Nearly a century ago, a famous English preacher described in vivid detail the practice of one particular lord of the manor. Every year on Christmas day, this lord gave all the poor people who were his subjects a generous basket of food. Every person brought a basket with him and the lord’s custom was to fill the basket completely. Each time they came, year after year, the baskets got bigger and bigger, until the lord wondered how they could stagger away under the weight of all that food on the way
...