The Sabbath

Waikato Times, Volume 107, Issue 17982, 29 March 1930, Page 6 (Supplement)

The Sabbath

ANTIPATHIES. THE ART OF FORBEARANCE. There are moralists who have fallen into the habit of saying that Christianity lays such stress on the passive virtues that it encourages neglect of the active and adventurous elements of life, and inhibits the energies of true manhood. What his this workaday world to do with virtues like long-suffering, patience under misapprehension, acquiescence in unmerited neglect? Take, for instance, the practice of forbearance. How far may we rightly practise ,it? A study of Ihe word shows that forbearance may be expressed in different ways. It is practsied by a man who patiently endures, or perhaps refuses lo recognise, conduct or speech due either to ill-will or heedlessness. Perhaps forbearance is most severely tested when the offender is quite unconscious of his fault. Sometimes we may be called to exercise this virtue when we are deliberately wronged, | whether openly or secretly, but many men find that it is most difficult when others adopt methods or views they dislike, but cannot consider morally evil. The fret of minor irritation is their constant trial. Forbearance is sometimes exercised, not by patient endurance of what dislurbs or offends us, but by withdrawing so far as is possible from the offender. This method of forbearance is the only possible way of dealing with certain kinds of offence. When the Master passed through Samaria the inhabitants opposed Him, and so excited the anger of His disciples that they would have fire brought clown ■from heaven to destroy their enemies, lie replied that lie had come not to destroy men’s lives, but to save them, and, the Evangelist adds, “They went lo another village." A Duty to Rebuke. The wise man will often forbear to condemn or to punish. Yet forbearance must not bo confused with mere acquiescence in another’s faults, or the nerveless acceptance of conditions which might be improved. Forbearance is rather an active, purposeful resolution of tho will which, while refusing to be deflected from truth and righteousness, is patient with the perversities of human nature. There are times when to rebuke, to condemn, or to inflict punishment is a duty. Forbearance never condones evil, but rather seeks to overcome it by patience. Perhaps our greatest failure in forbearance is clue to the habit of training loo'hasty judgments on others. When Ihe faults of a man arc 100 evident to be ignored and amendment seems impossible we may comfort ourselves by the reflection that forbearance evokes a moral discipline of rare value to ourselves. Few men pass through life without meeting some one who excites in them a deep and apparently quite irremovable antipathy. We may be ready to acknowledge with absolute sincerity a man’s virtues, but lie excites in us a dislike which, even when we are ready lo own it to he unreasonable, we cannot overcome. This antipathy sometimes leads to grave _ injustice and always to much unhappiness. We can dealNvitli it only by the exercise of forbearance. Self-criticism. We may find a further motive to forbearance if we reflect that we ourselves may excite antipathies in others. Wo have no right lo suppose that wc are exempt from the unconscious failings which offend us in our neighhours. Probably there is no person living who does not excite antipathy or resentment in some other man or woman. If we are unconscious of giving offence lo others wc may be sure it is because our friends have shown us great forbearance, and wc may find in that, fact a moti\c loi out exercise of a like patience with our neighbours. , , , , . . Perhaps something ought to bC'.saul of the need of forbearance with ourselves. Many men and women fail here. Acutely conscious of their |

shortcomings, they fall into a habit of ' self-criticism and self-depreciation which severely impairs their usefulness and' makes them a burden to themselves. Becoming entirely selfcentred, they lose the power of right judgment, torturing themselves by their own self-condemnation, which they suppose is endorsed by the contempt of everyone who knows them. Nothing will help them except the resolution to sease Com all consideration of self and to order their lives by the conviction that they are in the hands of Love Infinite. DAN CRAWFORD’S APHORISMS. A few of Dan Crawford’s aphorisms are quoted in Dr. Tilsley’s biography of the missionary pioneer—- “ You can see 1,000,000 miles through a hole in the wall.” “God is president of the Anti-snob Society." “There is no high hill without a valley beside it.’’ “There is no crown without a cross.” “You can count the apples on a tree, but you cannot count the trees in an apple” “The snob is the man who, on the ladder of life, kisses the feet of the man ahead and kicks Ihe head of the man behind.” “The soul of improvement is the improvement of the soul.” “There is no birth without a pang.” “No man ever saw his own face.” “What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his smile?” “What good is a looking-glass lo a blind man?"