To do good is a privilege and guerdon: how shouldst thou rejoice
If ill-got gifts of presumptuous fraud be offered on the altar?
The question is not of degrees; unhallowed alms are evil;
Discourage and reject alike the obolus or talent of iniquity.
Yet more, be careful that, unworthily, thou gain not an advantage over weakness,
Unstable souls, fervent and profuse, fluttered by the feeling of the moment;
For eloquence swayeth to its will the feeble and the conscious of defect:
Rashly give they, and afterward are sad,—a gift that doubly erred.
It was the worldliness of priestcraft that accounted alms-giving for charity;
And many a father's penitence hath steeped his son in penury;