Here then the Committee close their Review, under a conviction that they have established a claim upon the generous consideration of their fellow Parishioners. The facts enumerated speak for themselves. No force of eloquence, no appeals to sentiment are required to enhance their value. They satisfy the head—they ought to influence the heart; for if it be a duty at once acknowledged and indisputable to exercise charity by clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, raising the fallen, helping the weak, educating the young, and visiting the sick, the widow, and the fatherless in affliction, there must abide an awful responsibility on those, who not only decline to do so personally, but refuse to strengthen the hands of others dedicating time and energy to these works of love. To all such, if such there be, the Committee may reasonably say, You are living surrounded by a large and necessitous population, the representatives in their poverty and suffering of the Saviour Who died for your Redemption—He, in the wisdom of His Providential ordering, made you to differ from the meanest of that multitude, granted you ability, wealth, industry, position, character, for the express purpose of enabling you, as followers of Him, to bear their burdens. Occupation, business, pleasure, health, or feeling, may preclude you from taking direct part in the discharge of this your trust. By habits and temperament you may be unfitted for personal ministration. Let, then, this Association be your almoner. It acts under the Presidency of your Vicar, and the superintendence of a Committee of Laymen like yourselves. It is pledged to investigate the fact and cause of each alleged distress, to turn your bounty to its best account, to apply it with a cautious tenderness, a discreet forbearance. Chosen from the gently nurtured and the educated, its dispensers bear it to hearths and beds of real privation, and unsimulated disease. Witnessing the extremes of pain, and woe, and want; entering abodes whence less unselfish pity might turn away disgusted; carrying the message of peace and hope to the broken-hearted and despairing; it is _theirs_ to imitate the Divine Example, and go about doing good—should it not be _yours_ to emulate their labours, sustain their efforts, and extend their power in well-doing? Can it be right, or wise, or just, or patriotic, or Christian, to allow them, whatever be their earnestness, self-denial, or single-mindedness, to visit and relieve the Lazarus of your own door, uncheered by your sympathies, unaccompanied by your prayers, unprovided with your alms? Let each one answer for himself.
Poverty Report
Ninth annual report of the St. Mary Abbott's, Kensington, Church of England District Visiting Society — Part 14
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