"Would passion force thee to do the wrong? The surge sweeps up, and it strikes the rock, DON'T RIDICULE. "Whatever the temptation to levity at the expense of others, don't yield to it. It is indecent and dangerous. If there is a destroyer of good feeling, friendship, affection and love; if there is one thing more than another that will change love to hatred, corrode the heart, and poison the mind, it is ridicule. We are most easily tempted and led away from right and duty by ridicule. To avoid the shame, we compromise with our conscience, commit the greatest wrong; and in an hour, bowed in the dust with bitterness of spirit, oh, how deep is our repentance! "The hot breath of the desert sirocco is not more deadly than the voice of ridicule. We are afraid of it; we humble ourselves, and crawl in the dust at its command; we degrade ourselves to avoid it. It arouses the most fiendish passions; the eye flashes, the bosom heaves tumultuously over the feverish fire that rages within it, the heart beats wildly, and all control is gone. "Use it not! Life is too precious, love is too heavenly, friendship is too beautifully eloquent with happiness to be destroyed thus thoughtlessly. Rather let every word, every thought, be weighed in the balances of your heart, stripped of every useless adorning, and then go forth to fall gently, smoothly, like spring-time raindrops, on the ears of your fellow-mortals. "The preacher tells us that 'laughter is mad;' and the proverb of the wise man adds a warning that 'the end of mirth is heaviness.' The habit of looking too much at the ludicrous side of life is always hurtful to the moral feeling. The pleasure is faint and vanishing, and leaves behind it an apprehension of disgrace. It is not good to live in jest, since we must die in earnest." We find the foregoing words in the Christian Treasury, and they are true. We know a man who has kept his faculties— "Sacred to Ridicule his whole life long." If he does not live to sting, he stings to live. It has become a part of his life to offend and wound. When through with one victim he takes up another. He is intellectual but heartless. The world applauds him, but secretly abhors. He may do some good, but he will do more evil. While he lives, men will fear him; and when he dies the world will weep, not because his life is ended, but because he lived so long. DON'T FIND FAULT. "Nothing, perhaps, is more in accord with perverse human nature than fault-finding. There is room for fault-finding in this world of ours, and there are those who appear disposed always to occupy it. They see little else but the wrong, and are not at all backward in pointing it out. They have become adepts at the business, and would be discontented, their occupation being gone, were they to wake up some morning and find that the millennium had come while they slept. It was certainly out of order for it to come in that way and at such a time, as they were unable to give directions to affairs!" Of what use are such people? Who loves them? Whom do they influence or bless? What were they born for, and where will they go when they die? There must be a chamber in space somewhere for such spirits, and it can hardly be heaven, for once placed in a realm where there is nothing to find fault about, they would be miserable indeed. It must be hell, or some region contiguous to it, for if the descriptions of Dante and Milton are true, there are plenty of things in the pit of woe to grumble at. Perdition is the fault-finder's heaven. SPEAK NO EVIL. It was a favorite idea of the celebrated Frances de Sales that whoever could banish evil-speaking would get rid of a great part of the world's sinfulness. All sins come under the head of thought, word, and deed; and faults in word are the commonest and often the most dangerous for several reasons. First, because sins of thought only injure one's self, and give no scandal or bad example to others: God alone sees and is displeased at them, and moreover, a loving repentance and ready turning to him blots them out; whereas sins of the tongue go further; the evil word once uttered can only be recalled by an humble retraction, and even then a brother's heart may have been poisoned by it. Again, notorious acts of sin are liable to public punishment; but evil-speaking, unless extraordinarily gross and slanderous, is subject to no such check. Thirdly, sins of the tongue are specially dangerous because people do so little in the way of restitution or reparation for them. Those who have the guidance of souls are usually much too indulgent, not to say lax, in this particular. The tongue, though a little member, is immensely powerful, and cannot be too carefully guarded. BE VIGILANT. Let not your piety decline, nor your zeal slacken. Be alarmed by languor and indifference. If you meet with opposition, let it animate, not cool you. Keep your words and deeds consistent with your profession. Renounce your own will and your own way when you find them contrary to the will and way of God. Be not deceived by your own heart. Strive to know the real bent of your mind, the strongest tendency of character, where your disposition requires restraint, and where you can most safely trust yourself in some liberty of indulgence. Watch with a suspicious eye over your better qualities, and guard your very virtues from deviation and excess. Compare your life frequently by the gospel standard, and by your own purest ideal. Keep it up to the mark for the prize of your high calling. Heed Charles Wesley's words: "Leave no unguarded place, No weakness of the soul; |