tation of such superfluity of material
goods as we may possess to beneficent uses; and it can hardly be that we
shall not rest in the belief that, in the inevitable order of society, it
is the predetermined design and purpose of abundance to supply
deficiency,--of the capacity of service, to meet the ever pressing demands
for service. Beneficence, then, is a duty based on considerations of
intrinsic fitness.

But *beneficence must be actual*, not merely formal, *good-doing*. Some of
the most easy and obvious modes of supply or relief are adapted to
perpetuate the very evils to which they minister, either by destroying
self-respect, by discouraging self-help, or by granting immunity to
positively vicious habits. The tendency of instinctive kindness is to
indiscriminate giving. But there can be very few cases in which this is
not harmful. It sustains mendicants as a recognized class of society; and
as such they are worse than useless. They necessarily lose all sense of
personal dignity; they remain ignorant or become incapable of all modes of
regular industry, and it is impossible for them to form associations that
will be otherwise than degrading and corrupting.

Of equally injurious tendency are the various modes of *relief at the
public charge*. They affix upon their beneficiaries the indelible brand of
pauperism, which in numerous instances becomes hereditary, and in not a
few cases has been transmitted through several generations. Experience has
shown that recovery from a condition thus dependent is exceedingly rare,
even with the young and strong, who, had they been tided over the stress
of need by private and judicious charity, would shortly have resumed their
place among the self-subsisting members of the community. Public alms,
while they are thus harmful to their recipients, impose upon society a far
heavier burden than private charity. This is due in part to the permanent
pauperism created by the system, in part to the wastefulness which
characterizes public expenditures of every kind. By special permission of
the national legislature, the experiment was tried in Glasgow, under the
direction of Dr. Chalmers, of substituting private munificence for relief
from the public chest, in one of the poorest territorial parishes of the
city, embracing a population of ten thousand, and the result was the
expenditure of little more than one third of what had been expended under
legal authority. At the same time, the poor a