1 Peter 3:8

The Cake Of Courtesy

Be courteous. 1 Peter 3:8 (AV).

I found the recipe for a very good cake the other day. It was called “the Cake of Courtesy.”

You have often tasted this cake and it has a very nice flavor, but perhaps you never considered what it contained. For courtesy is made up of many good things well mixed together. Would you like to know the recipe?

1. The first ingredient is Unselfishness, or Consideration for others. That is the main part of the cake, so we shall call it the Flour.

A courteous person is always ready to do a good turn to another, and he does not stop to consider the cost to himself.

There was a small boy once who used to go to church and who never went without taking his offering for the collection plate. If he had left his money at home he would have felt himself terribly disgraced.

One Sunday his father and mother were unable to go to church so the small boy went alone, and of course the money went too.

There was a strange lady at the top of the pew, and when the time came for the collection to be taken this lady looked into all the divisions of her purse and found she had forgotten to bring her offering. She did not seem much disturbed about it, but the small boy felt very uncomfortable. He thought it would be a dreadful thing for anybody to pass the plate, and he wondered what she would do.

Nearer and nearer came the elders with the plates, and redder and redder grew the small boy. At last he could stand it no longer. Shuffling up the pew he pressed his money into the lady's hand and whispered hoarsely, “Here, you take this, and I'll get under the seat; I'm small and they won't see me.”

That is what the Flour in our cake means unselfishness and consideration for others.

2. Next we must rub in a little Butter to make our cake rich. Flour makes an excellent foundation, but unless we add some butter our cake will be rather poor. Consideration for others is a very good thing, but it is the way in which we show our consideration that makes it valuable, and the thing that helps us to think of others in the right way is called Sympathy. Sympathy can put itself in another's place and feel as that other feels. It makes life richer just as butter makes a cake richer. You see, it's the way you do a courteous deed that makes it courteous. Some people do a kind thing in such an awkward, clumsy sort of way that the kindness is robbed of a great deal of its beauty, and is even liable to be misunderstood.

I have known grown-up people who wanted to be kind and courteous to people who were poor or lonely; but they set about it in such an odd way that the people they wanted to help thought they were being patronized or pitied, and their backs were set up, and their fur was rubbed all the wrong way, and the kindness was all lost. Now if the people who wanted to be kind had been able to forget themselves entirely, and had put themselves in the place of those they wished to help, and had tried to feel as they were feeling, none of those uncomfortable things would have happened.

3. After we have got the butter well rubbed in, we must add a little Sugar. A cake wouldn't be a cake without sugar, would it? Of course not! And courtesy wouldn't be courtesy without Gentleness. It is the gentle part of courtesy that keeps it from banging into a room and slamming the door behind it. It is the gentle part that is kind to dumb animals, and weak things, and old people.

There is a story told of a brave officer who fought in South Africa. When he was returning home, his mother, who was an invalid, was giving instructions to the footman who was going to the station to meet him. The man had recently come to the house, and he had never met the officer, so he asked his mistress how he would know him. She replied, “Look out for a man who is helping someone. That will be my son.”

The man went to the station, and when the train arrived he eagerly scanned the passengers as they passed out of the station. At length he saw a gentleman helping an invalid to alight. He went to him and, mentioning the name of the officer he had been sent to meet, asked if he was that officer. And the gentleman replied that he was, and that he would come as soon as he could. So the mother was justified in her belief in her son's unfailing courtesy.

Some people have the idea that you can't be gentle and manly at the same time. That is quite a mistaken idea in fact, so mistaken that it is utterly wrong and untrue.

4. We want our cake to have a nice taste, so we shall put in a Flavoring of Humility. Don't let us be too grand to be courteous. The finest ladies and gentlemen are those who never consider whether they are ladies and gentlemen at all, because they are too busy thinking about other people.

There is a splendid story told of General Lee, who was the leading general on the Southern side in the American Civil War. One day he was travelling on the railway. In the aisle of the car was standing a poor old woman who could not find a seat. The General rose politely and gave her his seat. Then some officers who were in the car, but who had taken no notice of the old woman, crowded round the General, each begging him to take his seat. But Lee replied, “No, gentlemen; as none of you could find room for an old woman, you cannot find room for Robert Lee!” And he left the car.

5. But we don ' t want our cake to be just a hard, solid lump; we wish it to rise well, so we must put in some R ising Flour. I think the rising flour ought to be Courage. Yes, it sometimes takes a good deal of courage to be courteous, especially if people laugh at you. Well, nobody that is at all worth minding laughs at courtesy, so why should we mind them?

6. I think we have everything now that we require, except an Egg to bind the cake. The egg shall be Politeness, because politeness is all through courtesy, and keeps it together. I may be mistaken, of course, but it seems to me as if some boys were almost ashamed to be polite. I often wish for some peculiar sort of special double magnifying-glass to see if their caps really are touched when I meet them. The attempt that is made is so very far from the real thing that it is almost impossible to recognize it. Don't be ashamed to open a door for a lady, or to pick up anything she lets fall; and don't, please don't, keep all the cakes, and the jam, and the butter, and the bread to yourself at table. Pass a few of them on.

Try to remember the ingredients of the Cake of Courtesy: The Flour of Unselfishness as a foundation, the Butter of Sympathy to make it rich; the Sugar of Gentleness to sweeten it; the Flavoring of Humility to season it; the Rising Flour of Courage to make it wholesome; the Egg of Politeness to bind all together. I hope you will have a nice hot oven, and that your cake will be a great success. And please send me a little bit when it is ready.