HH, Sir Godfrey Gregg D.Div

And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out, and intreated him.–Luke 15:28

Failures of Our Duties to Our Equals: Among Those Who Have a Common Calling

In the second place, we witness the same thing in the larger area of a common calling. It is notorious how little sympathy there often is between those who are brothers invocation. I have heard a doctor say more unkind things about a brother doctor than about any other person in the world. I have heard one literary man decry another in a way no reader would ever dream of doing. And “depend upon it,” said a well-known friend to me the other day, “the nastiest things ever said about us are some of the things said by our brother-ministers.” Now send that doctor out among his patients, and he may be the very soul of skilful kindness. Watch that minister visiting the poor, and he may do it with the most genuine sympathy.

• It is not with inferiors that the strain comes–
• It is not there that duty is most difficult–
• It is in the circles where all stand alike and are on the social footing of equality.

I think that even in the band of the disciples we may discern the truth of this. The last lesson which they seem to have learned was the lesson of living harmoniously together. It was not so difficult to be loyal to Jesus. It was not so difficult to bless the poor. But what was difficult, right to the very end, was to live together without quarrelling.

TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW …..