The Brookhaven leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1883-1891, 1889-07-11

aud let us for an hour or two regale our
selves with the nuisances.
oh, my friends, better cover up the
faults and extol the virtues, and this
habit once established of universal
friendliness will become as easy as it is
this morning for q syringa to flood the
air with sweetness, as easy as it will be
further on in the season for quail to
whistle up from the grass. When we
hear something bad about somebody
whom we always supposed to be good,
take out your lead pencil and say: 'Let
me see! Before I accept that baletul
story against that mans character, will
take off from 1t twenty-five per cont. for
the habit Of exaggeration which belongs
to the man who first told the story; then
will take off twenty-five per cent. for
the additions which the spirit of gossip
in every community has put upon the
original story; then I will take off twenty
five per cent from the fact that the man
may have been put into circumstances of
overpowering temptation. SO l have
taken off seventy FIVE per cent. But l
have not heard his side of the story at
all, and for that reason l take off the re-
naming twenty-five per cent" Excuse
me, sir, don't believe word of it.
q
SO often quoted: "Where there is so
much smoke there must be some fire."
Look at all the smoke for years around
Jenner, the introducer of vaccination;
and the smoke around Columbus, the
discoverer; and the smoke around Martin
Luther, and Savonarola, and Calico, and
Paul. and John, and Clcist, and tell me
where was the fire! SANDER, like the
world, may be made out of nothing. If
the Christian, fair minded, common
sensical spirit IN regard to others pre-
dominated In the world we should have
the millennium in about six weeks, for
would not that be lamb and lion, cow
and leopard lying down together? Moth.
ing but the grace of God can ever put us
into such habit of mind and heart as
that. The whole tendency is in the oppo-
site direction. This is the way the
world talks: l put my name on the back
of mans note and had to pay it, and
will never again put my name on the
back of any mans note. gave beggar
ten cents, and five minutes after ! saw
him entering liquor store to spend 1t. l
will never again give a cent to a beggar.
/ helped that young man start in bust
ness, and 10, after awhile, he came and
opened a store almost next to me, and
stole my customers. | will never again
help young man start in business. l
trusted in what my neighbor promised to
do, and he broke his word, and the Psalm
ist was right before he corrected himself,
for ''all men are liars"
Now, supposing that you have, by
divine regeneration, got right toward
God and humanity, and you start out to
practice my text: "A man that hath
friends must show himself friendly"
Fulfill this by all forms of appropriate
salutations. Have you noticed that the
head is SO poised that the easiest thing
on earth is to give nod Of recognition
To swing the head froLi side to side, as
when it is wagged in derision, is un-
natural and unpleasant; to throw it back
invites vertigo; but to drop the chin in
greeting is accompanied with so little
exertion that all day long and every day
you might practice it without the least
semblance of fatigue. So, also, the
structure of the hand indicates hand
shaking; the knuckles not made so that
the fingers can turn out, but so made
that the fingers can turn in as in clasping
hands; and the thumb divided from and
set alOof from the fingers. so that while
the fingers take your neighbours hand on
one side, the thumb takes 1t on the other,
and, pressed together, all the faculties of
the hand give emphasis to the salutation.
Five sermons in every healthy hand urge
us to handshaking.
Besides this, every day when you start
out, load yourself up with kind thoughts,
kind words, kind expressions and kind
greetings. When a man or woman does
well, tell him so, tell her so. II you meet
some one who is improved in health, and
it Is demonstrated in mrth and color.
say: GLOW well you look" But if on the
other hand, under the wear and tear of
life, he appears pale and exhausted, do
not introduce sanitary subjects, or say
any thing at all about physical condi-
tions. In the case of improved health,
you have by your words given another
impulse towards the robust and the jo-
cund; while in the case of the failing
health you have arrested the decline by
your silence, by which he concludes: "If
l were really so bad Of, he would have
said something about it."
We are all, especially those of q nerv-
Gus temperam ent, susceptible TO kind
words and OBSCURE ging words. Form a
conspiracy against us, and let ten men
meet us at certain points on our way to
business, and let each one say: allow
sick you look" though we SHOULD start
out well, after meeting the first and hear
ing his depressing salute, we would be-
gin to examine our symptoms. After
meeting the second gloomy accosting, we
would conclude we did not feel quite as
we'll as usual. After meeting the third,
our sensations would be dreadful; and
after meeting the fourth, unless we ex-
pected conspiracy. we would go home
and go to bed, and the other six pes
simists would be useless surplus of dis
couragement. My dear sir, my dear
madam, what do you mean by going
about this world with disheartenments?
Is not the supply of gloom, and troub lie,
and misfortune enough to meet the de-
mand, without your running factory of
pins and spikes? Why should you plant
black and blue in the world when God so
seldom plants them? Plenty of scarlet
colors, plenty of yellow, plenty of green,
plenty of pink, but very seldom a plant
black or blue.
never saw black flower, and there's
only here and there blue bell OF vio-
let; but the blue is for the most part re-
served for the sky, and we have to look
up to see that, and when we look up no
color can do us harm. Why not plant
along the paths of others the brightnesses
instead of the gloomsf Do not prophesy
misfortune. If you must be prophet at
all be an Ezekiel, and not a Jeremiah. In
ancient times prophets who foretold evil
were doing right. for they were divinely
directed; but the prophets of evil in our
time are generally false prophets. Some
of our weather wise people are prophecy