A DAILY MESSAGE

Hokitika Guardian, 5 December 1928, Page 1

A DAILY MESSAGE

GET TO KNOW KIM !

A i l ' a Mors wit once said, upon being asked to meet a man against whose views lie was strongly prejudiced : “ No thank you ; | refuse to meet him, tor I "'ant to hate him—ami I never could hate a man I knew.” I his probably was meant to be only a hall-serious reflection upon the Way in which personal prejudices are formed ami perpetuated. Yet, Imw true it is!

Me do not hate the people we know —and we do not know the people we hate, though we may think we do. M hat nonsense ! ” some of you will ■ s;| v. “ lake So-and-So. I see him every day, work beside him, know him through and through, too. Ihinc-v felling me i don’t ‘ know ’ him.”

Mel!, there’s the proof—the fact •hat you hate him so thoroughly is conclusive evidence that you do not “ know” him, even though you talk to him every day in the week. r lo "know” a fellow means to know more about him than the way lie talks or walks, or even where lie. work's or shirks. To "know” him is to know his dreams and his inner conflict, mental and physical—the struggle between inborn desire and duty—the battle t , curb inherited appetites which may lie fierce and strong—Hie courage with which he goes on "lien there is nothing, in him, and every hope has tied—ids aspirations, his hopes, and fears, his failures and his victories. Do you think you could hate a >f <-1 low—any fellow—if you knew all this about him? Surely you would say, with Machirou. ‘‘lie pitiful! Every man you meet is lighting a hard battle.”

.so ! You cannot really hate a man when you really know him.

—M. PRESTON STANLEY