p. 12 | Don't Part in Anger

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Aug 12, 1909

Don't Part in Anger

“Did Mrs. Schmidt always have that sad, earnest expression?” I asked my mother once after observing for quite a while the pale, quiet woman who came every week to help with the work.

“No,” was the response, “thirty years ago, just after her marriage, and even before that time, she was one of the jolliest persons, always ready for a joke, but unfortunately also headstrong and ready to contradict. Her husband was a good and noble man. He worked in a laboratory, just outside of the city, but he was very sensitive and easily hurt. On that account many a little quarrel ensued; the wife thought she must cure her companion of this sensitiveness, and kept on quarreling and contradicting vigorously, even though she meant no harm by it. She always had the last word.

“One morning such a scene had taken place between husband and wife. After the kind-hearted man had left for his work and gone quite a distance, he retraced his steps, for, undoubtedly, he lamented the occurrence. Seeking his wife, who was in the kitchen, he said: ‘Marie, let’s part as friends; forgive and forget. Give me a kiss, and all will be well. I fear I’ll not succeed well with my work, if we do not.’

“But the wife remained obdurate and turned away, not even giving him a hand-shake. She thought that in this way she could cure him of his sensitiveness.

“He did not return alive. In the evening four men brought him home as a corpse. I have never seen her laugh again. She would have been willing to give years of her life, if she could have recalled her actions of that time. And all of us, who were witnesses of her sorrow and self-reproaches at that time, will well heed: Never leave each other without righting disputes and quarrels that may have arisen. Who knows but that there may be only a step between that moment and death.”—Lutheran Standard.