Christianity and Cheerful Giving
“The Trestle Board,” a Masonic paper, in speaking of the inequalities of the lodge system of finance, remarks: “We are opposed to paying for charity more than we can without injury to ourself and those dependent upon us, and the principle of exacting more is an innovation. Further than this every man should be the best judge of his own ability. The world is in need of a fraternity to which one can contribute what he thinks he is able, and not what his neighbor says he must contribute, or be suspended from membership.” Well, God has met the need of the world in Jesus Christ and Christianity. “Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity; for God loveth a cheerful giver.” If men only knew Christianity, they would never seek to build up so many counterfeits. If they would drink of the ever-living Fountain, they would no more hew themselves out “cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.”