Among all Christian duties, there are few that touch life at more points than the duty of mutual forbearance, and there are few that, in the observance or the breach, have more to do with the happiness or the unhappiness of life. We cannot live our lives solitarily. We are made to be social beings. It is in our intercourse with others that we find our sweetest pleasures and our purest earthly joys. Yet close by these springs of happiness are other fountains that do not yield sweetness. There often are briars on the branches from which we gather the most luscious fruits. Were human nature perfect, there could be nothing but most tender pleasure in the mutual comminglings of life. But we are all imperfect and full of infirmities. There are qualities in each one of us that are not beautiful – many that are annoying to others. Self rules in greater or less measure in the best of us. In our busy and excited lives, we are continually liable to jostle against each other. Our individual interests conflict, or seem to conflict. The things we do in the earnest pressing of our own business and our own plans and efforts seem at times to interfere with the interests of others. In the heat of emulation and the warmth of self-interest, we are apt to do things, which injure others.
Then, in our closer personal contact, in society and in business relations, we are constantly liable to give pain or offence. We sometimes speak quickly and give expression to thoughtless words, which fall like, spark on other inflammable tempers. Even our nearest and truest friends do things that grieve us. Close commingling of imperfect lives always has its manifold little injustices, wrongs, oppressions, slights and grievances.
Then we do not always see each other in clear and honest light. We are prone to have a bias toward self, and often misconstrue the bearing, words, or acts of others. Many of us, too, are given to little petulance’s and expressions of ill-humour or bad temper, which greatly lessen the probabilities of unbroken fellowship.
Thus, it comes about that no Christian grace is likely to be called into play more frequently than that of mutual forbearance. Without it, there can really exist no close and lasting friendly relations in a society composed of imperfect beings. Even the most tender intimacies and the holiest associations require the constant exercise of patience. If we resent every apparent injustice, demand the righting of every little wrong, and insist upon chafing and uttering our feelings at every infinitesimal grievance, and if all the other parties in the circle claim the same privilege, what miserable beings we shall all be, and how wretched life will become!
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