ATTENTION TO OTHERS. If you're without pity, then do not complain, Or if you ask help, your plea may be vain, But if not, and your only reply should be "No," You should only ask what you would freely grant him. A GENTLEMAN was visiting the house of a lady, and when he went away, her little daughter opened the door to let him out. "I wish you a better office, my dear," he said, "Yes sir," was the reply, "to let you in!" Can you have any doubt that she was a kind and well-behaved little girl? I was once walking in a garden with a little boy, who was showing me the parts of it allotted to himself and his two brothers. As I passed on, I stooped to gather some currants from a bush, but he asked me not to do so. "Those," he said, "belong to Frederick, and these to Charles, who are now from home, and I should like them to have the fruit when they return; but here, you see, mine are quite ripe; please to take some of these." This was truly gratifying, and I loved that little boy more dearly for his thoughtfulness. His request reminded me of a pleasing circumstance. A very poor and aged man was busy in planting and grafting an apple tree, when some one rudely asked, “Why do you plant trees, who cannot hope to eat the fruit of them?" With great calmness he raised himself up, and, leaning on his spade, replied, "Some one planted trees before I was born, and I have eaten the fruit; I now plant for others, that the memorial of my gratitude may exist when I am dead and gone." I should think that the old man had once been a kind little boy. In other cases a similar feeling appears. A horse happening to stray into the road, a neighbour of its owner put the animal into the pound, and soon after meeting him, he told him what he had done, and added, "And next time I catch him in the road, I will do so again." "Neighbour," replied the owner of the horse, "I looked out of my window in the night, not long since, and saw your cattle in my meadows, and I drove them out, and shut them in your yard; and next time they stray in this manner, I will do so again." Struck with a reply so truly Christian, the man liberated the horse, and paid the charges himself. During a war in Germany, which I well remember, some soldiers in a foraging party called at the house of a venerable man, demanding aid. He led them forth, and on arriving at a field of fine corn, they said, "This will do;" but he begged them to proceed a little further: having done so, he pointed to a field, which he said was quite at their service. The soldiers observing that this was inferior to the last, thought that the aged man was cunningly passing off what was inferior on them, and hastily demanded the reason he did not let them take the former. His reply was a noble one: “That field was my neigh bour's; this is my own." Another fact is equally deserving remembrance. Captain, afterwards Sir David Baird, having been taken prisoner by Hyder Ally, a great Indian chief, was, with other British officers, thrown into prison. The wounds he had received were not merely unhealed, but in a state which threatened mortification, and his general health was rapidly declining. When he and his companions had languished some time in confinement, one of Ally's officers appeared, bearing with him fetters weighing nine pounds each, which were intended for the unhappy prisoners. To resist was useless; they therefore submitted. On the officer coming to the captain, one of his companions sprang forward, and urged the cruelty of fettering limbs still festering with wounds, from one of which a ball had been recently extracted, and stated that death was likely to follow such treatment. The reply was, "that as many fetters had been sent as there were prisoners, and that they must all be put on;" then said the noble advocate of his wounded friend, "Put a double pair on me, so that Captain Baird may be spared wearing them." |