' I cried, 'Get thee behind me, Satan;'--and went
on my way to the coal-pit.
"Tom was the first man I saw. I said 'Good-morning,' but got no
reply.
"He went down first. When I got down, I was surprised to see him
sitting on the wagon-road waiting for me. When I came to him he
burst into tears and said: 'Richard, will you forgive me for
striking you?'
"'I have forgiven thee,' said I; 'ask God to forgive thee. The
Lord bless thee.' I gave him my hand, and we went each to his
work."[167]
[167] J. Patterson's Life of Richard Weaver, pp. 66-68, abridged.
"Love your enemies!" Mark you, not simply those who happen not
to be your friends, but your ENEMIES, your positive and active
enemies. Either this is a mere Oriental hyperbole, a bit of
verbal extravagance, meaning only that we should, as far as we
can, abate our animosities, or else it is sincere and literal.
Outside of certain cases of intimate individual relation, it
seldom has been taken literally. Yet it makes one ask the
question: Can there in general be a level of emotion so
unifying, so obliterative of differences between man and man,
that even enmity may come to be an irrelevant circumstance and
fail to inhibit the friendlier interests aroused? If positive
well-wishing could attain so supreme a degree of excitement,
those who were swayed by it might well seem superhuman beings.
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