Good Neighbors

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 9, 1916

Good neighbors are very desirable wherever we go. The story is told of a man who was moving, and who stopped to inquire directions of a stranger. “And what kind of folks live in M?” he asked, finally.

“What kind of folks lived in the town you are leaving?” was the quick counter-question.

“Well, they were a mean lot, take them through and through,—a mean, stingy, ornery lot,” was the answer.

“That’s just the kind of folks that live in M, you’ll find,” said the stranger, and passed on.

And this is only another way of saying that if we wish to live among pleasant people and good neighbors, we must take pains that at least one person who lives at our house shall be a pleasant person and a good neighbor.

It costs to be a good neighbor—not only in lending things one would rather not lend, and taking time to be friendly and interested in the affairs of others when we would much rather contemplate our own, and preserving an unruffled brow in the face of the depredations of other people’s chickens and dogs and thumping boys and noisy girls. It costs time and effort and love. It costs planning and sharing and praying. It costs all the hard-won fruits of unselfishness.

But there are many acts of neighborliness that cost little. If your neighbor’s stock is seen by you in his fields of grain, tell him at once, or take time to drive them out. In this way you may win your neighbor. Visit your neighbors, tactfully talk with them upon religious subjects, give them religious literature, invite them to see you. Above all, pray for your neighbors, ever remembering that the more prayer there is in a neighborhood, the less likelihood there will be of gossip and unkindness.