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 L I E. RARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 U N 1VER.S1TY 
 
 or ILLl N015
 
 'CHARITY:" 
 
 TWO SERMONS 
 
 PREACHED IN 
 
 HARLESTON PARISH CHURCH, 
 
 ON 
 
 QuinqUiigcsima <§iinl)iiu, 1SS2, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. W. BURY, R.D., 
 
 RECTOR. 
 
 PRINTED BY REQUEST OF SOME OF THE PARISHIONERS. 
 
 NORTHAMPTON : 
 PRINTED BY STxVNTON AND SOX, ABINGTON STREET, 
 
 • 1 S N 2 .
 
 " Blessed is he that considereth the poor, the Lord will deliver 
 him in the time of trouhle^^ 
 
 Psalm xli., 1. 
 
 ONCE more in every church in the land will be read, as 
 the Epistle for to-day, that wonderful description of 
 charity which an Apostle gave us some 1800 years ago, and 
 which will live to the end of time as one of the most beautiful, 
 and, I had almost said, one of the most misunderstood of all 
 inspired utterances. 
 
 When we examine the passage carefully, we cannot help 
 wondering how the virtue therein described could have ever 
 acquired the meaning so commonly given to it. 
 
 Perhaps the fact is, that as men's practice gradually fell 
 away from St. Paul's lofty ideal, they found it necessary to 
 give their own interpretation to the words, and to find an 
 easier and simpler way of exercising the virtue he enjoins. 
 
 But whatever be the cause, certain it is that very soon 
 Christian men and women began to abstract from " charity,' 
 one by one, the many gifts and graces which clustered 
 round it, till at length it was left bare of all but one, and 
 came to be regarded as only another name for almsgiving. 
 Henceforward it sunk lower and lower till it was little better 
 than a mere selfish virtue. A name rather than a living 
 principle. A cold and lifeless form from which the spirit had 
 departed. 
 
 And among other disastrous consequences which arose 
 from " charity " being thus degraded, was this — that what was 
 once a living principle, to be possessed and practised by all, 
 became the exclusive property of one particular class. The 
 duty charged upon all, was supposed ere long to be confined 
 to a privileged few. The rich only could be charitable ! 
 The poor must be content to remain destitute of such a virtue, 
 and of the great reward belonging; to it !
 
 And worse than this — the rich began to look upon the 
 poor, not so much as their fellow men, but as a distinct race 
 or class, which God had created for their especial benefit, 
 upon whom they were to practice their virtues and parade 
 their condescension. 
 
 And with all our advances in knowledge and civilisation, 
 we have failed very much to establish less false and mischievous 
 views on the subject. The rich still very commonly imagine 
 that the word charity expresses their money obligations to the 
 poor — the poor still regard it as expressing their claims upon 
 the purses of the rich. 
 
 But, as I said, when we look carefully at the passage, how 
 impossible it seems to derive any such idea from it — Nay how 
 careful the Apostle is to exclude the idea. Riches are men- 
 tioned only to show that they have neither part nor lot 
 in the matter ; and poverty is suggested to show that 
 it is not necessarily the sphere in which charity may be 
 exhibited. " Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, 
 I have not charity." Riches lavished on the poor, you observe, 
 and yet no charity. 
 
 And yet without doubt, a very material part of true 
 charity, has reference to our dealings towards those who are 
 called the poor. I say oitr dealings, the dealings not merely of 
 one particular class, or of one person here or there who may 
 be possessed of wealth, but the dealings of us all, whatever may 
 be our position, and whatever our means, towards those who 
 are in need of that which we can give ; whether sympathy, 
 or advice, or influence, or even money. 
 
 And the words of my text seem to me exactly to describe 
 what the nature of this kind of charity should be — "Blessed is 
 he that considereth the poor " — " That considereth the 
 poor," you observe. Not " blessed is the man that yields at 
 once to importunity." Not " blessed is the man that indulges 
 
 u,uc;
 
 his own kind heart." Not " blessed is the man that goes about 
 the world scattering his money here, there, and everywhere, 
 on the impulse of the moment. But " blessed is the man that 
 considereth the poor " ; that is, takes time, and thought, and 
 trouble, and pains in dealing with their wants, giving or 
 withholding, as the case may be, but neither giving or 
 withholding without care or thought. 
 
 Now, my friends, tested by the words of the text how 
 few there are of us who could lay claim to the blessing which 
 it promises. 
 
 There are plenty of people, as we all know, who, sitting 
 comfortably at home, and enjoying all the blessings which God 
 has given them, can talk fluently and feelingly about miseries 
 which they have never seen, and about wants and necessities 
 of which they have only heard. And they give of their 
 abundance — they subscribe very handsomely to every good 
 work ! 
 
 On the other hand, there are plenty of people who shut 
 their ears to every tale of distress, and every call for help, 
 telling you that charities are all mischievous, and poverty only 
 another name for improvidence. They make a virtue of never 
 giving at all. 
 
 But neither the one nor the other has perhaps, ever given 
 a serious thought to the subject, nor sacrificed a moments 
 pleasure to find out the truth ; the one gives, the other 
 withholds, but neither has " considered." 
 
 Depend upon it, the blessing of my text is not thus easily 
 won ; as with the greatest blessing of all so with this we may 
 say " few there be that find it." 
 
 There is a heavy cost always about doing good, and there 
 are few things so difficult, few things which need so great self- 
 sacrifice as doing good to the poor.
 
 It is probable indeed that many of us here have begun to 
 see through the selfishness which is so often disguised under 
 the name of charity, and are beginning to learn how much of 
 that which has been done for the benefit of the poor, and done 
 sometimes with the best intentions, has been productive of 
 more harm than good, and has increased the very evil it was 
 designed to cure. 
 
 For while no one can deny that there is much real and 
 unfeigned distress in this world of ours, which calls for, and 
 ought to call forth, our sympathies and our substantial help ; 
 at the same time, no one can deny that there is much more 
 distress that is pretended, and much more also that arises from 
 vice and folly. And to distinguish one from the other, to 
 know how to help one without encouraging the other, to know 
 indeed how to help at all without weakening self-respect and 
 independence and all the best qualities of a man's nature, this, 
 as we all know, is the real diflficulty, and in this is found the 
 reason for what my text says, " Blessed is the man that con- 
 sidereth the poor." 
 
 But we are not, therefore, to give up the attempt because 
 it is so diflficult. 
 
 It is a duty which is laid upon us all. We may not shrink 
 from it, we may not shirk it. Our best instincts, our fellow- 
 feeling, our religion, our Master who was on earth and is in 
 heaven will not suffer us to do so. We must exercise the gift 
 of charity in some outward effort at doing good, or cease to be 
 the children of our Father which is in heaven. 
 
 What then is to help us in fulfilling this difficult duty } 
 
 First, it is something to have recognised that it is diflficult, 
 that there is need of thought, and care, and consideration — 
 that we may not, and must not, gratify our feelings by giving 
 on the impulse of the moment, but must learn the hard lesson 
 of saying No !
 
 Further, in this as in all difficult duties, we have much 
 need of prayer. I am not afraid to say that every man, be 
 his position what it may, who aims at doing good to a single 
 individual, ought to begin, continue, and end, his efforts in 
 prayer for the Holy Spirit's guidance. 
 
 Nor am I afraid to say that every man whose position in 
 life gives him the power, or lays upon him the obligation of 
 ministering to the wants of others — a rich man for instance, in 
 a parish, or a clergyman, or a guardian of the poor, ought to 
 make it a matter of constant and earnest prayer, that he may 
 be filled with that wisdom which comes from above in order 
 rightly to discharge the duties laid upon him. 
 
 And further still, while praying, as indeed he must, for 
 wisdom ; he must use the reason which God has given him, he 
 must profit by the experience of the past, and by the example 
 and teaching of those who have been the true benefactors of 
 their fellow-men. 
 
 For after all it is in and through our reason, and through 
 the experience of the past, that God speaks to us every day. 
 Through them he sends us answers to our prayers. Do 
 not think because we call the Bible " the word of God " that 
 God only speaks to us there. That is a very poor notion of 
 God's dealings with us. Do not thus limit our Father's care 
 and love. No ! He speaks to us in many ways — by the events 
 of life, by the fresh discoveries of science, by the experience of 
 the past, as well as by the voice of conscience. And to me it 
 seems quite as wicked to neglect or to disregard these, as it is 
 to neglect or disregard the plainest command laid down in the 
 Bible. 
 
 And so if reason or experience has taught us unmistakeably 
 that charity exercised in any particular way has proved mis- 
 chievous in the long run, then, however hard it may appear, 
 however unpopular it may make us, we are bound as Christians 
 and honest men to set our faces against it.
 
 And once more — Especially we ought to be guided by our 
 Divine example. It is by looking at the principles on which 
 our Father deals witli His children, that we best learn the 
 more excellent way of exercising our "charity." 
 
 And the longer I live, and the more I think of this most 
 difficult subject, and the more I try to learn God's will about 
 it, the more convinced do I become that, as a general rule, the 
 proper sphere, perhaps the only safe sphere, of benevolence 
 lies in providing opportunities. I mean, it lies in providing 
 the means and opportunities whereby poverty and distress may 
 be avoided, rather than in relieving the actual poverty and 
 distress which too often have been caused by folly and 
 improvidence. 
 
 For this, after all, hard as it may sound, is God's plan. 
 God gives opportunities to us all, but He does not interfere to 
 save us from the consequences of misusing or abusing them. 
 
 "He is kind to the unthankful and to the evil." "He 
 makes the sun to shine upon the evil and the good, and sends 
 rain upon the just, and the un-just." All who will may profit 
 by His kindness, and may prosper on the diligent use of the 
 rain and sunshine which He has so freely provided. The 
 means are there, use them, and God blesses them to your 
 use, and you in the use of them. But neglect them, stand 
 idle all the day long, and God's great love bids you take the 
 consequences and starve. 
 
 When shall we learn not to try to be wiser and more 
 "charitable" than God.? How is it that we can bring ourselves 
 to adopt exactly an opposite course .'' That we can think it 
 charitable or even wise to reverse God's method. For this is 
 practically what we do. We deny or fail to provide the 
 opportunity, and then try to relieve the distress which our 
 selfishness or our want of " consideration " has caused.
 
 Too often it happens that the poor are denied a fair 
 chance in youth and manhood. They must be content with 
 wretched homes, low wages, few interests or opportunities for 
 bettering themselves ; then when they are old and worn out, 
 we think it charity to give them "parish relief," as it is called, 
 a miserable pittance provided out of other people's pockets. 
 When, I say, shall we learn the lesson which God teaches us, 
 namely, to do all in our power to provide opportunities, to 
 afford men fair chances in life — to remove hindrances— to make 
 virtue easy and vice difficult— to put within their reach the 
 means of obtaining light, and knowledge, and independence ; 
 and then to say, as God says, " Use your opportunities, or take 
 the consequences of your own folly ? " 
 
 These are some of the thoughts which have occurred to 
 me in thinking over the subject suggested by the epistle for 
 to-day. I hope you will not think them out of place in a 
 sermon, and T hope you will think them out for yourselves ; 
 for to my mind there are few subjects of more importance, 
 both as regards this world and the next. 
 
 " Charity " there will always be while the world lasts— a 
 true " Charity " and a false— the one blessing, the other 
 cursing, both giver and receiver. The one making men 
 honester, nobler, better — more fit for earth— more fit for 
 heaven ; the other debasing men to the lowest level, and 
 robbing them of everything which they ought to hold dear. 
 What I say is, look beneath the surface, and learn to dis- 
 tinguish the false from the true ; the leaves may deceive you, 
 but " ye shall know them by their fruits."
 
 10 
 
 " Jesus of Nazareth .... who went about doing goody 
 
 Acts x., 38. 
 
 /^N this particular Sunday in the year it is generally the 
 ^-^ custom for the preacher to select for his subject that of 
 which the Collect and the Epistle for to-day so beautifully 
 speak : I mean " Charity." 
 
 And indeed it is a very important subject, not merely 
 because we are taught in that Collect and Epistle that without 
 " Charity " a man is counted dead before God, but also because 
 mistakes as to its nature and meaning have led to very 
 disastrous consequences. 
 
 To-day I am following the usual custom, and I am going 
 this afternoon to say a few more words on the subject of which I 
 spoke this morning, namely, the teaching of Christ and the 
 Gospel concerning " Charity." 
 
 Now, there are two aspects in which to regard it : 
 
 First. As a Christian sentiment, and secondly, as a 
 Christian duty. 
 
 Regarded as a sentiment or feeling, it means love for our 
 fellow men, and a desire to do them good. 
 
 Regarded as a duty, it is the carrying out of that 
 love and desire.
 
 11 
 
 The two are very different things. 
 
 To feel charitable is one thing, to be charitable is another. 
 To desire to do good to others is easy enough, to do good is 
 one of the hardest things I know. 
 
 Now it is on the second aspect of Charity, i.e.. Charity 
 which consists in doing good, that I wish to say a few words 
 this afternoon. 
 
 As I have said, the mistakes which have been made in 
 this direction have led to some of the worst evils with which 
 the world is now afflicted. And although Christians and en- 
 lightened people are beginning to learn by bitter experience, 
 the lessons which God has been trying so long to teach, still 
 the consequences of past errors are not to be easily wiped out. 
 I honestly confess that for many of these mistakes, we clergy- 
 men, who have professed to be teachers of God's law, and 
 preachers of the Gospel, are to a great degree responsible. 
 Almost from the very first the clergy have sounded a false note, 
 or at best have given a very uncertain sound. As a rule, the 
 church and the clergy have led men to believe that charity 
 was another name for almsgiving. And, as by degrees the 
 mistaken ideas concerning charity were found to increase the 
 wealth and power of the church, there was every inducement 
 to go on as they had begun. On every hand, men were 
 exhorted from the pulpit to almsgiving, as the true, if not only, 
 form of charity, till almsgiving soon became the easy method 
 oi fulfilling the law of love, as well as of covering a multitude 
 of sins. 
 
 And that this idea still prevails, I am afraid there can be 
 no doubt. To this day a man is described as a very charitable 
 person or the reverse, according to the amount of money he 
 gives away, or is supposed to give away, among the poor. 
 
 Now, my friends, I am not going to say hard things about 
 people who think or act in this way. It is not an unnatural 
 way of thinking or acting ; and it has the sanction and approval 
 of the world at large.
 
 12 
 
 Nor am I going to speak against money-giving in itself. 
 Indeed I, for one, think that men are never likely to be too 
 ready to give. The danger is all the other way. It is not the 
 amount that is given that does the mischief, but the manner in 
 which it is given. 
 
 There are ample opportunities for this kind of benevolence. 
 There is a need here, there, and everywhere, for a large-hearted 
 liberality which does not stop to, count the cost. Don't mis- 
 understand me. Don't suppose for a moment that I wish to 
 check people's liberality. Don't fancy that I want to close the 
 rich man's purse. On the contrary, I think that it is not 
 opened half wide enough. I say again, that it is not the 
 amount given, but the way in which it is given that I deplore. 
 
 But what I want to point out more particularly is this. 
 That it is altogether a mistake, and a very mischievous one 
 too, to suppose that " charity " consists in, or has necessarily 
 anything at all to do with giving money. What I want to 
 condemn is the too prevalent notion that one man is necessarily 
 to be called charitable when he gives his sovereigns or half- 
 crowns, and another is necessarily uncharitable when he refuses 
 to give. 
 
 You can't reduce charity to pounds, shillings, and pence. 
 It lies altogether in a different sphere. 
 
 Let us think of this for a moment — what is it to be a 
 really charitable person ? 
 
 We shall agree that if we want an answer to this question, 
 we can't do better than go to Him who in this, as in every- 
 thing else, has left us an example that we should follow His 
 steps. In the careful study of His life, in the intelligent reading 
 of His precepts, we most assuredly shall find out what 
 charity is. 
 
 He was surrounded, you remember, by poverty and 
 distress. His desire to relieve must have been stronger 
 by far than ours. His power to relieve was boundless.
 
 13 
 
 His whole life was one act of charity : " He went about 
 doing good." 
 
 How then did He do good ? How did He carry out the 
 law of charity ? 
 
 Now we are struck at once by the fact that He never gave 
 money. If charity consists in giving money, then neither He 
 nor His disciples were charitable people. Observe, He does not 
 forbid almsgiving — on the contrary, He lays it upon the rich 
 as a duty to be very carefully discharged. Still here is a fact, g 
 He himself never bestowed an alms, and yet He went abou^ « ' '^ ^'^ 
 domg good. -' ^ 
 
 Then further we notice, that He never provided people / 
 with those necessaries of life, which it is a man's own duty to 
 provide for himself. It is man's duty to work, and it is God's 
 law that if he does not work neither shall he eat. Christ 
 Jesus never interfered with that law. He did not go 
 about to provide the necessaries of life for every idle 
 person who chose to beg and refused to work for them. 
 He had the power to feed every living man and woman 
 every day. And yet only on two occasions did He exercise 
 that power, and then He did it in such a way as to prevent idle 
 people reckoning upon His compassion to relieve them. 
 
 Then further, He did not help or even heal people indis- 
 criminately. Although He possessed the power to relieve every 
 form of distress, or poverty, or sickness, or sorrow, and 
 although it must have gone to His heart to see the misery all 
 about Him, of which the world then, as now, was full, — never- 
 theless He put a constraint upon Himself, He checked His 
 desire to help, and refused to exercise His power except in 
 special cases. 
 
 There is, to my mind, nothing more remarkable in our 
 Lord's way of doing good than this. Possessing the power 
 to heal all. He only chose to heal a few. He could have 
 supplied the wants of all by a word, and yet He spoke that 
 word only now and again. Why was it ?
 
 14 
 
 When He saw that crowd of impotent folk, round the pool 
 of Bethesda — why was it He only singled out one ? Why did 
 He not heal all ? Was it not because His way of doing good, 
 of being charitable, was no blind indescriminate system of 
 relief, but was exercised with due care, and thought, and 
 consideration, because He knew the evils, and wished others to 
 learn the evils of helping people who would'nt try to help 
 themselves, and because He recognised the wholesome lessons 
 which suffering has to teach. So He put a restraint upon 
 Himself, He refused to help everybody, He constrained Him- 
 self to say " no." 
 
 Further still — whenever our Lord relieved distress, it 
 was with a view to moral and spiritual good. 
 
 His charity was of a kind which raised a man, and did him 
 moral good, instead of degrading him. The bodily help was 
 always used as a means to the spiritual welfare. It never left 
 a man as it found him, but came ever with the charge, and 
 with the strength to obey — " go and sin no more." Those whom 
 He relieved, went home " clothed and in their right mind," 
 to " show to others the great things done," to " glorify God," 
 to " follow Him in His way " ; or were changed from 
 cringing beggars by the wayside, to honest out-spoken 
 men. 
 
 And yet again — when Christ relieved it was not merely a 
 temporary, but a permanent relief. His charity was not of 
 that sort which is content to relieve the hunger of a moment^ 
 but cares nothing as to what becomes of the man afterwards. 
 His help was lasting in its effects. He did not merely relieve 
 the symptoms, He cured the disease. It was charity of that 
 sort which sets a man on his feet again. Giving him self- 
 respect, and sending him forward to a life of honest indepen- 
 dence. He gave to the impotent fresh use of his limbs for work. 
 He gave the blind sight that he might cease to be a beggar. 
 He cleansed the leper that he might become a useful mem- 
 ber of society.
 
 15 
 
 And once more, and above all — Whether he relieved, or 
 whether he refused to relieve : His " Charity," His way of 
 " doing good," cost Him dear. His was not a comfortable 
 way of " doing good." His charity involved self-sacrifice. It 
 was not of that kind which sits comfortably at home deploring 
 the poverty and distress outside, and sends someone else to go 
 and relieve it. Nor yet was it the charity of those who out 
 of their abundance, give only what they can spare without 
 feeling it. No ! His charity cost Him dear. 
 
 Think what it was for one so pure and holy, and sin- 
 hating, to go up and down among those sin-degraded creatures 
 in the towns and cities of Israel. Think how His tender heart 
 must have suffered at the sight of woes and wants, so many of 
 which He constrained Himself to leave unhelped. And then, the 
 very effort to relieve — how He seemed to suffer with the suffering, 
 how in all their affliction He was himself afflicted. Why those 
 sighs which accompanied His healing miracles ? Why those 
 tears 1 Why that feeling of " virtue going out of Him " .? 
 Was it not because He felt so deeply with those He relieved 
 because it cost Him an effort, because in a word, " He, Himself,, 
 took our infirmities, and carried our sorrows." 
 
 Taking then Christ as our example, we see not only what a 
 very beautiful thing charity is, but also how very difficult it is to 
 be really charitable. To be charitable is to go about doing 
 good. But in order to do good, what care, what self-denial, 
 what Christ-like wisdom, are needed. 
 
 And thus, looking to Christ as our example, we may learn 
 the principles which are to guide us in the matter. 
 
 We may sum it all up in a sentence. True charity is 
 self-denial for the good of others. 
 
 Of course it is, you will say, nobody ever doubted it ; there 
 is nothing new in saying that. My friends, I ask you to apply 
 the principle faithfully, honestly, to your own charities, or to 
 what commonly goes by that name. I wonder how much of 
 it would stand the test.
 
 16 
 
 Self-denial on the part of the giver, good real lasting good 
 to the receiver. 
 
 As we think of it, one after another of our so-called 
 charities fail and are condemned utterly by this simple test 
 M^hich Christ has given us, and has taught us how to apply. 
 
 The so-called state charity, for instance, which some 
 people admire so much, poor law charity, parish relief as it is 
 called : directly we apply the test, we see there is nothing 
 whatever of charity about it. 
 
 Where is the self-denial of the giver .'' What self-denial 
 is there in giving, however liberally, money that comes out of 
 other peoples' pockets. 
 
 Where is the good to the receiver ? Why, my friends, 
 nothing is easier to prove, nothing is more certain, than the 
 fact that harm instead of good has come of it. It has done 
 more, perhaps, than anything else of the kind, to develope the 
 worst side of men's character, to make the rich sellish, the 
 poor improvident, to keep down wages, to destroy independ- 
 ence, and to increase the very evils which it sought to relieve. 
 
 Or apply the test to those so-called " charities," which 
 have been left in years gone by to the poor of particular 
 parishes, in order to provide small doles of money, or food, or 
 clothing. 
 
 Where is the self-denial in the giver .? The men who 
 bequeathed the money for them, were, as a rule, actuated by 
 the very poorest and most unworthy motives, as an examination 
 of their bequests clearly shows ; and at the best there could 
 be no self-denial. They could not carry the money with them 
 when they died. They must leave it behind to some one_ 
 They may have disappointed their relations, but certainly they 
 could not have denied themselves. 
 
 Where is the good done to the receivers ? Did you ever 
 know any village really the better for such charities } Are the 
 people in any village where they abound, really happier,
 
 17 
 
 richer — better off in anyway than the people in the next 
 village, where there are none ? I could give you hundreds of 
 instances where the contrary is the case, and where the 
 existence of such charities has had a most mischievous effect, 
 not only on the morality, but on the temporal well-being of 
 the people ; so much so, that it has become a very general 
 saying, that " village charities are village curses." 
 
 Or take one more instance — Apply the principles we have 
 learnt from Christ, to that which is so commonly looked upon 
 as a " charity," the giving alms to a beggar. 
 
 Where is the self-denial in the giver ? As a rule people 
 give to a beggar to save themselves trouble — to get rid of him 
 at the smallest possible cost to themselves. They do not even 
 pretend to wish him well. 
 
 Where is the good to the receiver ? Do we not all 
 know that the country is at this moment pestered with a swarm 
 of idle vagrants — a source of weakness, and a source of shame — 
 of whom, not one in a hundred ever does, or ever intends to 
 do, a day's work, simply because people think it "charity" 
 to give a few pence or a handful of broken victuals, to the 
 beggar at the door } 
 
 Now again, I ask you not to misunderstand me. Do not 
 think that I am against all benevolence that takes the form of 
 money-giving. Do not accuse me of wishing to stop the flow 
 of liberality. On the contrary, I am all for increasing it. 
 We can't have too much of it — but then it must be true and 
 genuine, not false and mischievous. I want to see men and 
 women awake to the truth in these matters, the truth as it is 
 seen in Jesus Christ. 
 
 It is only by applying the principles taught by our Master, 
 that we learn to distinguish the true from the false. All is 
 not gold that glitters — all is not ** charity " that goes by that 
 name.
 
 18 
 
 And i have brought the subject before you because I 
 beUeve it to be most important that we should form a right 
 judgement in such matters. 
 
 I am quite aware that these views of " charity " are not 
 popular. I know that in trying to apply them one is not likely 
 to get a good name. But the question is, are they true ? Are 
 they in accordance with God's will ? Are they what our Lord 
 and Master set us an example of ? If they are, then it is our 
 duty, yours and mine, to folloAv them out. 
 
 *^* In writing these sermons the very last idea which could 
 have entered my head was that I should be requested to print 
 them. As they were not written with a view to printing, 
 I must ask that they may not be read too critically. They aim 
 at being suggestive, not exhaustive. In pointing out 
 as I have done, the defective nature of some existing forms of 
 charity, I hope I shall not be accused of wishing " to deprive 
 the poor of their rights." No one is more anxious than I 
 to maintain them ; all I ask is that it shall be made clear that 
 they are rights and not wrongs in disguise. I am desirous of 
 seeing in the place of dead, mechanical, and degrading 
 forms of charity, something animated by a living principle of 
 love which shall really bless both giver and receiver. This 
 will require earnest work, and much personal sacrifice of time 
 and money too — in other words, it will require 
 
 " CHARITY." 
 
 Harleston, 
 
 March, 1882.