LET me exhort you to deeds of mercy. Let your fingers drop with the myrrh of liberality. Sow the golden seed of benevolence. Remember that excellent saying of Saint Augustine: “Give those things to the poor which you cannot keep, that you may receive those things which you cannot lose.” There are many occasions of exercising your mercifulness. The poor are everywhere. Hear the orphan’s cry: pity the widow’s tears. Some there are who want employment: it would be well to set their wheel a going: others, who are past employment: be as eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame: some, whose families are sinking, if some merciful hand doth not help to shore them up.
But some object: “We may give, and so in time come ourselves to want.” Let Bazil answer this: “Wells,” said he, “which have their water drawn, spring ever more freely.” “The liberal soul shall be made fat” (Prov. 11:25). Luther speaks of a monastery in Austria, which was very rich while it gave annually to the poor: but when it left off giving, the monastery began to decay. There is nothing lost by doing our duty: an estate may be imparted, yet not impaired. The flowers yield honey to the bee, yet hurt not their own fruit: when the candle of prosperity shines upon us, we may light our neighbor that is in the dark, and have never the less light ourselves. Whatever is disbursed to pious uses, God doth bring it in some other way: as the loaves in breaking were multiplied, or as the widow’s oil increased by pouring out (1 Kings 17:16).
AN OLD DIVINE