We have come to look upon the poor beggar as a nuisance; upon the man who
comes to our doors for food or clothes as one who has no claim upon our
charity. The common beggar is, as a rule, a worthless character, but let
us be fair to him. He asks for but little; seldom for more than a bite, or
for a few pennies. The poor beggar has only himself to enforce his appeal,
and often he is an injury to his own cause. A dirty, ragged, vice-stained
wreck of humanity is a poor argument to offer for sympathy or help. The
man who begs in the name of man, and with that name rubbed in the dirt
besides, gets little for his asking.
We do not like any beggars, but we need to understand that it is not the
man in rags, who asks for a piece of bread or meat, that is the only
beggar in the world. There is another and more dangerous beggar that we
open our doors to, and treat with politeness and respect, and whose
appeals we honor; it is the well-dressed beggar who asks for the money
which the arm of labor has coined from its strength, who takes not pennies
where he can get dollars, and who enforces his appeal with the name of
God; it is the ecclesiastical beggar, whose hand is stretched out to take
the earnings of toil, or the profits of trade; whose hand would as soon
take little from poverty as plenty from affluence.
The rich beggar is a worse enemy to society and to the nation than the
poor beggar. It is the priest, and not the tramp, whose begging we need to
scorn. The man who asks for food in the name of hunger, for help in the
name of want, makes, at least, an honest appeal to our generosity, but the
man who begs in the name of God is an impostor. The tramp’s appeal is the
truth—the priest’s is a lie. God never yet commissioned a human being to
beg for him, and the person who uses the divine name to enforce his demand
is little better than a thief.
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In the paths of our life may be seen the footprints of our ancestors.
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If you are poor, be thankful that you have the power of bettering your
circumstances by bettering yourself; if you are rich, do not forget that
you have the means of doing good, a luxury that is too seldom indulged.
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Men need nothing so much to-day as self-reliance; courage to stand up
manfully for the right, all alone, without prop or pay, daring everything
for an idea, counting not the cost, but seeing only the grand result which
would follow its triumph and working for that with single purpose and
courageous fidelity.