Tucked away in a chapter so full of good things that we are apt to miss the full force of any one of them is a precious piece of a sentence which deserves to be blazoned in big letters in every meetinghouse, for it would settle about nine-tenths of the difficulties that arise among brethren. It reads thus: "Subjecting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ" (Eph. 5:21). This does not mean to agree to practice that which is unscriptural or wrong, or to cease that which the Lord requires to be done, for the sake of brethren. The words "in the fear of Christ" forestall that idea. But those little items which depend on personal taste or judgment--the size, shape, location, seating of the meetinghouse; the baskets, the paraphernalia, the arrangements of time and methods, the expedients, the hundred and one little things about which there always have been, and evermore will be, differences, and which are at the bottom of much friction--in these let each submit to the other. Let no one set himself to have his way; but and if he does, let us give in to him. Do you say it is hard to do? It must be hard on the flesh, for it will nip in the bud those works of the flesh which are called "enmities, strife, jealousies, wraths, factions, . . . and such like," which things God hates. [127]

[TAG 127]