BENEFICENCE—BENEVOLENCE.
Thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good.—Psalm civ. 28.
Give, and it shall be given unto you.—Luke, vi. 38.
Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband.—I. Corinthians, vii. 3.
Be rich in good works, ready to distribute.—I. Timothy, vi. 18.
Nature all
Is blooming and beneficent, like Thee.
Thomson.
Some high or humble enterprise of good
Contemplate, till it shall possess thy mind,
Become thy study, pastime, rest, and food,
And kindle in thy heart a flame refined.
Pray Heaven for firmness thy whole soul to bind
To this thy purpose—to begin, pursue,
With thoughts all fixed, and feelings purely kind;
Strength to complete, and with delight review,
And grace to give the praise where all is ever due.
Rouse to some work of high and holy love,
And thou an angel’s happiness shalt know,—
Shall bless the earth, while in the world above
The good begun by thee shall onward flow
In many a branching stream, and wider grow;
The seed that in these few and fleeting hours
Thy hands unsparing and unwearied sow,
Shall deck thy grave with amaranthine flowers,
And yield thee fruits divine in heaven’s immortal bowers.
Charles Wilcox.
The heart has tendrils like the vine,
Which round another’s bosom twine,
Outspringing from the parent tree
Of deeply-planted sympathy,
Whose flowers are hope, its fruits are bliss;
Beneficence its harvest is.
J. Bowring.
Trees, and flowers, and streams,
Are social and benevolent; and he
Who oft communeth in their language pure,
Roaming among them at the cool of day,
Shall find, like him who Eden’s garden dressed,
His Maker there to teach his listening heart.
Mrs. Sigourney.