We may regret it and show our repentance in speech and action, but we cannot blot the memory of the cruel words from our minds, or from the mind of the person,--perhaps a mere acquaintance, oftener bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh,--in whose heart the barbed arrows of our eloquence rankle for months and years.

The dear friend may forgive freely and fully the bitter censure or unjust reproof, but a scar is left which, if touched in a moment of inadvertence, will pulse and throb with the remembrance of pain.
"Leave the bitter word unspoken; So shalt thou be strongly glad, If there lies no backward shadow On dead faces, wan and sad." "To repress a harsh answer, to confess a fault, to stop, right or wrong, in the midst of self-defence, in gentle submission, sometimes requires a struggle like life and death, but these three efforts are the golden threads with which domestic happiness is woven." How frequently we exclaim,--"If I ever get the opportunity, I will give that woman a piece of my mind!" or, "I shall some time have the satisfaction of telling that man what I think of his behavior." It is a very melancholy and most _un_satisfactory satisfaction to know that you have made a person uncomfortable.

It is folly for you to suppose for a moment that an angry speech of yours will turn a man from a course of which you do not approve.

It will make him hate you, perhaps, but it will not change him.

It is not only foolish, but un-Christian to triumph in another's discomfiture.