charity

• he who will not work shall not eat

69:2.5La­bor, the ef­forts of de­sign, dis­tin­guishes man from the beast, whose ex­er­tions are largely in­stinc­tive. The ne­ces­sity for la­bor is man’s paramount bless­ing. The Prince’s staff all worked; they did much to en­no­ble phys­i­cal la­bor on Uran­tia. Adam was a gar­dener; the God of the He­brews la­bored—he was the cre­ator and up­holder of all things. The He­brews were the first tribe to put a su­preme pre­mium on in­dus­try; they were the first peo­ple to de­cree that “he who does not work shall not eat.” But many of the re­li­gions of the world re­verted to the early ideal of idle­ness. Jupiter was a rev­eler, and Bud­dha be­came a re­flec­tive devo­tee of leisure.

• improvident depend on taxpayers to take care of them

69:9.53. The de­sire for lib­erty and leisure. In the ear­lier days of so­cial evo­lu­tion the ap­por­tion­ment of in­di­vid­ual earn­ings among the group was vir­tu­ally a form of slav­ery; the worker was made slave to the idler. This was the sui­ci­dal weak­ness of com­mu­nism: The im­prov­i­dent ha­bit­u­ally lived off the thrifty. Even in mod­ern times the im­prov­i­dent de­pend on the state (thrifty tax­pay­ers) to take care of them. Those who have no cap­i­tal still ex­pect those who have to feed them.

• poverty cannot be eliminated if defectives freely supported, reproduce without restraint

71:3.8No so­ci­ety has pro­gressed very far when it per­mits idle­ness or tol­er­ates pov­erty. But pov­erty and de­pen­dence can never be elim­i­nated if the de­fec­tive and de­gen­er­ate stocks are freely sup­ported and per­mit­ted to re­pro­duce with­out re­straint.

• replace self-respect destroying c. by pensions

72:6.1This na­tion is mak­ing a de­ter­mined ef­fort to re­place the self-re­spect-de­stroy­ing type of char­ity by dig­ni­fied gov­ern­ment-in­sur­ance guar­an­tees of se­cu­rity in old age. This na­tion pro­vides ev­ery child an ed­u­ca­tion and ev­ery man a job; there­fore can it suc­cess­fully carry out such an in­sur­ance scheme for the pro­tec­tion of the in­firm and aged.

• pernicious when long extended to able-bodied

81:6.32It is not enough to train men for work; in a com­plex so­ci­ety there must also be pro­vided ef­fi­cient meth­ods of place find­ing. Be­fore train­ing cit­i­zens in the highly spe­cial­ized tech­niques of earn­ing a liv­ing, they should be trained in one or more meth­ods of com­mon­place la­bor, trades or call­ings which could be uti­lized when they were tran­siently un­em­ployed in their spe­cial­ized work. No civ­i­liza­tion can sur­vive the long-time har­bor­ing of large classes of un­em­ployed. In time, even the best of cit­i­zens will be­come dis­torted and de­mor­al­ized by ac­cept­ing sup­port from the pub­lic trea­sury. Even pri­vate char­ity be­comes per­ni­cious when long ex­tended to able-bod­ied cit­i­zens.

• Jesus did not countenance dependence on

128:5.4Je­sus lis­tened to all they had to say, thanked them for their con­fi­dence, and, in de­clin­ing to go to Alexan­dria, in sub­stance said, “My hour has not yet come.” They were non­plused by his ap­par­ent in­dif­fer­ence to the honor they had sought to con­fer upon him. Be­fore tak­ing leave of Je­sus, they pre­sented him with a purse in to­ken of the es­teem of his Alexan­drian friends and in com­pen­sa­tion for the time and ex­pense of com­ing over to Cae­sarea to con­fer with them. But he like­wise re­fused the money, say­ing: “The house of Joseph has never re­ceived alms, and we can­not eat an­other’s bread as long as I have strong arms and my broth­ers can la­bor.”

• Jesus’ talk with Roman senator about

132:4.5He talked with a Ro­man sen­a­tor on pol­i­tics and states­man­ship, and this one con­tact with Je­sus made such an im­pres­sion on this leg­is­la­tor that he spent the rest of his life vainly try­ing to in­duce his col­leagues to change the course of the rul­ing pol­icy from the idea of the gov­ern­ment sup­port­ing and feed­ing the peo­ple to that of the peo­ple sup­port­ing the gov­ern­ment. Je­sus spent one evening with a wealthy slave­holder, talked about man as a son of God, and the next day this man, Claudius, gave free­dom to one hun­dred and sev­en­teen slaves. He vis­ited at din­ner with a Greek physi­cian, telling him that his pa­tients had minds and souls as well as bod­ies, and thus led this able doc­tor to at­tempt a more far-reach­ing min­istry to his fel­low men. He talked with all sorts of peo­ple in ev­ery walk of life. The only place in Rome he did not visit was the pub­lic baths. He re­fused to ac­com­pany his friends to the baths be­cause of the sex promis­cu­ity which there pre­vailed.

• he who will not work shall not eat

140:8.21. Do­ing the Fa­ther’s will. Je­sus’ teach­ing to trust in the over­care of the heav­enly Fa­ther was not a blind and pas­sive fa­tal­ism. He quoted with ap­proval, on this af­ter­noon, an old He­brew say­ing: “He who will not work shall not eat.” He pointed to his own ex­pe­ri­ence as suf­fi­cient com­men­tary on his teach­ings. His pre­cepts about trust­ing the Fa­ther must not be ad­judged by the so­cial or eco­nomic con­di­tions of mod­ern times or any other age. His in­struc­tion em­braces the ideal prin­ci­ples of liv­ing near God in all ages and on all worlds.

• he who will not work shall not eat

153:2.6“Some of you, when you could not find me af­ter the feast­ing of the mul­ti­tude on the other side, hired the Tiberias fish­ing fleet, which a week be­fore had taken shel­ter near by dur­ing a storm, to go in pur­suit of me, and what for? Not for truth and righ­teous­ness or that you might the bet­ter know how to serve and min­is­ter to your fel­low men! No, but rather that you might have more bread for which you had not la­bored. It was not to fill your souls with the word of life, but only that you might fill the belly with the bread of ease. And long have you been taught that the Mes­siah, when he should come, would work those won­ders which would make life pleas­ant and easy for all the cho­sen peo­ple. It is not strange, then, that you who have been thus taught should long for the loaves and the fishes. But I de­clare to you that such is not the mis­sion of the Son of Man. I have come to pro­claim spir­i­tual lib­erty, teach eter­nal truth, and fos­ter liv­ing faith.

• Jesus did not countenance dependence on

165:4.7Je­sus did not teach nor coun­te­nance im­prov­i­dence, idle­ness, in­dif­fer­ence to pro­vid­ing the phys­i­cal ne­ces­si­ties for one’s fam­ily, or de­pen­dence upon alms. But he did teach that the ma­te­rial and tem­po­ral must be sub­or­di­nated to the wel­fare of the soul and the prog­ress of the spir­i­tual na­ture in the king­dom of heaven.

• rich men endow great institutions of learning

69:5.13Ac­cu­mu­la­tions of wealth early be­came the badge of so­cial dis­tinc­tion. In­di­vid­u­als in cer­tain tribes would ac­cu­mu­late prop­erty for years just to cre­ate an im­pres­sion by burn­ing it up on some hol­i­day or by freely dis­tribut­ing it to fel­low tribes­men. This made them great men. Even mod­ern peo­ples revel in the lav­ish dis­tri­bu­tion of Christ­mas gifts, while rich men en­dow great in­sti­tu­tions of phi­lan­thropy and learn­ing. Man’s tech­nique varies, but his dis­po­si­tion re­mains quite un­changed.

• what is given is wisely saved

131:3.6“The fool has said in his heart, ‘Evil shall not over­take me’; but safety is found only when the soul craves re­proof and the mind seeks wis­dom. The wise man is a no­ble soul who is friendly in the midst of his en­e­mies, tran­quil among the tur­bu­lent, and gen­er­ous among the grasp­ing. Love of self is like weeds in a goodly field. Self­ish­ness leads to grief; per­pet­ual care kills. The tamed mind yields hap­pi­ness. He is the great­est of war­riors who over­comes and sub­dues him­self. Re­straint in all things is good. He alone is a su­pe­rior per­son who es­teems virtue and is ob­ser­vant of his duty. Let not anger and hate mas­ter you. Speak harshly of no one. Con­tent­ment is the great­est wealth. What is given wisely is well saved. Do not to oth­ers those things you would not wish done to you. Pay good for evil; over­come evil with the good.

• give anonymously

131:10.8“Hence­forth will I do my good deeds in se­cret; I will also pray most when by my­self. I will judge not that I may not be un­fair to my fel­lows. I am go­ing to learn to love my en­e­mies; I have not truly mas­tered this prac­tice of be­ing God­like. Though I see God in these other re­li­gions, I find him in ‘our re­li­gion’ as be­ing more beau­ti­ful, lov­ing, mer­ci­ful, per­sonal, and pos­i­tive. But most of all, this great and glo­ri­ous Be­ing is my spir­i­tual Fa­ther; I am his child. And by no other means than my hon­est de­sire to be like him, I am even­tu­ally to find him and eter­nally to serve him. At last I have a re­li­gion with a God, a mar­velous God, and he is a God of eter­nal sal­va­tion.”

• mercy ministry is always the work of individuals

133:1.2“Ga­nid, it is true, you do not un­der­stand. Mercy min­istry is al­ways the work of the in­di­vid­ual, but jus­tice pun­ish­ment is the func­tion of the so­cial, gov­ern­men­tal, or uni­verse ad­min­is­tra­tive groups. As an in­di­vid­ual I am be­holden to show mercy; I must go to the res­cue of the as­saulted lad, and in all con­sis­tency I may em­ploy suf­fi­cient force to re­strain the ag­gres­sor. And that is just what I did. I achieved the de­liv­er­ance of the as­saulted lad; that was the end of mercy min­istry. Then I forcibly de­tained the ag­gres­sor a suf­fi­cient length of time to en­able the weaker party to the dis­pute to make his es­cape, af­ter which I with­drew from the af­fair. I did not pro­ceed to sit in judg­ment on the ag­gres­sor, thus to pass upon his mo­tive—to ad­ju­di­cate all that en­tered into his at­tack upon his fel­low—and then un­der­take to ex­e­cute the pun­ish­ment which my mind might dic­tate as just rec­om­pense for his wrong­do­ing. Ga­nid, mercy may be lav­ish, but jus­tice is pre­cise. Can­not you dis­cern that no two per­sons are likely to agree as to the pun­ish­ment which would sat­isfy the de­mands of jus­tice? One would im­pose forty lashes, an­other twenty, while still an­other would ad­vise soli­tary con­fine­ment as a just pun­ish­ment. Can you not see that on this world such re­spon­si­bil­i­ties had bet­ter rest upon the group or be ad­min­is­tered by cho­sen rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the group? In the uni­verse, judg­ment is vested in those who fully know the an­tecedents of all wrong­do­ing as well as its mo­ti­va­tion. In civ­i­lized so­ci­ety and in an or­ga­nized uni­verse the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice pre­sup­poses the pass­ing of just sen­tence con­se­quent upon fair judg­ment, and such pre­rog­a­tives are vested in the ju­ridi­cal groups of the worlds and in the all-know­ing ad­min­is­tra­tors of the higher uni­verses of all cre­ation.”

• give anonymously

140:6.11When Je­sus heard this, he said: “Be will­ing, then, to take up your re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and fol­low me. Do your good deeds in se­cret; when you give alms, let not the left hand know what the right hand does. And when you pray, go apart by your­selves and use not vain rep­e­ti­tions and mean­ing­less phrases. Al­ways re­mem­ber that the Fa­ther knows what you need even be­fore you ask him. And be not given to fast­ing with a sad coun­te­nance to be seen by men. As my cho­sen apos­tles, now set apart for the ser­vice of the king­dom, lay not up for your­selves trea­sures on earth, but by your un­selfish ser­vice lay up for your­selves trea­sures in heaven, for where your trea­sures are, there will your hearts be also.

• apostles to turn away professional alms-seekers

140:8.12The Mas­ter did not say that men should never en­ter­tain their friends at meat, but he did say that his fol­low­ers should make feasts for the poor and the un­for­tu­nate. Je­sus had a firm sense of jus­tice, but it was al­ways tem­pered with mercy. He did not teach his apos­tles that they were to be im­posed upon by so­cial par­a­sites or pro­fes­sional alms-seek­ers. The near­est he came to mak­ing so­ci­o­log­i­cal pro­nounce­ments was to say, “Judge not, that you be not judged.”

• give anonymously

140:8.26Je­sus knew men were dif­fer­ent, and he so taught his apos­tles. He con­stantly ex­horted them to re­frain from try­ing to mold the dis­ci­ples and be­liev­ers ac­cord­ing to some set pat­tern. He sought to al­low each soul to de­velop in its own way, a per­fect­ing and sep­a­rate in­di­vid­ual be­fore God. In an­swer to one of Pe­ter’s many ques­tions, the Mas­ter said: “I want to set men free so that they can start out afresh as lit­tle chil­dren upon the new and bet­ter life.” Je­sus al­ways in­sisted that true good­ness must be un­con­scious, in be­stow­ing char­ity not al­low­ing the left hand to know what the right hand does.

• Pharisees did not shun publicity regarding c.

147:5.2The wealthy Phar­isees were de­voted to alms­giv­ing, and they did not shun pub­lic­ity re­gard­ing their phi­lan­thropy. Some­times they would even blow a trum­pet as they were about to be­stow char­ity upon some beg­gar. It was the cus­tom of these Phar­isees, when they pro­vided a ban­quet for dis­tin­guished guests, to leave the doors of the house open so that even the street beg­gars might come in and, stand­ing around the walls of the room be­hind the couches of the din­ers, be in po­si­tion to re­ceive por­tions of food which might be tossed to them by the ban­queters.

• Jews believed almsgiving meritorious

164:3.5How­ever, in­con­sis­tent as it seems, while such blind­ness was sup­posed to be the re­sult of sin, the Jews held that it was mer­i­to­ri­ous in a high de­gree to give alms to these blind beg­gars. It was the cus­tom of these blind men con­stantly to chant to the passers-by, “O ten­der­hearted, gain merit by as­sist­ing the blind.”

• giving is minor duty

166:1.4When the Mas­ter had thus spo­ken, they cast their eyes upon the ta­ble and re­mained silent. And since no one spoke, Je­sus con­tin­ued: “Many of you Phar­isees are here with me as friends, some are even my dis­ci­ples, but the ma­jor­ity of the Phar­isees are per­sis­tent in their re­fusal to see the light and ac­knowl­edge the truth, even when the work of the gospel is brought be­fore them in great power. How care­fully you cleanse the out­side of the cups and the plat­ters while the spir­i­tual-food ves­sels are filthy and pol­luted! You make sure to pre­sent a pi­ous and holy ap­pear­ance to the peo­ple, but your in­ner souls are filled with self-righ­teous­ness, cov­etous­ness, ex­tor­tion, and all man­ner of spir­i­tual wicked­ness. Your lead­ers even dare to plot and plan the mur­der of the Son of Man. Do not you fool­ish men un­der­stand that the God of heaven looks at the in­ner mo­tives of the soul as well as on your outer pre­tenses and your pi­ous pro­fes­sions? Think not that the giv­ing of alms and the pay­ing of tithes will cleanse you from un­righ­teous­ness and en­able you to stand clean in the pres­ence of the Judge of all men. Woe upon you Phar­isees who have per­sisted in re­ject­ing the light of life! You are metic­u­lous in tithing and os­ten­ta­tious in alms­giv­ing, but you know­ingly spurn the vis­i­ta­tion of God and re­ject the rev­e­la­tion of his love. Though it is all right for you to give at­ten­tion to these mi­nor du­ties, you should not have left these weight­ier re­quire­ments un­done. Woe upon all who shun jus­tice, spurn mercy, and re­ject truth! Woe upon all those who de­spise the rev­e­la­tion of the Fa­ther while they seek the chief seats in the syn­a­gogue and crave flat­ter­ing salu­ta­tions in the mar­ket places!”

• give anonymously

175:1.9“Fur­ther­more, these self-cen­tered rulers de­light in do­ing their good works so that they will be seen by men. They make broad their phy­lac­ter­ies and en­large the bor­ders of their of­fi­cial robes. They crave the chief places at the feasts and de­mand the chief seats in the syn­a­gogues. They covet lauda­tory salu­ta­tions in the mar­ket places and de­sire to be called rabbi by all men. And even while they seek all this honor from men, they se­cretly lay hold of wid­ows’ houses and take profit from the ser­vices of the sa­cred tem­ple. For a pre­tense these hyp­ocrites make long prayers in pub­lic and give alms to at­tract the no­tice of their fel­lows.