(2) No one, again, can be insensible to the deep joy which comes from feeling that others love us : that there are those who wait with watchful eagerness to render to us offices of kindly ministry ; to serve the cause which we embrace ; to follow where we lead ; to yield their own wills to our judgment. Such tender and brave devotion enlarges the scope of our life, and multiplies the powers of our action. As a nature is generous and lofty, such devotion disciplines and purifies it. But there is some- thing higher still. To love is better, nobler, more elevating, and more sure, than to be loved. To love is to have found that which lifts us above ourselves, which makes us capable of sacrifice, which unseals the forces of another world. He who is loved has gained the highest tribute of earth. He who loves has entered into the spirit of heaven. The love which comes to us must always be alloyed with the sad sense of our own unworthiness. The love which goes out from us is kept bright by the ideal to which it is directed. In feeling, it is more blessed to give than to receive.
(3) In the daily conduct of life we grow stronger and more courageous when we know that a host of fellow-workers are furthering the labours in which we are busy. Their force sus- tains us when we faint. Their energy inspires us with enthusiasm. Their example stirs us to rivalry. We need not wish to disparage the greatness of the debt which we owe to friends and fellow- citizens, or to lessen the gladness of gratitude. But what then ? He who has turned aside from the march of the great army to bring help to one who has fallen, he who has yielded a foremost place that he might restore another, has felt something of the joy of his Lord, the joy of absolute self-surrender, and known that there is a priceless victory in what seems to be failure in the eyes of men. In action, it is more blessed to give than to receive.
^[ Giving is " twice blest." The natives of Australia have a curious weapon called a boomerang, which they are able to throw from them in such a way as to make it return to them again.
180 THE BEATITUDE OF THE GIVER
Every gift is a boomerang; it returns to the giver in blessing. When Thomas Carlyle was six years of age he found this out. An old man came to the door begging. Carlyle was alone ; there was no food in the house, but, asking the man to wait, the little lad got his " penny-pig " off the shelf, broke it, and gave the old man all the money it contained. " And," said he, " I never knew before what the joy of heaven was like."
Who shuts his hand, hath lost his gold: Who opens it, hath it twice told.1
T[ The Eev. S. Vincent, of Plymouth, has told of an aged man in the hospital, whose wife came to see him once a week. They were very poor, and it cost one shilling and fourpence each journey. One week she brought the copy of the Missionary Herald, and read the appeal for greater funds ; and after prayer, though the weekly visit was their one ray of sunshine, and could not be often repeated because the man was near death, yet they decided to miss one week that the one shilling and fourpence might go to the missionary society.
He who bends to himself a joy Does the winged life destroy; But he who kisses the joy as it flies Lives in eternity's sunrise.2
Tj I know you are not over-fond of Moore : I hate his politics, but he is a very amusing companion.
I must tell you one of his stories, because, as Sir Walter Scott is the hero of it, I know it will not be unacceptable to you. When George iv. went to Ireland, one of the " pisintry," delighted with his affability to the crowd on landing, said to the toll-keeper as the King passed through —
" Och, now ! and His Majesty, God bless him, never paid the turnpike ! an' how's that ? "
"Oh! Kings never does: we lets 'em go free," was the answer.
" Then there's the dirty money for ye," says Pat. " It shall never be said that the King came here, and found nobody to pay the turnpike for him."
Moore, on his visit to Abbotsford, told this story to Sir Walter, when they were comparing notes as to the two royal visits.
"Now, Mr. Moore," replied Scott, "there ye have just the
1 G. Herbert. s W. Blake.
ACTS xx. 35 181
advantage of us. There was no want of enthusiasm here : the Scotch folk would have done anything in the world for his Majesty, but — pay the turnpike." x
"We might all of us give far more than we do, without being
a bit the worse; It was never yet loving that emptied the heart, or giving that
emptied the purse, We must be like the woman our Saviour praised, and do but
the best we can." "Ay, that'll be just the plan, neighbour, that'll be just the