Gratitude

THE Minister preached this morning on the Duty of Gratitude. I have forgotten what the pliable text was, but the lesson drawn from it was addressed, rather obviously, to the children from the ‘Home,’ who filled the front pews with bobbing, close-cropped heads and prim Sunday bonnets. I was pleased to observe that the sermon did not weigh upon their spirits: they were as full of tricks as any normal children when they got out into the good fresh air, and gave the usual trouble to the matron on their way back to the ‘ Home.’

And why should it have disturbed them, or older sinners, for that matter? Is Gratitude a living virtue like Truth or Courage, lacking which a human soul is incomplete? Or is it an invention of the people who confer benefits? All real virtues, I take it, will be found springing naturally in the heart of an unspoiled human being. The seed is there if we seek it. But we cannot invent a virtue any more than we can invent the smallest flower that blows. Gratitude, at its best, is a blossom grafted upon love; at its worst, a parasite that, kills the parent plant.

A child, or any natural soul, loves those who show it kindness, but it ignores, and, if the point is urged, resents, the idea of gratitude as the proper return. It feels instinctively that love must prompt kind deeds, and love — if possible —is the reward. This is the natural attitude; we can see it any day and in any family. Just as the wise old man, Montaigne, saw it and recognized its justice in the days when children were still weighed down with the burden of unending gratitude to the parents who had, most often quite casually, brought them into the world.

Not that a stiff-necked incapability of giving thanks where thanks are due is to be commended — least of all in a community where New England ancestors prevailed. Rather it is to be pitied as a sign of unhappy self-consciousness. Let us hope that the little orphans in the ‘Home’ are taught to chirrup, ‘Thank you,’ as naturally as the birds that come fluttering to a feast of crumbs. Still it remains that Gratitude, so called, must be indulged in with the greatest moderation. It is not like Mercy which ‘blesseth him that gives and him that takes.’ Gratitude may be very bad for the giver, since it lessens his merit in giving if he requires or even expects it. And, on the other hand, if he has a sensitive spirit, it wounds him, as the attitude of servant to master may wound and humiliate the master. And in case the gift is prompted by a sense of duty to himself, or to an ideal held by the giver, the recipient is not concerned in the act, though he profits by it, and should not be required to give thanks. It was not done for his sake, even though pity prompted the deed. In fact, his need or suffering has helped the benefactor to accomplish his end, for the act of charity may easily be only a means of relief for a wounded sensibility.

And to the recipient of favors Gratitude is a burden which only the freest affection can enable him to bear with dignity. Let, the burden gall and it may create a secret core of resentment, the more debasing because it is ashamed, or a callous ignominy which justifies the airy cynicism of La Rochefoucauld’s ‘ Gratitude is a lively sense of benefits to come,’ or Edward Gibbon’s sledgehammer dictum, ‘ Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive.’

Is it then dangerous to do too much for a friend? Must we hold our hand for fear of introducing a third between us, the sinister figure of Gratitude? No; a thousand times, no! For Gratitude, like Fear, can be cast out by perfect Love. But don’t let us preach too ponderously the duty of Gratitude, above all to the children.