Editorial February 11, 1939 Issue

Tolerant Firmness

George Shaw Cook

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work we are in." Those were the words of one who was tolerant of others whose views differed from those entertained by him, but who was firm in his conviction of right as he saw it. Abraham Lincoln not only tolerated, but sought the advice of those who were personally and otherwise opposed to him. When President of the United States during the trying years of the Civil War, he surrounded himself with advisers who had little love for him, but to whose advice he listened patiently for the sake of the cause which they all upheld. This would seem to be an attitude which should characterize followers of the Christ.

Jesus, the master Christian, was pre-eminently kind, compassionate and tender, with the victims of sickness and sin who came to him for healing, but he did not hesitate to denounce the teachings and practices of the scribes and Pharisees. Of them he said, "They bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers."

Tolerance toward those who differ with one politically or religiously does not by any means require that one should accept their views or adopt their methods. Neither does tolerance toward persons who adhere to other platforms, creeds, faiths, or doctines mean that one agrees with or even tolerates any sort of erroneous teaching or system of teaching. We may be tolerant toward those who are the victims of error without in the least approving the error by which they are deceived. And certainly a right kind of tolerance does not make it necessary for one to call evil good.

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