INASMUCH as many people need help towards reformation, it were well that attention be given by each of us to reforming his own habits. We should strive to walk in the right way till it becomes habitual. Of wisdom it is said, "Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace." From those who walk with wisdom, we have nothing to fear. They are not troublemakers. They do not cheat, lie, steal, originate or circulate false rumors, set traps for the unwary, make themselves hurtful to the weak, nor exploit the poor. They work as builders, producers, employers, constructors, benefactors. They are not only useful, but also happy; both give and receive blessings, for the fact is that wisdom is assuredly "justified of her children."
The forming of good habits requires many resistances of temptation. Indolence, for example, tempts one to neglect a duty with the argument that someone else will attend to it. In a family, the happiness of the whole depends upon willing cooperation of every member. Quite often it is the patient mother whose love for the whole family makes her do the service the negligent one forgets; but her selflessness is unwise if it fosters selfishness in another. The selfishly nurtured child may become the tyrannous man, denying others their rights, or the designing woman, making a specialty of schemes to defraud others. The way of mutual kindness is the happy way; and warm hearts in children who laugh heartily and forgive frankly and rejoice in the welfare of others, will assure in age peacefulness and ability to meet the meanness of the world, not with resentfulness, but with Christian charity.
As against the motto, "Live and let live," urging us to rejoice in the whole creation, is the habit of intolerance, resenting difference, and condemning others for creed, color, opinions, fashion of dress, or mode of speech. In creation is infinite variety. The intolerant person will not have it so. He would have others bend to his will or be broken, accept his creed or be outcast, follow his fashion or be counted barbarian. The wise man can learn from the extremist, who considers most men sinners, and would destroy them. He can wisely think of salvation instead of doom. A greatly loved bishop phrased his advice out of much experience, saying that we must learn to be "tolerant with the intolerant."
