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ANNA’S DIFFICULTY

Our friend Anna came home from school one day with her sunny face all in a cloud, and looking as if it might presently get a sprinkling of tears.  There was one to whom she always went in trouble, besides that other One whom she tried never to forget, and she sought her best earthly friend now.

“Mother, I do think it is really mean and rude in the Wilsons that they pass me by when nearly all the class of girls are invited.  I don’t want to feel bad about such a thing, but I can’t help it.  I don’t know as anybody likes to be slighted.”

“Of course not, my daughter,” said Mrs. Jones; “the feeling of having been rudely treated is always uncomfortable.  What do you suppose is the reason you are not included in the party?”

“It is because the Wilsons feel above us, mother.  The girls dress in finer clothes than I do, and have more accomplishments; and then we work for a living, and they do not.  But, mother, I believe I am as intelligent and well-bred as they.  I can’t bear it, mother.”

“It is not pleasant, to be sure, Anna; but think again, darling, before you say you can not bear it.”

“Well, mother, who could?  Nobody but you, who seem to have a way of getting round hard places, or walking through them.”

“I have had many more years of experience in life than you.  But I wish you to think now whether there is not some way for you to bear this little vexation.”

“Oh, yes, mother, I know what you always say, and that, of course, is right; but I don’t see how feeling and acting like a Christian takes away one’s natural feeling about being slighted and ill-treated by others.”

“Perhaps it does not.  I sometimes think one’s sensibilities are greatly intensified by leading the better life.  A Christian, in trying to bring his own character up to the point of perfect love and honor, often becomes exacting of such perfection in others, and failing to find it, feels exquisite pain.  Yet the pain will oftener be because God’s great principles of right are violated, than that his personal feelings are hurt.  Which is easier for you, child, to be wounded in personal feeling, or to see what is wrong against God?”

“I never thought exactly; it is dreadful to see the wrong, but one feels in the other a sense of shame—­feels so wronged—­it is quite different.”

“My precious one,” said Mrs. Jones, “when you have so learned the love of God as to know no difference between the interests and the honor of his law, and your own comfort and pleasure and good name, you will see more clearly how this is, and feel, it is likely, the sense of shame and wrong in a different way.”

“But, mother, haven’t we a right to feel hurt when we are wronged or slighted—­I mean personally hurt?”

“Yes; but may be if we looked a little deeper into the principles of things, or our own principles, we should not suffer so much.  What is the secret of your feeling hurt by the Wilsons?  Does the slight make your real self in any respect less or worse?  Does it injure you in the estimation of others?”