Page:Sketch of Connecticut, Forty Years Since.djvu/83

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
FORTY YEARS SINCE.
71

the labour for that which satisfieth not,". This system of charity creates such an intimacy and freedom of detail, that opportunities are discovered, where medicines for sickness, and books for children may be distributed with great advantage." "This laborious system, have you then been pursuing, so silently that I had not discovered it?" said her brother. "What I began for a reproof ends as usual in the commendation, that, "many daughters have done virtuously, but thou still excellest." "I pray you, answered the Lady, to mention nothing of what I have imparted to you. The detail was given merely for the sake of the inference, that the system was too extensive for an individual. To be rendered effectual, it should be supported, by an association of the charitable. It ought to comprise a warehouse, where the materials for labour should be furnished, the manufactures exposed for sale, and a stock of articles kept, suitable to be rendered in payment. This should be superintended by the directors of the institution; and a poor, and pious widow, might receive a salary for attending in it. A collection of such medicines, as might be administered safely without application to a physician, might also be connected with it, and would often prevent serious sickness in those, whose strengh is put in daily requisition, without the power of obtaining necessary cordials. Books of instruction for children, and of consolation for the aged and sorrowful, should also be kept for gratuitous distribution. I have thought that a Charity School, if it were kept but on Sat-