| Strength and Beauty |
Chapter 23 |
Page 5 |
We should also train ourselves to charitable judgments of others. As the faults of our own character are corrected, our eyes will become clearer, and we shall see others in a truer light. Many of our judgments of others are unjust. Then even if the faults our eyes seem to see do exist, we have no right to pronounce sentence. We do not know what reasons there are for leniency of judgment. Some day you find a man very disagreeable, irritable, easily vexed, or unsocial, not disposed to be cordial. You are inclined to be impatient with him, perhaps even to regard his unhappy mood so seriously as to allow it to break the friendly relations which heretofore have existed between you and him.
But does not the better self within you say to you that it is not right to make up a final judgment from the mood of any one day? You do not know what may have occurred to produce in your neighbor the spirit which has given you such annoyance. It may be ill health that has affected him – there are certain physical conditions which make it very hard for the sufferer to keep sweet. Or something may have gone wrong with his business, causing him much anxiety. Any one ought to be pleasant when all things are prosperous; but it is a much severer test of character to keep pleasant when there are reverses, when one is losing money, and when one’s affairs are in discouraging condition.
Or there may be other troubles which no neighbor suspects. Not all life’s pains cause outcry which men hear; not all griefs hang crape on the door. The bitterest sorrows must ofttimes be borne in silence and in secret, only God knowing of them. We know not what burdens of personal pain and trial any life that seems sunny and glad may be bearing. Perhaps this may be the cause of the uncongeniality and the unlovableness which so much offends you in your neighbor.
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