Liberal

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, Cal. · Jul 26, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 30.

"Liberal!"—A writer in a Southern California journal, in speaking of the great modern financiers of the world, says that "they are public benefactors and liberal to a fault." If liberality were measured by the amount given, the above would state facts; but liberality is truly measured by the amount we retain rather than the amount we give. Is that liberal which has given $150,000,000 out of an accumulated fortune of $750,000,000? Here is one man who has a fortune estimated at three-fourths of a billion. He is estimated by his friends to have given all told one-fifth of that sum. That is, he has kept for himself five-sixths of $900,000,000, and given to needy humanity but one-sixth, when he could never use for himself the one-sixth, and he might have given the five-sixths. The Word of God tells us that the time is coming when the churl [one who withholds, one who is niggardly] will no longer be "said to be bountiful." Isa. 32:5. Men will see how "he deviseth wicked devices to destroy the poor by lying words." Verse 7. The sad thing is that men who ought to know better strengthen him in his course by calling his niggardly gifts liberal.