The Home Circle

Southern Cross, Volume 2, Issue 31, 27 October 1894, Page 3

The Home Circle

[Conducted by LINDA.]

C( NCBRNING CHARITY

What is charity ? To many people it consists in the act of giving to a beggar a garment which we have looked at in every light, and arrived at the conclusion that we would be ( guys * if we wore it ourselves, or it may be a loaf, so dry that our family could not eat it, even with butter and it may be jam, while the recipient has, perhaps, to eat it bare. . .

It is this system of giving away only what we can find no use for, which gives rise to the saying, as cold as charity, and truly i.t is cold. Oh, my friends; let us remember that a kind word, a pleasant smile, is sometimes more appreciated than all the gifts we can bestow ; why should we make the path of poverty more ( difficult to tread, by our supercilious looks ? But apart from the charity of giving, there are other ways of being charitable. Let us consider them: —There is the charity which sufferetb long and is kind ; and the charity which thinketh no evil. Are we possessed of them ; we may suffer long; many do, but aie we kind ? Too nften we hurt our friends by snappy words and cross looks ; forgetting that our dear ones suffer for us and without sympathy. As to the charity which thinketh no evil; It is a strange phase of human nature, but it is the rule rather than the exception to listen to the evil in preference to what is of good report. We believe the good only when it is proved ; but receive and repeat as gospel any nasty, cruel story we may hear, and that, too, of our friends. This may sound hard, but “’tis true, ’tis pity; pity ’tis, ’tis true,” and truth is stranger than fiction. I am no intense believer in charity societies, purity societies, and the like. Very often they are the fostermothers of priggishness and egotism, but I do think if we girls (I do not presume to preach to our mothers on such a subject) were to have a little more charity in our hearts it would be a good thing. We have not, perhaps, very much to bestow : we are not too well off ourselves, it may be, but we can all champion the absent one, and refrain from spreading abroad the cruel story, which may not be true, and which, at any rate, will take time and patience to live down, and will, in the meantime, cost many a bitter tear on the part of the person scandalised. We are only responsible for the doings of one person. Let us then be careful of what the first person singular says and does. Then there 'will be less occasion for the poet to sing—- “ Alas for the rarity Of Christian charity.” E.B.S.