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ONLY THE LIVING GIVE

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International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 14, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 27.

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ONLY THE LIVING GIVE.

By Editor

AMONG the resolutions adopted at the recent meeting of the American Home Mission Society, was the following:—
"That legacies shall be appropriated and expended the year after their receipt, to the end that the society shall always have on hand some resources commensurate with its ever-enlarging work. We urge especially in this transition period, a great increase in the gifts of the living."
The last sentence is the one that particularly caught our attention. When we read the plea for an increase in "the gifts of the living," the thought instantly arose, Who else but the living ever give anything? Careful thought has not enabled us to find any other givers. "But," says one, "you seem to forget the great legacies that have been left by people who are dead." No, we do not forget the legacies, but they are not given. That word "left" expresses the situation exactly. No matter how much a man has, he leaves it all when he dies. But how much credit is a man entitled to for leaving that which he cannot by any possibility carry with him? When a man gives of his means as he goes along, we know that he has an interest in something besides himself; but when a man with large wealth clings to it just as long as he possibly can, is it altogether uncharitable to suppose that if it were possible he would cling to it after death?
No matter how benevolent a person may have been in his life-time, we still insist that he does not in any just sense give that which he leaves. He may indicate in his will that he wishes a certain institution to have that which he leaves, but if the institution gets it, it is only after a severe struggle. So in reality his "giving" amounts to this statement: "This money is of no more use to me, and you may have it if you can get it." The moral is, If you want to give, and thus lay up treasure in Heaven, don't wait until you die, when you cannot give.