Discourses and essays on subjects of public interest / by Stevenson Macgill.

  • MacGill, Stevenson, 1765-1840.
Date:
1819
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Discourses and essays on subjects of public interest / by Stevenson Macgill. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    and undeserving. Now, allowing this were the case, the reward due to virtue would still be equally rendered, nay, rendered with more effect, by the addition of private benevolence. Supposing assess- ments were limited to granting such assistance, as was necessary to preserve its objects from absolute want, and that thus, poor persons, though of differ- ent characters, received the same allowance accord- ing to their necessities: such an allotment from the assessment would not hinder, but promote, that far- ther assistance, which every man feels should be offered to suffering worth. The distinction, though not made from the funds of the assessment, is not done away, but may be equally made by indivi- duals, as if no assessment existed. Nay, the inves- tigation which is made before distributing the funds of an assessment, leads to the knowledge of virtuous poverty, and directs to its reward. It exposes the idle and undeserving, while it brings to light the circumstances and the virtue of the good. It often gives to private charity a just discrimination, and leads benevolent persons to the habit of enquiring and distinguishing with accuracy and judgment. ]lut what is there in a fund raised by assessment, more than in any other fund raised for the poor, to prevent discrimination according to character ? lie-