Beggars

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Title:     Beggars
Author: Lemuel K. Washburn [More Titles by Washburn]

We have come to look upon the poor beggar as a nuisance; upon the man who comes to our doors for food or clothes as one who has no claim upon our charity. The common beggar is, as a rule, a worthless character, but let us be fair to him. He asks for but little; seldom for more than a bite, or for a few pennies. The poor beggar has only himself to enforce his appeal, and often he is an injury to his own cause. A dirty, ragged, vice-stained wreck of humanity is a poor argument to offer for sympathy or help. The man who begs in the name of man, and with that name rubbed in the dirt besides, gets little for his asking.

We do not like any beggars, but we need to understand that it is not the man in rags, who asks for a piece of bread or meat, that is the only beggar in the world. There is another and more dangerous beggar that we open our doors to, and treat with politeness and respect, and whose appeals we honor; it is the well-dressed beggar who asks for the money which the arm of labor has coined from its strength, who takes not pennies where he can get dollars, and who enforces his appeal with the name of God; it is the ecclesiastical beggar, whose hand is stretched out to take the earnings of toil, or the profits of trade; whose hand would as soon take little from poverty as plenty from affluence.

The rich beggar is a worse enemy to society and to the nation than the poor beggar. It is the priest, and not the tramp, whose begging we need to scorn. The man who asks for food in the name of hunger, for help in the name of want, makes, at least, an honest appeal to our generosity, but the man who begs in the name of God is an impostor. The tramp’s appeal is the truth—the priest’s is a lie. God never yet commissioned a human being to beg for him, and the person who uses the divine name to enforce his demand is little better than a thief.

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In the paths of our life may be seen the footprints of our ancestors.

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If you are poor, be thankful that you have the power of bettering your circumstances by bettering yourself; if you are rich, do not forget that you have the means of doing good, a luxury that is too seldom indulged.

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Men need nothing so much to-day as self-reliance; courage to stand up manfully for the right, all alone, without prop or pay, daring everything for an idea, counting not the cost, but seeing only the grand result which would follow its triumph and working for that with single purpose and courageous fidelity.

[The end]
Lemuel K. Washburn's essay: Beggars

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