and. But we do not usually listen to our reason, or to
God's Spirit speaking to it. And therefore we have to learn the lesson
by experience, often by very sad and shameful experience. And even that
very experience we cannot understand, unless the Spirit of God interpret
it to us: and blessed are they who, having been chastised, hearken to His
interpretation.

Our reason, I say, should teach us that the spirit of wisdom is none
other than the spirit of love. For consider--how does the text describe
this Spirit?

As the spirit of wisdom and understanding; that is, as the knowledge of
human nature, the understanding of men and their ways. If we do not
understand our fellow-creatures, we shall never love them.

But it is equally true that if we do not love them, we shall never
understand them. Want of charity, want of sympathy, want of good-feeling
and fellow-feeling--what does it, what can it breed, but endless mistakes
and ignorances, both of men's characters and men's circumstances?

Be sure that no one knows so little of his fellow-men, as the cynical,
misanthropic man, who walks in darkness, because he hates his brother. Be
sure that the truly wise and understanding man is he who by sympathy puts
himself in his neighbours' place; feels with them and for them; sees with
their eyes, hears with their ears; and therefore understands them, makes
allowances for them, and is merciful to them, even as his Father in
heaven is merciful.

And next; this royal Spirit is described as "the spirit of counsel and
might," that is, the spirit of prudence and practical power; the spirit
which sees how to deal with human beings, and has the practical power of
making them obey.

Now that power, again, can only be got by loving human beings. There is
nothing so blind as hardness, nothing so weak as violence. I, of course,
can only speak from my own experience; and my experience is this: that
whensoever in my past life I have been angry and scornful, I have said or
done an unwise thing; I have more or less injured my own cause; weakened
my own influence on my fellow-men; repelled them instead of attracting
them; made them rebel against me, rather than obey me. By patience,
courtesy, and gentleness, we not only make ourselves stronger; we not
only attract our fellow-men, and make them help us and follow us
willingly and joyfully: but we make ourselves wiser; we give ourselves
time and light to see what we ought to do, and how