My Prayer Book_LASANCE - the Catholic Kingdom!

,do imply some degnte of self-sadice, they almost
instantly repay us a hundredfold. The opportunities
are frequent, but we show no eagerness either in looking
out for them, or in embracing them. What inference
are we to draw from all this? Surely this: That
it is next to impossible to be habitually kind, except by
the help of divine grace and upon supernatural motives.
Take llfe all through, its adversity as well as its prosperity,
its sickness as well as its health, its loras of its
rights as well as its enjoyment of them, and we shall
find that no natural sweetness of temper, much less any
acquired philosophical equanimity, is equal to the sup
port of a uniform habit of kindness. Nevertheless,
with the he1 of grace, the habit of saying kind words
uicgly formed, and when once formed it is
!oEge3ily lost.
r
IS
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natural to pass from the facility of kind words
to its reward. I find myself always talking about
happiness when I am treating of kindness. The fact
is the two things go together; the double reward of
kind w~rds is in the happiness they cause in others and
the happiness they cause in ourselves. The very process
of uttering them is 8 hapjiness in itself. Even the
imagining of them fills our minds with sweetness, and
makes our hearts glow pleagurably. is there any happiness
in the world like the happiness of a disposition
made happy by the happiness of others? There is no
joy to be compared with it. The luxuries which wealtij
can buy, the rewards which ambition can attain, the
pleasures of art and scenery, the abounding sense of
health, and the exquisite enjoyment of mental creations,
are nothidg to this pure and heavefily happiness, where
self is drowned in the blessedness of othem. Yet this
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