Needy

“ Therefore shall a strong people praise thee, the city of mighty nations shall fear thee.
25:4. Because thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress: a refuge from the whirlwind, a shadow from the heat. For the blast of the mighty is like a whirlwind beating against a wall.
25:5. Thou shalt bring down the tumult of strangers, as heat in thirst: and as with heat under a burning cloud, thou shalt make the branch of the mighty to wither away. ”

“ Give the king Thy judgments, O God, And Thy righteousness unto the king's son; 2That he may judge Thy people with righteousness, And Thy poor with justice. 3Let the mountains bear peace to the people, And the hills, through righteousness. 4May he judge the poor of the people, And save the children of the needy, And crush the oppressor. 5They shall fear Thee while the sun endureth, And so long as the moon, throughout all generations. ”

“ His Vizier answered, 'When human means fail, it is then that we must rely on Heaven, for often these evils are sent to remind us of our dependence on Him who alone holds power. Fast, therefore, and pray, and perform ablutions, and when that is done make a great banquet, and call to it the poor and needy ”

“ To be in need of has a melancholy sound, because it in effect amounts to this—he had, but he has not; he regrets, he looks back upon, he wants. Such are, I suppose, the distresses of one who is in need of. Is he deprived of eyes? to be blind is misery. Is he destitute of children? not to have them is misery. ”

“ What is more satisfactory to the human heart than to be needed and to know we are needed? One line in the Book of Chronicles, when I read it, flies up at me out of the printed page as though it were alive, conveying newly the age-old agony of a misplaced man. ”

“ Tell me, is not poverty a kind of madness, an obsession that haunts you night and day? To puzzle, at every hour, how to meet this demand and how to shun that one; to deny yourself the necessities of life, and your friends those poor little pleasures that you are yearning to bestow upon them—is it not a mental malady, a fever ”

“ What contribution have you or I given to human comfort or progress? Our days have been spent in vanity, emptiness, self-indulgence, and waste of good time. Each one of these poor girls in a single day has rendered up a nobler tale of work than you or I in ten years. ”

“ Our present state, like his, is God's appointment, and only for a season; and the discipline of sorrow and conflict may be no less needful for us than it was for him, and the result no less a blessing.
How much worldly good is necessary for any of us? how much wealth, honor, happiness? Most of our wants are artificial and unreal. We create them, or imagine them, and then complain that they are not supplied. Our first needs—our only absolute needs—are food and raiment ”

“ By needs I mean longings, especially for things the failure to obtain which is accompanied by pain; such are the desires, for instance, love; also those which arise in bodily sufferings and dangers, for when a man is in pain or danger he desires something. That is why those who help a man who is poor or an exile, even if the service be ever so small, are regarded with favor owing to the urgency and occasion of the need ”

“ If certain things are more necessary to you than me—search for them—Say but one word, and you shall never hear of me more.—If not—for God’s sake, let us struggle with poverty—with any evil, but these continual inquietudes of business, which I have been told were to last but a few months, though every day the end appears more distant! ”

“ Many a poor creature, dis- couraged and heart-sick, as well as miserably poor of this world's goods, could testify to the ministration to both bodily and spiritual needs; and scores in want of employment or perhaps unfitted to their present employment could tell of a changed burden, that from its lightness and because it better fitted their shoulders seemed no burden at all. ”

“ My God, sir, can you be a gentleman, and subject a half dying woman to more of that fatigue which hath brought her to this pass—and on a night of such weather? If my voice has strength, 'tis the strength of desperation, which impels me to beg pity at your hands in mine hour of bitter illness! ”

“ Not that the boy understood all he read, but he imbibed its influence, and clasping his large brow within his palms, he would weigh and consider, and feel, within that narrow room, where poverty still lingered—though then, with their simple and few wants, rather as a shadow than a substance—and his heart throbbing as he thought, “What shall I do to be great?” ”

“ But this sparkling sensibility to one struggling under infirmity, or with grief or poverty, is very dreadful. The soul is too nicely and keenly hinged to be wrenched without mischief. How it shrinks, like a hurt child, from all that is vulgar, harsh and crude! ”

“ Reg. What need one?
Lear. O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous.
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man's life is cheap as beast's. Thou art a lady:
If only to go warm were gorgeous,
Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st
Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But, for true need-
You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need!
You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,
As full of grief as age; wretched in both.
If it be you that stirs these daughters' hearts
Against their father, fool me not so much
To bear it tamely ”

“ There are the miseries and wants of others to be lessened or relieved, calamity to be mitigated, the pale and throbbing brow of sickness to be cooled, the heart of the poor and neglected to be sustained and cheered, and the limbs of the weary to be clothed and rested. ”

“ For when the urgency of her need rang through the silence, calling on life, that Life per se should show itself to those who knew it not, that the sight of it should baptize this household into fitness for the Herculean-labors of this epoch, she knew trusted helpers then, with an under-lift, had upborne her and hers into participation with all-creative bliss. ”

“ It's not a question of absolute power or divine right—simply that my people come first, even before myself; my own world is part of me, and I am part of it by nature and instinct. Its needs are my needs. When my people are hungry, I feel the pangs. ”

“ But if ever—in distress, peril, shame, poverty, or whatever anguish is most poignant, whatever burden heaviest—you should require a life to be given wholly, only to make your own a little easier, then summon me! ”

“ I take it for granted, Father, that you expect to remain with your people no matter what may come to them? I believe that the more need they may have of you, the more anxious you will be to serve them. ”

“ The common burden of life we have, indeed, all to bear—and they are not very gracious or lovely souls who seek to put it off on others—but for this additional burden, this burden of "being consistent" and having a "strong character," does it seem very wise, in so brief an interval, to put the stress just there? ”

“ You had an opportunity this year to have ministered to the wants of the poor widow, the orphan, the sick, the afflicted and distressed, but these opportunities are now gone, and gone forever. If neglected, there is no remedy; that neglect remains forever. ”

“ ENNUI AND PLAY.—Necessity compels us to work, with the product of which the necessity is appeased ; the ever new awakening of necessity, however, accustoms us to work. But in the intervals in which necessity is appeased and asleep, as it were, we are attacked by ennui. ”

“ Before we talk of equality of pain, which is, in nine cases out often, only a selfish and indolent excuse for neglect, let us contrast a high and a low position together. On one side is protection, instruction, and pleasure; on the other is neglect, ignorance and hardship. Here, wants are invented to become luxuries ”

“ Yes, and moreover, this great body of enthusiastic demanders are no mere poor and helpless people, ignorant fisher-peasants, half-mad monks, scatter-brained sansculottes—none of those, in short, the expression of whose needs has shaken the world so often before, and will do yet again. ”

“ To fulfil the poorest necessities of our being, we must be his children in brain and heart, in body and soul and spirit, in obedience and hope and gladness and love—his out and out, beyond all that tongue can say, mind think, or heart desire. ”

“ How do you know that he is not some poor, kindly hearted creature, the father of five children, one of them a baby, perhaps? How can you tell the difficulties by which he gains his living, and the hazard to which he exposes his life in doing so? ”

“ To another, long wretched with the poverty which comes of ill-doing, and the neglect which follows hopeless struggle, had come comfort, and at most times plenty, or contentment with little when plenty failed. ”

“ We must say something to appeal to your pity, and the unvarnished tale of our life is too long and too dry, and not likely to excite your sympathy.” All this is true, but what is to be done to alleviate or to cure this terrible evil of poverty and beggary? ”

“ If I am to live, I shall need, above all things, a friend, and a very patient and helpful one, or else my burden will be heavier than I can carry. I have told you about my parents, and you thus know what I must look forward to in my own home. ”

“ If he has lifted in part the burden of the "always poor," making their pathway less rugged, he has saved from the darker fate of sudden and heavy misfortune, the delicate and tenderly reared woman, and the noble, high minded man. ”

“ Observing their moods, their vanities, their sanities, their affectional needs, I have seen how absolutely impossible it is to balance up the socalled needs of life in any satisfactory manner, or to establish an order which, however seemingly secure for the time being, will not in the end dry rot or decay. ”

“ For all poverty, loneliness, helplessness, repulsiveness, and every form of weakness and misfortune, especially for those worst misfortunes that come from one’s own imprudence or misdoing, he shall have sympathy and help. ”

“ From this supreme gift we can argue down to the humblest necessities, the commonest trials of our daily lot. It adapts itself to the small anxieties of a struggling household, equally with the largest demands of our exacting age. ”

“ Though here, too, as with bodily needs, I believe one ought to be content either to 'abound' or to 'suffer need,' as God may appoint for us. Besides," he added, "that which is the greatest help to one, is not always helpful to another. ”

“ Why, when there are so many crying wants of a coarser nature to be satisfied, do you desire to create needs for our less gifted brothers? Why show them what they lack, when, after they have with difficulty learned to feel their needs, you can only give them such very doubtful assistance? ”

“ The poor fellow had for a moment, forgetful of his soul's welfare, indulged the harmless pleasure of looking out on the entrancing world of sense, when he should have been moodily contemplating his own inner state. ”

“ Simple weariness of the burden which he has not strength of body or mind to carry and ought never to have assumed is one attitude to be reckoned with, and failure to realize or in his heart accept the binding nature of his obligations is another. ”

“ In all human probability, this is the last time I shall have an opportunity of offering you, collectively, advice. I hope in God you will not stand in need of it.—That you may set an example worthy to be imitated by those who are to come after you, is, believe me, the most anxious wish of my heart. ”

“ And if other people are terribly poor, or chronic invalids, or anything desperate like that, she says that they have a temperament that makes up, or that we can only see the present, and not life as a whole... ”

“ At seven years of age, instead of wrangling with bad boys, you would pace soberly along the street saying over your catechism; and all the poor people you came across you insisted on bringing home with you to relieve their needs, till I was forced to whip you to break you of the habit. ”

“ Without being impudent enough to attempt to use the sufferer's mind for him, to force our wills upon him, to take his burdens off his shoulders, to fill his place or to assume his responsibilities, we must try to help him in all these respects, largely by the kind of sympathy which stimulates, the kind of affection which encourages, the affection which changes useless brooding, ineffectual worrying, destructive grieving, into their opposites. ”

“ To whom is it of any real consequence whether or not I continue to fill a place in the world? I hope that involuntary uselessness will not be imputed, and that we may say, ‘They also serve who only stand and wait.’” A fellow-worker of the same sex, but made of sterner stuff, in the dedication of a book written in illness, tells her friend, “You know, as well as I, how withering would be the sense of our own nothingness, if we tried to take comfort from our own dignity and usefulness.” ”

“ My young friend, I easily perceive that you are put out by this Burden which you bear upon your shoulders. I am indeed surprised that one so intelligent should take such a matter so ill. What! Do you not know that burdens are the common lot of humanity? I myself, though you may little suspect it, bear a burden far heavier than yours, though, true, it is invisible, and not strapped on to my shoulders by gross material thongs of leather, as is yours. ”

“ Ardent, devoted, disinterested, and fearless of consequences, with no enmity against any one, and no self-object in view, I felt impelled by a necessity that can alone be understood or apprehended by those who, in times of peril, find themselves forced into prominence. ”

“ Let him early find upon his proud neck the heavy yoke which nature has imposed upon us, the heavy yoke of necessity, under which every finite being must bow. Let him find the necessity in things, not in the caprices of man ”