would live peaceably must so control himself as to be able to bear
with others, to overlook their imperfections, and to cover their
transgressions and thus avert further resulting evil.

Where no toleration is exercised, where no wrong is forgiven and
forgotten, hate and envy must find place. The sole office of these is
to stir up strife and contention. No peace and rest is to be had where
they exist; wrangling and fighting, oppression and bitterness, must
obtain. The unbounded ill-will, the innumerable strifes and wars,
having place on earth, all result from the abominable evil of the lack
of love among us and from the prevalence of pernicious hate, which
leads to anger and revenge when opposition offers. Thus we become
enemies to one another instead of to evil, when it is our duty to love
our fellow-men.

33. Now, if you would live as a Christian and enjoy peace in the
world, you must make every effort to restrain your anger and not to
give way to revenge as do others. Rather you must suppress these
passions, subduing your hatred by love, and be able to overlook and
bear, even though you have to suffer great pain and injustice. So
doing you will develop a noble character fitted to accomplish much
good through patience and humility, to allay and abolish enmity, and
strife, and thereby to reform and convert others. If you are unwilling
to be patient under injustice, then go on hating and envying,
impatiently blustering about and seeking revenge. But from such a
proceeding only strife and disquietude can be your portion, though
your complaints be long and your lamentations loud. You may run hither
and thither, and still you will not find the truth otherwise than as I
have stated. This text would have to be done away with first, and the
Scriptures falsified.

34. Paul, having in mind Solomon's saying about love, in extolling the
same virtue amplifies the latter's statement with various expressions,
in the thirteenth of First Corinthians. Among other things he says
there (verses 5-8): "Love seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh
not account of evil; rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth
with the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all
things, endureth all things. Love never faileth," etc. This, mark you,
is "being fervent in love," as Peter calls it. Here is the heat, the
fire, effective to consume all evil and to replace it with only good.
This fire will not permit itself to be quen