If all the half-dollars which are now contributed to aid in
organized systems of charity were returned to the donors, to be applied
by the agency and discretion of each, thousands and thousands of the
treasures, now employed to promote the moral and intellectual wants of
mankind, would become entirely useless in a democracy like ours, where
few are very rich and the majority are in comfortable circumstances,
this collecting and dispensing of drops and rills is the mode by which,
in imitation of nature, the dews and showers are to distill on parched
and desert lands. And every person, while earning a pittance to unite
with many more, may be cheered with the consciousness of sustaining a
grand system of operations which must have the most decided influence in
raising all mankind to that perfect state of society which Christianity
is designed to bring about.
Another consideration relates to the indiscriminate bestowal of charity.
Persons who have taken pains to inform themselves, and who devote their
whole time to dispensing charities, unite in declaring that this is
one of the most fruitful sources of indolence, vice, and poverty.
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