Now, a fable is meant to teach a lesson. The lesson of this fable is
that gentleness wins where only strength and rudeness fail. If some one
has done you a wrong, the way to deal with him is not to try to "get
even" with him, as we say. Nor is the best way to get angry with him and
scold him. The Bible tells us that the way to overcome your enemy is to
do good for evil, for it says by so doing you will "heap coals of fire
upon his head."

Usually it is the weak people who bluster like the northwind, and storm
and brag. Strong people are usually quiet. There is an old saying that
"if you are right you can afford to keep your temper, and if you are
wrong you cannot afford to lose it." Be gentle. You will win more that
way than by getting angry.




THE BOY AND THE TURTLE


Theodore Parker was one of the greatest preachers America ever had, and
this story is told of him as a boy. One day, as he was going across the
fields, he came to a pond where he saw a small turtle sunning itself
upon a stone which rose out of the water. The boy picked up a stick, and
was about to strike the turtle, when a voice within him said, "Stop!"
His arm paused in midair and, startled, he ran home to ask his mother
what the voice meant. Tears came into his mother's eyes as she took the
boy in her arms and told him that it was his conscience which had cried
"Stop!" Then she told him that his conscience was the voice of God, and
that his moral safety depended upon his heeding that inner voice.