Article June 20, 1903 Issue

The Golden Rule

Alfred Farlow

Boston Times

Jesus declared, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." All sane people desire that others should do for them that which redounds to their happiness, success, and general welfare. We seldom find an individual who wishes to be misjudged or mistreated. When we have erred, we prefer to be forgiven. Though we may have fallen many times, we are still anxious for another opportunity. Though we may have wasted time, talent, and money during a period of many years, we still crave for an opportunity to win the favor of our fellows. Though we may have repeatedly injured others as well as ourselves, and even to such an extent that our neighbors have lost all confidence in us and have utterly despaired of any good from us, we still long for the privilege of demonstrating our good intentions. When we have so utterly failed and have so completely given way to the influences of evil that we are in utter despair and without hope, we still long for a helping hand.

Human imagination could not picture the condition of an individual so low that he would want his friends to turn from him and do nothing to save him. Summing up the proposition we are inclined to say that a person seldom; if ever, reaches a condition in which he loses all charity for himself—all self-pity.

If we comply with our Lord's suggestion, we must have the same undying, unswerving, unchanging charity for others which we have for ourselves. Note the love of a mother for her child. She clings to her boy, soiled and sullied within and without, as her "precious child" when all others have abandoned him to his fate and turned from him in utter loathing. Under such circumstances it is not the degradation of her offspring to which she clings, but the individuality which seems to be clouded and obscured by evil. She has not forgotten the original child and believes that somewhere beneath the rags and tatters and the accumulated evil of many years, the pure untarnished babe of her soul is hidden away.

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