Part 6
"If this be one of our chief duties--promoting the happiness of our neighbours--most certainly there is nothing which so entirely runs counter to it, and makes it impossible, as an undisciplined temper. For of all things that are to be met with here on earth, there is nothing which can give such continual, such cutting, such useless pain. The touchy and sensitive temper, which takes offence at a word; the irritable temper, which finds offence in everything whether intended or not; the violent temper, which breaks through all bounds of reason when once roused; the jealous or sullen temper, which wears a cloud on the face all day, and never utters a word of complaint; the discontented temper, brooding over its own wrongs; the severe temper, which always looks at the worst side of whatever is done; the wilful temper, which over-rides every scruple to gratify a whim,--what an amount of pain have these caused in the hearts of men, if we could but sum up their results! How many a soul have they stirred to evil impulses; how many a prayer have they stifled; how many an emotion of true affection have they turned to bitterness! How hard they sometimes make all duties! How painful they make all daily life! How they kill the sweetest and warmest of domestic charities! The misery caused by other sins is often much deeper and much keener, more disastrous, more terrible to the sight; but the accumulated pain caused by ill-temper must, I verily believe, if added together, outweigh all other pains that men have to bear from one another."
Bishop TEMPLE.
Quarrels
APRIL 16
"Blow not into a flame the spark which is kindled between two friends. They are easily reconciled, and will both hate you."
From the German.
"Quarrels would not last long if the fault was only on one side."
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
"He approaches nearest to the gods who knows how to be silent even though he knows he is in the right."
CATO.
"When any one has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offence cannot reach it."
DESCARTES.
Quarrels
APRIL 17
"The mind is often clouded by passion until it is incapable of clear thought. Harsh words, stinging words, cruel words are usually spoken without thought. Rash deeds which result in most serious consequences are performed without thought. The wrong-doer does not consider beforehand the character of his deed, its effects on himself and others, and its ultimate consequences."
"We shall never be sorry afterwards for thinking twice before we speak, for counting the cost before entering upon any new course, for sleeping over stings and injuries before saying or doing anything in answer, or for carefully considering any business scheme presented to us before putting money or name into it. It will save us from much regret, loss, and sorrow, always to remember to do nothing rashly."
"Do nothing in a hurry. Nature never does. 'Most haste, worst speed,' says the old proverb. If you are in doubt, sleep over it. But, above all, never quarrel in a hurry. Think it over well. Take time. However vexed you may be overnight, things will often look very different in the morning. If you have written a clever and conclusive, but scathing letter, keep it back till the next day, and it will very often never go at all."
Lord AVEBURY.
Revenge
APRIL 18
"He that studieth revenge keepeth his own wounds green."
BACON.
"Ill-temper and envy and revenge find here an arsenal of pious disguises; this is the playground of inverted lusts. With a little more patience and a little less temper, a gentler and wiser method might be found in almost every case; and the knot that we cut by some fine heady quarrel-scene in private life, or, in public affairs, by some denunciatory act against what we are pleased to call our neighbour's vices, might yet have been unwoven by the hand of sympathy."
_Across the Plains_, R. L. STEVENSON.
"Still in thy right hand carry gentle Peace To silence envious tongues."
SHAKESPEARE.
Touchiness
APRIL 19
"Touchiness, when it becomes chronic, is a morbid condition of the inward disposition. It is self-love inflamed to the acute point."
HENRY DRUMMOND.
"Purge out of every heart the lurking grudge. Give us grace and strength to forbear and to persevere. Offenders, give us the grace to accept and to forgive offences. Forgetful ourselves, help us to bear cheerfully the forgetfulness of others. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind. Spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies. Bless us, if it may be, in all our innocent endeavours. If it may not, give us the strength to encounter that which is to come, that we be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath, and in all changes of fortune, and down to the gates of death, loyal and loving one to another. As the clay to the potter, as the windmill to the wind--as children of their sire, we beseech of Thee this help and mercy for Christ's sake."
_Vailima Prayers_, R. L. STEVENSON.
Unbalanced Memory
APRIL 20
"It is so easy to forget a kindness, and to remember a kick. Yet controlling our recollections is almost as important as controlling our temper. We are apt to forget completely a hundred little kindnesses and courtesies which one has shown us, and to remember a single careless slight or thoughtless word. Often we hear it said of some wrong or foolish deed, 'I have never thought so well of that man since then; it was there he showed his real character,'--as if a man's real character appeared more in one separate deed to which, perhaps, he was sorely tempted, than in the striving and overcoming of many days and years."
"Our thoughts are often worse than we are, just as they are often better than we are. And God sees us as we are altogether, not in separate feelings or actions, as our fellow-men see us. We are always doing each other injustice, and thinking better or worse of each other than we deserve, because we only hear and see separate words and actions. We don't see each other's whole nature."
GEORGE ELIOT.
"Enveloped in a common mist, we seem to walk in clearness ourselves, and behold only the mist that enshrouds others."
GEORGE ELIOT.
Unbalanced Memory
APRIL 21
"Strange endurance of human vanity! a million of much more important conversations have escaped one since then, most likely--but the memory of this little mortification (for such it is, after all) remains quite fresh in the mind, and unforgotten, though it is a trifle, and more than half a score of years old. We forgive injuries, we survive even our remorse for great wrongs that we ourselves commit; but I doubt if we ever forgive slights of this nature put upon us, or forget circumstances in which our self-love has been made to suffer."
W. M. THACKERAY.
"A past error may urge a grand retrieval."
GEORGE ELIOT.
"Memory is not a pocket, but a living instructor, with a prophetic sense of the values which he guards; a guardian angel set there within you to record your life, and by recording it to animate you to uplift it."
EMERSON.
"Silence a great Peacemaker"
APRIL 22
"Hard speech between those who have loved is hideous in the memory, like the sight of greatness and beauty sunk into vice and rags."
GEORGE ELIOT.
"I don't want to say anything nasty, because nasty words always leave a scar behind."
_Isabel Carnaby_, ELLEN THORNEYCROFT FOWLER.
"Silence is a great peacemaker."
LONGFELLOW.
"If bitterness has crept into the heart in the friction of the busy day's unguarded moments, be sure it steals away with the setting sun. Twilight is God's interval for peace-making."
Reconciliation
APRIL 23
"It is exceedingly noteworthy that in the rule laid down here by our Lord, the responsibility of seeking reconciliation is laid primarily, not upon the man who has done wrong, but upon the man who has received the wrong. It is the injured man who is to take the initiative, to go after the offender, to seek him out, and to exhaust all proper means of bringing him to a right state of mind, and of getting him reconciled to the man whom he has wronged. It is only after all these proper means have been exhausted, after the man who has been injured has done everything in his power--a great deal more than the law prescribed--it is then only that he is to regard the offender as 'a heathen man and a publican.' Is not this the exact opposite to the world's code of morality upon that subject? Is it not the rule among men of the world--I do not use the word in a bad sense--is it not the rule among Christian men of the world, who live what we should call on the whole good honest lives, to wait until the offender has come to them with a confession and an apology? And if they then accept the apology and forgive the offence, they probably think they have done something very magnanimous; nor would they consider they had done anything very much amiss if they refused to accept the apology, especially if the offence had been a gross one. If the offender did not apologise, even an otherwise good Christian would probably think that he might treat the matter with indifference, take no notice of it, and say to himself, 'He has offended me, I will take no notice, I will leave him to himself.' Would not men of the world--Christian men--consider that they had upon the whole discharged the Christian duty of forgiveness if they treated the offender in that way? But the law which our Lord laid down in His answer to Peter, which governed His own conduct, the law which rules the dealing of Almighty God with sinful man, is that the man who has been injured, to whom the wrong has been done, is to make the first move, is to take the first step, is to go after the man who has done the wrong, and use his utmost means of persuasion to convince him of his guilt, and to bring him back from the error of his ways."
_Life Here and Hereafter_, Canon MACCOLL.
Reconciliation and Forgiveness
APRIL 24
"Never forget, when you have been injured, that your duty is not only to refrain from retaliating, not simply to retire upon your dignity and self-respect, not to leave the offender severely alone; but to seek him out, to reason with him, to pray for him, to exhaust all your powers of persuasion, all the resources of gentleness and love. It is only when all this has been done that your responsibility is ended, and you are justified in leaving him to be dealt with by Almighty God."
_Life Here and Hereafter_, Canon MACCOLL.
"'Remember,' he said, ... 'that if you forgive him, you become changed yourself. You no longer see what he has done as you see it now. That is the beauty of forgiveness: it enables us better to understand those whom we have forgiven. Perhaps it will enable you to put yourself in his place.'"
_The Mettle of the Pasture_, JAMES LANE ALLEN.
"Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?"
THOREAU.
Forgiveness
APRIL 25
"The little hearts that know not how to forgive!"
TENNYSON.
"Oh, make my anger pure--let no worst wrong Rouse in me the old niggard selfishness. Give me Thine indignation--which is love Turned on the evil that would part love's throng; Thy anger scathes because it needs must bless, Gathering into union calm and strong All things on earth, and under, and above.
"Make my forgiveness downright--such as I Should perish if I did not have from Thee; I let the wrong go, withered up and dry, Cursed with divine forgetfulness in me. 'Tis but self-pity, pleasant, mean and sly, Low whispering bids the paltry memory live:-- What am I brother for, but to forgive?
* * * * *
Lord, I forgive--and step in unto Thee."
GEORGE MACDONALD.
Reparation
APRIL 26
"All high happiness has in it some element of love; all love contains a desire for peace. One immediate effect of new happiness is to make us turn toward the past with a wish to straighten out its difficulties, heal its breaches and forgive its wrongs."
JAMES LANE ALLEN.
"As long as we love, we can forgive."
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
"When it is our duty to do an act of justice it should be done promptly. To delay is injustice."
LA BRUYÈRE.
"His heart was as great as the world, but there was no room in it to hold the memory of a wrong."
EMERSON (_said of Lincoln_).
The Unamiable
APRIL 27
"Of all mortals none are so awfully self-deluded as the unamiable. They do not, any more than others, sin for the sake of sinning, but it may be doubted whether, in the hour when all shall be uncovered to the eternal day, there will be revealed a lower depth than the hell which they have made. They inflict torments with an unconsciousness almost worthy of spirits of light. The spirit sinks under the prospect of the retribution of the unamiable, if all that happens be indeed for eternity, if there be, indeed, a record of every chilling frown, of every querulous tone, of every bitter jest, of every insulting word, of all abuses of that tremendous power which mind has over mind. The throbbing pulse, the quivering nerves, the wrung hearts that surround the unamiable; what a cloud of witnesses is here! The terror of innocents who should know no fear, the vindictive emotions of dependents who dare not complain, the faintness of heart of lifelong companions, the anguish of those who love; what an array of judges is here! The unamiable, the domestic torturer, has heaped wrong upon wrong, woe upon woe, through the whole portion of time which was given into his power, till it would be rash to say that any others are more guilty than he."
HARRIET MARTINEAU.
Ill-Nature
APRIL 28
"HOW is ill-nature to be met and overcome? First, by humility: when a man knows his own weaknesses, why should he be angry with others for pointing them out? No doubt it is not very amiable of them to do so, but still, truth is on their side. Secondly, by reflection: after all we are what we are, and if we have been thinking too much of ourselves, it is only an opinion to be modified; the incivility of our neighbours leaves us what we were before. Above all, by pardon: there is only one way of not hating those who do us wrong, and that is by doing them good; anger is best conquered by kindness. Such a victory over feeling may not indeed affect those who have wronged us, but it is a valuable piece of self-discipline. It is vulgar to be angry on one's own account; we ought only to be angry for great causes. Besides, the poisoned dart can only be extracted from the wound by the balm of a silent and thoughtful charity. Why do we let human malignity embitter us? Why should ingratitude, jealousy--perfidy even--enrage us? There is no end to recriminations, complaints, or reprisals. The simplest plan is to blot everything out. Anger, rancour, bitterness, trouble the soul. Every man is a dispenser of justice; but there is one wrong that he is not bound to punish--that of which he himself is the victim. Such a wrong is to be healed, not avenged."
_Amiel's Journal._
The Science of Social Life
APRIL 29
"Every man has his faults, his failings, peculiarities, eccentricities. Every one of us finds himself crossed by such failings of others, from hour to hour. And if he were to resent them all, or even notice all, life would be intolerable. If for every outburst of hasty temper, and for every rudeness that wounds us in our daily path, we were to demand an apology, require an explanation, or resent it by retaliation, daily intercourse would be impossible. The very science of social life consists in that gliding tact which avoids contact with the sharp angularities of character, which does not argue about such things, does not seek to adjust or cure them all, but covers them, as if it did not see."
FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON.
"If you would have a happy family life, remember two things,--in matters of principle, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current."
The Science of Social Life
APRIL 30
"Much of the sorrow of life, however, springs from the accumulation, day by day and year by year, of little trials--a letter written in less than courteous terms, a wrangle at the breakfast table over some arrangement of the day, the rudeness of an acquaintance on the way to the city, an unfriendly act on the part of another firm, a cruel criticism needlessly reported by some meddler, a feline amenity at afternoon tea, the disobedience of one of your children, a social slight by one of your circle, a controversy too hotly conducted. The trials within this class are innumerable, and consider, not one of them is inevitable, not one of them but might have been spared if we or our brother man had had a grain of kindliness. Our social insolences, our irritating manners, our censorious judgment, our venomous letters, our pinpricks in conversation, are all forms of deliberate unkindness, and are all evidences of an ill-conditioned nature."
_The Homely Virtues_, Dr. JOHN WATSON.
"Let us think, too, how much forbearance must have been shown us that we were not even conscious of needing; how often, beyond doubt, we have wounded, or annoyed, or wearied those who were so skilful and considerate that we never suspected either our clumsiness or their pain."
_Studies in the Christian Character_, Bishop PAGET.
The Science of Social Life
MAY 1
"Then, to be able, when we live with our brother men, not to remember what we wish for ourselves, but only their wants, their joy and their sorrow; to think, not of our own desires, but how to minister to the great causes and the great conceptions which help mankind; to be eager to give pity to men, and forgiveness to their wrong; to desire with thirst to bind up the broken heart of man, and to realise our desire in act--this is to thirst for God as Love. For this is self-forgetfulness, and in the abysmal depths of His Being, as well as in every surface-form into which He throws Himself out of Himself, God is the absolute Self-forgetfulness."
_The Gospel of Joy_, STOPFORD BROOKE.
"If, in the paths of the world, Stones might have wounded thy feet, Toil or dejection have tried Thy spirit, of that we saw Nothing--to us thou wast still Cheerful, and helpful, and firm! Therefore to thee it was given Many to save with thyself; And, at the end of thy day, O faithful shepherd! to come, Bringing thy sheep in thy hand."
MATTHEW ARNOLD.
The Science of Social Life
MAY 2
"If you would be loved as a companion, avoid unnecessary criticism upon those with whom you live. The number of people who have taken out judges' patents for themselves is very large in any society. Now it would be hard for a man to live with another who was always criticising his actions, even if it were kindly and just criticism. It would be like living between the glasses of a microscope. But these self-elected judges, like their prototypes, are very apt to have the persons they judge brought before them in the guise of culprits.
"Let not familiarity swallow up old courtesy. Many of us have a habit of saying to those with whom we live such things as we say about strangers behind their backs. There is no place, however, where real politeness is of more value than where we mostly think it would be superfluous. You may say more truth, or rather speak out more plainly to your associates, but not less courteously than to strangers."
Sir ARTHUR HELPS.
"For manners are not idle, but the fruit Of loyal nature, and of noble mind."
TENNYSON.
Sympathy
MAY 3
"There is nothing which seems to try men's patience and good temper more than feebleness: the timidity, the vacillation, the conventionality, the fretfulness, the prejudices of the weak; the fact that people can be so well-meaning and so disappointing, these things make many men impatient to a degree of which they are themselves ashamed. But it is something far more than patience and good temper towards weakness that is demanded here. It is that the strong, in whatsoever sphere their strength may lie, should try in silence and simplicity, escaping the observation of men, to take upon their own shoulders the burdens which the weak are bearing; to submit themselves to the difficulties amidst which the weak are stumbling on; to be, for their help's sake, as they are; to share the fear, the dimness, the anxiety, the trouble and heart-sinking through which they have to work their way; to forego and lay aside the privilege of strength in order to understand the weak and backward and bewildered, in order to be with them, to enter into their thoughts, to wait on their advance; to be content, if they can only serve, so to speak, as a favourable circumstance for their growth towards that which God intended them to be. It is the innermost reality of sympathy, it is the very heart and life of courtesy, that is touched here: but like all that is best in moral beauty, it loses almost all its grace the moment it attracts attention."
_The Spirit of Discipline_, Bishop PAGET.
"Nothing but the Infinite pity is sufficient for the infinite pathos of human life."
J. SHORTHOUSE.
Patience
MAY 4
"The example of our Lord, as He humbly and calmly takes the rebuff, and turns to go to another village, may help us in the ordinary ways of ordinary daily life. The little things that vex us in the manner or the words of those with whom we have to do; the things which seem to us so inconsiderate, or wilful, or annoying, that we think it impossible to get on with the people who are capable of them; the mistakes which no one, we say, has any right to make; the shallowness, or conventionality, or narrowness, or positiveness in talk which makes us wince and tempts us towards the cruelty and wickedness of scorn;--surely in all these things, and in many others like them, of which conscience may be ready enough to speak to most of us, there are really opportunities for thus following the example of our Saviour's great humility and patience. How many friendships we might win or keep, how many chances of serving others we might find, how many lessons we might learn, how much of unsuspected moral beauty might be disclosed around us, if only we were more careful to give people time, to stay judgment, to trust that they will see things more justly, speak of them more wisely, after a while. We are sure to go on closing doors of sympathy, and narrowing in the interests and opportunities of work around us, if we let ourselves imagine that we can quickly measure the capacities and sift the characters of our fellow-men."
_Studies in the Christian Character_, Bishop PAGET.
Selfishness
MAY 5
"Any man--with the heart of a man and not of a mouse--is more likely than not to behave well at a pinch; but no man who is habitually selfish can be _sure_ that he will, when the choice comes sharp between his own life and the lives of others. The impulse of a supreme moment only focusses the habits and customs of a man's soul. The supreme moment may never come, but habits and customs mould us from the cradle to the grave.... Vice and cowardice become alike impossible to a man who has never--cradled in selfishness, and made callous by custom--learned to pamper himself at the expense of others!"
_A Happy Family_, Mrs. EWING.
"Sympathy is the safeguard of the human soul against selfishness."
CARLYLE.
"Where Love is, God is"
MAY 6