"That would make the fire worse," said one of the girls.
"Certainly. So if you want to touch quarrelsome spirits with the least hope of softening them, you must be so full of the love of Jesus yourself that nothing but love can come out of your own spirit. You see it means a good deal, to be a peacemaker."
"I always thought that must be one of the easiest things of the whole lot," said one of the class.
"You wont find it so, I think; or rather you will find they are all parts of the same character, and the blessing is one. But there are more ways of being a peacemaker. What do you do when the hinge of a door creaks?"
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 Kizzy.
"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, peoples' 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."