MAY 9
"We can recall occasions in which we have been impatient, inconsiderate, self-willed, self-asserting. We have sharply resented some want of good taste: we have made light of a scruple or of a difficulty which weighed heavily on another: we have yielded ungraciously a service which may have been claimed inopportunely: we have been exact in requiring conventional deference to our judgment: we have not checked the keen word, or the smile which might be interpreted to assert a proud superiority.
"In all this we may have been justifiable according to common rules of conduct; but we have given offence. We have not, that is, shewn, when we might have shewn, that Christian sympathy, devotion, fellowship, come down to little things; that the generosity of love looks tenderly, if by any means it may find the soul which has not revealed itself."
Bishop Westcott.
"Seek the graces of God with all your strength; but above all seek the graces that specially belong to heaven. Try hard to be humble, to be free from all conceit, to question your own opinions, to give up your own way, to put simplicity first among all excellences of character, to be ready to think yourself in the wrong, to prefer others to yourself; for this character is nearest to God's heart, and to babes who are of this sort does God reveal His most secret mysteries."
Bishop Temple.
May 10
"The spectrum of Love has nine ingredients:—
Patience—'Love suffereth long.'
Kindness—'And is kind.'
Generosity—'Love envieth not.'
Humility—'Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up.'
Courtesy—'Doth not behave itself unseemly.'
Unselfishness—'Seeketh not her own.'
Good Temper—'Is not easily provoked.'
Guilelessness—'Thinketh no evil.'
Sincerity—'Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in
the truth.'