| Things to Live For |
Chapter 14 |
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Many of us would like to write out love’s duty to one’s neighbor in a series of “Thou shalt nots.” This would make it much easier. It is not so hard to refrain from doing our neighbor harm as it is to reach out our hand to do him good. With a little effort at self control we can resist the impulse to return blow for blow, to demand tooth for tooth, to repay unkindness with unkindness; but is requires very much more grace to give a kiss for a blow, to return kindness for unkindness, to repay wrong and injustice with meekness and mercy.
In one of our Lord’s wonderful parables we have an example of loving by not doing harm, and set over against it, the true ideal of loving by doing good and serving. The story is familiar. Neither the priest nor the Levite did the wounded many any harm. It was the robbers who hurt him almost to death. The men who passed by were good men, with kind hearts and gentle feelings. They felt sorry for the poor man. One of them lingered a moment, and told the sufferer that he was very sorry he had been hurt so badly. They would not have done him any injury for the world, – this good priest fresh from his sacred functions, and this Levite with hands consecrated to holy service.
No; and yet somehow the story reads as if they had done something not just right, as if they had injured the wounded man in some way. When we think the matter through, we find that the Master means to teach us that we may do sore wrong to others by not doing love’s duties to them.
We do not think much of this kind of sins. At the close of the day we examine ourselves, and review our record to find wherein we should confess sin. We remember the hasty word we spoke, which gave pain to a tender heart, and also grieved the Holy Spirit. We recall our self indulgence, our unkind feelings, our selfish acts, our envying and jealousies, our impatience and anger, and we make confession of all these sins, asking forgiveness. But do we make confession of the things we did not do which we ought to have done? Are we penitent for our failures to do deeds of kindness? During the day we have passed by on the other side of many a human need and want and danger; do we confess these neglects among the day’s sins? The “other side: is too well trodden by many of us. The path is beaten hard by our feet.
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