It is the generous giving of ourselves that produces the generous harvest. Many people are so stingy of their sympathies, their praise and appreciation, are so afraid of giving away something, they are so shut in—the shutters of their lives so tightly closed—that their natures are stunted and starved for the lack of sunshine and air.
It is astonishing how rapidly a person will develop when he opens up his nature and flings out his life with all his might in the service of others. There is nothing which will do so much for the life as the early forming of the good-will habit, the kindly habit, the habit of saying pleasant things about others.
A philosopher once asked his pupils, “What is the most desirable thing in the world?” After many answers had been given, one finally said, “A good heart.” “True,” said the philosopher, “thou hast comprehended in two words all that the rest have said, for he that hath a good, heart will be contented, a good companion, a good neighbor, and will easily see what is fit to be done by him.”
A good heart, a kindly disposition, a frank, cordial, open, generous nature are riches beside which the fortune of a multi-millionaire shrinks into insignificance. The man who has these, though he have not a cent to give away, may do as much good as any multimillionaire, be he ever so generous with his money.
“My office is in the Exchange; come in and see me,” said Jesse Goodrich to John B. Gough, the great temperance lecturer, the morning after the latter had signed the pledge. “I shall be happy to make your acquaintance,” he added, cordially. “I thought I would just call in and tell you to keep up a brave heart. Good-by; God bless you; don’t forget to call.”
“It would be impossible to describe how this little act of kindness cheered me,” Gough used to say. “‘Yes, now I can fight,’ I said to myself; and I did fight, six days and nights, encouraged and helped by a few words of sympathy. And, so encouraged, I fought on, with not one hour of healthful sleep, not one particle of food passing my lips for six days and nights.”
A few words of kindly sympathy, of loving encouragement, helped him to recover his manhood and become a great power for good in the world.
The habit of saying kind things to others and about them, of always looking for the good in them, savors of Heaven.
We can not help admiring and loving those who hold such a mental attitude toward us. Whole communities are often lighted up and cheered by one of these happiness radiators. Oh, what riches live in a sweet, sunny soul; what a blessed heritage is a sunny face, a sweet disposition; what joy to be able to fling out sunshine wherever one goes, to scatter shadows and lighten sorrow-laden hearts!
The trouble with us is that we misunderstand, misjudge one another. We judge people too much by their mean traits, their mistakes, their shortcomings, their peculiarities. How quickly the millennium would come if we could only realize the truth that there is a God in the meanest of men, a philanthropist in the stingiest miser, a hero in the biggest coward, which an emergency great enough would call out.
During an epidemic of yellow fever at Memphis it was almost impossible to get enough watchers and nurses to attend the stricken. One day a man with coarse features, closely cropped hair, and shuffling gait, went to one of the attending physicians, and said, “I want to nurse.” The doctor, looking him over critically, said, curtly, “You are not needed.” “But I wish to nurse,” persisted the man. “Try me for a week. If you don’t like me then, dismiss me; if you do, pay me my wages.” “Very well,” said the doctor, “I’ll take you,” adding, mentally, “I’ll keep my eye on you.”
The uncouth volunteer became one of the most valuable nurses on the staff. He was tireless and self-denying. Wherever the pestilence raged most fiercely he was, also, and worked the hardest. The sufferers adored him. To them his rough face was as the face of an angel. Not only did he nurse them with the care and devotion that a mother gives to her children, but it was found afterward he also put every cent of his earnings into a relief box for the benefit of the plague-stricken.
When “John the nurse,” the name he was known by, later sickened and died of the fever, those who prepared him for burial found on his body a livid mark—the brand of a convicted felon!
Many of us are so blinded by the blighting greed of gain, by the marbleizing usages and cold laws of trade which encrust our hearts with selfishness, that we do not see the good in people. When we learn to look for the good in them instead of the bad, we shall bring out the good instead of the bad, for our estimate of others helps to form their estimate of themselves; and no one can bring out the best when he believes and see only the worst of himself. If we held charitable, helpful views of one another our attitude would revolutionize civilization.
A Cleveland paper tells of a tramp who came to the back door of a residence and begged for shoes. The mistress of the house gave him a good pair, and said to him, “There, put these on, and if you want to show your gratitude, just happen around here some morning after a snow-storm and clean oil our sidewalk.”
Sometime after, the lady was awakened early one morning by some one scraping the sidewalk in front of the house. Looking out she found that there had been quite a heavy fall of snow, and there she beheld the tramp to whom she had given the shoes, clearing away the snow from the sidewalk with an old broken shovel. When he caught sight of his benefactress at the window, he raised his tattered hat to her, and, his self-imposed task finished, went away without saying a word or even asking for anything to eat. Three times, the same thing happened during the winter, but the man never asked for compensation or food.
A New York woman once invited a ragged, dirty beggar into her house, and after he had had a comfortable meal and some clean clothing, she sent him away with words of encouragement, telling him that he was made for something better than tramping; that it was a shame for a man of his apparent intelligence and good health to be getting a living in such a disgraceful way.
A year afterward, when she had forgotten all about the tramp she had befriended, this lady became embarrassed financially and was in sore need of money. She asked a friend if he knew where she could borrow five hundred dollars, but he could not accommodate her, nor did he know of any one who could. Next day, to her great astonishment, a man, a total stranger, as she thought, called at her house and told her that he had heard she was pressed for money, and that he had come to lend her the amount she needed. With growing surprise she asked how it was that a complete stranger, whom she had never seen, was willing to trust her. The man then explained that he was the tramp whom, a year before, she had taken to her home and treated like a brother, that her kindness on that occasion had been the turning-point in his career, had made a man of him again; that he had prospered beyond his deserts, and that ever since he had gotten on his feet he had been wishing for an opportunity to show his appreciation of what she had done for him.
“No man has come to true greatness,” says Phillips Brooks, “who has not felt in some degree that his life belongs to his race, and that what God gives him, He gives him for mankind.”
Yet one would think by the way in which many of us push, drive, elbow and trample one another in our mad rush for the dollar, that there were no ties of humanity binding us together, that we were natural enemies instead of brothers. Everywhere we see men in distress, whom we are amply able to assist and do not. We see them go to ruin financially when we might save them, because “it is none of our affairs.”
There is nothing so brutal, so hard-hearted as the man who is swallowed up in his own selfishness, who has allowed greed to eat out of his heart all of its nobler instincts, whose nature has become so hard that he can see no good in his fellow man.
Cultivate an open nature, a kindly manner, a generous spirit. Do not be stingy with your cordiality, your praise, your helpfulness. Fling out your best to everybody, every time. Learn to say pleasant things to people, and about them, to do generous things, and you will be surprised to see how your life will enlarge,