Oh, many a shaft at random sent Finds mark the archer little meant !
I no longer wear my heart upon my sleeve, "for daws to peck at." But there is not a conversation, there is not a book I read, there is not a visit I pay, that does not cut deep traces in the " Calais " of my heart.3
(1) At the very outset, it is essential that there should be respect for other people's views. Men do not think alike in this world. They cannot. Many may be inclined to regard the results which we have reached through patience and toil and tribulation, not only with opposition, but resentment ; while we in turn may look upon them with contempt because they have not yet caught up with our vision. How poor and mean and petty must they be whose horizon is bounded and circumscribed !
1 H. W. Horwill. 2 George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss.
8 Life and Letters of the Rev. F. W. Robertson, 455.
i CORINTHIANS ix. 22 245
Of course the truth is one and clear, — easily discerned — and we have it. Nothing but stupidity or obstinacy could prevent any- body from beholding it as well as we. Thus does some heartless and incompetent teacher belabour a backward boy (whose back- wardness is due perhaps to defective vision or imperfect hearing or defect in some of the other faculties of perception) because he cannot keep pace with those to whom God has given every need- ful endowment. When we give way to our natural impulses we are impatient and intolerant. It is this spirit that has poured the gall of bitterness without measure into social and domestic life, filled neighbourhoods with discord, sown the seeds of strife among the nations of mankind and not infrequently deluged the earth with blood.
If Without sympathy in the high sense of intellectual penetration, kindness may be only folly, and intended aid, oppression.1
(2) There must be respect for other men's convictions. These are things to which men come, often by painful effort, and always with solemnity. Few men are willing to abandon them without a struggle. They may be false, but they are precious. Not infrequently they are interwoven with the holiest traditions. For the sake of them, their holders are frequently willing and eager to wear the martyr's crown. The fact that we may know or think we know other men's convictions to be false, does not alter the obligation to treat them with respect. For when we reflect we must perceive that there is some real reason for every deep-seated conviction. And not until there is a mutual ap- proach, not until there is a disposition manifest to acknowledge that there is some sanity in an opponent's view, do the conditions exist for a real advance. One lesson which the experience of human conflict has clearly taught is that before there can be liberty for new thought there must be deference and courtesy paid to the older belief.
Tf There is an incident in point in the life of the Eev. John Murker of Banff. A new church had been built, but not without strong opposition from some of the older members. Murker himself tells what occurred : —
At last the day arrived when we had to bid farewell to
1 Ruskin, A Knight's Faith ( Works, xxxi. 386).
246 ADAPTABILITY
the old time-honoured building. The services were of a char- acter suitable to the occasion. In the morning my text was — " If thy presence go not with us, carry us not up hence " ; in the evening — "Speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward," trying to blend in my discourses tender reverence for the past with a consciousness of duty for the present. At the close of the evening service, I felt in no mood to stand in the vestry with the deacons, as was my custom, but hurried home seeking retirement and privacy for my thoughts. I had not been more than an hour seated in my study when an uncontrollable desire seized me to go back and look at the old place once more, before it was turned to secular use, as was to be the case on Monday morning. It was a clear, frosty night, and I slipped down to the chapel as quietly as possible, so as not to attract observation. My difficulty was how to get in. I did not like to go to the beadle for the key ; but, to my astonishment, as I was passing, I found the key in the lock, and, without stopping to inquire how this was, or thinking any more about it, stepped in. I was soon disturbed in my musings by the suppressed sounds of a voice familiar to my ear ; I listened attentively, and turning round to one of the square seats near the pulpit, I dimly saw the figure of one of my senior members whom I deeply respected, but who had grieved me somewhat by his lukewarm- ness with respect to the building of the new chapel. There he was kneeling beside the seat on which he had sat when a laddie, and he was so much absorbed in his prayer as not to hear my footsteps. Afraid to move lest I should disturb him, I stood still and could not but listen to the broken sentences that reached my ear as his voice rose above a whisper and swelled into audible tones. The following bits of his fervent supplication ejaculated forth as the tears came streaming down his cheeks. I distinctly heard : — " For forty years this place has been a Bethel to me ; here I was born again. . . . But if we maun leave this house may Thy presence gang wi' us . . . forgive my obstinateness, mak' the cause even mair prosperous in the new chapel. . . . Come doon, 0 Lord, come doon in Thy power. . . . Bless oor young pastor. . . . Lift upon him and us a' the licht o' Thy coontenance, and mak' the little ane a thousand."