DUTY AND KINDNESS

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 11, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 43.

DUTY AND KINDNESS.

(Concluded.)

WITH still deeper denunciation did the father speak, striving in this way to shock the feelings of his child, and extort signs of penitence. But it was the hammer and the anvil—blow and rebound. Very different were the mother's efforts with the child. Tearfully she pleaded with him—earnestly she besought him to ask his father's forgiveness for the evil he had done. But Philip said:—

"No, mother, I would rather go to sea. Father don't love me, he don't care for me. He hates me, I believe."

"Philip! Philip! don't speak in that way of your father. He does love you; and it is only for your good that he is going to send you to sea. Oh, how could you do so wicked a thing?"

Tears were in the mother's eyes, but the boy had something of the father's stern spirit in him and showed no weakness.

"It isn't any worse than he did when he was a boy," was the answer.

"Philip!"

"Well, it isn't; for I heard Mr. Wright tell Mr. Freeman that father and he robbed orchards and hens' nests, and did worse than that when they were boys."

Poor Mrs. Browning was silent. Well did she remember how wild a boy Jonas Browning was, and how, when she was a little girl, she had heard all manner of evil laid to his charge.

Very unexpectedly—at least to Mr. Browning—the minister called in on the evening of that troubled day. After some general conversation with the family he asked to have a few words with the deacon alone.

"Is it true, Mr. Browning," he said, after they had retired to an adjoining room, "that you are going to send Philip to sea?"

"Too true," replied the father soberly. "It is my last hope. From the beginning that boy has been a rebel against just authority; and though I have never relaxed discipline through the weakness of natural feelings, yet resistance has grown with his growth, and strengthened with his strength, until duty requires me to use a desperate remedy for a desperate disease. It is a painful trial; but the path of duty is the only path of safety. What we see to be right, we must execute with unflinching courage. I cannot look back and accuse myself of any neglect of duty toward this boy, through weakness of the flesh. From the beginning I have made obedience the law of my household, and suffered no deviation therefrom to go unpunished."

"Duty," said the minister, "has a twin sister."

He spoke in a changed voice, and with a manner that arrested the attention of Deacon Browning, who looked at him with a glance of inquiry.

"She is as lovely and gentle as he is hard and unyielding."

The deacon still looked curious.

"When the twin sister of duty is away from his side, he loses more than half of his influence; but, in her beautiful presence, he gains a dignity and power that make his precepts laws of life to all who hear them. The stubborn heart melts, the iron will is subdued, the spirit of evil shrinks away from the human soul."

There was a pause.

"The name of that twin sister is kindness."

The eyes of Deacon Browning fell away from the minister's countenance, and dropped until they rested upon the floor. Conviction flashed upon his heart. He had always been stern in executing the law—but never kind.

"Has that beautiful twin sister stood ever by the side of duty? has love been in that law, Deacon Browning?"

Side by side with the minister stood duty and kindness—the firm, unshrinking brother, and the mild, loving sister—and so his word had power to reach the deacon's heart, without giving offense to pride.

"Kindness is weak, yielding, and indulgent, and forgives when punishment is the only hope of salvation," said Deacon Browning, a little recovering himself from the emotions of self-condemnation.

"Only when she strays from the side of duty," replied the minister. "Duty and kindness must always act together."

Much more, and to the same purpose, was urged by the minister, who made but a brief visit, and then withdrew, that his admonitions might work the desired effect.

When Deacon Browning came in from the front door of his house, after parting with the minister, he drew up a chair to the table in the family sitting-room, and almost involuntarily opened the large family Bible. His feelings were much softened towards his boy, who, with his head bowed upon his breast, sat a little apart from his mother. The attitude was not so much indicative of stubborn self-will, as suffering. Deacon Browning thought he would read a chapter aloud, and so he drew the holy book closer, and bent his face down over it. Mrs. Browning, observing the movement, waited for him to begin. The deacon cleared his throat twice. But his voice did not take up the words that were in his eyes and in his heart. How could they? "As a father pities his children—"

Had there been a divine pity in the heart of Deacon Browning for his rebellious and unhappy boy?—Nay, had not there been wrath instead?

From a hundred places in the mind of Deacon Browning there seemed to come the echo of these words, and they had a meaning in them never perceived before. He closed the book and remained in deep thought for many minutes, and not only in deep thought but in stern conflict with himself. Kindness was striving to gain her place by the side of duty; and cold, hard, imperious duty, who had so long ruled without a rival in the mind of Deacon Browning, kept all the while averting his countenance from that of his twin sister, who had been so long an exiled wanderer. At last she was successful. The stern brother yielded, and clasped to his bosom the sister who sought his love.

From that instant new thoughts, new views new purposes, ruled in the mind of Deacon Browning. The discipline of a whaler was too hard and cruel for his boy, young in years, and by no means as hardened in iniquity as he had permitted himself to imagine. A cold shiver ran along his nerves at the bare thought of doing what a few hours before he had resolutely intended. Kindness began whispering in the ears of duty, and crowding them with a world of new suggestions. The heart of the stern man was softened, and there flowed into it something of a mother's yearning tenderness. Rising up, at length, Deacon Browning said in a low voice, so new in its tones to the ear of Philip that it made his heart leap—

"My son, I wish to see you alone."

The Deacon went into the next room, and Philip followed him. The deacon sat down and Philip stood before him.

"Philip, my son"—Deacon Browning took the boy's hand in one of his, and looked him full in the face. The look was returned—not a defiant look, but of yielding wonder.

"Philip, I am not going to send you to sea with Captain Ellis. I intended to do so, but on reflection I think the life will be too hard for you."

Very firmly, yet kindly, the deacon tried to speak, but the sister of duty was playing with his heart-strings, and their tone of pity was echoed from his voice, that faltered when he tried to give it firmness.

The eyes of Philip remained fixed upon the countenance of his father.

"My son," Deacon Browning thought he had gained sufficient self-control to utter certain mild forms of admonition, but he was in error; his mild voice was still less under his control, and so betrayed the new-born pity and tenderness in his heart that Philip,

melting into penitence, exclaimed, as tears gushed from his eyes—

"O father, I've been very wicked and am very sorry!"

Involuntarily, at this unexpected confession, the arms of Deacon Browning were stretched out toward the repentant boy, and Philip rushed, sobbing, into them.

The boy was saved. From that hour his father had him under the most perfect subordination. But the twin sister of duty walked ever by his side.—Selected.