ture. Pious is not a Bible word. The Bible says "godly" and "holy," not "pious." And the only place where the noun "piety" appears, is where the Apostle says that widows had best show their piety at home in their own family. "Philanthropy" also is a word which has been a little discredited many people thinking of a kind of professional philanthropy which is not exactly loving and lovely, but mechanical. But no one, I think, has any disagreeable associations with the word "generosity;" therefore I take that as my theme. What is generosity? It is not merely giving to others what we possess. A person who gives only five cents may be generous in his bounty; one who bestows five thousand dollars may not be so. When Mr. Bates presented his first fifty thousand dollars for our public library, he did a noble action, a wise action, and one which has resulted in a vast deal of good; but we cannot with strict accuracy apply the term "generous to it, for it cost him no self-denial, and he had money enough left. A man may be very liberal without being very generous. I do not wish to disparage such liberality, for it is not a very common virtue. I wish we had more of it. I wish we had more men and women willing so to use their wealth, and thus procure the greatest amount of good out of it every day for themselves and others; to build for themselves a memorial in human lives benefited and blessed by such bounty. What mausoleum, however splendid, can compare with the monument which will long preserve the memory of the man who established the Lowell lectures in Boston ? Those lectures have elevated the whole tone of this community, have often given a new object in life, and inspired with the love of knowledge many a youthful mind. Nor is generosity that constitutional sympathy which takes an interest in persons who are near us, and warms to the latest tale of sorrow. Such a sentiment is indeed very lovely, and always brings comfort with it. The sympathy of others is a great consolation in trouble. But this may be only a sentiment, an emotion, which begins and ends with the hour. Generosity is more than that. It gives itself, its own thought, power, ability, love, to the good of others. It enters into their needs; thinks for them; remembers them when absent; makes sacrifices willingly for their sake. It denies itself for others, and says nothing about its self-denial. It keeps no account of its sacrifices or of its bounty. Its joy is in giving; it is only happy when making some one else happy. As it is the nature of the fish to swim, and of the bird to fly, so it is the nature of the generous man to give, hoping for nothing again. Generosity has something boundless, unlimited, infinite, in its quality. It is like the sun, which evermore pours out its abundant light and heat, without asking what becomes of them. Where does the sun obtain these stores of radiance and of fire? No one knows. Science has never been able to answer the question, except by uncertain conjectures. Nor can one tell from what inexhaustible fountains the generous man obtains the perennial light which cheers life around him. He does not create it; he merely lets it shine before men, so that others, seeing his good works, may glorify, not him, but his Father who is in heaven. How, it may be said, can there be such a thing as cultivating our generosity? The essence of generosity is love, and we cannot create love by an effort. This is a difficulty which many feel. We know that we ought to love God with all our heart, and our neighbor as ourselves. But how can we make ourselves love from a sense of duty? How can we love by a resolve of the will? We can, by an effort, perform the outward action; but how can we cause ourselves to take pleasure in doing good? This objection is well founded. No one can love from a sense of duty, or by a direct effort. And yet we ought to love; we ought to forget ourselves in generous actions. That is the paradox. We ought to do what we are unable to do. How are we to solve this difficulty? Our answer is this: What we cannot do directly we may do indirectly; what we cannot do at once, we may do by degrees; what we cannot do by ourselves, we may do by the help of God and by the influences he sends. If he makes it a duty to love him and to love others, we may be sure there is some way by which we can do it. What a dreadful thing it is not to love! The unloving man lives utterly alone; he comes into union with none of his race. He is among them, but not of them. Always there is some barrier between his heart and theirs; there is no approach, no contact. His soul is lonely, in a dreary solitude. What a hell of despair is in the word "egotism"! The man who is an egotist, who is always thinking of himself, is dead while he lives. There is no joy, no sunshine, in his heart. All there is icy cold. Only when we love we really live. We may say, in one word, "Love is heaven, and selfishness is hell, here and hereafter." That we only really live while we love something outside of ourselves - while we are in communion with Nature, truth, man, God is a fact which philosophy recognizes no less than religion. The self-absorbed man is only half alive. He who is always thinking of himself, his good qualities and merits, his rights and his wrongs, his successes and failures; he who is seeking for praise, who thinks of his reputation, who watches his own shadow, is really losing the bread of life, and being starved at the centre of his soul. The ancients fabled that Narcissus by always looking at himself in a spring, and admiring his own beauty, pined away and died. The moral is obvious. Whatever takes us out of ourselves in a genuine interest in God's great world around us is a source of new and generous life. A hearty devotion to others is generosity. The first way, then, to make ourselves generous is to look at the good in things about us. This is one great advantage of education. True education is not that which loads the memory with dead facts, but the discipline which makes all truth interesting. The moment we are interested in any truth we forget ourselves. Even Byron, the great egotist of modern times, forgot himself when he thought of the solemn desolation of Rome. A liberal education is that which frees a man from himself. "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." No one is so much a slave as the man who is tied by his own appetites, ambitions, vanities, conceit. "Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage; Minds innocent and quiet take That for an hermitage. If I have freedom in my love, I have heard of a person who in a great and overmastering sorrow sought comfort in the study of mathematics. Mr. Emerson commends the sight of the everlasting stars in their majestic stability to |