sensions
with us. The man with whom we have most points of contact presents the
greatest number of places where difference can occur. Only from
circles that touch each other can a tangent strike off from the same
point. A man can only make enemies among his friends. A certain
amount of opposition and enmity a man must be prepared for in this
world, unless he live a very invertebrate life. Outside opposition
cannot embitter, for it cannot touch the soul. But that two who have
walked as friends, one in aim and one in heart, perhaps of the same
household of faith, should stand face to face with hard brows and
gleaming eyes, should speak as foes and not as lovers of the same love,
is, in spite of the poets and romancers, the bitterest moment of life.

There are some we cannot hurt even if we would; whom all the venom of
our nature could not touch, because we mean nothing to them. But there
are others in our power, whom we can stab with a word, and these are
our brethren, our familiar friends, our comrades at work, our close
associates, our fellow laborers in God's vineyard. It is not the crowd
that idly jostle us in the street who can hurt us to the quick, but a
familiar friend in whom we trusted. He has a means of ingress barred
to strangers, and can strike home as no other can. This explains why
family quarrels, ruptures in the inner circle, Church disputes, are so
bitter. They come so near us. An offended brother is hard to win,
because the very closeness of the previous intimacy brings a rankling
sense of injustice and the resentment of injured love. An injury from
the hand of a friend seems such a wanton thing; and the heart hardens
itself with the sense of wrong, and a separation ensues like the bars
of a castle.

It must needs be that offences come, but woe unto him by whom they
come. The strife-makers find in themselves, in their barren heart and
empty life, their own appropriate curse. The blow they strike comes
back upon themselves. Worse than the choleric temperament is the
peevish, sullen nature. The one usually finds a speedy repentance for
his hot and hasty mood; the other is a constant menace to friendship,
and acts like a perpetual irritant. Its root is selfishness, and it
grows by what it feeds on.

When offences do come, we may indeed use them as opportunities for
growth in gracious ways, and thus turn them into blessings on the lives
of both. To the offended it may be an occasion for