for us to have towards any
other being the same feelings we entertain for a parent. The love a
good Christian bears towards a stranger is not the love he bears
towards a good friend. The love therefore that charity demands admits a
variety of shades without losing its character of love.

When it comes to loving certain ones of our neighbors, the idea is not
of the most welcome. What! Must I love, really love, that low rascal,
that cantankerous fellow, that repugnant, repulsive being? Or this
other who has wronged me so maliciously? Or that proud, overbearing
creature who looks down on me and despises me?

We have said that love has its degrees, its ebb and flow tide, and
still remains love. The low water mark is this: that we refuse not to
pray for such neighbors, that we speak not ill of them, that we refuse
not to salute them, or to do them a good turn, or to return a favor. A
breach in one of these common civilities, due to every man from his
fellow-man, may constitute a degree of hatred directly opposed to the
charity strictly required of us.

It is not however necessary to go on doing these things all during life
and at all moments of life. These duties are exterior, and are required
as often as a contrary bearing would betoken a lack of charity in the
heart. Just as we are not called upon to embrace and hug an uninviting
person as a neighbor, neither are we obliged to continue our civilities
when we find that they are offensive and calculated to cause trouble.
But naturally there must be charity in the heart.

We should not confound uncharity with a sort of natural repugnance and
antipathy, instinctive to some natures, betraying a weakness of
character, if you will, but hardly what one could call a clearly
defined fault. There are people who can forgive more easily than forget
and who succeed only after a long while in overcoming strong feelings.
In consequence of this state of mind, and in order to maintain peace
and concord, they prefer the absence to the presence of the objects of
their antipathy. Of course, to nourish this feeling is sinful to a
degree; but while striving against it, to remove prudently all
occasions of opening afresh the wound, if we act honestly, this does
not seem to have any uncharitable malice.

Now all this is not charity unless the idea of God enter therein. There
is no charity outside the idea of God. Philanthropy, humanity is one
thing, charity is another. The one is sentiment,