The Influence of a Kind Spirit
Champneys. Ephesians 4:31-32 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:… I remember once a valued friend of mine, a barrister, now passed away, who spent his Sundays in visiting an hospital. He told me that on one occasion he sat down by the bedside of one of the very poorest, the most ignorant, and, without using the word in any offensive manner, one of the very lowest men he had ever seen in his life — a man whose English, had it been taken down, would have been the most complete and perfect dislocation of the Queen's English that he ever heard. No word seemed to be in its right place. It seemed as if that which should have been a jointed and vertebrated. sentence had been separated at every joint, and thrown together anyhow. My friend was a man of the most tender spirit — a man whose tender spirit radiated from one of the most striking faces I ever saw; and I can well understand how he looked when he sat down by that poor man's bed. He began first, as all should who visit She sick, to break ground on temporal matters, to sympathize with them on that which they can understand so well — their bodily sufferings — to show that we are not indifferent to what they are suffering as men; and then, after speaking a few kind words, he was proceeding to say something further for his Master, whom he so dearly loved, when he saw the man's face begin to work convulsively. The muscles quivered, and at last, lifting up the sheet, and drawing down his head, he threw the sheet over his face, burst into a violent flood of tears and sobbed aloud. My friend wisely waited till this store of grief was passed, and then the poor fellow emerged from under the clothes, his face bearing the traces of tears that had flowed down it. When he was able to speak, my friend asked him — "What is it that has so touched you? I hope that I have not said anything that was painful to you. What can have moved you so much?" And as well as the man could sob out, he sobbed out these words: "Sir, you are the first man that ever spoke a kind word to me since I was born, and I can't stand it." (Champneys.) Parallel Verses KJV: Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: WEB: Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, outcry, and slander, be put away from you, with all malice.