Page:MyPrayerBookHappinessInGoodness.djvu/59

 "In charity,"  says  St.  Mary  Magdalen  of  Pazzi, "we must  be  cheerful  and  prompt,  knowing  that  by serving  our  fellow-creatures,  we  serve  God  in  His members,  and  that  He  regards  a  service  done  to  our neighbor  as  done  to  Himself."

t. Paul,  writing  to  the  Corinthians,  ascribes  to charity  all  the  virtues  that  make  a  perfect  man: "Charity is  patient,  is  kind;  charity  envieth  not, dealeth  not  perversely;  is  not  puffed  up,  is  not  ambitious; seeketh  not  her  own;  is  not  provoked  to  anger; thinketh  no  evil;  rejoiceth  not  in  iniquity,  but  rejoiceth  with  the  truth;  beareth  all  things,  believeth  all things,  endureth  all  things"  (i  Cor.  xiii.  4-7). And writing to  the  Colossians  he  says:  "Above  all  things have  charity,  which  is  the  bond  of  perfection"  (Col. iii.  14). "Let each  one  love  his  brother";  says  St. Alphonsus  Liguori. "We have  each  our  faults.  He, who  has  to  put  up  with  his  brother's  fault  to-day,  will have  to  be  borne  with  himself  to-morrow."

"Bear ye  one  another's  burdens,"  writes  the  Apostle to the  Galatians,  "and  so  you  shall  fulfil  the  law  of Christ;  for  if  any  man  think  himself  to  be  something, whereas  he  is  nothing,  he  deceiveth  himself"  (Gal.  vi. 2,  3). The following  homely  lines  contain  a  beautiful truth: —

"There is  so  much  bad  in  the  best  of  us, There  is  so  much  good  in  the  worst  of  us, That  it  ill  behooves  any  of  us To  rail  at  the  faults  of  the  rest  of  us."