“Welcomes and makes hers
    Whate’er of good though small the present brings—­
    Kind greetings, sunshine, song of birds, and flowers,
    With a child’s pure delight in little things;
    And of the griefs unborn will rest secure,
    Knowing that mercy ever will endure.”

“She openeth her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is the law of kindness.”  Perhaps few things have done so much harm in the world as sympathy!  Are we not all conscious of having perpetually allowed the kindness of our tongue to be divorced from wisdom, so that our affectionate sympathy has weakened our friend and done more harm than good?  It is so much pleasanter to both when we join in her discontent or irritation, instead of being to her a second and a better self, aiding her to see things wisely, as she would see them when she grew calmer.  “A book,” said Dr. Johnson, “should teach us either to enjoy life, or to endure it,” and so should a friend.

“The law of kindness.”  It may seem a small thing that the Virtuous Woman should never lose an opportunity of saying a kind word, but, if we all did this, the world would be revolutionized; how it lowers our moral temperature when some needless criticism is made, or some disparaging remark is repeated to us!  The Virtuous Woman would set herself to be a non-conductor of these “stings and arrows,” while, in “a voice ever soft, gentle, and low,” she would pass on to us the pleasant things our friends say, which make us feel “on the sunny side of the wall.”  What was said of St. Theresa will be true of her—­“it came to be understood that absent persons were safe where she was.  It would be hard to exaggerate the power of influence for good which the confidence she had thus won must have given her.  Her nobility felt the treachery which always lies in detraction, the kind of advantage taken, as it were, of the unprotectedness of the absent.”

Some separate wisdom and kindness in another way; they are so anxious to help others that they stretch a point of conscience, and persist in a forbidden friendship, in order to help the friend.  Now you may be unjustly treated in being told to give up your friend, and you may feel, and rightly, that it is very cruel to him or her.  Perhaps so, but your want of principle, in being disobedient or deceitful, must harm your friend infinitely more than any amount of your good advice can do her good. Acting on principle always helps others:  it is the most catching thing in the world, whereas our words and our personal influence do not help them one bit, unless God is speaking through us, and making us His instruments, which He will not do if we are behaving wrongly.

“She looketh well to the ways of her household.”  She gives her servants full work, and insists on its being done, at the right time and in the right way, but she is careful never to overwork them, and to remember that servants have rights and feelings; she is not only kind, but considerate, which involves far more sympathy and thought.