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about my "orthodoxy" on the subject of doing good. If I know my own motives, I certainly have a desire to do good; but this desire is yoke fellow with the perverse wish to do it in my own way. I do not feel myself inclined to accept the prescriptions of those

who have taken out patents for various ingenious processes in this line of effort. My attention has just been attracted to this subject, by the perusal of a long story, which must be not far from the one hundred and ninety-ninth that I have read during the past twenty years, all tipped with the same general moral. A goodnatured lady, in easy circumstances, and of benevolent impulses, is appealed to by a poor man in the kitchen. She feeds him, gives him clothes, sends him away rejoicing, and feels good over it. The man comes again and again, tells pitiful stories, excites her benevolence of course, and secures a reasonable amount of additional plunder. Months pass away; and being out upon a walk one pleasant afternoon, and finding herself near the poor man's residence, the fair benefactress calls upon him. She finds the wife (who was reported dead) very comfortable indeed, and the destitute family of four children reduced to a single fat and saucy baby, and the poor liar himself smelling strongly of rum. Then come the denouement, and a grand tableau: lady very much grieved and astonished-wife, who has known nothing of her husband's tricks, exceedingly bewildered-fuddled husband, blind with rum and remorse, owns up to his meanness and duplicity. He found (as he confessed) that he could work upon the lady's sympathies, got to lying and couldn't stop, and, finally, felt so badly over the whole operation, that he

took to drink to drown his conscience!

Moral: Women should not help poor people without going to see them, and finding out whether they lie.

Now that woman did exactly as I should have done, under the same circumstances. In the first place, I should never have had the heart to doubt a man who carried an honest face, and was cold, hungry, and ragged. I should have regarded his condition as a claim upon my charity. In the second place, I should have had no time to call upon his family, and satisfy myself with regard to their circumstances; and in the third place, I should have felt very delicate about putting direct questions to them if I had. The same story tells incidentally of one of these men who do good in the proper way. He visited a house which presented all the signs of poverty; but the angel of mercy was too 'cute to be taken in; so he walked up stairs. Every thing presenting there the same aspect of abject poverty that prevailed below, the angel of mercy looked around him, and discovered a ladder leading to the garret. The angel of mercy "smelt a rat," and mounted the ladder. In the garret he found half a cord of wood, and any quantity of goodies for the table. Another denouement and tableau. Moral: as before. If the story has taught me any thing, it is that it is my duty to question every beggar that comes to my door, visit his house, explore it from cellar to garret, and satisfy

myself of the truth or falsehood of his representations. Otherwise, my charity goes for nothing, and I do my beggar an absolute unkindness. In other words, while the law holds every man innocent until he is proved to be guilty, charity holds every man guilty until he is proved to be innocent.

It has become the fashion in certain circles to decry that benevolence which sits at home in slippers, and gives its money without seeing where it goes; but it is forgotten that the money dispensed in slippers was earned in boots, and that the man who has money to give, has usually so much business on hand that he can make no adequate personal examination of the cases which are referred to his charity. I can never forget Mr. Dickens' Cheeryble Brothers, who were so very much obliged to a friend for calling upon them, and telling them of the circumstances of a poor family. It was taken as a great personal kindness when they were informed how and where they could relieve want and distress. They had no genius for going about and looking up cases of charity, but their hearts leaped at the opportunity to do good. They did their work in their counting-room, and had no time and no talent for visiting those whom they benefited; but who would question either the genuineness or the judiciousness of their benevolence? The applications for aid made at the doors of our dwellings come oftener to the mis

tresses of those dwellings than to the masters; and these mistresses, four times in five, are women with the care of children on their hands, or household duties which demand almost constant attention. If a beggar come to the door, they are grateful for the opportunity to afford relief; but they have no time to visit another quarter of the town, to learn whether their charities have been well bestowed, nor do they withhold their charities through fear of being imposed

upon.

In my judgment, the character and circumstances of a man determine his office in the work of charitable relief. I know there are some persons who have a peculiar natural adaptation to the work of visiting the subjects of sickness and of need. Their presence and their sympathy are grateful to those to whom they delight to minister. They are masters and mistresses of all those thrifty economies which enable them to manage for the poor. They have genuine administrative talent in this particular department. They are cheerful and active, and sympathetic and ingenious; and they can do more for a poor, discouraged family with ten dollars than others can do with fifty. I do not suppose that these people are one whit more benevolent than those whose purses are always open to the poor, and who at the same time would feel very awkward upon a visit of charity, and would make the fam

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