injurious to your neighbour. Whenever you feel the soul agitated by passion, it is better to force yourself to remain silent, and to make no reply; for, as St. Bernard says, an eye clouded with anger cannot distinguish between right and wrong. ” Turbatus præ ira oculus rectum non videt." (Lib. 2 de Consid., cap. xi.) Should it happen that in a fit of passion you have insulted a neighbour, charity requires that you use every means to allay his wounded feelings, and to remove from his heart all sentiments of rancour towards you. The best means of making reparation for the violation of charity is to humble yourself to the person whom you have offended. With regard to the meekness which we should practise towards others, I shall speak on that subject in the thirty-fourth Sermon, or the Sermon for the fifth Sunday after Pentecost.
10. It is also an act of charity to correct sinners. Do not say that you are not a superior. Were you a superior, you should be obliged by your office to correct all those who might be under your care; but, although you are not placed over others, you are, as a Christian, obliged to fulfil the duty of fraternal correction. ” He gave to every one of them commandment concerning his neighbour." (Eccl. xvii. 12.) Would it not be great cruelty to see a blind man walking on the brink of a precipice, and not admonish him of his danger, in order to preserve him from temporal death? It would be far greater cruelty to neglect, for the sake of avoiding a little trouble, to deliver a brother from eternal death.
Third Point. On the charity we ought to practise towards our neighbour by works.
11. Some say that they love all, but will not put themselves to any inconvenience in order to relieve the wants of a neighbour. "My little children," says St. John, "let us not love in word, nor in tongue, but in deed and truth." (1 John iii. 18 ) The Scripture tells us that alms deliver men from death, cleanse them from sin, and obtain for them the divine mercy and eternal life. "Alms delivereth from death, and the same is that which purgeth away sins, and maketh to find mercy and life everlasting." (Job xii. 9.) God will relieve you in
