No Companionship is wise that does not involve the principle of growth.
If the influence of our associates does not make us go forward, it will
surely cause us to go backward. If we are not elevated by it, we shall
certainly be degraded. Two persons cannot associate and either party
remain just as he was before; and if we would find in society an element
of growth, we must seek for all that is elevating in whatever circles we
move; for it is not confined to any particular circle or class, but
waits everywhere for the true seeker.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth, said the Lord,
teaching as never man taught; and it is in proportion as we walk meekly
with our fellow-men that our capacities become capable of receiving, to
their fullest extent, the influx of goodness and truth that should be
the end of social intercourse. Nothing obstructs our receptivity so much
as that egoism of thought and affection which keeps self perpetually
before the mind's eye, and to this egoism meekness is the direct
opposite. Meekness implies forgetfulness of self. There is nothing
servile about it, but it pursues its way in pure simplicity, forgetting
self in its steadfast devotion to what it seeks. Egoism pursues its aims
from love of self and of the world, and confides in its own strength for
success. Meekness pursues its aims from the love of excellence, and
confiding in the strength of the Lord.
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