Being and Doing – 30 July – Expenditure

EXPENDITURE on food and dress for the sake of display is vile expenditure.   In itself it is coarse, for its aim is not beauty, and it is unintelligent, for it is blindly led by fashion.   It is, moreover, wicked, for it is destroying wealth, and the destruction of wealth is theft.   But it is allowable within certain limits, when its aim is to give a refined pleasure to others, when it is a symbol of love, sympathy, or friendship.   

The notion that mere expenditure does good to the poorer classes, or adds to the general wealth, is a fallacy.   To create a demand for perishable goods is not to employ our labour usefully.   The capital you spent yesterday on ugly ornaments, or on delicacies for a supper, is destroyed as a means of benefiting the working classes, or adding to the wealth of the country, as absolutely as if you had thrown it into the Thames.

STOPFORD BROOKE

THE great industries have cheapened luxuries and stimulated the passion for them.   They have destroyed the human fellowship of craftsman and chief.   They have degraded labour, in a large degree, into speculation.   They have deprived labour of its thoughtful freedom, and turned men into ‘hands.’   They have given capital a power of dominion and growth perilous above all to its possessor.

So it has come to pass that in our fierce conflicts we are in peril of guiding our conduct by a theory of rights, and not by a confession of duties:  of losing life in a search for the means of living.

The first words attributed to man born outside the Paradise of God are words which disclose the secret of all social evil.  ‘Am I,’ said the earliest murderer, ‘my brother’s keeper?’   Yes: and the same answer must come as often as the thoughtless, the self-indulgent, the idle, propose the question now.

Bishop WESTCOTT

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These quotes are from ‘Being and Doing’ A selection of helpful thoughts from various authors arranged for daily reading.

Collected by Constance M Whishaw and first published in 1908 for members of the Being and Doing Guild whose object is to do all they can for the relief of suffering and misery.

Most of the writers are 19th Century Christians from Britain and Europe who were committed to living their faith through deeds as well as words – Being AND Doing.

For many years these words have kept me company and encouraged me on the journey of faith.  I hope they will encourage others also.