The Merciful
“He that oppresseth the poor, reproacheth his Maker; but he that honoureth Him hath mercy on the poor.” — xiv. 31.
JTH in God is the foundation that sustains the goodly superstructure of relative duties. A greater than Solomon imparted the same instruction to the apostle who leant on His breast. This commandment have we from him: “That he who loveth God, love his brother also” (1 John iv. 21). The Almighty casts his shield over those who have no other help. He espouses the cause of the poor. To oppress them is to reproach Him. In the arrangements of His providence, the poor we have always with us, as tests to try our love, and objects to exercise it on. Love of God is the root of the matter in a human heart: but the root, though the chief thing, is from its nature unseen. It is known by its fruit, and its fruit is philanthropy. The necessary dependence of human duty upon divine faith is laid down by Solomon as clearly as by John: “He that honoureth Him hath mercy on the poor.” If the heart is right with God, the hand will be open to a brother; but a profession of faith by a merciless man the Most High will repudiate as hypocrisy. The ancient Church possessed in full the glorious truth, that of all the real compassion which flows through human channels, the fountain-head is on high. He who gets mercy shows it.
In His own teaching on this subject, Jesus said, “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full;” and immediately added, “This is my commandment, that ye love one another” (John xv. 11, 12). The connection between these two intimations is interesting and obvious. First, his own joy; next, that joy flowing into his disciples, so that they shall be full; and then these full vessels flowing over in streams of Christ-like love on all the needy within (?) 19 their reach. It is this union to the Head that will enable — that will compel a disciple to love his brother. From this fountain, through this channel, a love-stream will flow of volume sufficient to carry down before it a whole legion of obstructing jealousies.
These are the principles; and now, some suggestions as to the practice of mercy to the poor.
1. We must not confine our aim either to the sins of the soul on the one hand, or to the sufferings of the body on the other. You cannot effectively or permanently help your poor brother, if you treat him merely as a body with life in it: the laws of Providence forbid Whom God hath joined, no man can with impunity put asunder. Soul and body are so united, that the one cannot really be elevated while the other is left low. Those who attempt the material elevation of the species by material means alone, do and must fail. Soul and body are bound together for better and for worse. We cannot keep our brother’s body and neglect his soul; if we would rescue the falling, we must lay hold of the whole man. On the other side, we will not succeed in influencing the spirits of the wretched, if we are callous to their bodily sufferings. If we leave behind unnoticed the body’s privations, we shall not reach the soul to deal with its sins. The avenue to the spirit lies, in part at least, through the bodily senses. If we do not approach in that way, we shall be kept out, and our spiritual counsels, however good, will strike against the closed door of an anguished heart, and rebound in our faces, like an echo that mocks us from a rock. The double rule for the whole case is — as to the supply of spiritual destitution, this ought ye to do; and as to the healing of physical ailments, that ought ye not to leave undone.
2. Every one must do his part in the great work of helping those who cannot help themselves. To prescribe other people’s duty, and neglect our own, is a foolish and mischievous habit. We must not suppose that philanthropists are a few eminent personages, standing out in high relief on the page of history — men born, like poets, to their destiny, whose office is to cure human ills on the stage of a continent, and in sight of an admiring world. Honour to the greatly good of eery age and every country; but the bulk of mercy’s work must everywhere be done by the many thousands of kind hearts and busy hands that are never heard of half a mile from home. Most of the light we work by on the surface of the earth, comes to us reflected from unnumbered objects near that get it from the sun; and so the glimpses of compassion that fall in all directions on the poor-, from every heart that basks in the love of Jesus, constitute, by aggregate of many little things, the bulk and substance of the effort that mitigates the sufferings of men. Let every man do his best in the place which he holds, and with the means at his disposal.
3. Mercy to the poor must be a law operating from within, and not a system adopted from without. Wherever genuine coin is going, counterfeits appear. There is a species of charity, got up according to the fashion, that flourishes in benevolent societies abroad, and comes home to snarl at a servant who is doing her best to please. You never find the law of gravitation acting on a steeple, and forgetting itself in the shaft of a coal-pit where it is out of sight. The laws of God never put on appearances, whether they be the laws that are stamped on creation, or those that are written by the Spirit on a renewed heart. If there be truth in the inward parts, the outward actions will be consistent. The legs of the lame are unequal, and he makes no progress in this race of benevolence. I would estimate at a low price the philanthropy of the man who has spent ten thousand on an hospital, and oppresses his own dependants in detail. The ills of life are real; we must have a real love to cope with them. Mercy to man must have its spring in the heart, that its streams may be ever ready to flow, wherever there is an opening. The sufferings of humanity cannot be conjured away by a name: a nature ;s needed to secure a steady supply of mercy, and that nature must be new. Howard was a man of great mercy, but he was not a great man. He was not great, but he was true, and the secret of his power lay in his truth. It was conscious union to Christ as a sinner saved that animated, sustained, and directed him. Mercy in him acted by a law of the new creature, and it was steady like nature’s other laws. It acted on every object and at every time, without partiality and without hypocrisy. If the unhealthful cottages of Cardington had been left wet above and wet below, while Howard screwed the rents from their squalid inmates, he would not have been able to have poured the balm of humanity on the barbarism of British and continental prisons. Inconsistency, if he had been guilty of it, would have unnerved his arm and undermined hie influence. Neglect of smaller oppressions near his own dwelling would have shorn the locks of his strength; and the mighty Philistines whom he met abroad, instead of falling by his sling, would have put out his eyes and made sport of his blindness. It was love that led him forth, and truth that made him strong. If a man is not merciful all over, he is not merciful at all.
4. There must be regulating wisdom as well as motive power. There must indeed be an impulse in order to energetic action, but we must not act by impulses. We need all the power that we possess; it is a pity that any of it should be wasted. To give alms to little children sent by profligate parents to enact misery on the street is money thrown away, and mercy too. Of late years much has been done to indoctrinate the public mind on this subject. Whether the public have learned the lesson yet, I know not; but certainly they have been often taught that it is useless and mischievous to give pence indiscriminately to beggars on the street or the wayside. This doctrine is true, but it does not con’ tain the whole truth in regard to that subject. One side of truth may become practically falsehood. We need the counsels which have of late been largely addressed to us from many quarters, to harden us against giving by sudden impulse to persons unworthy or unknown; but we don’t need any lecture to repress within our hearts the movements Of mercy to the poor. I am jealous for myself and others, lest, in leaning hard over from the side of lavish expenditure on the unworthy, we should fall, on the other side, into a callous indifference to human sufferings. We must not check the impulse because counterfeit poverty has abused our compassion and wasted our gifts. Direct it upon genuine poverty, and stimulate it to the utmost. Such is the constitution of the world, and the condition of men, that if the relations are rightly managed, the rich may get more good from the presence of the poor than the poor get from the gifts of the rich. The flow of compassion is healthful; obstruction in the channel breeds disease in the moral system. It is both health and happiness to a mother to have a helpless, little, living thing hanging on her breast, and drawing its sustenance from her body. To want it would be neither a pleasure nor a profit. The poor we have always with us, and it is a double blessedness to give.
The discovery of abuses should induce us not to seal the fountain, but to direct the stream. Where no water runs, no ships, with their precious burdens, navigate the interior of a country. Even where there is a stream constant and strong, it does not follow that you can have safe and profitable inland navigation. If the water turn sharply round a corner here, and leap white and frothy over a rock there, it will be better to intrust no ship to its impetuous movements. What then 1 Then neither intrust your floating treasures to that wayward stream, nor let the country lie lean for want of commerce. Dig a canal. Your canal will do nothing for you dry, and your river will do nothing for you although it is filled to the brim; but let the river into the canal, and forthwith ply your traffic. The whole neighbourhood will be enriched. Let us beware of either checking or wasting any impulse of humanity; we need it all, and more. Direct it wisely, and let it flow.
5. Another important rule for the practice of mercy to the poor is, whatever share you may be able to take in the wholesale benevolence of organized societies, you should also carry on a retail business, by personal contact with the sufferers. Societies and pecuniary contributions are necessary in their own place; but even although they should satisfy the wants of the receiver, the greater blessing to the giver cannot come through these channels. Personal contact — face to face — heart to heart — hand to hand — this is the best way to do good, and get good. We are indebted to our Father in heaven for all the good that we enjoy; and as our goodness reacheth not unto Him, He has made the account payable to the poor; no man has any right to lift himself up in pride; no man has any right even to count that he condescends, when he enters the houses, and listens to the tale of the sufferers. He is only owning, we cannot say paying, a lawful debt. It is simply the act of honouring his Maker. When he has done all,