y son, stand steadily, and put your trust in Me; for what are words, but words? They fly through the air, but they cannot hurt a stone. If you are guilty, gladly improve yourself; if you are conscious of no fault, consider that you would gladly endure this for God's sake. It is little enough that sometimes you should endure even words, since you have not yet the courage to bear hard blows.
And why do such small matters affect you? Because you are yet carnal, and regard men more than you ought. It is because you are afraid of being despised, that you are unwilling to be reproved for faults, and cover up with excuses. But look within and you will acknowledge that the world is yet alive in you, and a vain desire to please men. For when you shrink from being abased and confounded for your failings, it is evident surely that you are neither truly humble, nor truly dead to the world, nor is the world crucified to you.
But hear My Word, and you shall not care for ten thousand words of men. Behold, if all should be spoken against you that could be most maliciously invented, what would it hurt you, if you would suffer it to pass entirely away and make no more reckoning of it that a straw? Could it
