p. 461 | Saying a Good Thing

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 30, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 29.

"Saying a Good Thing."

THIRTY years ago Matthew B— was graduated from one of our principal colleges. A brilliant success in life was prophesied for him by his teachers, fellow-students, and acquaintances. He was, they acknowledged, thorough as a scholar, possessed a strong logical mind and keen wit; was honest, earnest, and by birth and training a gentleman. Yet when he left the college, not a friend came to shake his hand and to wish him good fortune.

B— had a keen eye for the frailties of other people, and a gift for sarcasm. He delighted to "give a quiet cut," as he called it, to the man he liked best; to thrust some sharp witticism into a hidden defect or weakness, and watch the victim writhe in impotent misery.

He really did not appreciate the pain he gave in the enjoyment of saying "a good thing." But he left college without a friend. He went into the ministry with the most sincere purpose. His sermons were powerful, his appeals earnest. But personally he became obnoxious to one congregation after another, until finally he was obliged to give up the charge of a church altogether. He then became a teacher.

No man was more competent for the work, as far as knowledge went, but his satirical gibes made him detested by his pupils. He died a year ago, a poor, lonely, embittered man. Whatever affection or feeling lay unsatisfied in his breast had been thwarted by the habit of sarcasm, which drove all love and friendship from him.

In the arsenal at Venice there is still preserved a small golden key, which bears the name of the "Key of Death." It was an instrument invented in the fifteenth century by an Algerine named Tebaldo. It hung at his girdle, and while toying carelessly with it, he would turn the handle, when a needle of exquisite fineness was shot from it, which would bury itself unfelt in the flesh of the person whom he wished to kill. The needle was tipped with a deadly poison. It was not until Tebaldo's victims could be counted by the score that his secret was discovered.

The young man who sets out in life with a keen wit, a poor opinion of human nature, and a delight in saying a good thing at anybody's cost, will soon find that he wields as cruel and deadly a weapon as this famous "Key of Death," which will not only wound others, but poison his own life and leave him to a solitary, miserable old age.—Youth's Companion.