Page:About people (IA aboutpeople00well).pdf/68
leader somewhere, for evil or good. One of the most confirmed inebriates in a "Washingtonian home" had a peculiar fluency in prayer, and led at all their meetings.
To avoid monotony in ourselves we must seek expansion of our ideas and deeds; but only by being mindful of others' rights and needs. Liberty loses its value without the added grace of tenderness in its action. To grow ourselves in our own way, to satisfy the wishes of those who hold a different ideal from that towards which we are striving, — there is the difficulty! And it is only solved by patient love. The home, with its varying interests, can be rendered happy only by learning the secret of the recognition of each other's rights and peculiarities, and that each has a claim to self-development but to a certain point. When sickness, death, or poverty in the home check further progress in some special line of work, no complaint should be uttered; the inevitable must be accepted in brave silence, with the re-