The Forrest City times., 1891-09-18
ONLY ONE KIND WORD.
YOU SHOULD NEVER HESITATE
 TO UTTER IT.
Dr. Ta1mage Returns to Brooklyn Tabernacle After alis Summer Va. cation. Sermon with KIndness as the Text.

tho Text.
 | Here we are on the Island of Malta,
 another name for Melita. This island,
 which ha' always been an important
 commercial center, belonging at differ ! ent times to Phnnicia, 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, 131 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 l half an hour, she struck at what is now 1 called St. Paurs bay. Practical sailors have taken up the bible account and de-
 cided beyond controversy the place of I the shIpwreck. But the island
 which has so rough coast is for the most part garden. l Richest fruits and profusion of
 honey characterized 1t in Paurs 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 Creek, opened their doors to the shipwrecked unfortunates Everything had gone to the bottom of the deep, and the barefooted, bareheaded apos- | tie and ships crew were in a condition | to appreciate hospitality. About | twenJy-fiv such men q few seasons ago found in the life station near
 Easthampton, Long Island. They had got ashore in the night from the sea, and not a hat or shoe had
 they left, They found out, as Paul | and his fellow-voyagers found out, shat the sea is the toughest of all robbers. My text finds the ships crew ashore on Malta, and around a 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 ship, and
 putting the hospitalities of the island CTS to q severe test. But it endured the test satisfactorily, and it is record ed for all the ages of time and eternity to read and hear in regard to the in habitants of Malta: Tho barbarous people showed us no little kindness There is is kindness of disposition, kindness Of word. kindness of act, and there is Jesus Christ the impersonation l of all of them Kindness. You cannot
 affect 1t, 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. It cannot dwell with arrogance
 or spite or revenge or malevolence. At it's first appearance in the soul all
 these Amalekites and Gergishites and Hittites and Jebusites must quit. and quit forever. Kindness wishes 'ery-
 body well, every man we'll, every wo- man well, every child we'll, every bird well, every horse well, every dog we'll, 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 womans association, and it would dull every sword until it
 would not cut skin deep. and unwheel every battery till 1t could not roll, and
 make gnnpowder of no more use in the world except for rock blasting or pyro technic cele bration. Kindness is n spir- it divinely implanted, and in answer to
 prayer, and then to be seduously culti- vated until it fills all nature with perfume richer and more pungent than mignonette, and, as if you put tuft of that aromatic beauty behind the clock
 on the mantel, or in some corner where nobody can see :it, you find people walking about your room looking this way and that, and you ask them, What 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 everything. But are you waiting and hoping for some one to be bankrupted or exposed,
 or discomfted, or in some way over
 thrown, then kindness has not taken possession of your nature. You are "lCCACa oh WhSAG tbSiC asS no oranges You arc entertaining n guest so unlike kindcss that kind
 ness will not come and dwell un- der tho same roof The most exhaustfng and unhealthy and ruin
 ous feeling on earth is revengeful
 spirit or retaliating spirit, as I know
 by experience, for have tried it tor
 five or ten minutes at . time When
 some mean thing has been done me or
 said about me, have felt "I will pay
 him in his own coin will show him
 up. Tho ingrate. The traitor The
 liari The villain" But five or ten min
 utes of the feeling has been so un-
 n rving and cxhausting have
 abandoned 1t, and cannot under
 stand how people can go about tortur-
 ing themselves i've 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 washing them all good
 and no evil. As malcvolencc is the most
 uneasy and protitlcss and dangerous
 feeling. kindness Is the most
 healthful and delightful.. .And this
 is not an abstraction. As I 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 vengeance upon every man
 that eyer did me a wrong, by doing him
 a kindness. In most of such cases
 hnva n1rcndv suC~aa1a1 h,.t fharxs n