It wasna charity those laddies sought or needed.  It was help—­aye.  And it took charity, in the hearts of those who helped, to do anything for them.  But there is an ugly ring to that word charity as too many use it the noo.  I’ve no word to say against the charitable institutions.  They do a grand work.  But it is only a certain sort of case that they can reach.  And they couldna help a boy who’d come home frae Flanders with both legs gone.

A boy like that didna want charity to care for him and tend him all his days, keeping him helpless and dependent.  He wanted help—­help to make his own way in the world and earn his own living.  And that’s what the Fund has given him.  It’s looked into his case, and found out what he could do.

Maybe he was a miner before the war.  Almost surely, he was doing some sort of work that he could do no longer, with both legs left behind him in France.  But there was some sort of work he could do.  Maybe the Fund would set him up in a wee shop of his ain, provide him with the capital to buy his first stock, and pay his first year’s rent.  There are men all over Scotland who are well able, the noo, to tak’ care of themselves, thanks to the Fund—­men who’d be beggars, practically, if nothing of the sort had existed to lend them a hand when their hour of need had come.

But it’s the bairns that have aye been closest to our hearts—­Mrs. Lauder’s and mine.  Charity can never hurt a child—­can only help and improve it, when help is needed.  And we’ve seen them, all about our hoose at Dunoon.  We’ve known what their needs were, and the way to supply them.  What we could do we’ve done.

Oh, it’s not the siller that counts!  If I could but mak’ those who have it understand that!  It’s not charity to sit doon and write a check, no matter what the figures upon it may be.  It’s not charity, even when giving the siller is hard—­even when it means doing without something yourself.  That’s fine—­oh, aye!  But it’s the thought that goes wi’ the giving that makes it worth while—­that makes it do real good.  Thoughtless giving is almost worse than not giving at all—­ indeed, I think it’s always really worse, not just almost worse.

When you just yield to requests without looking into them, without seeing what your siller is going to do, you may be ruining the one you’re trying to help.  There are times when a man must meet adversity and overcome it by his lane, if he’s ever to amount to anything in this world.  It’s hard to decide such things.  It’s easier just to give, and sit back in the glow of virtue that comes with doing that.  But wall your conscience let you do sae?  Mine wull not—­nor Mrs. Lauder’s.

We’ve tried aimless charity too lang in Britain, as a nation.  We did in other times, after other wars than this one.  We’ve let the men who fought for us, and were wounded, depend on charity.  And then, we’ve forgotten the way they served us, and we’ve become impatient with them.  We’ve seen them begging, almost, in the street.  And we’ve seen that because sentimentalists, in the beginning, when there was still time and chance to give them real help, said it was a black shame to ask such men to do anything in return for what was given to them.