Wealth, for instance, can be measured only by appreciation. The child in appreciating a toy is richer than a drowning man with a thousand dollars in gold in his pocket. We will therefore understand appreciation to mean knowledge and full cultivation and enjoyment.
"Appreciation" might justly be given first place in the language, as, in its spiritual application, it implies the knowledge of God that gives birth to Love.
Our definition, "knowledge—or understanding—cultivation and full enjoyment," conveys the largest and highest meaning of "appreciation," but the realization of it is not complete until every God-expression is included, even to the smallest wonder of the universe.
Neglect of the cultivation of appreciation of everything—of the commonest things in our surroundings—is loss of opportunity to conserve the greatest aid to progress and growth; because, appreciation of lesser things insures a better appreciation of the most important things.
Cultivation of appreciation is cultivation of the germ of all good and the opening wide of the spiritual flood-gates. Even the complete, yet simple, dignity of the Lord's Prayer can be epitomized within the prayer, Father, teach Thou us Appreciation.
LOVE.
In its pure form, as Christ meant it, Love makes no distinction between creatures nor between things; its merit is in the act—or thought—and not in the object loved.
The divine quality in man, growing out of appreciation, finds first expression in love; not the passive principle, the opposite of hate, but the growing, active principle, which is constantly flowing forth from the spiritually blessed to bathe with warmth of unselfishness the just and the unjust alike. Love begets altruism.