is required
no cold calculation of the amount of good to be effected, here is no
room for anxious doubt concerning the result of the benevolent act.

Asylums for the destitute orphan are among those institutions which even
the severe, and in some respects, the cold and selfish principles of
Political Economy cannot justly disapprove of. To the truly benevolent,
and to the pious christian, they have always been, and must ever be,
objects of deep interest. Other charities may be perverted in some
degree to evil purposes. Their effect may be to encourage idle and
dissolute conduct, and to increase the evil they would remedy, by
operating as a bounty upon pauperism. To some extent this has been the
effect of alms-houses, and of many of those societies which, with the
best intentions, have been administered to adult persons. We
acknowledge, indeed, that protection, shelter, and subsistence for the
aged and decrepit, who are past the ability to labor for their own daily
food, medicine and medical advice, and in cases of absolute poverty, the
retreat of the hospital, are real charities, such as suffering humanity
requires, and pure benevolence will provide for. But in other cases, it
is questionable whether relief can be given without ill effects, except
it be accompanied with the opportunity and the necessity for bodily
labor. I am not, however, upon the present occasion to discuss the
general question of charitable societies. It is one of great importance,
and one which we think is not yet generally understood. Much light has
recently been thrown upon it, especially in this city, by the active and
intelligent exertions and experiments of some of our fellow
citizens,--and it should continue to occupy the serious attention of
our civil authorities, and of every benevolent and public spirited
person.

But who can doubt about the expediency, as well as the mercy and
christian obligation, of fostering the poor and helpless orphan, whose
natural protectors have been removed by the Providence of God? Naked, we
must clothe them, for their helplessness cannot provide for their own
covering; hungry, we must feed them, for they appeal to us with the
moaning cry and innocent tears of childhood; strangers in this world,
but just entered upon it, and left without a home to receive, or a
parent's fostering care to protect them, we must take them in. We cannot
resist or evade such an appeal, we know that it comes from a guileless
petitio