[Illustration: FAULT FINDING.]
Faults are the easiest things to find in all this world. A fault is
something that can be found without looking for it. And I guess no
little boy or girl in all the world knows anything that is easier to
find than something that he or she doesn’t have to look for. Well,
faults are things that we can find without looking for them; so faults
are the easiest things to find in all the world. Yet, boys and girls,
the habit of fault-finding, or the habit of finding fault, is one of the
worst habits that anybody could form. It stamps the person who is so
easy to find fault with everything and everybody as being a mean, low,
envious, evil-hearted person. It is better to look for something to
praise, than it is to look for something to blame. Yet there are some
people who are so constituted that they do not see any good in anything.
When it is cold, it is too cold. When it is hot, it is too hot. They
don’t like “vici kid” shoes; they want patent leathers. The singing at
church or Sunday school last Sunday was just horrid. Old Mary Jones
ought to be taken out of the choir. The preacher preaches too long, or
the deacon prays too loud. The school teacher isn’t any good. So they go
on from day to day, finding fault with everything and everybody.
Nothing pleases them; nothing delights them. If by any chance or
mischance they should get to heaven they would, I believe, find fault
with the way the Lord has arranged things up there. They are miserable
people to have around--these good-for-nothing, lazy and trifling
fault-finders. If you try real hard, boys and girls, you can find
something good in everything and in everybody. That is one reason why we
do not always see the good in people or things--we don’t look for it. We
can find out what is bad--can find out the bad things without looking
for them, but if we want to see the good things we must be on the
lookout for them. If we are on the lookout--if we make up our minds that
we are going to see the good, and only the good, we are always sure to
find it.
There was an old woman once who was noted for being able to say
something good about everything and everybody. She was never heard to
speak evil of anything or anybody. Once upon a time a gambler died in
the city where she lived. He was a miserable sinner, and nobody liked
him and nobody had a good word to say for him, even after he was dead.
Aunt Maria, the good old lady, went to see him after he had been put
into his coffin. The people who were present wondered what good thing
Aunt Maria could possibly say about the dead sinner. Aunt Maria entered
the room and walked around on tiptoe. After awhile she raised her head
and said:
“Friends, I tell you, he makes a mighty nice looking corpse.”