Charity and the Depravity of Poverty
Owing to the extreme cold in France, and to the suffering occasioned thereby among the poor, the prefect of the city of Paris is placing large fires in the streets, for the homeless, and is also distributing food and fuel. Many people point to such charities as this, as one of the great signs that our generation is advancing most marvelously; but if we were advanced to the place that some people would have us think we are, charities of this kind would be considered an extreme disgrace to our civilization. Many of the charities to which men point as evidences of great philanthropies and of wonderful moral advancement, show the depravity, produced by poverty, that the world is reaching, instead of its elevated place of blessedness. Superficial thinking and misguided sentiments are very likely to mislead us.