--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Lowell, James Russell collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 4 number: 4 published: 1901-02 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'James Russell Lowell, "The Recompense: A Poem," *Improvement Era* 4, no. 4 (February 1901): 269.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0404unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera0404unse start_page: 269 end_page: 269 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1901-02) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0404unse publication_year: 1901 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1901, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # The Recompense: A Poem GIFTS AND GIVING, 269 pass it on; that is, help others when the opportunity offers, and in that way square the debt. If God "loves the cheerful giver," he also loves justice quite as well as he loves mercy, and the old maxim to "be just before we are generous," is worth remembering, especially with the impulsive and those inclined to be over-generous. The truest charity is in putting the needy in a way of honorably helping himself. Then he retains his self-respect and can render back to you due gratitude without envy. In that way, your gift is a benefit, as you would wish it to be; whereas, if your assistance takes away the desire or the ability of the recipient to help himself, it does him a positive injury in that it makes a pauper of him. It is such mistaken charity which crowds a debased humanity into soup-kitchens and kindred institutions of modern mushroom civilization. When we have done all we can for ourselves, and there is still a dearth of necessities, we can accept the help which the perfect law of The Church provides, with mutual feelings of respect, but the same divinely-revealed code of laws declares that "the idler shall not eat the bread of the laborer." THE RECOMPENSE. "The longer on the earth we live. And view the various qualities of men, Seeing how most are fugitive Or fitful gifts at best of now and then. Wind-wavered corpse-lights, daughters of the fen, The more we feel the high, stern featured beauty Of plain devotedness to duty, Steadfast and still, not fed with mortal praise. But finding amplest recompense For life's ungarlanded expense In work done squarely and unwasted days." James Russell Lowell.