Is it asked, what has all this to do with the action of Benevolent Societies? We answer, much; for the opinion is now a prevalent one, that these societies involve the very principles out of which have sprung all the abuses of poor laws. And is there not much truth in this opinion? If these Societies, gathered as far as possible to relieve every form of human want, composed of members zealous to carry out their objects, and watchful of emergencies for the greatest practicable enlargement of their provisions for their beneficiaries, shall yet not only act without concert, and with little or no knowledge of each others' procedures, but it may be with some jealousy of each other, and with not a little of the spirit of rivalry, the inference seems to us inevitable, not only that there must be a great waste, but a great abuse, of the alms which shall be dispensed by them. The difficulty, therefore, or the objection which is here brought before us, is one at which we are bound to look. Let us then not shrink from it. The very object of our association is, more completely than we otherwise could, to understand, and - of the rich, and of industry and forethought on the part of the poor. The experiment in England has produced a state of things, which, if not immediately remedied, threatens the destruction of society; and of which the remedy becomes every day more dangerous, as the disease becomes more intolerable. Every Parliamentary Report on the Poor is more painful than the previous one. The Commons' Report and Evidence of 1817, present a picture which it seems scarcely possible to make darker. And yet in the Lords' Evidence in 1831, a period of fifteen years, is looked back to by some of the witnesses as one of comparative good management. And the last abstract of the Poor-Rate Returns, presented in March, 1831, shows a general increase of assessment in the previous year of eight per cent; and in two counties, Leicester and Warwick, of twenty-two and twenty per cent."-Mr. Senior's Letter to Lord Howick on a Legal Provision for the Irish Poor. pp. 25-28. to obviate the objections, which are brought against the action of Benevolent Societies. We have associated for the purpose of obtaining a knowledge of each others procedures, of avoiding interference with each others measures and movements, of profiting by each others experience, and of gaining all the light we may as well respecting our dangers, as our duties in the dispensation of alms. Let us then look at these dangers as they are seen by those who are disposed to view them as necessary, and actual consequences. We need not shrink from them, as they well may who have made no such preparations as we have to meet them. We repeat, then, that the opinion is now a prevalent one, that Benevolent Societies involve the very principles out of which have sprung all the abuses of poor laws. For example, they are formed for the purpose of obtaining funds. They are therefore known, or are supposed by the poor, to possess funds, either for general or specific objects of relief. And these funds are to be appropriated to the relief of those who shall apply for them, and who shall seem to need them. Like poor laws, and other legalized provisions for relief, therefore, they must and will operate as lures to application for relief. And not only so. They invite, it is said, even those who would reluctantly expose their necessities to a private benefactor, to join the multitude who are already recognised as habitually and willingly dependent upon alms; and, thus to become themselves recognised, and willing, and habitual dependents. And yet further. In proportion as the disposition already exists in any thus to be dependent, rather than to labor and to economise, the knowledge of this provision not only supersedes the necessity of forethought and exertion, but to the extent to which the provision shall be made, or shall be supposed to be made, it is a machinery for perpetuating idleness, waste and dependence. Nay. Let it even be supposed that the funds thus created are very small. Not only, still, will reliance be felt, and calculations be made upon them, but the expectations formed of them, and from them, will not be small. Nor will these funds, in their distribution, call forth gratitude in their receivers. To whom, indeed, shall gratitude for them be directed? They are not the property of those who will bestow them. They will not be considered by their receivers as the alms of those who will immediately bestow them. As far as the immediate givers are concerned, there is therefore a call for gratitude, only as far as dispositions to sympathy and kindness are manifested by the givers. In other words, there is a call for gratitude for these alms, only in the circumstances of them in which, by the sympathies of their distributors, they are made to seem, and to be felt to be, private and personal alms. The cost at which relief is thus imparted, if it shall be at all considered by the receiver, it will be understood comes from the funds of the Society, whose agent is but the instrument of imparting them. And what will this Society be to the receiver? Precisely what a Corporation is in the eye of law, a living body without a soul. A Charitable Society can be an object of gratitude to those only, with whom gratitude is an habitual and irrepressible sentiment. The common mind at least wants a more distinct, and individual object, to which the sentiment may be directed. We throw out hints only, for we can do no more within the limits necessarily to be prescribed to our Report. We proceed therefore to the principles upon which we desire to act, as the distributors of the alms entrusted to us. And we think that fidelity to these principles will leave little to be objected to in the operations of the Societies represented in this Association. The principles, then, upon which we profess, and desire to act as distributors of alms, What are they? We answer, that the first principle of our association is founded in an admission, to a great extent, of the very objections thus urged against Benevolent Societies. In stating this principle, we might even use the terms, the alms of Benevolent Societies are often misapplied, and are abused by many who receive them. Therefore should the agents of these Societies be always aware of the danger of a misapplication of their alms, and do all which they may for security against every abuse of the charity which they dispense. We have, indeed, no sympathy with the maxim, that every man is to be suspected to be a knave till he shall have proved himself to be honest. Nor would we suspect every one who asks for alms to be an impostor, till he shall have proved himself to be as destitute as he shall seem to be. But neither would we indulge an easy and weak credulity, which shrinks from inquiry into the necessities of an applicant for alms. We would believe of every one who seems honest, that he may be so; and we would respect honesty wherever we may find it. But that our alms may accomplish the purposes of true and Christian Benevolence, our eyes must be open to their liabilities, and their tendencies to a ministry to evil. We are, however, persuaded that much of this tendency of the alms-giving of Benevolent Societies may fairly be ascribed to the ignorance in which these Societies have acted of each other's operations. It will be perceived in a moment, how favorable is this ignorance to all dispositions in the poor, to avail themselves of alms as substitutes for labor. These Societies, in such circumstances, can know nothing more of deceptions and impositions in the cases which come under their notice, than may be learned from their own agents; and the greatest deceiver, or impostor, might be known and discarded by one or two Societies, and yet feel himself strong in the resources he would have in twenty, in which his impositions were unsuspected. Our first principle, then, stated simply with reference to the action of this Association, is, that every error or mistake in alms-giving, and every misapplication of alms, known to a visiter belonging to any of the Societies here represented, is to be made known to all the visiters. It is an important object of our monthly meetings to report upon all known cases of the misapplication of alms. The Delegates who form this Association are Visiters of the Poor, and a faithful visitatorial system is maintained by them. The privilege of carrying alms to those who ought to be relieved by them is indeed felt by us to be very great. We know also that there are those among us, than whom none in our community are more deserving, who yet cannot live without alms. And we admit, that if all professed believers in Christianity were alive to a Christian sense of their relations to their fellowbeings, and their social duties as Christians, there would be no call for Poor Laws, or Alms-Houses, or Benevolent Societies. Private intercourse with the poor, and private alms-giving, would then supersede the necessity of these Institutions. But of all artificial forms of alms-giving, we consider Benevolent Societies, united as ours are, and true to the principles of this union, not only as the least exposed to a misapplication of alms, but as far the best enabled most wisely to appropriate them, and at the same time to make them effective of the best moral influences upon their receivers. We would know, and we associate that we may know, and avoid all abuses in this department of charity, that we may most completely carry out in it the charity of the Gospel. Through this principle, we believe that our Association has already been an in |