in the use of his lever, that certain people--myself included,
perhaps--might profit by this blunder.

A great many, for instance, use the lever of _truth_--a very good
crow-bar, the best to be had--in overturning moral evils. But they do
not accomplish anything, because they take hold of the wrong end of
the lever. They have no _purchase_.

Here is a man, who, as I think, is in the habit of wrong doing every
day. Well, I settle it in my mind that I will talk to him, and see if
I cannot make a better man of him. I look him up, and go to prying at
his sin, like a man digging up pine stumps by the job. I call him hard
names. Why not? He deserves them. Everybody knows that. I do not mince
the matter with him at all. But what I say seems to have no good
effect upon him. It makes him angry, and he advises me to mind my own
business, assuring me, at the same time, that he shall take good care
to mind his.

I see plainly enough that I have been working half an hour or more to
no purpose, and that very likely I have made matters worse. Yet what
was my error?

Simply this: that I spent all my strength at the short arm of the
lever. If I had gone to work with a kind and tender spirit, something
as Nathan went to work at David, once on a time, and used the other
end of the lever, I should have got a good _purchase_, at least, and I
am not sure but the stone would have yielded. As it is, however, the
troublesome thing is there yet, and it seems to be settling into the
ground deeper than ever.