"In charity," says St. Mary Magdalen of Pazzi, "we must be cheerful and prompt, knowing that by serving our fellow-creatures, we serve God in His members, and that He regards a service done to our neighbor as done to Himself."
4.— The Spectrum of Charity
St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, ascribes to charity all the virtues that make a perfect man: "Charity is patient, is kind; charity envieth not, dealeth not perversely; is not puffed up, is not ambitious; seeketh not her own; is not provoked to anger; thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth with the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, endureth all things" (i Cor. xiii. 4-7). And writing to the Colossians he says: "Above all things have charity, which is the bond of perfection" (Col. iii. 14). "Let each one love his brother"; says St. Alphonsus Liguori. "We have each our faults. He, who has to put up with his brother's fault to-day, will have to be borne with himself to-morrow."
"Bear ye one another's burdens," writes the Apostle to the Galatians, "and so you shall fulfil the law of Christ; for if any man think himself to be something, whereas he is nothing, he deceiveth himself" (Gal. vi. 2, 3). The following homely lines contain a beautiful truth: —
"There is so much bad in the best of us,
There is so much good in the worst of us,
That it ill behooves any of us
To rail at the faults of the rest of us."
