COULD NOT AFFORD TO GIVE.
A MAN who attempted to raise some money on a subscription paper for a necessary church out West, relates his experience as follows:— “The first man I went to see was very sorry, but the fact was he was so involved in his business that he could not give anything. Very sorry, but a man in debt as he was owed his first duty to his creditors. He was smoking an expensive cigar, and before I left his store he bought of a peddler who came in a pair of expensive Rocky Mountain cuff buttons. “The next man I went to was a young clerk in a banking establishment. He read the paper over, acknowledged that the church was needed, but said he was owing for his board, was badly in debt, and did not see how he could give anything. That afternoon, as I went by the baseball grounds, I saw this young man pay fifty cents at the gate and go in, and saw him mount the grand stand where special seats were sold for a quarter of a dollar. “The third man to whom I presented the paper was a farmer living near the town. He also was sorry, but times were hard, his crops had been a partial failure, the mortgage on his farm was a heavy load, the interest was coming due, and he really could not see his way clear to give to the church, although it was just what the new town needed. A week from that time I saw that same farmer drive into town with his entire family and go to the circus, afternoon and night, at an expense of at least four dollars. “The Bible says, ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged;’ but it also says, ‘By their fruits ye shall know them.’ And I really could not help thinking that the devil could use that old excuse, ‘In debt,’ to splendid advantage, especially when he had a selfish man to help him.”—Youth's Companion.