Try hard to be humble, to be free from all conceit, to question your own opinions, to give up your own way, to put simplicity first among all excellences of character, to be ready to think yourself in the wrong, to prefer others to yourself;
An angry person is generally impolite; and where contention and ill-will are, there can be no courteousness.
May we put away from us the satire which scourges and the anger which brands: the oil and wine of the good Samaritan are of more avail.
Any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
Surely there can be no ‘yeah but, no but, yeah’ if we dare to proclaim that we are Open to God, Open to All? After all isn’t the only response God makes to us ‘Yes and Amen’ ? (2 Cor.1v19-21). Can we offer any less? Can we, dare we, bear all this calumny and abuse and remain un-defended? Not biting back, refusing to turn away those who abuse us and others, and instead learn only to love and then love again?
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.
Nothing but the Infinite pity is sufficient for the infinite pathos of human life.
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.
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.
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.
Suffolk Vicar 