p. 27 | How to Mend the World by Observer

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 6, 1874

How to Mend the World.

By Observer

“My dear, good mother used to say, If we would find fault with people less, and pray for them more, it would do them more good and ourselves too.”

So said my friend, and I fancied that in this I saw one secret of her life. Of course, I do not know what her prayers may have been, for her prayers, like her alms, were in secret; but she certainly found fault with people very little. And if she followed one part of the precept, it is fair to infer that she did the other also.

“It reminded me of the man who exclaimed, ‘I have tried everything with that boy; I have tried indulgence and severity, coaxing and kindness, and scolding and whipping, and nothing does any good.”

“Have you tried praying for him?”

Somehow after a little while, the boy grew better, and his parents more in sympathy with him. But then, we believe in praying for our children. Let us consider the rest of the world—any one who seems wrong, any one who troubles you or who ought in some way to be different or to be better. You may not be able to talk to him or her; it will never do to talk of him, against him. What is left but to pray?—Observer.