Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright

“ We might not think it remarkable that labor and sacrifices, and self-denial, should be encouraged [6] by the hope of reward; but even the delightful offices of mercy and charity will be remunerated, and heavenly blessings will hereafter be showered upon the heads of those who may now be enjoying the luxury of doing good. Surely I address myself to those who know that there is a pleasure in deeds of beneficence,—a pleasure the noblest and most delightful of which our nature is susceptible. ”

“ You will remember those, who have been for ever cut off from the sweetest pleasures of life; whose lips have never learned to say—"father"—"mother,"—and to behold the countenances of these dearest friends lighten up with joy at the sound, and their arms extended for the fond embrace. ”

“ The Institution has descended to you, the successors as it were of a blessed company who are now we trust, in communion with that Saviour, whose precepts of benevolence they so faithfully fulfilled, and with that blessed company of the spirits of the just made perfect, who now surround the throne of God and the Lamb. You need not our exhortation that you should walk worthy of their example, but you will not reject our devout wishes and prayers, that an equal measure of success may attend your future labors, and that a heavenly and eternal reward may hereafter crown them. ”

“ Can he be ignorant that it is God who has filled his basket and his store, who has given the genial heat and refreshing showers to his harvest, and guarded them from blasting and mildew, who has commanded the favoring winds to blow upon his richly freighted vessels, and has saved them from rocks and tempests, who has bestowed upon him his powers of mind, and afforded him health and opportunity to employ them? ”

“ We are all the stewards and almoners of Providence, and a rigid account will be demanded of those means which were given to us in trust [16] for the purposes of beneficence. Let the rich man ask himself by what means he has been prospered in life, and inhabits the splendid or the commodious habitation, while another has been condemned to eat the bitter bread of poverty. He may reply that he has been industrious and provident, that he has passed a life of anxious labor to amass the wealth or the competency he enjoys. ”

“ He who is not aware of the deceptions which are constantly practised by many of the poor, and of the injudicious modes which are often adopted for relieving their wants, must have had but small experience in this duty. Sound judgment is required, and without it a liberal and active charity may produce evil rather than good. Evil to the community, not to the benevolent individual. If our alms are given with proper motives, we shall not fail of our reward from our Heavenly Father, though we fail of doing the good we intended. We are often deceived ”

“ Yes—painful as may be some of those walks of charity which the christian must pursue, and revolting as are some of those objects which he must encounter, we know that there are paths for the benevolent where their footsteps fall pleasantly, and a refreshing fragrance surrounds them, and smiling objects meet them, and satisfactions the most delightful, urge them forward. ”

“ As the author of our being, the creator and preserver of our means of existence, and our sources of happiness, he has an unqualified right to our constant obedience and our best services. Yet he treats us as if we were in a measure independent of him, and as if our faculties and possessions were an underived property, for he demands of us no duty or sacrifice for which he does not offer an abundant remuneration. And even to the performance of those duties which are in themselves a source of gratification to the well regulated mind, the inducements are greatly increased by appendant promises. ”

“ Beneficence should not be merely the overflowing of a generous heart. This would be an unsafe and uncertain ground on which to place the principle of charitable distribution. Interesting objects indeed might not suffer from it, the orphan, the afflicted widow, decayed and broken age. Cold and insensible must be the heart that could shut up its sympathies from such petitioners. True beneficence however, cannot always be a delight. ”

“ If the grand principle can be established in your breasts, that you are to do good not simply because you delight in this work, but because the dictates of justice and the laws of God require you to be charitable, will you not be preserved from the indiscretions of a heated benevolence on the one hand, and from the cruelty and consequent punishment of selfishness and avarice on the other? ”

“ Our religion is emphatically the religion of love. Love is the end of the commandment, the perfection of the christian character, and the most acceptable offering we can present to Almighty God. Upon this principle the poor have a claim,—a claim stronger than human law could establish upon their fellow men. ”

“ We doubt not your benevolence, we know that the orphan can never plead to you in vain, we believe that your hearts will ever be enlarged in proportion to the urgency of the claims of the Institution. Its necessities must of course increase with our rapidly increasing population, and be assured it can well and judiciously [26] employ all the bounty you will bestow upon it. Should it be possible for any one here present to feel cold and indifferent to the claims of this Institution, I would say, realize the pitiable condition of an orphan infant. ”

“ And when we feel called upon to relieve one who asks for charity, let us not do it as though our alms were extorted. There are those who in performing an act of kindness, yet do it so ungraciously, that it is felt to be no kindness. And there are on the other hand those, who in giving a refusal, yet give it without causing pain—sometimes even they communicate pleasure by showing sympathy where they cannot administer relief. The phrase in my text expresses admirably the influence of such amiable conduct. ”

“ It will produce a fuller and healthier developement of the christian character than can be brought out where the ranks in life are kept in a state of separation by the stern despotism of artificial distinctions, where there are no opportunities of passing from one to the other the softening influence of sympathizing feelings, and where on the one side pride, luxury and selfishness are nurtured, and on the other, envy, hatred and discontent. Were the custom I recommend universally adopted amongst a christian people, would not extreme distress from poverty be almost banished from amongst us? ”

“ I know that the avocations of business in a mercantile community are oftentimes urgent, and that time is more valuable than the small contribution by which exemption from actual labor [11] in the cause of charity may be procured. Still however, the truly benevolent man will not refuse his personal exertions when he is convinced they can be serviceable, and the sacrifices he makes and the interest he feels in the work in which he is engaged, will afford him pleasures that the passively generous can never comprehend. ”

“ To you who are parents and are watching over your growing offspring, and can imagine how bitter would be your distress at the thought of being torn from them—remember, that these are destitute of a father's protection and a mother's anxious love. ”

“ All these are essential features of true christian beneficence.
1. To give of our money, is perhaps, the very least praise-worthy part, and certainly the part of easiest performance in the way of charity. Many there are who yield to the solicitation of an object of distress, or to an application from the agent of some charitable society merely that they may escape from painful importunity. Others again, who feel and acknowledge the obligation of sharing a portion of their wealth with the poor, are yet glad to appease the monitions of conscience at the least expense of time and thought. ”

“ We can sometimes give, and pleasure shall accompany the act, and unmingled good shall follow it, and gratitude shall reward it, and God himself shall crown it with the brightest wreath. Say I not true when I speak of giving to the destitute orphan? ”

“ Let every benevolent individual in our community then come forward and give this system his countenance and pecuniary support; and let all resolve by a united effort to do away the baleful influence of a tolerated pauperism, by detecting and discountenancing every vicious and unworthy applicant for charity, and by industriously searching out and promptly relieving every real and deserving object of distress. ”

“ A phrase more expressive, could not be selected to describe an ardent and enlightened beneficence. A liberal hand, signifies merely generosity in giving, but a bountiful eye implies not simply this, but also industry in looking about for objects of distress, and discrimination in the mode of relieving them, and tenderness and kind expressions accompanying our charities. ”

“ To some extent this has been the effect of alms-houses, and of many of those societies which, with the best intentions, have been administered to adult persons. We acknowledge, indeed, that protection, shelter, and subsistence for the aged and decrepit, who are past the ability to labor for their own daily food, medicine and medical advice, and in cases of absolute poverty, the retreat of the hospital, are real charities, such as suffering humanity requires, and pure benevolence will provide for. ”

“ Surely then the thoughtful and conscientious man will esteem his possessions, not so much a right which he has obtained as a trust committed to him, and he will acknowledge that the strictest justice approves what religion emphatically demands, that with a bountiful eye we should look upon the poor and destitute. ”

“ He that hasteth to be rich hath an evil eye, and considereth not that poverty shall come upon him. [2] In the book of Deuteronomy too where the law of conduct towards the poor is laid down, and the rich are commanded not to take advantage of their necessities we read—If there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren, within any of thy gates, in thy land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thine hand, from thy poor brother. ”

“ Perhaps the most discriminating mode of exercising charity, and one which, if generally adopted, would almost preclude the necessity for giving to unknown objects would be this. Let all persons desirous of performing works of mercy from christian principle, make an estimate of what they ought to contribute from the stores with which God has favored them. ”

“ As you look upon your own offspring, and reflect with gratitude that you are yet preserved to watch over their tender infancy and dependant youth, and as you pray that you may still shelter them until they can withstand the storms and adversities of life, think how you may repay your Almighty Benefactor in the persons of those, who are also his children ”

“ Ye also, who have experienced, and perhaps still enjoy, the watchful care and affectionate caresses of devoted parents, forget not that there are those, who have never rejoiced in the sound of a father's voice, or a mother's gentle embraces. ”

“ Asylums for the destitute orphan are among those institutions which even the severe, and in some respects, the cold and selfish principles of Political Economy cannot justly disapprove of. To the truly [21] benevolent, and to the pious christian, they have always been, and must ever be, objects of deep interest. Other charities may be perverted in some degree to evil purposes. Their effect may be to encourage idle and dissolute conduct, and to increase the evil they would remedy, by operating as a bounty upon pauperism. ”

“ Your children are yet around you, and you watch over them, but you cannot pierce into the solemn darkness of futurity—they may yet be helpless, parentless, friendless,—as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. ”

“ It should only excite us to greater caution. The common applicants at our doors and in our streets, are in general, [12] undeserving of the alms which they entreat. This however, is by no means uniformly their character, for I have known the most worthy objects, those whom modesty and a laudable pride had restrained, until acute distress had fairly driven them forth to seek needful comforts for the destitute sick, or perhaps, bread for their famishing children. We must not, with cruel indifference, drive such away in the common herd of undeserving beggars. ”

“ Its object is not merely to search out the sick and needy and to relieve them, but also to investigate the claims of any applicants for charity that may be recommended to it, and thus to prevent impositions as far as practicable. Every family that has not time to disburse its charities under the superintendence of its own members, should be in communication with this Board. Measures are now in progress to organize a system, which shall render this Institution more effective even than it has yet been, in accomplishing the important purposes for which it was established. ”

“ He will cheerfully yield a portion of his time as well as of his wealth to the work of charity. Remembering who hath set him the example of going about doing good, he will not remain inactive upon his station, and give only to him that asketh, he will in person seek out the habitations of distress, or will at least aid with his counsels and labors some of those benevolent societies, which are now established in every christian land. ”