It is based not only on the fact that the act of giving has in it a
sense of power and of superiority, and that the act of receiving may
have a painful consciousness of obligation, though a cynic might
endorse it on that ground, but on a truth far deeper than these, that
there is a pure and godlike joy in making others blessed.
The foundation on which the axiom rests is that giving is the result of
love and self-sacrifice. Whenever they are not found, the giving is not
the giving which 'blesses him that gives.' If you give with some
_arriere pensee_ of what you will get by it, or for the sake of putting
some one under obligation, or indifferently as a matter of compulsion
or routine, if with your alms there be contempt to which pity is ever
near akin, then these are not examples of the giving on which Christ
pronounced His benediction. But where the heart is full of deep, real
love, and where that love expresses itself by a cheerful act of
self-sacrifice, then there is felt a glow of calm blessedness far above
the base and greedy joys of self-centred souls who delight only in
keeping their possessions, or in using them for themselves. It comes
not merely from contemplating the relief or happiness in others of
which our gifts may have been the source, but from the working in our
own hearts of these two godlike emotions. To be delivered from making
myself my great object, and to be delivered from the undue value set
upon having and keeping our possessions, are the twin factors of true
blessedness. It is heaven on earth to love and to give oneself away.
Then again, the highest joy and noblest use of all our possessions is
found in imparting them.
True as to this world's goods.
The old epitaph is profoundly true, which puts into the dead lips the
declaration: 'What I kept I lost. What I gave I kept.' Better to learn
that and act on it while living!
True as to truth, and knowledge.
True as to the Gospel of the grace of God.