“Who fain would help in this world of ours,
Where sorrowful steps must fall,
Bring help in time to the waning powers
Ere the bier is spread with the pall;
Nor send reserves when the flags are furled,
And the dead beyond your call.”
No lesson is harder to learn than the lesson of love. It may be found, too, that of love’s lessons those which refer to our fellow men are harder to get into our life than those which refer to God. It is easier to love one infinitely above us than the one who walks beside us every day. We find it difficult enough to love our close personal friends in the full, deep, rich, constant, unselfish way that the divine teaching requires. Even in the tenderest relations it is hard to be always patient, thoughtful, gentle, helpful, and free from envy and jealousy and all irritation.
Yet still more difficult is it to learn the larger lesson of loving our neighbor as ourself. We like to settle for ourself who our neighbor is; and then we like to decide upon just the way in which we shall show our love to him. But we really have nothing to do with either of these matters; we cannot select our neighbor, nor can we take our own way of loving him.
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