RN ESSAY ON CHARITY-5CHUÓte. 3a raiment is new : Theyare ready to think better of themselves than becomes them ; and while they have it given them once a year, they are tempted to rank themselves with children of better fashion ; their little souls are puffed up with pride, and their spi- rits are raised ,above their circumstances. To this, I answer in general. There are very few schools of charityamong dissenters, where the contributions arise high enough to provide clothing for the scholars : Nor is it necessary nor proper, that it should be done where the money may be bet- ter expended in their instruction, or in training them up to such employments whereby they may support themselves, or where any inconveniences arising from it are greater than the good done by it. Yet where the liberality of benefactors will reach so far, in great towns, and especially in the chief city, there maybe several things offered in the defence of it. I. The covering of the poor and naked, in general, is a work of liberality approved in scripture recommended to Chris- tians, and joined with that of feeding the hungry, and giving drink to those that are athirst ? and it has a blessing pronounced upon it : Why then may not these poor children be sometimes the objects of such liberality, who have scarce any garments to cover them ? Indeed, many of them are so miserable in their- own nastiness and their tatters, that they are hardly fit to come into a society that is well ordered, and to meet together in a school in order to their education, without some more convenient apparel than what their parents can provide them. This is an act of charity and bounty to thepoor parents themselves, who are not capable to provide the necessaries of life for their off- spring. Besides, II. Let it be considered, that the clothes which arp bestowed upon them once in a year or two, are of the coarsest kind, and of the plainest form, and thus they are sufficiently distinguished from children of better rank, and they ought always to be so dis- tinguished. I grant if their clothing were the same with that of other childr en of higher circumstances, the temptation might be strong, and the objection might have some force. But there is no ground for these charity children to grow vain and proud of their raiment, when it is but a sort of livery, that publicly de- clares those who wear it, to be educated by charity. Let me add also, in the third place, that there are so great numbers of these charity-schools erected by the members of the established church, not only in London, but in manyother places too, where the children of the poor are taught and clothed, and put out apprentices to useful trades, that many of the poor among us, wouldbe laid under great temptations to send their children to these schools to be educated in those forms of worship, Vol. vi. C
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=