GIVING AND RECEIVING.

Otago Witness, Issue 2915, 26 January 1910, Page 73

GIVING AND RECEIVING.

A fresh group of reasons for that wise old saying that it is "more blessed to give than to receive" has lately impressed itself upon me. A commonplace experience, doubtless shared by most people who live long enough; . ' The really serious drawback to all kinds of experience, grave and. gay, really lies in the fact that you. .must gather, it yourself. There is a striking similarity, as I have before pointed out, between gooseberries and experience—to get their full flavour .you must gather both yourself. There's no freshness Jr. the gooseberries and no conviction in''the experience that someone else has gathered for you. Giving and receiving is one of the few topics on which we can. rely for added experience at -certain seasons as definitely as we may prepare to riiake our gooseberry jam, or dig our late potatoes. Christmas, Baster, and, Our individual birthdays represent the average seed-time and harvest of giving.and receiving, and, :f you come to think of it, each of these ■early crops takes a-year 'to mature. Ton send your little remembrance, this ■•-ear- to some" friend," for you "just hap- '•><■: ned to see the. very thing she'd love." ;3at she, for any, one. of a score of good and sufficient reasons, had sent you -Whiting this year. '•••'■ One has not the purse ,-.-'-' Fortunatus,! she is., among strangers -y>.o have been so land' to .her. that she -relcomes the Christmas" privilege which sennits one to make gifts even to comparative strangers at that time. And so -rou. and some of. the. old: friends, must needs be "crowded.out." When your present comes, if she is. wise,,this friend, she does not hasten to give you, .-something, t o v of all terrible things, the ;'pay-back'' Present is the m'csV .but writes. her appreciative .thanks '. at .ohcg, v ...Mem-. *r Hy, be : sure"",' .she' .makes, her resolution :. "Nnw, wnfcever ofs@ ja crowded 'out Christmas or birthday, ; '\ won't be. you., sweetheart".".. Brlt'wuai ; is of' .the true importance in a case,,iik^this .is the instaiit acknowledgment "of that present',' however small it was'..',.-. Tardy thanks are no thanks at all. , If the gift has intrinsic "Wue. why. that value demands instant

acknowledgement. If it has no intrinsic value, but was merely to. serve as a winged Mercury, bringing assurance of love and remembrance, then all the more imperious is the need for prompt thanks ; for the givers ot small gifts are only too prone to" imagine their gifts undervalued. Though the " main crop" of experience in giving and receiving is undoubtedly harvested by the average person at Christmas, iEaster, and individual birthday, there are always intermittent and irregular occasions, especially where the family circle is large, or the list of friends extensive, for making many interesting and varied additions to our observations on the dual art of giving and receiving. Perhaps the net result of these stray observations made on the. occasions of the birthdays, marriages, and departures of friends throughout an average year may be summarised by the alteration of one word in the immemorial wisdom, thus: "It is more easy to give than to receive." Yet to give perfectly is ideally a divine intuition rarely possessed. To receive perfectly is a fine art, rarely mastered. Between the perfection of both giving and receiving lies the wide area of commonplace: performance, and one wonders sometimes how arid and unlovely it can be. We all like to give, and we like to mention the fact and covertly perhaps unconsciously take some little credit tc- ourselves for the fact. Of course we give because we like the people to whom we give, and desire either to benefit them or give them pleasure. Also, we like ourselves, and incidentally thoroughly enjoy the pleasant sense of wellbeing and doing which tickles our vanity and soothes our conscience while we play "giver" to somebody else's "receiver." The easiest form of giving is to give away what we don't . Want ourselves. The hardest is to give ourselves. Yet the people who give away . : what they don't want themselves, with tact and grace, frequently reap a richer harvest of thanks than the people who give themselves unweariedly, but silently," in and year out. ;-■-. It is the people who give themselves who. give divinely. The most perfect life the world has ever known was given for us, lived for us, died for ; lis. It is only as we give ourselves in service, in selfsacrifice, in gifts of time, and laborr and love, that we become a; part of that Divine Giver, and absorbed into the peace and harmony of the Over-Soul. Now, because I have wandered far from what I meant to say, from jewels of remembrance, and booklets of friendship, from all the light courtesies of give and take, with their too lightly observed conventions and the slackne?s of the century, which descends on us like a poisonous dust, I shall say no more to-day. Some other time, in lighter vein and the most commonplace of daily experience, we may touch on the subject o'f ■'■- giving and receiving, and call it "The Gift and the Giver."