Norwich bulletin., 1912-07-13
SUNDAY MORNING TALK
OUR ENEMIES AND WHAT TO DO
 WITH THEM.

It is not necessarily to ones dis credit that there are some people who do not like him. No more difficult feat was ever attempted than to try to live in this world and please every body, And the more high minded and energetic person is the more difficult it becomes. Some of the ehicest and most useful souls in history have been the most cordially hated.
 It becomes a question of no small importance what to do with our ene- mics. On the consideration alone of ones peace of mind a proper attitude and department must be determined. In few other matters will consistent philosophy prove more helpful.
 Let us concede at the start that our enemy is well within his rights in not fancying us. We need not accuse him of being dishonest scoundrel because our personality does not ap peal to him or our actions please him. Only an unpardonabla egotist or 0 hopeless baby could raise snarling re- volt against every bit of opposition he receives,
 But enemies are not to be taken too seriously, Their hatred of us Is not to be overestimated, for one thing, As a matter of fact not many of them arc lying awake nights thinking how | to do us harm, Reflect how it is in | your own case. There are plenty of people you do not like but your enmity, | suah as it is, has never seemed to you 8 particularly significant matter | You are not blood thirsty at people of | whom you disapproVe. And, by the | same token, people who disapproVe of | yeu are not actually seeking your life, l fl is felly to be rushed into moral stampede the minute we realize that there are people in the world who do net like us.
 Tine rule of Christ in this matter Is very simple and definite Love your enemies" He said, do good to them that hate you and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute 1 you" At no other point do Christian ethics seem higher or more difficult of attainment. When a man who has been deeply wronged or relentlessly perseeuted comes upon this sentence ir the New Testament he usually shuts the book in impotence at such impos- siblo counsel.
 For one I do not believe we are expected to cherish exactly the same sentiments of attraction toward oui enemies that we have toward oul friends, Normal human beings can not possibly take the same delight 1T those that hate them as in those that love them and do them good. Il should be remembered that feeling is after all but one element of love, per haps the lesser part. The substanct of love consists in a fixed purpose t do a person good and not evil Ant this is a possible ideal even in the presence of the shabbiest treatment.
 l am sure we are near the spirit O the great Christian command, what. ever our feeling may be, when w, pursue such a course with an enem! as shall tend to bring him to q bette
 mind and not to increase his resent
 ment.
 If almost anyone should sit down {,
 make honest inventory of the force that had whipped him into moral forn
 he must surely find a place for hi enemies Weakness, pain, sorrow , peverty-ali these have done their part 1 And SO have the people who have criti cized and opposed us. They have kep US from vainglery and induced