Page 164 - 聖母軍團員手冊（英文版，2014年5月-2022年1月更新版）

Legion HANDBOOK D10944_1 26/02/2014 15:53 Page 159

CHAPTER 28 GOVERNMENT OF THE LEGION 159
moment of silence. That silence would be the most eloquent
invitation to the members to bring the council to life with
their voice-transfusions. It would be a reassurement to the
more timid ones that now is their moment; now they are not
preventing anyone else from talking by saying something
themselves.
It must be the set policy of the President not to utter one
un necessary word. He should analyse his handling of the
meeting from this point of view.
23. To help the meeting, do not speak challengingly; nor
ask a question without adding some idea as to the answer; nor
raise a difficulty without trying to solve it. To be merely
negative is only a poor step from that destructive silence.

24. To win over, not to vote down, should be the keynote
of any Legion meeting. A hasty forcing of a decision may
leave two parties, a minority and a victorious majority, with
irritated feelings and hardened differences. On the other
hand, decisions which have been come to after patient
examination and ample ventilation of views, will be received
by all, and in such a spirit that the loser gains merit by his
defeat, and the winner does not lose it by victory.
So, when differences of opinion are found to exist, those
who are obviously in the majority must exhibit a complete
patience. They may be wrong, and it would be a grievous
thing to win an incorrect position. Decision should, if
possible, be postponed to another meeting, and perhaps again
and again, so as to allow minute consideration. Members
should be made acquainted with every angle of the question,
and taught to pray for light. All must be made to realise that
it is not the victory of an opinion which is at stake, but a
humble quest of God’s wishes in the matter. Then it will
commonly be found that unanimity has come about.

25. If the interests of harmony are to be vigilantly guarded
in the praesidium, where occasions for differences of opinion
occur but seldom, what caution must be exercised in the
councils; because:
(a) There, members are less accustomed to work together.