"To repress a harsh answer, to confess a fault, to stop, right or
wrong, in the midst of self-defence, in gentle submission, sometimes
requires a struggle like life and death, but these three efforts are
the golden threads with which domestic happiness is woven."

How frequently we exclaim,--"If I ever get the opportunity, I will
give that woman a piece of my mind!" or, "I shall some time have the
satisfaction of telling that man what I think of his behavior."

It is a very melancholy and most _un_satisfactory satisfaction to know
that you have made a person uncomfortable. It is folly for you to
suppose for a moment that an angry speech of yours will turn a man
from a course of which you do not approve. It will make him hate you,
perhaps, but it will not change him. It is not only foolish, but
un-Christian to triumph in another's discomfiture. Then why "give the
piece of your mind," which you can never take back? What good will it
do?

The same question may be asked with regard to the uncharitable remarks
which nearly all of us make daily. Once in a great while, we meet a
human being, still permitted to dwell on this sinful earth, who rarely
says anything unkind of anybody, whose rule is, "If you cannot say a
kind thing say nothing." In the course of a long and varied experience
I may have known half-a-dozen such. But what man has done, man may do
again. What is the baneful spirit which tempts the gentlest of us to
take more pleasure in calling attention to a fault than to a virtue?
If a woman is a tender mother, a model wife, and an excellent
housekeeper, why, when her virtues are discussed, is it necessary for
some one to "think it is such a pity that she does not read more?" or
what good comes from the remark that she is "sprightly, but not very