Jesus saw in the meanest man the possibilities of character. This is
what Charles Wagner urges us to do in the following extract:
Maintain toward the poor man and the infirm a courtesy, an
attentiveness; find in your heart and in your love a sign that
makes him recollect that he is a man. His misery is like a tomb
in which his self-respect sleeps buried. It is something to
respect this tomb, to approach it with piety, to care for it and
to keep a flower growing there; but each of these attentions is
addrest to one that is dead, shows that you accept his death,
and that you confirm it. Do more and do better. Remember that
it is a living man that lies under the dust, slowly amassed, of
days of suffering. Breathe upon this dust, disengage the human
form; speak to Lazarus and make him come forth from the shrouds
that surround him, from the night that covers him. (Text.)--“The
Gospel of Life.”
(1961)