Keep Kindness Going

That I may show him kindness for Jonathan s sake.--II, Sam. 9: 1.

Here is a beautiful little picture of kindness cast against a background of hardness and harshness--David showing kindness to Mephibosheth, Jonathan s crippled son. In earlier days Jonathan had shown great kindness to David. The memory of this lingered in David s heart, and now he passes on to the son the kindness the father had done to him. Although a man of war and constantly engaged in desperate conflict, the milk of human kindness has not dried up in his soul. In the midst of days filled with strife and war, hate and bitterness, he remembers to pass on a kindness that had hallowed his early life. It is a good example for us, in these hard and bitter times. We must keep a place in our hearts for kindness, if we would keep the world a decent place in which to live.

A kindness received leaves you with a delightful sort of feeling that makes you want to do a good deed to somebody else.

One good turn deserves another, we say. I am inclined to put it that one good turn inspires another. That is the way human kindness spreads and multiplies. It is difficult to suppose one who has not had a kindness. But suppose no one has ever been kind to you, what then? Go out and do a kindness! By so doing, you will set in motion a whole sequence of kindly deeds, the effect of which may go far out beyond your dreams. Kindness has a continuous and cumulative effect, once you start a flow of kindness, it flows on and on with an increasing impetus and volume. If you start such a flow, it will most surely take a curve somewhere along the line and flow back towards you--maybe it will flow down to your children and grandchildren.

Many of our kindnesses may not be returned directly and immediately; but sooner or later, they come back to us from some source in some form.

“Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together” (Goethe). Do you want to break the chain? Lest you do, remember the little poem: “Have you had a kindness shown? Pass it on! ’Twas not meant for thee alone--Pass it on! Let it travel down the years, Let it dry another’s tears, Till in heaven the deed appears--Pass it on!”