FRIENDS AND NEIGHBOURS.

GOOD IN ALL.





THERE IS GOOD IN ALL. Yes! we all believe it: not a man in the depth
of his vanity but will yield assent. But do you not all, in
practice, daily, hourly deny it? A beggar passes you in the street:
dirty, ragged, importunate. "Ah! he has a _bad_ look," and your
pocket is safe. He starves--and he steals. "I thought he was _bad_."
You educate him in the State Prison. He does not improve even in
this excellent school. "He is," says the gaoler, "thoroughly _bad_."
He continues his course of crime. All that is bad in him having by
this time been made apparent to himself, his friends, and the world,
he has only to confirm the decision, and at length we hear when he
has reached his last step. "Ah! no wonder--there was never any
_Good_ in him. Hang him!"

Now much, if not all this, may be checked by a word.

If you believe in Good, _always appeal to it._ Be sure whatever
there is of Good--is of God. There is never an utter want of
resemblance to the common Father. "God made man in His own image."
"What! yon reeling, blaspheming creature; yon heartless cynic; yon
crafty trader; yon false statesman?" Yes! All. In every nature there
is a germ of eternal happiness, of undying Good. In the drunkard's
heart there is a memory of something better--slight, dim: but