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A Plea for the Poor Quotes
A Plea for the Poor
by
John Woolman1 rating, 3.00 average rating, 0 reviews
A Plea for the Poor Quotes
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“Our blessed Redeemer, in directing us how to conduct one towards another, appeals to our own feeling:
“Whatsoever ye would that other men should do to you, do ye even so to them” [Mt. 7:12]. Now where such live in fullness on the labor of others, who have never had experience of hard labor themselves, there is often a danger of their not having a right feeling of the labourer’s condition, and therefore of being
disqualified to judge candidly in their case, not knowing what they themselves would desire were they to labor hard from one year to another to raise the necessaries of life and to pay large rents beside—that it’s good for those who live in fullness to labor for tenderness of heart, to improve every opportunity of being acquainted with the hardships and fatigues of those who labor for their living, and [to] think seriously with themselves: Am I influenced with true charity in fixing all my demands? Have I no desire to support myself in expensive customs because my acquaintance live in those customs, Were I to labor as they do toward supporting them and their children in a station like mine, in such sort as they and their children labor for us, could I not on such a change, before I entered into agreements of rents or interest, name some costly articles now used by me or in my family which have no real use in them, the expense whereof might be lessened? And should I not in such case strongly desire the disuse of those needless expenses, that less answering their way of life the terms might be the easier to me? If a wealthy man, on serious reflection, finds a witness in his own conscience that there are some expenses which he indulgeth himself in that are in conformity to custom, which might be omitted consistent with the true design of living, and which was he to change places with those who occupy his estate he would desire to be discontinued by them—whoever are thus awakened to their feeling will necessarily find the injunction binding on them: “Do thou even so to them”
― A Plea for the Poor
“Whatsoever ye would that other men should do to you, do ye even so to them” [Mt. 7:12]. Now where such live in fullness on the labor of others, who have never had experience of hard labor themselves, there is often a danger of their not having a right feeling of the labourer’s condition, and therefore of being
disqualified to judge candidly in their case, not knowing what they themselves would desire were they to labor hard from one year to another to raise the necessaries of life and to pay large rents beside—that it’s good for those who live in fullness to labor for tenderness of heart, to improve every opportunity of being acquainted with the hardships and fatigues of those who labor for their living, and [to] think seriously with themselves: Am I influenced with true charity in fixing all my demands? Have I no desire to support myself in expensive customs because my acquaintance live in those customs, Were I to labor as they do toward supporting them and their children in a station like mine, in such sort as they and their children labor for us, could I not on such a change, before I entered into agreements of rents or interest, name some costly articles now used by me or in my family which have no real use in them, the expense whereof might be lessened? And should I not in such case strongly desire the disuse of those needless expenses, that less answering their way of life the terms might be the easier to me? If a wealthy man, on serious reflection, finds a witness in his own conscience that there are some expenses which he indulgeth himself in that are in conformity to custom, which might be omitted consistent with the true design of living, and which was he to change places with those who occupy his estate he would desire to be discontinued by them—whoever are thus awakened to their feeling will necessarily find the injunction binding on them: “Do thou even so to them”
― A Plea for the Poor
“Were all superfluities and the desire of outward greatness laid aside and the right use of things universally attended to, such a number of people might be employed in things useful that moderate labor with the blessing of heaven would answer all good purposes relating to people and their animals, and a sufficient number have leisure to attend on proper affairs of civil society.”
― A Plea for the Poor
― A Plea for the Poor
