The Wanganui Chronicle SATURDAY, MAY 17, 1930. CHARITY.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 115, 17 May 1930, Page 8

The Wanganui Chronicle SATURDAY, MAY 17, 1930. CHARITY.

QPEAK of Charity and the mind immediately conjures up images of the indigent poor. This is natural enough, for every appeal to us to assuage the rigours of poverty is made in the name of charity. And none can deny that charity is a welcome visitor in those homes where want is a constant inhabitant. “How white are the fair robes of charity, as she walketh amid the lowly habitations of the poor,’’ says Hosea Ballow. The alleviating hand which lightens the load can ever be blest if the gift be rightly given. There is much to be said of the manner of giving. The

poor are generally very sensitive of their poverty. A clumsyhanded giver can inflict deep wounds; that is why so many seemingly well meant actions are not appreciated and sometimes are resented. Southey sensed this when he said: “That charity is bad which takes from independence its proper pride, from mendicity its salutary shame.’’ Byron wrote: “The drying of a single tear has more of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore.” Quite so, but drying tears needs a gentle hand. It demands that confidence has been established; that personal bonds have become strong between the weeper and the consoler; that there is a nearness between benefactor and benefited. It follows then that charity, true charity, full charity that is, does not exhaust itself by writing out subscriptions for needy cases and for good causes, desirable as is that activity. We are told that “God loveth a cheerful giver.” His loving a grudging one is beyond imagining. But there are some people who never give grudgingly and yet never give cheerfully. They are in between these two positions. How comes it thus? Charity like most things is a product of growth. Some people used to regard abstention from the use of sugar in their tea during the days of Lent to have some merit in it. Such antics may be still indulged in. They are of small moment; they interest nobody but the abstainer; they achieve no end. The idea possibly is that it is the exercise of a degree of selfdiscipline. It might be —one degree, or less. There are also people who give but give grudgingly, who give a benefit that sticks to the fingers as Seneca put it. In such gifts there is no grace. Then a step higher up is the man who gives, but asks that he shall not be bothered personally. “Here you are, here’s my guinea subscription. Please to help but don’t ask me to do anything.” These people are undoubtedly better than the people who arc ready enough to do the Samaritan without the oil and the tuppence, and definitely better than those Samaritans who will distribute anybody’s munificence but their own. Then rising above all these are those, who motivated from the springs of the heart, dry the teqr, assuage the grief, lift the load and bind the wound. Spontaneity is a characteristic of these givers from the heart. They give joyfully and their reward is in the joy of giving. But truth to tell it often takes a dramatic presentation to awaken the springs of charity from even such as these. Out of sight is often out of mind The height of charity, perhaps we should say true charity, is not dependent alone upon emotional impulses. It is the outcome of what might be called a warm philosophy. The philosophy of charity regards human kind as of the highest importance and all else subservient to it. Money, possessions, power, al] are marshalled to the purpose of raising humanity to a higher level of comfort and fulfilment. But indulgence is not charity. Indulgence may be positively harmful. Charity must ever be helpful. It follows, therefore, that the truly charitable must have a philosophy of life. There must be standards of purpose which their endeavours help to achieve.

What is this standard to which the charitable reach forward? What is this far country to which they wish to aid humanity to take one step the nearer? The objective is undefined because the future holds the unknown and the unknowable within its bosum. The future will alone reveal what is to be revealed. But it is the faith in, and the hope for this great future which are the forerunners of charity. Charity then is the constructive steps we take in the direction of the ideal: the manifestation of our hope. It is the human contribution to the bringing in to existence that culmination of mortal desires, the coming of God’s Kingdom on Earth. The charitable then are the real builders for the future, the truly practical people, the names that in national annals mostly remain unencumbered and unsung, but nevertheless those without whom philosophy would be nought but barren enquiry, religion an empty emotionalism, and civilisation a collection of contrivances for easing an animal existence. Mohammed even sensed this, for in the dull pages of the Koran is to be found the following: “Prayer carries us half way to God, fasting brings us to the door of His pp.la.GQ and p.l cr Drpouroq a4mission ; ■■