MENDING AND ITS LESSONS.
"O DEAR," sighed Meta, "if it were not for this continual mending, I might accomplish something; but I no sooner take up a book or a bit of fancy work than this detestable basket of mending appears before me with such persistence that the book must be laid aside and the fancy work put by until this is disposed of. Really, I wonder if it is cultivating one's mind to be always mending stockings and garments."
"Meta, dear," said Aunt Nettie, who had just entered, "I fear something besides socks and garments needs mending; to judge from your voice, there is a long rent in your patience."
"O, I presume so," replied Meta; "I'm always having to mend that; it's next to impossible to keep it whole. But, dear me, auntie, how can I help it? One doesn't like to be always at work upon the old; it would be a comfort once in a while to take up something new."
"Yes, dear, but the rents must be closed and the torn pieces mended, and some one must do it.
Isn't it better to go about it cheerfully, and in the meantime see if you cannot learn something from this very mending which you so dislike?"
"It may be," came doubtfully from Meta, "but if there is anything to be learned from this old basket, I wish you would show me, for I must own I see very little."
"Well, then, let me take the basket as a type of yourself. To begin with, there is a temper that you say needs mending often; it is harder to mend than the clothing, too, and how ugly the stitches look; make them ever so fine the darning will show, and you know that darns and patches spoil the beauty of any article. Couldn't you be a little more careful in the use of it, and not let it get torn so often
"I suspect your habits need a few stitches, too.
Were it not for one habit, this work would not accumulate as it does. Never put off till tomorrow, Meta, what may as well be done today.
Then some little careless ways you have could be repaired. A few stitches in your memory, too, would save your friends a good deal of annoyance sometimes. Our habits and manners, which tend to make us agreeable or disagreeable to others, can be nicely mended, only it takes time. It is like making over a dress; it's more work, and takes _longer to make than a new one, because it must be ripped and cleansed, and oh, how much time we spend in undoing deeds that we've done, before we can be fairly at work upon what we want to do.
I've sometimes thought it would take a great deal of pressing to take the wrinkles out of some of us.
But then the dress pays if the' material is good, and orderly habits and polished manners are charming if the heart be good and true.
"This is, after all, the main thing, the others are trimmings, and no amount of refinement can atone for an imperfect character.
"So whatever else you fail to do, whatever needs mending, keep your heart with all diligence, and guard your character that it remain complete and spotless."‘
Selected.
ALL great forces work quietly. The light, the frost, gravitation, electricity—the great natural
powers—all work silently. Great effects, great disturbances, great revolutions, follow the action of
these forces; but they act noiselessly.