The parent may
squander his means upon fine clothes and sumptuous fare until he has
nothing left for the intellectual education of his children; the State
may build palaces for the physical comfort of its paupers and criminals,
until there is nothing left in the treasury to construct schoolhouses
and colleges for the mental training of its virtuous children; the
philanthropist may so bestow his charities that the recipient will learn
to feel that it is the duty of the rich to support the poor, and so
become a pauper when he might have been a useful citizen.
With those whose brotherly love is of the second, or spiritual, degree,
charity is founded on the love of right, the love of giving to all their
just due. Those of the first class will, perhaps, deem those of the
second cold, yet a close observation will show that in the end more good
is done to society through the efforts of the latter than of the former.
Where the generosity of the first would reform the condition of a
miserable neighborhood, by giving the sufferers food and raiment and
shelter, the justice of the second would say all men should have the
means of acquiring a support for themselves, and his efforts would be
turned to providing employment, and encouraging a spirit of industry
among the poor. Where the first would build almshouses and hospitals,
the second would build factories and workshops. The first would lavish
all that he had in direct gifts to the poor, and then have nothing
more in his power to do for them, while the second, by husbanding his
resources at first, would be able presently to place them beyond the
need of aid.
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