| The Every Day of Life |
Chapter 22 |
Page 5 |
The same rule should be observed in all our relations with others. Long ago St. Paul taught that we should never let the sun go down upon our wrath. If frictions occur in our busy days, and strife’s mar the pleasure of our intercourse with neighbors or friends, we must make sure, he said; that before the setting of the sun all bitterness shall pass out of our heart, as we pray, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us.”
This is a lesson we would do well to carry into practice with very literal application. No resentment should ever be allowed to live in our heart over night. Every feeling of bitterness, of anger, of malice, of envy or jealousy that the day may have aroused in our breast should be put away before the last hour passes. If we have injured another by a word or act, we should hasten before we sleep to make amends and seek the restoration of the peace of love, which we have broken. If we have omitted any duty of kindness, any ministry of affection, which we ought to have rendered, we should hasten to do, even so tardily, the neglected service, before the day altogether closes.
We should never lay our head on the pillow while any of the day’s duties of love remain not done. We should never sleep with any friend’s heart carrying hurt from us, which we have not sought to heal with love. We should never let a day end with record of duty to one of the least of Christ’s little one’s neglected… God hears the cries of his children, and knows of their sufferings and their tears, when the help or the comfort they needed came not.
We need only, therefore, to make each day complete and beautiful with the completeness and beauty of fulfilled duty.There will always be sins and faults and mistakes in even the best day’s record; but if we have been truly faithful, doing what we could, God will receive our work, blotting out its stains, filling up its defects, and correcting its faults. At the close of such a day we can breathe the beautiful evening prayer of Elizabeth Stuart Phelps:–
“Take unto thyself, O Father !
This folded day of thine,
This weary way of mine;
Its ragged corners cut me yet.
Oh, still the jar and fret!
Father, do not forget
That I am tired
With this day of thine.
Breathe thy pure breath, watching Father,
On this marred day of thine,
This wandering day of mine;
Be patient with its blur and blot,
Wash it white of stain and spot,
Reproachful eyes! Remember not
That I have grieved thee,
On this day of thine.”
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