| 627 In Herald for April 27 is found an editorial worthy of preservation. It is as follows:
One of the most effective clogs thrown into the wheels of progress, in any enterprise, business, social, or religious, is distrust. The fear that coördinate branches of the same association are acting unfairly and not in good faith, or are gaining more credit and influence, one more than another, becomes a thorn in the sides of coworkers that rankles and pierces to the great disgust and injury of all. How not to give the adversary the benefit of this coigne of vantage is and should be the active effort of the various coworking branches of every order, and especially the church.
If any one coworker is doing wrong in his office, and knowledge of this wrong comes to other coworkers, the safety of the whole demands that such wrong should be inquired into, if proofs appear to warrant, and if wrong exists the person doing it should be reproved, or excommunicated if the wrong be past redress.
While the foregoing is true, suspected wrong, where proofs do not exist, is productive of evil both to him who is the subject of suspicion and him who suspects; for jealousy and distrust are alike cruel, and torment him who feels them, and injure them against whom they are exercised and allowed to rise.
Honorable minds do not permit the rust of envy and jealousy of compeers and coworkers to gather on the bonds of friendship and association. In their regards all associates stand on the level of equality, the measure of usefulness alone being the measure of preference; integrity and faithfulness the standards of honor, and kindness and courtesy the rule of behavior; while friendship and close personal association are reserved for those whom destiny has thrown, or love drawn together.
Success in our church work requires personal integrity and diligence. Not only this, but it requires that personal effort shall be directed with reference to the work of others in our association, those nearest being first in consideration, those farthest away by no means being forgotten. The mutual interdependence of the great body of workers being founded upon the fidelity with which each one bears his part, in like manner as the strength of a wall or an arch depends upon the integrity of each brick or stone in place and the bond of the cement used in its construction. A pile of bricks or stones loosely thrown together, no care being observed in their respective bearings, with mortar, or cement of sand or clay having no adhesive qualities would be easily shaken to pieces.
Human organizations, depending upon the intelligence and honesty of their integral parts, must also depend largely upon the power of self-adaptation of each member of it. No matter how skillfully the master workman may arrange and place the members, if these, intelligent, displace themselves, failing to keep the integrity of their bond, disunity is sure to result; the difference between the human organization and the wall or arch used as a comparison being that in one the component parts
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