TWO PRACTICAL HINTS by Rev. J. C. Walker

Pacific Press Publishing Company · MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA · Sep 6, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 36.

TWO PRACTICAL HINTS.

By Rev. J. C. Walker

WHEN I was a boy, I never could keep a pocket-knife any length of time. I cared enough, and tried hard enough, but in vain, till I spoke about it to a man who had a knife which he carried for a number of years.

He gave me a quizzical look, and said, "Never lay your knife down, and you'll never lose it."

I thought at first he was joking; but I had earned the money to buy a new knife; so I took him in earnest, and I kept that knife more than a year. Then one day I forgot, laid down the knife, went off and left it, and never saw it again. But I have often kept a knife two or three years, just by observing

this rule; and I never waste a minute in hunting for my knife. When I want it, it's always there in my right-hand trousers pocket.

There is another good little rule, which, if I had learned it in boyhood, would have been of great value to me. "When you make a mistake in writing, stop at once, and write the thing correctly, over and over several times."

It is a pity to scold boys for such things as these, when all they need is to be told how to correct their tendency to lose and blunder. I discovered the rule about correcting mistakes too late in life to profit by it; but once, in a time of comparative leisure, I tried it with good results for the time being.—Rev. J. C. Walker.