DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 44, 14 May 1927, Page 18

DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

“WHEN I’VE SAID I’M SORRY” (Copyright, 1927.) TN the chorus of a sentimental* song that used to bethe refrain: “When I’ve said I’m sorry, what more than I do” The answer is: “Don’t dc it again.” When a shop-keeper forgets all about my order and I call up about it and he tells me he forgot about it because of an extra rush or a shortage of help, instead of blaming the delivery boy or the telephone girl, or saying the order must have been lost, I recognise him for an honest man and don’t change shop-keepers—the first time. The first time he says he is sorry I think more of him for telling tha truth. But being sorry, or being honest, won’t hold his trade if he continues to forget about my orders. Being sorry is only the first mile. Not doing it again is the important second mile. The world in its infinite circumference holds few more irritating objects than the “sorriers”—those who continue to be sorry, at the same time continuing to do the same thing. It requires only a tongue to say you are sorry; but it takes a backbone to overcome the thing you are sorry for. Being sorry is just the beginning, and to continue to be sorry without doing more is to stay in the same place without advance. In a small town in the middle west lived a woman who was known as the prize reponter. When the visiting evangelist held revivals each spring, she got converted each year without a skip. Being sorry is an. emotional state; carrying out the reform requires a cold-blooded determination. When a person is really sorry the first thing he will do is to make a definite plan with definite steps to avoid a repeating of the thing he is sorry for.