The Life of Sir William Hartley

The root of Mr. Hartley's amazing career of philanthropy and support of Christian work was found by himself in the vow made on New Year's Day, 1877, to which reference has already been made. When the proportion was determined, that amount of his gross income was set apart, as he once put it, not in his head but in his books. He spoke on the subject again and again, and in view of the place it filled in his thought and the controlling influence it had in his life I have thought it well to quote his own utterances with exceptional fullness. But I may first summarize the grounds on which he based the necessity of systematic and proportionate giving. Only so, he urged, can we really know what we are giving and save ourselves from fond delusions as to our liberality. Many people imagine themselves to be far more generous in their gifts than they really are. For want of such a principle members of religious communions normally give no more than is extracted from them by the financial machinery of their Church. This method alone will enable us to solve successfully the grave financial difficulties which constantly hamper our Church work. But its reaction on character and religious experience is of the highest value. He felt that business men in particular needed some avenue of escape from the whole atmosphere of commercialism, and systematic giving provided it. It was the most effective instrument for securing the victory of the higher over the lower self. He said: "Nothing raises money to a higher plane and gives it a higher interest than systematic giving. I sit on my money; I don't let it sit on me. To distribute my money is a harder and more anxious task than making it." He once said to me when he had experienced very heavy losses that he was not troubled by them. "No one holds his money with a lighter hand than I do." He found in systematic giving the supreme means of grace, and believed that only in this way could the deepest joy in co-operation with God be attained. He never concealed from himself or from others the fact that his principle cost him hard struggles. The gift for making money was not by any means easily reconciled with the impulse to give it away. His commercial instincts would have led him not only to create the wealth but to hold it fast. Speaking at the end of 1897, with twenty-one years' experience of systematic giving behind him, he said that it had taught him to regard money as a talent to be used in some degree for the good of others--not as a beautiful theory only, but in the actual business of life. To serve humanity as they should they ought to be ready to give up some portion of what they would naturally like to keep. It was not easy to do that. On the contrary, it was extremely difficult. The lower self at once asserted its claim, and said, "I have it, and it is mine." But the higher self, if it was in full sympathy with the teaching of Jesus Christ, would rise above the temptation and be ready in some reasonable degree to share with others. That spirit could only find ample scope with the greatest possible determination. He once said: "If a man has crushed his own selfishness to any considerable degree, he has had something to do."

The obstinate resistance of the selfish nature he insisted upon many times. But as a practical man he recognized that the acceptance, once for all, of a guiding and inflexible principle protected him from the wear and tear of constant debate as each new appeal was made to his generosity. On this point he said: "If a man has to have a fight with the devil over every half-crown or five-pound note he gives away, he will often be worsted; he will imagine, too, that he is giving far more than he really is.[Dr. J. H. Jowett made the same observation: "I have noticed that some people assume they are very generous, but it is simply because they have no system in their giving, and no record of their gifts."] With my system the struggle only comes once a year and you know exactly where you are."