HOW TO DO THE MOST GOOD.
"You see, Kate, to do real good, one must not mind some trouble; for, you know, my love, it is our duty to detect and prevent error, as much as it is our duty to cherish virtue."—"But, Aunt, when one inquires too closely, one finds out sad faults."—"Right, my dear, and we do good even by that discovery. For, perhaps, we stop the guilty from going on in their course of crime; and that is no small service."—"True, Aunt, and besides that, we save the money of the kind for the good and honest, by keeping it from the bad and artful."
"Of two cases of distress named to us, you know, one was false and the other was true. This should teach us never to relieve want till we are sure of its being true; this should teach us never to pass by a demand without notice; for fear we should thereby doom a fellow-creature to want and sickness, and, it may be, death."
"You have cured the poor man, my dear Aunt, and fed his wife, and clothed his children; but they will soon be in distress again, and you said you could not afford to keep them."—"I cannot afford it, indeed, my child; and I ought not to do it, if I could; for these people can now earn their living, and must not live upon my small poor purse."—"No, because that would prevent your helping any other poor person."—"Right, Kate; so I have been thinking to ask Lord Glenmore to let the man have work in his grounds."—"But you won't like to go and ask such a favour of Lord Glenmore."—"I am not fond of asking favours; but this is more for the poor man than for myself; and shall I not be doing his Lordship a favour, in shewing him how he can do a good act?"—"To be sure you will, and he has a kind heart, and loves to do good. Pray let us go, Aunt; I am sorry Blanche is ill and cannot go with us."—"You and I have been chatting and standing here, Kate, and have almost passed the hour, when our dear sick girl should take her physic. Ruth is with her; go to her, and I will fetch the phial and the cup, and follow you to her chamber." Kate ran off to the room of her sick friend.