LAWTON CHURCH OF GOD, LAWTON OKLAHOMA

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CHAPTER 3

MANNERS

WE ARE in danger these days of losing many of the graces that help to make life harmonious. The rush, the hurry, the feverish excitement in which many persons live can not be conducive to the cultivation of charm of manners or elevation of mind. You may be surprized that I mention elevation of mind in connection with manners, but the cultivation of good manners has more to do with high-mindedness and a high standard of morals than many of us think. Good manners constantly used uplift and refine. Bad manners injure and lower the character and destroy the perfection of life and result in making us cold and heartless; while good manners help, if practised in sincerity, to make us thoughtful, kind, and unselfish. They would seem to be essential to every well-regulated life.

Good manners should begin at home. Manners are not learned so much as acquired by habit. They grow upon us by use. We must be courteous, agreeable, civil, mild, and gentle at home, and then it will become second nature for us to be so everywhere.

The New Testament inculcates good manners. Our Savior was courteous even to his persecutors. Look at Paul before Agrippa! His speech is a model of dignified courtesy as well as of persuasive eloquence. A spirit of kindly consideration of men characterized the Twelve. The same mild self-sacrificing spirit that pervaded the sayings and doings of the early disciples should be exhibited by us today.

Manners are the ornaments of actions, and there is a way of speaking a kind word or of doing a kind thing which greatly enhances its value.