is working in them
both; the God who works all in all, and has his work done by a
thousand different hands, by a thousand different ways.

And it is right and good that people should be so different from
each other. 'For the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every
man to profit withal.' To profit, to be of use. If all men were
alike, no one could learn from his neighbour. If all mankind were
as like each other as a flock of sheep, there would be no more work,
no more progress, no more improvement in mankind, than there is in a
flock of sheep. Now each man can bring his own little share of
knowledge or usefulness into the common stock. Each man has, or
ought to have, something to teach his neighbour. Each man can learn
something from his neighbour: at least he can learn this--to have
patience with his neighbour. To live and let live. To bear with
what in him seems odd and disagreeable, trusting that God may have
put it there; that God has need of it; that God will make use of it.
God makes use of many things which look to us ugly and disagreeable.
He makes use of the spider and of the beetle. How much more of our
brethren, members of Christ, children of God, inheritors of the
kingdom of heaven. Shall they be to us, even if they be odd or
disagreeable in some things--shall they be to us as the beetle or
the spider, or any other merely natural things? They are men and
women, in whom is the Spirit of the living God. And my friends, if
they are good enough for God, they are good enough for us. Think
but one moment. God the Father adopts a man as his child, God the
Son dies for that man, God the Holy Ghost inspires that man; and
shall we be more dainty than God? If, in spite of the man's little
weaknesses and oddities, God shall condescend to come down and dwell
in that man, making him more or less a good man, doing good work;
shall we pretend that we cannot endure what God endures? Shall we
be more dainty, I ask again, than the holy and perfect God? Oh my
friends, let us pray to him to take out of our hearts all
selfishness, fancifulness, fastidiousness, and hasty respect of
persons, of all which there is none in God. Let us ask for his
Spirit, the Spirit of Charity, which sees God in all, and all in
God, and therefore sees good in all, and sees all in love.

Then we shall see how much more there is in our neighbours to like,
than to dislike. Then all these little differences will seem to us
tr