hich this charity takes
is the great question.

In young and rude countries, an open-handed charity pervades the land.
Everyone who comes in want to a dwelling has his immediate want
relieved. The Arab gives from his mess to the hungerer who appears at
the entrance of his tent. The negro brings rice and milk to the
traveller who lies fainting under the palm. The poor are fed round
convent-doors, morning and evening, where there are convents. In
Ireland, it is a common practice to beg, in order to rise in the
world,--a clear testimony to the practice of charity there. In all
societies, the poor help the poorer; the depressed class aids the
destitute. The existence of the charity may be considered a certainty.
The inquiry is about its direction.

The lowest order of charity is that which is satisfied with relieving
the immediate pressure of distress in individual cases. A higher is that
which makes provision on a large scale for the relief of such distress;
as when a nation passes on from common alms-giving to a general
provision for the destitute. A higher still is when such provision is
made in the way of anticipation, or for distant objects; as when the
civilization of savages, the freeing of slaves, the treatment of the
insane, or the education of the blind and deaf mutes is undertaken. The
highest charity of all is that which aims at the prevention rather than
the alleviation of evil. When any considerable number of a society are
engaged in this work, the spirit of fraternity is busy there, and the
progression of the society is ascertained. In such a community, it is
allowed that though it is good to relieve the hungry, it is better to
take care that all who work shall eat, as a matter of right: that though
it is good to provide for the comfort and reformation of the guilty, it
is better to obviate guilt: that though it is good to teach the ignorant
who come in one's way, it is better to provide the means of knowledge,
as of food, for all. In short, it is a nobler charity to prevent
destitution, crime, and ignorance, than to relieve individuals who never
ought to have been made destitute, criminal, and ignorant.

This war against the evils themselves, in preference to, but accompanied
by, relief of the victims, has begun in many countries; and those which
are the most busily occupied in the work must be considered the most
advanced, and the most certain to advance. The observer must note the
state of the work ever