DONT JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER

This story was emailed to me by a friend, and I want to share with you, I hope you’ll find inspiring:

A lady in faded gingham dress w/ husband, dressed in a homespun threadbare suit, stepped off the train in Boston, and walked timidly w/o an appointment into Harvard University President’s outer office. The secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods, country hicks had no business at Harvard & probably didn’t even deserve to be in Cambridge.

“We’d like to see the president,” the man said softly. “He’ll be busy all day,” the secretary snapped. “We’ll wait,” the lady replied.

For hours the secretary ignored them, hoping they would finally be discouraged & go away. They didn’t, the secretary grew frustrated & finally decided to disturb the president, eventhough it was a chore she always regretted.

“Maybe if you see them for a few minutes, they’ll leave,” she said to him. He sighed in exasperation & nodded. Someone of his importance obviously didn’t have the time to spend w/ them, he detested gingham dresses & homespun suits cluttering up his outer office.

The president, stern faced & with dignity, strutted toward the couple. The lady told him, “We had a son who attended Harvard for a year. He loved Harvard & was happy here. But about a year ago, he was accidentally killed. My husband & I would like erect a memorial to him, somewhere on campus.” The president wasn’t touched. He was shocked. “Madam,” he said, gruffly, “we can’t put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and died. If we did, this place would look like cemetery.”

“Oh, no,” the lady explained quickly. “We don’t want to erect a statue. We thought we would like to give a building to Harvard.” The Pres. rolled his eyes. He glanced at gingham dress & homespun suit, then exclaimed, “A building! Do you have any earthly idea how much building costs? We have over $7.5M in the physical buildings here at Harvard.”

For a moment the lady was silent. The president was pleased. Maybe he could get rid of them now. The lady turned to her husband and said quietly, “Is that all it cost to start a university? Why don’t we just start our own?” Her husband nodded. The president’s face wilted in confusion & bewilderment.

Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford got up & walked away, traveling to Palo Alto, California where they established the university that bears their name, Stanford University, a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about.

Moral Lesson:

Whether the historical acount of this literature is true or not, one thing should remain, whe must not judge a person.   A modern day example also is Susan Boyle a singer, whom audiences easily judged base on appearance and the clothes she wears.

We hope not to be judgemental in the way we treat people, after all, the best gift that we could receive comes in unsuspecting package: Salvation bought about by a person who was born in a manger, a carpenter’s son and was crucified and died for our sins.

Let us always remember the golden rule:  ”Dont do unto others what you dont want others do unto you.”