Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-12-24
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

is but a secret desire for more presents
in the future.
In looking over the tones of Edward
! Gibbons Decline and Fall of the Ro-
man Empire" we were amused recently
at running onto the following line:
Gratitude is expensive
| That might do very we'll for a Christ
mas thought. A better one, however, is
from the poet Gray, who wrote the
famous "Elegy."
science, he speaks in one of his little
known poems of 1.-The still small voice of
gratitude"
If we look back through literature for
wisdom on the virtue of gratitude we
find more of 1t, strangely enough, in
pagan times.
The great Marcus Cicero in one of
his orations said that thankful heart
is not only the greatest virtue, but the
parent of all other virtues"
Before Christianity there was Moth
ing but gratitude to restrain men from
evil deeds toward their benefactors:
nothing, in short, but the better part of
human nature.
Love as a principle of being was
known only to few of the wiSest and
learned men. The still small voice of
gratitude, however,. spoke in some de-
gree to all men.
Even the most downtrodden men of
ancient times, including the slaves who
attempted a revolt at Rome, knew the
sense of gratitude for such kindness as
came their way.
History preserves us no instances but
undoubtedly there must have been
slaves SO attached to their masters by
humane treatment that they refused to
join SpartacuS. 1t was not love so much
as gratitude.
Gratitude is thus no new thing nor
peculiar to religion, but Is literally as
old as the hills. It must have come
into being when the first cells, strug-
Cling for mastery, realized that among
their competitors there actually were
those cells which seemed to be helping
them!
Out OF this sense of cooperation may
have grown through dim subintellectual
processes the whole splendid economy of
the human body, with each part indie
pendent yet vitality related to all the
others.
Amid the hurry and good cheer of
Christmas time it is well to stop and
think, only for moment, of the
strange paradox which Nature offers m
we see creature eating creature, rivers
which would as soon drown an innocent
baby as savage monster, and on the
other the quick indignation which flares
up In most human beings at the sight,
word or sound of cruelty to little ones.
On one side Nature seems to hate
and on the other to love- In one in
slant she seems remorseless and unsee-
ing. and in the next compounded of all
honor and decency as she blossoms into
a Christ. In the midst of this per-
plexity the simple virtues of human
beings stand as the anchor OF mankind.
And In the role of virtues gratitude is
by no means the least, even If one is
not willing to give it the place accorded
by Cicero, living in far-gone age and
under conditions vastly different from
those prevailing today.
Gratitude is one of those bridges
which tie the ancient world to the
modern, which link decent men and
women Of all ages together in the gentle
bonds which end in the land of love.
The way is dark. and many millions
cropping for love find 1t not. But the
lantern Of gratitude, shining in the
gloom, will lead them as near to It as
they can go here below.