Jesus was tender and compassionate with all who were sick or diseased
in body or mind. He was never angry with any, save the proud and
self-righteous Pharisees. He tenderly forgave the adulterous woman,
justified the publican and never lectured or rebuked those who came to
have their bodily and mental infirmities removed by him. Let us then
be tender with the erring and the sinful, rather than censorious,
and full of rebuke. Is it not the better way to point out the
right--overcome the evil with the good, and thus bind our erring
loved ones more firmly to ourselves. Surely our own errors, failures,
weaknesses and sins ought to have taught us this lesson.
In the bedroom of a friend where I recently slept, was a card on
which was illuminated these words, which bear particularly upon this
subject:
The life that has not known and accepted sorrow is strangely
crude and untaught; it can neither help nor teach, for it has
never learned. The life that has spurned the lesson of sorrow,
or failed to read it aright, is cold and hard. But the life
that has been disciplined by sorrow is courageous and full of
holy and gentle love.
And it is this holy, gentle, and courageous love that we need to
exercise every day towards those who require it, rather than the
worry that frets still more, irritates, and widens the gulf already
existent. So, reader, don't worry, but help, sympathetically and
lovingly, and above all, don't become indifferent, hard-hearted and
selfish.
CHAPTER XXV
WORRIES AND HOBBIES
Though these words are much alike in sound they have no sympathy
one with another. Put them in active operation and they rush at each
other's throats far worse than Allies and Germans are now fighting.
They strive for a death grip, and as soon as one gets hold he hangs on
to the end--if he can. Yet, as in all conflicts, the right is sure to
win in an equal combat, the right of the hobby is absolutely certain
to win over the wrong of the worry.
Webster defines a hobby as: "A subject or plan which one is constantly
setting off," or "a favorite and ever recurring theme of discourse,
thought, or effort," but the editor of _The Century Dictionary_ has
a better definition, more in accord with modern thought, viz., "That
which a person persistently pursues or dwells upon with zeal or
delight, as if riding a horse."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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