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The Ministry of Healing
Until the judgment you will never know the influence of a kind,
considerate course toward the inconsistent, the unreasonable, the
unworthy. When we meet with ingratitude and betrayal of sacred
trusts, we are roused to show our contempt or indignation. This
the guilty expect; they are prepared for it. But kind forbearance
takes them by surprise and often awakens their better impulses and
arouses a longing for a nobler life.
“Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual,
restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself,
lest thou also be tempted. Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so
fulfill the law of Christ.”
Galatians 6:1, 2
.
All who profess to be children of God should bear in mind that
as missionaries they will be brought into contact with all classes of
minds. There are the refined and the coarse, the humble and the
proud, the religious and the skeptical, the educated and the ignorant,
the rich and the poor. These varied minds cannot be treated alike;
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yet all need kindness and sympathy. By mutual contact our minds
should receive polish and refinement. We are dependent upon one
another, closely bound together by the ties of human brotherhood.
“Heaven forming each on other to depend,
A master or a servant or a friend,
Bids each on other for assistance call,
Till one man’s weakness grows the strength of all.”
It is through the social relations that Christianity comes in contact
with the world. Every man or woman who has received the divine
illumination is to shed light on the dark pathway of those who are
unacquainted with the better way. Social power, sanctified by the
Spirit of Christ, must be improved in bringing souls to the Saviour.
Christ is not to be hid away in the heart as a coveted treasure, sacred
and sweet, to be enjoyed solely by the possessor. We are to have
Christ in us as a well of water, springing up into everlasting life,
refreshing all who come in contact with us.
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