11. If you have done wrong to your neighbor, though the wrong be trifling, regard it as great; and if you have done good to your neighbor, though this good be g^eat, regard it as trifling; but even a slight good done to you regard as great.
The blessing of God will descend on him who gives to the poor; a double blessing will rest upon him who in giv-
ing to the poor receives them and lets them depart with kindness.
12. When doing good, be grateful for being able to do it.
True good is done by us only when we do it without noticing it; when we come out of our own self in order to live in others.
IV.
Goodness Overcomes All Things, But is Insuperable
Itself
1. All things can be resisted, excepting goodness alone.
2. Not the condemnation of evil, but the elevation of good is the means of establishing harmony in the life of the individual and of the world. An improperly disposed man condemns evil, but this condemnation is in itself the worst of evils, as it merely aids its growth, while paying no attention to it, but caring for that which is good will lead to the destruction of evil. Lucy Mallory.
3. He who loves to exert his mind in order to search out the law of his duty is close to the science of morality.
He who endeavors to do his duty is close to the love of humanity, that is to the desire to do good to all people.
He who blushes for his inefficiency in doing his duty is close to that strength of soul which is necessary to the proper fulfilment of duty. Chinese wisdom,
4. Morality cannot be independent of religion, for it is not only one of the effects of religion, that is of that relationship of man to the world of which he is conscious, but is already included in that relationship.
5. If there is a motive back of a good deed it is no
longer good, any more than if it has a reward as an effect. Good is beyond the chain of cause and effect.
6. Even as torches and fireworks pale and fade from sight in the radiance of the sun, so wisdom and even genius as well as beauty pale and fade before the goodness of beart. Schopenhauer.
7. Infinite tenderness is the greatest gift and possession of ail truly great. Ruskin.
8. The tenderest plants break their way through the toughest soil and through rocky fissures. Even so goodness. What wedge, what hammer, what battering ram can compare with the force of a good and sincere man ? Nothing can resist it. Thoreau.
9. Where there is a man there is an opportunity to do him good. Seneca.
To answer an evil word with a good one, to render favor in return for an injury, to turn the other cheek when your cheek is struck, this is the only means of taming Qialice.
V.
Kindness in Relations Between Men is Obligatory. If You are Not Good to a Man, You are Evil and Provoke lUwill in Him
1. Be not hard of heart towards him who is subjected to temptation, but try to comfort him even as you would desire to be comforted.
2. Do not put off until to-morrow what you can do today. Do not compel another to do that which you can do yourself. Pride costs more than all things needed for food, drink, shelter and raiment taken together.
3. To have done too little is rarely a cause (or regret What a lot of trouble do we go through on account of things that never happen, merely worrying that they might happen. If ai^ry count ten; if very angry count up to one hundred. Jefferson.
4. Despise no man, stifle in your heart all presumptuous judgment and insulting suspicions against your neighbor, strive to account for the actions and for the words of others with a guileless heart. Give others preference before yourself in all sincerity.
Goodness beautifies life and solves its contradictions, it clears up that which is perplexing, renders easy that which is difficult and turns glcxHn into joy.
VI.
GoodnesB is to the Soul What Healdi is to the Body; If
You Possess It You Do Not Notice It, and It Gives
You Success in Every Undertaking
1. People of highest virtue do not account themselves virtuous, and that is why they are virtuous. People of minor virtuous attainments never forget their virtues, and that is why they are not virtuous. Highest virtue does not assert itself nor proclaim itself. Virtue of lowest order asserts and proclaims itself.
Ktndheartedness of the highest order acts, but does not try to proclaim itself. Kindheartedness of the lowest order asserts itself and tries to proclaim itself.
Justice of the highest order acts, but does not try to proclaim itself. Justice of the lowest order acts and tries to proclaim itself.
Propriety of the highest order acts hut does not try to proclaim itself. Pn^riety of the lowest order acts, but
when it fails to evoke a response, it enforces obedience to its dictates.
Thus when virtue of the highest order is lost, kind-heartedness supplants it; when kindheartedness is lost, justice supplants it; but when justice is lost propriety supplants it.
The rules of propriety are only the semblance of truth and the origin of all disorder. Wit is a blossom of reason, but the origin of ignorance.
For this reason the man of holy life clings to the fruit and not to the blossom, he rejects the latter and clings to the former. Lao-Tse,
2. The man of highest virtues strives to walk upon the path of rectitude to the end. To go half-way and weaken, this is the thing to be afraid of. Chinese wisdom.
. 3. Virtue in man must have the property of a precious stone which unalterably preserves its natural beauty no matter what happens to it. Marcus Aurelius.
4. The consciousness of a good life is its ample reward. Learn the joy of doing good. 'Do good secretly and blush if it is made known.
5. Man increases his happiness to the extent that he brings it into the lives of others. Bentham.
6. It is the will of God that we live by mutual happiness, and not by mutual unhappiness and the death of others. People help one another with their joys and not with sorrow. Ruskin.
7. The well-being of a plant is in the light; therefore a plant which is grown in the open can not question, nor does indeed question, in which direction it must grow,
whether the light is good or not, or if it should not rather wait for some other or better light, but accepts the one light that there is in the world and strives towards it; even so the man who has renoimced selfish well-being does not argue what portion of the things taken from others he might give away; and to what favored creatures, or whether there is some higher love than the one which has proclaimed its demands, which is accessible to him and is immediately before him. And there is no other love than to lay down your soul for your neighbor; love is <Mily then love when it is a sacrifice of self. Only when a man gives to another not only his time and his strength, but when he consumes his body for the object of his love, when he yields up his very life, only that do we all rec<^ise as love and only therein do we all find blessedness, which is the reward of love. And only thanks to the fact that there is such love among people, thanks to this fact alone does the world exist.
Nothing so beautifies life as an established habit of being good.
VII.
Goodness is Not Only Virtue and Joy, But is Also a
Weapon of Combat
1. It is difficult to be kind to a vicious and lying man, particularly to one who insults us, but it is just the kind of a man to whom we must be good, both for his sake and for our own.
2. "Then came Peter to him, and said. Lord, how oft shall my father sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?
"Jesus saith unto him, 'I say not unto thee, Until seven times; but Until seventy times seven.'"
Matthew, XVIII. 21-22.