PHILANTHROPY NEEDS COURAGE.
By Sir Thomas Lipton
PHILANTHROPY needs courage. We have thousands of rich men who would be philanthropists were it not that courage is wanting in them. For the philanthropist, when he commences philanthropy, meets with rebuff, with ingratitude, with opprobrium. If he hasn't courage, he soon abandons his charitable deeds. I shall never forget my first philanthropic effort. It discouraged me. I loathed philanthropy for a month thereafter. I was poor at the time, very poor. In my little shop I had one employee, a boy of fourteen. In every way I denied myself in order to put by money wherewith to enlarge my business. Well, one day I heard my boy complaining that his clothes were so shabby he was ashamed to go to chapel. "And there's no chance of a new suit for me this year," he went on, "for dad's out of work, and it takes all my wages to pay the rent." I thought this matter over carefully. The boy undoubtedly had a shabby look. I took a sovereign out of my bag of savings, and I bought him a warm, stout rig of blue cloth. He was pleased. He was grateful. But the next day he didn't come to work. I met his mother on the street, and I said to her, "Where's Jimmy?" "Why, Mr. Lipton," said the mother, curtseying, "Jimmy looks so respectable—thanks to you, sir—that I thought I'd send him around town to-day to see if he couldn't get a better job."