My First One-Dollar Bill.
By James L. Hill
It seemed very beautiful to me. No other engravings looked like those that embellished its comely face. Being in constant fear lest I should lose it, I kept it locked up in an old hair-covered trunk. Several times a day I used to get away up-stairs that I might look at it, and be sure that it was there. On one or two memorable occasions I carried it out and showed it to the boys. The pocket-book in which it was secluded—a gift from my grandfather, who kept store—was of new leather and quite redolent, and the smell of it made me very happy. After holding my possession in reserve for some time, the question arose as to what I should do with the money. My father was very much interested in building a church. After the larger sums were all subscribed, a telling appeal was made for little gifts. Each child was asked if he could not contribute enough to pay for a brick. I began to be in pain. As quickly as a robin, when danger threatens, thinks of her little pets in the nest, so did my thoughts instantly fly to that dollar at home in the trunk. Should I give it? That was the question. My father saw that I was troubled. A hard fight was going on. Well, I gave it. I remember perfectly well where I stood in the room when I parted with it. I felt the loss severely for several days, but as often as I was present when the meeting-house was talked about, I felt as though I was one of the chief owners, and was glad, on the whole, that the generous impulse triumphed. Presently I noticed that I was picking up pennies rapidly, from blacking my father's boots, and from piling up wood in the shed. Family tradition has it that my father allowed himself to become superlatively interested in my handling of that dollar. He is said to have declared that as often as I gave it away conscientiously, he would devise ways by which, from unexpected quarters, it would again make its appearance. If I had been quicker to discover this determination on his part, I am now thinking what a free hand I might have carried in the matter of giving. Other churches I could have helped, and, if need be, repeatedly. To some poor families that to this day I remember, I might have given a portion of my treasure, only, in a few months, to find it perfectly restored. Doubtless my father preferred to have me give the money and have the experience of it than to bestow it with his own hand. Now I am coming to believe that during a life-time men would have more money to spend if they gave more money away. There is some evidence that God continues still his sovereignty over temporal affairs. "God dealeth with you as with sons." No one doubts but that there are business chances and openings and combinations which may be termed providential. If these, at any time, begin suddenly to make in a man's favor, they will affect his circumstances and fortune more favorably than his industry and parsimoniousness possibly can. This fact grows interesting to us personally when it is shown that, fortunately, in instances easily authenticated, it is susceptible of proof that in monetary matters there is a mysterious process, analogous to that in nature, which tends to keep the basin of a bubbling spring just about so full, despite the stream that is running from it. Indeed, it can be shown that as a matter of good policy, considered simply in terms of the producing power of the spring, it is not well to keep, beyond a given point, the water from flowing off. I have a personal knowledge of a few men, the amount of whose fortune seems to have been set, as if by divine decree, and while attempts to store for themselves beyond that limit have proved unsuccessful, as often as they have dropped their fortunes down from that score by benevolence a mysterious reinforcement has set in. A man whose friendship I enjoy says that he has been made to recognize this principle in the conduct of his affairs. He declares that related as he is to the water supply, he can as well as not turn a faucet and give "a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple," get some incidental pleasure out of the act of doing good, and still find that the water pipes fill again and stand ready for service. "From that day it seemed as if everything I touched was prospered," said the lamented William E. Dodge, as he referred to the fact that out of limited means, in his boyhood, he helped Henry Obookiah, who came to this country from the Sandwich Islands, and who was placed in the same school with him at Cornwall. And so, too, as I chance to know, the late E. Reddington Mudge, out of money already acquired, purposed in his heart to rear for a company of worshippers in this city the walls of the already famous St. Stephen's Memorial Church, and to this end deposited two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, only to be constrained to testify that no sooner was this void in his fortune made than unexpected and unusual sluice-ways of prosperity opened right toward him, so that before the builders brought forth "the headstone thereof, with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace, unto it," every dollar had been replaced. I remember, also, to have read that, when a child, Alexander the Great "was checked by his governor, Leonidas, for being over-profuse in spending perfumes, because, on a day being to sacrifice to the gods, he took both his hands full of frankincense and cast it into the fire; but afterwards, being a man, he conquered the country of Judea (the fountain whence such spices did flow) and sent Leonidas a present of five hundred talents weight of frankincense to show him how his prodigality made him thrive the better in success, and to advise him to be no more niggardly in divine service." The very best getting is in giving. The surest way "to have a large harvest is to have a large heart."