Page:Sermons preached in the African Protestant Episcopal Church of St. Thomas', Philadelphia.djvu/88

84 were you, he succeeds in kindling a blaze. Families, neighbors, and intimate companions, are now at variance, indulging the spirit of revenge, hatred and malice, for, they can scarcely tell what. And were the true cause ascertained, it would in most instances be found to have originated from a wrong judgment rashly formed; from some word inadvertently spoken, or some action in the performance of which, there was no evil design whatever. Now, it is in these ways that we may injure, and be injured by others; and our duty as Christians, is, on all occasions to be ready to exercise the spirit of mutual forbearance and forgiveness. "Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye."

We proceed to a few considerations that should induce us to cultivate this spirit.