These are a few of many evidences, that where we give from right motives, we are never the poorer, but the richer for doing it. "The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth, shall be watered also, himself."
As a series of religious meetings was held in a Baptist church in ----, and the hearts of God's people were greatly encouraged, the church was consumed by fire. It was proposed to continue the meetings in the Congregational church, but the workmen were coming the next morning to demolish and rebuild it. It was then proposed to hire the workmen to delay, that the people might assemble for three days more, but nothing was done; when the Congregational pastor walking his study, and thinking that some souls might be gathered in, went to the workmen, and handed them $10 from his own pocket, which he could ill afford; the meetings were continued, and a number of souls hopefully converted to God. The day following, as he passed the house, the man to whom he paid the $10 called to him, and constrained him to receive back the whole amount, saying it was of no value compared with the saving of a soul.
A farmer in one of the retired mountain towns of Massachusetts, began business in 1818, with six hundred dollars in debt. He began with the determination to pay the debt in six years, in equal installments, and to give all his net income if any remained above those installments. The income of the first year, however, was expended in purchasing stock and other necessaries for his farm.
In the six next years he paid off the debt, and having abandoned the intention of ever being any richer, he has ever since given his entire income, after supporting his family and thoroughly educating his six children.
During all this period he has lived with the strictest economy, and everything pertaining to his house, table, dress and equipage has been in the most simple style; and though he has twice been a member of the State Senate, he conscientiously retains this simplicity in his mode of life. The farm is rocky and remote from the village, and his whole property, real and personal, would not exceed in value three thousand dollars. Yet sometimes he has been enabled to give from $200 to $300 a year.