Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1879-01-19
Do the Best You Can.
Lutheran Missionary.

Life is full of contradictions. The
impulses are in opposition. Good
sometimes appears clearly good, and
then comes another view Of facts
which makes what was thought
good seem a mere fruitless and vex-
atious waste.
We are often prepared to say,
"Ah, how much might be gained, if,
instead of cruel sneers and willful
perversiOns Of motives, men and
women, old and young, would try
to do little toward making people
happy, toward making them Kind to
one another, acting on the princi-
pie that, no matter how rich or how
poor, everybody needs all the kind
Uess they can get from others in the
world. Nothing would seem to be
more reasonable and desirable than
to set ourselves to this end, and so
help to make this life better.
But no one can experiment long
in such benefcent resolves and &C
tivities, until he begins to teel
something of what the Archbishop
of Cashell wrote to Dean Swift:
" To tell you the truth, 1 have for
these four or five years past met
with so much treachery, baseness
and ingratitude among mankind,
that l can hardly think it incqm-
bent upon any man to endeaVor to
do good to so peryerse generation.
And even where the greatest
efforts to do men good, and make
them happier, are put forth, it may
be a question whether there is not a
great increase of the general aggre-
gate of misery by the pains thus
endured in the truitless work of
others better. Somebody
writes: 1.-The pain as of a knife
forever thrust into the loins, of a
cord forever knotted hard about
the temples, is the daily
and nightly penalty of those
mad enough to believe that they
have the force in them to change
the sluggard, and the swinish appe-
tites, and the hungry cruelties of
their kind, into life of high en-
deavor and divine desire
Well; let it be so. 1t is never
theless not the whole case. There
is a happiness in being and doing
good, if others do not appreciate
and acknowledge it. There is bless
ing and reward in virtuous and |
benefcent intentions, though met
with ridicule and unattended with |
external fruitfulness. And though,
as Rochefoucault would have it,
that the doing of evil does not
draw upon US so many prosecutions
and so much hatred as our good !
qualities, there is still satisfaction
in being sacrifice to the cause of
virtue and goodness, and somebody |
will be benefited in the end. Those |
who have learned the heavenly wis
dom, and have drunk in of the
Saviour's spirit, have resources
which repay for all calumnies, and
Tor all the ingratitude with which
their labors and anxieties are ex>
ternally rewarded. They may be-
times agonize in retirement, but an
gels come to minister to them, and
with all the pain and oft depression,
here is still a sweetness that never
pals in doingss and suffering the
Fathers will. Noble endeavor, and
misplaced confidence, will often
nave forfeit to pay, in losses of tran
utility of mind for the time being;
but the consciousness of good mo-
ives and honest effort, is some stay
% the soul, and there is no reason
o be hopelessly cast down while
Jehovah lives, and truth remains
ruth, and good is good.
He that does the best he can does Well,
Acts nobly angels eau do no more.