Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

S. Austin Allibone, comp. Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay. 1880.

Alms

Shall we repine at a little misplaced charity, we who could no way foresee the effect,—when an all-knowing, all-wise Being showers down every day his benefits on the unthankful and undeserving?

Our part is to choose out the most deserving objects, and the most likely to answer the ends of our charity, and, when this is done, all is done that lies in our power: the rest must be left to Providence.

Those good men who take such pleasure in relieving the miserable for Christ’s sake would not have been less forward to minister unto Christ himself.

It is proper that alms should come out of a little purse, as well as out of a great sack; but surely where there is plenty, charity is a duty, not a courtesy: it is a tribute imposed by Heaven upon us, and he is not a good subject who refuses to pay it.

Are we not to pity and supply the poor, though they have no relation to us? No relation? That cannot be. The gospel styles them all our brethren: nay, they have a nearer relation to us—our fellow-members; and both these from their relation to our Saviour himself, who calls them his brethren.

It is indeed the greatest insolence imaginable, in a creature who would feel the extremes of thirst and hunger if he did not prevent his appetites before they call upon him, to be so forgetful of the common necessities of human nature as never to cast an eye upon the poor and needy. The fellow who escaped from a ship which struck upon a rock in the west, and joined with the country people to destroy his brother sailors and make her a wreck, was thought a most execrable creature; but does not every man who enjoys the possession of what he naturally wants, and is unmindful of the unsupplied distress of other men, betray the same temper of mind?

The poor beggar hath a just demand of an alms from the rich man, who is guilty of fraud, injustice, and oppression if he does not afford relief according to his abilities.