It may help to cultivate this virtue, to practise some forethought. When tempted to irritable, censorious speech, one might with advantage call to recollection the times, perhaps frequent, when words uttered in haste have caused sorrow or repentance. Then, again, the fact might be called to mind, that when we lose a friend, every harsh word we may have spoken rises to condemn us. There is a resurrection, not for the dead only, but for the injuries we have fixed in their hearts--in hearts, it may be, bound to our own, and to which we owed gentleness instead of harshness.
The shafts of reproach, which come from the graves of those who have been wounded by our fretfulness and irritability, are often hard to bear. Let meek forbearance and self-control prevent such suffering, and guard us against the condemnations of the tribunal within.
There is another tribunal, also, which it were wise to think of. The rule of that tribunal is, that if we forgive not those who trespa.s.s against us, we ourselves shall not be forgiven. "He shall have judgment without mercy that hath showed no mercy." Only, then, if we do not need, and expect never to beg the mercy of the Lord to ourselves, may we withhold our mercy from our fellow-men.
"ALL THE DAY IDLE."
WHEREFORE idle?--when the harvest beckoning, Nods its ripe ta.s.sels to the brightening sky?
Arise and labour ere the time of reckoning, Ere the long shadows and the night draw night.
Wherefore idle?--Swing the sickle stoutly!
Bind thy rich sheaves exultingly and fast!
Nothing dismayed, do thy great task devoutly-- Patient and strong, and hopeful to the last!
Wherefore idle?--Labour, not inaction, Is the soul"s birthright, and its truest rest; Up to thy work!--It is Nature"s fit exaction-- He who toils humblest, bravest, toils the best.
Wherefore idle?--G.o.d himself is working; His great thought wearieth not, nor standeth still, In every throb of his vast heart is lurking Some mighty purpose of his mightier will.
Wherefore idle?--Not a leaf"s slight rustle But chides thee in thy vain, inglorious rest; Be a strong actor in the great world,--bustle,-- Not a, weak minion or a pampered guest!
Wherefore idle?--Oh I _my_ faint soul, wherefore?
Shake first from thine own powers dull sloth"s control; Then lift thy voice with an exulting "Therefore Thou, too, shalt conquer, oh, thou striving soul!"
THE BUSHEL OF CORN.
FARMER GRAY had a neighbour who was not the best-tempered man in the world though mainly kind and obliging. He was shoemaker. His name was Barton. One day, in harvest-time, when every man on the farm was as busy as a bee, this man came over to Farmer Gray"s, and said, in rather a petulant tone of voice,
"Mr. Gray, I wish you would send over, and drive your geese home."
"Why so, Mr. Barton; what have my geese been doing?" said the farmer, in a mild, quiet-tone.
"They pick my pigs" ears when they are eating, and go into my garden, and I will not have it!" the neighbour replied, in a still more petulant voice.
"I am really sorry it, Neighbour Barton, but what can I do?"
"Why, yoke them, and thus keep them on your own premises. It"s no kind of a way to let your geese run all over every farm and garden in the neighborhood."
"But I cannot see to it, now. It is harvest-time, Friend Barton, and every man, woman, and child on the farm has as much as he or she can do.
Try and bear it for a week or so, and then I will see if I can possibly remedy the evil."
"I can"t bear it, and I won"t bear it any longer!" said the shoemaker.
"So if you do not take care of them, Friend Gray, I shall have to take care of them for you."
"Well, Neighbour Barton, you can do as you please," Farmer Gray replied, in his usual quiet tone. "I am sorry that they trouble you, but I cannot attend to them now."
"I"ll attend to them for you, see if I don"t," said the shoemaker, still more angrily than when he first called upon Farmer Gray; and then turned upon his heel, and strode off hastily towards his own house, which was quite near to the old farmer"s.
"What upon earth can be the matter with them geese?" said Mrs. Gray, about fifteen minutes afterwards.
"I really cannot tell, unless Neighbour Barton is taking care of them.
He threatened to do so, if I didn"t yoke them right off."
"Taking care of them! How taking care of them?"
"As to that, I am quite in the dark. Killing them, perhaps. He said they picked at his pigs" ears, and drove them away when they were eating, and that he wouldn"t have it. He wanted me to yoke them right off, but that I could not do, now, as all the hands are busy. So, I suppose, he is engaged in the neighbourly business of taking care of our geese."
"John! William! run over and see what Mr. Barton is doing with my geese," said Mrs. Gray, in a quick and anxious tone, to two little boys who were playing near.
The urchins scampered off, well pleased to perform any errand.
"Oh, if he has dared to do anything to my geese, I will never forgive him!" the good wife said, angrily.
"H-u-s-h, Sally! make no rash speeches. It is more than probable that he has killed some two or three of them. But never mind, if he has. He will get over this pet, and be sorry for it."
"Yes; but what good will his being sorry do me? Will it bring my geese to life?"
"Ah, well, Sally, never mind. Let us wait until we learn what all this disturbance is about."
In about ten minutes the children came home, bearing the bodies of three geese, each without a head.
"Oh, is not that too much for human endurance?" cried Mrs. Gray. "Where did you find them?"
"We found them lying out in the road," said the oldest of the two children, "and when we picked them up, Mr. Barton said, "Tell your father that I have yoked his geese for him, to save him the trouble, as his hands are all too busy to do it.""
"I"d sue him for it!" said Mrs. Gray, in an indignant tone.
"And what good would that do, Sally?"
"Why, it would do a great deal of good. It would teach him better manners. It would punish him; and he deserves punishment."
"And punish us into the bargain. We have lost three geese, now, but we still have their good fat bodies to eat. A lawsuit would cost us many geese, and not leave us even so much as the feathers, besides giving us a world of trouble and vexation. No, no, Sally; just let it rest, and he will be sorry for it, I know."
"Sorry for it, indeed! And what good will his being sorry for it do us, I should like to know? Next he will kill a cow, and then we must be satisfied with his being sorry for it! Now, I can tell you, that I don"t believe in that doctrine. Nor do I believe anything about his being sorry--the crabbed, ill-natured wretch!"
"Don"t call hard names, Sally," said Farmer Gray, in a mild, soothing tone. "Neighbour Barton was not himself when he killed the geese. Like every other angry person, he was a little insane, and did what he would not have done had he been perfectly in his right mind. When you are a little excited, you know, Sally, that even you do and say unreasonable things."
"Me do and say unreasonable things!" exclaimed Mrs. Gray, with a look and tone of indignant astonishment; "me do and say unreasonable things, when I am angry! I don"t understand you, Mr. Gray."
"May-be I can help you a little. Don"t you remember how angry you were when Mr. Mellon"s old brindle got into our garden, and trampled over your lettuce-bed, and how you struck her with the oven-pole, and knocked off one of her horns?"