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030 - Generosity · Heart of the New Thought

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  Speaker 1: Section twenty nine of the Heart of the New Thought
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  Speaker 1: by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. This LibriVox recording is in the
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  Speaker 1: public domain. Generosity. Have you ever observed how inevitably your
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  Speaker 1: last dollar is restored to you with additions when you
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  Speaker 1: have given it for some worthy purpose, even if the
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  Speaker 1: purpose did not prove to be a worthy one. Yet,
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  Speaker 1: if you thought it so, and gave your last dollar
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  Speaker 1: with spontaneous sympathy and good will, you were not long
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  Speaker 1: left penniless. Money is much like a man. If you
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  Speaker 1: do not hold it too jealously, it returns to you
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  Speaker 1: the more readily. Never hesitate to give aid where you
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  Speaker 1: feel there is sore and pressing need. For fear you
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  Speaker 1: will be left in want yourself, you will not be
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  Speaker 1: This does not mean that indiscriminate charity is commendable. It
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  Speaker 1: does not mean that you should lend money to everyone
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  Speaker 1: who asks, or lift and carry the burdens of every
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  Speaker 1: one who is ready to lean upon you. It is
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  Speaker 1: as wrong to encourage the man addicted to the vice
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  Speaker 1: of borrowing as the one with the vice of alcohol
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  Speaker 1: or drugs. One depends upon his acquaintances to tide him
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  Speaker 1: over hard places, and instead of upon his own strength
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  Speaker 1: of character, and the other depends upon stimulants for the
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  Speaker 1: same purpose. The too ready lender is almost as great
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  Speaker 1: and evil to humanity as rum or opium, since he
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  Speaker 1: too helps a man to kill his own better nature
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  Speaker 1: and destroy his self respect. If you were able and
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  Speaker 1: willing to pay rents of all the poor people you know,
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  Speaker 1: and to clothe their children, you would soon produce a
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  Speaker 1: condition of settled pauperism among them. Large and frequent favors
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  Speaker 1: of a financial nature are an injury to anyone, even
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  Speaker 1: if it is your son or brother. Let no man
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  Speaker 1: lean on anyone save God and his own divine self.
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  Speaker 1: But little helps when they are unexpected, arouse hope, and
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  Speaker 1: awaken new faith and new ambition in a discouraged soul.
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  Speaker 1: Look about you for such souls, the worn and weary
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  Speaker 1: father of a brood of hunger children, the widow struggling
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  Speaker 1: with adverse fate in an effort to clothe and educate
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  Speaker 1: a child, the tired shop girl who uses all her
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  Speaker 1: earnings to sustain her parents, the ambitious boy or girl
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  Speaker 1: eager for a chance in life. And the poor, cripple
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  Speaker 1: or invalid seeking health. You will find them all about you.
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  Speaker 1: Do not be afraid to use a dollar here or
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  Speaker 1: there to give these worthy ones a happy surprise, no
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  Speaker 1: matter how poor you are. It is an insult to
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  Speaker 1: the opulent creator to suppose you will suffer wont and
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  Speaker 1: poverty if you help those who are in temporary misfortune.
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  Speaker 1: You will not. Oftentimes we read and hear of the
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  Speaker 1: open handed, generous man who held everybody, and who never
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  Speaker 1: refused to aid a needy brother, and who ended his
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  Speaker 1: life in prunery because of his generosity. Never believe these
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  Speaker 1: tales until you investigate them. Inevably, you will find not generosity,
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  Speaker 1: but extravagance and utter lack of forethought caused the man's
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  Speaker 1: financial ruin. I recall a gifted young woman who gave
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  Speaker 1: freely to all who asked her assistance, and who died
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  Speaker 1: a lingering death as a charity patient in a hospital.
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  Speaker 1: Yet this young woman had expended ten dollars on foolish
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  Speaker 1: and rabbit living where she gave one in charity. It
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  Speaker 1: was her wasteful extravagance, not her open heart of sympathy,
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  Speaker 1: which made her a pauper. It has been my observation
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  Speaker 1: that dollars planted in the soil of benevolence grow into
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  Speaker 1: harvests of prosperity. The man who is not afraid to
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  Speaker 1: use his small means to assist others need not fear poverty.
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  Speaker 1: End of Section twenty nine.