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ove for her child, for whose well-being she would make any conceivable sacrifice, nay, were there need, would surrender life itself? Have we not also sometimes witnessed, a filial devotion equally entire and self-forgetting? Nor are instances wanting, in which brothers and sisters, or friends who had no bonds of consanguinity, have shown by unmistakable deeds and sufferings that their love for one another was at least equal to their self-love. This same love for others, as for himself, is manifested by the self-devoting patriot, the practical philanthropist, the Christian missionary. There is ample ground for it in the theory of humanity which forms a part of our accustomed religious utterance. We call our fellow-men our brethren, as children of the same Father. So far as sayings like these are sentiments, and not mere words, there must be in our feelings and conduct toward and for our fellow-men in general a kindness, forbearance, self-forgetfulness, and self-sacrifice similar to that of which, toward our near kindred, we would not confess ourselves incapable. Here it must be borne in mind that the precepts of Christianity represent the perfection which should be our constant aim and our only goal, not the stage of attainment which we are conscious of having reached, or of being able to reach with little effort. *The love of enemies* is also enjoined upon us by Jesus Christ. Is this possible? Why not? There are cases where one's nearest kindred are his worst enemies; and we have known instances in which love has survived this rudest of all trials. Were the Christian idea of universal brotherhood a profound sentiment, it would not be quenched by enmity, however bitter. Enmity toward ourselves need not affect our estimate of one's actual merit or claims. If we should not think the worse of a man because he was the enemy of some one else, why should we think the worse of him because he is our enemy? He may have mistaken our character and our dispositions; and if so, is he more culpable for this than for any other mistake? Or if, on the other hand, he has some substantial reason for disliking us, we should either remove the cause, or submit to the dislike without feeling aggrieved by it. At any rate we can obey the precept, "Do good to them that hate you;" and this is the only way, and an almost infallible way, in which the enmity may be overcome, and superseded by relations of mutual kindness and friendship.
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