Angry Words

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 28, 1911

ANGRY words in the morning spoil the whole day. This is an experience to which many of us can testify with lament for days which did not bring their full harvest of accomplishment.

Each day is a new beginning endowed with possibilities of work and pleasure, but strictly limited in its allowance of energy.

Anger is an irritant, a fever. If we begin the day with it, the fine flower of our vital strength is exhausted in the effort to get back to serenity, and we work all day with the poorer forces of our mind and spirit.

If there were no other argument for peaceful home morning hours, this of itself would be worth considering. If the boys or husband robs the mother or housewife of her serenity of soul before leaving for the day’s work, the home is thereby robbed of energy all day.

If children go scolded and angry to school, they are in no mood to make the best of their opportunities.

The world wants the best work, and will reward nothing less than that. Let us not provoke one another to anger in the hour of beginnings, lest we make ourselves responsible for failure.

“Just to be tender, just to be true, Just to be glad the whole day through, Just to be merciful, just to be mild, Just to be trustful as a child, Just to be helpful with willing feet, Just to be kind to the friends you meet, Just to be cheery when things go wrong, Just to drive sadness away with song, To all your neighbors just to do As you’d have others do to you— This for us is the daily key, ’Tis God’s own will for you and me.”

— Mrs. Ida Brown.