The Diving Bell; Or, Pearls to be Sought for

by Francis C. Woodworth

The good-natured farmer (for he was good-natured, and did not get into a passion because a mere boy, young enough to be his grand-child, attempted to help him out of his difficulty) the good-natured farmer stopped a moment, looked at the matter carefully, and frankly acknowledged that he had gone the wrong way to work.

"I wonder what on earth I was thinking of," said he, in his usual blunt language. Of course he shifted his crow-bar immediately, so as to get a good purchase. The trouble was all over then. The stone came up easily enough, of course.

It came into my mind while I was thinking about this farmer's mistake in the use of his lever, that certain people—myself included, perhaps—might profit by this blunder.

A great many, for instance, use the lever of truth—a very good crow-bar, the best to be had—in overturning moral evils. But they do not accomplish anything, because they take hold of the wrong end of the lever. They have no purchase.

Here is a man, who, as I think, is in the habit of wrong doing every day. Well, I settle it in my mind that I will talk to him, and see if I cannot make a better man of him. I look him up, and go to prying at his sin, like a man digging up pine stumps by the job. I call him hard names. Why not? He deserves them. Everybody knows that. I do not mince the matter with him at all. But what I say seems to have no good effect upon him. It makes him angry, and he advises me to mind my own business, assuring me, at the same time, that he shall take good care to mind his.

I see plainly enough that I have been working half an hour or more to no purpose, and that very likely I have made matters worse. Yet what was my error?

Simply this: that I spent all my strength at the short arm of the lever. If I had gone to work with a kind and tender spirit, something as Nathan went to work at David, once on a time, and used the other end of the lever, I should have got a good purchase, at least, and I am not sure but the stone would have yielded. As it is, however, the troublesome thing is there yet, and it seems to be settling into the ground deeper than ever.

I know some good people, among whom I can count half a score of ministers, who try very hard to keep bad books and periodicals out of the family circle.

There is no end to their talk against these things. They tell their children that they must never read such and such books, and that if they ever catch one of them reading these books, they shall take good care to punish them for it.

But in spite of all the efforts of these people, they don't succeed in keeping these bad books out of the family. In some way or other, they are smuggled into the hands of a boy or girl, and they are read, while the parent, perhaps, knows nothing of it. That is all wrong, of course. I don't mean to say anything to excuse the boy or girl—nothing of the kind. But why didn't these parents go another way to work? Why, instead of preaching all those long sermons on bad books, and threatening their children with punishment in case they read these books, why did they not provide other books, equally interesting, though innocent and useful? That would have been a wiser course, methinks. That would have been the right end of the crow-bar to work at. The way to get rid of an evil is to find something else to put in its place. So I think.