(4) And then, when we have got the people to trust us so that they wish us to go to them, or they come to us with their troubles and difficulties and sorrows, we must have for our people the patience of the good physician. If we have known and benefited by the patience of our own physicians of the body when we have been ill, and have realised how patient they are, if some of our best friends have been the doctors, the physicians, and surgeons, who have attended to us, we, too, have got to show the patience of the good physician to our people. We have no right to give a sarcastic answer because a particular parishioner seems to be beyond the limit. We must imitate the patience of JESUS CHRIST. The old story of "Quo Vadis?" is told in different ways. One version is that, as St. Peter was, in a fit of impatience, leaving Rome, our LORD met him on the way, and he, Peter, asked Him whither He was going. The LORD answered that He was going to Rome to be crucified again because Peter had left his post. Another version of the same story is that one of the disciples was asked where he was going, and he said: "I have lost patience with such and such a man." The LORD said: "I have had patience with that man for forty years." Whichever way you put the story, the point is that we have no right to be impatient with our people. Why _should_ we be impatient? Think how patient He has been with us all this time. We must have, then, the patience of the Good Physician. Let me speak to the younger clergy, nearly all of whom I have ordained myself. Do you remember that when you were undergraduates you were not particularly keen when someone came in to speak to you for your good? Perhaps you were a little impatient. And, perhaps, after all is said and done, the young men of the parish feel very much the same when you come in and want to talk to them for their good. I think sometimes we forget that the young men of the parish are very much the same as we were as undergraduates, and that if they do not come on at once to the Bible-class or want to be confirmed, they are not very much worse than we were at their age. Therefore we must pray for more patience with them. Someone had patience with us, or we could not have been here in the ministry at all. Someone bore with all our waywardness, and with hopefulness brought us on to something better. We shall never do anything without patience. It is the patience of CHRIST that will win them at last, and they will say: "Thy gentleness has made me great." (5) But, then, while we are patient, we must not be afraid of speaking the uncomfortable truth. I mean, there is such a thing as being too kind--too kind in the sense that we are afraid to speak out, to cut down, as it were, with the surgeon's knife. You remember the Celestial Surgeon of Stevenson: