December 7

A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.—PROV. XXV, 11.

Cross words are like ugly weeds, Pleasant words are like fair flowers; Let us sow sweet thoughts for seeds, In these garden-hearts of ours.

Youth's Companion.

Sweet as refreshing dews or summer showers To the long parching thirst of drooping flowers; Grateful as fanning gales to fainting swains, And soft as trickling balm to bleeding pains, Such are thy words.

JOHN GAY.

They [kind words] never blister the tongue or lips. And we never heard of any mental trouble arising from this quarter. Though they do not cost much, yet they accomplish much. They help one's own good nature and good will. Soft words soften our own soul. Angry words are fuel to the flame of wrath, and make it burn more fiercely. Kind words make other people good-natured. Cold words freeze people, and hot words scorch them, and bitter words make them bitter, and wrathful words make them wrathful. There is such a rush of all other kind of words in our day, that it seems desirable to give kind words a chance among them. . . . Kind words also produce their own image on men's souls. And a beautiful image it is. They soothe, and quiet, and comfort the hearer. They shame him out of his sour, morose, unkind feelings. We have not yet begun to use kind words in such abundance as they ought to be used. BLAISE PASCAL.