Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 May 1884 — Cultivate a Sweet Vocie. [ARTICLE]

Cultivate a Sweet Vocie.

There is no power of love so hard to keep as a kind voice. A kind hand is deaf and dumb. It may be rough in flesh and blood, yet do the work of a soft heart, and do it with a soft touch. But there is no one thing it so much needs as a sweet voice to tell what it means and feels, and it is hard to get it and keep it in the right tone. One must start in you h, and be on the watch night and day, at work and while at play, to get and keep a voice that shall speak at all times the thought of a kind heart. But this is the time when a sharp voice is most apt to tie got. You often hear boys and girls say words at play with a quick, sharp tone, as if it were the snap of a whip. If any of them get vexed yon will hear a voice that sounds as if it were made up of snarl, a whine, and a bark. Su£h a voice often speaks worse than the heart feels. It shows more ill-will in tone than in words. It is often in mirth that one gets a voice or a tone that is sharp,and it sticks to him through life,' and stirs up ill-will and grief, and falls like a drop of gall on the sweet joys at home. Such as these get a sharp home voice for use and keep their best voice for those they meet elsewhere, just as they would save their best cakes and pies for guests and all their sour food for their own board. I would say to all girls and boys, “Use your best voice at home.” Watch it by day as a pearl of great price, for it wiil be worth more to you in the days to come than the best pearl hid in the sea. A kind voice is a lark’s song to heart and home. It is to the heart what light is to the eye.— Anon.