It is not an easy thing to
reprove in the right time, in the right tone, without exasperation,
without impatience, without leaving a sting behind; to dare to give
pain for the sake of greater good; to love the truth and have courage
to tell it; to change reproof as time goes on to the frank criticism
of friendship that is ambitious for its friend. To accept criticism is
one of the greatest lessons to be learnt in life. To give it well is
an art which requires more study and more self-denial than either the
habit of being easily satisfied and requiring little, or the querulous
habit of "scolding" which is admirably described by Bishop Hedley as
"the resonance of the empty intelligence and of the hollow heart of
the man who has nothing to give, nothing to propose, nothing to
impart."
4. Discipline and obedience. If these are to be means of training they
must be living and not dead powers, and they must lead up to gradual
self-government, not to sudden emancipation. Obedience must be
first of all to persons, prompt and unquestioning, then to laws, a
"reasonable service," then to the wider law which each one must
enforce from within--the law of love which is the law of liberty of
the kingdom of God.
These are the means which in her own way, and through various channels
of authority, the Church makes use of, and the Church is the great
Mother who educates us all.
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