cuit — because all this is of their very nature. In the most trivial things of daily life the spirit of kindness should render itself evident." ...
"Kindness is as the bloom upon the fruits — it renders charity and religion attractive and beautiful. Without it, even charitable works lose their power of winning souls; for, without kindness, the idea of love, the idea of anything supernatural — in a word, of Jesus, is not conveyed to the mind by the works performed, even though they be done from a right motive. There is such a thing as doing certain exterior actions, which are intended to be charitable, ungraciously. Now, actions thus performed, do not manifest the kindness of the heart of Jesus, nor will they be efficacious in extending the empire of His love, or in winning souls to His kingdom. The fruit may be sound, but the bloom is not on it ; hence it is uninviting. . . .
"How many a noble work has been nipped in the bud by the blast of an unkind judgment; how many a generous heart has been crushed in its brightest hopes by a jealous criticism; how many a holy aspiration, destined to bear abundant fruit for God and souls, has been forced back into the poor heart from whence it had ascended, there to be stifled utterly and forever, leaving that heart, as the poet so graphically represents it, 'like a deserted bird's nest filled with snow, because unkindness had robbed it of that for which, perhaps, alone it cared to live. How much, then, we may believe has been lost to the world of all that is good and great and beautiful through the instrumentality of unkindness; and if it be thus, what developments, on the other hand, may we not expect, in the order of grace as well as of nature, in the hearts and minds of men beneath the genial sun of kindness.
