That generation and individual must be far from perfect that is characterized by the presence of harshness and the absence of gentleness. With a great blare of trumpets our century has been praised for its ingenuity, its wealth and comforts, its instruments, refinement and culture. But history tells of no man who has carried his genius up to such supreme excellence that society has forgotten his vice or forgiven the faults that marred his rare gifts. What genius had De Quincey! Marvelous the myriad-minded Coleridge! The opium-habit, however, was a vice that eclipsed their fame and robbed them of half their rightful influence. Voltaire's style was so faultlessly perfect that if the sentences lying across his page had been strings of pearls they could have been no more beautiful. But Voltaire's excesses make a black mark across the white page before each reader's mind. Rousseau's writings are so melodious that, long after laying aside the book the ear would be filled with the sound of delicious music were it not that the reader seems ever to hear the moan of the four children whose unnatural father, without even giving them a name, placed them in the foundling-asylum.
Early Carlyle wooed and won one of the most brilliant girls of his day, whose signal talent shone in the crowded drawing-rooms of London like a sapphire blazing among pebbles. Yet her husband lacked gentleness. Slowly harshness crept into Carlyle's voice. Soon the wife gave up her favorite authors to read the husband's notes; then she gave up all reading to relieve him of details; at last her very being was placed on the altar of sacrifice—fuel to feed the flame of his fame and genius. Long before the end came she was submerged and almost forgotten. One day two distinguished foreign authors called upon Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle. For an hour the philosopher poured forth vehement tirade against the commercial spirit, while the good wife never once opened her lips. At last the author ceased talking, and there was silence for a time. Suddenly Carlyle thundered: "Jane, stop breathing so loud!" Long years before Jane had stopped doing everything else except breathe. And so, obedient to the injunction, a few days afterward she ceased "breathing so loud."
When a few weeks had gone by Carlyle discovered, through reading her journal, that his wife had for want of affection frozen and starved to death within his home like some poor traveler who had fallen in the snows beyond the door. For years, without his realizing it, she had kept all the wheels oiled, kept his body in health and his mind in happiness. Only when it was too late did the husband realize that his fame was largely his wife's. Then did the old man begin his pathetic pilgrimage to his wife's grave, where Froude often found him murmuring: "If I had only known! If I had only known!" For all his supreme gifts and rare talents were marred by harshness. Intellectual brilliancy weighs light as punk against the gold of gentleness and character. Half Carlyle's books, weighted by a gentle, noble spirit, would have availed more for social progress than these many volumes with the bad taste they leave in the mouth. The sign of ripeness in an apple, a peach, is beauty, and the test of character is gentleness and kindness of heart.
One of the crying needs of society is a revival of gentleness and of a refined considerateness in judging others. There is no disposition that cuts at the very root of character like harshness, and there is nothing that blights happiness and breeds discord like unlovingness and severity of judgment. We hear much of industrial strife, social warfare and want of sympathy between the classes. Be it remembered, gentleness alone can be invoked to heal the breach. There is a legend that when Jacob with his family and flocks met Esau with his children and herds, the angels of God hovered in the air above the two brothers and began to rain gifts down upon their companies. Strangely enough, each forgetting the gifts falling in his own camp, rushed forth to pick up the gifts falling in that of his brother. There was anger stirred. Epithets and stones began to fly, until all the air was filled with flying weapons. In such a scrimmage the messengers of peace had no place. Soon the sound of receding wings died out of the air, the gifts ceased to fall and all things faded into the light of common day. This legend interprets to us how harshness breeds strife and robs man of his gifts from God and his happiness through his brother man.
Several years ago an industrial war was waged in the coal districts of England that cost that nation untold treasure. It is said that the strife grew out of harsh words between the leaders of the opposing factions. It seemed that the industrious and worthy poor men overlooked the fact that there were industrious and worthy rich men and insisted on speaking only of the idle and spendthrift rich. Then followed his opponent who, as an industrious and worthy rich man, insisted on ignoring the industrious and worthy poor, but spoke only of the idle and thriftless poor, the paupers and parasites. Soon gentleness was forgotten and harshness remembered. Soon there came the trampled cornfields and the bloody streets.
Teachers also need to learn the lesson of Arnold of Rugby. One day the great instructor spake harshly to a dull boy, who an hour afterward came to him with tearful eyes, and in a half-sobbing voice exclaimed; "But why are you angry, sir? I am doing my best." Then Arnold learned that a lesson easy for one mind may be a torture for another. So he begged the boy's pardon, and recognized the principle of gentleness that afterward made him the greatest instructor of his time.
Not war, not pestilence, not famine itself, produces for each generation so much misery and unhappiness as is wrought in the aggregate through the accumulated harshness of each generation. Blessed are the happiness-makers! Blessed are they who with humble talents make themselves like the mignonette, creators of fragrance and peace! Thrice blessed are they who with lofty talents emulate the vines that climbing high never forget to blossom, and the higher they climb do ever shed sweet blooms upon those beneath! No single great deed is comparable for a moment to the multitude of little gentlenesses performed by those who scatter happiness on every side and strew all life with hope and good cheer.
Life holds no motive for stimulating gentleness in man like the thought of the gentleness of God. Unfortunately, it seems difficult for man to associate delicacy and gentleness with vastness and strength. It was the misfortune of Greek philosophers and is, indeed, that of nearly all the modern theologians, to suppose that a perfect being cannot suffer. Both schools of thought conceive of God as sitting upon a marble throne, eternally young, eternally beautiful, beholding with quiet indifference from afar how man, with infinite blunderings, sufferings and tears makes his way forward. Yet He who holds the sun in the hollow of his hand, who takes up the isles as a very little thing, who counts the nations but as the dust in the balance, is also the gentle One. Like the wide, deep ocean, that pulsates into every bay and creek and blesses the distant isles with its dew and rain, so God's heart throbs and pulsates unto the uttermost parts of the universe, having a parent's sympathy for His children who suffer.
Indeed, the seer ranges through all nature searching out images for interpreting His all-comprehending gentleness. "Even the bruised reed he will not break." Lifting itself high in the air, a mere lead pencil for size, weighted with a heavy top, a very little injury shatters a reed. Some rude beast, in wild pursuit of prey, plunges through the swamp, shatters the reed, leaves it lying upon the ground, all bruised and bleeding, and ready to die. Such is God's gentleness that, though man make himself as worthless as a bruised reed; though by his ignorance, frailty and sin he expel all the manhood from his heart and life, and make himself of no more value than one of the myriad reeds in the world's swamps, still doth God say: "My gentleness is such that I will direct upon this wounded life thoughts that shall recuperate and heal, until at last the bruised reed shall rise up in strength, and judgment shall issue in victory."
And as God's gentleness would go one step further, there is added the tender lesson of the smoking flax. Our glowing electric bulbs suffer no injury from blasts, and our lamps have like strength. The time was, when, wakened by the cry of the little sufferer, the ancient mother sprang up to strike the tinder and light the wick in the cup of oil. Only with difficulty was the tinder kindled. Then how precious the spark that one breath of air would put out! With what eagerness did the mother guard the smoking flax! And in setting forth the gentleness of God it is declared that, with eyes of love, He searches through each heart, and if He find so much as a spark of good in the outcast, the publican, the sinner, He will tend that spark and feed it toward the love that shall glow and sparkle forever and ever; for evil is to be conquered, and God will not so much punish as exterminate sin from His universe. His strength is inflicted toward gentleness, His justice tempered with mercy, and all his attributes held in solution of love. No longer should medievalism becloud God's gentle face. Cleanse your thoughts, as once the artist in Milan cleansed the grime and soot from the wall where Dante's lustrous face was hidden.