August 14

“Whoever determines to seek the cure of the world’s woes in the simple endeavours to follow the life and teaching of Christ, believing Him to be the living link between God and man, must be content to be considered hopelessly orthodox and poky and behind the age by aspiring young spirits, and must regard ‘the reproach of Christ’ as a very small fragment of the crown of thorns. I rejoice more and more every day that I am called to live in close fellowship with the poor and the ignorant, and to contribute ever so little to the feeding of the secret springs from which the regenerative forces of society proceed. Those springs are fed by a million drops, and perhaps a single individual life can only contribute one drop; but it is in this slow obscure way, I believe, that the world is to be renewed. Only let us be sure that we give our drop. Mine might have been much fuller, if I had better used my opportunities.”

E. S. A.

“Let us be content in work
To do the thing we can, and not presume
To fret because it’s little.”

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

August 13

“And then, lastly, the rich men, rich in character, must know that no man can give character to other men without self-sacrifice. Labour, personal effort, personal intercourse with the poor, these must come in before the work can be done. You cannot do your duty to the poor by a society, your life must touch their life. You try to work solely by a society, and what does it come to? Is it not the old story of the book of Samuel? The traveller appeals to you, and you spare to take of your own thought and time and sympathy to give to the wayfaring man that is come to you. They are too precious, you say. ‘There is thought, time, sympathy, down at the charity bureau to which I have a right by virtue of a contribution I have made, go down and get a ticket’s worth of that.’

“The poor are always with us. The wayfarers come to us continually, and they do not come by chance. God sends them. And as they come with their white faces and their poor shuffling feet, they are our judges. Not merely by whether we give, but by how we give, and by what we give, they judge us. One man sends them entirely away. Another drops a little easy, careless, unconscientious money into their hands. Another man washes and clothes. Another man teaches them lessons. Thank God there are some men and women here and there, full of the power of the Gospel, who cannot rest satisfied till they have opened their very hearts, and given the poor wayfaring men the only thing which really is their own, themselves, their faith, their energy, their hope in God. Of such true charity-givers, may He who gave Himself for us increase the multitude among us every day.”

PHILLIPS BROOKS

August 12

“The first thing that men must do in order that they may really, thoroughly relieve the poor, is to profoundly recognise that there can be no complete and permanent relief, until not merely men who have money shall have given it to men who have no money, but until men who have character shall have given it to men who are deficient in that last and only real possession. Not till you make men self-reliant, intelligent, and fond of struggle, fonder of struggle than of mere help – not till then have you relieved poverty. If you could give every poor man in this town of ours a house, a wardrobe, and a balance in the bank tomorrow, do you think there would not be poor men and rich men here among us still? There must be, so long as there are some men with the spirit of independence, the light of intelligence, and the love of struggle; and other men who have none of those things, which make the only true riches of a manly man. And the second thing is this, the rich men of our community must be truly rich themselves, or they can have nothing worth giving to the poor, nothing with which they can permanently help their poorer brethren. Only a class of men independent, intelligent, and glorying in struggle themselves, can really send independence, intelligence, and the dignity of struggle, down through a whole city’s life. This is the reason why your selfish and idle rich man, who has neither of these great human properties, does nothing for the permanent help of poverty. The money which he gives is no symbol. It means nothing. O, let us be sure that the first necessity for giving the poor man character is that the rich man should have character to give him.

August 11

“This is true philanthropy, that buries not its gold in ostentatious charity, but builds its hospital in the human heart.”

HARLEY

“In his day men gave themselves, not a guinea, when an appeal was made. Love had not then found out that it could buy itself off for an annual subscription; it was mad enough to toil and suffer in the heat of the day. Only spiritual insolvents think of compounding with God for a guinea when they owe him their whole life.”

Dr. PARKER

“I am more and more convinced that the best of institutions must be a poor apology for all of us doing our duty to our neighbour as he comes along; though our diseased state needs them – as we needed Christ to die.”

E. B. BAYLY

August 10

“Charity too is a frightful evil – not real charity but subscription charity. Every human being has scope enough for all the money and all the effort he can spare in behalf of misfortunes which are known to himself personally, or to members of his home-circle. The gigantic subscription lists which are vaunted as signs of our benevolence, are monuments of our indifference.
. . . . . . . . . . .
“I am beginning seriously to believe that all bodily aid to the poor is a mistake, and that the real thing is to let themselves straight; whereas by giving alms you keep them permanently crooked. Build school-houses, pay teachers, give prizes, frame workmen’s clubs, help them to hep themselves, lend them your brains; but give them no money, except what you sink in such undertakings as above.”

ED. DENISON

“He gives nothing but worthless gold
Who gives from a sense of duty.
. . . . . .
The Holy Supper is kept indeed,
In whatso we share with another’s need;
Not what we give; but what we share,
For the gift without the giver is bare;
Who gives himself with his alms feeds three,
Himself, his hungering neighbour and Me.”

LOWELL

August 9

“Speaking roughly, we might say that the characteristic difference between ancient and modern philanthropy is that the former aims at curing, while the latter aims at preventing; the former is moral, the latter intellectual as well as moral. Thus if it was the task of the early Christians to relieve disease, it is ours to use our new knowledge of sanitary laws for the prevention of disease; if it was theirs to assist the poor, it is ours to destroy the causes of pauperism; if it was the privilege of the first disciples in one emotional shock to convert a sinner from darkness to light by the mere mention of the name of Jesus, it is our less startling duty to remove from our poorer brethren the irresistible temptations to crime, taught by sad experience, that the want of food frequently means the want of spiritual as well as bodily strength, and the absence of education means the presence of brutality, and the absence of the physical decencies of life means the presence of moral indecency; and, in a word, that man’s unpitied misery means Satan’s opportunity.”

E. A. ABBOTT

“Sanitary reform in itself may mean nothing more than better drainage, fresher air, freer light, more abundant water; to the ‘Governor among the nations’ it means lessened impossibility that men should live to Him.”

J. C. BROWN, from Ethics of George Eliot