Write a short note on "charity" in about 60-70 words.
Answers
Charity is something more than mere kindness. It is not a beggar's dole that we offer and then pass on and forget. It is not mere composition based on feeling of superiority, as though conferring some favour. It means tolerance. Compassion, a patient sympathy for the failings and errors of others, is large-hearted concession to the weakness. It is the spontaneous overflow of our sense of humanism. It tells: "Be to their virtues very kind; be to their failings little blind." It is one of the noblest of virtues.
Hence, charity is not easy to practice. Man is by nature egotistical. Whatever is most unlike him naturally rouses his ill will. That is why there is so little of tolerance and so much of faultfinding in the world. Such men can never cultivate charity. They may throw a coin to the needy while looking down on him. A man that is cold and unmoved to pity can make only formal charity, probably for self-publicity.
Unfortunately, it often happens that though charity begins at home, it tends to end there. The proverb warns us against this. The home is the origin; the whole world is the limit. But an exception must be made. Charity begins at home, of course, but surely not with oneself. One must be charitable to the whole world.