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The Habit of Kindness

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 9, 1902

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 79, No. 49.

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The Habit of Kindness

By J. T. Harbour

I KNOW of a home in which the very atmosphere is so charged with human loving-kindness that it is a delight to be a guest therein. I have been a guest in that home for weeks at a time, and I never heard a single harsh, unkind word spoken to or about any one. One day I said to the sweet and gentle mistress of the home: “Do tell me, if you can, the secret of the beautiful and unfailing kindness that forms a part of the very atmosphere of this home. What is the real secret of it?”
“Why, I do not know that there is any secret about it. It is a kind of habit with us. You know that some people fall into the habit of always complaining. Others form the habit of always speaking sharply, while still others are habitually morose, and sulk continually. Now, it is just as easy to form a good habit as a bad habit, and, if one would only think so, it is just as easy to form the habit of kindness as it is to form the habit of unkindness. When I was a little girl at home, my father had his children sing nearly every day:— “O, say a kind word if you can! And you can, and you can; O, say a kind word if you can! And you can, and you can.” “If any one spoke an unkind word in the house, some one would be sure to sing these lines, and so we came to speak kindly nearly all the time. So much happiness came from it, that I resolved, when I came into possession of a home of my own, that habitual kindness should be the rule there.”
“It is a beautiful rule,” I said.
“It is a rule that will bring peace and joy to any home, and, as I said before, any one can cultivate the habit of kindness.”
I believe this to be true, and I am sure that Sir Humphrey Davy told the truth when he said: “Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things in which smiles and small obligations, given habitually, are what win and preserve the heart and secure comfort.”— J. T. Harbour.