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not feel this a difficult commandment to keep. There is, however, one way in which a Christian is permitted to kill his enemies. Does the reader ask how? In self-defence, perhaps, you say. No! it is not that I mean. In war? No! nor that neither. The way in which the Christian should kill his enemy, whether in peace or war, in retaliation or self-defence, is by making him his friend; he is, in fact, to kill him with kindness. The mode of doing this can hardly be better illustrated than by the following narrative, related by Mrs. Child, as a story founded on fact, of

THE MAN THAT KILLED HIS NEIGHBOURS.

Reuben Black was a torment in the neighbourhood where he resided. The very sight of him produced effects which may be likened to those said to follow a Hindoo magical tune, called Rang, which is supposed to bring on clouds, storms, and earthquakes. His wife had a sharp and uncomfortable look. His boys seemed to be in perpetual fear. The cows became startled as soon as he opened the barn-yard gates. The dog dropped his tail between his legs, and eyed him askance, as if to see what humour he was in. The cat looked wild, and had been known to rush straight up the chimney when he moved toward her. The description of a certain stage-horse was well suited to Reuben's nag- "His hide resembled an old hair trunk.” Continual whipping and kicking had made him so

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insensible, that no amount of blows could quicken his pace, no cheering could change the dejected drooping of his head. All his natural language said, as plain as a horse could say it, that he was a most unhappy beast. Even the trees on Reuben's premises had a neglected and desolate appearance. His fields were red with Everything about him

sorrel, or overrun with weeds.

seemed hard and arid as his own countenance.

Every

day he cursed the town and the neighbourhood, because the people poisoned his dogs, and stoned his hens, and shot his cats. Continual lawsuits involved him in so much trouble and expense, that he had neither time nor money to spend on the improvement of his farm. Against Joe Smith, a poor labourer in the neighbourhood, he had brought three suits in succession.

Joe

said he had returned a spade he had borrowed, and Reuben swore he had not. He sued Joe and recovered damages, for which he ordered the officer to seize his pig. Joe, in his wrath, called him an old swindler, and a curse to the neighbourhood. These remarks were soon repeated to Reuben. He brought an action for slander, and recovered very small damages. Provoked at the laugh this occasioned, he watched for Joe to pass by, and set his dog upon him, crying out furiously, "Call me an old swindler again, will you?" An evil spirit is more contagious than the plague. Joe went home and scolded his wife, boxed little Joe's ears, and kicked the cat; and not one of them knew what it

was all for. A fortnight after, Reuben's dog was found dead from poison. Whereupon he brought

another action against Joe Smith, and not being able to prove him guilty of the charge of dog-killing, he took his revenge by poisoning a pet lamb belonging to Mrs. Smith. Thus feelings of ill-will were followed by misery and loss. Joe's temper grew more and more vindictive, and the love of talking over his troubles at the gin-shop increased upon him. Poor Mrs. Smith cried, and said it was all owing to Reuben Black, for a better-hearted man never lived than her Joe when she first married him.

Such was the state of things when Simeon Green purchased the farm adjoining Reuben's. This had been much neglected, and had caught thistles and other weeds from the neighbouring fields. But Simeon was a diligent man, and one who commanded well his own temper, for he had learned of Him who is "meek and lowly in heart." He had been taught by the Holy Spirit the evil of his own heart, and been led to a humble but sure trust in Christ for pardon and salvation; and having this hope in him, he sought, by the aid of the Holy Spirit, to purify himself even as God is pure, and to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith he was called, with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing-in love.

His steady perseverance and industry soon changed the aspect of things on the farm. River mud, autumn

leaves, old bones, were all put in use to assist in producing fertility and beauty. The trees, hitherto overrun with moss and insects, soon looked clean and vigorous. Fields of grain waved where weeds had only grown before. Roses covered half the house with their abundant clusters. Even the rough rock, which formed the door-step, was edged with golden moss. The sleek horse, feeding in clover, tossed his mane and neighed when his master came near; as much as to say, "The world is all the pleasanter for having you in it, Simeon Green!" The old cow, fondling her calf under the great walnut tree, walked up to him with a serious friendly face, asking for a slice of beet-root which he was wont to give her. Chanticleer, strutting about with his troop of plump hens and their downy little chickens, took no trouble to keep out of his way, but flapped his glossy wings, and crowed a welcome in his very face. When Simeon turned his way homeward, the boys threw their caps, and ran shouting, "Father's coming!" and little Mary went toddling up to him, with a flower ready to place in his button-hole. His wife was a woman of few words, but she sometimes said to her neighbours, with a quiet kind of satisfaction, "Everybody loves my husband that knows him. They cannot help it."

Simeon Green's acquaintance knew that he was never engaged in a lawsuit in his life, but they predicted that he would find it impossible to avoid it now.

They told him his next neighbour was determined to quarrel with people whether they would or not; that he was like John Lilburne, of whom it was happily said, "If the world were emptied of every person but himself, Lilburne would still quarrel with John, and John with Lilburne."

"Is that his character?" said Simeon. "If he exercises it upon me, I will soon kill him."

In every neighbourhood there are individuals whe like to foment disputes, not from any definite intention of malice or mischief, but merely because it makes a little ripple of excitement in the dull stream of life. Such people were not slow in repeating Simeon Green's remark about his wrangling neighbour. "Kill me, will he?" exclaimed Reuben. He said no more; but his tightly compressed mouth had such a significant expression that his dog slunk from him in alarm. That very night Reuben turned his horse into the highway, in hopes he would commit some depredation on neighbour Green's premises. But Joe Smith, seeing the animal at large, let down the bars of Reuben's own cornfield, and the poor beast walked in, and feasted as he had not done for many a year. It would have been a great satisfaction to Reuben if he could have brought a suit against his horse; but as it was, he was obliged to content himself with beating him. His next exploit was to shoot Mary Green's handsome cock, because he stood on the stone wall and crowed, in the ignorant (149)

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