Chapter 31 Economics - 26

Charity is almost the only virtue human beings can approve of.Otherwise, it is exalted to the sky; it is because we are selfish that we exalt it to the sky.A stout poor man, here in Concord, on a warm and breezy day, praised a burgher to me, because, he said, the man was kind to a poor man like himself.The good uncles and aunts in the human race are more praised than the real parents in the soul.Once I heard a religious speaker talk about England. He was a man of knowledge and wisdom, counting British scientists, writers, artists and politicians, Shakespeare, Bacon, Cromwell, Milton, Newton and others. And then, as if his profession required him to speak of the Christian heroes of England, he raised them above all others and called them the greatest of the greats.They were Paine, Howard, and Mrs. Fry.Everyone must have thought he was talking nonsense.The last three are not the best Britons, maybe they can only be counted as the best philanthropists in Britain.

I don't want to subtract anything from the praise that charity deserves, I just want fairness, and that all life and work that benefit mankind should be treated equally.I don't think a man's integrity and charity are his chief values, they are but his branches.That kind of branches and leaves have lost their chlorophyll, and they are made into herbal teas for patients to drink, but they have some humble uses, and most of them are used by doctors who travel around.Flowers and fruits of man are what I want; let his fragrance come to me, and let his ripe fragrance smother me in our intercourse.His goodness cannot be a partial, fleeting act, but a constant abundance, which does him no harm, and which he himself knows nothing of.It is a charity that hides all evil.A philanthropist always remembers that he wants to surround mankind with the decadent and sad atmosphere he exudes, which he calls compassion.It is our courage, not our disappointment, that we should convey to mankind, our health and comfort, not our sickness, but be careful not to spread disease.From what southern plain rises a wail?In what latitude live the pagans we should go to broadcast the light?Who is the lustful, brutal man we are supposed to save?If a man is so ill that he cannot do his work, if he has a gut-ache,--and that is to be pitied--the philanthropist will devote himself to improving--the world.He was a microcosm of the great world, and he found, and it was a real discovery, and he made it, that the world was eating green apples; and to him the earth itself was a gigantic green apple, Terrible to think of, and dangerous for a human child to devour an apple when it is not yet ripe; sub-humans, and embraced the populous villages of India and China; thus, thanks to his charitable activities of several years, the powerful also used him for their purposes, no doubt he cured himself of indigestion and the earth gets a blush in one or both cheeks, as if it were beginning to ripen, and life loses its brutishness and becomes fresh and healthy again, more worth living.I never dreamed of a greater crime than my own.I have never seen, nor shall I ever see, a worse man than myself.

I believe that it is not his sympathy for his suffering fellow-creatures that makes a reformer so sad, but his guilt, though he is the holiest of God's children.Let this be righted, let the spring run up to him, let the dawn rise upon his couch, and he will desert his generous companions without a word of apology.The reason I have no objection to smoking is that I have never smoked myself; he who smokes himself pays for it; though there are many things that I have tasted myself, I can also object to them.If you've ever been tricked into being a philanthropist, don't let your left hand know what your right hand has done, because it's not worth knowing.Rescue a drowning man and tie your shoelaces.You'd better go and do some free labor in comfort.

Our manners are corrupted by association with the saints.The melody of our hymns is cursed to God, always enduring him.It can be said that even prophets and saviors can only comfort people's fears but not affirm people's hopes.Nowhere is there recorded a simple and warm satisfaction with life, nowhere is there any memorable praise of God. , all health and success please me, however remote and unattainable; all disease and failure make me sad and cause evil results, however much it sympathizes with me, or how much I sympathize with it.So, if we are going to truly restore humanity by Indian, botanical, magnetic or natural means, first let us be simple and peaceful, like nature, and cast aside the dark clouds that hang over our brows, in our very essence Inject a little life into it.Don't be a prophet to the poor, try to be a person worthy of living in this world.

I read in the Garden of Shiq Saadi in Shiraz, "They asked a wise man that in the tall canopy of the beautiful tree planted by the Supreme God there was not a branch called Azad, free, except Cypress trees, but cypress trees do not bear fruit, what is the mystery in this? He replied that each has its own proper production, a certain season, when it is in season, it will flourish and bloom, and if it is not in season, they will wither and wither; cypress trees do not belong to these, It is ever green, and that which is of this nature is called Azad, independent of religion.--Fix not your heart on the changeable, for the Dijlah, the Tigris, flows through Baghdad after the caliph is extinct. ;If you are rich in your hands, be as generous and free as the date tree; but if you have nothing to give, be an Azad, a free man, be like the cypress tree."