SOME HOMELY VIRTUES by Ian Maclaren

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 11, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 19.

SOME HOMELY VIRTUES.

By Ian Maclaren

THOROUGHNESS.—The reason why men fail is, in five cases out of six, not through want of influence, or brains, or opportunity, or good guidance, but because they are slack; and the reason why certain men with few advantages succeed, is that they are diligent, concentrated, persevering and conscientious—because, in fact, they are thorough.

KINDNESS.—Might we not resolve that every day we will do at least one act of kindness to some neighbor? Let us write a letter in such terms that the post will bring pleasure next day to some house; make a call just to let a friend know that he has been in your heart; give a young man, just starting in business, some bit of work to encourage him in his first year; send a gift on some one's birthday, or on his marriage day, or on Christmas Day, or on any day you can invent. Let us make children glad with things which they long for and can not obtain. And there are a thousand other things which we could do within a year if we had eyes to see and a heart to feel, and had the will to take some trouble.

THRIFT.—Justice is seldom done to the thrifty, and a great deal more than justice is done to the thriftless. Will people never understand that whether we live simply or extravagantly, whether we pay our debts at once or after several years, whether we use the gifts God has given us for selfish or noble ends, is really a moral question? The thriftless nation, the thriftless family, the thriftless person has broken one of the laws, both of nature and of Christ.

COURTESY.—One resents keenly that class of people who are honest and well meaning, but who are persistently discourteous and are not ashamed!—I mean the man who is credited with what is called a bluff, blunt manner, and who credits himself with a special quality of downrightness and straightforwardness. He considers it far better to say what he thinks, and boasts that he never minces his words, and people make all kinds of excuses for him, and rather talk as if he were a very fine fellow, beside whom civil-spoken persons are little better than hypocrites. As a matter of fact, no one can calculate the pain this outspoken gentleman causes in a single day both in his family and outside. Nor have I ever been able to understand why he is praised, or even tolerated, and why he is not sharply dealt with as an offender against the social peace.

'His bark,' it is said, 'is worse than his bite,' and one hopes it may be, but I do not see what consolation it is for me, when this ill-mannered person barks at my heels, that he has not also bitten me.—Ian Maclaren.