No Use to Grumble
Improvement Era, vol. 12, no. 7, May 1909, p. 545
Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
SELF-CONTROL. 545
us, we should master it. If it be the personal influence of others that, like a noxious vapor, kills our best impulses, we should re- — move from that influence, if we can possibly move without for- saking duties. If it be wrong to move, then we should take
strong doses of moral quinine to counteract the malaria of influ- ence. It is not what those around us do for us that counts, it is — what they are to us. We carry our house plants from one window to another to give them the proper heat, light, air and moisture. Should we not be at least as careful of ourselves? To make our influence felt we must live our faith, we must practice what we believe. A magnet does not attract iron, as iron. It must first convert the iron into another magnet before
it can attract it. It is useless for a parent to try to teach gentle- ness to her children when she herself is cross and irritable. The child who is told to be truthful and who hears a parent lie cleverly to escape some little social unpleasantness is not going to cling very zealously to truth. The parent's words say "don't lie,"
the influence of the parent's life, says "do lie." No man can ever isolate himself to evade this constant power of influence, as no single corpuscle can rebel and escape from the general course of the blood. No individual is so insignificant as to be without influence. The changes in our varying moods are all recorded in the delicate barometers of the lives of others. We should ever let our influence filter through human love and sympa- thy. We should not be merely an influence— we should be an inspir- ation. By our very presence we should be a tower of strength to the hungering human souls around us. [to be continued]
NO USE TO GRUMBLE.
"It hain't no use to grumble and complain; It's just as cheap and easy to rejoice; When God sorts out the weather and sends rain, W'y rain's my choice."— Selected.