The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1875-05-20
FrettIng.

One fretter can destroy the peace of a
family, can disturb the harmony of
neighborhood, can unsettle the councils
Of cities and hinder the legislation of ma
tions. He who frets is never the one
who mends, who heals, who repairs evils;
more, he discourages, enfeebles, and too
often disables those around him, who,
but for the gloom and the depression of
his company, would do good work and
keep up brave cheer. The effect upon a
sensitive person of the mere neighbor-
hood of fretter is indescribable. 1t is
to the soul what cold, icy mist is to the
body-more chilling than the bitterest
frost, more dangerous than the fiercest
storm. And when the fretter is one who
is beloved, whose nearness of relation to
US makes his fretting even at the
weather seem almost like a personal re-
proach to us, then the misery of it be-
comes indeed insupportable. Most men
call fretting minor fault, foible and
not vice. There is no vice except
drunkenness which can so utterly de-
stroy the peace, the happiness of a
home.
The ungratefulness of fretting is the
basest thing about it. Pensioners, beg
gars that we are, shall we receive good
at the hands of the Lord, and not evil?
How quickly would we see and resent
the insolent ingratitude of one of our fell
lows who, when we had housed and fed
him for a day and clothed him with
clothes, should complain that the clothes
were shabby and that we did not find it
convenient to keep him for year! Yet
would this be a small ingratitude by
side of ours when, living upon this
beautiful and teeming earth, we fret at
an hour or day of suffering and depri-
walton. 1t is true, as said before, that
it is astonishing how much annoyance
and discomfort there is to be found in
life, if one keeps sharp eye out on that
side of things; but every truth has its
converse truth-it is equally true that
it is even more astonishing how much
there is of enjoyment, of delight,
of blessedness in life, if one only
keeps sharp eye out on that side Of
things. What are called the inequalities
of life are not half SO unequal as they
seem. Common to all men, free to all
men are the essentials of joy. The best
things of life the rich cannot buy with
his money; the poor need not 60 without
on account of his poverty. Ifmen's hearts
were as plain in sight as their faces, if
one could get at as accurate statistics of
souls lives as Of the lives of bodies, the
balances would be found to be marvel
ously even. Even the balances of joy
and sorrow, pain and pleasure, sickness
and health swing evener than we think.
I doubt if ever q day comes to living
human soul in which, if he sought, he
could not find q reason for thanking
God. If all else fails, there remains
still the one great reason for thankful
ness, the one great boon of simply be-
ing alive and of being sure that he
cannot cease to be alive; that
ages upon ages, world upon world,
a glorious eternity of existence stretch.
es out before him. A little more
knowledge of perspective and proportion
would make serene philosophers of us
all. Considered in relation to our eter.
nifty of living, grief, pain in this HUI
man stage, even if it last for seventy
years, is not so much as the briefest pin,
prick in the morning considered in rela
ton to the day. And grief or pain in
this human stage, even If it last for sew
enty years, is small price to pay for the
birthIight of immortality. If some
supreme power were to say to us to-day
| Suffer on the earth for one century, and
buy ten centuries Of earth's delight, how
quickly, how greedily would we buy the