Article November 16, 1946 Issue

The Best Alms

ELINOR TURRELL PATTIE

Freedom from want is named as one of the four great objectives of humanity today. In fact this freedom is considered essential to world peace, since hunger may incite to crime, and famine may lead to political unrest and thus to civil or international strife.

Many are unselfishly giving and working to feed starving peoples, and admirable efforts are being made to rehabilitate those disabled or rendered destitute by war. These loving ministrations will not, however, bring permanent freedom from want unless they are accompanied by the awakening of each individual to the dignity and security of his true status as a son of God. To bring about this awakening is true almsgiving.

The ordinary sense of charity all too often holds its object to be a weak, helpless mortal and attempts to alleviate a pitiable state by temporary, material means. True charity as expressed by the master Christian, Christ Jesus, was inherent in his understanding of man's eternal sonship with God and in his refusal to accept ignorance, disease, or deformity as real or as able to produce poverty and dependence. To Jesus, man was Godlike and perfect, and this perfect concept lifted multitudes out of unhappy states of disease, impotence, and lack.

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