The Good Resolution

REVISED BY D.P. KIDDER.
THE
GOOD RESOLUTION.
REVISED BY D.P. KIDDER
New York
PUBLISHED BY LANE & SCOTT,
FOR THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 200 MULBERRY-STREET.
JOSEPH LONGKING, PRINTER. 1831.

Why am I so unhappy to-day? said Isabella Gardner, as she opened her eyes on the morning of her fourteenth birth-day. Is it because the sun is not bright enough, or the flowers are not sweet enough? she added, as she looked on the glorious sunshine that lay upon the rose-bushes surrounding her window.
Isabella arose, and dressed herself, and tried to drive away her uncomfortable feelings, by thinking of the pleasures of the afternoon, when some of her young friends were to assemble to keep her birth-day. But she could not do it; and, sad and restless, she walked in her father's garden, and seated herself on a little bench beneath a shady tree. Everything around was pleasant; the flowers seemed to send up their gratitude to Heaven in sweetness, and the little birds in songs of joy. All spoke peace and love, and Isabella could find nothing there like discontent or sorrow. The cause of her present troubled feelings was to be found within.
Isabella Gardner was in the habit of indulging in a fretful and peevish temper. She was often hasty in her spirit to be angry; forgetting that the wise Solomon says, Anger resteth in the bosom of fools; and that a greater than Solomon had commanded her to forgive, as she would be forgiven.