Giving to the poor

In the passage where the New Testament says that everyone must work, it gives us a reason'in order that he may have something to give to those in need'. Charity- giving to the poor - is an essential part of Christian morality: in the frightening parable of the sheep and the goats it seems to be the point on which everything turns. Some people nowadays say that charity ought to be unnecessary and that instead of giving to the poor we ought to be producing a societyin which there were no poor to give to. they may be quite right in saying that we ought to produce that kind of society. But if anyone thinks that, as a consequence, you can stop giving in the meantime, then he has parted company with all Christian morality. I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc., is up to the standerd common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away to little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are to small.

- C.S. Lewis