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declaration of their Master. We see them avenging the smallest affronts by premeditated murder, as individuals, on principles of honor; and in their national capacities, destroying each other with fire, and sword, for the low considerations of commercial interests, the balance of rival powers, or the ambition of princes: we see them, with their last breath, animating each other to a savage revenge; and in the agonies of death, plunging, with feeble arms, their daggers into the hearts of their opponents: and, what is still worse, we hear all these barbarisms celebrated by historians, flattered by poets, applauded in theatres, approved in senates, and even sanctified in pulpits! But universal practice cannot alter the nature of things, nor universal error change the nature of truth. Pride was not made for man; but humility, meekness, and resignation—that is, poorness of spirit. The forgiveness of injuries was a lesson so new, and so utterly unknown, till taught by the doctrines of Christ and enforced by his example, that the wisest moralists of the wisest nations and ages, represented the desire of revenge as a mark of a noble mind, and the accomplishment of it as one of the chief felicities attendant on a fortunate man. But how much more magnanimous, how much more beneficial to mankind, is forgiveness! It is more magnanimous, because every generous and exalted disposition of the

human mind is requisite to practice it. For these alone can enable us to bear the wrongs and insults of wickedness and folly with patience, and to look down on the perpetrators of them with pity, rather than indignation; these alone can teach us, that such are but a part of those sufferings allotted to us in this state of probation; and to know, that to "overcome evil with good," is the most glorious of all victories. It is the most beneficial, because this amiable conduct alone can put an end to a continual succession of injuries and retaliations; for every retaliation becomes a new injury, and requires another act of revenge for satisfaction. Charity, (1 Cor. chap. 13,) is here accurately delineated, that bright constelation of all virtues; which consists not, as many imagine, in the building of monasteries, endowment of hospitals, or the distribution of alms; but in such an amiable disposition of mind, as excites itself every hour in acts of kindness, patience, complaisance, and benevolence to all around us; and which alone is able to promote happiness in the present life, or render us capable of receiving it in another.

KIND WORDS.

They do not cost much. It does not take long to utter them; and they never blister the

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tongue or lips on their passage into the world, or occasion any other kind of bodily suffering. And we never have heard of any mental trouble arising from this quarter. Though they do not cost much, yet they accomplish much.

1. They help one's own good nature and good will. One cannot be in a habit of this kind, without thereby pecking away something of the granite roughness of his own nature. Soft words will soften his own soul. The angry words of a man in a passion, are fuel to the flame of his wrath, and make it blaze the more fiercely. Why then should not words of the opposite character produce opposite re~sults, and that most blessed of all passions of the soul, KINDNESS, be augmented by kind words? People that are for ever speaking kindly, are for ever disinclining themselves to ill-temper.

2. Kind words make other people good natured. Cold words freeze people-hot, scorching, sarcastic words, irritate-and bitter words make them bitter, and wrathful words make them wrathful. And kind words also produce their own image on men's souls. And a beautiful image it is. They sooth, quiet, and comfort the hearer. They shame him out of his sour, morose, unkind feelings. And he has to become kind himself.

There is such a rush of all other kinds of

words, in o ir days, that it seems desirable to

give kind words a chance among them. There are vain, idle, hasty, spiteful, silly, and empty words. Let us now have kind words.-New York Evangelist.

The destiny, temporal and eternal, of individuals, often turns upon a single word spoken in kindness or unkindness, at particular crises of their existence. The celebrated Dr. Adam Clarke, was, till about nine years of age, the perfection of dulness in the estimation of his teachers. As such, when at this age, he was pointed out by his teacher to a strange of respectability, who visited the school. The stranger, with great interest and affection, replied, that he thought the teacher had mistaken the genius of the boy; that he had talents, and might yet attain to eminence in the literary world. That kind word struck a spark in the mind of the child, which made the future man one of the lights of earth. the other hand, an unkind or discouraging word spoken just at such a crisis, may effectually break the spirits, or turn the heart into bitterness, and render the object ever after the companion of the foul spirits of earth and hell. With what feelings do we all remember words of kindness or unkindness spoken to us at those periods of our existence, when our hearts were made of tenderness, and spoken by those

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whose words were as life and death, to our

spirits.

"Then deem it not an idle thing

A pleasant word to speak;

The face you wear, the thoughts you bring,
A heart may heal or break."

Lewis Colby, of New York, has published a little work, termed "The London Apprentice;" from which we extract the following:

"The young man had fallen into bad company, and had committed a crime for which he was sent to prison. While there he became in a measure penitent; and as soon as he was liberated, he went home. The account he gives of meeting his father's family, is a very affecting one: 'It was night when we arrived,' he says; 'my mother-in-law fell on my neck, and kissed me; and my father uttered some affecting expressions of welcome to his house once more. This kindness was too much for me, and I could neither look at them, nor speak to them that night. A thousand times did I reproach myself for having wounded such minds, and a thousand times did I resolve to seek to deserve their affection in future. Their tenderness towards me was exceedingly judicious. Had they treated me harshly, or upbraided me with my conduct, I should assuredly have left them, and perhaps have become an abandoned wretch; but they

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