It is but sometimes
sacrificing a diversion or convenience to the poor, and turning the
usual course of our expenses into a better channel. This is, I
think, not only the most prudent and convenient, but the most
meritorious piece of charity which we can put in practice. By this
method, we in some measure share the necessities of the poor at the
same time that we relieve them, and make ourselves not only their
patrons, but their fellow-sufferers.
Sir Thomas Brown, in the last part of his "Religio Medici," in which
he describes his charity in several heroic instances, and with a
noble heat of sentiments, mentions that verse in the Proverbs of
Solomon: "He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord." There
is more rhetoric in that one sentence, says he, than in a library of
sermons; and indeed, if those sentences were understood by the
reader with the same emphasis as they are delivered by the author,
we needed not those volumes of instructions, but might be honest by
an epitome.
This passage of Scripture is, indeed, wonderfully persuasive; but I
think the same thought is carried much further in the New Testament,
where our Saviour tells us, in a most pathetic manner, that he shall
hereafter regard the clothing of the naked, the feeding of the
hungry, and the visiting of the imprisoned, as offices done to
Himself, and reward them accordingly.
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