For words are wonderful things;
They are sweet like the bees’ fresh honey,
Like bees, they have terrible stings;
They can bless like the warm, glad sunshine,
And brighten the lonely life;
They can cut in the strife of anger,
Yes, cut like a two-edged knife.”
ONLY A SHILLING.
Be kind in act. Hands are deaf and dumb, but they should be the instruments of a tender heart, having a soft touch. Gladstone, with an empire on his shoulders, found time to leave Parliament and carry flowers to a little sick crossing-sweeper. A small girl selling chestnuts arrested the attention of a young man who gave her a shilling. Years after a poor man called upon a rich bank director to ask for a position as messenger. The director’s wife recognized him as he passed out. She learned his business with her husband and said with earnestness, “Give him the situation.” “Why?” he asked. The wife told the story how he had given her the shilling. The husband was pleased to favor his wife and that night the man received a note as he sat by his sick wife. Opening it, he exclaimed: “Good news, wife! We shall not starve; here is a promise of a situation.” His wife called his attention to something that fell upon the floor. It was a fifty pound note folded in a paper bearing the inscription, “In grateful remembrance of the shilling which a kind stranger bestowed on a little girl selling chestnuts twenty years ago.”
Be kind, my boy. There is a magic charm connected with it. So thought William Cowper, who said he would not trust a man who would with his foot crush a worm. So thought the private secretary of President Lincoln, when he found him in the Capitol grounds trying to put a little bird back to the nest from which it had fallen. So thought George Dana Boardman, who could not enjoy the so-called sports of hunting and fishing, because of the suffering they wrought upon the innocent and helpless. Ah, my lad, just as Androcles extracted the thorn from the lion’s paw, and was afterwards defended by that lion, kindness seldom goes unrecompensed. It gives satisfaction to the donor and comfort to the donee.