December 9

“We make our victory a great deal more difficult than it ought to be by want of courage. There are many faults and many weaknesses which require nothing more than a decisive effort, a determined push to overcome them at once and for ever. If you want to live a Christian life, do not dally with your purpose; do not fancy that you will find it easier to win your way by degrees, and that by a gradual change you may attain to the same end with less pain than you fear will be given by a sudden wrench. Nothing can be a greater mistake. Press into the enemy’s citadel at once; do not wait outside till he has had time to shoot you down.
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“Be assured that God will help you. Be assured that Christ will give you strength.
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“I know you will meet with many failures between this and the grave; but I am sure that you will meet with fewer failures in proportion to your courage, for this kind of courage is but another form of faith, and faith can work any miracle whatever, even the greatest miracle of all, bringing your soul to God.”

Bishop TEMPLE

“Fallen threads I will not search for – I will weave.”

G. MACDONALD

December 8

“The most cowardly of all temptations is that of discouragement. When the enemy has made us lose courage for making progress in goodness, he has easy work with us, and soon pushes us towards the precipice of evil.

“Have patience with everybody, but especially with yourself. Do not trouble yourself about your imperfections, but always have the courage to rise out of them. It is right that you should begin again every day. There is no better way to finish the spiritual life than to be ever beginning it over again, and never to think you have done enough.”

ST FRANCIS DE SALES

“Never let mistakes or wrong directions, of which every man, in his studies and elsewhere falls into many, discourage you. There is precious instruction to be got by finding we were wrong. Let a man try faithfully, manfully to be right; he will grow daily more and more right.”

CARLYLE

December 7

“Do not be discouraged at your faults; bear with yourself in correcting them, as you would with your neighbour. Lay aside this ardour of mind, which exhausts your body, and leads you to commit errors. Accustom yourself gradually to carry prayer into all your daily occupations. Speak, move, work in peace, as if you were in prayer, as indeed you ought to be. Do everything without excitement, by the spirit of grace. As soon as you perceive your natural impetuosity gliding in, retire quietly within, where is the Kingdom of God. Listen to the leadings of grace, then say and do nothing but what the Holy Spirit will put in your heart. You will find that you will become more tranquil, that your words will be fewer and more effectual, and that, with less effort, you will accomplish more good.”

FÉNÉLON

“Discouragement is an inclination to give up all attempts after the devout life, in consequence of the difficulties by which it is beset, and our already numerous failures in it. We lose heart; and partly in ill-temper, partly in real doubt of our own ability to persevere, we first grow querulous and peevish with God, and then relax in our efforts to mortify ourselves and please Him. It is a sort of shadow of despair, and will lead us into numberless venial sins the first half-hour we give way to it.”

F. W. FABER

December 6

“The true act of moral culture is to balance extravagant tendencies by quickening those that are languid. Growth is a safer means of producing harmony in character than repression. . . . The lower is subdued not by repression, but by making it simply an instrument of the higher. No fasting, for instance, will make the soul pure, but a noble attachment will keep all baser feelings in check and ennoble them.”

STOPFORD BROOKE

“The great way of resisting evil is by allowing the Holy Spirit to pour into your heart the love of your true Lord. Inordinate love of the creature, or love of what is evil in itself, cannot be effectually resisted by particular and direct antagonism. The love of evil is to be expelled by the love of that which is good. The way to overcome evil is to trust to ‘the expulsive power of a new affection’, the love of Christ your Lord.”

Bishop WEBB

December 5

“Infinite toil would not enable you to sweep away a mist, but by ascending a little, you may afterwards look over it altogether. So it is with our moral improvements; we wrestle fiercely with a vicious habit which would have no hold upon us if we ascended into a higher moral atmosphere. It is by adding to our good purposes and nourishing the affections which are rightly placed, that we shall be able to combat the bad ones.”

A. HELPS

“If we wish to overcome evil, we must overcome it by good. There are doubtless many ways of overcoming the evil in our own hearts, but the simplest, easiest, most universal, is to overcome it by active occupation in some good word or work. The best antidote against evil of all kinds, against the evil thoughts which haunt the soul, against the needless perplexities which distract the conscience, is to keep hold of the good we have. Impure thoughts will not stand against pure words, and prayers, and deeds. Little doubts will not avail against great certainties. Fix your affections on things above, and then you will be less and less troubled by the cares, the temptations, the troubles of things on earth.”

A. P. STANLEY

December 4

“If you wish not to be of an angry temper, do not feed the habit, throw nothing on it which will increase it; at first, keep quiet, and count the days on which you have not been angry. I used to be in a passion every day; now every second day; then every third; then every fourth. But if you have intermitted thirty days, make a sacrifice to God. For the habit at first begins to be weakened, and then is completely destroyed. When you can say, ‘I have not been vexed today, nor the day before, nor yet on any succeeding day during two or three months; but I took care when some exciting things happened,’ be assured that you are in a good way.”

EPICTETUS

“The difficult part of good temper consists in forbearance, and accommodation to the ill-humour of others.”

EMPSON

“He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that rules his spirit, better than he that takes a city.”

PROVERBS 16, 32

December 3

“Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man works not the righteousness of God.”

St. JAMES i, 20

“The Christian will have to remember that one of the very first duties he owes to his neighbour is the thorough subjugation of his own temper. The sins of the temper produce the worst results at once in our neighbour and in ourselves. They have a peculiar power of thwarting and injuring God’s work in the world, and of giving pain to our fellow-creatures. They hurt more than anything the right working of the body of Christ.”

“Anger is not to be suppressed but by something as inward as itself, and more habitual.”

“Resolved: - When I am most conscious of provocation to ill-nature and anger, that I will strive most to feel and act good-naturedly.”
“Resolved: - Never to suffer the least motions of anger towards irrational beings.”

JON. EDWARDS

December 2

“Time is spent in lamenting past sins, which ought to be spent in attending to present duties; the heart is given up to fears which ought to be given up to God; weak regret takes the place of vigorous resolution; longings for a sense of God’s presence, or for a sense of our own love, fill up our souls when we ought to be proving our love by the proof which He has named, that is, keeping His commandments.”

Bishop TEMPLE

“The full employment of all powers, physical, mental, and spiritual, is the true secret of happiness, so that no time may be left for morbid self-analysis.”

TOM HUGHES

“To watch one’s soul all the time, seeking for moral disease, is as bad as to watch one’s body all the time, seeking for physical disease. Do not look within to see whether your feelings are right; but look without to see what you are doing for others; what you are saying; what your temper and spirits are to those about you. Look up, also, for higher light and more life.”

J. F. CLARKE