Page:Carroll - Sylvie and Bruno Concluded.djvu/80

42 clothes, that community has no right to interfere with him. But it's quite another thing, when we come to consider the divine law. Measured by that standard, such a man is undoubtedly doing wrong, if he fails to use, for the good of those in need, the strength or the skill, that God has given him. That strength and skill do not belong to the community, to be paid to them as a debt: they do not belong to the man himself, to be used for his own enjoyment: they do belong to God, to be used according to His will; and we are not left in doubt as to what that will is. 'Do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again'"

"Anyhow," I said, "an 'idle mouth' very often gives away a great deal in charity."

"In so-called 'charity,'" he corrected me. "Excuse me if I seem to speak uncharitably, I would not dream of applying the term to any individual. But I would say, generally, that a man who gratifies every fancy that occurs to him——denying himself in nothing——and merely gives to the poor some part, or even all, of his superfluous wealth, is only deceiving himself if he calls it charity."