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    priation to the purposes for which it was intended . All public charities that are maintained from their own resources are liable to abuse or corrupt management , and the trustees being generally interested in the delinquencies , as well as being self-elected , it is hardly possible to bring them to account . The late parliamentary investigations vindicate the assertion beyond dispute . From their late reports it appears that no less a sum than £ 972 , 390 annually has been vested by piety or ostentation , for England alone , for charitable purposes , and remains to be accounted for by the respective trustees . Innumerable almost are the cases thus recorded of a blind and indiscreet

    profusion in the donors , and of the most thorough and unprincipled misrule and rapacity in the management ; thus creating a mass of enormous evil , where all originally was intended for good . Why should such well-authenticated examples be lost upon the public mind ; and ought not every attempt , however humble , that sincerely aims at improvement , to be received with attention and good-will ? The whole system of anticipated benevolence seems radically defective in its operations ; consequences can never be foreseen ; and universal experience should carry the conviction , that it is inherent in the nature of things that such should be the inevitable result .

    But even supposing that this were not the case , how much superior must be the delight in the heart warmly desirous of promoting human happiness , in witnessing the advantages of immediate bounty , rather than leaving it to chance or uncertainty . John Wesley has said , " My awn hands shall be my executors ; " a sentiment worthy to be displayed in letters of gold in every household establishment , and to be handed down to distant times , classing his name with Thales , Zoroaster , Minos , Pythagoras , and other

    sages of antiquity , and to be remembered when his religious tenets shall be called in question , if not totally forgotten . On these principles it will unquestionably be found that all public charitable institutions will be best conducted in proportion to the smallness of their funded capital ; as the difficulty of raising the necessary supplies fans the zeal that most benefits the cause , and ensures that responsibility in the management so necessary to the satisfaction of the benefactors . It is every man ' s duty to endeavour to render himself useful in society , that the advantages he enjoys may not leave

    him a debtor to the mutual obligations and demands of social life . The more he enjoys , the more will the virtual claims of reciprocity fix themselves upon his endeavours * and it cannot be that these claims , being neglected during his life , can be cancelled by the cold and dubious display of posthumous and ostentatious charity . On a slight consideration of the subject , the obvious mode of removing these objections would seem , that of each person giving , in one immediate sum , whatever he may have intended leaving at his decease . But this in turn has its objections . The fluctuations of property are so great and incessant , that no person can tell what he could

    conveniently spare at a future period , and he may be giving more than his distant circumstances would allow . Persons also engaged in business generally find their whole capital necessary for its best success , and others who have limited , precarious , or even permanent incomes , cannot always spare as much as their good wishes may dictate . Besides , by making a present large donation the contributor puts it out of his power to recal it under any circumstances of mismanagement . And again , if every one should be so disposed , the funds of the favoured establishment would increase so rapidly as to discourage others from their benevolent intentions , as the accumulation would seem to render their bounty unnecessary .

    Untitled Article

    Testamentary Bequests to Public Charities . 677

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1828, page 677, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2565/page/21/