John Coakley Lettsom

“ This, however, is gradually incurred; the first step towards poverty, with only trivial aid applied in the instant, is easily reclaimed, and the progressive descent prevented; but as distress encreases, the difficulty of obviating it is augmented: it is, therefore, of the utmost importance to the community to close the wound, on the first application, with the oil and the honey, before it cankers; and becomes incurable. ”

“ Indeed our happiness requires us to make this part of our fellow creatures happy, as there is no possibility of intentionally rendering others happy without rendering ourselves so; neither is it possible to procure happiness for ourselves, without first procuring it for others—Happiness, therefore, is reciprocal, and is of all things the most easily purchased ”

“ It is this kind of attention to the first appearances of wants that enables a religious society to boast, that there is not one distressed person in their community unnoticed or unrelieved. I have often lamented that such a system of conduct, which has uniformly succeeded for upwards of a century, has not been adopted more generally in parishes. ”

“ When the present exigencies of the times are considered, it is not a matter of surprize, that a poor man, with a large family, from want of employment, or by the visitation of sickness, should be reduced to extreme indigence. ”

“ As the distress of many of the poor throughout the nation, and particularly in the metropolis, has encreased from various causes to extreme misery, a disposition to beneficence has been proportionally excited in those of superior situations ”