Not Worth Minding

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Sep 28, 1882

Not Worth Minding.

WHAT a world of trouble, time, and nerve irritation would be saved, if boys, and men too, would learn to never mind trifling annoyances. Only the other day we overheard one boy telling another what a third boy had said about him, and urging him to “lick him.” “Oh,” said the second boy, “’tisn’t worth minding. He knows it aint so, and I won’t stoop to his level by taking any notice of it.” We inwardly thought, “That’s a very wise head on young shoulders.”

It reminded us of two men, one of whom started on a foot journey of one hundred and fifty miles or so. Two days later, the other man followed in the same road, and on the fourth day overtook the first one. The latter remarked: “This is the worst and slowest road I ever traveled. There is the greatest lot of snarling, barking little dogs I ever saw, and it has taken half my time to drive them off.” “Why,” said the second man, “I didn’t pay any attention to them, but came right along as if they weren’t there.” Half the time of many boys and men is wasted in fighting trifles.

A certain circuit judge was always sure of meeting some cutting or sneering remarks from a self-conceited lawyer when he came to a certain town in his rounds. This was repeated one day at dinner, when a gentleman present said: “Judge, why don’t you squelch that fellow?” The Judge, dropping his knife and fork, and placing his chin upon his hands, and his elbows on the table, remarked: “Up in our town a widow woman has a dog that, whenever the moon shines, goes out upon the steps and barks away at it all night.” Stopping short, he quietly resumed eating. After waiting some time, it was asked: “Well, Judge, what of the dog and the moon?”—“Oh, the moon keeps on shining,” he said.—Sel.