Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 September 1891 — KINDNESS. [ARTICLE]

KINDNESS.

tis a Spirit jphat will Change the PhsLse of Everything. mat n Great Word It is—What Can be Mlghtieh—Sermon by Dr. Talmage • at Brooklyn. •spev. Dr. Talmage preached at Brooklyn last Sunday. Subject: ‘Kindness. ” Text, Acts xxviii, 2. s#said: Kindness! What a great word bat is. ~lt would take a reed as long is that which the apocalyptic angel ised to measure heaven to tell the ength, the breadth, the height of hat munificient word. Itis afavorte Bible word, and it is early aunched in the book of Genesis, iaught up in the book of Joshua, em>raced in the book of Ruth, sworn >y in the book of Samuel, crowned n the book of Psalms, and enthroned n many places in the New Testanent. Kindness! A word no more fen tie than mighty. I expect it will trestle me down before ! get through vith it. It is strong enough to throw in archangel. But it will be well for is to stand around it and warm ourlelves by its glow, as Paul and his fellow voyagers stood around the fire >n the Island of Malta, where the Maltese made themselves immortal uWy text by the wav they treated hese victims of the sea. "The barjarous people showed us no little ftfldness.” Kindness! All definitions of that nultipotont word break down half vay. You sav it is clemency beniglity,generosity; it is made up of good vishes; it is an expression of benefcence; it is a contribution to the lappiness of others. Some one else says: “Why, I can give you a deflation of kindness. It is sunshine of he soul; it is affection perennial; it s a climacteric grace; it is the com jination of all graces; it is compassion; it is the perfection of gentle aanliness and womanliness.” Are pou all through? You have made a lead failure in your definition. It ;an not be defined. But we all know svhat it is, for we all feel its power, some of you may have felt it as Paul felt it, on some coast of rock as the ship went to pieces, but more of us save again and again, in some,awful stress of life, had either from earth or heaven hands stretched out, which “showed us no little kindness.” ' There is kindness df disposition, kindness of word, kindness of act, and there is Jesus Christ the impersonation of all of them. Kindness! can not affect it, you can not jlay it as a part, you can not enact t,vou can not dramatize it. By the jrace of God you must have it inside if you, an evei’lasting summer, or rather a combination of June and October, the geniality of the one and the tonic of the other. It cannot iwell with arrogance or in spite or -evenge or malevolence. At its first ippearance in the soul all these Amafekites and Gergishites and Hittites ind Jebusites must quit, and quit md quit forever. Kindness wishes every woman well, every child well, every bird well, every horse well, every dog well, every cat well. Give this spirt full swing and you would lave no more need of societies for jrevention of cruelty to animals, no *#re need of protective sewing women's associations, and it would dull every sword till it would not cut skin deep, and unwheel every battery till t could not roll, and make gunpowder of no more use in the world exjept for rock blasting or pyrotechnic jelebrations. Kindness is a spirit divinely implanted, and in answer to prayer, and then to be sedulously Cultivated until it fills all the nature with a perfume richer and more pungent than mignonette, and, as if you jut a tuft of that aromatic beauty jehind the clock on the mantel, or in some corner where nobody can see it,. you find people walking about E-'nr room looking this way and that, I you ask them, “What are you king for?” and they answer, “Where is that flower?” So if one las in his soul this infinite sweetness )f disposition its perfume will whelm jverything. Let us all pray for this spirit of cindness. It will settle a thousand juestions, It will change the phase )f every thing. It will mellow through md through our entire nature. It rill transform.a lifetime. It is not i feeling gotten up for occasions but jerennia! That is the reason I like jetunias better than morning glories, t’hey look very much alike, and if I should put in your hand a petunia md a morning glory you could hardy tell which was the petunia and which the morning glory; but the norning glory blooms only a few lours and, then shuts up for the day, while the petunia is in as Widejpread of glee- in 12 o'clock at noon, md at li o'clock in the evening as at lunrisc. And 11 kindness s not, spasmodic, it is not intermit2nt, it is not for a little while, but it rradiates the whole nature all Brough und dear on till the sunset of our existence. Kindness! I am Osolved to get it. Are you resolved ®gd,it? It does not come by haplazard, but through culturgunder the Divine help. without culture. .’lujUtt^'stalks grow without cudrire. But that great red rose imthe conservatory, its leaves jacked on lgaVes, deep dyed as hough it had been obliged to fight or its beauty and it V.i\s still reeking with tVj carnage of battle, that rose needed to be cultured and through hmg years lte floral ancestors were rvltured. Oh God! itnjlant k.n>icss in all otir souls and then give us grace to watch it, to jnrich it, io aeveldp it. ■■' Still further, I must speak of kindrtss a word. When you meet any

one do you say a pleasant thing or an unpleasant? Do you tell him of the pleasant things you have heard about him, or the unpleasant things? When he leaves you does he feel better of does he feel worse? Oh, the power of the tongue for the production of happiness or misery! One would think from the way the tongue is caged in we /night take the hint that it has dangerous power. First it is chained to the back of the moifth by strong muscle. Then it is surrounded by. the teeth, of the lower Jaw, sd'many ivarybars; and then by the upper jaw, moye ivoty bars. Then outside of ,a,H are the two lips with the power of compression and arrest. And yet, notwithstanding these four imprisonments or limitations, how many take no hint in regard to the dangerous power of the tongue, and the results are laceration, scarification and damnation. There aye those, if they know a good thing about you and a bad thing, #ill mention the bad thing and act as though they never heard of the good thing. Now there are two sides to almost every one’s character, and we have the choice of overhauling the virtue or the vice. We can greet Paul and the ship’s crew as they eome up the beach of Malta with the words, “What a sorry looking set you are! Mow little of navigation you must know to run on those rocks! Didn’t you know better than to put out on the Mediterranean this wintry month? It is not much of a ship anyhow, or it would not have gone to pieces so soon as that. Well, what do you want? We have hard enough work to make a living for ourselves without having thrust on us two hundred and seventy-six ragmuffins. ” Not so said the Maltese. I think they said, “Come in! Sit down and warm yourselves! Glad that you all got off with your lives. Make youselves at home. You are welcome to all we have until some ship comes in sight and you resume your voyage. Here, let me put a bandage on your forehead, for that is an ugly gash you got from the floating timbers, and here is a man with a broken arm. We will have a doctor come and attend to this fracture.” And though for three months the kindness went on, we have but little more than this brief record- “The barbarous people showed us no little kindness.” Ohj say the cordial thing! Say the usual thing! Say thfe hospitable thing! Say the hopeful thiag! Say the Christ-like thing! Say the kind thing! I admit that this is easier for some temperaments than for others. Some are born pessimists, and some are born optimists, and that demonstrates itself all through everything. It is a cloudy morning. You meet a pessimist and you say: “What weather to-day?” He answers: “It’s going to storm.” and umbrella under arm and a water-proof overcoat show that he is honest in that utterance. On the same block, a minute after, you meet an optimist and you say: “What weather to-day?” “Good weather: this is only a fog and will soon scatter.” The absence of an umbrella and the absence of a waterproof overcoat show it is an honest utterance. On your way at noon to luncheon you meet an optimistic merchant and you say:. “What do you think of the commercial prospects?” and he says, “Glorious. Great crops must bring great business. We are going to have such an autumn and winter, of prosperity as we have never seen.” On your way back to your store you meet a pessimistic “What do you think of the commercial prospects?” you ask. And he answers: ■“’Well, I don’t know. So much grain will surfeit the country. -Farmers have more bushels but less prices, and the frain gamblers will get their fist in. here is the McKinley bill; and the hay crop is short in some places, and in the southern part of Wisconsin they had a hail-storm and our business is as dull as ever it was. You will fiud the same differences in judgment of character. A man of good reputation is assailed and charged with some evil deed. At the first story the pessimist will believe in guitt. “The papers said so, and that’s enough. Down with him!” The optimist will say: “I don’t believe a word of jt. I don’t think that a man that has been as useful and seemingly honest for twenty years could have got off the track like that. There are two sides to this story and I will wait to hear the other side before I condemn him.” My hearer, if you are by nature a pessimist make a special effort by the grace of God to extirpate the dolorous and the hypercritical from your position. Believe nothing against any body until the wrong-is established by at least two witnesses of integrity. And if guilt be proved find out the extenuating Circumstances, if there are any. And then commit to memory so that you can quote for yom self and quote for others that exquisite thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians about charity that suffers lon/* ( and ts kind, and hopeth all things, and endureth all By pen, by voice, in public and in private, say all the good about people that you can think of, and if there be nothing good, tighten the chain of muscle on the back end of your Inngue, and keep the ivory bars of teeth on the lower jaw and the ivory bars of teeth on the upper jaw locked, and the gates of your lips tightly closgd, and vour tongue shut up. Furthermore, there is kindness' of action. That is what Joseph showed to his outrageous brothers. That is what Qnesiphorous showed to Paul in the Roman penitentiary. That is the spirit which fast night ten thousand mothers snowed to their sick children, coming to give the drink at the twentieth call as

| cheerfully and as tenderly as at the first cad! Suppose all thus assemblage and all to whom these words shall come by printer’s type should resolve to make kindness an overarching, undergirding and all-per-vading principle of their life and then carry out the resolution, why, in six months the whole earth would feel it. People would say: “What is the matter? It seems to me that the world is getting to be a better place to live in. Why, life after all is worth living. Why, there is Shylock, my neighbor, has withdrawn his lawsuit of foreclosure against that man, and because he has had so much sickness in his family he i$ going to have the house for one year rent free. There is an old lawyer in that young lawyer’s office, and do you know what he has gone in sere for? WhVj he is helping to fix up a case that is too big for the young man to handle, and tho white haired attorney is hunting up previous decisions, and making out a brief for the boy. Down at the bank I heard yesterday a note was due and the young merchant could not jneet it and an old merchant went in and got for him three months’ extension, which, for the young merchant, is the difference between bankruptcy and success in business. And in our street is an artist who had a fine picture of the Rapids of Niagara, and he could not sell it, and his family were suffering, and they were themselves in the rapids, and a lady heard of it and Said, Tdo not need the picture, but for the encouragement of art and helping you out of your distress, I ‘will take it’—and on the drawing room wails are the Rapids of Niagara. Do you know that a strange thing has taken place ip the pulpit aDd all the old ministers are helping the young ministers, and the old doctors are helping the young doctors. and the farmers are assisting each other in gathering the harvest, and for that farmer who is sick the neighbors have made a bee, as they call it, and they have all turned to' help him get his crops into the garner? And they tell mo that the older and more skillful reporters, who have permanent-posi-tions on papers, are helping the young fellows, who are just beginning to tfy and don’t know exactly how to do it. And after a few erasures>and interpolations on the reporter’s pad, they say, “Now here is a readable account of that tragedy; hand it in and I am sure the managing editor will take it. ’ And I heard this morning of a poor old man whose three children were in hot debate as to who should take care of him in his declining days. The oldest son declared it was his right because he is the oldest; the youngest son said it was his right because he was the youngest, and Mary said it was her right because she better understood father’s vertigo, and rheumatism, and poor spells, and knew better how to nurse him, and the only way the difficulty could be settled was by the old man’s, promise that he would divide the year into three parts, and spend a third of his time with each of them. And neighboring stores in the same line of goods on the same block are acting kindly to each other. It seems to me that these words of Isaiah are being fulfilled when he says, “The carpenter encouraged the goldsmith, and he that smoothes with the hammer, him that smote the anvil, saying, It is ready for the soldering. ” What is the matter? It seems to me ouwold world is picking up. Why, the millenium must be coming in. Kindness has gotten the victory.” ' Illy hearers, you know and I know we are far from that state of things. But why not inaugurate a new dis? pepsation of geniality? If we can not have a millenium on a large scale, let us have it on a small seme and under our own vestments.' Kindness! If this world is ever brought to God, that is the thing that will do it. You can not fret the world up, although you may fret it down. - You can not scold it into excellence, or reformation, or godliness. 1 And while we take this matchless kindness from God, may it be found that we have uttered our last bitter word written our last cutting paragraph, done our last retaliatory action, felt our last revengeful heartthrob. Aud it would not be bad epitaph for any of us if by the grace of God, from this time forth, we lived such beneficent lives that the tombstone’s chisel could appropriately cut upon the plain slab that marks our grave a suggestion from the text: “He showed us no little kindness.”, But not until the child of God has get ashore from the earthly storms that drove him on the rocks like Mediterranean Eurociydons, not until all the thrones of heaven are mounted, and all the conquerors crowded and all tho&arps and trumpets and organs of heaven are thrummed or blown or sounded, and the ransomed of all climes and ages are in full chorus under the jubilant swing angelic baton, and we shall for thousands of years have seen the river from under the throne rolling into the “sea of glass mingled with fire,” and this world we now inhabit shall be so far in the past that only a stretch of celestial memory can recall that it ever existed at oil, not until then will we understand whrVNehemiah calls calls “the great kindness,” and David calls “the marvelous kindness,” and Isaiah ealli*“the everlasting kindness” of God.