Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1891-09-25

selves five or ten or twenty years,
trying to get even with somebody. The
only way you will ever triumph over your
enemies is by forgiving them and wishing
them all good and no evil. As malevolence
is the most uneasy and proftless and dan
ful and delightful. And this is not an alb
srraction. AS I have tried little OF the
retaliation, SO have tried little Of the for
giving.
do not want to leave this world until l
have taken ven yeance upon every man that
ever did me wrong by doing him kind
ness. In most OF such cases have already
succeeded but there are q few malignants
whom am vet pursuing, and shall not be
content until have in some wise helped
them or benefited them or blessed them.
Let us all pray for this spirit OF kin 1ness 1t
will settle thousand questions. It will
change the phase OF everything. It will mel
low through and through our entire nature
1t will transform lifetime. 1t is not a
feeling cotton up for occasions but peren-
nial
That is the reason L like petunias better
than morning glories. They look very
much alike, and if / should put in your
hand a petunia and a morning glory you
could hardly tell which is the petunia and
which the morning glory; but the n Forming
glory blooms only few hours and then
shuts up for the day, while the petunia is
at noon and six o'clock in the evening as at
sunrise. And the grace of kindness is not
spasmodic, is not intermittent is not for a
little while, but it irradiates the whole ma
ture, all through and clear on tall the sunset
of our earthly existence.
Kindness! [ am resolved to get it. Are
you resolved tO get it? 1t does not come by
haphazard, but through culture under the
divine help. Thistles grow without cul-
ture. Rocky mountain sage grass grows
without culture. Mullen stalks 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 were cultured.
God, implant kindness in all our souls, and
then give grace to watch it, to enrich it,
to develop it!
The king of Prussia had presented to him
by the empress of Russia the root Of rare
flower. ana it was put in the royal gardens
on an island, and the head gardener, Herr
Finteimann, was told to watcn it. And one
day it put forth its glory. Three days OF
every week the people were admitted to
these gardens, and a young man, probably
not realizing what a wrong thing he
was doing, plucking 'this Hover and
put it in his buttonhole, and the gar
dener arrested him as he was crossing at the
ferry, and asked the king to throw open no
more his gardens to the public. The king
replied: shall l deny the thousands oil
good people OF my country the privilege or
seeing this garden because one visitor has
done wrong? No, let them come and seq the
beautiful grounds"
And when the gardener wished to give the
king the name of the offender who had taken
the royal flower, he said, No, my memory
Is very tenacious and do not want to have
in my mind the name of the offender, lest 1t
should hinder NE granting him a favor some
other time" Now, [ want you to know
that kindness is a royal dover, and
mercy and grace that by divine gift and
not by purIoining we may pluck THIS royal
flower and not wear it on the outside of our
nature, but wearit on our soul and wear 1t
forever, its radiance and aroma not more
wonderful for time than wonderful for eter-
nifty.
Still further, must speak of kindness of
word. When you meet anyone do you say
a pleasant thing or an unpleasant? DO you
tell him of agreeable things you have heard
about him, or the disagreeable? When he
leaves you does he feel better or does he feel
worse? Oh, the power of the tongue for the
production Of happiness OF misery! One
would think fron the way the tongue is
Gagged in we might take the hint that it has
DANGEROUS to the P nacs Of tha month bS
strong muscles. Then it is surrounded nv
the teeth of the lower jaw, SO many ivu.J
bars, and then by the teeth of the upper
jaw, more ivory bars Then outside OF all
are the two lips with the power Of compress
sion and arrest, and yet notwithstanding
these four impriSonments or limitations, how
many take no hint in regard to the danger
Gus power of the tongue, and the results and
laceration, specification and damnation.
There are those if they know good thing
about you and a bad thing, will mention the
bad thing and act as though they had never
boa rHt he
sides to almost everyOne's character, and we
have the choice of overhauling the virtue or
the vice. We can greet Paul and the ships
crew as they come up the beach of Malta with
the words: NV hat sorry looking set you are!
How little of navigation you must know
to run on these rocks! Didn't you know
better than to put out on the Mediterranean
this wintry month? It was not much of
ship anyhow, or it would not have gone to
pieces SO soon as that. Well, what do you
want? We have hard enough work to make
living for ourselves, without having thrust
two hundred and seventy-six raga-
,uftinS.'
Not so, said the Maltese I think they
said: Come in Sit down by the fire and
warm yourselves! Glad that you all got
off with your lives. Make yourselves at
home You are welcome to all we have
until some ship comes in sight and you re-
sumo your voyage. Her., let me put
bandage on your forehead, for that is an
ugly cash you got from the floating tim
bers, and here IS a man with a broken arm.
We will have doctor come to attend to this
fracture" And though for three months
the kindness went ON, we have but little
more than this brief record, The barbarous
people showed US no little kindness"
Oh! say the cordial thing! Say the useful
thing! Say the hospitable thing! Say the
helpful thing! Say the Christlike thing!
Say the kind think! I admit that this is
easier for some temperaments than for 9th
ers. Some are born pessimists, and some