| OCR Text |
Show BLESSEDNESS OF GIVING. '" Pfclloiiiphy or Making Gifts and Why Doing Ha Gives One Pleasure. There mtmt be eomething very good in human natare or people would not experience ex-perience so much pleasure in giving; there must be something very bad iu 1 human nature or more people would try the experiment of giving. Those who do try it become enamored of it and get taeir chief pleaxure in lifo ont of it; and so evident is this that thore is some basis for the idea that it is ignorance rather : than badness which keeps so many peo- j pie from being generous. Of course it ' may become a sort of dissipation, or more than that, a devastation, as many men who have whut are called "good wives" have reason to know, in the gradual grad-ual disappearance of their wardrobe if they chance to lay aside any of it temporarily. tem-porarily. The amount thai a good woman can give away is only measured by her op- ; portunity. Her mind becomes so trained in the mystery of this pleasure that she experiences no thrill of delight in giving ; away only tho things hor husband does not want. Her office in lifo is to teach j him the joy of self sacrifice. She and j all other habitual and irreclaimable givers soon find out that there is next to no pleasure iu a gift unless it involves some self denial. Let one consider seriously whether he ever gets as much satisfiiction out of a gift received as out of one given. It pleases him for the moment, and, it is useful, for a long time; he rnrns it over and admires it; he may value it as a token of affection, and it flatters his self esteem that he is the object of it But it is a transient feeling compared with that he has when he has made a gift. That substantially ministers to his self esteem. He follows tho gift; he dwells upon the delight of the receiver; his imagination plays about it; it will never we: out or become stale; having parted with it, it is for him a hinting possession. It is an investment as lasting as that in the debt of England. Like a good deed, it grows, and is continually satis- i factory. It is something to think of when he first wakes in the morning a tiuie when most people are badly put to it for want of something pleasant to think of. This fact about giving is so incoutestably true that it is a wonder that enlightened people do not more freely indulge in giving for their own comfort. It is, above all else, amazing ! that so many imagine they are going to i get any satisfaction out of what they leave by will. They may be in a state whero they will enjoy it if the will is not fought over; but it is shocking how little gratitude there is accorded to a departed de-parted giver compared to a living giver. He couldn't take tho property with him, it is said; he was obliged to leave it to somebody. By this thought his generosity is always al-ways reduced to a minimum. lie may build a monument to himself in somo institution, in-stitution, but we do not know enough of the world to which he has gone to know whether a tiny monument on this earth is any satisfaction to a person who is free of the universe. Whereas every giving or deed of real humanity done while he was living would have entered into his character, and would be of lasting last-ing service to him that i:, in any future which we can conceive. Charles Dudley Warner in Harper's. |
