| The Glory of the Common Life |
Chapter 6 |
Page 3 |
In all this manifesting, Jesus was God, showing how God loves. “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” We are to love as Christ loved. It is said that one day an aide-de-camp of the Emperor Nicolas threw himself at his sovereign’s feet in great excitement and begged that he might be allowed to fight a duel. The emperor emphatically refused to grant the request. “But I have been dishonoured; I must fight!” Cried the young officer. The czar asked him what he meant. “I have been struck in the face,” he answered. “Well,” said the emperor, “for all that, thou shalt not fight. But come with me.” Taking the young man by the arm, the emperor led him into the presence of the court, which was assembled in an adjoining room. He then, in the presence of the highest officers of his empire, kissed the cheek on which the young man had been struck. “The insult had been effaced,” the emperor said. “Go in peace.”
For we can find no place in the world where personal wrongs and injuries cannot reach us. People will not always deal fairly with us. There will be some one who is not gentle, some one who will speak words which are bitter and unjust, who slights us or cuts us, who wrongs or insults us, who, as it were, slaps us on the cheek. As Christians, what should we do? We know what the world’s men do in such experiences. Shall we act differently? Men of the world think meekness, patience in enduring wrong, the spirit of forgiveness, marks of weakness. Oh, no; they are distinctly marks of strength. Revenge is characteristic of the world’s people, but to be a Christian is to endure wrongs. We are to give love for hate, to return good for evil. Thus only can we be the sons of our Father, and become perfect as he is perfect.
Another duty set down among the laws of the kingdom is loving our enemies. “I say unto you, love your enemies.” How many of us, who call ourselves Christian, habitually do this? How many of us pray for those who persecute us? Yet that is what we must do if we would be perfect, as our heavenly Father is perfect. It is easy enough to love certain people and be kind to them. It is easy in your evening prayer to ask God to bless those who have been kind to you that day, who have spoken affectionate words to you, who have helped you over the hard places, whose love has brightened the way for you. But here is one who was unjust to you, who treated you rudely, who spoke to you, or of you, bitterly, falsely, and who tried in some way to injure you. Is it easy, when you make your evening prayer, to ask God to bless this person and to forgive him, to do him good? Yet that is what he requires. “Pray for them that persecute you.”
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