I've heard much talk, and I've done much talking myself, of charity.
It's a beautiful word, yon. You mind St. Paul--when be spoke of Faith,
Hope, Charity, and said that the greatest of these was Charity? Aye--
as he meant the word! Not as we've too often come to think of it.
What's charity, after a'? It's no the act of handing a saxpence to a
beggar in the street. It's a state of mind. We should all be
charitable--surely all men are agreed on that! We should think weel of
others, and believe, sae lang as they wull let us, that they mean to
do what's right and kind. We should not be bitter and suspicious and
cynical. God hates a cynic.
But charity is a word that's as little understood as virtue. You'll
hear folk speak of a woman as virtuous when she may be as evil and as
wretched a creature as walks this earth. They mean that she's never
sinned the one sin men mean when they say a lassie's not virtuous! As
if just abstaining frae that ane sin could mak' her virtuous!
Sae it's come to be the belief of too many folk that a man can be
called charitable if he just gives awa' sae muckle siller in a year.
That's not enough to mak' him charitable. He maun give thought and
help as well as siller. It's the easiest thing in the world to gie
siller; easier far than to refuse it, at times, when the refusal is
the more charitable thing for one to be doing.
I ken fine that folk think I'm close fisted and canny wi' my siller.
Aye, and I am--and glad I am that's so. I've worked hard for what I
have, and I ken the value of it. That's mair than some do that talk
against me, and crack jokes about Harry Lauder and his meanness. Are
they so free wi' their siller? I'll imagine myself talking wi' ane of
them the noo.
"You call me mean," I'll be saying to him. "How much did you give away
yesterday, just to be talking? There was that friend came to you for
the loan of a five-pound note because his bairn was sick? Of coorse ye
let him have it--and told him not to think of it as a loan, syne he
was in such trouble?"
"Well--I would have, of course, if I'd had it," he'll say, changing
color a wee bit. "But the fact is, Harry, I didn't have the money--"
"Oh, aye, I see," I'll answer him. "I suppose you've let sae many of
your friends have money lately that you're a bit pinched for cash?
That'll be the way of it, nae doot?"
"Well--I've a pound or two outstanding," he'll say. "But--I suppose I
owe more than there is owing to me."
There's one, ye'll see, who's not mean, not close fisted. He's easy
wi' his money; he'd as soon spend his siller as no. And where is he
when the pinch comes--to himself or to a friend? He can do nothing,
d'ye ken, to help, because he's not saved his siller and been carefu'
with it.
I've helped friends and strangers, when I could. But I've always tried
to do it in such a way that they would help themselves the while. When
there's real distress it's time to stint yourself, if need be, to help
another. That's charity--real charity. But is it charity to do as some
would do in sich a case as this?
Here'll be a man I know coming tae me.
"Harry," he'll say, "you're rich--it won't matter to you. Lend me the
loan of a ten-pound note for a few weeks. I'd like to be putting oot
some siller for new claes."
And when I refuse he'll call me mean. He'll say the ten pounds
wouldn't matter to me--that I'd never miss them if he never did return
the siller. Aye, and that's true enough. But if I did it for him why
would I not be doing it for Tom and Dick and Harry, too? No! I'll let
them call me mean and close fisted and every other dour thing it
pleases them to fancy me. But I'll gae my ain gait wi' my ain siller.
I see too much real suffering to care about helping those that can
help themselves--or maun do without things that aren't vital. In
Scotland, during the war, there was the maist terrible distress. It's
a puir country, is Scotland. Folk there work hard for their living.
And the war made it maist impossible for some, who'd sent their men to
fight. Bairns needed shoes and warm stockings in the cold winters,
that they micht be warm as they went to school. And they needed
parritch in their wee stomachs against the morning's chill.
Noo, I'll not be saying what Mrs. Lauder and I did. We did what we
could. It may have been a little--it may have been mair. She and I are
the only ones who ken the truth, and the only ones who wull ever ken
it--that much I'll say. But whenever we gave help she knew where the
siller was going, and how it was to be spent. She knew that it would
do real good, and not be wasted, as it would have been had I written a
check for maist of those who came to me for aid.
When you talk o' charity, Mrs. Lauder and I think we know it when we
see it. We've handled a goodly share of siller, of our own, and of
gude friends, since the war began, that's gone to mak' life a bit
easier for the unfortunate and the distressed.
I've talked a deal of the Fund for Scottish Wounded that I raised--
raised with Mrs. Lauder's help. We've collected money for that
wherever we've gone, and the money has been spent, every penny of it,
to make life brighter and more worth living for the laddies who fought
and suffered that we micht all live in a world fit for us and our
bairns.
It wasna charity those laddies sought or needed. It was help--aye. And
it took charity, in the hearts of those who helped, to do anything for
them. But there is an ugly ring to that word charity as too many use
it the noo. I've no word to say against the charitable institutions.
They do a grand work. But it is only a certain sort of case that they
can reach. And they couldna help a boy who'd come home frae Flanders
with both legs gone.
A boy like that didna want charity to care for him and tend him all
his days, keeping him helpless and dependent. He wanted help--help to
make his own way in the world and earn his own living. And that's what
the Fund has given him. It's looked into his case, and found out what
he could do.
Maybe he was a miner before the war. Almost surely, he was doing some
sort of work that he could do no longer, with both legs left behind
him in France. But there was some sort of work he could do. Maybe the
Fund would set him up in a wee shop of his ain, provide him with the
capital to buy his first stock, and pay his first year's rent. There
are men all over Scotland who are well able, the noo, to tak' care of
themselves, thanks to the Fund--men who'd be beggars, practically, if
nothing of the sort had existed to lend them a hand when their hour of
need had come.
But it's the bairns that have aye been closest to our hearts--Mrs.
Lauder's and mine. Charity can never hurt a child--can only help and
improve it, when help is needed. And we've seen them, all about our
hoose at Dunoon. We've known what their needs were, and the way to
supply them. What we could do we've done.
Oh, it's not the siller that counts! If I could but mak' those who
have it understand that! It's not charity to sit doon and write a
check, no matter what the figures upon it may be. It's not charity,
even when giving the siller is hard--even when it means doing without
something yourself. That's fine--oh, aye! But it's the thought that
goes wi' the giving that makes it worth while--that makes it do real
good. Thoughtless giving is almost worse than not giving at all--
indeed, I think it's always really worse, not just almost worse.
When you just yield to requests without looking into them, without
seeing what your siller is going to do, you may be ruining the one
you're trying to help. There are times when a man must meet adversity
and overcome it by his lane, if he's ever to amount to anything in
this world. It's hard to decide such things. It's easier just to give,
and sit back in the glow of virtue that comes with doing that. But
wall your conscience let you do sae? Mine wull not--nor Mrs. Lauder's.
We've tried aimless charity too lang in Britain, as a nation. We did
in other times, after other wars than this one. We've let the men who
fought for us, and were wounded, depend on charity. And then, we've
forgotten the way they served us, and we've become impatient with
them. We've seen them begging, almost, in the street. And we've seen
that because sentimentalists, in the beginning, when there was still
time and chance to give them real help, said it was a black shame to
ask such men to do anything in return for what was given to them.
"A grateful country must care for our heroes," they'd say. "What--
teach a man blinded in his country's service a trade that he can work
at without his sight? Never! Give him money enough to keep him!"
And then, as time goes on, they forget his service--and he becomes
just another blind beggar!
Is it no better to do as my Fund does? Through it the blind man learns
to read. He learns to do something useful--something that will enable
him to _earn_ his living. He gets all the help he needs while he is
learning, and, maybe, an allowance, for a while, after he has learnt
his new trade. But he maun always be working to help himself.
I've talked to hundreds and hundreds of such laddies--blind and
maimed. And they all feel the same way. They know they need help, and
they feel they've earned it. But it's help they want not coddling and
alms. They're ashamed of those that don't understand them better than
the folk who talk of being ashamed to make them work.