SUNDAY READINGS.
SELECTED BY CHANCELLOR J. H. VINCENT, D.D.
[June 7.]
Courtesy is, strictly speaking, a Christian grace.… It is the offspring of charity; and since it derives its being from divine grace; since it is made the subject of divine command; since it is especially calculated to smooth those little asperities which sometimes hinder even “the living stones of the temple” from being so perfectly joined and so fitly framed together as they should be; since it powerfully tends, likewise, to remove the prejudices and to allay the enmity so generally entertained by the world toward the church; above all, since, in combination with other causes it may contribute to win souls to God, we surely ought not to deem it unsuitable, but to make it … the subject of our particular and attentive consideration.… While some professed disciples of Christ seem to have substituted in the place of genuine courtesy a conformity to the manners and habits of ungodly men, which very ill consists with that simplicity of character which should distinguish the remnant of true Israelites, there are others who, through an honest disgust toward the impertinent fopperies of the world, and an ill-directed fear of becoming infected with the same spirit of guile and hypocrisies, have even run so far into the opposite extreme of churlishness as to be culpably negligent of the mere forms of civilized society.
The courtesy of the world is an imposing form.… But the courtesy of a Christian is not a mere form. It is not the phantasm of a feeling which has no real existence. It is the outward expression of an inward disposition, the conduct which a benevolent mind will on all occasions instinctively prescribe. It is the natural and unconstrained operation of unfeigned love. Let us but love our neighbor as ourselves, and it will be morally impossible to violate the laws of courtesy; for love worketh no ill to his neighbor. It will teach us cautiously to avoid whatever might unnecessarily wound his feelings; it will dispose us assiduously to study his inclination, ease, and convenience; it will make us anxious to interpret his very looks, that we may even anticipate his requests; it will enable us cheerfully to make a sacrifice of our own gratifications with a view to his. All this is perfectly easy; it is even delightful where love exists without dissimulation; but let this heavenly principle be wanting, take away from the form of courtesy the power, and it becomes an arduous and irksome task, a yoke grievous to be borne.—Summerfield.[1]