Untitled article by Phebe A. Foster

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, November 5, 1867

FromAdvent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. XXX, No. 21

INFLUENCE OF KIND WORDS.

By Phebe A. Foster

Oh! the power of kind words! Volume upon volume might be written upon this subject and still the half could not be told. Naught but the records of eternity can show the good a kind word has done for many a poor sin-sick traveler in this vale of tears. How many a wandering soul has been preserved from the abyss of ruin to which he was fast hastening, and his feet turned into the highway of life eternal, by a few gentle encouraging words.

Truly, “Kind words can never die.” They sink deep into the heart, and time cannot blot out the grateful remembrance of them, especially when spoken to cheer some poor mourner’s bleeding, stricken heart.

How different from the soft melody of gentle words, are the jarring notes of censure. While a pleasant word has power to create love and sunshine in the hardest heart, a harsh word will go home to the heart like the poisoned arrow of the savage Indian, gendering strife and hatred, and sometimes urging to an act of desperation. Would you a wanderer reclaim, and bring him back from the paths of sin and folly in which he has been groping? Then, “Speak not to him a bitter word.” For is it not enough that innocence and peace are gone without thy censure?

“It surely is a weary lot, That sin-crushed heart must bear, And those who share a happier fate Their chiding well may spare.

“Speak kindly to the erring, Thou yet may’st lead him back, With holy words and tears of love, From misery’s thorny track.

“Forget not thou hast often sinned, And sinful yet may be; Deal gently with the erring one, As God hath dealt with thee.”

Wash. Co., N. Y. PHEBE A. FOSTER,