"IF ONLY---!"

Cromwell Argus, Volume LXI, Issue 3160, 27 April 1931, Page 2

"IF ONLY---!"

By Uncle Ben. It is so fatally easy to allow ourselves to be provoked, so easy to allow ourselves in a moment of irritation tc say a good deal more than we believe. We are all apt at such times to say what we know will hurt rather than what we know to be true. We rarely pause to think what the effect of our words will be. We never stop to think what torture might lie in the memory of our words if those to whom they were spoken passed out of our lives for ever, without giving us the chance to make amends. Careless tongues can sever relationships and shatter friendships; they can sour a whole life and turn love into hatred. Too many people mistake rudeness and lack of self-control for what they choose to call "bluntness" and "straight speaking." It is possible to tell the truth and to be candid and yet to be gracious in the telling of it, and avoid hurting people's feelings Offensiveness —and all quarrels are offensive —is not the least meritorious. I am going to tell you something that mankind has stubbornly ignored for more than two thousand years, and that is that there is still no better guide to life, even to the trivial details of every day, than the "Golden Rule." If we all behaved to others as we should like them to behave to us, there would be few regrets, few self-recriminations, and a great deal more laughter and happiness in the world. It is one of the greatest and simplest truths ever uttered—too simple, it seems, for us to believe. Let me put it in another way—that we should speak and act always so that, come what may, there may be no need for regrets. For of all sad words of tongue or pen The saddest are these: "It might have

been." I know that to do this needs unceasing self-discipline—but who was ever the worse for that? I know it often involves pocketing one's pride —but how much of our so-called pride is false! I know that it needs a deliberate striving after a perfection that few are ever likely to attain —but we are here to strive and climb. There is no other way by which we can develop, either spiritually or mentally. Since none of us can foresee the results of his words' or his acts, we risk nothing and stand to gain everything by seeing to it that these are always designed to be creative of happiness.