Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1891-09-18

the petunia and which the morning
glory; but the morning glory blooms
only few hours and then shuts up for
the day, while the petunia is In as
widespread glow at IL o'clock at
noon and at q o'clock in the evening as
at sunrise. And this grace of kindness
Is not spasmodic. is not intermittent,
is not for little while, but II IRA
dates the whole nature, all through
and clear on till the sunset of our
earthly existence. Kindness! i am re-
solved To get it. Are you resolved to
get it? 1t does not come by hap-haz-
zard, but through culture under the
Divine help. 1histlcs grow without
culture. Rocky Mountain sage grass
grows without culture. Mullen stocks
grow without culture. But that great
red rose in the conservatory, its leaves
packed on leaves, deep-dyed as though
it hAd been obliged to fight for its
beauty and it were still reeking with
the carnage of the battle. that rose
needed To be cultured and through
long years its floral ancestors
We're cultured. O God implant kind
ness in all our souls, and then give us
grace TO watch it, TO enrich it, To de.
velop it!
The East wind and the West wind
Were one day talking with each other,
and the East wind said to the West
wind: Don't Won wish you had my
power? Why, when start they hail
me by storm signals all along the coast.
| can twist OF a ship mast as easily as
"A cows hoof cracks an der. With
one sweep of my wing, | have
strewn the coast from New
foundland to Key West with parted
ship-timber. / can lift and have lifted
the Atlantic. Ocean. ] am the terror
Of all invalidism, and 10 fight me back
forests must be cut down Tor fires. and
the mines of continents are called on
to feed the furnaces. Under my
breath the nations crouch in sepul-
chres. Don't you wish YOU had my
power?' said the east wind. The west
wilma made no answer, but started on
It's mission, coming somewhere out OF
che rosy bowers Of the sky, and all
the rivers and lakes and seas smiled at
It's coming. The gardens bloomed,
and the orchards ripened, and the
wheat fields turned their silver into
gold, and health clapped its hands.
and JOY shouted from the hill tops,
and the nations lifted their forehcads
doXology for the sky, ana the sky an
anthem for the earth, and the warmth
and the sparkle, and the gladness, and
the foliage, and the flowers, ana the
fruits, and the beauty, and the life
were the only answer the West wind
made to the inSolenco of the East
winds interrogation.
Kindness to all. Surely il ought not
70 10 Al 70
we see towering above the centuries
such an example that one glimpse of it
ought to melt and transform all ma
tions. Kindness brought our Lord
from Heaven. Kindness To mis-
creants, kindness TO prosecutors, kind
ness to the crippled and the blind
and the cataleptic and the leprous
and the dropsical, and the demoniacal
characterized him al! the way, and on
the Cross, kindness To the bandits SUI
fering on the side of him, and kindness
To the eXecutioners while yet they
pushed the spear and hammered tIe
spikes, and howled the blasphemies
All .,Sc stories of the John Towards
and the Florence Nightingales and the
Grace Darlings and the Ida Lew
ises pale before this transcen-
dant example of II m whose birth and
life and death are the greatest story
that the world ever heard, ana the theme
of the mightiest hosanna that Heaven
ever lif,e ed. Yea, the kindness that
allowed both hands TO be nailed
to the horizontal timber OF the
Cross with that cruel thump, thump.
now stretches down from the skies
those same hands filled with balm
for all our wounds. forgiveness for all
our crimes. rescue for all our seridoms.
And while we take this matchiess kind
ness from Cod. may ii be found that we
have uttered our last bitter word, writ
ten our last cutting paragraph, done
our last rctaliatOry action, felt our last
revengcful hcarS-throb. And il would
not be a bad epItapn for any of Us If
by the grace of God from this time
forth we lived such bencficent lives
that the tombstOne's chiscl could
appropriately cut upon the plain
slab that marks our grave "A suggcS-
tion from the text: "llc showed us no
little kindness" But until the last
child of God has got ashore from the
earthly storms that drove him on the
rocks like Mediterranean Euroclydons,
not until all the thrones of heaven are
mounted, and all the conqucrors
crowned, and all the harps and trum.
pets and organs os heaven are
thrummed or blown or sounded, and
the ransomed OF all chimes and ages are
in f III chorus under the jubilant
swing of angelic baton, and we shall
for thousands OF years have seen the
river from under the throne rolling
into the "sea of glass mingled VIII
ire" and this world we now inhabI:
shall be so far in the past that only a
stretch of celestial memory can recall
that it ever existed at all, not until
then viii we understand what Nehe'
miah calls "thc marvellous kindness,
and Isaiah calls 1.-The everlasting kind
ness" IF God.