GENERAL HOSPITAL.
Though charity is one of the most amiable qualities of humanity, yet, like Cupid, she ought to be represented blind; or, like Justice, hood-winked. None of the virtues have been so much misapplied; giving to the hungry, is sometimes only another word for giving to the idle. We know of but two ways in which this excellence can exert itself; improving the mind, and nourishing the body. To help him who will not help himself; or, indiscriminately to relieve those that want, is totally to mistake the end; for want is often met with: but to supply those who cannot supply themselves, becomes real charity. Some worthy Christians have taken it into their heads to relieve all, for fear of omitting the right. What should we think of the constable who seizes every person he meets with, for fear of missing the thief? Between the simple words, therefore, of WILL NOT and CANNOT, runs the fine barrier between real and mistaken charity.
This virtue, so strongly inculcated by the christian system, hath, during the last seventeen centuries, appeared in a variety of forms, and some of them have been detrimental to the interest they were meant to serve: Such was the cloister. Man is not born altogether to serve himself, but the community; if he cannot exist without the assistance of others, it follows, that others ought to be assisted by him: but if condemned to obscurity in the cell, he is then fed by the aid of the public, while that public derives none from him.
Estates have sometimes been devised in trust for particular uses, meant as charities by the giver, but have, in a few years, been diverted out of their original channel to other purposes.
The trust themselves, like so many contending princes, ardently druggie for sovereignty; hence, legacy and discord are intimate companions.
The plantation of many of our English schools sprang up from the will of the dead; but it is observable, that sterility quickly takes place; the establishment of the master being properly secured, supineness enters, and the young scions of learning are retarded in their growth.
It therefore admits a doubt, whether charitable donation is beneficial to the world; nay, the estate itself becomes blasted when bequeathed to public use, for, being the freehold of none, none will improve it: besides, the more dead land, the less scope for industry.