Prescriptions… for Our Friends

There are many standards of conduct on which most of us would probably agree in principle,

but the point where we often part company is in deciding when and to whom these principles should

apply. Of course there are some wholly unprincipled people who don’t even give lip service to a high

code of conduct. But most of those whom most of us are likely to meet at least pay lip service to high

principles—people who agree, for example, that the Golden Rule is a desirable code of conduct, that the

Commandments are not purely of the past but still apply in the present; that honesty, mortality, fair

deadline, clean living, and dealing with other as fairly as we would deal with ourselves are all principles

that should generally apply. Such thins most of us agree to in theory, but we are sometimes disposed to

think more of their application to other and to make excuses for ourselves. When we hear some sound

advice, when we helara moving sermon, when we hear suggestions for improving people, we

frequently think of other we wish had heard it. We think how fine it would be for our friends. Almost

every day we hear or read of remarkable methods for improving talents, or for making better use of

time—how to live within our income, how to avoid marital misunderstandings, how to get along with

neighbors, how to reach children. And we rarely hear or read of such suggestions without thinking how

fine it would be for our friends. And if there is a community project we frequently think of other who

should be interested in it and show should take time to serve (excepting perhaps ourselves. (After all we

are so busy) so long as we are interested primarily in improving other people, our own improvement

may be much more slow than if we would begin with ourselves, and first see what the remedy would

do for us, and second, how fine it would be for our friends.