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After a time, with a long sigh, the Rev. Paul Ford roused himself, came back from the far Western town, and adjusted the sheets of paper under his hand. Matthew twenty-third; 1314 and 23, he wrote; then, with a gesture of impatience, he dropped his pencil and pulled toward him a magazine left on the desk by his wife a few minutes before. Listlessly his tired eyes turned from paragraph to paragraph until these words arrested them: A father one day said to his son, Tom, who, he knew, had refused to fill his mothers woodbox that morning: Tom, Im sure youll be glad to go and bring in some wood for your mother. And without a word Tom went. Why? Just because his father showed so plainly that he expected him to do the right thing. Suppose he had said: Tom, I overheard what you said to your mother this morning, and Im ashamed of you. Go at once and fill that woodbox! Ill warrant that woodbox, would be empty yet, so far as Tom was concerned! On and on read the ministera word here, a line there, a paragraph somewhere else: What men and women need is encouragement. Their natural resisting powers should be strengthened, not weakened. Instead of always harping on a mans faults, tell him of his virtues. Try to pull him out of his rut of bad habits. Hold up to him his better self, his real self that can dare and do and win out! The influence of a beautiful, helpful, hopeful character is contagious, and may revolutionize a whole town. People radiate what is in their minds and in their hearts. If a man feels kindly and obliging, his neighbors will feel that way, too, before long. But if he scolds and scowls and criticizeshis neighbors will return scowl for scowl, and add interest! When you look for the bad, expecting it, you will get it. When you know you will find the goodyou will get that. Tell your son Tom you know hell be glad to fill that woodboxthen watch him start, alert and interested! The minister dropped the paper and lifted his chin. In a moment he was on his feet, tramping the narrow room back and forth, back and forth. Later, some time later, he drew a long breath, and dropped himself in the chair at his desk. God helping me, Ill do it! he cried softly. Ill tell all my Toms I know theyll be glad to fill that woodbox! Ill give them work to do, and Ill make them so full of the very joy of doing it that they wont have time to look at their neighbors woodboxes! And he picked up his sermon notes, tore straight through the sheets, and cast them from him, so that on one side of his chair lay But woe unto you, and on the other, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! while across the smooth white paper before him his pencil fairly flewafter first drawing one black line through Matthew twenty-third; 1314 and 23. Thus it happened that the Rev. Paul Fords sermon the next Sunday was a veritable bugle-call to the best that was in every man and woman and child that heard it; and its text was one of Pollyannas shining eight hundred: Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, ye righteous, and shout for joy all ye that are upright in heart. |
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