Year: 1874

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/ have not considered the great anG
comprehensive subject of Charity with a
| view of pleasing everybody who may
hear me, for ! am painfully aware that
some of my opinions in that behalf, are
in direct conflict with the popular ideas
on this subject, and therefore, first of all
l solicit your charity. In treating this
subject for few minutes, 1 propose to
consider some of the different ideas OF
what charity is-upon whom it is most gen
orally bestoa0ed-who most deserve it-and
how it ought to be bestowed.


In looking at Webster for definitions,
l find that he gives the following syno-
nyms for charity and in the following
order of arrangement-love benevolence,
good will, affection, tenderness, iberality,
| indulgence, aims giving.


While aims giving occupies the lowest
place of all-is the last word used in the
definition of charity mere incident
hardly pertaining TO the subject under
consideration-yet nevertheless, it is the
| popular idea of charity, and whenever we
| hear the word charity, we almost invari-
| ably associate it with aims giving, Just as
| If the bestowal of few pence on a beg
gar, was the sum total-the embodiment
of the queen of the Christian Graces."
With this idea kept constantly in view
our charity is limited to beggars, paupers,
spendthritts, and other impecunious char
acters, who are willing to accept the pit
! tances usually most grudgnigly bestowed
and thanklessly received, not for any
merit, nor through any pity, but for the
sake of getting rid of some annoying
troublesome fellow whom we secretly
despise but whom we dare not deny, for
fear of Mrs. Grundy. Merit is not re-
garded, and often they who deserve the
least, get the most. The greed and ra-
pacity of professional beggars, equaled
only by thanklessness and ingratitude,
have ever been proverbial, and every
man who has an extra dollar is regarded
by them as their lawful prey to be plum
dered on every occasion.


We are apt to give aims without proper
discrimination. At the sight of any one
in apparent distress, whether real or as
sumed, even though it be the direct re-
suit of idleness or crime, we hurry on
with sort of gushing sentiment to his
relief, oftener to reward his follies and
pamper his vices, than to help him reform
his habits or to mend his life. In this
way we often unwittingly increase his
ability for mischief instead of doing him
any good, and our aims become curse
rather than a blessing.





kind of fashionable enterprise in the
form of associated effort, entered into for
amusement by committees of fashionable
young ladies, and church committees,
and social circles, and sewing societies.
and then of course so many slippers and
aprons, and tides, and what nots, and
other trifes, are produced and sold at
fancy fairs to remedy some imaginary
destitution, often to find their way to the
pawnbrokers. or oftener bartered away
for whisky or for money to go to
circus.


This then is aims giving. To my mind.
it is the very lowest type of charity, most
unworthily bestowed, and oftener does
more harm than good, and yet this is
the popular idea of charity, and even
the Scriptural injunction to feed the
hungry and clothe the naked, is often
quoted in the support of these absurdi-
ties, as if that was the sum total of all
Christian charity. Such charity as this
we can get anywhere, often without ask.
ing for it, sometimes against our inclina-
tions. States, and counties, and town
ships, and municipal corporations, pro-
verbally without souls, confine their
charities to this limit, and provide food
and clothes, and but little else. A man
can steal horse, and be fed and clothed
out of the public charity for ten years
without costing him a cent


This dollar and cent charity is unduly
magnifed. The world pays too much
tribute to Mammon. Many men un-
worthy of place in decent society, are
courted, and fattered, and caressed on
account of their wealth, and are sur
rounded by class of timeserving, cring-
ing, fawning sycophants who seem to
delight in toadying TO their caprices and
oT1la IT0o hnI vic hao
drunkard and gambler, libertine, and
yet he is feted and toasted, and received
into society, and clothed with a mantle
of charity of such enormous proportions
as to to convert all his crimes and offenses
into what are facetiously styled amiable
eccentricities which make him rather
popular than otherwise, if he only has an
abundance of gold, oil, or shoddy, no mat
ter by what Illicit means his ill-gotten
gains were accumulated, nor how many
good men are sacrificed that he may riot
over their sepulchers.


This popular Specification of charity is
in strange contrast with the Bible defini-
tions in that behalf We learn there
that Charity suffereth long and is kind
doth not behave itself unseemly-
thinketh no evil--rejoiceth in the truth"
We read there of a certain Pharisee who
regarded charity as sort of a marketable
commodity, ana VINO DoaSted that he
gave tithes of all that he had to
the poor. Surely this man was
charitable as he understood it. His
charity all run to almsgiving, and yet for
all that he was not commended by the
Savior. Another, wanted to sell the box
of precious ointment wherewith a poor
woman anointed the Savior, and give the
proceeds to the poor. His idea of charity
was also this dollar and cent theory, and
the Savior very properly rebuked him
The apostle Paul declared that though
he should give all that he had to
feed the poor, and his body to be burned,
and had not charity, it would avail him
nothing. The charity of which he spoke
was something more than money, and
something very different from mere aims
giving.


The multitude are not always right.
There never was greater heresy than
the proverb that The voice of the people,
is the voice of God" The people said OF
the Savior, Away with him-crucify him
cruelty him., and so they would say
now nnder similar circumstances. The


world is full of wrongs, tolerated, sane