^ I thank God for the removal of sickness ; but I have been able to give thanks for sickness, for health, for light, for darkness, for the hiding of God's face.^
(1) Gratitude is a self-rewarding virtue. — Who can doubt that this man was far happier in his condition of mind, that he felt a more full and ample and inspiriting enjoyment of his cure, that he experienced more exquisite sensations than any of the nine who departed without uttering a word of thankfulness ? His supreme joyfulness and exultation are proclaimed in the tones with which he utters them, in the loud voice with which he glorified God. What strength of feeling is here ! Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh ; he is not silent ; he cannot restrain his voice : he cannot bear that his thankfulness should be felt only within his own breast ; he must utter it ; he must utter it aloud ; all shall know how he rejoices for the mercy bestowed, all shall hear him thank God for what He has done for him. How superior his delight in God's gift, to that of the other nine who slunk away, and how much stronger ! We see that he was transported, and that he was filled to overflowing with joy of heart, and that he triumphed in the sense of the Divine goodness. It was the exultation of faith ; he felt there was a God in the world, and that God was good. What greater joy can be imparted to the heart of man than that which this truth, thoroughly embraced, imparts ?
^ It was in the last days of his life that Dean Stanley told me how on the occasion of the funeral of Dr. Arnold he spoke after- wards to the widow, pouring out his heart first in gratitude for having been under the great headmaster, and all it meant to him of inspiration ; and then he said, " I told her that so long as I lived never should this day pass without her hearing from me in token that I could never forget the debt I owed her husband." Then he exclaimed, "And she never failed to get
1 E. Griffith- Jones, T?ie Miracles of Jesus, 273.
' "Rabbi" Duncan, in Recollections by A. Moody Stuart, 221.
334 INGRATITUDE
that letter ! " It is good to dwell on such things, for they are beautiful.^
(2) Gratitude powerfully stimulates to active well-doing. — A man will do out of gratitude much more than he will do out of fear, or from hope of reward. Thankfulness for redemption was the motive power of a life like that of St. Paul, as it has been the motive power of all the greatest and most fruitful lives that have been lived in Christendom. Christ " died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves " — this is the motto of such lives. Gratitude, like love, lives not in words, but in deed and in truth. Often those who feel most what has been done for them say least about it; but they do most. Gratitude can work; gratitude can suffer; gratitude can per- severe. But one thing gratitude cannot do : it cannot bring itself to feel that it has done enough; it cannot, in this world, lie down with a sense that it has really paid off its debt to the Eedeemer.
^ A few months before the death of Eobert Louis Stevenson, certain Samoan chiefs whom he had befriended while they were under imprisonment for political causes, and whose release he had been instrumental in effecting, testified their gratitude by building an important piece of road leading to Mr. Stevenson's Samoan country house, Vailima. At a corner of the road there was erected a notice, prepared by the chiefs and bearing their names, which reads :
" The Eoad of the Loving Heart. Eemembering the great love of his highness, Tusitala, and his loving care when we were in prison and sore distressed, we have prepared him an enduring present, this road which we have dug to last for ever." 2
^ A well-known temperance lecturer was once being driven in a carriage to address a meeting. He noticed that the driver bent forward before the front window in a strange way, with his head as much as possible before the glass. The lecturer thought the man was ill, but he answered, " No." Then he was asked the reason of his conduct, and he replied that the window was broken, and that he was trying to keep the cold draught from the passenger. " But why," asked the lecturer, " do you do this for a stranger ? " Then the driver said, " I owe all I have in the world
'o^
^ Bishop Montgomery.
' J. A. Hanimerton, Slevensoniana, 125.
ST. LUKE XVII. 17 335
to you. I was a ballad singer, drunken and disreputable, dragging a miserable wife along the streets of Edinburgh. I went to hear you, and you told me that I was a man, and might live as a man again. I went home, and I said, ' By the help of God, I'll be a man.' God bless you, sir ; I would put my head anywhere if it would do you good." ^