An Object-Lesson

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Sep 23, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 37.

An object-lesson in admonition is often more efficacious than storms of reproach. One day the colonel of an American regiment noticed a soldier on parade wearing a badly soiled pair of gloves.

"Corporal," said the officer, "why do you set the men such a bad example as appearing before them in dirty gloves? Why is it?"

"I've had no pay, sir, since I entered the service," returned the corporal. "I can't afford to have them done up."

The colonel drew from his pocket a pair of gloves, spotlessly white. Handing them to the corporal, he said quietly: "Put these on. I washed them myself."

It was a lesson for the whole regiment.