Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1860-04-05
Posr.moRTEm BENEvoLENcE.

PosT-MoRTEM BENEvOLENCE.
He who waits until he has one foot ip the
grave, before he dispenses his charities, may bt
said to give away that which belongs to another
for, as he come naked into the world, 80 he mus,
90 out naked and possessoness. Every virtue,
properly exercised, has two-fold influence
on the public and on the individual; but the lat
ter is lost in cases of post-mortem benevolence
We do not condemn such chsrity-it is nobly
well; yet charities ante mortem, given before
death, are better-better both for the giver and
the public.
These charities, given by dead men to living
causes, may be Of two kinds: they may spring
up in the mind, like mushroom growth, on
the death-bed; or they may have been the
purpose of long and laborious life. The for.
mer are like the sudden breaking of the setting
sunlight through clouds behind which the sun
had been struggling all the day-beautiful, glad
dening, but not redeeming the dark, perhaps,
penurious and sinful past. In the latter case,
when q man lives to make with the purpose Of
giving when he dies, he is not an actual but an
intentional benefactor-a living miser, dead
philanthropist. Such an intention is danger
GUS temptation, too; for he may excuse himself
for wronging his neighbor by thinking that it
will benefit posterity.
Here is man who has lived, and toiled, and
amassed large fortune. His brain has been
kept on stretch he has half clad his aching
and toil-worn body; he has stinted himself he
has been up early and late-all to heap together
millions. He dies. His will splendidly endows
some college, Orphan House or like institution.
In ninety nine of hundred such cases, the real
will of the donor, perhaps, is in some respects
violated How much better to retire from busi-
ness, and devote the last five or ten years Of life
to the execution of his own will. The active
personal engagement in the scheme of benev-
olence would quicken all the unselfsh feelings
of the heart. He would grow in love with it the
execution of his plan would keep both mind and
body active; and new train of joys and desires
would spring up around old age.
Another man is constantly on the alert for
some object on which he may judiciously e1pend
his charities This it is that cultivates and emo.
bes the man. Probably, during the whole of
his life, he may not expend thousand dollars in
this way; yet do more good, by the unceasing
activity of his benevolence, than he who endows
q professorship or even college after death.
"Power to do good" says Bacon, sis the true
and lawful end of aspiring; for good thoughts,
though God accept them, yet towards men are
little better than good dreams, except they be
put in act"
five examine fully this thing of living solely
to oneself and dying to the public, we shall see
that the public are often, like children who in
herit priucsly fortunes, idle, improvident and
profigate. Great cities will often use donations
to erect splendid buildings, &C., and thus do less
for real use than for show and ornament. En-
dowed colleges tend to pervert the law of "dili-
gence making rich )" and are liable to have a.
bout them set of lazy professors who feed upon
the endowment, and care not whether the COL
lege be in prosperity or adversely. The law of
life is such that the money distilled from the
brain and music of one, purchases Incidence and
luxury for another; so that excess of thrift and
money-making propensity is as bad as excess
Of ofprodigality.
True wisdom teaches US to be diligent and
charitable both; and the two net as checks to
each other, and keep US in the golden mean
which is the path of safety and virtue. sCer-
tainly it is heaven upon EARTH" says a wise man,
"to have mans mind move in charity, rest in
Providence and turn upon the poles of truth !"
either Of which three things is a great virtue in
unity with the Others but taken alone would
run into vicious extremes. A man should court
the luxury of doing good while he lives; the
pleasure of seeing his charities springing up all
around him; the privilege, which is his right,
of deciding for himself who shall be the objects
of his charity. Surely there is nothing more
divine on earth than for man to see with his
own eyes and feel in his own consciousness
while he lives, that the tendency of all his &C,
tions is to conform earth to the likeness of heav.