A young man one day showed some impatience with his aged father, who could not hear very clearly any more and asked him two or three times to repeat what he had said. Seeing the irritated expression on his face, the father said, 'My son, do you remember that there was a day when you were a little child and you asked me what a certain bird was and I told you: a sparrow? You asked me perhaps fifty times, and I had the patience to repeat it to you again and again without being hurt or troubled about it; I was only pleased to tell you all I knew. Now when I can no longer hear so well, you can at least have patience with me and explain something twice if I did not hear you the first time.' What is needed most in order to learn that noble manner of life is patience, sometimes in the form of endurance, sometimes in the form of consideration, and sometimes in the form of forgiveness.