GIVING by F. C. Bascom

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 7, 1878

GIVING

By F. C. Bascom

Dost thou wish thy life to be a blessing, Not a useless bauble on the earth? Be thou, then, in all thy ways a giver, Ne'er withholding aught thou hast of worth.

Give with liberal hand thy gold and silver, Give of all thy gathered household store; In this world, where flesh must have its asking, These are needful, if they're nothing more.

But when done, think not thy duty ended. Wouldst thou see a perfect charity? Go, behold our Saviour's lifelong labor, Stand beneath his cross at Calvary.

Hast thou nothing dearer than thy vineyards, Naught more precious than thy garnered gold? Poor indeed thou art, most poor and wretched, If thy life no higher good infold.

Search thy treasures, and unto the needy, Moral, intellectual good impart; Give those things that fail not with the using, Give the treasures of a loving heart.

Is thy neighbor little skilled in letters, Turn not from his poverty away; Open, as thou canst, thy funds of knowledge, Lead him kindly to thy broader day.

Knows he nothing of those purer pleasures Which alone from heavenly fountains rise, Guide him to the wells of living waters, Point his hopes to joys beyond the skies.

And when thou, by weary toil and labor, Hast for others wrought some real good, Then, if all thy doing pass unheeded, And thou find no growth of gratitude,

Not for this e'er let thy purpose falter; Dost thou live or act for man's applause? God will suffer no good deed to perish; His thou art, to him commit thy cause.

Still be thou e'en as the sun in giving, Shedding kindness freely upon all; Be thou as He who on both good and evil Bids his sunlight and his rain to fall.

And, at last, when life with thee is ended, And thou summest up its long account, Thou shalt find that thine are heavenly treasures, Here thou canst not know their full amount.

F. C. BASCOM.