A Scape-goat for the Sin of Stinginess.
WHEN people find it necessary to curtail their expenses, they begin with their religious contributions and expenses. They then stop their church paper. They refuse, or at least do but little, toward the support of missions, poor students, etc. They dress as richly, furnish their tables the same, get all the political papers, and spend money for unnecessary luxuries now as ever. This is not right. God and his kingdom come first, not last. If “charity begins at home,” remember we call ourselves God’s children, and his church, our home. The Jews lived under a darker dispensation than we; yet how much brighter their liberality shines! They gave the Lord the fattest and most beautiful lamb in the flock. Some of our people give the dirtiest and ugliest bills in their pockets to the church, and especially to editors. The Jews gave the first ripe fruits of the harvest to the Lord; some of our people give the worst and last sheaf of the harvest gleanings. The Jews gave a tenth of their income to support the temple service; many Christians of these times do not give a hundredth part of theirs; “Oh, but we have a free gospel,” says one. Yes, but while “the water of life” is free, the men that carry it to you are not free to work for nothing. The fact is, there is more money in the country than seems to be. Distress retires into concealment, and the cry of “hard times” is the song of avarice to hush pleadings of religious liberality. We sometimes go to an auction, and survey the groups of men standing around, and come to the conclusion that there are not ten dollars in the crowd. We see several hundred dollars’ worth of goods bought and paid for on the spot. A Circus comes along, and people say—“No use to come here—there is no money in the country,” etc. But the shrewd Yankee showman knows better than that. The great tent is reared, the music sounds, and the lion roars; crowds then gather around, and the greenbacks roll thick and fast, and the Circus men bear them off by the bushel. And there are many professors of religion, “too poor to pay their preacher,” who have found money enough to take their families in “to see the animals;”—so we have come to the conclusion that the difficulty does not lie so much in the lack of money, as the disposition to give it.—Episcopal Methodist.