Home › E. O. Haven › E. O. Haven (Examples of Beneficence)
E. O. Haven (Examples of Beneficence)
Examples of Beneficence.
HE clergy of Amida, at the instigation of the Bishop, sold all the gold and silver vessels of their churches in order to supply the wants of seven thousand Persian prisoners who were thrown into that city by the Romans, in a most destitute condition. A certain cardinal once took pity upon a poor woman who applied to him for five crowns to pay her rent, and he gave her five hundred, because of her virtue, honesty and piety.
Pisistratus, the Athenian, always had a servant near him with a bag of silver coin, from which he always supplied the wants of the sickly, the insolvent, etc. Cyrus said that he had prodigious riches, and the chief end he aimed at in the use of them was to reward those who serve the public faithfully; and to succor and relieve those that would acquaint him with their wants and necessities.
ENJAMIN FRANKLIN attributed his success as a public man, not to his talents or his power of speaking-for these were but moderate-but to In A.M. 3782, the island of Rhodes suffered great his known integrity of character. "Hence it was," damage by an earthquake. Hiero and Gelon in Sicily he says, "that I had so much weight with my fellow-❘ contributed two hundred talents towards the wants of 1 the people and repairs of property; Ptolemy of Egypt supplied the people with three hundred talents, one hundred thousand bushels of corn, besides timber and other materials for building. Antigonus, Seleucus, Prusias, Mithridates, came forward in large and liberai contributions. Private persons emulated each other in their generosity. One lady, Chryseis, furnished from her own substance a hundred thousand bushels of corn.
Pliny, a Roman orator, though not very rich, yet by frugality bestowed great sums of money upon his friends. A friend of his who became insolvent, he became responsible for. When his friend died, his daughter would have given him all her father's effects, but Pliny generously forgave her all, and besides contributed a large sum of money as an addition to her fortune.
Julius Cæsar used to say that there was no music so charming in his ears as the requests of his friends, and the supplications of those in want of assistance. Marcus Aurelius says that he could not relish a happiness which nobody shared but himself.
Mark Antony, when depressed, and at the ebb of fortune, cried out, "that he had lost all, except what he had given away."
Cato at the close of life declared to his friends that the greatest comfort of his old age, and that which gave him the highest satisfaction, was the pleasing remembrance of the many benefits and friendly offices Le had done to others.