A story is told of Abraham Lincoln. One day the President summoned to the White House a surgeon in the Army of the Cumberland from the state of Ohio. The major assumed that he was to be commended for some exceptional work. During the conversation Mr. Lincoln asked the major about his widowed mother. She is doing fine, he responded. How do you know asked Lincoln. You haven't written her. And then Lincoln added: "But she has written me. She thinks that you are dead and she is asking that a special effort be made to return your body home." Then the Commander and Chief placed a pen in the young doctor's hand and ordered him to write a letter letting his mother know that he was alive and well.

Oh, the blessings that we take for granted. Oh, the wretchedness of ingratitude. It was Shakespeare who worded it more appropriately than ever we could. He wrote: Blow blow thou winter wind. Thou art not so unkind as man's ingratitude.