GRATITUDE is as the perfume of the rose that ladens the morning air at the coming of the dawn. It spreads as the song of the first robin in the spring is picked up by the breeze and carried on until other robins awaken and join in the melody. Gratitude is as essential to us as sunshine, air, or water. It is a vital quality of every successful, happy life, and its value is priceless.
Mrs. Eddy says, "What is gratitude but a powerful camera obscura, a thing focussing light where love, memory, and all within the human heart is present to manifest light" (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 164); and again, in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 3): "Gratitude is much more than a verbal expression of thanks. Action expresses more gratitude than speech." Gratitude brings the realization of oneness with our creator and leads us to find the salvation for which the true seekers of the light are looking. Its healing potency is as the balm of Gilead.
The origin of real gratitude being divine, it is, perforce, of God's creating and therefore potentially active in the consciousness of every child of the Father-Mother, God. Happy is the child who is taught gratitude. The purity and guilelessness of the child-thought makes him receptive to the training, and he gains a rich appreciation for the little things in life. He looks for good in everything and he learns freely to express his love for it in the little acts of kindness, the disposition to be helpful, to be unselfish, to be considerate, to be courteous. The heart of a grateful child is a mirror wherein is reflected the beauty and loveliness that God bestows upon His creation.
