One
must make the best of the hard problem of God, not add to its
complexity, in order to increase one's patience. Neither men nor angels
have any patience with a fool, and it is the deed of a fool to
cultivate occasions of folly. One serves best by making the most of
one's faculties, not by choosing a life where one's disabilities have
full play, in order to correct them. I might as well tell the Pharisee,
who bids me let myself go, to take to drink, in order that he may learn
moral humility, or to do dishonest things for the discipline of
reprobation. I do not think so ill of God as not to believe that he is
trying to help me; as the old poet said, "The Gods give to each man
whatever is most appropriate to him. Man is dearer to the Gods than to
himself." God has sent me many gifts, both good and evil; but he has
not sent me a wife, perhaps in pity for a frail creature of his hand,
who might have had to bear that tedious fate! But I know what I miss,
and see that loveless self-interest is the dark bane of solitude. One
may call it a moral leprosy if one loves hard names; but no leper would
choose to be a leper if he could avoid it. Whatever happens in this dim
world, we should be tender and compassionate of one another. It is a
mere stupidity, that stupidity which is of the nature of sin, to
compassionate a man for being ill or poor, and not to compassionate him
for being cold and lonely.
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