Making the Most of Life Part 12

--MARY K. A. STONE.

A blessing given ought always to have some return. It is better to be a diamond, lighted to shine, than a clod, warmed to be only a dull, dark clod. We all receive numberless favors, but we do not all alike make fitting return.

Krummacher has a pleasant little fable with a suggestion. When Zaccheus was old he still dwelt in Jericho, humble and pious before G.o.d and man. Every morning at sunrise he went out into the fields for a walk, and he always came back with a calm and happy mind to begin his day's work. His wife wondered where he went in his walks, but he never spoke to her of the matter. One morning she secretly followed him. He went straight to the tree from which he first saw the Lord. Hiding herself, she watched him to see what he would do. He took a pitcher, and carrying water, he poured it about the tree's roots which were getting dry in the sultry climate. He pulled up some weeds here and there. He pa.s.sed his hand fondly over the old trunk. Then he looked up at the place among the branches where he had sat that day when he first saw Jesus. After this he turned away, and with a smile of grat.i.tude went back to his home. His wife afterward referred to the matter and asked him why he took such care of the old tree. His quiet answer was, "It was that tree which brought me to him whom my soul loveth."

There is no true life without its sacred memorial of special blessing or good. There is something that tells of favor, of deliverance, of help, of influence, of teaching, of great kindness. There is some spot, some quiet walk, some room, some book, some face, that always recalls sweet memories. There is something that is precious to us because in some way it marks a holy place in life's journey. Most of us understand that loving interest of Zaccheus in his old tree, and can believe the little fancy to be even true. In what life is there no place that is always kept green in memory, because there a sweet blessing was received?

Yet there seem to be many who forget their benefits. There is much ingrat.i.tude in the world. It may not be so universal as some would have us believe. There surely are many who carry in their hearts, undimmed for long years, the memory of benefits and kindnesses received from friends, and who never cease to be grateful and to show their grat.i.tude. Wordsworth wrote:--

"I've heard of hearts unkind, Kind deeds with coldness still returning; Alas! the grat.i.tude of men Hath left me oftener mourning."

However, Archdeacon Farrar, referring to these words, says, "If Wordsworth found grat.i.tude a common virtue, his experience must have been exceptional." There certainly are hearts unkind that do return coldness for kind deeds. There are children who forget the love and sacrifices of their parents and repay their countless kindnesses, not with grateful affection, honor, obedience, thoughtfulness, and service, but with disregard, indifference, disobedience, dishonor, sometimes even with shameful neglect and unkindness. There are those who receive help from friends in unnumbered ways, through years, help that brings to them great aid in life--promotion, advancement, improvement in character, widening of privileges and opportunities, tender kindness that warms, blesses, and inspires the heart, and enriches, refines, and enn.o.bles the life--who yet seem never to recognize or appreciate the benefit and the good they receive. They appear to feel no obligation, no thankfulness. They make no return of love for all of love's ministry. They even repay it with complaint, with criticism, with bitterness. We have all known years of continued favors forgotten, and their memory wiped out by one small failure to grant a new request for help. We have all known malignant hate to be the return for long periods of lavish kindness.

Ingrat.i.tude is robbery. It robs those to whom grat.i.tude is due, for it is the withholding of that which is justly theirs. If you are kind to another, is he not your debtor? If you show another favors, does not he owe you thanks? True, you ask no return, for love does not work for wages. Only selfishness demands repayment for help given, and is embittered by ingrat.i.tude. The Christly spirit continues to give and bless, pouring out its love in unstinted measure, though no act or word or look tells of grat.i.tude.

"If thy true service mounted, in its aim, No higher than the praise that men bestow On n.o.ble sacrifice, there might be shame That thou hast missed it so.

"But not for selfish gain or low reward, Didst thou so labor under shade and sun; But with the conscious sense that for thy Lord This weary work was done.

"He asked no thanks, no recognition nigh, No tender acceptation of his grace, No pitying tear from one responsive eye, No answering human face.

"To do G.o.d's will--that was enough for Christ, 'Mid griefs that make all agonies look dim.

It shall for thee suffice--it hath sufficed, As it sufficed for him."

Yet while love does not work for wages, nor demand an equivalent for its services, it is sorely wronged when ungrateful lips are dumb. The quality of ingrat.i.tude is not changed because faithful love is not frozen in the heart by its coldness. We owe at least loving remembrance to one who has shown us kindness, though no other return may be possible, or though large return may already have been made. We can never be absolved from the duty of being grateful. "Owe no man anything but love" is a heavenly word. We always owe love; that is a debt we never can pay off.

Ingrat.i.tude is robbery. But it is cruelty as well as robbery. It always hurts the heart that must endure it. Few faults or injuries cause more pain and grief in tender spirits than ingrat.i.tude. The pain may be borne in silence. Men do not speak of it to others, still less to those whose neglect or coldness inflicts it; yet It is like thorns in the pillow.

"Blow, blow, thou winter wind; Thou art not so unkind As man's ingrat.i.tude."

Parents suffer unspeakably when the children for whom they have lived, suffered, and sacrificed, prove ungrateful. The ungrateful child does not know what bitter sorrow he causes the mother who bore him and nursed him, and the father who loves him more than his own life; how their hearts bleed; how they weep in secret over his unkindness. We do not know how we hurt our friends when we treat them ungratefully, forgetting all they have done for us, and repaying their favors with coldness.

There is yet more of this lesson. Grat.i.tude, to fulfil its gentle ministry, must find some fitting expression. It is not enough that it be cherished in the heart. There are many good people who fail at this point. They are really thankful for the good others do to them. They feel kindly enough in their hearts toward their benefactors. Perhaps they speak to other friends of the kindnesses they have received. They may even put it into their prayers, telling G.o.d how they have been helped by others of his children, and asking him to reward and bless those who have been good to them. But meanwhile they do not in any way express their grateful feelings to the persons who have done them the favors or rendered them the offices of friendship.

How does your friend know that you are grateful, if you do not in some way tell him that you are? Verily here is a sore fault of love, this keeping sealed up in the heart the generous feeling, the tender grat.i.tude, which we ought to speak, and which would give so much comfort if it were spoken in the ear that ought to hear it. No pure, true, loving human heart ever gets beyond being strengthened and warmed to n.o.bler service by words of honest and sincere appreciation.

Flattery is contemptible; only vain spirits are elated by it.

Insincerity is a sickening mockery; the sensitive soul turns away from it in revulsion. But words of true grat.i.tude are always to human hearts like cups of water to thirsty lips. We need not fear turning people's heads by genuine expressions of thankfulness; on the other hand, nothing inspires such humility, such reverent praise to G.o.d, as the knowledge which such grat.i.tude brings,--that one has been used of G.o.d to help, or bless, or comfort another life.

Silence is said to be golden, and ofttimes, indeed, it is better than speech. "It is a fine thing in friendship," says George MacDonald, "to know when to be silent." There are times when silence is the truest, fittest, divinest, most blessed thing, when words would only mar the hallowed sweetness of love's ministry. But there are times again when silence is disloyalty, cruelty, unkind as winter air to tender plants.

Especially is this true of grat.i.tude; to be coldly silent, when the heart is grateful, is a sin against love. When we have a word of thanks in our heart, which we feel we might honestly speak, and which we do not speak, we have sorely wronged our friend.

Especially in homes ought there to be more grateful expression. We wrong home friends more than any other friends. Home is where love is truest and tenderest. We need never fear being misunderstood by the loved ones who there cl.u.s.ter about us. Yet too often home is the very place where we are most miserly of grateful and appreciative words. We let gentle spirits starve close beside us for the words of affectionateness that lie warm, yet unspoken, on our tongues. None of us know what joy and strength we could impart to others, if only we would train ourselves to give fitting, delicate, and thoughtful expression to the grat.i.tude that is in our hearts. We would become blessings to all about us, and would receive into our life new gladness. Nothing is sadder than the sorrow witnessed about many a Coffin; the grief of bereavement and loss made bitter by the regret that now the too slow grat.i.tude of the heart shall never have opportunity to utter itself in the ear which waited so long, hungry, and in vain, for the word that would have given such comfort.

"Over the coffin pitiful we stand, And place a rose within the helpless hand, That yesterday, mayhap, we would not see, When it was meekly offered. On the heart That often ached for an approving word, We lay forget-me-nots--we turn away, And find the world is colder for the loss Of this so faulty and so loving one.

"Think of that moment, ye who reckon close With love--so much for every gentle thought, The moment when love's richest gifts are naught: When a pale flower, upon a pulseless breast, Like your regret, exhales its sweets in vain."

But it is not enough that we be grateful and show our grat.i.tude to the human friends who do us kindnesses. It is to G.o.d that we owe all.

Every good and perfect gift, no matter how it reaches us, through what messenger, in what form, "cometh down from above, from the Father of lights." All the blessings of Providence, all the tender things that come to us through human love and friendship, are G.o.d's gifts.

"Whence came the father-heart in man, The mother-heart in woman?

The love throughout the cosmic plan Which makes G.o.d's children human?

"These never came: what we control Is good because 'tis given, And all made better to man's soul By the sweet touch of heaven."

We owe thanks to G.o.d, therefore, for all that we receive. When we have shown grat.i.tude to our human benefactors, we still owe our Heavenly Father thanks and grat.i.tude. It is possible, too, for us to be grateful to the friends who help us, and yet be as atheists, never recognizing G.o.d, nor giving him any thanks. This is the sorest sin of all. We rob G.o.d, and hurt his heart, every time we receive any favor at whatsoever hand, and fail to speak our praise to him.

Whatever we may say about man's ingrat.i.tude to his fellow-men, there is no question about man's lack of grat.i.tude to G.o.d. We are continually receiving mercies and favors from him, and yet, are there not days and days with most of us, in which we lift no heart and speak no word in praise? Our prayers are largely requests and supplications for help and favor, with but little adoration and worship. We continue asking and asking, and G.o.d continues giving and giving; but how many of us remember always or often to give thanks for answered prayer? The angel of requests--so the legend runs--goes back from earth heavily laden every time he comes to gather up the prayers of men. But the angel of thanksgiving, of grat.i.tude, has almost empty hands as he returns from his errands to this world. Yet ought we not to give thanks for all that we receive and for every answered request? If we were to do this our hearts would always be lifted up toward G.o.d in praise.

There is a story of some great conductor of a musical festival suddenly throwing up his baton, and stopping the performance, crying, "Flageolet!" The flageolet was not doing its part and the conductor's trained ear missed its one note in the large orchestra. Does not G.o.d miss any voice that is silent in the music of earth that rises up to him? And are there not many voices that are silent, taking no part in the song, giving forth no praise? Shall we not quickly start our heart-song of grat.i.tude, calling upon every power of our being to praise G.o.d?

CHAPTER XXI.

SOME SECRETS OF HAPPY HOME LIFE.

"The primal duties shine aloft like stars; The charities that sooth and heal and bless Are scattered at the feet of men like flowers.

* * * * The smoke ascends To heaven as lightly from the cottage hearth As from the lofty palace."

--WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

Home life ought to be happy. The benediction of Christ on every home to which he is welcomed as an abiding guest is, "Peace be to this house." While perfection of happiness is unattainable in this world, rich, deep, heart-filling happiness certainly may be, and ought to be, attained.

Yet it requires wise building and delicate care to make a home truly and perfectly happy. Such a home does not come as a matter of course, by natural growth, wherever a family takes up its abode. Happiness has to be planned for, lived for, sacrificed for, ofttimes suffered for.

Its price in a home is always the losing of self on the part of those who make up the household. Home happiness is the incense that rises from the altar of mutual self-sacrifice.

It may be said, in a word, that Christ himself is the one great, blessed, secret of all home happiness; Christ at the marriage altar; Christ when the baby is born; Christ when the baby dies; Christ in the days of plenty; Christ in the pinching times; Christ in all the household life; Christ in the sad hour when farewells must be spoken, when one goes on before and the other stays, bearing the burden of an unshared grief. Christ is the secret of happy home life.

But for the sake of simplicity the lesson may be broken up. For one thing, the husband has much to do in solving the problem. Does a man think always deeply of the responsibility he a.s.sumes when he takes a young wife away from the shelter of mother-love and father-love, the warmest, softest human nest in this world, and leads her into a new home, where his love is to be henceforth her only shelter? No man is fit to be the husband of a true woman who is not a good man. He need not be great, nor brilliant, nor rich, but he must be good, or he is not worthy to take a gentle woman's tender life into his keeping.

Then he must be a man, true, brave, generous, manly. He must be a good provider. He must be a sober man; no man who comes home intoxicated, however rarely, is doing his share in making happiness for his wife and family. He must be a man of pure, blameless life, whose name shall grow to be an honor and a pride in his household. Husbands have a great deal to do with the matter of happiness at home.

The wife, too, has a responsibility. It should be understood at the very beginning, that good housekeeping is one of the first secrets of a happy home. If a man must be a good provider, a woman must be a good home-maker. No woman is ready to marry until she has mastered the fine arts of housekeeping. Home is the wife's kingdom. She holds very largely in her hands the happiness of the hearts that nestle there.

The best husband, the truest, the n.o.blest, the gentlest, the richest-hearted, cannot make his home happy if his wife be not in every sense a helpmeet. In the last a.n.a.lysis, home happiness does depend on the wife. She is the true home-maker.

Children, too, are great blessings, when G.o.d sends them, bringing into the home rich possibilities of happiness. They cost care, and demand toil and sacrifice; ofttimes causing pain and grief: yet the blessing they bring repays a thousand times the care and cost. It is a sacred hour in a home when a baby is born and laid in the arms of a young father and mother. It brings fragments of heaven trailing after it to the home of earth. There are few deeper, purer joys ever experienced in this world than the joy of true parents at the birth of a child.

Much of home's happiness along the years is made by the children. We say we train them, but they train us ofttimes more than we train them.

Our lives grow richer, our hearts are opened, our love becomes holier when the children are about us. Croons a young mother over her babe:--

"And art thou mine, thou helpless, trembling thing, Thou lovely presence? Bird, where is thy wing?

How pure thou art! fresh from the fields of light, Where angels garner grain in robes of white.