Chap. IX.]

BENEFACTOR AND BENEFICIARY.

263

CHAPTER IX.

THE RELATION OF BENEFACTOR AND BENEFICIARY,

AND ITS DUTIES.

This is a relation originating in feelings on the part of thebenefactor which do honor to human nature, accompanied byactual benefits conferred in the way of personal services, pecuni-ary aid, or in some other way. The first duty of a benefactor,is, fully and conscientiously to meet and satisfy all the just andreasonable expectations, w'hich his conduct towards his beneficia-ry may have raised.* Again, it is a duty arising from the relationthus voluntarily created by himself, to prevent, by a kind conde-scension, the obligation of the benefit from being oppressivelyfelt by him on whom it has been conferred. He ought to makethe sense of his favors press as lightly as possible on the mind ofhis beneficiary. Not only so, it is appropriate to the situation inwhich he has by his own act placed himself, to cherish a perma-nent interest in the welfare of the subject of his kindness andfriendly regard.

Gratitude seems to be one of the native moral impulses of ournature ; and, so ready is this emotion to spring up in every goodmind, that ingratitude to a benefactor has, in every age, beenconsidered as proof of a natural obliquity of understanding, andof unusual insensibility and perverseness of moral feeling. Thefirst emotion of every susceptible mind, on receiving good, is,love of him from whom he receives it; the next emotion is, thewish to render him some corresponding return of service. It isthe duty of the beneficiary, therefore, to study the gratificationand advance, as far as may be, the interests and the happiness ofhim, by whom his own have been advanced without expectationof reward. The duties of the beneficiary are the more important,inasmuch as ingratitude tends so much to dry up the fountain ofbeneficence.

See above, p. 204.