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He that is faithful iu that which is least, is faithful also in much.— Luke 1G:10. 



MYSEIiF AND MY NEIGHBORS. 



WHO IS MY NEIGHBOK?— LUKE 10: 29. 



^r* AST month I talked somethincr to yon 

 ^IU | about avoiding quarrels and difficulties 

 '^^^^ with your neighbors. I told you to 

 try to be pleased with them, and not get 

 into a fault-linding way. There is, how- 

 ever, another side to this matter, and a sad 

 side, although perhaps our juvenile friends 

 do not have much to do with it. We are 

 sometimes obliged to be disobliging to our 

 neighbors, and to give iniin. You may won- 

 der at this, children ; but I think I can illus- 

 trate it to you. Several years ago Ernest 

 had a little playmate ot whom he thought a 

 great deal. JUit this playmate would per- 

 sist in swearing. I presume he had heard 

 his father swear, and perhaps his mother 

 had not been very vehement in rebuking 

 him for swearing, so he got into a habit of 

 swearing very badly. What should Ernest 

 do ? It was a pretty hard thing for the little 

 fellow to tlo, but he did linallv tell his little 

 playmate that his mother said he must not 

 play with him unless he stopped swearing. 

 -Now, Ernest enjoyed games as much as 

 anybody, and he hated to seem uncourteous, 

 or " stuck up," as some of the bovs might 

 express it. Jhit he did drop their plays sev- 

 eral times, and went home until his "yoimff 

 playmate got so lonesome that he promised 

 him not to swear any more, if he would 

 come and play with him again. 

 As we grow older, we fmd hard and diffi- 



cult things to do in this same line. I once 

 promised, with four other men of our town, 

 to make complaint of every case of drunken- 

 ness 1 saw on our streets ; but when I gave 

 the promise I spoke like this : 



''My friends, it will be a hard thing for 

 me to do, but i will do it on this condition : 

 That I first go and see the man whom i find 

 intoxicated, at his own home, and have a 

 talk with him, when he is sober, and tell 

 him what I have decided to do, in case he 

 does not stop being seen on the streets in 

 that condition." 



Very sonn after, T met a man whom I knew 

 well, staggering through a busy street in the 

 middle of Uie day. I went to 'see him, and 

 had a neighborly talk with him ; and before 

 I left, he said if I saw him again in a state 

 of intoxication on the streets, I might have 

 liim arrested, lie kept sober a few weeks, 

 but finally he forgot his promise, and I saw 

 him reeling from one side of the street to 

 the other. I was as good as my word ; and 

 as the other friends made similar arrests, in 

 a little time it was pretty well understood 

 that the tosvn of Medina, at least, would not 

 permit intoxication on the streets in open 

 day. The lesult was good, without any 

 question, but it has made me enemies among 

 a certain class, and I presume they will be 

 enemies till the day of my death. One can 

 not be a con^i.^toit follower of the Savior, 

 and go through the world without some 

 trouble and hard feelings, and many times 

 without making neighbors feel very bitter 



