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THE RELATIVE DUTIES OF MANKIND. [Part III.

are small, still, not only will reliance be felt, and calculations bemade upon them, but the expectations, formed of them and fromthem, will not be small.

. It must be admitted, that this reasoning, sustained as it is byoccasional facts, is plausible and fitted to make an impressioneven on a good man. That his almsgiving, which he has beentaught to consider a sacred duty, should even le suspected, to bean occasion of waste, of abuse, and of increasing pauperism ;strikes him with equal surprise and dismay. Many go easilyfrom one extreme to another ; many, too, are glad of any plausi-ble excuse for. refusing to give alms. No doubt, also, there hasbeen enough of waste and abuse of alms, to admonish all whomay be concerned in their dispensation, to be distinctly on then-guard, lest they justify the reasoning of those who oppose them-selves against all almsgiving, and cast discouragement on thisgreat and imperative Christian duty.

It may well be believed, indeed, that the abuses of almsgivinghave been very much magnified ; and it may be affirmed, withall confidence, that such abuses are circumstantial and incidentalto it, not essential. In other terms, the abuses are owing towant of skill and experience in the dispensers of alms, and notto any thing inherent in almsgiving itself, or in societies , as thealmoners of 'pecuniary bounty destined for the poor and dis-tressed. Guided by a knowledge of human nature, and by theteaching of the past, rich as it has been in experience on thissubject, the subjoined cautions and rules may be recommended toall societies instituted to collect and dispense alms, and to indi-viduals who themselves dispense their own alms.

(1.) Let all who dispense alms keep distinctly in view thedanger of misapplying them , and do all they can to guard againstevery abuse of the alms which they dispense. By this, it is notintended to sanction the maxim, that every man is to be suspect-ed to be a knave, till he shall have proved himself to be honest.Nor is every one to be suspected to be an impostor, who asksfor alms, till he shall have proved himself to be as destitute as heshall seem to be. Neither should we indulge an easy and weakcredulity, which shrinks from inquiry into the necessities of anapplicant for alms. We may believe of every one who seems