Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1891-09-18
ONLY ONE KIND WORD.
you SHOULD NEvEP HESITATE
TO UTTER 1T.
DIR. Talmage Returns 90 BROOKLYN
Tabernacle After His summer Va
cation. sermon with Kindness as
tho Text

another name for Nell tn. This island,
which ha, always been an important
commercial center, belonging at differ
emit times to Phenicia, TO Greece, to
Rome, to Arabia, to Spain, to France,
now belongs to England. The area of
the island is about one hundred square
miles. 1t is in the Mediterranean Sea.
and of such clarity of atmosphere that
Mount Etna, 1877 miles away, can be
distinctly seen. The island is glori-
ously memorable, because the Knights
OF Malta for a long while ruled there,
but most famous because of the apos-
tolic shipwreck The bestormed vessel
on which Paul sailed +, had 'laid to"
on the starboard tack and the wind
was blowing east-northeast and the
vessel, drifting, probably mile and a
half an hour, she struck at what is now
called St. Paups bay. Practical sailors
have taken up the bible account and de-
cided beyond controversy the place of
the shipwrecl. But the island
which has so rough coast
is for the most part a garden
Richest fruits and profusion of
honey characterized it in Pauls time
as we'll as now. The finest oranges,
figs, and olives grew there. When
Paul and his comrades crawled up on
the beach, saturated with the salt
water, and hungry from long abstin
ence from food, and chilled TO the
bone, the islanders, though called bar
barians, because they could not speak
Greek, opened their doors 10 the
shipwrecked unfortunates. Everything
had e ne to the bottom of the deep
and the barefooted, bareheaded apos-
tie and ships crew were IN a condition
to appreciate hospitality. About
twenty-five such men few seasons
ago l found in the life station near
Easthampton, Long Island. They
had got ashore in the night from
! the sea, and not n hat or shoe had
they left. They found out, as Paul
and his fellow voyagers found out, that
the sea is the toughest of all robbers.
My text finds the ships crew ashore
on Malta, and around hot fire drying
themselves, and with the best pro-
vision the islanders can offer them.
And they go into government quarters
for three days to recuperate, Publius,
the ruler inviting them, although
he had severe sickness in the
house at that time, his father down
with dysentery and typhoid fever.
Yea, for three months they stayed on
the island watching for a ship, and
putting the hospitalities of the islaP1-
ers to a severe test. But 1t endured
the test satisfactorily, and 1T Is record
ed for all the ages of time and eternity
to read and hear in regard to the in
habitants of Maiti: The barbarous
people showed us no little kindness
There is is kindness of deposition,
kindness of word. kindness of act, and
| 81 4
of all of them. Kindness! You cannot
affect it, you cannot play it as a part,
you cannot enact it, you cannot dram
atize it. BY the grace of God you must
have it inside you, an everlasting SUM-
mer, or rather combination OF June
and October, the geniality of the
one and the tonic of the
other. 1t cannot dwell with arrogance
or spite or revenge or malevolen e.
At its first appearan in the soul all
! these Amalekites and Ger gishites and
Utilities and Jebusites must quit, and
] quit forever. Kindness wishes c cry
body well, every man well. every wo-
man we |, every child well, every bird
well, every horse well, every dog WELL
every cat well. Give, this spirit full
swing and you would have no more
need of societies for prevention
! of cruelty to animals, no more need Of
| protective sewing woman S ASSOCIATION,
and il would dull every sword until it
would not cut skin deep, and unwheel
every battery till it could not roll, and
ma e gnnpowder of no more use in the
world except for rock blasting or pyI o.
.asAnic cele bration. Kindness is a spir-
:. @ivine ly implanted, and in answer to
prayer, and then to be seduously culti-
waited until it fills all nature with a
perfume richer and more pungent than
mignonette, and, as if you put a tuft of
that aromatic beauty behind the clock
on the mantel or in some corner where
nobo Y can see lit, you find pc pie
walking about your room looking this
way and that, and you ask them
~ hat are you looking for?' and they
answer, "Where is that flower SO
| If one has in his soul this infinite
sweetness of disposition its per-
fume will whelm everyth .ng.
hut are you waiting and hoping Tor
come one to be bankrupted or exposed,
or discounted, or in some way over
thrown, then kindness has not taken
possession of your nature. You are
wrecked on Malta where there are
no oranges. You are entertaining q
| RucSL 30 unilhC hluu-
ness will not come and dwell un-
der the same roof. The most
exhaustfng and unhealthy and ruin
GUS feeling on earth is a revengeful
spirit or retaliating spirit, as / know
by experience, for / have tried il tor
five or ten minutes at a time. When
some mean thing has been done me or
said about me, i have felt Il will pay
him in his own coin. i will show him
up. The migrated The traitor! The
liarl The villainr' Ru1 Eve or ten min
utes of the feeling has been so un-
n rving and exhausting i have
abandoned 1T, and / cannot under
stand how people can go about tortur-
ing themselves five or ten or twenty
years, trying TO get even with some
body. The only way you will ever
triumph over your enemies is by for
giving them and wishing them all good
and no evil As malevolence is the most
uneasy and proftless and dangerous
feeling. kindness is the most
bealthful and delightful. - And this
is not an abstraction. AS have tried
little of the retaliatory feeling, so /
have tried little of the forgiving. l
do not want TO leave this world until
have taken vengence upon every man
that ever did me a wrong, by doing him