ufferings cause them to cry out, 'Have mercy on me!'"

So far as buildings were concerned, it began in a small way, though
its spirit of kindness and Christian charity was large. After one year
in rented rooms, a house was purchased on North Broad Street, near
Ontario Street, and fitted up as a hospital with wards, operating room
and dispensary. It was situated just where a network of railroads
focuses and near a number of large factories and machine shops, where
accidents were occurring constantly. Almost immediately its wards were
filled. The name "Samaritan Hospital" was given as typical of its work
and spirit, its projectors and supporters laying down their money and
agreeing to pay whatever might be needed, as well as giving of their
personal care and attention to the sufferer. But though Dr. Conwell's
heart is big, his head is practical. He does not believe in
indiscriminate charity.

"Charity is composed of sympathy and self-sacrifice. There is no
charity without a union of these two," he said, in an address years
ago at Music Hall, Boston. "To make a gift become a charity the
recipient must feel that it is given out of sympathy; that the
donor has made a sacrifice to give it; that it is intended only as
assistance and not as a permanent support, unless the needy one he
helpless; and that it is not given as his right. To accomplish this
end desired by charitable hearts demands an acquaintance with the
persons to be assisted or a study of them, and a great degree of
caution and patience. It is not only unnecessary, but a positive wrong
to give to itinerant beggars. There is no such thing as charity about
a so-called state charity. It is statesmanship to rid the community of
nuisances, to feed the poor and prevent stealing and robbery, but it
should not be called 'a charity.' The paupers take their provision as
their right, feel no gratitude, acquire no ambition, no industry, no
culture. The state almshouse educates the brain and chills the heart.
It fastens a stigma on the child to hinder and curse it for life. Any
institution supported otherwise than by voluntary contribution, or
in the hands of paid public officials, can never have the spirit of
charity nor be correctly called a charity. Boston's public charitable
institutions, so called, are not charities at all; the motive is not
sympathy, but necessity. The money for the support of paupers is not
paid with benevolent intentions by the tax-payers, nor do the