I must take care when I say, Forgive me my trespasses,
as I forgive them that trespass against me. Not to seven times must I
grudgingly forgive, but ungrudgingly to seventy times seven. For with
what judgment I judge, I shall be judged; and with what measure I mete,
it shall be measured to me again.
'Love harbours no suspicious thought,
Is patient to the bad:
Grieved when she hears of sins and crimes,
And in the truth is glad.'
4. And then, most difficult and most dangerous, but most necessary of
all patience, we must learn how to be patient with ourselves. Every day
we hear of miserable men rushing upon death because they can no longer
endure themselves and the things they have brought on themselves. And
there are moral suicides who cast off the faith and the hope and the
endurance of a Christian man because they are so evil and have lived such
an evil life. We speak of patience with bad men, but there is no man so
bad, there is no man among all our enemies who has at all hurt us like
that man who is within ourselves. And to bear patiently what we have
brought upon ourselves,--to endure the inward shame, the self-reproof,
the self-contempt bitterer to drink than blood, the lifelong injuries,
impoverishment, and disgrace,--to bear all these patiently and
uncomplainingly,--to acquiesce humbly in the discovery that all this was
always in our hearts, and still is in our hearts--what humility, what
patience, what compassion and pity for ourselves must all that call
forth! The wise nurse is patient with her passionate, greedy, untidy,
disobedient child.
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