Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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

Charity

It instils into their minds the utmost virulence, instead of that charity which is the perfection and ornament of religion.

What we employ in charitable uses during our lives is given away from ourselves: what we bequeath at our death is given from others only, as our nearest relations.

Let us remember those that want necessaries, as we ourselves should have desired to be remembered had it been our sad lot to subsist on other men’s charity.

Even the wisdom of God hath not suggested more pressing motives, more powerful incentives to charity, than these, that we shall be judged by it at the last dreadful day.

The smallest act of charity shall stand us in great stead.

How shall we then wish that it might be allowed us to live over our lives again, in order to fill every minute of them with charitable offices!

Charity is more extensive than either of the two other graces, which centre ultimately in ourselves: for we believe and we hope for our own sakes; but love, which is a more disinterested principle, carries us out of ourselves into desires and endeavours of promoting the interests of other beings.

Christian graces and virtues they cannot be unless fed, invigorated, and animated by universal charity.

Goodness answers to the theological virtue charity, and admits no excess but error: the desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall; but in charity there is no excess: neither can angel or man come into danger by it.

Because men believe not Providence, therefore they do so greedily scrape and hoard. They do not believe any reward for charity, therefore they will part with nothing.

Nothing seems much clearer than the natural direction of charity. Would we all but relieve, according to the measure of our means, those objects immediately within the range of our personal knowledge, how much of the worst evil of poverty might be alleviated! Very poor people, who are known to us to have been decent, honest, and industrious, when industry was in their power, have a claim on us, founded on our knowledge, and on vicinity and neighbourhood, which have in themselves something sacred and endearing to every good heart. One cannot, surely, always pass by, in his walks for health, restoration, or delight, the lone wayside beggar without occasionally giving him an alms. Old, care-worn, pale, drooping, and emaciated creatures, who pass us by without looking beseechingly at us, or even lifting up their eyes from the ground, cannot often be met with without exciting an interest in us for their silent and unobtrusive sufferings or privations. A hovel, here and there, round and about our own comfortable dwelling, attracts our eyes by some peculiar appearance of penury, and we look in, now and then, upon its inmates, cheering their cold gloom with some small benefaction. These are duties all men owe to distress: they are easily discharged; and even such tender mercies are twice blessed.

Poplicola’s doors were opened on the outside, to save the people even the common civility of asking entrance; where misfortune was a powerful recommendation, and where want itself was a powerful mediator.

My errors, I hope, are only those of charity to mankind; and such as my own charity has caused me to commit, that of others may more easily excuse.

If we can return to that charity and peaceable-mindedness which Christ so vehemently recommended to us, we have his own promise that the whole body will be full of light, Matth. vi.; that all other Christian virtues will, by way of recommittance or annexation, attend them.

Here is another magistrate propounding from the seat of justice the stupendous nonsense that it is desirable that every person who gives alms in the streets should be fined for that offence. This to a Christian people, and with the New Testament lying before him—as a sort of dummy, I suppose, to swear witnesses on. Why does my so-easily-frightened nationality not take offence at such things? My hobby shies at shadows; why does it amble so quietly past these advertising-vans of Blockheads seeking notoriety?

Charity is an universal duty, which it is in every man’s power sometimes to practise; since every degree of assistance given to another, upon proper motives, is an act of charity; and there is scarcely any man in such a state of imbecility as that he may not, on some occasions, benefit his neighbour. He that cannot relieve the poor may instruct the ignorant; and he that cannot attend the sick may reclaim the vicious. He that can give little assistance himself may yet perform the duty of charity by inflaming the ardour of others, and recommending the petitions which he cannot grant, to those who have more to bestow. The widow that shall give her mite to the treasury, the poor man who shall bring to the thirsty a cup of cold water, shall not lose their reward.

Money we either lock up in chests, or waste it in needless and ridiculous expenses upon ourselves, whilst the poor and the distressed want it for necessary uses.

He that rightly understands the reasonableness and excellency of charity will know that it can never be excusable to waste any of our money in pride and folly.

All men ought to maintain peace and the common offices of humanity and friendship in diversity of opinions.

The little I have seen of the world and know of the history of mankind teaches me to look upon the errors of others in sorrow, not in anger. When I take the history of one poor heart that has sinned and suffered, and represent to myself the struggles and temptations it has passed—the brief pulsations of joy—the feverish inquietude of hope and fear—the tears of regret—the feebleness of purpose—the pressure of want—the desertion of friends—the scorn of the world, that has little charity—the desolation of the soul’s sanctuary, and threatening voices from within—health gone—happiness gone—even hope, that stays longest with us, gone,—I have little heart for aught else than thankfulness that it is not so with me, and would fain leave the erring soul of my fellow-man with Him from whose hands it came.

It is another’s fault if he be ungrateful; but it is mine if I do not give. To find one thankful man, I will oblige many that are not so.

That charity alone endures which flows from a sense of duty and a hope in God. This is the charity that treads in secret those paths of misery from which all but the lowest of human wretches have fled: this is that charity which no labour can weary, no ingratitude detach, no horror disgust; that toils, that pardons, that suffers; that is seen by no man, and honoured by no man, but, like the great laws of nature, does the work of God in silence, and looks to a future and better world for its reward.

When thy brother has lost all that he ever had, and lies languishing, and even gasping under the utmost extremities of poverty and distress, dost thou think to lick him whole again only with thy tongue?

The measures that God marks out to thy charity are these: thy superfluities must give place to thy neighbour’s great convenience; thy convenience must yield to thy neighbour’s necessity; and, lastly, thy very necessities must yield to thy neighbour’s extremity.

That charity is bad which takes from independence its proper pride, from mendicity its salutary shame.

In all works of liberality something more is to be considered besides the occasion of the givers; and that is the occasion of the receivers.

Charity is made the constant companion and perfection of all virtues; and well it is for that virtue where it most enters and longest stays.

A man must have great impudence to profess himself a Christian, and yet to think himself not obliged to do acts of charity.

What can be a greater honour than to be chosen one of the stewards and dispensers of God’s bounty to mankind? What can give a generous spirit more complacency than to consider that great numbers owe to him, under God, their subsistence, and the good conduct of their lives?

God is pleased with no music below so much as in the thanksgiving songs of relieved widows, of supported orphans, of rejoicing, and comforted, and thankful persons. This part of our communication does the work of God and of our neighbours, and bears us to heaven in streams made by the overflowing of our brother’s comfort.

Let the women of noble birth and great fortunes visit poor cottages and relieve their necessities.

It is no great matter to live lovingly with good-natured and meek persons; but he that can do so with the froward and precise, he only hath true charity.

Charity taken in its largest extent is nothing else but the sincere love of God and our neighbour.

Free converse with persons of different sects will enlarge our charity towards others, and incline us to receive them into all the degrees of unity and affection which the word of God requires.