Charity avoids haughty and contemptuous looks, forewarns itself against fads and manias, and in the midst of most pressing occupations carefully guards against rudeness and impatience. Careful of wounding the susceptibility of others, it neither blames nor despises those who act in an opposite way. Religious animated by fraternal charity are not ticklish spirits who are disturbed for nothing at all, and who do not know how to pass unnoticed a little want of respect, etc.; nor punctilious spirits, who find pleasure in contradicting and making irritating remarks; nor self-opinionated spirits, who pose themselves as supreme judges of talent and virtue as well as infallible dispensers of praise and blame. Neither are they suspicious characters who are constantly ruminating in their hearts, and who consider every little insult as levelled at themselves; nor discontented beings, who find fault with the places whither obedience sends them and the persons with whom they live, and who could travel the entire world without finding a single place or a single person to suit them. Charitable religious are not those imperious minds who endeavour to impose their opinions on all and refuse to accept those of others, however just they may be, simply because they did not emanate from themselves, nor are they those ridiculing, hard-to-be-pleased sort of people who do not spare even grey hairs. Finally, they are not those great spouters who, instead of accommodating themselves to circumstances as charity and politeness require, monopolize the conversation, and thereby shut up the mouths of others and make them feel weary when they should be joyful and free. IX FOURTH CHARACTERISTIC _To accommodate oneself to persons of different humour_ THEY who are animated by charity support patiently and in silence, in sentiments of humility and sweetness, as if they had neither eyes nor ears, the difficult, odd, and most inconstant humours of others, although they may find it very difficult at times to do so. No matter how regular and perfect we may be, we have always need of compassion and indulgence for others. To be borne with, we must bear with others; to be loved, we must love; to be helped, we must help; to be joyful ourselves, we must make others so. Surrounded as we are by so many different minds, characters, and interests, how can we live in peace for a single day if we are not condescending, accommodating, yielding, self-denying, ready to renounce even a good project, and to take no notice of those faults and shortcomings which are beyond our power or duty to correct?