The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1916-07-22
ACCEPTING AN APOLOGY.

(Aunt Bride, in Sacred Heart Review.)
How do you accept an apology and
how do you take a criticism? A
thoughtful, honest answer will help
lot in classifying yourself.
If you have actually learned to &C.
cept a sincere apology generously and
tactfully, and to look criticism in the
face and ask if it may not be quite
true instead of resenting it, you are
making progress beyond a doubt. In
deed Aunt Bride would feel quite safe
in marking ,yoq alb!s about out. ninety per cent
efficient in the art of living, on that
count alone.
One of the hardest things in the
world is to bring oneself to say SIM
ply: 81 was quite wrong and am
sorry" Then when you have brought
yourself to the point of "eating hum
BILE pie" to be Inundated and treated
with coldness! Truly it is nearly i'm
possible to do it at all next time.
Indeed many an effort at better doing
is nipped in the bud by just that sort
of reception of a sincere apology. If
you have acquired the rarely clear
vision which sees things in their
proper relations you know that the
person who receives an apology in a
spirit of resentment is short in the
art of living, not you who have made
the amends. You have done your
part. She has failed in hers. If when
you have brought yourself to the point
of saying you are at fault as we'll as
making the other amends the case
well, that's fine of you to say so!
Let's not think about the matter any
more" you would both be gamers.
Most of us when we have done
something unkind or rude or hurtful
in some other way, find it much
easier to make amends by doing a
favor, even at considerable inconveni-
ence, or to make a gift or to say
something nice where we know it will
be carried back. We can do anything
but say right out we were wrong and
are sorry. But of course it is the
hard things we have to learn to do.
No one amounts to row of pins who
side-steps everything except the
things he likes.
Perhaps with grown-ups the way
you accept an apology matters most to
yourself. If you are failure at that
particular bit of your days work, the
other party simply sets you down as
such, and unless she is rather in.
competent person herself she doesn't
- S,,q D,1A NTH
it's much more serious matter. The
other day Aunt Bride happened to be
present when fearful little girl came
in and said: ooh, mamma, I'm sc
sorry / forgot to do what you told
me-" And what do you suppose that
foolish mother did? She looked coldly
at that flushed and frightened little
face and said: THAT doesn't hell
matters any" And the child, hurt
beyond measure, went out of the room
BY and by, unless that mother changes
her tactics, she will be bewailing the
fact that her daughter seems almost
a stranger to her. She is far more
confidential and companionable witt
outsiders than with her own mother
The snub administered to the child!
apology will be quite forgotten. If the
young woman remembers, which il
not likely, and tells her mother, the
latter will dismiss it as of no conse
quence But such incidents are bi:
to child. Perhaps there are no little
things really. You remember tina
line, "a wasp is but small affair
But, patience! how ne stings!" Sup
pose instead of saying coldly in repl,
to the little girls apology: "Tha
doesn't help now" her mother ha'
told her that she was glad her littl
daughter was sorry and that she ha'
said So And then later when the
were alone together she should hav
explained that while being sorry an