• Author: B-6594
• Editor: B-6591
• Newspaper: The Umpire volume 2
• Page Number:
• Date: 11 5 1913
• Tags:
• advice

MORAL ESSAYS By B 6594 LIVE IN PEACE "Let us have Peace!" should be the motto of every lover of humanity the world over. To obtain Peace we should be ready to sacrifice all personal prejudices, pleasures and antipathies. There are all sorts of people, and many that are not patient or sweet-spirited, besides some who are positively uncongenial, distasteful and offensive to us. But we should remember that for all our dislikes and occasions for resentment, our own self-consequence or fastidiousness may be much responsible as the natural ugliness, indiscretions, follies, or wrongs of our neighbor. It is possible to be too critical. Nothing is easier than to pick flaws in the lives and characters of others. We cannot weigh motives well enough to enable us to interpret all speech and conduct. Better get rid of the critical habit altogether than to misjudge and injure our fellow men. We must likewise accommodate ourselves to ceaseless differences of opinion in respect to everyday topics. In politics, science and a hundred passing occurrences, men differ, and have a right to differ. It is abominable conceit for a man to set up his own way of thinking for a universal standard, and then prescribe and pettily persecute all who fail to attain to it. The gift of speechlessness is worth cultivating. Learn to hold your tongue. If your neighbor talks provokingly better keep quiet than quarrel. ‘A soft answer turneth away wrath." If you cannot answer softly, don't speak at all. There is real majesty in silence under provocation. "The man who ruleth his own spirit is greater than the conqueror of a city." Choke back angry words. Repress bitterness. Show your neighbor that even as you rule yourself, so you might, if you deigned to do it, conquer him. Study tact. Let good nature have a chance to bubble up. A happy and pleasant remark of a different subject may avert the storm. A flash of wit may prevent the lightning of wrath. To provoke a smile is better than to occasion a frown. There are some wrongs which of course must be noticed, but there is a right way to give them attention. This is not by wrangling. Charity must fill our hearts before we cast the. devil out of others, lest he find a place to lodge within us, Get the beam out your offending eye. Be prepared to see your offending neighbor just as he is. Perhaps he intended no real wrong. Find out first. Perhaps he is suffering wrong from others. Maybe he imagines you have wronged him. Like enough his nerves are unstrung by trials, cares or other perplexities. Approach him at the right point and learn how he stands. Don't be easily offended. Mere words can harm you only when you suffer them to irritate you. Injustice reacts upon itself. He who does the wrong is the one that loses the most. All wrongs will sometime be righted. ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord." Be ready to sacrifice anything for Peace except the right to serve God and do good to your neighbor. Not for life itself may we let these sacred privileges go. They are enjoined from on high, and we must serve God rather than man.