KEEP STILL | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 19, 1900

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 38.

KEEP STILL.

Keep still. When trouble is brewing, keep still. When slander is getting on its legs, keep still. When your feelings are hurt, keep still, till you recover from your excitement, at any rate. Things look differently through an unagitated eye. In a commotion once I wrote a letter and sent it, and wished I had not. In my later years I had another commotion and wrote a long letter; but life rubbed a little sense into me, and I kept that letter in my pocket against the day when I could look it over without agitation and without tears. I was glad I did. Less and less it seemed necessary to send it. I was not sure it would do any hurt, but in my doubtfulness I leaned to reticence, and eventually it was destroyed.

Time works wonders. Wait till you speak calmly, and then you will not need to speak, it may be. Silence is the most massive thing conceivable sometimes. It is strength in very grandeur. It is like a regiment ordered to stand still in the mad fury of battle. To plunge in were twice as easy. The tongue has unsettled more ministers than small salaries ever did, or lack of ability.—World's Crisis.