One said "She didn't know;" another said "Nothing." "I stop my ears," said a third. Mr. Folke laughed.
"That would not do for a peacemaker," he said. "Don't you know what makes machinery work smoothly?"
"Oil!" cried Jane.
"Oil to be sure! One little drop of oil will stop ever so much creaking and groaning and complaining, of hinges and wheels and all sorts of machines. Now, people's tempers are like wheels and hinges. But what sort of oil shall we use?"
The girls looked at each other, and then one of them said, "Kindness."
"To be sure! A gentle word, a look of love, a little bit of kindness, will smooth down a roughened temper or a wry face, and soften a hard piece of work, and make all go easily. And so of reproving sinners. The Psalmist says, 'Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head.' But, you see, the peacemaker must be righteous himself, or he hasn't the oil. Love is the oil—the 'love of Jesus.'"
"Mr. Folke," said Nettie, timidly, "wasn't Jesus a peacemaker?"
"The greatest that ever lived!" said Mr. Folke, his eyes lighting up with pleasure at her question. "He made all the peace there is in the world, for He bought it, when He died on the cross to reconcile man with God. All our drops of oil were bought with drops of blood."
"And," said Nettie, hesitatingly, "Mr. Folke, isn't that one way of being a peacemaker?"
"What?"