Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1891-09-18

l
are entertaining guest so unlike kind
ness that kindness will not come and
dwell under the same roof. The most
/ exhausting and unhealthy and ruinous
| feeling on earth is revengeful spirit or
retalating spirit, as know by expert
cpce, for have tried it for five or ten
minutes at time. When some mean
thing has been done me or said about
me, have felt: 81 will pay him in his
own corn.s will show him up. The
migrate! The traitor! The liar! The
villain"
But five or ten minutes of the feeling
has been so unnerving and cXhausting
nave abandoned it, and l cannot under
stand how people can go about torturing
themselves five or ten or twenty years,
tr, ing to get even with somebody. The
on:y way you will ever triumph over
yo,r enemies is by torgiving them and
wishing them all good and no evil. AS
molevolence is the most uneasy and
prctitess and dangerous feeling, kind
ness is the most healthful and delightful.
And this is not abstraction. AS l have
tried little of the retaliation, so have
tried a little of the forgiving.
do not want to leave this world-until
that ever did me wrong by doing him a
kindness. In most of such cases l have
already succeeIed; but there are q few
malignants whom l am yet persuing and
| shall not be content until / have in
them or blessed them. Let rs pray for
this spirit of kindness. 1t will settle a
thousand questions. 1t will change the
e
through and through our entire nature.
1t will transform lifetime. 1t is not q
feeling gotten up for occasions, but per
cnnial.
Still further, must speak of kindness
of word. When you meet any one do
you say pleasant thing or an unpleas-
ant? 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 produc-
ton of happiness or misery!
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 heard the good thing.
Now, there are two sides to almost
every ones 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: "What sorry look
ing set you are! How little of naviga-
ton you must know to run on these
rocks! Didn't you know better than to
put out on the Mediterranean this
wintry month? 1t was not much of a
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 a living for ourselves without
having thrust on us 276 ragamuffins."
Not so said the Maltese think they
said: ''Cche 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 resume -FOUR voyage. Here, let me
put bandaSe on your forehead, for that
is an ugly cash you got from the floating
timbers, and here is man with a broken
arm. We will have a doctor come to at
tend to this fracture" And though for
three months the kindness went on, we
have but little more than this brief
record, 1.-The barbarous people showed
us no little Kindness -
Oh, say the cordial thing! Say the
useful thing! Say the hospisablc thing!
Say the helpful thing! Say the Christian
thing! Say the kind thing! l admit
that this is easier for some temperaments
than for others. Some are born pessim-
lists, and some are born optimists. and that
demonstrate itself all through every
thing. 1t is a cloudy morning. You
meet pessimists and you say, s'What
weather to-day?' He answers, sIt is
gong to Storm" and umbrella under
arm and waterproof overcoat show
that he is honest in that utterance.
On the same block, minute after,
you meet an o1timist.. and you say:
''What weather to-day?'' s'Good weather;
this is only fog and will soon scatter"
The absence of umbrella and absence of
waterproof show it is an honest utter
ance. On your way at noon to luncheon
you meet an optimistic merchant, and
you say, "What do you think of the
commercial prospects," and he says:
GLORIOUS. Great crops must bring
great business. We are going to have
such an autumn and winter of prosperity
as we have never SEEM"
On your way back to your store you
meet pessimistic merchant. ssWhat do
you think of the commercial prospects?'
you ask. And he answers: "Well,
don't know. So much grain will surfeit
the country. Farmers have more bushels
but less prices, and the grain gamblers
will get their fist in. There is the Nc
Kinley bill; and the hay crop is short in
some places, and in the Southern part of
Wisconsin they had hailstorm and our
business is as dull as it ever was.'
You will find the same difference in
judgment of character. A man of good
reputation is assailed and charged with
some evil decd. At the first story the
pessimist will believe in guilt. ''The
papers said so, and that's enough Down
with him!'' The optimist will say: 81
don't believe word of it. 1 don't think
that man that has been as useful and
seemingly honest for twenty years could
have got off the track like that. There
are two sides to this story, and / will
wait to hear the other side before l con-
denim him.
My hearer, if you are by nature a
pessimist, make a special effort by the
grace Of God to extirpate the dolcrous
and the hypercritical from your dispo-
SitOn. Relieve nothing AGAINST anyLnd,-