I came away feeling indescribably squalid. I perceived now that I
could have taken my stand upon the high ground of discouraging street
beggary, and given nothing; but having once lowered myself to the level
of the early Christians, I ought to have given the half-dollar. It
did not console me to remember the surprise in the man’s gratitude,
and to reflect that I had probably given him at least three times as
much as he usually got from the tenderest-hearted people. I perceived
that I had been the divinely appointed bearer of half a dollar to his
mutilation and his misery, and I had given him fifteen cents out of it,
and wasted ten, and kept the other twenty-five; in other words, I had
embezzled the greater part of the money intrusted to me for him.
When I got home and told them at dinner just what I had done, they all
agreed that I had done a mighty shabby thing. I do not know whether
the reader will agree with them or not--perhaps I would rather not
know; and on the other hand, I shall not ask him what he would have
done in the like case. Now that it is laid before him in all its
shameless nakedness, I dare say he will pretend that he would have
given the half-dollar. But I doubt if he would; and there is a curious
principle governing this whole matter of giving, which I would like him
to consider with me. Charity is a very simple thing when you look at
it from the standpoint of the good Christian, but it is very complex
when you look at it from the standpoint of the good citizen; and there
seems to be an instinctive effort on our part to reconcile two duties
by a certain proportion which we observe in giving. Whether we say so
to ourselves or not, we behave as if it would be the wildest folly to
give at all in the measure Christ bade; and by an apt psychological
juggle we adjust our succor to the various degrees of need that present
themselves. To the absolutely destitute it is plain that anything will
be better than nothing, and so we give the smallest charity to those
who need charity most. I dare say people will deny this, but it is
true, all the same, as the reader will allow when he thinks about it.
We act upon a kind of logic in the matter, though I do not suppose many
act consciously upon it. Here is a man whispering to you in the dark
that he has not had anything to eat all day, and does not know where to
sleep. Shall you give him a dollar to get a good supper and a decent
lodging? Certainly not: you shall give him a dime, and trust that some
one else will give him another; or if you have some charity tickets
about you, then you give him one of them, and go away feeling that you
have at once befriended and outwitted him; for the supposition is that
he is a fraud, and has been trying to work you.
This is not a question which affects the excellence of the charities
system. I know how good and kind and just that is; but it is a question
that affects the whole Christian philosophy of giving. A friend, whom
I was talking the matter over with, was inclined to doubt whether
Christ’s doctrine was applicable, in its sweeping simplicity, to our
complex modern conditions; whether it was final, whether it was the
last word, as we say. Of course it does seem a little absurd to give to
him that asketh, when you do not know what he is going to do with the
money, and when you do not know whether he has not come to want by his
own fault, or whether he is really in want.