The Five Great Philosophies of LifeHyde, William De Witt
Philosophy
The Five Great Philosophies of Life
Hyde, William De Witt
Ethics; Philosophy, Ancient
Fighting, however, is not altogether uncongenial to the descendants of
our brute progenitors. To fight our own battles, and occasionally a few
for our neighbours, comes all too naturally to most of us. Fighting
God's battles on principle is a very different thing. To feel entirely
tranquil in the midst of the combat; to know that we are not alone on
the side of the right; to have the real interests of our opponents at
heart all the time; to be ever ready to forgive them, and to ask their
forgiveness for any excess of zeal we may have shown; to have the peace
of God in our hearts, and no trace of malice, in deed, or word, or
thought, or feeling,--this is not altogether natural, and the man who
does his fighting on that basis gives pretty good assurance of dwelling
in the Christian Spirit. No other adequate provision for maintaining
peace in the midst of effective warfare, and making peace for others as
well as for ourselves the instant the need for war is over, has ever
been devised. The peacemakers of this fearless, earnest, strenuous type
have the unmistakable right to be called the children of God. "Blessed
are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God."
All who love must expect to be hated by the foes of those whom they
love.
Because Jesus loved the common people and sought to deliver them from
their fears and errors, the men who traded on those fears and errors put
Him to an ignominious death. If we love and serve the despised, the
abused, the plundered, those who despise and abuse and plunder them will
do to us the worst they dare. The road of Love is marked at every turn
by a cross. Whoever in business, society, or politics makes as real as
his own the interests and the wrongs of all whom he can reach and touch,
will be disliked, criticised, misrepresented, vilified, condemned. He
will pay Love's price of persecution.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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