Listen to M. Charles Périn, who has treated with as much depth as sincerity the difficult problems of political economy:
“The action of the state in giving assistance will not be free from danger, inasmuch as it would have a purely preventive character.... That the state intervenes to assure by its civil existence the duration of those institutions founded by the free inspirations of private charity; that it assures itself that the conditions of the foundations for which it calls its meetings contain nothing which repudiates the rules of public order; that it exercises over the administrations of those foundations a watchfulness that prevents abuses and which secures the observation of the essential rules of the institution, without annulling the free action of those who have received the mission of donators to represent them among the poor, and continue the work of charity which has inspired them—under these conditions, the intervention of the state will become a benefit, because then she does no more than aid liberty.”[101]
Here is also the doctrine of the great Bishop of Arras, Mgr. Parisis:
“That which governments can and ought to do to aid charity is not to disfigure, to dry up, and to destroy it in making it entirely legal, but to reanimate it by all possible means in maintaining it Christian, in preserving the sentiment, and everywhere encouraging efforts in its regard, to make not rulers, but auxiliaries, not oppressors, but friends.”[102]
Admirable formula, that the politicians of the present day should study a little more!
We have placed before the reader the sentiments and doctrines of Portalis touching official charity. We do not think that we could give higher authority. We have found in the alleged proofs good and solid reasoning. We record a true demonstration.
We have been reluctant heretofore to discharge this great duty. Why we take up the subject at this late period is to expose the vices and the dangers of official charity.