Bothering for others is the bliss of life!
If you want to be happy, aid some one to-day!
*XIV*
*THANKLESSNESS*
Don't you love to hear the gentle voice of a child say, "Thank you!"?
Don't you like to see a girl or boy that feels and shows gratitude?
Everything in Nature seems to have it!
The birds twittering in the tree-tops always seem to be chirping,
"Thanks." The flowers bordering the green lawn breathe out a fragrance
that makes you so glad, it must be the odour of thanks! The sun is so
glorious and scatters its rays so brightly, I think if you could hear it
speaking as it shines, you would hear it saying, "Oh, I am so thankful I
have all this power of sifting down these drops of sunlight!" When the
rain sees the brown-burnt grass starting up into bright greenness, how
thankful it must feel for its ability to refresh! I think even the wind
is glad it can shake things up and scatter nasty germs and clean the air
that people breathe!
"All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all."
And I really believe there is not one that is not glad and thankful for
being and doing!
There is no spirit so dark, unhappy and unattractive as the one that is
thankless.
Shakespeare says:
"Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend
More hideous in a child
Than the sea monster."
And again he says:
"How sharper is it than a serpent's tooth
To have a thankless child."
Once Jesus cured ten lepers, and you know leprosy was a dreadful disease
that little by little ate away the body and turned it into a rotting
sore; and of the ten who were healed of that frightful trouble, only one
came back to say, "I thank you!"
Isn't it a lovely sight to see the sweet spirit of a thankful heart
saying it--to find people who appreciate what you do--that is, who think
it is worth something, for appreciation just means putting a value on,
and they say so!