itable institutions.
They do a grand work. But it is only a certain sort of case that they
can reach. And they couldna help a boy who'd come home frae Flanders
with both legs gone.

A boy like that didna want charity to care for him and tend him all
his days, keeping him helpless and dependent. He wanted help--help to
make his own way in the world and earn his own living. And that's what
the Fund has given him. It's looked into his case, and found out what
he could do.

Maybe he was a miner before the war. Almost surely, he was doing some
sort of work that he could do no longer, with both legs left behind
him in France. But there was some sort of work he could do. Maybe the
Fund would set him up in a wee shop of his ain, provide him with the
capital to buy his first stock, and pay his first year's rent. There
are men all over Scotland who are well able, the noo, to tak' care of
themselves, thanks to the Fund--men who'd be beggars, practically, if
nothing of the sort had existed to lend them a hand when their hour of
need had come.

But it's the bairns that have aye been closest to our hearts--Mrs.
Lauder's and mine. Charity can never hurt a child--can only help and
improve it, when help is needed. And we've seen them, all about our
hoose at Dunoon. We've known what their needs were, and the way to
supply them. What we could do we've done.

Oh, it's not the siller that counts! If I could but mak' those who
have it understand that! It's not charity to sit doon and write a
check, no matter what the figures upon it may be. It's not charity,
even when giving the siller is hard--even when it means doing without
something yourself. That's fine--oh, aye! But it's the thought that
goes wi' the giving that makes it worth while--that makes it do real
good. Thoughtless giving is almost worse than not giving at all--
indeed, I think it's always really worse, not just almost worse.

When you just yield to requests without looking into them, without
seeing what your siller is going to do, you may be ruining the one
you're trying to help. There are times when a man must meet adversity
and overcome it by his lane, if he's ever to amount to anything in
this world. It's hard to decide such things. It's easier just to give,
and sit back in the glow of virtue that comes with doing that. But
wall your conscience let you do sae? Mine wull not--nor Mrs. Lauder's.

We've tried aimless charity too lang in Britain, as a nation. We did
in