It would be a splendid thing if all would learn the lesson taught in the fable--that the man who would do good should have the courage to be unconscious of the good he is doing, and so as unlike as possible the rich woman of whom some one has told, who turned a deaf ear to every petition for help unless there was a subscription paper circulated and she was given the chance to head the list. "But no poor person came into her house who said, 'May God reward you!' She never experienced the pleasure of making a poor woman on the back stairs happy with a cup of warm coffee, or hungry children with a slice of bread and butter, or an infirm man with a penny. Perhaps she satisfied her conscience by saying that she did not believe in indiscriminate charity. Frequently that excuse is given conscientiously but how often the real meaning is, 'I do not believe in charity that does not make people talk of my generosity.'" In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus taught the folly of giving in such a manner. The lesson was enforced by two pictures--a man standing on the street, giving alms to the poor, while attention is called to his generosity by the sounding of a trumpet which everyone must hear, and a man whose giving is so much a matter of secrecy that he does not think of it a second time. There is no rolling of it over as a sweetmeat under his tongue, as if to say, "What a generous man I am!" Nor is there any motive in the giving but pure desire to glorify God. All this is properly included in the interpretation of "Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth." VII EXPENSIVE ECONOMY A magazine editor offered a prize for the best account by a reader of the adjustment of income and expenditure made necessary by the vaulting prices of recent years. The prize was awarded to one whose revised budget showed the revision downward of many items, and the elimination of two or three other items. The comparison of the budgets was interesting and helpful; most readers would be apt to approve heartily all but one of the changes and eliminations. This was the exception: the earlier budget allowed five dollars per month for "church and charity," while the revised budget made no mention of the claims of others, no provision for the privilege of giving. If you had been a judge in that contest, would you have felt like giving the prize to a paper that suggested such an omission? Suppose you had the task of cutting your budget, would you feel like revising downward the provision for giving? What do you think of the statement of a famous business man who, having insisted in time of financial reverses on making gifts as usual, said to objecting friends, "Economy should not begin at the house of God." Why not let economy begin there?