LOVING OUR FRIENDS

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · April 22, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 17

LOVING OUR FRIENDS.

It is wonderful, the exquisite pain we contrive to give to people whom we really love very much. We give it by snarling and snapping, saying sarcastic, biting things, the idlers of the family being often the busiest in this occupation. Now, with the bee, we forgive the sting for the sake of the honey; but who can forgive the wasp? And who could forgive the bee if he stung, not his enemies, but his friends? And that is what some of you do; and, oh! the sting rankles and poisons the lives of people for whom, I verily believe, you would lay down your own life. Yes; you would die for them, but you will not check your ill-temper or your ill-feeling enough to enable you to live with them. “When two conscientious people quarrel, both think themselves right. Hard words, at least, will not mend the matter; one might as well try to mend glass windows by pelting them with stones.”

Will you learn from a child? Two boys were caught in a snow-storm. When they were found, the elder was shivering, having taken off his overcoat to wrap around his younger brother. Will you learn from a heathen? Euclid—a mathematical abstraction to most of us—having offended his brother, the latter cried out in a rage, “Let me die if I am not revenged on you!” to whom Euclid replied, “And let me die if I do not soften you by my kindness, and make you love me as well as ever.”—Selected.