We get what we give. I have never known this rule to fail in the long
run. If we give sympathy, appreciation, goodwill, charitable thoughts,
admiration and love--we receive all these back from humanity in time.
We may bestow them unworthily, as the sower of good seed may cast it on
a rocky surface, but the winds of heaven will scatter it broadcast,
and, while the rock remains barren, the fields shall yield a golden
harvest.
_The seed must be good_, however.
If I say to myself without any real regard for another in my heart, "I
want that person to like me, I will do all in my power to please him,"
I need not be surprised if my efforts fail or prove of only temporary
efficacy.
Neither need I feel surprised or pained if I find by-and-by that other
people are bestowing policy friendship upon me, actions with no feeling
for a foundation.
No matter how kind and useful I make my conduct toward an individual,
if in my secret heart I am criticising him severely and condemning him,
I must expect criticism and condemnation from others as my portion.
We reap what we sow. Some harvests are longer in growing than others,
but they all grow in time.
Servility in love, or friendship, or duty, is never commendable. I do
not believe God Himself feels complimented when the beings He created
as the highest type of His workmanship declare themselves worthless
worms, unworthy of His regard!
We are heirs of God's kingdom, and rightful inheritors of happiness,
and health, and success. What monarch would feel pleasure in having
his children crawl in the dust, saying, "We are less than nothing,
miserable, unworthy creatures?"
Would he not prefer to hear them say, proudly: "We are of royal blood"?
We ought always to believe in our best selves, in our right to love and
be loved, to give and receive happiness, and to toil and be rewarded.
And then we should bestow our love, our gifts and our toil with no
anxious thought about the returns. If we chance to love a loveless
individual, to give to one bankrupt in gratitude, to toil for the
unappreciative, it is but a temporary deprivation for us. The love,
the gratitude and the recompense will all come to us in time from some
source, or many sources. It cannot fail.