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: Our Attitude toward Those Who Fail

And in the third place, is there no proof of this in the attitude of society towards its failures? I do not wish to seem to speak unkindly, yet nothing is gained by shutting the eyes to facts.

• Now suppose a man to be prospering in the world, is he not a target for a good deal of malevolence?
• Is it not rarely that you hear him generously judged, with a noble forgetfulness of his faults?

But let that man meet with some great reverses, and be crushed under a series of disasters, and I need scarcely tell you what usually follows. There may be one or two who say “I told you so,” and who gloat over the misfortune of a brother. There are far more who are genuinely sorry, and who forget their former bitterness of judgment. And now for the first time, they become generous, and they forget old grudges and offences, and they do it, mark you, then and then alone when their neighbour has passed from his equality. Let him recover himself and take his former place, and the snarling is certain to begin again. The bitterness that was withering for a season will spring up in the new sunshine of prosperity. From which we gather that it is an easy thing to be generous and kind to our inferiors, but one of the hardest things in life to be just and generous to our equals.

TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW ……..