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    Untitled Article

    The most prudent and rational mode , and which , at the same time , should have a combination pf , $£ most advantages to the donor , to hi 9 successors , and to the charities he may select , appears to be , to fix in his mind the amount he would like to bequeath upon the old system ; and by dividing it into annual payments , increase his subscription during his life in the relative

    proportions . And this is easily ascertained . De Moivre ' s rule to calculate the probability of the duration of life is so simple that it cannot be misunderstood . Wnatever may be a person ' s age , let him subtract the number of years from 86—and half of the remainder will be the probability of his life . Suppose the age 50 , from 86 leaves 36 years , the half of which is 18 . If then any one at that age should intend a bequest of £ 50 , his annual subscription , as an equivalent , would be £ 3 .

    40 years , intending £ 25 , would be £ 3 . 60 ditto 100 , 7 . 70 ditto 1000 , £ 125 . and so in proportion to any age or to any amount . Whatever , then , may be the leading motive for such donations , whether the purest benevolence or the vainest ostentation , every purpose is best accomplished on the present suggestion . The philanthropist would witness

    the utility of his plans ; he would be made a welcome assistant in the approp riation of his bounty ; he would increase his influence in a tenfold degree ; he would enjoy the accumulated blessings of the recipients , and thus feel encouraged to enlarge his benevolence ; and at the close of his life , spent in such acts of munificence , he would have the unutterable reflection of having performed his duty , instead of leaving a cold and forced request to others to do it for him after he was gone : while the mere man of the world , who gave solely from motives of fashion or display , would have his self-love

    gratified to his heart ' s desire by the applause and adulation of the world , instead of looking to that posthumous praise which he will never feel , and which must therefore to him be a complete nonentity . Every generation should support its own institutions , to give them the full advantages of which they are capable . No person can act with the same impulse and perseverance upon plans which he must take as he finds , and which he is not at liberty to improve , as upon those which his own zeal has dictated , and in

    which his success has impelled him to every effort of ardent pursuit . He thus fulfils the duties of his station in the grand drama of human existence , and leaves futurity for his successors to improve as altered circumstances may require . It is not the perpetual acquisition of fresh knowledge that the world is in want of , but the diffusion and application of what we already possess , and more especially the manl y and independent determination of each individual to dare to think for nimself , and to act upon his own matured principles , not less in the trivial concerns of life , than in its more

    important avocations , or those on which the well-being ot society must eventually depend . JAMES LUCKCOCK .

    Untitled Article

    678 Testamentary Bequests to Public Charities .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1828, page 678, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2565/page/22/