For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School
By: Catherine Esther Beecher
ON GIVING IN CHARITY.
No Point of Duty more difficult to fix by Rule, than Charity. First Consideration;--Object for which we are placed in this World. How to be perfectly happy. Self-denying Benevolence. Important Distinction.
Second Consideration;--Natural Principles not to be exterminated, but regulated and controlled. All Constitutional Propensities good, and designed to be gratified. Their Abuses to be guarded against.
Third Consideration;--Superfluities sometimes proper, and sometimes not. Fourth Consideration;--No Rule of Duty right for One and not for All. The Opposite of this Principle tested. Some Use of Superfluities necessary. Physical Gratifications should always be subordinate to Social, Intellectual, and Moral Advantages. Difficulties in the Way. Remarks upon them. Plan for Keeping an Account of Necessaries and Superfluities. Untoward Results of our Actions do not always prove that we deserve Blame. Examples of Conformity to the Rules here laid down. General Principles to guide in deciding upon Objects of Charity. Parable of Good Samaritan. Who are our Neighbors. Those most in Need to be first relieved. Intellectual and Moral Wants more necessary to be supplied than Physical. Not much Need of Charity in supplying Physical Wants in this Country. System of Associated Charities, in which many small Sums are combined. Indiscriminate Charity--Very injurious to Society, as a General Rule. Exceptions. Impropriety of judging of the Charities of Others
