ON MAKING OTHER PEOPLE HAPPY.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIV, Issue XXIV, 16 June 1900, Page 1127

ON MAKING OTHER PEOPLE HAPPY.

“I shall only pass this way once, and. therefore. 1 must do all the good I can,” said a great and good man in speaking of his earthly pilgrimage. His is the right spirit to cultivate, and were it more common life would be happier to the generality of people. Let it then be our aim and object that the world shall be the happier and better for our living in it. and let us try to bring up our children with the same idea.

Happiness is easily given to others if we only set our minds to consider their needs and desires, and there is no excuse to be made for us if we neglect the necessary thought and self-denial. Moreover, we must set about it at once. Later on those we would benefit may not be litre, and there is no such thing as making good our present selfishness by a bequest —however handsome—when we make our last will and testament. People sometimes say that they have nothing with which to make others happy, for they have so little themselves. I won't speak of the kind word, the cheery smile, the help-

ful hands which are all worth so much, but simply of gifts of money or kind. Is it true that you have no little superfluity? Nothing that you can spare tor some one poorer than yourself? I doubt it exceedingly. Some time ago 1 happened to be talking to a very respectable domestic servant, who in Her spare time used often to make garments for a child. 1 knew she had no relatives, so 1 asked her about the little one. "She is the em.d of my dearest friend,” said the servant; "I was ill in lodgings, and one day, as I came up the stair, hardly able to crawl, a woman came out and saw me. ‘My! you do look bau;’ said sue. ‘l’ve just made myself some tea, so you come in and have a cup.' Well, matim, 1 never forgot her kindness, and now her and me is like sisters. I always go to see her whenever I have a holiday, and her place is like a home to me.” It was only a little kindness just a eup ot tea, a few Kind words. ami a seat by her tireside which almost anyone could have given, and vet it brought sunshine into a lonely life, and gave the recipient tne glad feel ing that somebody eared .or her welfare. "The quality of mercy blesseth him that gives and him that takes." And though that is not always so evident as it was in this particular case, still it is perfectly true that, even in this world, those who unselfishly try to make others happy are far happier than those whose aim and object is self-gratifi-cation. That a pleasure shared is a pleasure doubled, 1 saw very clearly the other day. I was with a certain lady clerk when she quite unexpectedly received a letter containing a present of a cheque for £ 111. "Ten pounds! What a number of little comforts that sum represents," thought I, looking round my friend’s somewhat bare room; but she exclaimed: "How delightful! Now I shall be able to give poor M. £2 to pay her doctor. You know, she has been laid up and earning nothing for weeks, and yesterday she told me she had got in this bill and did not know howto meet it. Oh, 1 am so glad!” She looked it. and I am sure that the £2 she gave away caused ner more hap piness that the £S she retained. Perhaps some people will think that she was foolishly generous. I do not. and I quote her case to show how. with a little self-denial, even girls working for their living can sometimes give if they have but the will.