The New Gospel

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">All else ... he will gladly do with a lofty spirit; he will bring relief to another’s tears, but will not add his own; to the shipwrecked man he will give a hand, to the exile shelter, to the needy alms; he will grant to a mother’s tears the life of her son, the captive’s chains he will order be broken, he will release the gladiator from his training ... The wise man, therefore, will not pity, but will succor, will benefit, and since he is born to be of help to all and to serve the common good, he will give to each his share thereof ... Whenever he can, he will parry Fortune’s stroke. &nbsp;</em></p>

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">We shall engage in affairs to the very end of life, we shall never cease to work for the common good, to help each and all, to give aid even to our enemies when our hand is feeble with age. &nbsp;</em></p>

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">In crediting people with Liberality their resources must be taken into account; for the liberality of a gift does not depend on the amount, but on the disposition of the giver, and a liberal disposition gives according to [relative to] its substance.&nbsp; It is therefore possible, that the smaller giver may be the more liberal, if he gives from smaller means.</em></p>

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">If benefits consisted, not in the very desire to benefit, but in things, the greater would be the benefits.&nbsp; But this is not true; for sometimes we feel under greater obligations to one who has given small gifts out of great heart, who “by his spirit matched the wealth of kings” ... And so what counts is, not what is done or what is given, but the spirit of the action ... the intention of the giver or doer.</em></p>

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">It will be the duty of charity to incline more to the unfortunate, unless, perchance, they deserve their misfortune.</em></p>

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">And so all moralists are united upon the principle that it is necessary to give certain benefits openly, others without witnesses ... on the other hand, those that do not give promotion or prestige, yet come to the rescue of bodily infirmity, of poverty, of disgrace — these should be given quietly, so that they will be known only to those who receive the benefit.&nbsp; Sometimes, too, the very man who is helped must even be deceived in order that he may have assistance, and yet not know from whom he has received it.</em></p>

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">I shall give to him if he is in need, yet not to the extent of bringing need upon myself ... It is possible that, while a man may be a worthy person for me to receive a benefit from, it will injure him to give it; this I shall not accept ...</em></p>

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">Such gems [wisdom] of varied beauty are interwoven in the laws, bidding us give wealth to the poor, and it is only on the judgment seat that we are forbidden to show them compassion.&nbsp; Compassion is for misfortunes, and he who acts wickedly of his own free will is not unfortunate but unjust ... And therefore let no cowering, cringing rogue of a poor man evade his punishment by exciting pity for his penniless condition.</em></p>

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">Hence “the sight of another person enduring hunger, cold, fatigue, revives in us some recollection of these states, which are painful even in idea.”&nbsp; We are thus impelled to relieve the sufferings of another in order that our own painful feelings may be at the same time relieved.</em></p>

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">For centuries, the battle of morality was fought between those who claimed that your life belongs to God and those who claimed it belongs to your neighbors — between those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of ghosts in heaven and those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of incompetents on earth.&nbsp; And no one came to you to say that your life belongs to you and that the good is to live it.&nbsp; Both sides agreed that morality demands the surrender of your self-interest and of your mind, that the moral and the practical are opposites, that morality is not the province of reason, but the province of faith and force.&nbsp; Both sides agreed that no rational morality it possible, that there is no right or wrong in reason — that in reason there is no reason to be moral.</em></p>

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">I swear — by my life and my love of it — that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.&nbsp;</em></p>

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">… even to forego taking vengeance on an enemy when he offers a good opportunity is a handsome thing to do … [As] in case a man shows compassion for an enemy in affliction, and gives a helping hand to him when he is in need … When Caesar gave orders that the statues in honor of Pompey, which had been thrown down, should be restored, Cicero said to him, “You have restored Pompey’s statues, but you have made your own secure.”</em></p>

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">It will be impossible for one to imagine anything more seemly for a ruler than the </em><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">quality of mercy</em><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">, no matter in what manner or with what justice he has been set over other men ... </em><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">This quality is the more beautiful and wonderful, the greater the power under which it is displayed.</em></p>

<p><em>The quality of mercy is not strain’d,</em></p><p><em>It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven</em></p><p><em>Upon the place beneath:&nbsp; it is twice blest;</em></p><p><em>It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:</em></p><p><em>‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes</em></p><p><em>The throned monarch better than his crown;</em></p><p><em>His scepter shows the force of temporal power,</em></p><p><em>The attribute to awe and majesty,</em></p><p><em>Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;</em></p><p><em>But mercy is above this sceptred sway;</em></p><p><em>It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,</em></p><p><em>It is an attribute to God himself;</em></p><p><em>And earthly power doth then show likest God’s</em></p><p><em>When mercy seasons justice.</em></p>

<p><em style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: initial;">I once heard W.H. Auden say, “We are all here on earth to help others.&nbsp; What I can’t figure out is what the others are here for.”</em></p>