"I was common clay till roses were planted in me," says some aromatic earth in the Eastern fable.
Like begets like, and good makes good.

"It is astonishing," says Canon Moseley, "how much good goodness makes.

Nothing that is good is alone, nor anything bad; it makes others good or others bad--and that other, and so on: like a stone thrown into a pond, which makes circles that make other wider ones, and then others, till the last reaches the shore....

Almost all the good that is in the world has, I suppose, thus come down to us traditionally from remote times, and often unknown centres of good." [125] So Mr.Ruskin says, "That which is born of evil begets evil; and that which is born of valour and honour, teaches valour and honour." Hence it is that the life of every man is a daily inculcation of good or bad example to others.

The life of a good man is at the same time the most eloquent lesson of virtue and the most severe reproof of vice.