perhaps they are blessed with good looks, or are able to dress with
good taste and becomingly, or are possessed of a certain piquancy of
manner and conversational powers which attract and entertain. There are
others equally good and talented who are not blessed with comeliness,
who are not bright and winning in conversation, who are awkward in dress
and manner. What kindness and considerateness is due from the more
favored to the less favored! How careful should school-girls, and not
school-girls only, but everybody be to extend courtesy and kindness to
those of their number who are apt to be neglected, to be left lonely and
forgotten while more favored ones enjoy special pleasures! I do not mean
by this that we are to be equally intimate and equally fond of all our
daily associates, but we ought to be equally kind. Our especial
endearments and kindnesses and attentions to our particular friends
ought to be in a measure kept for private expression, so that we may not
wound the feelings of those less attractive, or less endowed with bodily
and mental graces, by contrast or comparison.

To aid us in cultivating this spirit of kindness, no maxim is more
useful than that laid down by Christ: "Whatsoever ye would that others
should do unto you, do ye even so unto them." One of the best tests we
can apply to ourselves is to imagine ourselves in the place of others.
Suppose we were conscious of homely features, ungainly forms and awkward
manners, or of lack of information or knowledge; suppose we were in such
straitened circumstances that we were obliged to wear coarse, cheap,
unsuitable or unbecoming garments how would we feel and how would we
wish to be treated? And if we find within ourselves an unwillingness to
be judged by this standard, or to conform our conduct to it, then we
should realize that we do wrong, that we are wrong in spirit. Then
should come the conscious effort to do right, to change our spirit from
selfishness to unselfishness, from unkindness to kindness. This is the