If I could talk with each one of you, little readers, I am sure many of you would tell me the same story our picture does. With happy hearts and cheerful faces you have entered the school-room with a bunch of flowers for the teacher. Perhaps you gathered them along the country road, or perhaps you brought them from the garden at home. Sometimes you bring home flowers to Mamma; and sometimes you carry them to your friends or sick neighbors. All of you, who have given away flowers or gifts of any kind, know how much pleasure it affords you and understand better those beautiful words in Acts 20, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
The Lord wants us to be unselfish and to give generously and He will not allow us to go unrewarded. We may not in this world always get a return for all we give, but the Lord will give us an abundant reward in heaven. Yet even here, the pleasure we ought to find and often do find, in giving, more than repays us for what we have given.
There are other ways of giving besides the one of which we have been speaking. Our gift does not have to be something we can see, like flowers. Have you ever thought how much happiness you can give to others by speaking kind words and doing kind deeds? Our friends and associates often have troubles that we know nothing about. They often have sad hearts and perhaps unhappy faces. At such times a kind word or a kind act may have a great deal of power. It may give comfort and encouragement. When a person has had trouble and is discouraged, —perhaps ready to fall into sin in order to forget his trouble—God may use one kind word or act of a dear little child to soften, that person’s heart, speak to him of God’s love, and save him from a sinful course.
We know not how far-reaching the influence of our words, and actions. Let us try, then, dear children, with God’s help, to “scatter seeds of kindness” Wherever we go—seeds which will grow up into beautiful plants and trees, the fruits of which will come back to us, both in this world and the world to come.
ML 02/21/1904