Miss Beecher's Housekeeper and Healthkeeper / Containing Five Hundred Receipes for Economical and Healthful Cooking; also, Many Directions for Securing Health and Happiness

by Catharine Esther Beecher

The proportion of time and property which every Jew was required to devote to intellectual, benevolent, and religious purposes, was as follows:

In regard to property, they were required to give one-tenth of all their yearly income to support the Levites, the priests, and the religious service. Next, they were required to give the first-fruits of all their corn, wine, oil, and fruits, and the first-born of all their cattle, for the Lord’s treasury, to be employed for the priests, the widow, the fatherless, and the stranger. The first-born, also, of their children, were the Lord’s, and were to be redeemed by a specified sum paid into the sacred treasury. Besides this, they were required to bring a free-will offering to God every time they went up to the three great yearly festivals. In addition to this, regular yearly sacrifices of cattle and fowls were required of each family, and occasional sacrifices for certain sins or ceremonial impurities. In reaping their fields, they were required to leave the corners unreaped for the poor; not to glean their fields, olive-yards, or vineyards; and if a sheaf was left by mistake, they were not to return for it but leave it for the poor.

One-twelfth of the people were set apart, having no landed property, to be priests and teachers; and the other tribes were required to support them liberally.

In regard to the time taken from secular pursuits for the support of education and religion, an equally liberal amount was demanded. In the first place, one-seventh part of their time was taken for the weekly Sabbath, when no kind of work was to be done. Then the whole nation were required to meet at the appointed place three times a year, which, including their journeys and stay there, occupied about eight weeks, or another seventh part of their time. Then the Sabbatical year, when no agricultural labor was to be done, took another seventh of their time from their regular pursuits, as they were an agricultural people. This was the amount of time and property demanded by God, simply to sustain education, religion, and morality within the bounds of one nation.

It was promised to this nation, and fulfilled by constant miraculous interpositions, that in this life obedience to God’s laws should secure health, peace, prosperity, and long life; while for disobedience was threatened war, pestilence, famine, and all temporal evils. These promises were constantly verified; and in the day of Solomon, when this nation was most obedient, the whole world was moved with wonder at its wealth and prosperity. But up to this time, no attempt was made by God to enlarge the obligations and motives by revelations as to the future life.

But “when the fullness of time had come,” and the race of man was prepared to receive higher responsibilities, Jesus Christ came and “brought life and immortality to light” with a clearness never before revealed, and new and heavy responsibilities consequent on the dangers of the life to come. At the same time was revealed the fatherhood of God, not to the Jews alone, but to the whole human race, and the consequent brotherhood of man; and these revelations in many respects changed the whole standard of duty and obligation.

Christ came as “God manifest in the flesh,” to set an example of self-sacrificing love, in rescuing the whole family of man from the dangers of the unseen world, and also to teach and train his disciples through all time to follow his example. And those who conform the most consistently to his teachings and example will aim at a standard of labor and self-denial far beyond that demanded of the Jews.

It is not always that men understand the economy of Providence in that unequal distribution of property which, even under the most perfect form of government, will always exist. Many, looking at the present state of things, imagine that the rich, if they acted in strict conformity to the law of benevolence, would share all their property with their suffering fellow-men. But such do not take into account the inspired declaration that “a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth;” or, in other words, life is made valuable not by great possessions, but by such a character as prepares a man to enjoy what he holds. God perceives that human character can be most improved by that kind of discipline which exists when there is something valuable to be gained by industrious efforts. This stimulus to industry could never exist in a community where all are just alike, as it does in a state of society where every man sees possessed by others enjoyments which he desires, and may secure by effort and industry. So, in a community where all are alike as to property, there would be no chance to gain that noblest of all attainments, a habit of self-denying benevolence which toils for the good of others, and takes from one’s own store to increase the enjoyments of another.

Instead, then, of the stagnation, both of industry and of benevolence, which would follow the universal and equable distribution of property, some men, by superior advantages of birth, or intellect, or patronage, come into possession of a great amount of capital. With these means they are enabled, by study, reading, and travel, to secure expansion of mind, and just views of the relative advantages of moral, intellectual, and physical enjoyments. At the same time, Christianity imposes obligations corresponding with the increase of advantages and means. The rich are not at liberty to spend their treasures chiefly for themselves. Their wealth is given by God, to be employed for the best good of mankind; and their intellectual advantages are designed, primarily, to enable them to judge correctly in employing their means most wisely for the general good.

Now suppose a man of wealth inherits ten thousand acres of real estate; it is not his duty to divide it among his poor neighbors and tenants. If he took this course, it is probable that most of them would spend all in thriftless waste and indolence, or in mere physical enjoyments. Instead, then, of thus putting his capital out of his hands, he is bound to retain and so to employ it as to raise his family and his neighbors to such a state of virtue and intelligence that they can secure far more, by their own efforts and industry, than he, by dividing his capital, could bestow upon them.