and sorrow, a tender word always for a child, a compassionate
utterance for suffering, courtesy for friends and for strangers,
encouragement for the despairing, an open heart for all--love for
all--good words for all! Such seed produces after its kind in all
soils, when it finds lodgment; and that which the sower fails to
reap, passes into hands that are grateful for the largess.




LESSON V.

TRUTH AND TRUTHFULNESS.


"For truth is as impossible to be soiled by any outward touch as
a sunbeam." MILTON.

"Odds life! must one swear to the truth of a song?" MATTHEW PRIOR.

"Get but the truth once uttered, and 'tis like
A star new-born that drops into its place,
And which, once circling in its placid round,
Not all the tumult of the earth can shake." LOWELL.

One of the rarest powers possessed by man is the power to state a
fact. It seems a very simple thing to tell the truth, but, beyond
all question, there is nothing half so easy as lying. To
comprehend a fact in its exact length, breadth, relations, and
significance, and to state it in language that shall represent it