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In the next place, the most important thing that we can do in this world is to cultivate and develop our souls, our spiritual lives, into symmetry and beauty. The spirit, the soul, grows by use and exercise precisely in the same way as does any other part of our being. We ought, then, to give expression to gratitude for the sake of the culture and development of our inner being.

In the third place, if you find a heart where there is no thankfulness, you will find one tenanted by a set of guests that ought not to be welcome anywhere, and that ought not long to be entertained. The opposite of thankfulness is frequently discontent, jealousy, envy, a sour and unhappy disposition. Take these away, recognize that they have no place in the soul, and look around to see what you have that is of worth in your lives, and the natural expression of that condition, of that feeling, will be gratitude. So much for proposed hints at the beginning.

Now, I wish to raise a question that I do not believe we consider so often as would be helpful and well for us. Ingratitude and discontent,- I do not mean that divine discontent out of which progress comes,- that sour discontent that simply imbitters and distorts life, these things frequently come because at the outset we assume a condition of things which does not really exist. We assume that we have a right to things we assume that we have a claim on somebody. We assume that, if we do not have the things we desire, we have a right to find fault with somebody who has dealt unjustly, hardly, with us. I wish to ask you to consider, then, for a little this question as to how much of the things you desire in this world you have a claim to,- such a claim as that, if they do not come, you have a right to appeal to somebody, as though injustice had been done.

Now let us take it as to those who are nearest to us, the world, society. How much claim have we on anybody? There is a class of persons and you all know what kind of a class they are, too-who are perpetually talking about the world's owing them a living. Now, I do not know of any

person on the face of the earth to whom the world owes one single mill, in that sense. Generally, those people who say that the world owes them a living are the people who have conferred not the slightest service or benefit on anybody else. They have not established a claim to so much as a drink of water or a mouthful of bread by any service which they have rendered. On the other hand, they generally are persons of such a character and life that the world would be richer and better if they had not come into it or if they would kindly consent to leave.

Let us consider this situation. Take a smaller illustration; for perhaps the world is too large to make the matter clear. Let us take a thriving, flourishing town, containing five thousand people. These five thousand people are getting along very comfortably. They all have fairly comfortable homes, they have enough to do, they are receiving an income, so that they can live in comfort. They are ordinarily prosperous, as we should say. We will suppose that in that community there is no call for another laborer, no need of another store, no need of another lawyer, no need of another physician, no need of another banker, no need of any more people of any kind. The places are filled, and the work that appears ready to be done is being done. Now suppose in the case of a town like this that another man, the five thousand and first, comes. Nobody in town has asked him he volunteers to come. As he crosses the limit of the city and stands on the sidewalk for the first time, can he honestly say that that town owes him a living or owes him anything? The only way he can establish any claim whatsoever on anybody in the place is by rendering a service. He must render some service that is fairly adequate before he can expect to take anything out of the accumulated resources of that place. Only on that condition can the town ever be said to owe him anything whatsoever.

Now, with this illustration of the town in mind, let us turn to the world for a moment, the larger town, this planet of ours that we call the earth. There are those who think that

it is fairly full. There are persons who talk about the United States being crowded, so that we need to limit immigration. I do not believe in limiting immigration. I only believe in sifting it: that, I think, we ought to concern ourselves about. But, as a matter of fact, every man, woman, and child in the United States to-day could live and get a living in the State of Texas alone, so that there is no danger of our being uncomfortably crowded just yet. But take that supposition. No matter whether we are crowded or not, people feel that there are enough persons. As things are at present organized, there seems to be a superfluous number, because there are so many who do not find any remunerative or satisfactory occupation. Take, then, this little planet of ours. There comes to it a new soul, a new body, a new individual. Can this new person that comes to the world claim that the world owes him a living? It seems to me that there are only two persons who, at the time of the child's coming, owe him anything,- only two persons on whom he has any claim; and those two persons are the father and mother who have invited him here. The world, then, does not owe anybody a living in that sense.

Yet there are thousands of persons who, looking over the face of society, are envious, jealous, discontented; and these are not poor people, people who are in want. They are people whose income is a thousand dollars who are envious of the person who has two thousand; they are persons whose income is five thousand who are angry because it is not ten thousand; or somebody whose income is ten thousand dol lars is working, putting his body, his mind, and his soul into the venture, and ready to sacrifice them all, if he can make it a hundred thousand. They are envious, jealous, discontented, angry with the thought that somehow the world has wronged them. There are persons who are imbittered because of their own looks or their stature or some physical peculiarity,― matters such as would make them smile if they looked at it carefully and sensibly. There are persons who are discontented and angry with the world because they are

not intellectually so brilliant as some one else. There are persons discontented for almost every cause imaginable; and they are feeling sore and discouraged on account of that, as though the world owed them all these things that they desire, and was keeping them back.

Now turn and look in another direction. If the world does not owe us all we desire, does God owe us anything? You know perfectly well that there are thousands of people in the world walking through life discontented, unsatisfied, imbittered, feeling no sense of gratitude as they look upward, even if they believe that there is anybody to whom to look up. They have the feeling that they do not owe much in the way of recognition to God, because he has not conferred upon them all their hearts desire. Now have we any such claim?

Let us look at it for a moment. God gives us at least a little, he gives us something. Now, that something, if it is desirable, if we care for it, is a positive blessing and real good. Ought we not to be grateful for so much? But thousands of persons by their characters and lives, if not by words, say "no" because it is not more.

A man who is going to Europe for two or three years out of pure friendship lets me have the use of his estate while he is gone. Perhaps he has a house and magnificent grounds somewhere in the country. He does not need the income, he does not care to let some one whom he does not know occupy it. He lets me use it for two or three years; and I have the benefit of the beautiful home and the pictures and all the accumulations of art that it contains. I have the range of the grounds and the delight of all the trees, the joy in the flowers: all is mine for three years. At the end of the three years he returns; and I move out of his house. Now shall I curse him or call him names, and say he is mean and selfish, because he takes it away from me, or shall I be grateful to him for the positive good so long possessed? It seems to me that a large part of the lack of gratitude in human hearts comes from the fact that they set up conceited and

utterly unfounded claims. They feel, if they do not say, I ought to have so and so: I ought to be so and so; and, if God or the universe does not make me or confer upon me such and such things, then I have a right to feel injured. Now, if God gives the tiniest insect a life as long as fifty seconds, and his life is full of joy, so much good is conferred. And, if he gives some other creature a life of a hundred years, the one who lives only fifty seconds is not injured by that which is conferred upon the other. Neither can the one that has had but a life of fifty seconds say, "I have a right to a hundred years." As a matter of fact, he has no right to anything. We have no right to anything: all is pure, free, outright gift. We can have no claim that we can urge.

So, when God gives us something and then it is taken away, instead of being sour and bitter because of its loss, would it not be well to consider now and then the other side, and be thankful for its possession?

If we will remember, then, what seem to me these two incontrovertible positions, that we have no claims on the world and we have no claim on God for that which is not conferred, it will at least put us in a negative condition, which may turn by and by into a positive condition, of gratitude.

Let us turn from this now, to consider a few of the things that have been given to us all, some of the reasons why we should be grateful. And right here let me suggest to you one thing; and that is that, whatever differences there may be among people in this world,- differences in the way of physical beauty, differences in health, differences in intellectual endowment, differences in regard to our position, differences as to property, differences in anything,- whatever differences there may be here, whatever things we may desire that we do not have, one thing is incontrovertibly true. And that is that the best things that this world holds are no monopoly of a class. They do not belong exclusively to the rich; they do not belong exclusively to college graduates, to the intellectually cultured; they do not belong exclusively to the intellectually brilliant of any type; they do not belong

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