The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1891-09-24
world, methinks they would almost

world, methinks they would almost
abolish perdition.
Furthermore, there is kindness Of
action. That is what our assassinat-
ed President Lincoln demonstrated
when his private secretary found HIM
in the capitol grounds trying to get a
bird back to the nest from which it
had fallen, and which quality the
illustrious man exhibited years before
when riding with some lawyer in the
carriage on the way to court, passed
on the road swine fast in the mire.
after while cried to his horses, s'Hop'
and said to the gentleman, IT must
60. back and help that hog out of the
mire." And he did go back, and put
on solid ground that most uninterest-
ing quadruped. That is the spirit
that Grant showed when at the sur
render at Appomatox he said to Gen.
Lee: Gas many OF your soldiers are
farmers and will need the horses and
mules to raise the crops to keep their
families from suffering next winter, let
each confederate who can claim a.
horse or a. mule take it along with
him. Suppose all this assenlblage,
and all to whom these words shall
come by printers type, should re-
solve to make kindness an everreach-
ing, underglrding and alI-perv ading
principle of their life and then carry
out the resolution, why, in six months
THE WHOLE EARTH WOULD FEEL IT.
People would say: "What is the
matter? It seems to me that the
world is getting to be a better place
to live in. Why, life after all is
worth living. Why there is Shylock,
my neighbor, has withdrawn his
lawsuit OF foreclosure against that
man, and because he had so much
sickness in his family he is going to
have the house for one year rent free.
There is an old lawyer in that young
lawyers Office, and do you know
what he has gone in there for? Why,
he is helping fix up a case which is too
big for the young man to handle, and
the white-haired attorney is hunting
up previous decisions and making
out a brief for the boy. Down at the
bank, heard yesterday, note was
due, and the young merchant could
not meet it and an old MERCHANT
went in and got for him three
months extension, which for the
young merchant is the difference be-
tween bankruptcy and success in
business. Do you know that a
strange thing has taken place in the
pulpit and all the old ministers are
helping the young ministers, and all
the old doctors are helping the young
doctors, and the farmers are assist.
ing each other in gathering the har-
vest, and for that farmer who is sick
the nelghbors have made 'bee,' as
they call it; and they have all turned
in to help him get his crops into the
garner. And they tell me that the
older and more skillful reporters who
have permanent positions on papers
are helping the young fellows who are
just beginning to try and don't know
exactly how to do it,"
Kindness to ALL Surely it ought
not to be difficult grace to culture
when we see towering above the centur-
les such anexample that one glimpse
OF it ought to melt aud transform
all nations. Kindness to miscreants.
kindness to prosecutors, kindness to
the crippled and the blind and the
cataleptic and the leprous and the
dropsical, and the demoniacal char
acterized him all the way, and on the
cross, kindness to the bandits suffer-
ing on the side of him, and kindness
to the executioners while yet they
pushed the spear, and hammered the
spikes, and howled the blasphemies.
All the stories Of the John Howards
and the Florence Nightingales and
the Grace Darlings and the Ida Lewis
es pale before this trancendant exam
pie of him whose birth and life and
death are the greatest story that the
world ever heard, and the theme of
the mightiest hosanna that heaven
ever lifted. Yea, the very 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 serfdoms.
And while we take this matchless kind
ness from God, may it be found that
we have uttered our last bitter word,
written our last cutting paragraph,
done our last retaliatory action, felt
our last revengeful heart-throb. And
it would not be a bad epitaph for any
OF us if by the grace of God from this
time forth we lived such benehcent
lives that the tombstone's chisel
could appropriately cut upon the
plain slab that marks our grave a
suggestion from the text: "He showed
us no little kindness.