants which do not express what is required for the due cultivation of our own powers and the fulfilment of that which we owe to others. We shall guard ourselves against the temptations of artificial wants which the ingenuity of producers offers in seductive forms. We shall refuse to admit that the caprice of fas.h.i.+on represents any valuable element in our const.i.tution, or calls into play any faculties which would otherwise be unused, or encourages industry.

On the contrary, we shall see in the dignity and changelessness of Eastern dress a typical condemnation of our restless inconstancy. We shall perceive, and act as perceiving, that the pa.s.sion for novelty is morally and materially wasteful: that it distracts and confuses our power of appreciating true beauty: that it tends to the constant displacement of labour: that it produces instability both in the manufacture and in the sale of goods to the detriment of economy. We shall, to sum up all in one master-principle, estimate value and costs in terms of life, as Mr. Ruskin has taught us; and, accepting this principle, we shall seek nothing of which the cost to the producer so measured exceeds the gain to ourselves."

_Christian Social Union Addresses_, Bishop WESTCOTT.

Money

DECEMBER 20

"If money be not thy servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that wealth may be said to possess him."

BACON.

"The covetous man is like the camel, with a great haunch on his back; heaven's gate must be made higher and broader, or he will hardly get in."

ADAMS.

"Who shuts his hand hath lost his gold, Who opens it hath it twice told."