lthough
hidden and seemingly dead, yet these seeds retained their life for
seventeen hundred years or more.

In this same way there is a deathless power in the words which we speak,
even though they are spoken hastily and without thought upon our part.
Our words have in them the element of a life which is well-nigh endless.
You may yourself remember some unkind words which were spoken to you
months and months ago. The boy or girl who spoke them may have forgotten
all about them, but you still remember them, and they cause you pain
every time you think of them. Or it may be that some kind person has
spoken tenderly and affectionately to you. The person himself may have
been so accustomed to speaking kindly that he forgot entirely what he
had said, but his kind words still live in your memory. There is a
beautiful hymn written some years ago, which begins: "Kind words can
never die."

About fifty years ago there were some boys in a school yard playing
marbles. Two other boys were playing tag. One of the boys who were
playing tag chanced to run across the ring in which the boys were
playing marbles. One of these boys was accustomed to speaking ugly words
and doing very hasty and cruel things. He sprang to his feet and kicked
the boy who had run across the ring, wounding him in the right knee. The
injury was of such a nature that the bones of that leg below the knee
never grew any more, and as a result, for over forty years that boy has
had to walk on crutches. You see how permanent the result of this injury
has been; and the results of unkind words may be just as injurious and
no less permanent than the unreasonable and wicked thing which this boy
did in his anger.

You may sometimes be discouraged because the kind words which you speak
and the kind deeds which you do seem to fail of a good result. But you
can be assured that even though you grow to old age and your body were
to be laid away in the grave, yet sometime, in the lives of those who
come after you, the good you have done will surely bear its fruitage of
blessing.

QUESTIONS.--Are there many different kinds of
seeds? Do apple trees ever grow from peach seeds?
Do good thoughts grow from bad words, or bad
thoughts from good words? Do seeds have a
principle of life in them? Do words and thoughts
have a principle of life? How many centuries have
seeds been known to retain their life? Have th