If there is one thing that creates happiness more than another, it is making some one else happy.
“True happiness (if understood)
Consists alone in doing good.”
So wrote the poet Thomson. “It is more blessed to give than to receive,” said the most liberal Giver of the ages. One needs to give to keep the heart open, to give without looking for returns, though such giving, like the dove of Noah’s ark, always comes back in due season with the olive leaf of reward.
LEGEND AND FACT.
A poor fatherless boy, according to a German legend, had gathered in the woods a dish of strawberries. Returning home, a venerable old man startled him by calling out, “My lad, let me have thy full dish and thou take my empty one.” Pity for the old man’s weakness and helplessness overcame the boy’s reluctance to part with his berries, and he made the exchange. Soon he filled the empty dish and returned with it to his mother, to whom he told the story of his adventure. “Ah, happy are we, my child,” she exclaimed, “the dish is pure gold.” Though simple the story, it illustrates this profound truth, that the simplest and freest gifts return to us in richer and more acceptable favors. Then
“Give to the world the best you have,
And the best will come back to you.”
A poor soldier one day called at the shop of a hair-dresser, who was busy with his customers, and asked relief, stating that he had stayed beyond his leave of absence, and unless he could get passage on a coach, fatigue and severe punishment awaited him. The hair-dresser listened to his story respectfully and gave him a guinea. “God bless you, sir!” exclaimed the soldier, astonished at the amount, “how can I repay you? I have nothing in the world but this,” pulling a dirty scrap of paper from his pocket. “It is a receipt for making blacking, and is the best that was ever seen. Many a half guinea I have had for it from the officers, and many bottles have I sold. May you be able to get something for it to repay you for your kindness to a poor soldier.” Oddly enough, that dirty piece of paper proved worth half a million pounds to the hair-dresser. It was no less than the receipt for the famous Day and Martin’s blacking, the hair-dresser being the late wealthy Mr. Day, whose factory is one of the notable sights of the English metropolis.
Be generous, my boy. Not in one thing, but many. In chemical galvanism, it is the number, not the size, of the cells, which increases the power of the battery. In generosity, it is not the large gift, but the number of little gifts; not the one kind word, but the many. Not the great acts, but the continued small ones. To your enemy manifest generosity in forgiveness; to your opponent, tolerance; to your parents, deference; to yourself, respect; to all, charity.