A SOFT ANSWER | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Aug 30, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 35.

A SOFT ANSWER.

An English tramp steamer had just been moored to a wharf in Boston. From her dingy hole there leaped upon the dock a man who was evidently a stoker. He was black with grime, reckless of face, eager for release from an almost unbearable confinement, and ready for any animal gratification, for which he could find opportunity.

As he emerged upon the main street, looking probably for the nearest saloon, he saw a colored woman walking sedately toward him, carrying a basket of apples. Full of mischief, the stoker stumbled against her, upset the basket upon the pavement, and then stood aside to laugh at the invectives which he supposed his trick would bring forth.

But the old colored woman did not even look at her tormentor. She bent and quietly picked up her apples. There was not even an expression of resentment upon her face. She bent here and stooped there, and when she had recovered her last apple she turned upon the astonished man with a pathetic dignity that forced respect, and said, in tones of simple kindness:

"God forgive you, my son, as I do."

The rudeness that had counted on a bitter berating was softened in an instant. The man's coarse lips parted, his hard eyes fell, he tried to speak, then he thrust his hands into his pockets and pulled out all the silver he had. This he forced upon the silent woman.

"Take it," he said, and then added, as she looked at him in astonishment, "God bless you, mother! I'll never do it again!"

That which is probably one of the hardest sayings of Christ to accept, one that has received the ridicule of centuries, is illustrated by this incident. The principle involved in the command to turn the other cheek to the smiter is utterly antagonistic to natural human impulse. "A soft answer turneth away wrath" is a form of presentation of the same principle, that in theory, at least, is somewhat readily acknowledged; and its truth was never more emphatically verified than in the incident we have described.—Youth's Companion.