There are excellent men whose goodness is rugged and cold like the bare granite rocks. It is strong, firm, true, upright, but lacks the finer graces of [Christlike] piety. It is quite possible to love and not be kindly affectioned. There are homes in which there is love that would make any sacrifice, but in which hearts are starving for kindly expression. There is a dearth of those tender words and thoughtful little acts that a true gentleness would suggest. There are fathers who love their children and would give their lives for them who are yet wanting in those kindly expressions that so endear the parental relation. There are friendships that are true enough, but which are not hallowed by those graceful attentions and those tokens of thoughtfulness that cost so little and are worth so much. There are men whose hearts are full of benevolent dispositions toward the need, and of sincere sympathy for those who suffer, in whose lives none of these benevolent thoughts or feeling of compassion take practical form. There are men with kindly natures whose manners are gruff and rude. Others boast of honest frankness in speech whose words are so harsh or ill timed as to give immeasurable pain. Then how rare is that wise tact which seems always to know what one is in need of and comes always at the very right moment with its delicate attention, its unostentatious ministry, its quiet help!...There is great need, therefore, of thought with regard to the fitting expression of love. The kindly feeling must find some way to utter itself—a way, too, in keeping with the beauty of the sentiment. Many a lovely thought loses all its loveliness when clothed in speech or act. The benevolence of the heart must show itself in amiability of deportment and in deeds of mercy. Manner is as important as matter. The gruff man can never impart much happiness to others. Kindness must be kindly expressed.

 

There is a great difference between loving people we never saw—and never shall see—and those with whom we mingle continually in actual contact. There are some persons whose souls glow with love for the benighted heathen far away who fail utterly in loving their nearest neighbors or those who jostle against them every day in business and in society. No doubt, it is easier to love some people at a distance. Distance lends enchantment to many lives, just as a far away rugged landscape may seem charmingly picturesque. We cannot see their faults and blemishes. We are not required to endure their uncongenial or disagreeable qualities. We do not meet them in the rivalries of business or chafings of social life. We see nothing of the petty meanness and selfishness that closer association would reveal in them. Our lives are not impinged upon at any point by theirs, and there can therefore be no friction. If we were brought into close association with them, our interest in them might be lessened. Many men who have been excellent friends while meeting occasionally and in favorable circumstances have ceased to be friends when brought into close contact in the attritions of daily life. Few characters will bear the microscopic lens.

 

But the test of true Christian love is that it does not fail even in the closest relations, in the most trying frictions of actual life, in which men so often appear at their worst. Charity beareth all things and never faileth. When hitherto undisclosed and unsuspected faults or blemishes appear in one we have esteemed, we are not to love him the less. Disagreeable qualities may appear upon closer acquaintance that will break the charm that distance lent and sorely test the genuineness of our love. There may be faults or eccentricities that painfully mar the beauty of men’s characters, rendering them uncongenial. Their actions toward us may give us apparent cause for withholding from them that courtesy and kindness that it is our wont to manifest to all men.

 

Yet none of these things modifies the law of love or abridges its application. In all our intercourse with them, our treatment of them is to be in the spirit of the sweetest charity. No rudeness of theirs must provoke us to rudeness in return. No matter how distasteful to our spirits their habits or manners may be, we are to treat them with unvarying courtesy. Even wrongs and injustice on their part toward us are to be answered only by that love that beareth all things and is not easily provoked, by the soft answer that turneth away wrath, and by the meekness that when reviled revileth not again (1Peter 2:23).

 

We are not required to take all sorts of people into intimate companionship or sacred friendship. There are many from whom we are commanded to separate ourselves. Even among the good, our hearts are permitted to have choice of their affinities. Yet we are to cherish love toward all. In the face of the most repulsive qualities, even under the deepest wrongs, we are still to maintain and exhibit love in all its tenderness, patience, thoughtfulness, compassion, and helpfulness—not the love that calls evil good, but the love that desires for others the blessings that we seek for ourselves.

 

To help in bearing with disagreeable people or those with unamiable qualities, there is nothing better than a sincere wish to do them good. There is a better side to every marred or distorted character. Hidden away under the blemishes are the germs and possibilities of a noble and beautiful life. Christ sees under the most faulty exterior that which by His grace He can exalt into heavenly sainthood. We should look even upon the worst men in the same way, and hold it to be our errand to them to help to bring out in them the possible beauty. There is a key somewhere to unlock any and every heart, and a hand that can bring betterment to every life. If we meet men and women, no matter how distorted their character, with a sincere desire to help and to bless them, we shall find it an easy task to bear with them and treat them lovingly…

 

He meant that the most favorable time to judge of the excellence of a painting is the twilight hour when there is not light enough to distinguish details. Then, defects in execution cannot be seen, and the artist’s thought glows in its richest beauty. In like manner, the close of the day of life is the truest time to look at human character. In the noon glare all men’s faults appear. Jealousies, emulations, and rivalries show us to each other in the heat of clashing, conflicting life in most unfavorable light. We are apt to put the worst construction upon each other’s actions and motives. We see each other through the defective and distorting vision of our own selfishness. All the evil appears magnified, and many of the better things are unperceived or shown in false settings. But when the shadows of the evening of eternity begin to fall upon us, we see each other with the asperities softened and with the blemishes covered by the veil of charity. When the fierce competitions are hushed, we see man in truer light. We do justice then to their virtues and better qualities. Envy and prejudice in us no longer magnify the evil that is in them, while the good shines out in transfigured splendor.

 

When we sit beside a man’s deathbed, we have no harsh judgments to pronounce. Beauties appear that we had never observed before; and imperfections fade out in the softening, mellowing glow that streams from the gates of the eternal world. How kindly we feel toward him in that hour! Can we not learn to look at men always, as we shall at the close of the day? Then it will be easy to feel and to exhibit toward all that love that never faileth, that thinketh no evil, that hopeth all things.