πρὸς γὰρ Διός εἰσιν ἅπαντες
ξεῖνοί τε πτωχοί τε.
So that, though none would invite them, yet few would take the responsibility of rejecting their supplications for what was needful to supply their wants.
And the standing distinction in the Odyssey between a virtuous and a vicious people is, that the former is insolent, fierce, and unrighteous, while the latter is kind to strangers and of god-fearing mind[754];
ἦ ῥ’ οἵγ’ ὑβρισταί τε καὶ ἄγριοι, οὐδὲ δίκαιοι,
ἠὲ φιλόξεινοι, καί σφιν νόος ἐστὶ θεουδής;
Bearing of the religion on social ties.
It was thus a clear fact in the heroic age, that religious belief was a foundation and support to the exercise of charitable offices between man and man. I think we may further assert, that it is a fact of all time; that in all ages and countries the strength and liveliness of belief in God is a measure which determines the aggregate amount and activity of mutual love. Hence, as the Olympian religion became more and more hollow, public oppression increased, and private charity and hospitality declined. Yet, even in its most corrupt and decrepit period, it was on the steps of temples that the congregations of mendicants assembled; spontaneous and unconscious witnesses to the fact that, next to God their Friend in heaven, the reflection of God, however faint, in the mind of man, is their best friend on earth. And of the many great social results of Christianity, one standing in the very foremost rank has been, that it has for the first time made the rights of the poor a social axiom, which, though it may in practice be evaded, none are hardy enough to deny. Perhaps the very strongest of all the proofs of the connection between religious belief, and duties to the needy, is to be found in the instinctive horror which is created in the minds of men, when a prominent profession of the first is accidentally and occasionally exhibited by persons, who show a palpable disregard of the second.
Side by side with the powerful obligation, of the indeterminate species, which binds man to man in the name of charity or brotherly kindness, stands the corresponding determinate principle of truth and justice, which aims at preserving entire to each individual the definite rights to which he is entitled.
An important part of these definite rights belongs immediately to the relations between the private person and the civil power. But the capacity of any human authority to do justice, even where the will cannot be found fault with, is of necessity defective: and no government can do its duties for a day, irrespective of the aid which each private person renders to it in reference to every other. Nor is this enough; it wants, and cannot dispense with, the assistance of an auxiliary within the breast, in order to guard itself against delusion, and to secure the requisite conformity between thought, word, and act. In other words, the state wants an instrument by which to induce men to speak the truth.