Alms, for
instance, are, in the Mosaic law, a duty of the rich, and a right of the
needy. God is the owner of the land; He gave it to the diligent to
cultivate, and through His blessing their labours prosper; He assigned
to the poor His dues on the cultivated soil, and ordered that to them
should be left the total produce of every seventh year, the tithes of
some other years, and the gleanings of the fields and vineyards. It was
not thereby intended to render charity legal and compulsory, depriving
it of its noblest attribute, which is spontaneity, but to show more
conspicuously the importance attached to it, having otherwise left free
all acts of kindness and mercy, to which the law does not fix any
measure. To this class also belong the precepts, which make it a duty to
give timely assistance to him who is about to succumb to fatigue and
labour, to supply with provisions the discharged servant, to restore
before sunset the clothing taken in pawn, to obviate danger in building
a house, to put no obstructions before the blind, to grant every kind of
relief to whomsoever stands in need, without exacting, or even
expecting, any remuneration, to rescue those who are in danger, to
defend the weak, to protect the widow and the orphan, to attend the
sick, and to give sepulture to the dead. These and other similar
prescriptions, which make of charity a duty, carry with them the great
lesson, that justice must go always hand-in-hand with mercy, since the
all-just God is also all-merciful, and he who satisfies not both alike,
does not fully discharge his duties to society.

LXXXVIII. The Mosaic dispensation, which considers the whole world as a
grand unit, and tends to carry out the idea of moral good to its fullest
extent, could not leave unnoticed the relations of man with beings of
different species; therefore it also mentioned duties that we owe to the
irrational creatures and inanimate beings. True, God granted to man a
superiority, a dominion over all things created on earth, permitting him
the use, and even the destruction, of them, whenever this is necessary
to his own welfare, or conducive to his own advantage; but He wisely
restricted such power within certain limits. Mosaism regards the entire
universe as a temple manifesting the glory of God, and directs us to
admire in the single component parts the profound counsels and infinite
wisdom of Him who created and harmonized so many wonders. Thus we are
commanded, in t