Many a man will give another man a letter of recommendation, though he would hardly lend the applicant a dollar.
1775
A HAPPY USE OF SINGING.
An excellent clergyman, possessing much knowledge of human nature, instructed his large family of daughters in the theory and practice of music. They were all observed to be exceedingly amiable and happy. A friend inquired if there was any secret in his mode of education. He replied—"When anything disturbs their temper, I say to them sing, and if I hear them speaking against any person, I call them to sing to me; and so they have sung away all causes of discontent, and every disposition to scandal."
—Arvine.
1776
He who stands still in mud,—sinks.
1777
SLANDER AND EVIL SPEAKING.
A lady who had been in the habit of spreading slanderous reports once confessed her fault to St. Philip Neri, who lived several hundred years ago. She asked him how she could cure it. "Go," he said in reply, "to the nearest market-place, buy a chicken just killed, pluck its feathers all the way, and come back to me." She was greatly surprised, wondering in what way a dead chicken could help her overcome her evil habit; but she did as he bade her, and came back to him with the plucked chicken in her hand. "Now go back," he said, "and bring me all the feathers you have scattered." "But this is impossible," she replied: "I cast the feathers carelessly, and the wind carried them away; how can I recover them?" "That," he said, "is exactly like your words of slander. They have been carried about in every direction. You cannot recall them. Go and slander no more." It was a striking way of teaching a very important lesson.