'
One false step, one stumble in life, one error in judgment, one outbreak
of an unbridled temperament, one small sin, if it is even so much as a
sin, of ignorance or of infirmity, will sometimes not only greatly injure
us at the time, but, in some cases, will fill all our future life with
trials and difficulties and dangers. Many of us shall have all our days
to face a future of defeat, humiliation, impoverishment, and many
hardships, that has not come on us on account of any presumptuous
transgression of God's law so much as simply out of some combination of
unfortunate circumstances in which we may have only done our duty, but
have not done it in the most serpent-like way. And when we are made to
suffer unjustly or disproportionately all our days for our error of
judgment or our want of the wisdom of this world, or what not, we are
sorely tempted to be bitter and proud and resentful and unforgiving, and
to go back from duty and endurance and danger altogether. But we must
not. We must rather say to ourselves, Now and here, if not in the past,
I must play the man, and, by God's help, the wise man.
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