The Banquet of the Virtues

The Banquet of the Virtues

One day, so says an old legend, God gave a banquet for all of his servants, and a really grand feast it was. All the virtues came and had a fine time. Humility was there sitting at the lowest place at the table. Charity was cutting the meat without rationing it. Patience was there and didn’t mind at all being served last. Faith and Hope sat together. Everyone was having a wonderful time.

At the height of the banquet Charity noticed that two of the virtues were strangers to each other. He was surprised because he thought they were always together and he had purposely placed them side-by-side for just that reason. He came down to them and asked each one whether she had met her partner before. When they said they had not, Charity introduced them:

“Kindness, I want you to meet Gratitude.”

Both the virtues were so surprised to find out who the other was. Kindness said to Gratitude:

“We are supposed to be always together. Where one of us is the other should be, but when men receive kindness they don’t give gratitude. Isn’t it a pity that we have never really met before.”?

It is a pity, a very great pity that kindness and gratitude so seldom meet. But it is true. To make it worse some of the most ungrateful people in the world are children. No matter what is done for them, some children are not grateful. From the day they are born they are always receiving kindness. Every minute of the day someone is doing something for them. It was probably children that Kindness had in mind when she said that to Gratitude.

Gratitude is a habit that every one should learn. It means that we appreciate things that are done for us and do not take them for granted. When something is done for us, which we have no right to expect, the least we can do is say, “Thank you.”

We can tell whether or not we have the habit of gratitude by checking up on our prayers. Do we ever offer prayers of thanksgiving, or are all our prayers asking for something?

There were two angels in heaven who worked in the prayer department. One poor angel worked overtime. Prayers were coming through on his wire every second. The other angel just sat around playing his harp. Once in a great while a prayer would come through on his wire.

The first angel asked him, “Why is it I have to work so hard and you have almost nothing to do?”

The second angel replied, “That isn’t my fault. It’s the fault of the people on earth. You see, you have charge of all the ‘Gimme’ prayers and I have charge of the ‘Thank you’ ones.”

Home | Contents

Accueil