July 16

If meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth. — 1 Cor 8:13

It is not enough to know that a certain course is not wrong, that we have a right to do certain things.

If there were no other people in the world but ourselves, none to be considered in deciding what we might do or may not do, it would be easy to settle on our duty. But there are other people everywhere, and we have got to think of them in deciding what we have a right to do.

A man has a right to have a big, bawling talking–machine in his house, and to have it going every night till midnight. It is nobody’s matter but his own. But suppose there is a sick man living next door, and that the noise of the machine disturbs him at night, what is the duty of the man with the talking–machine?

Love comes in then, and tells him he must give up his “right” and sacrifice his pleasure for the sake of another. Love is a most exacting master. It makes us give up our rights and our pride and our ease – nothing can stand before it.