"Almsgiving" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on the occasion of an almsgiving, O king, Kunti fed on a certain night a large number of Brahmanas. There came also a number of ladies who while eating and drinking, enjoyed there as they pleased, and with Kunti's leave returned to their ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... secrecy Himself in His fasting, in His praying, and in His almsgiving, and He makes so much of that same secrecy in all His teaching, as almost to make the essence of all true religion to stand in its secrecy. "When thou prayest," says our Lord, "shut thy door and pray in secret." ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... think,' says FitzStephen, 'that there is any city with more commendable customs of church attendance, honour to God's ordinances, keeping sacred festivals, almsgiving, hospitality, confirming, betrothals, contracting marriages, celebration of nuptials, preparing feasts, cheering the guests, and also in care for funerals and the interment of the dead. The only pests of London are ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... are not inclined to attach so much importance as Christians to organised almsgiving. At the best it is but a clumsy way of alleviating the worst effects of social disease. The Freethinker attaches more importance to the study of causes. He is like the true health reformer who believes a great deal more in exercise, fresh air, and wholesome ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... ended, the herald king went to seek Bourgoin and his companions, who were walking in the cloisters, and told them that the almsgiving was about to begin, inviting them to take part in this ceremony; but they replied that being Catholics they could not make offerings at an altar of which they disapproved. So the herald king returned, much ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... me," said the jester, when they had put a goodly distance between themselves and the solitary figure, "yonder brother craves almsgiving with his voice, and enforces the bounty with his staff. Woe betide the good Samaritan who falls within ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... winter, according to the time of year. He also provides the clothing for his troops, and has woollens woven for them in every city, the material for which is furnished by the tithe aforesaid. You should know that the Tartars, before they were converted to the religion of the Idolaters, never practised almsgiving. Indeed, when any poor man begged of them they would tell him, "Go with God's curse, for if He loved you as He loves me, He would have provided for you." But the sages of the Idolaters, and especially the Bacsis mentioned ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... responsibility for the good of all. At the same time social justice must not be identified with charity. Charity has done much to relieve distress, and it will always form an indispensable element in {211} the Christian's duty towards his less fortunate brethren; but something more radical than almsgiving is required if the conditions of life are to be appreciably bettered. Justice is a demand not for bread alone; it is a claim of humanity to life, and all that life ought to mean. Christianity affirms the spirit of human brotherhood—a brotherhood in which every child will have a chance ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... "Here lieth Sebba, King of the East Saxons, who was converted to the faith by Erkenwald, Bishop of London, in the year of Christ 677. A man much devoted to God, greatly occupied in religious acts, frequent prayers, and pious fruits of almsgiving, preferring a private and monastic life to all the riches and honours of the kingdom, who, when he had reigned 30 years, received the religious habit at the hands of Walther, Bishop of London, who succeeded the aforesaid Erkenwald, of whom the ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... died before the close of 1305; his continuation of Guillaume's Roman was made about 1270. His later poems, a Testament, in which he warned and exhorted his contemporaries of every class, the Codicille, which incited to almsgiving, and his numerous translations, prove the unabated energy of his ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... customs at St. Genevieve,' said the young man, blushing. 'There is an almsgiving ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... Mustapha that. He is in comic perplexity about saying Alhamdulillah about such enormous gains—you see it is rather awkward for a Muslim to thank God for dear bread—so he compounds by very lavish almsgiving. He gave all his fellaheen clothes the other day—forty calico shirts and drawers. Do you remember my describing an Arab emancipirtes Fraulein at Siout? Well, the other day I saw as I thought a nice-looking lad of sixteen selling corn ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... and where the groans of the tormented were distinctly audible. The pilgrim, on his return, told the Abbot of Clugny of this, and the Abbot appointed the second day of November to be set apart for the benefit of souls in purgatory, which was to be kept by prayers and almsgiving." It is easy to perceive that, while in the festival of Hallowe'en we have the survival of the old Druidical festival of thank-offering to the sun-god for the ingathering of the fruits of the earth, we have also in these two festivals of All Saints ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... It is in no spirit of class self-sufficiency that he dwells again and again throughout these letters on the advantages to such a neighbourhood of the presence of a "gentleman" in the midst of it. He lost little, in the end he gained much, by the resolute stand he made against the indiscriminate almsgiving which has done so much to create and encourage pauperism in the East of London. The poor soon came to understand the man who was as liberal with his sympathy as he was chary of meat and coal tickets, who only aimed at being their friend, at listening to their troubles, and aiding them with ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... revival of old quarrels. Hated in England for her proud contempt of the burgher, her scorn of the churchman, her insolence to her adherents, she won in Normandy a fairer fame, as "a woman of excellent disposition, kind to all, bountiful in almsgiving, the friend of religion, of honest life." The political activity of Queen Eleanor was brought to an abrupt close by her marriage. In Henry she found a master very different from Louis of France, and her enforced ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... face to poverty. He paid his bills punctually whenever the remittance came, and was charitable to the mendicants who, probably for the last thousand years, have made Calais their headquarters. The general name for him was the Roi de Calais. An anecdote of his pleasantry in almsgiving reached the public ear. A French beggar asked him for a two-sous piece. "I don't know the coin," said Brummell, "never having had one; but I suppose you mean a franc. There, take it." His former celebrity had also spread far and wide among the population. A couple of English workmen ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... the church will continue to be a minister to human want and suffering. The charitable work which has always been emphasized in its administration will not be neglected, but it will take on a new character. There will be less almsgiving, and more of the kind of help which saves manhood and womanhood. The young men and women who are called to this leadership will understand the worth of souls—that is, of men and women; and they will ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... N. giving &c v.; bestowal, bestowment^, donation; presentation, presentment; accordance; concession; delivery, consignment, dispensation, communication, endowment; investment, investiture; award. almsgiving^, charity, liberality, generosity. [Thing given] gift, donation, present, cadeau^; fairing; free gift, boon, favor, benefaction, grant, offering, oblation, sacrifice, immolation; lagniappe [U.S.], pilon [U.S.]. grace, act of grace, bonus. allowance, contribution, subscription, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... 'once, in the days of my cub-hood, I know I was very wicked. I killed cows, Brahmans, and men without number—and I lost my wife and children for it—and haven't kith or kin left. But lately I met a virtuous man who counselled me to practise the duty of almsgiving—and, as thou seest, I am strict at ablutions and alms. Besides, I am old, and my nails and fangs are gone—so who would mistrust me? and I have so far conquered selfishness, that I keep the golden bangle for whoso comes. ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... royal converts to Buddhism. Ajasat murdered his father, or at least wrought his death; and was at first opposed to Sakyamuni, and a favorer of Devadotta. When converted, he became famous for his liberality in almsgiving.] ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... post. Every man is not so lucky as to have two tables. Not what thou sayest about thyself, but what thy companions say. The whole and broken tables of the Law lie in the ark. The salt of money is almsgiving. He who walks four cubits in the land of Israel is sure of being a child of the world to come. The plague lasted seven years, and no man died before his time. Let the drunkard only go, he will fall of himself. ...
— Hebrew Literature
... it from beginning to end. Many people have not patience for this sort of thing; they like to laugh and move on. Other people, again, like an essay to be about something really important, and to conduct them to conclusions they deem worth carrying away. Lamb's views about indiscriminate almsgiving, so far as these can be extracted from his paper On the Decay of Beggars in the Metropolis, are unsound, whilst there are at least three ladies still living (in Brighton) quite respectably on their means, who consider the essay entitled A Bachelor's Complaint of the Behaviour ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... Saxon thane's dwelling-place. An illustration of such a house appears in an ancient illumination preserved in the Harleian MSS., No. 603. The lord and lady of the house are represented as engaged in almsgiving; the lady is thus earning her true title, that of "loaf-giver," from which her ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... the Senate pleaded that on such a point there might be differing views, and that men should be known for Christians by their faithfulness in duty, by their practice of almsgiving and of the sacraments and of all other good and Christian works; but the answer ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... and empress who were childless. So they sought out all the wizards and witches, all the old women and astrologers; but their skill proved vain, no one knew how to help them. At last the royal pair devoted themselves to almsgiving, praying, and fasting, until one night the empress dreamed that the Lord had taken pity on her, and appearing to her, said: "I have heard your prayers, and will give you a child whose like can not be found on earth. ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... desert, fasts, watches, refrains from speech, exposes himself naked to the rain, holds himself erect between four fires under the burning sun. After some years, the solitary becomes "penitent"; then his only subsistence is from almsgiving; for whole days he lifts an arm in the air uttering not a word, holding his breath; or perchance, he gashes himself with razor-blades; or he may even keep his thumbs closed until the nails pierce ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... ever seen so much almsgiving as here. Alms-boxes are hung up in various places, where in Europe you would see only ornaments. For every joy or blessing and for those who have relatives or friends ill or in danger, money is freely dropped ...
— Pictures of Jewish Home-Life Fifty Years Ago • Hannah Trager
... Drummond summoned by them as she intended, but there was a conglomeration of the night services in the morning, with beautiful singing, that delighted Eleanor, and the festival mass ensuing was also more ornate than anything to be seen in Scotland. And that the extensive almsgiving had not been a vain boast was evident from the swarms of poor of all kinds who congregated in the outer court for the attention of the Sisters Almoner and Infirmarer, attended by two or three novices ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that gainsay The right of way: For almsgiving through a door that is Not open enough for two friends ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... Ainley's own lips did Caroline hear of her good works, but she knew much of them nevertheless. Her beneficence was the familiar topic of the poor in Briarfield. They were not works of almsgiving. The old maid was too poor to give much, though she straitened herself to privation that she might contribute her mite when needful. They were the works of a Sister of Charity—far more difficult to perform than those of a Lady Bountiful. ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... They were in power only because the Protectionists had chosen to send Peel about his business, and the Irish problem was growing more and more acute. The potato crop of 1846 was even worse than that of 1845, and Peel's system of public works had proved an expensive failure, more pauperising than almsgiving. The Irish population fell from eight millions to five, and those who survived handed down an intensified hatred of England, which lives in some of ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... years of his life; he hardly threw his repentance into the shape of a detailed autobiographical confession. But the more authentic sayings and doings of William's death-bed enable us to follow his course as an English statesman almost to his last moments. His end was one of devotion, of prayers and almsgiving, and of opening of the prison to them that were bound. All save one of his political prisoners, English and Norman, he willingly set free. Morkere and his companions from Ely, Walfnoth son of Godwine, hostage for Harold's faith, Wulf son of ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... another's burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ.' Think not, O my brethren, that this applies only to almsgiving, to that relief of distress which is commonly called charity, to the obvious duty of devoting from our superfluities something that we scarcely miss to the wants of a starving brother. No. I appeal to ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... inconclusive arguments. * Note: This is not the general judgment on Mosheim's learned dissertation. There is no trace in the latter part of the New Testament of this community of goods, and many distinct proofs of the contrary. All exhortations to almsgiving would have been unmeaning if ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... and the same ideas prevail in remote communities of Great Britain. In the opinion of the author above mentioned, the belief in the transmission of remedial virtues by the hands is derived from the fact that these members are the usual agents in the bestowal of material benefits, as, for example, in almsgiving ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... strife on his own account, to keep his hand in. Venice gave him not only honours and money but much land, and he divided his old age between agriculture and—thus becoming still more the darling of the populace—almsgiving. ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... given in this faith to the duty of almsgiving, and the effective way with which it is carried out among its members, is another praise-worthy feature. At the time of their political rule and extensive sway there was a well-known tax whose purpose was to carry relief to the poor and the suffering. And Mohammedans feel to-day that there is hardly ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... ravine. She is infirm and bedridden, and her little grand-daughter takes care of her. Doubtless the poor soul took the sous in the basket to be the gift of the brothers, and, as her portion is not always the same from day to day, but depends on what they can spare from the store set apart for almsgiving, she would not notice the diminished cakes and milk, save perhaps to grumble a little at the increase of the beggars who trespassed thus on her pension." There was silence among us for a moment, then St Aubyn's boy spoke. "Father," he asked, tremulously, ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... old gentleman, who had a velvet waistcoat, and thin white hair, brushed effectively, and whom he introduced to Verena under a name which Ransom recognised as that of a rich and venerable citizen, conspicuous for his public spirit and his large almsgiving. Ransom had lived long enough in New York to know that a request from this ancient worthy to be made known to Miss Tarrant would mark her for the approval of the respectable, stamp her as a success of no vulgar sort; and as he turned away, ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... hinderance, that the bestower of all things may be cheerfully worshipped in return for the gifts that He has bestowed, that our neighbour may be relieved of his burden, and that the guilt contracted by sinners every day may be redeemed by the atonement of almsgiving. ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury
... Addison. In No. 549, which is by Addison, Sir Andrew is made to found 'an almshouse for a dozen superannuated husbandmen.' I have before (ii. 119) contrasted the opinions of Johnson and Fielding as to almsgiving. A more curious contrast is afforded by the following passage in Tom Jones, book i. chap. iii:—'I have told my reader that Mr. Allworthy inherited a large fortune, that he had a good heart, and no family. Hence, doubtless, it will be concluded by many that he lived like an honest ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... the same purpose in various ways. Susanna had begun by giving away all that she possessed. As she had now no more to give, she began to give ear to Harald's views; that for the poor which surrounded them, generally speaking, direct almsgiving was less needful than a friendly and rational sympathy in their circumstances, a fatherly and motherly guardianship which would sustain the "broken heart," and strengthen the weary hands, which were almost sinking, to raise themselves again ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... to remark, that this gift was rather religious than charitable, the offering of piety as distinguished from that of almsgiving. This will be obvious, upon considering that the contributions to the treasury were not for the support of the poor, but for the supply of sacrifices and other necessary services. Dr. Lightfoot states that there were thirteen treasure-chests, called ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... showing off before men, and for gaining the reputation of sanctity. Consequently it was necessary that He should lead back His hearers to the real meaning of these duties; and set forth the principle which must guide His subjects in all their religious acts—almsgiving, prayer, and fasting—namely, this; the desire to please their "Father which is in Heaven" (S. Matt. vi. 1-18). And that there might be no mistake about the kind of rewards which they might look for, He declared that they must "lay up for themselves treasures in Heaven" (S. Matt. vi. 19-21); ...
— The Kingdom of Heaven; What is it? • Edward Burbidge
... Not almsgiving. I had almost said, anything but that; making bad worse, the improvident more improvident, the liar more ready to lie, the idler more ready to idle. But the Charity which is Humanity, which is the spirit of pure pity, the Spirit of Christ and ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... is far outbalanced by pain and vexation, so far more evil acts are done than good ones: history is a collection of misdeeds, with scarcely one virtuous act for a thousand crimes. It is not the external action that constitutes the ethical character of a deed, but the motive or disposition; almsgiving from motives of pride is a vice, and only when practiced out of love to one's neighbors, a virtue. God looks only at the act of the will; our highest duty, and one which admits of no exceptions, is never ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... towards the population in her mind, why these efforts at consolation and almsgiving? Well, the poor old people were not responsible; but she did not see that any good had come of it. She had said nothing about her visits to George, nor did-she suppose that he had noticed them. He had been so incessantly busy since their arrival with conferences and ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... service were not what he had dreamed. How different a calling it had been in Saint Francis's day, when hearts inflamed with the new sense of brotherhood had but to set forth on their simple mission of almsgiving and admonition! To love one's neighbour had become a much more complex business, one that taxed the intelligence as much as the heart, and in the course of which feeling must be held in firm subjection to reason. He was discouraged by Fulvia's ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... full well that she ought to be grateful for the kindness shown her by these two women, and yet she had a sense of having a deed of almsgiving forced upon her acceptance, and she answered quickly, still with the blood mounting to her cheeks. "I am very grateful for your good intentions, of course, very grateful; but here each one must work for herself, and it would ill-become me to allow you to give me the money ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the universal Christian experience that fruits of repentance can never buy God's forgiveness. That is God's gift. That forgiveness may cost a man much—an amended life, the practices of prayer and fasting and almsgiving—John conceives; but we are not led to think that he thought of what it might cost God. John has no evangel, no really good news, with gladness and singing ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... into the wholesome channel of maintaining an extended system of moral and religious instruction.'[423] In other words, suppress workhouses but build schools and churches; organise charity and substitute a systematic individual inspection for reckless and indiscriminate almsgiving. Then you will get to the root of the mischief. The church, supported from the land, is to become the great civilising agent. Chalmers, accordingly, was an ardent advocate of a church establishment. He became the leader of the Free Church movement not as objecting ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... an eviction scene should be our last glimpse of Ireland. Let us pay the rent for them, Edward,' and as she spoke the words the thought passed through her mind that her almsgiving was only another form of selfishness. She wished her departure to be associated with an act of kindness. She would have withdrawn her request, but Edward's hand was in his pocket and he was asking the agent how much the rent was. Five years' rent was owing—more than the ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... religious houses, and the religious men serving God in them; to the intent that clerks and laymen might be admitted in such houses, and that sick and feeble folk might be maintained, hospitality, almsgiving, and other charitable deeds might be done, and prayers be said for the souls of the founders and their heirs; the abbots, priors, and governors of the said houses, and certain aliens their superiors, as the abbots and priors of the Cistercians, the Premonstrants, the orders of Saint Augustine ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... monks might easily persuade themselves was progressive and exemplary of true religious fervour, but which attracted to them envious eyes. Heavy subsidies to the Crown and the Pope oppressed them. Then again, many houses indulged in unwise and excessive almsgiving, which the monks might well believe to be right, but which brought them only the interested friendship of the needy. And in the management of their estates much litigation obstinately pursued caused internal dissension, was costly, and gained them only bitter ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... positive works of charity, such as almsgiving and brotherly correction, etc., that may be obligatory upon us to a degree of Serious responsibility. We must use prudence and intelligence in discerning these obligations, but once they clearly stand forth they are as binding on us as obligations ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... He had money and food distributed every morning to the most destitute, at the gates of the royal palace, where he lived with a frugality that scandalised the aged servants of royalty whom he kept, out of kindness, at their posts. Theoretically, he disapproved of indiscriminate almsgiving, but in the misery caused by the recent bombardment, such theories could not be strictly applied, or, at any rate, Garibaldi was not the man to so apply them; whence it happened that though, as de facto head of ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ!' Think not, O my brethren, that this applies only to almsgiving—to that relief of distress which is commonly called charity—to the obvious duty of devoting, from our superfluities, something that we scarcely miss, to the wants of a starving brother. No. I appeal to the poorest amongst ye, if the worst burdens are those of the body—if the ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... your minister was held, and I have dealt largely in the way of public charity. But I doubt that I have been governed by a spirit of ostentation, and not with that lowly-mindedness, without which all almsgiving is but a serving of the altars of Belzebub; for the chastening hand has been laid upon me, but with the kindness and pity which a tender father hath for ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... cottages—the friendly terms of his intercourse, and his large-handed but well-judging almsgiving—all revealed to her more of his solid worth; and the simplicity that regarded all as the merest duty touched her more than all. Many a time did she think of the royal Norwegian brothers, one of whom went to tie a knot in the ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... work "de anima" with the words: "Tenemur hie de sommis quoque Christianam sententiam expromere". Alongside of the antignostic rule of faith as the "doctrine" we find the casuistic system of morality and penance (the Church "disciplina") with its media of almsgiving, fasting, and prayer; see Cypr, de op et eleemos., but before that Hippol., Comm. in Daniel ([Greek: Ekkl Aleth]. 1886, p. 242): [Greek: hoi eis tu onoma ton Theou pisteuontes kai di' agathoergias to prosopon ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... the employers of each parish. Men may be made serfs, and even slaves by other means than open force, in a country where, legally, all are free, where the impossibility of slavery is the boast of the law. Of late benevolence has been, abroad in the English parish, almsgiving and visiting have increased, good landlords have taken up cottage improvements. There have been harvest-homes, at which the young squires have danced with cottagers. But now Hodge has taken the matter into his own hands, and it seems not without effect. In a letter which I have seen, a ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... this miracle spread far and wide; and, in spite of her humility, Francesca did not object to its being divulged, as it testified to the Divine virtue of almsgiving, and encouraged the rich to increase their liberality, and minister more abundantly to the suffering ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... industriously the trouble in the Board, never failing to take the wrong side of any question. One of them set about doling out free soup that winter, when work was slack, as a means, of course, of advertising its own "charity." Of all forms of indiscriminate almsgiving, that is the most offensive and most worthless, and they knew it, or they would not have sent me a wheedling invitation to come and inspect their "relief work," offering to have a carriage take me around. I sent word back that I should ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... the floor, on a blanket. These outrages were committed in a family where the mistress daily read the scriptures, and assembled her children for family worship. She was accounted, and was really, so far as almsgiving was concerned, a charitable woman, and tender hearted to the poor; and yet this suffering slave, who was the seamstress of the family, was continually in her presence, sitting in her chamber to sew, or engaged in her other household work, with her lacerated and bleeding ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... warships now, and a merry Christmas all of you! And the merrier both for rich and poor, when gentlemen see their almsgiving. Lest you deny yourselves the pleasure, I will aid your warships. And to save you the trouble of following me, when your guns be loaded—this is my strawberry mare, gentlemen, only with a little cream on her. Gentlemen all, in the name of ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... is enhanced tenfold by the consciousness of having made some personal sacrifice for its attainment. The rich, those who give of their superfluities, can never fully appreciate what the pleasures of almsgiving really are. ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... true that you are deprived of the just remuneration of your labor, while no one thinks of causing justice to be rendered to you. If you could be consoled by the noisy appeals of your champions to philanthropy, to powerless charity, to degrading almsgiving, or if the high-sounding words of Voice of the People, Rights of Labor, &c., would relieve you—these indeed you can have in abundance. But justice, simple justice—this nobody thinks of rendering you. For would it not be just that after a ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat
... his establishment, 5,880 lire for the Captain of the people and his train, 3,600 for the maintenance of the Signory in the Palazzo, and so on down to a sum of 2,400 for the food of the lions, for candles, torches, and bonfires. The amount spent publicly in almsgiving; the salaries of ambassadors and governors; the cost of maintaining the state armory; the pay of the night-watch; the money spent upon the yearly games when the palio was run; the wages of the city trumpeters; and so forth, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... God takes pleasure in them because of such works, you will find that they say, "No"; and they define good works so narrowly that they are made to consist only of praying in church, fasting, and almsgiving. Other works they consider to be in vain, and think that God cares nothing for them. So through their damnable unbelief they curtail and lessen the service of God, Who is served by all things whatsoever that are done, spoken ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... monks or real disciples of Buddha who endeavour to attain Nibbana or Nirvana. The bulk of the population contents itself with almsgiving and the practice of elementary morality, the reward for which will be a less unhappy existence after death; but not Nirvana, to which only the ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... who understands with difficulty and forgets with difficulty, his loss disappears in his gain; he who understands quickly and forgets with difficulty, his is a good portion; he who understands with difficulty and forgets quickly, his is an evil portion. 16. As to almsgiving there are four dispositions: he who desires to give, but that others should not give, his eye is evil toward what appertains to others (41); he who desires that others should give, but will not give himself, his eye is evil against what is his own; he who gives and wishes others to give is a saint; ...
— Pirke Avot - Sayings of the Jewish Fathers • Traditional Text
... a really poor population. The men were seafaring, the women lacemaking, and just well enough off to make dissent doubly attractive as an escape from some of the interfering almsgiving of the place. Over-visiting, criticism of dress, and inquisitorial examinations had made more than one Primitive Methodist, and no severe distress had been so recent as to render the women tolerant of troublesome weekly inspections. ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... entreated, we tippled and chopined together most theologically. In the meantime came Cyrus to beg one farthing of him for the honour of Mercury, therewith to buy a few onions for his supper. No, no, said Epictetus, I do not use in my almsgiving to bestow farthings. Hold, thou varlet, there's a crown for thee; be an honest man. Cyrus was exceeding glad to have met with such a booty; but the other poor rogues, the kings that are there below, as Alexander, Darius, and others, stole it away from ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... improved. Twelve years more of the new Poor Law have taught the labouring men greater self-help and independence; I hope that those virtues may not be destroyed in them once more, by the boundless and indiscriminate almsgiving which has become the fashion of the day, in most parishes where there are resident gentry. If half the money which is now given away in different forms to the agricultural poor could be spent in making their dwellings fit for honest men to live in, then life, morals, and ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... indulgent giving amounts to. The indulgent and indiscriminate giver becomes a partner in the production of poverty. This indulgent giving is a phase of sentimentality; and the relief of one's own feelings, rather than the real good of a fellow-man is at the root of all such mischievous almsgiving. It is the form of benevolence without the substance. It does too much for the poor man just because it loves him too little. Indulgence measures benefactions, not by the needs and capacities of the receiver, but by the sensibilities and emotions of ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... It would seem that almsgiving is not an act of charity. For without charity one cannot do acts of charity. Now it is possible to give alms without having charity, according to 1 Cor. 13:3: "If I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor . . . and have not charity, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... pain." The thought of self-sacrifice has been emphasized from the earliest times in the liturgies. By a true instinct the early Christian writers called widows and orphans the altar of God on which the sacrifices of almsgiving are offered up.[11] Such works of charity, however, represent only one of the channels by which self-sacrifice is ministered, to which all prayers and thanksgiving and instruction of psalms, prophecy and preaching contribute. Thus in the Eucharist the offering of the church is made ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... dauphin having spent largely, especially in almsgiving without considering his purse finds himself very hard pressed. He has only two thousand ducats a month from the Duke of Burgundy and that seems to force him into peace with the king. The duke expects nothing during the ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... Lady Hesketh saw with dismay, instead of a walk, there was a prayer-meeting. Cowper himself was made to do violence to his intense shyness by leading in prayer. He was also made to visit the poor at once on spiritual missions, and on that of almsgiving, for which Thornton, the religious philanthropist, supplied Newton and his disciples with means. This, which Southey appears to think about the worst part of Newton's regimen, was probably its redeeming feature. ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... latten, or pewter, and have an interesting history. They had a guild in 1472, when they began their career with "twenty-four poor, honest men." Their ancient ordinances contain directions about masses, burials, and almsgiving, the carrying of wares to fairs, hawking them, and the governing of apprentices. Their young men caused much difficulty. They loved riots and sport, and one of the ordinances of 1608 prohibited the playing of bowls, betting at cards, dice, table and shovel-board. One of the principal duties of ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... the office every day in the Queen's chamber, that is to say, vesper and compline."[272] The best theologians and doctors in his kingdom were regularly required to preach at his Court, when their fee for each sermon was equivalent to ten or twelve pounds. He was generous in his almsgiving, and his usual offering on Sundays and saints' days was six shillings and eightpence or, in modern currency, nearly four pounds; often it was double that amount, and there were special offerings besides, such as the twenty shillings he sent every year to the shrine of ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... where the practical wisdom of the Church comes in as regards fasting. One day in every week is set apart, beside other days and seasons, as a reminder of the fact that fasting is a duty of the Christian life, just as much as almsgiving and prayer—a duty sanctified by the example enjoined by the precept ...
— The Discipline of War - Nine Addresses on the Lessons of the War in Connection with Lent • John Hasloch Potter
... domestics to raise a poor crown; at last all that flutter ends in sending Jack or Tom out to change a guinea, and then 'tis reckoned over half-a-dozen times before the fatal crown can be picked out, which must be taken as it is given, with all the parade of almsgiving, and so to be received with all the active and passive ceremonial of mendication and alms-receiving—as if the books, printing and paper, were worth nothing at all, and as if it were the greatest charity for them to touch them or let them be in the house; ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... charities, they were boundless. It was not for nothing that the blood of St. Ursula, and that which was to give life to still another saint, Elizabeth of Hungary, was in her veins. It is needless to say that nobody in those days had discovered the evil of indiscriminate almsgiving, which was, on the contrary, considered one of the first of Christian virtues. Margaret was the providence of all the poor around her. Her biographer tells us naively, with no sense that the result was not one to be proud of, that the fame of her bounty and kindness brought the poor in ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... equilibrium of the universe. It yields nothing to importunities or threats, can be neither coaxed nor bribed by offerings to abate or alter one jot or tittle of its inexorable course. Am I told that Buddhist laymen display vanity in their worship and ostentation in their almsgiving; that they are fostering sects as bitterly as Hindus? So much the worse for the laymen: there is the example of Buddha and his Law. Am I told that Buddhist priests are ignorant, idle fosterers of superstitions grafted on their ...
— The Life of Buddha and Its Lessons • H.S. Olcott
... to go abroad to school, but they must be contented with such education as they could pick up at home, so long as one poor creature suffered straits through their father's fault. The only indulgence allowed was almsgiving. Mopsie might divide her dinner with a hungry child, or Jane bestow her new petticoat on an aged woman; but they must, in consequence, deny themselves and suffer inconvenience till such time as it came to be again their turn to have ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... worth taking trouble over, worth doing as diligently and honestly as possible, in sure trust that it will bring its reward with it. Why not? Almsgiving is blessed in God's sight, and charity to the poor; and God will repay it: but is not useful labour blessed in his sight also? and shall he not repay it? Will he not say of it, as well as of almsgiving, ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... universities where gentlemen are educated. So the Professor of Christian Morals proceeds to make a subtle analysis of Jesus' actions; demonstrating therefrom that there are three proper uses to be made of great wealth: first, for almsgiving—"The poor ye have always with you!"; second, for beauty and culture—buying wine for wedding-feasts, and ointment-boxes and other objets de vertu; and third, "stewardship," "trusteeship"—which in plain English is ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... any forms of public opinion which bore hardly against the wanton expenditure of honestly got wealth. It would be hard if a man who has passed the greater part of his life at the desk or counter could not at last innocently gratify a caprice; and all the best and most sacred ends of almsgiving would be at once disappointed, if the idea of a moral claim took the place of affectionate gratitude in the mind ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... on almsgiving and his apology for it, and understood a good deal of the marquis's way of thinking. I could easily imagine that his writings must have given great offence at Rome, and that with sounder judgment he would have avoided this danger. Of course ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... of these good St. Ives folk were evidently very numerous and very varied; but these entries are not all of almsgiving. Thus, in the same year as above, ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... living by christening babies, marrying adults, conducting a ritual, and making the best he can (when he has any conscience about it) of a certain routine of school superintendence, district visiting, and organization of almsgiving, which does not necessarily touch Christianity at any point except the point of the tongue. The exceptional or religious clergyman may be an ardent Pauline salvationist, in which case his more cultivated parishioners dislike him, and say that he ought to have joined the Methodists. Or he may be an ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... speed me!" cried Manuel, "ye thirty Barami! O all ye powers of accumulated merit, O most high masters of Almsgiving, of Morality, of Relinquishment, of Wisdom, of Fortitude, of Patience, of Truth, of Determination, of Charity, and of Equanimity! do all you aid me in my encounter with the Misery ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... the chief means by which we satisfy God for the temporal punishment due to sin? A. The chief means by which we satisfy God for the temporal punishment due to sin are: Prayer, Fasting, Almsgiving, all spiritual and corporal works of mercy, and the patient suffering of ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 2 (of 4) • Anonymous
... poor should be thoroughly investigated and known by those who administer our public charities, in order that all the relief which a pure and enlarged benevolence dictates may be freely bestowed, and that almsgiving may not encourage extravagance or vice, nor injuriously affect the claims of society at large upon the personal exertions and moral character of its members." The first annual report of this Association, which appeared in October, 1835, was written by Dr. Tuckerman, and was one of the best ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... God seemed to have made her only to give her to others. Her everlasting black dress which she persisted in wearing, her worn, dyed shawl, her absurd hat, her impoverished appearance, were, in her eyes, the means of being rich enough to help others with her little fortune; she was extravagant in almsgiving, and her pockets were always filled with gifts for the poor; not of money, for she feared the wineshop, but of four-pound loaves which she bought for them at the baker's. And then, too, by dint of living in poverty, she was able to give herself what ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... if it should turn out that they were formerly erected on the anniversary of St. James by poor persons, as an invitation to the pious who could not visit Compostella, to show their reverence for the Saint by almsgiving to their needy brethren. ...
— Notes And Queries,(Series 1, Vol. 2, Issue 1), - Saturday, November 3, 1849. • Various
... there by any necessity for almsgiving in a civilized community? It is not the charitable mind to which I object. Heaven forbid that we should ever grow cold toward a fellow creature in need. Human sympathy is too fine for the cool, calculating attitude to take its place. One can name very few ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... frilled and tucked. Then, about twenty letters lie by me waiting to be answered in time, so as to save me from a mobbing in England. Then there are visits to be paid all round in Florence, to make amends for the sins of the winter; visiting, like almsgiving, being put generally in the place of virtue, when the latter is found too inconvenient. Altogether, my head swims and my heart ticks before the day's done, with positive weariness. For there are Penini's lessons, you are to understand, besides the rest. And 'between the intersections,' ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... exalteth a nation, but benevolence is a sin to nations." "Almsgiving exalteth a nation," that is to say, the nation of Israel; as it is written (2 Sam. vii. 23), "And what one nation in the earth is like thy people, even like Israel?" but "benevolence" is a sin to nations, that is to say, for the Gentiles to exercise ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... and a highly aggressive sense of duty, which made him an intolerable meddler in the affairs of other people, and which, joined to an underlying kindness of heart, made him so indiscreet in his charities that his wife and children were often driven to vain protest against the excesses of his almsgiving. The old Puritan fanaticism was rampant in him; and when he sailed for Louisbourg, he took with him an axe, intended, as he said, to hew down the altars of Antichrist and demolish his idols. [Footnote: Moody found sympathizers ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... brought so low, she would sit in state on almsgiving morning, which was the day after Christmas; and the more decent of her bedesmen and bedeswomen would be admitted to her presence to pay their duty, and drink her health in a cup of warm ale on the staircase. Also the little children from Lady Viellcastel's charity-school would be brought to ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... was again subdivided in two portions, parallel to the two Tothill Streets. The distribution of the Royal maundy which takes place in Westminster Abbey yearly, with much ceremony, is a reminder of the ancient almsgiving. The address of the present Royal Almonry is 6, ...
— Westminster - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... almsgiving to his temples all these captains, who are thus like renters, must always attend the court, and of those whom this King always has about him and by whom he is accompanied in his court there are more than two hundred. These are obliged always to be present with the ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... prince to call upon the Jews to gain entrance for him, seeing that Baruch had been a Jew, and his books were still being studied by Jews. The Jews prepared themselves by fasts, prayers, penitence, and almsgiving, and they succeeded in opening the grave without a mishap. Baruch was found lying on marble bier, and the appearance of the corpse was as though he had only then passed away. (73) The prince ordered ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... and immorality, are the three children of this same barbarous self-indulgence in almsgiving. Leave the poor alone. Let want teach them the need of self- exertion, and misery prove ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... was as yet hardly awake. No part of the funds was devoted to the education of girls, but a very large part went in almsgiving. The education of boys was almost worthless. The head- mastership of the Grammar School was in the gift of New College, Oxford, who of course always appointed one of their Fellows. Including the income from boarders, it was worth about ...
— The Early Life of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... Tertullian a conception of Christianity is quite fully developed according to which the Gospel was a new law of life, with its prescribed holy seasons and hours for prayer; its sacrifices, though as yet only sacrifices of prayer; its fasts and almsgiving, which had propitiatory effect, atoning for sins committed and winning merit with God; its sacred rites, solemnly administered by an established hierarchy; and all observed for the sake of a reward ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... that the friendliness of country neighbors appears in its most beautiful light. There is no thought of almsgiving on their part, nor a sense of accepting charity on the part of the recipients. Benevolence and gratitude were not called upon to exchange compliments. Farmer Bosworth is going our way and leaves a jug of milk; he stops to chat a while ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... be his "dignity" henceforward. Moreover, he humbly and truly hoped that she might be able to enlighten him as to a good many modern conceptions and ideas about the poor, for which, absorbed as he was, either in almsgiving of the traditional type, or spiritual ministration, or sacramental theory, he had little time, and, if the truth were known, ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... that had seen sixty summers and winters, and the elasticity of youth had only been transformed into the dignity and repose of a green old age. It is better to be at the head of the commonalty than dragging in the rear of the gentry, and for substantial comfort, liberal housekeeping, generous almsgiving, and frank hospitality, the farmhouse of Allendale was out and out superior to the mansion of Moss Tower, where the Dalzells had lived for ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... revolutionise society; but I think I do know that there is a kind of religious common sense which comes in to guide people in such matters. Only, I do not think it right to admit that plea for not doing more in the way of almsgiving which is founded upon the assumption that first of all a certain position in society must be kept up, ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Three Notable Duties (Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving). With an Introduction by the Bishop of London. Crown 8vo, ...
— The Church: Her Books and Her Sacraments • E. E. Holmes
... Tathagata, when in the world; and now his relics—after his Nirvana; those who worship and revere these, gain equal merit; so also those who raise themselves by wisdom, and reverence the virtues of the Tathagata, cherishing religion, fostering a spirit of almsgiving, they gain great merit also. The noble and superlative law of Buddha ought to receive the adoration of the world. Gone to that undying place, those who believe his law shall follow him there; therefore let all the Devas ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... duelling, against luxury, against gambling, against monasticism, quoting the remark of Segrais, that "the mania for a monastic life is the smallpox of the mind." He spent his whole income in acts of charity—not in almsgiving, but in helping poor children, and poor men and women, to help themselves. His object always was to benefit permanently those whom he assisted. He continued his love of truth and his freedom of speech to the last. At the age of eighty he said: "If life is a lottery for happiness, ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... hothouse for swallows to winter in as a British Luxembourg; but science is a good old barn-door fowl; build her a hen-roost, and she will lay you eggs, and golden eggs. Give your money to science, for there is an evil side to every other kind of almsgiving. It is well to save life, but the world is already overstocked with life; and in saving life one may be making the struggle for existence still more unendurable for those who come after. But in giving your money to ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... what money I possessed, by taking off a fixed proportion for "charity," which I have never discontinued, and to the advantages of which I can most heartily testify. When a self-indulgent civilization goads all classes to live beyond their incomes, and tempts them not to include the duty of almsgiving in the expenditure of those incomes, it is well to remove a due proportion of what one has beyond the reach of the ever-growing monster of extravagance; and, being decided upon in an unbiased and calm moment, it is the less likely to be too much for one's domestic claims, or too ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... interference with her daily round. Neither did Leslie work for her father, because the professor would as soon have employed her canary bird. She was not thoughtful and painstaking for the poor, because, though accustomed to a species of almsgiving, she heard nothing, saw nothing of nearer or higher association with her neighbours. Yet there was capacity enough in that heart and brain for ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler |
