RICHES AND CHARITY.
"Who--who--who's here
I, Robert of Doncaster.
That I spent, that I had;
That I gave, that I have;
That I left, that I lost."
_Epitaph_, A.D. 1579.
"If thou art rich, thou art poor;
For, like an ass, whose back with ingots bows
Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey
And death unloads thee."--_Shakespeare_.
"II est bon d'être charitable,
Mais envers qui? C'est là le point."--_La Fontaine_.
"There are many idlers to whom a penny begged is sweeter than a shilling
earned."--_Douglas Jerrold_.
"He stole a pig, and in God's name gave the trotters to the
poor."--_From the Spanish._
Man must be thrifty in order to be generous. Thrift does not end with
itself, but extends its benefits to others. It founds hospitals, endows
charities, establishes colleges, and extends educational influences.
Benevolence springs from the best qualities of the mind and heart. Its
divine spirit elevates the benefactors of the world--the Howards,
Clarksons, and Naviers--to the highest pedestals of moral genius and of
national worship.
The same feeling pervades our common humanity. The poorest man, the
daily worker, the obscurest individual, shares the gift and the blessing
of doing good--a blessing that imparts no less delight to him who gives
than to him who receives.
"Man is dear to man; the poorest poor
Long for some moments, in a weary life,
When they can know and feel that they have been
Themselves the fathers and the dealers-out
Of some small blessings; have been kind to such
As needed kindness, for this single cause,
That we have all of us one human heart."
The duty of helping the helpless is one that speaks trumpet-tongued; but
especially to those who profess love to God and goodwill to men. It is a
duty that belongs to men as individuals, and as members of the social
body. As individuals, because we are enjoined to help the widow and the
fatherless in their affliction; and as members of the social body,
because society claims of every man that he shall be a helper in the
cause of progress and of social well-being.
It is not necessary that men should be rich, to be helpful to others.
John Pounds was not a rich man; yet by his influence Ragged Schools were
established. He was temperate, and saved enough from his earnings to buy
food for his pupils. He attracted them by his kindness, sometimes by a
"hot potato;" he taught them, and sent them out into the world,
fortified by his good example, to work in it, and do their duty towards
it. Nor was Robert Raikes, the founder of Sunday and other schools, a
rich man; neither was Thomas Wright, the prison philanthropist. Nor were
St. Vincent de Paul and Father Mathew--the promoters of education and
temperance. Nor were the great men of science--Newton, Watt, and
Faraday; nor the great missionaries--Xavier, Martyn, Carey, and
Livingstone.
A fine instance of gentleness and generosity is recorded in Walton's
memoir of Dr. Donne. When the latter, long straitened in his means, had
entered upon the Deanery of St. Paul's, and was thereby provided with an
income more than sufficient for all his wants, he felt that those means
had been entrusted to him, for good uses, and to employ for human help
and to the glory of the Giver thereof. At the foot of a private account,
"to which God and His angels only were witnesses with him," Dr. Donne
computed first his revenue, then what was given to the poor and other
pious uses, and lastly, what rested for him and his; and having done
that, he then blessed each year's poor remainder with a thankful prayer.
Dr. Donne did most of his good in secret, letting not his right hand
know what his left hand did. He redeemed many poor from prison; helped
many a poor scholar; and employed a trusty servant or a discreet friend
to distribute his bounty where it was most needed. A friend whom he had
known in days of affluence, having by a too liberal heart and
carelessness become decayed in his estate and reduced to poverty, Donne
sent him a hundred pounds. But the decayed gentleman returned it with
thanks, saying that he wanted it not;--for, says Walton, in narrating
the event, "as there be some spirits so generous as to labour to conceal
and endure a sad poverty, rather than expose themselves to those blushes
that attend the confession of it, so there be others to whom nature and
grace have afforded such sweet and compassionate souls as to pity and
prevent the distresses of mankind; which I have mentioned because of Dr.
Donne's reply, whose answer was, 'I know you want not what will sustain
nature, for a little will do that; but my desire is that you, who in the
days of your plenty have cheered and raised the hearts of so many of
your dejected friends, would now receive this from me, and use it as a
cordial for the cheering of your own;'"--and upon these terms it was
received.
The truth is, that we very much exaggerate the power of riches. Immense
subscriptions are got up for the purpose of reforming men from their
sinful courses, and turning them from evil to good. And yet
subscriptions will not do it. It is character that can do the work;
money never can. Great changes in society can never be effected through
riches. To turn men from intemperance, improvidence, and irreligion, and
to induce them to seek their happiness in the pursuit of proper and
noble objects, requires earnest purpose, honest self-devotion, and hard
work. Money may help in many respects; but money by itself can do
nothing. The apostle Paul planted the knowledge of the Christian
religion over half the Roman empire; yet he supported himself by
tent-making, and not by collecting subscriptions. Men of anxious,
earnest, honest hearts, are far more wanted than rich men--willing to
give money in charity.
Nothing is so much over-estimated as the power of money. All the people
who are looking out for front seats in "society," think it the one thing
needful. They may be purse-liberal, but they are also purse-proud. The
hypocritical professions of some people, with a view to elicit the good
opinion of others, in the teeth of their daily life and practice, is
nothing short of disgusting. "Oh, Geordie, jingling Geordie," said King
James, in the novel, "it was grand to hear Baby Charles laying down the
guilt of dissimulation, and Steenie lecturing on the turpitude of
incontinence!"
Some people have an idolatrous worship of money. The Israelites had
their golden Calf; the Greeks had their golden Jupiter. Old Bounderby
valued the man who was worth a "hundred thousand pounds." Others do the
same. The lowest human nature loves money, possessions, value. "What is
he worth?" "What is his income?" are the usual questions. If you say,
"There is a thoroughly good, benevolent, virtuous man!" nobody will
notice him. But if you say, "There is a man worth a million of money,"
he will be stared at till out of sight. A crowd of people used to
collect at Hyde Park Corner to see a rich man pass. "Here comes old
Crockie!" and the crowd would separate to allow him to pass, amidst
whispers of admiration. It was old Crockford, who made a large fortune
by keeping a gambling-house.
"The very sound of millions," says Mrs. Gore,[1] "tickles the ear of an
Englishman! He loves it so much, indeed, that it all but reconciles him
to the National Debt; and when applied to private proprietorship, it
secures deference for lowness of mind, birth, habits, and pursuits....
Ambition and money-love, if they tend to ennoble a country, reduce to
insignificance the human particles of which the nation is composed. In
their pursuit of riches, the English are gradually losing sight of
higher characteristics; ... our pursuit of railway bubbles and every
other frantic speculation of the hour, affords sufficient evidence of
the craving after capital superseding every better aspiration, whether
for this world or the next."
[Footnote 1: Introduction to "Men of Capital."]
The love of gold threatens to drive everything before it. The pursuit of
money has become the settled custom of the country. Many are so absorbed
by it, that every other kind of well-being is either lost sight of, or
altogether undervalued. And then the lovers of money think to recover
their moral tone by bestowing charity! Mountains of gold weigh heavily
upon the heart and soul. The man who can withstand the weight of riches,
and still be diligent, industrious, and strong in mind and heart, must
be made of strong stuff. For, people who are rich, are almost invariably
disposed to be idle, luxurious, and self-indulgent.
"If money," said the Rev. Mr. Griffiths, Rector of Merthyr, "did not
make men forget men, one-half of the evil that is in the world would
never occur. If masters drew nearer to the men, and men were permitted
to draw nearer their masters, we should not be passing through this
fiery ordeal. Let them do something to win the men out of the
public-houses; let them spare more of their enormous gains to build
places of amusement and recreation for the people; let them provide
better houses to live in, better conveniences for decency, better
streets; and if all these things are done we shall have neither
lock-outs nor strikes. We hear with pomp and triumph of the millions and
millions that have been dug out of this old Welsh land of ours, but we
hear nothing--and we see, indeed, less--of the public buildings, the
people's parks, the public libraries and public institutions, and other
civilizing agencies. Fifteen months ago, when we were in the highest
tide of prosperity, I said all this, and no notice was taken of it. Why
should any notice be taken of a preaching parson or a Christian minister
of any kind, when sovereigns fly about like snowflakes in winter, or may
be gathered like blackberries in summer?"[1]
[Footnote 1: Sermon preached at Merthyr during the South Wales strike.]
Men go on toiling and moiling, eager to be richer; desperately
struggling, as if against poverty, at the same time that they are
surrounded with abundance. They scrape and scrape, add shilling to
shilling, and sometimes do shabby things in order to make a little more
profit; though they may have accumulated far more than they can actually
enjoy. And still they go on, worrying themselves incessantly in the
endeavour to grasp at an additional increase of superfluity. Perhaps
such men have not enjoyed the advantages of education in early life.
They have no literary pleasures to fall back upon; they have no taste
for books; sometimes they can scarcely write their own names. They have
nothing to think of but money,--and of what will make money. They have
no faith, but in riches! They keep their children under restriction and
bring them up with a servile education.
At length, an accumulation of money comes into the children's hands.
They have before been restricted in their expenditure; now they become
lavish. They have been educated in no better tastes. They spend
extravagantly. They will not be drudges in business as their father was.
They will be "gentlemen," and spend their money "like gentlemen." And
very soon the money takes wings and flies away. Many are the instances
in which families have been raised to wealth in the first generation,
launched into ruinous expense in the second, and disappeared in the
third,--being again reduced to poverty. Hence the Lancashire proverb,
"Twice clogs, once boots." The first man wore clogs, and accumulated a
"a power o' money;" his rich son spent it; and the third generation took
up the clogs again. A candidate for parliamentary honours, when speaking
from the hustings, was asked if he had plenty brass. "Plenty brass?"
said he; "ay, I've lots o' brass!--I stink o' brass!"
The same social transformations are known in Scotland. The proverb there
is, "The grandsire digs, the father bigs, the son thigs,"[1]--that is,
the grandfather worked hard and made a fortune, the father built a fine
house, and the son, "an unthrifty son of Linne," when land and goods
were gone and spent, took to thieving. Merchants are sometimes princes
to-day and beggars to-morrow; and so long as the genius for speculation
is exercised by a mercantile family, the talent which gave them landed
property may eventually deprive them of it.
[Footnote 1: _Dublin University Magazine_.]
To be happy in old age--at a time when men should leave for ever the
toil, anxiety, and worry of money-making--they must, during youth and
middle life, have kept their minds healthily active. They must
familiarize themselves with knowledge, and take an interest in all that
has been done, and is doing, to make the world wiser and better from age
to age. There is enough leisure in most men's lives to enable them to
interest themselves in biography and history. They may also acquire
considerable knowledge of science, or of some ennobling pursuit
different from that by which money is made. Mere amusement will not do.
No man can grow happy upon amusement. The mere man of pleasure is a
miserable creature,--especially in old age. The mere drudge in business
is little better. Whereas the study of literature, philosophy, and
science is full of tranquil pleasure, down to the end of life. If the
rich old man has no enjoyment apart from money-making, his old age
becomes miserable. He goes on grinding and grinding in the same rut,
perhaps growing richer and richer. What matters it? He cannot eat his
gold. He cannot spend it. His money, instead of being beneficial to him,
becomes a curse. He is the slave of avarice, the meanest of sins. He is
spoken of as a despicable creature. He becomes base, even in his own
estimation.
What a miserable end was that of the rich man who, when dying, found no
comfort save in plunging his hands into a pile of new sovereigns, which
had been brought to him from the bank. As the world faded from him, he
still clutched them; handled and fondled them one by one,--and then he
passed away,--his last effort being to finger his gold! Elwes the miser
died shrieking, "I will keep my money!--nobody shall deprive me of my
property!" A ghastly and humiliating spectacle!
Rich men are more punished for their excess of economy, than poor men
are for their want of it. They become miserly, think themselves daily
growing poorer, and die the deaths of beggars. We have known several
instances. One of the richest merchants in London, after living for some
time in penury, went down into the country, to the parish where he was
born, and applied to the overseers for poor's relief. Though possessing
millions, he was horror-struck by the fear of becoming poor. Relief was
granted him, and he positively died the death of a pauper. One of the
richest merchants in the North died in the receipt of poor's relief. Of
course, all that the parish authorities had doled out to these poor-rich
men was duly repaid by their executors.
And what did these rich persons leave behind them? Only the reputation
that they had died rich men. But riches do not constitute any claim to
distinction. It is only the vulgar who admire riches as riches. Money is
a drug in the market. Some of the most wealthy men living are mere
nobodies. Many of them are comparatively ignorant. They are of no moral
or social account. A short time since, a list was published of two
hundred and twenty-four English millionaires. Some were known as screws;
some were "smart men" in regard to speculations; some were large
navvies, coal-miners, and manufacturers; some were almost unknown beyond
their own local circle; some were very poor creatures; very few were men
of distinction. All that one could say of them was, that they died rich
men.
"All the rich and all the covetous men in the world," said Jeremy
Taylor, "will perceive, and all the world will perceive for them, that
it is but an ill recompense for all their cares, that by this time all
that shall be left will be this, that the neighbours shall say, _He died
a rich man:_ and yet his wealth will not profit him in the grave, but
hugely swell the sad accounts of his doomsday."
"One of the chief causes," says Mrs. Gore, "which render the pursuit of
wealth a bitterer as well as more pardonable struggle in England than on
the Continent, is the unequal and capricious distribution of family
property.... Country gentlemen and professional men,--nay, men without
the pretension of being gentlemen,--are scarcely less smitten with the
mania of creating 'an eldest son' to the exclusion and degradation of
their younger children; and by the individuals thus defrauded by their
nearest and dearest, is the idolatry of Mammon pursued without the least
regard to self-respect, or the rights of their fellow-creatures.
Injured, they injure in their turn. Their days are devoted to a campaign
for the recovery of their birthright. Interested marriages, shabby
bargains, and political jobbery, may be traced to the vile system of
things which converts the elder son into a Dives, and makes a Lazarus of
his brother."
But democrats have quite as great a love for riches as aristocrats; and
many austere republicans are eager to be millionaires. Forms of
government do not influence the desire for wealth. The elder Cato was a
usurer. One of his means of making money was by buying young half-fed
slaves at a low price; then, by fattening them up, and training them to
work, he sold them at an enhanced price. Brutus, when in the Isle of
Cyprus, lent his money at forty-eight per cent. interest,[1] and no one
thought the worse of him for his Usury. Washington, the hero of American
freedom, bequeathed his slaves to his wife. It did not occur to him to
give them their liberty. Municipal jobbery is not unknown in New York;
and its influential citizens are said to be steeped to the lips in
political corruption. Mr. Mills says, that the people of the
North-Eastern States have apparently got rid of all social injustices
and inequalities; that the proportion of population to capital and land
is such as to ensure abundance for every able-bodied man; that they
enjoy the six points of the Charter, and need never complain of poverty.
Yet "all that these advantages have done for them is, that the life of
the whole of our sex is devoted to dollar-hunting; and of the other, to
breeding dollar-hunters. This," Mr. Mill adds, "is not a kind of social
perfection which philanthropists to come will feel any very eager desire
to assist in realizing."[2]
[Footnote 1: Cicero's Letters]
[Footnote 2: _Principles of Political Economy_, Book iv., ch. vi.]
Saladin the Great conquered Syria, Arabia, Persia, and Mesopotamia. He
was the greatest warrior and conqueror of his time. His power and wealth
were enormous. Yet he was fully persuaded of the utter hollowness of
riches. He ordered, by his will, that considerable sums should be
distributed to Mussulmans, Jews, and Christians, in order that the
priests of the three religions might implore for him the mercy of God.
He commanded that the shirt or tunic which he wore at the time of his
death should be carried on the end of a spear throughout the whole camp
and at the head of his army, and that the soldier who bore it should
pause at intervals and say aloud, "Behold all that remains of the
Emperor Saladin!--of all the states he had conquered; of all the
provinces he had subdued; of the boundless treasures he had amassed; of
the countless wealth he possessed, he retained, in dying, nothing but
this shroud!"
Don Jose de Salamanca, the great railway contractor of Spain, was, in
the early part of his life, a student at the University of Granada. He
there wore, as he himself says, the oldest and most worn of cassocks. He
was a diligent student; and after leaving college he became a member of
the Spanish press. From thence he was translated to the Cabinet of Queen
Christina, of which he became Finance Minister. This brought out his
commercial capacities, and induced him to enter on commercial
speculations. He constructed railways in Spain and Italy, and took the
principal share in establishing several steam-shipping companies. But
while pursuing commerce, he did not forget literature. Once a week he
kept an open table, to which the foremost men in literature and the
press were invited. They returned his hospitality by inviting him to a
dinner on the most economic scale. Busts of Shakespeare, Cervantes,
Dante, Schiller, and other literary men, adorned the room.
In returning thanks for his health, Salamanca referred to his university
experience, and to his labours in connection with the press. "Then," he
went on to say, "the love of gold took possession of my soul, and it was
at Madrid that I found the object of my adoration; but not, alas!
without the loss of my juvenile illusions. Believe me, gentlemen, the
man who can satisfy all his wishes has no more enjoyment. Keep to the
course you have entered on, I advise you. Rothschild's celebrity will
expire on the day of his death. Immortality can be earned, not bought.
Here are before us the effigies of men who have gloriously cultivated
liberal arts; their busts I have met with in every part of Europe; but
nowhere have I found a statue erected to the honour of a man who has
devoted his life to making money."
Riches and happiness have no necessary connection with each other. In
some cases it might be said that happiness is in the inverse proportion
to riches. The happiest part of most men's lives is while they are
battling with poverty, and gradually raising themselves above it. It is
then that they deny themselves for the sake of others,--that they save
from their earnings to secure a future independence,--that they
cultivate their minds while labouring for their daily bread,--that they
endeavour to render themselves wiser and better--happier in their homes
and more useful to society at large. William Chambers, the Edinburgh
publisher, speaking of the labours of his early years, says, "I look
back to those times with great pleasure, and I am almost sorry that I
have not to go through the same experience again; for I reaped more
pleasure when I had not a sixpence in my pocket, studying in a garret in
Edinburgh, than I now find when sitting amidst all the elegancies and
comforts of a parlour."
There are compensations in every condition of life. The difference in
the lot of the rich and the poor is not so great as is generally
imagined. The rich man has often to pay a heavy price for his
privileges. He is anxious about his possessions. He may be the victim of
extortion. He is apt to be cheated. He is the mark for every man's
shaft. He is surrounded by a host of clients, till his purse bleeds at
every pore. As they say in Yorkshire when people become rich, the money
soon "broddles through." Or, if engaged in speculation, the rich man's
wealth may fly away at any moment. He may try again, and then wear his
heart out in speculating on the "chances of the market." _Insomnia_ is a
rich man's disease. The thought of his winnings and losings keeps him
sleepless. He is awake by day, and awake by night. "Riches on the brain"
is full of restlessness and agony.
The rich man over-eats or over-drinks; and he has gout. Imagine a man
with a vice fitted to his toe. Let the vice descend upon the joint, and
be firmly screwed down. Screw it again. He is in agony. Then suddenly
turn the screw tighter--down, down! That is gout! Gout--of which
Sydenham has said, that "unlike any other disease, it kills more rich
men than poor, more wise than simple. Great kings, emperors, generals,
admirals, and philosophers, have died of gout. Hereby nature shows her
impartiality, since those whom she favours in one way, she afflicts in
another Or, the rich man may become satiated with food, and lose his
appetite; while the poor man relishes and digests anything. A beggar
asked alms of a rich man "because he was hungry." "Hungry?" said the
millionaire; "how I envy you!" Abernethy's prescription to the rich man
was, "Live upon a shilling a day, and earn it!" When the Duke of York
consulted him about his health, Abernethy's answer was, "Cut off the
supplies, and the enemy will soon leave the citadel." The labourer who
feels little and thinks less, has the digestion of an ostrich; while the
non-worker is never allowed to forget that he has a stomach, and is
obliged to watch every mouthful that he eats. Industry and indigestion
are two things seldom found united.
Many people envy the possessions of the rich, but will not pass through
the risks, the fatigues, or the dangers of acquiring them. It is related
of the Duke of Dantzic that an old comrade, whom he had not seen for
many years, called upon him at his hotel in Paris, and seemed amazed at
the luxury of his apartments, the richness of his furniture, and the
magnificence of his gardens. The Duke, supposing that he saw in his old
comrade's face a feeling of jealousy, said to him bluntly, "You may have
all that you see before you, on one condition." "What is that?" said his
friend. "It is that you will place yourself twenty paces off, and let me
fire at you with a musket a hundred times." "I will certainly not accept
your offer at that price." "Well," replied the Marshal, "to gain all
that you see before you, I have faced more than a thousand gunshots,
fired at not move than ten paces off."
The Duke of Marlborough often faced death. He became rich, and left a
million and a half to his descendants to squander. The Duke was a
penurious man. He is said to have scolded his servant for lighting four
candles in his tent, when Prince Eugene called upon him to hold a
conference before the battle of Blenheim. Swift said of the Duke, "I
dare hold a wager that in all his compaigns he was never known to lose
his baggage." But this merely showed his consummate generalship. When
ill and feeble at Bath, he is said to have walked home from the rooms to
his lodgings, to save sixpence. And yet this may be excused, for he may
have walked home for exercise. He is certainly known to have given a
thousand pounds to a young and deserving soldier who wished to purchase
a commission. When Bolingbroke was reminded of one of the weaknesses of
Marlborough, he observed, "He was so great a man, that I forgot that he
had that defect."
It is no disgrace to be poor. The praise of honest poverty has often
been sung. When a man will not stoop to do wrong, when he will not sell
himself for money, when he will not do a dishonest act, then his poverty
is most honourable. But the man is not poor who can pay his way, and
save something besides. He who pays cash for all that he purchases, is
not poor but well off. He is in a happier condition than the idle
gentleman who runs into debt, and is clothed, shod, and fed at the
expense of his tailor, shoemaker, and butcher. Montesquieu says, that a
man is not poor because he has nothing, but he is poor when he will not
or cannot work. The man who is able and willing to work, is better off
than the man who possesses a thousand crowns without the necessity for
working.
Nothing sharpens a man's wits like poverty. Hence many of the greatest
men have originally been poor men. Poverty often purifies and braces a
man's morals. To spirited people, difficult tasks are usually the most
delightful ones. If we may rely upon the testimony of history, men are
brave, truthful, and magnanimous, not in proportion to their wealth, but
in proportion to their smallness of means. And the best are often the
poorest,--always supposing that they have sufficient to meet their
temporal wants. A divine has said that God has created poverty, but He
has not created misery. And there is certainly a great difference
between the two. While honest poverty is honourable, misery is
humiliating; inasmuch as the latter is for the most part the result of
misconduct, and often of idleness and drunkenness. Poverty is no
disgrace to him who can put up with it; but he who finds the beggar's
staff once get warm in his hand, never does any good, but a great amount
of evil.
The poor are often the happiest of people--far more so than the rich;
but though they may be envied, no one will be found willing to take
their place. Moore has told the story of the over-fed, over-satisfied
eastern despot, who sent a messenger to travel through the world, in
order to find out the happiest man. When discovered, the messenger was
immediately to seize him, take his shirt off his back, and bring it to
the Caliph. The messenger found the happiest man in an Irishman,--happy,
dancing, and flourishing his shillelagh. But when the ambassador
proceeded to seize him, and undress him, he found that the Irishman had
got no shirt to his back!
The portion of Agur is unquestionably the best: "Remove far from me
vanity and lies; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food
convenient for me." The unequal distribution of the disposition to be
happy, is of far greater importance than the unequal distribution of
wealth. The disposition to be content and satisfied, said David Hume, is
at least equal to an income of a thousand a year. Montaigne has observed
that Fortune confers but little. Human good or ill does not depend upon
it. It is but the seed of good, which the soul, infinitely stronger than
wealth, changes and applies as it pleases, and is thus the only cause of
a happy or unhappy disposition.
England is celebrated for its charities. M. Guizot declares that there
is nothing in this land that so fills the mind of the stranger with
amazement at our resources, and admiration at our use of them, as the
noble free-gift monuments raised on every side for the relief of
multiform suffering. The home philanthropist, who looks a little deeper
than the foreign visitor, may be disposed to take another view of the
effects of money-giving. That charity produces unmixed good, is very
much questioned. Charity, like man, is sometimes blind, and frequently
misguided. Unless money is wisely distributed, it will frequently do
more harm than good. If charity could help or elevate the poor, London
would now be the happiest city in the world; for about three millions of
money are spent on charity, and about one in every three of the London
population are relieved by charitable institutions.
It is very easy to raise money for charity. Subscription lists
constantly attest the fact. A rich man is asked by some influential
person for money. It is very easy to give it. It saves time to give it.
It is considered a religious duty to give it. Yet to give money
unthinkingly, to give it without considering how it is to be
used,--instead of being for the good of our fellow-creatures,--may often
prove the greatest injury we could inflict upon them. True benevolence
does not consist in giving money. Nor can charitable donations, given
indiscriminately to the poor, have any other effect than to sap the
foundations of self-respect, and break down the very outworks of virtue
itself. There are many forms of benevolence which create the very evils
they are intended to cure, and encourage the poorer classes in the habit
of dependence upon the charity of others,--to the neglect of those far
healthier means of social well-being which lie within their own reach.
One would think that three million a year were sufficient to relieve all
the actual distress that exists in London. Yet the distress,
notwithstanding all the money spent upon it, goes on increasing. May not
the money spent in charity, create the distress it relieves,--besides
creating other distress which it fails to relieve? Uneducated and idle
people will not exert themselves for a living, when they have the hope
of obtaining the living without exertion. Who will be frugal and
provident, when charity offers all that frugality and providence can
confer? Does not the gift of the advantages, comforts, and rewards of
industry, without the necessity of labouring for them, tend to sap the
very foundations of energy and self-reliance? Is not the circumstance
that poverty is the only requisite qualification on the part of the
applicant for charity, calculated to tempt the people to
self-indulgence, to dissipation, and to those courses of life which keep
them poor?
Men who will not struggle and exert themselves, are those who are helped
first. The worst sort of persons are made comfortable: whilst the
hard-working, self-supporting man, who disdains to throw himself upon
charity, is compelled to pay rates for the maintenance of the idle.
Charity stretches forth its hand to the rottenest parts of society; it
rarely seeks out, or helps, the struggling and the honest. As Carlyle
has said, "O my astonishing benevolent friends! that never think of
meddling with the material while it continues sound; that stress and
strain it with new rates and assessments, till even it has given way and
declared itself rotten; whereupon you greedily snatch at it, and say,
'Now let us try to do some good upon it!'"
The charity which merely consists in giving, is an idle
indulgence--often an idle vice. The mere giving of money will never do
the work of philanthropy. As a recent writer has said, "The crimes of
the virtuous, the blasphemies of the pious, and the follies of the wise,
would scarcely fill a larger volume than the cruelties of the humane. In
this world a large part of the occupation of the wise has been to
neutralize the efforts of the good."
"Public charities," said the late Lord Lytton, "are too often merely a
bonus to public indolence and vice. What a dark lesson of the fallacy of
human wisdom does this knowledge strike into the heart! What a waste of
the materials of kindly sympathies! What a perversion individual
mistakes can cause, even in the virtues of a nation! Charity is a
feeling dear to the pride of the human heart--it is an aristocratic
emotion! Mahomet testified his deep knowledge of his kind when he
allowed the vice hardest to control,--sexual licentiousness; and
encouraged the virtue easiest to practise,--charity."[1]
[Footnote 1: LORD LYTTON--_England and the English_, p. 124.]
There are clergymen in London who say that charity acts against the
extension of religion amongst the people. The Rev. Mr. Stone says, "He
is an unwelcome visitor to the poor who brings the Bible in one hand,
without a loaf, a blanket, or a shilling in the other. And no wonder. By
the prevailing system of charitable relief they have been _nursed_ in
this carnal spirit; they have been justified in those selfish
expectations. Instead of being allowed to learn the great and salutary
lesson of providence, that there is a necessary connection between their
conduct and their condition, they have, by this artificial system, been
taught that indigence is _of itself_ sufficient to constitute a claim to
relief. They have been thus encouraged in improvidence, immorality,
fraud, and hypocrisy."
The truest philanthropists are those who endeavour to prevent misery,
dependence, and destitution; and especially those who diligently help
the poor to help themselves. This is the great advantage of the
"Parochial Mission-Women Association."[1] They bring themselves into
close communication with the people in the several parishes of London,
and endeavour to assist them in many ways. But they avoid giving
indiscriminate alms. Their objects are "to help the poor to help
themselves, and to raise them by making them feel that they _can_ help
themselves." There is abundant room for philanthropy amongst all
classes; and it is most gratifying to find ladies of high distinction
taking part in this noble work.
[Footnote 1: See _East and West_, edited by the Countess Spencer.]
There are numerous other societies established of late years, which
afford gratifying instances of the higher and more rational, as well as
really more Christian, forms of charity. The societies for improving the
dwellings of the industrial classes,--for building baths and
washhouses,--for establishing workmen's, seamen's, and servants'
homes,--for cultivating habits of providence and frugality amongst the
working-classes,--and for extending the advantages of knowledge amongst
the people,--are important agencies of this kind. These, instead of
sapping the foundations of self-reliance, are really and truly helping
the people to help themselves, and are deserving of every approbation
and encouragement. They tend to elevate the condition of the mass; they
are embodiments of philanthropy in its highest form; and are calculated
to bear good fruit through all time.
Rich men, with the prospect of death before them, are often very much
concerned about their money affairs. If unmarried and without
successors, they find a considerable difficulty in knowing what to do
with the pile of gold they have gathered together during their lifetime.
They must make a will, and leave it to somebody. In olden times, rich
people left money to pay for masses for their souls. Perhaps many do so
still. Some founded almshouses; others hospitals. Money was left for the
purpose of distributing doles to poor persons, or to persons of the same
name and trade as the deceased.
"These doles," said the wife of a clergyman in the neighbourhood of
London, "are doing an infinite deal of mischief: they are rapidly
pauperising the parish." Not long since, the town of Bedford was
corrupted and demoralized by the doles and benefactions which rich men
had left to the poorer classes. Give a man money without working for it,
and he will soon claim it as a right. It practically forbids him to
exercise forethought, or to provide against the vicissitudes of trade,
or the accidents of life. It not only breaks down the bulwarks of
independence, but the outposts of virtue itself.
Large sums of money are left by rich men to found "Charities." They wish
to do good, but in many cases they do much moral injury. Their
"Charities" are anything but charitable. They destroy the self-respect
of the working-classes, and also of the classes above them. "We can get
this charity for nothing. We can get medical assistance for nothing. We
can get our children educated for nothing. Why should we work? Why
should we save?" Such is the idea which charity, so-called, inculcates.
The "Charitable Institution" becomes a genteel poor-house; and the
lesson is extensively taught that we can do better by begging than by
working.
The bequeathment of Stephen Girard, the wealthy American merchant, was
of a different character. Girard was a native of Bordeaux. An orphan at
an early age, he was put on board a ship as a cabin boy. He made his
first voyage to North America when about ten or twelve years old. He had
little education, and only a limited acquaintance with reading and
writing. He worked hard. He gradually improved in means so that he was
able to set up a store. Whilst living in Water Street, New York, he fell
in love with Polly Luna, the daughter of a caulker. The father forbade
the marriage. But Girard persevered, and at length he won and married
Polly Lum. It proved a most unfortunate marriage. His wife had no
sympathy with him; and he became cross, snappish, morose. He took to sea
again; and at forty he commanded his own sloop, and was engaged in the
coasting trade between New York, Philadelphia, and New Orleans.
Then he settled in Philadelphia, and became a merchant. He devoted his
whole soul to his business; for he had determined to become rich. He
practised the most rigid economy. He performed any work by which money
could be made. He shut his heart against the blandishments of life. The
desire for wealth seems to have possessed his soul. His life was one of
unceasing labour. Remember, that Girard was unhappy at home. His nature
might have been softened, had he been blessed with a happy wife. He led
ten miserable years with her; and then she became insane. She lay for
about twenty years in the Pennsylvania hospital, and died there.
Yet there was something more than hardness and harshness in Girard.
There was a deep under-current of humanity in him. When the yellow fever
broke out in Philadelphia, in 1793, his better nature showed itself. The
people were smitten to death by thousands. Nurses could not be found to
attend the patients in the hospital. It was regarded as certain death to
nurse the sick.
"Wealth had no power to bribe, nor beauty to charm, the oppressor;
But all perished alike beneath the scourge of his anger;
Only, alas I the poor, who had neither friends nor attendants,
Crept away to die in the almshouse, home of the homeless."
It was at this time, when many were stricken with fever, that Girard
abandoned his business, and offered his services as superintendent of
the public hospital. He had Peter Helm for his associate. Girard's
business faculty immediately displayed itself. His powers of
organization were immense, and the results of his work were soon
observed. Order began to reign where everything had before been in
confusion. Dirt was conquered by cleanliness. Where there had been
wastefulness, there was now thriftiness. Where there had been neglect,
there was unremitting attention. Girard saw that every case was properly
attended to. He himself attended to the patients afflicted by the
loathsome disease, ministered to the dying, and performed the last kind
offices for the dead. At last the plague was stayed; and Girard and Helm
returned to their ordinary occupations.
The visitors of the poor in Philadelphia placed the following minute on
their books: "Stephen Girard and Peter Helm, members of the committee,
commiserating the calamitous state to which the sick may probably be
reduced for want of suitable persons to superintend the hospital,
voluntarily offered their services for that benevolent employment, and
excited a surprise and satisfaction that can be better conceived than
expressed."
The results of Stephen Girard's industry and economy may be seen in
Philadelphia--in the beautiful dwelling houses, row after row,--but more
than all, in the magnificent marble edifice of Girard College. He left
the greater part of his fortune for public purposes,--principally to
erect and maintain a public library and a large orphanage. It might have
been in regard to his own desolate condition, when cast an orphan
amongst strangers and foreigners, that he devised his splendid charity
for poor, forlorn, and fatherless children. One of the rooms in the
college is singularly furnished. "Girard had directed that a suitable
room was to be set apart for the preservation of his books and papers;
but from excess of pious care, or dread of the next-of kin, all the
plain homely man's effects were shovelled into this room. Here are his
boxes and his bookcase, his gig and his gaiters, his pictures and his
pottery; and in a bookcase, hanging with careless grace, are his
braces--old homely knitted braces, telling their tale of simplicity and
carefulness."[1]
[Footnote 1: _Gentleman's Magazine_, April. 1875. George Dawson on
"Niagara and Elsewhere."]
One of the finest hospitals in London is that founded by Thomas Guy, the
bookseller. He is said to have been a miser. At all events he must have
been a thrifty and saving man. No foundation such as that of Guy's can
be accomplished without thrift. Men who accomplish such things must deny
themselves for the benefit of others. Thomas Guy appears early to have
projected schemes of benevolence. He first built and endowed almshouses
at Tamworth for fourteen poor men and women, with pensions for each
occupant; and with a thoughtfulness becoming his vocation, he furnished
them with a library. He had himself been educated at Tamworth, where he
had doubtless seen hungry and homeless persons suffering from cleanness
of teeth and the winter's rage; and the almshouses were his contribution
for their relief. He was a bookseller in London at that time. Guy
prospered, not so much by bookselling, as by buying and selling South
Sea Stock. When the bubble burst, he did not hold a share: but he had
realized a profit of several hundred thousand pounds. This sum he
principally employed in building and endowing the hospital which bears
his name. The building was roofed in before his death, in 1724.
Scotch benefactors for the most part leave their savings for the purpose
of founding hospitals for educational purposes. There was first the
Heriot's Hospital, founded in Edinburgh by George Heriot, the goldsmith
of James I., for maintaining and educating a hundred and eighty boys.
But the property of the hospital having increased in value--the New Town
of Edinburgh being for the most part built on George Heriot's land--the
operations of the charity have been greatly extended; as many as four
thousand boys and girls being now educated free of expense, in different
parts of the city. There are also the George Watson's Hospital, the John
Watson's Hospital, the Orphan Hospital, two Maiden Hospitals, the
Cauven's Hospital, the Donaldson's Hospital, the Stewart's Hospital, and
the splendid Fettes College (recently opened),--all founded by Scottish
benefactors for the ordinary education of boys and girls, and also for
their higher education. Edinburgh may well be called the City of
Educational Endowments. There is also the Madras College, at St.
Andrews, founded by the late Andrew Bell, D.D.; the Dollar Institution,
founded by John Macrat; and the Dick Bequest, for elevating the
character and position of the parochial schools and schoolmasters, in
the counties of Aberdeen, Banff, and Moray. The effects of this last
bequest have been most salutary. It has raised the character of the
education given in the public schools, and the results have been
frequently observed at Cambridge, where men from the northern counties
have taken high honours in all departments of learning.
English benefactors have recently been following in the same direction.
The Owen's College at Manchester; the Brown Library and Museum at
Liverpool; the Whitworth Benefaction, by which thirty scholarships of
the annual value of £100 each have been founded for the promotion of
technical instruction; and the Scientific College at Birmingham, founded
by Sir Josiah Mason, for the purpose of educating the rising generation
in "sound, extensive, and practical scientific knowledge,"--form a
series of excellent institutions which will, we hope, be followed by
many similar benefactions. A man need not moulder with the green grass
over his grave, before his means are applied to noble purposes. He can
make his benefactions while living, and assist at the outset in carrying
out his liberal intentions.
Among the great benefactors of London, the name of Mr. Peabody, the
American banker, cannot be forgotten. It would take a volume to discuss
his merits, though we must dismiss him in a paragraph. He was one of the
first to see, or at all events to make amends for, the houseless
condition of the working classes of London. In the formation of railways
under and above ground, in opening out and widening new streets, in
erecting new public buildings,--the dwellings of the poor were
destroyed, and their occupants swarmed away, no one knew whither.
Perhaps they crowded closer together, and bred disease in many forms.
Societies and companies were formed to remedy the evil to a certain
extent. Sir Sydney Waterlow was one of the first to lead the way, and he
was followed by others. But it was not until Mr. Peabody had left his
splendid benefaction to the poor of London, that any steps could be
taken to deal with the evil on a large and comprehensive scale. His
trustees have already erected ranges of workmen's dwellings in many
parts of the metropolis,--which will from time to time be extended to
other parts. The Peabody dwellings furnish an example of what working
men's dwellings ought to be. They are clean, tidy, and comfortable
homes. They have diminished drunkenness; they have promoted morality.
Mr. Peabody intended that his bounty should "directly ameliorate the
condition and augment the comforts of the poor," and he hoped that the
results would "be appreciated, not only by the present, but by future
generations of the people of London." From all that the trustees have
done, it is clear that they are faithfully and nobly carrying out his
intentions.
All these benefactors of the poor were originally men of moderate means.
Some of them were at one time poor men. Sir Joseph Whitworth was a
journeyman engineer with Mr. Clement, in Southwark, the inventor of the
planing machine. Sir Josiah Mason was by turns a costermonger,
journeyman baker, shoemaker, carpet weaver, jeweller, split-steel ring
maker (here he made his first thousand pounds), steel-pen maker,
copper-smelter, and electro-plater, in which last trade he made his
fortune. Mr, Peabody worked his way up by small degrees, from a clerk in
America to a banker in London. Their benefactions have been the result
of self-denial, industry, sobriety, and thrift.
Benevolence throws out blossoms which do not always ripen into fruit. It
is easy enough to project a benevolent undertaking, but more difficult
to carry it out. The author was once induced to take an interest in a
proposed Navvy's Home; but cold water was thrown upon the project, and
it failed. The navvy workmen, who have made the railways and docks of
England, are a hard-working but a rather thriftless set. They are
good-hearted fellows, but sometimes drunken. In carrying out their
operations, they often run great dangers. They are sometimes so
seriously injured by wounds and fractures as to be disabled for life.
For instance, in carrying out the works of the Manchester, Sheffield,
and Lincolnshire Railway, there were twenty-two cases of compound
fractures seventy-four simple fractures, besides burns from blasts,
severe contusions, lacerations, and dislocations. One man lost both his
eyes by a blast, another had his arm broken by a blast. Many lost their
fingers, feet, legs, and arms; which disabled them for further work.
Knowing the perils to which railway labourers were exposed, it occurred
to a late eminent contractor to adopt some method for helping and
comforting them in their declining years. The subject was brought under
the author's notice by his friend the late Mr. Eborall, in the following
words: "I have just been visiting a large contractor--a man of great
wealth; and he requests your assistance in establishing a 'Navvy's
Home.' You know that many of the contractors and engineers, who have
been engaged in the construction of railways, are men who have
accumulated immense fortunes: the savings of some of them amount to
millions. Well, my friend the contractor not long since found a
miserable, worn-out old man in a ditch by the roadside. 'What,' said he,
'is that you?' naming the man in the ditch by his name. 'Ay,' replied
the man, ''deed it is!' 'What are you doing there?' 'I have come here to
die. I can work no more.' 'Why don't you go to the workhouse? they will
attend to your wants there.' 'No! no workhouse for me! If I am to die, I
will die in the open air.' The contractor recognized in the man one of
his former navvies. He had worked for him and for other contractors many
years; and while they had been making their fortunes, the navvy who had
worked for them had fallen so low as to be found dying in a ditch. The
contractor was much affected. He thought of the numerous other navvies
who must be wanting similar help. Shortly after, he took ill, and during
his illness, thinking of what he might do for the navvies, the idea
occurred to him of founding a 'Navvy's Home;' and he has desired me to
ask you to assist him in bringing out the institution."
It seemed to the author an admirable project, and he consented to do all
that he could for it. But when the persons who were the most likely to
contribute to such an institution were applied to, they threw such
floods of cold water upon it,[1] that it became evident, in the face of
their opposition, that "The Navvy's Home" could not be established. Of
course, excuses were abundant. "Navvies were the most extravagant
workmen. They threw away everything that they earned. They spent their
money on beer, whisky, tally-women, and champagne. If they died in
ditches, it was their own fault. They might have established themselves
in comfort, if they wished to do so. Why should other people provide for
them in old age, more than for any other class of labourers? There was
the workhouse: let them go there." And so on. It is easy to find a stick
to beat a sick dog. As for the original projector, he recovered his
health, he forgot to subscribe for "The Navvy's Home," and the scheme
fell to the ground.
"The devil was sick, the devil a saint would be:
The devil grew well, the devil a saint was he.'
[Footnote 1: With one admirable exception. A noble-hearted man, still
living volunteered a very large subscription towards the establishment
of "the Navvy's Home."]