Try to be Glad when Others Win, as well as when you Win Yourself.
It was Christmas time, and on Christmas Eve the children hung up their stockings as usual. Next morning they were awake early, and eagerly turned out the stockings to see what they contained. Among other things Horace and Stanley found that they each had a beautiful large picture-box full of lovely chocolate creams.
After dinner on Christmas Day Stanley brought out his box, and handed it round to everybody, and by the next day his chocolates were all finished.
But Horace hid his box away in a drawer, and kept going to it, and taking out a few at a time, so his chocolates lasted much longer than Stanley's, and he ate them all himself, but we are obliged to say that he was rather selfish. "Shared joy is double joy," and of the two boys we are sure that Stanley would be the happier.
Shall I tell you a little secret? Selfishness will spoil the =other= stones if you let it come into your Temple, and as to the =gold=--the lovely gold of "Kindness" that the little "Gold-wings" brought--Selfishness will =eat it all away= in time. I am sure we all hate selfishness; let us write down
We will not have the Ugly Stone "Selfishness" in our Temple.
Eva was not a very big girl, and her boots were generally cleaned by the older ones, but one day her mother said, "Eva, I wish you would brush your own boots this morning, we are all so busy".
"Oh mother!" said Eva, "you know it gives me a headache to brush boots, and I shall make my hands so dirty, and perhaps bespatter the floor with blacking as well." I am afraid Eva was rather a spoilt little girl, and this had made her somewhat selfish.
Half an hour later her mother came into the room again, just as Eva was lacing up her boots, and she inquired who had made them so bright and shiny. It was Eva's elder sister, Mary, and Eva knew that her mother was not pleased, but nothing more was said.
In the afternoon Mary and her mother went out shopping, and Eva hurried home from school, although she would have liked very much to stay for a while and play with the other girls. But she wanted to give mother a surprise. First she put the kettle on the fire, and then she laid the table all neatly and nicely, ready for tea. When everything was in its place, she went to the door several times to look for her mother and sister; at last she saw they were just turning the corner of the street, and Eva ran along to meet them, and said, "Come away, mother, tea is quite ready; I have been looking for you and Mary ever so long". And dear mother knew what it all meant.