The man who ridicules everything is on the toboggan slide and he will finish the slide as an out-and-out grouch. You and I know men who never have a pleasant word to say of anyone, or a serious commendation of anything. Ridicule and sarcasm are often coated with would-be humor, and try to pass for puns. By and by, however, this ridicule and sarcasm gets to be a habit, and the coat of humor becomes threadbare. Just at this time friends depart, for the grouch phase of the disease has started. Sarcasm and ridicule are powerful weapons when used adroitly and for good purposes. But when sarcasm and ridicule are used constantly as a means to generate fun or as vehicles for humor, then the evil commences. People will listen to you for awhile, if you good-naturedly ridicule a thing, but when you are known to have the habit, then is when friends give you the go-by. Sarcasm and ridicule wound deeply; they are hot pokers jabbed in quivering flesh. Don't juggle with ridicule or sarcasm, for people look beneath the veneer nowadays. They remember and repeat the axiom, "there's many a true word spoken in jest." There are so many beautiful things to say, so many kind expressions to utter, so many helpful hints to give, that we should be ashamed to say or do things even jokingly that may hurt another. Safest way is to run no chances. When you ridicule a thing or a person, you may ridicule the tender heart of one you should cheer and help. Ridicule is the negative element anyway; the only good it can be is by reflex or rebound force. Ridicule is conceived by the humor idea. It is used because it so easily lends itself to a seeming clever way to create a laugh. Humor of the clean sort is a rare gift. Humor may easily descend to low comedy by use of ridicule, and often the audience does not differentiate between low comedy and rare humor. The masses will laugh when the comedian on the stage hits his friend with a club; that sort of fun-making satisfies adults who have children's brains and such brain-constructed people will also laugh at jokes which ride on ridicule. But you who read these lines are worthy of better things; that's why you are reading this book. If, in my audience there are those who have the ridicule habit, I want to arouse you to a better sense of humor than you can get by the employment of ridicule and sarcasm. I don't want you to descend to the level of the grouch. The slide-down is so easy, the climbing back and up from the depth is so very hard. Ridicule and sarcasm are cheap, slapstick methods to produce fun. They leave a sting many times when you are not aware of it. When fighting whiskey, sin, corruption or evil hosts, then use burning ridicule and caustic sarcasm to sizzle and destroy the things that need to be destroyed.