p. 99 | Fine Manners by The Christian Remembrancer

California Conference of Seventh-day Adventists · Oakland, Cal. · Jan 14, 1875

Fine Manners.

By The Christian Remembrancer

It would be vain as it would be ungracious to combat against the favorable influence of charm of manner. Engaging manners and bright conversation must and will always sway those brought under their attraction, and it is right that they should do so, for they are good qualities, though they may be only natural ones; and the enjoyment of them in others may be accepted as one of the amenities of our lot, if we meet with them in the order of Providence, and do not go out of our way to put ourselves under their influence.

What a catalogue of social virtues it needs to make a man generally beloved—sweetness of temper, good-nature, a yielding will, and a ready compliance; a toleration of others' infirmities, and forbearance under small slights and hindrances; sympathy with others' modes of feeling, and delicacy of adaptation.

Many a hero—we may add, many a saint, is without them, and makes his great cause to suffer from their absence. The reward of his labors is sought in a higher sphere, not in the praise of men; and his greatest admirers have often to become his apologists in the minor details of deportment and manner, conscious that he who would sacrifice his life for the sake of religion, or for the good of his fellow-men, yet failed to make himself agreeable to his personal acquaintances. — The Christian Remembrancer.