Page:Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse.pdf/108

 feel a strong mixture of indignation and abhorrence towards a man who has traduced his benefactor; a friend who has injured a friend; or a child who has forsaken a parent. It is an ancient maxim that "if you have called a man ungrateful, you have said the worst, you cannot add to his baseness." In all ages of the world, and even among savage nations, ingratitude has been stamped with abhorrence.

Let us turn from the idea: let us contemplate the excellence and propriety of a grateful disposition, and endeavour to cherish it with assiduity. As the first among our earthly benefactors we must each of us recognize our parents. They have sustained us with kindness in infancy, in childhood, and in youth; they have supplied us with the means of education; they have rejoiced in our joys; in "our afflictions they have been afflicted." Ardent affection should mingle with the remembrance of these favours; and our gratitude should prompt us to study, their wishes, and to advance their happiness by becoming diligent, useful, and amiable.

Let us, also, recollect all who have been in any degree our friends or benefactors. To think of these without affection is ingratitude; to feel gratitude, and not testify it, is forgetfulness, a forgetfulness approaching to neglect. While we