Have you ever observed how invariably your "last dollar" is restored to
you, with additions, when you have given it for some worthy purpose?
Even if the purpose did not prove to be a worthy one, yet if you
thought it so, and gave your last dollar with spontaneous sympathy and
good will, you were not long left penniless.
Money is much like a man. If you do not hold it too jealously it
returns to you the more readily.
Never hesitate to give aid where you feel there is sore and pressing
need, for fear you will be left in want yourself. You will not be.
This does not mean that indiscriminate charity is commendable. It does
not mean that you should lend money to everyone who asks, or lift and
carry the burdens of everyone who is ready to lean upon you.
It is as wrong to encourage the man addicted to the vice of borrowing,
as the one with the vice of alcohol or drugs.
One depends upon his acquaintances to tide him over hard places,
instead of upon his own strength of character, and the other depends
upon stimulants for the same purpose. The too ready lender is almost
as great an evil to humanity as rum or opium, since he too helps a man
to kill his own better nature and destroy his self-respect.
If you were able and willing to pay rents of all the poor people you
know, and clothe their children, you would soon produce a condition of
settled pauperism among them. Large and frequent favors of a financial
nature are an injury to anyone, even if it is your son or brother.
Let no man lean on anyone save God and his own divine self.
But little helps, when they are unexpected, arouse hope and awaken new
faith and new ambition in a discouraged soul.
Look about you for such souls, the worn and weary father of a brood of
hungry children, the widow struggling with adverse fate in an effort to
clothe and educate a child, the tired shop girl who uses all her
earnings to sustain her parents, the ambitious boy or girl eager for a
chance in life, and the poor cripple or invalid seeking health. You
will find them all about you. Do not be afraid to use a dollar here or
there to give these worthy ones a happy surprise, no matter how poor
you are.
It is an insult to the Opulent Creator to suppose you will suffer want
and poverty if you help those who are in temporary misfortune.
You will not.
Ofttimes we read and hear of the open-handed generous man who "helped
everybody," and who "never refused to aid a needy brother," and who
ended his life in penury because of his generosity.
Never believe these tales until you investigate them. Invariably you
will find not generosity but extravagance and utter lack of
forethought, caused the man's financial ruin.
I recall a gifted young woman who gave freely to all who asked her
assistance and who died a lingering death as a charity patient in a
hospital.
Yet this young woman had expended ten dollars on foolish and rapid
living where she gave one in charity; it was her wasteful extravagance,
not her open heart of sympathy, which made her a pauper.
It has been my observation that dollars planted in the soil of
benevolence grow into harvests of prosperity. The man who is not
afraid to use his small means to assist others need not fear poverty.