ical. God hates a cynic.

But charity is a word that's as little understood as virtue. You'll
hear folk speak of a woman as virtuous when she may be as evil and as
wretched a creature as walks this earth. They mean that she's never
sinned the one sin men mean when they say a lassie's not virtuous! As
if just abstaining frae that ane sin could mak' her virtuous!

Sae it's come to be the belief of too many folk that a man can be
called charitable if he just gives awa' sae muckle siller in a year.
That's not enough to mak' him charitable. He maun give thought and
help as well as siller. It's the easiest thing in the world to gie
siller; easier far than to refuse it, at times, when the refusal is
the more charitable thing for one to be doing.

I ken fine that folk think I'm close fisted and canny wi' my siller.
Aye, and I am--and glad I am that's so. I've worked hard for what I
have, and I ken the value of it. That's mair than some do that talk
against me, and crack jokes about Harry Lauder and his meanness. Are
they so free wi' their siller? I'll imagine myself talking wi' ane of
them the noo.

"You call me mean," I'll be saying to him. "How much did you give away
yesterday, just to be talking? There was that friend came to you for
the loan of a five-pound note because his bairn was sick? Of coorse ye
let him have it--and told him not to think of it as a loan, syne he
was in such trouble?"

"Well--I would have, of course, if I'd had it," he'll say, changing
color a wee bit. "But the fact is, Harry, I didn't have the money--"

"Oh, aye, I see," I'll answer him. "I suppose you've let sae many of
your friends have money lately that you're a bit pinched for cash?
That'll be the way of it, nae doot?"

"Well--I've a pound or two outstanding," he'll say. "But--I suppose I
owe more than there is owing to me."

There's one, ye'll see, who's not mean, not close fisted. He's easy
wi' his money; he'd as soon spend his siller as no. And where is he
when the pinch comes--to himself or to a friend? He can do nothing,
d'ye ken, to help, because he's not saved his siller and been carefu'
with it.

I've helped friends and strangers, when I could. But I've always tried
to do it in such a way that they would help themselves the while. When
there's real distress it's time to stint yourself, if need be, to help
another. That's charity--real charity. But is it charity to do as some
would do in sich a case as this?

Here'll be a man