Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Beneficence

Beneficence has a much broader scope than the mere relief of the poor and suffering. In the daily intercourse of life there are unnumbered opportunities for kindness, many of them slight, yet in their aggregate, of a magnitude that eludes all computation. There is hardly a transaction, an interview, a casual wayside meeting, in which it is not in the power of each person concerned to contribute in an appreciable degree to the happiness or the discomfort of those whom he thus meets, or with whom he is brought into a relation however transient. In all our movements among our fellow-men, it is possible for us to “go about doing good.” What we can thus do we are bound to do. We perceive and feel that this is fitting for us as social and as mutually dependent beings. We are conscious of the benefit accruing to us from little, nameless attentions and courtesies, often of mere look, or manner, or voice; and from these experiences we infer that the possibility, and therefore the duty of beneficence is coextensive with our whole social life.

— Andrew Preston Peabody (born March 19, 1811)

Prayer at the Rededication of the New Hampshire State House, 1910

Almighty and ever-loving God, we come before thee to dedicate this House. Thou in whose name our fathers builded the state, look graciously upon their children's

handiwork. Accept this House as an offering unto thee, — for the service of man, which is ever the service best pleasing in thy sight. Grant us thy presence today ; and be thou ever in this place, to guide by thy Spirit those who here deliberate upon affairs of state. Make them just and faithful, wise and good. To those who frame our laws, give judgment, industry and social vision; and a sobering sense of their responsibility. Here may no act be done through passion or fear, through greed or vainglory, through trickery or bribe. Here may no power, of person or of self, usurp the power which is the people's own. May these new white walls, glistening in their purity, typify an equal purity within their shelter. And to those who administer our laws, give courage and consecration and common sense; make them the people's servants, not a party's, not a man's. Here, without favor and without fear, may the people's will be done. Here may wrong be righted, and the poor and the oppressed find equal hearing with the rich and powerful. Here, at the heart of our commonwealth, may the best traditions of the past be upheld and conserved; the best improvements of the present be considered and tried, and may the experience of every day lead to steady advancement in the future. May all that makes for the peace, prosperity and progress of our people find here its expression. And above all make honor and truth to reign in this place supreme. Make our house of state a House of thy Righteousness. Amen.

— Sydney B. Snow (born March 19, 1878)

Solitude

So often people ask me if it is not a lonely life; the answer is no. For solitude is not loneliness; loneliness is involuntary, as of a man in a prison cell, and in almost all cases it embitters, corrodes and hardens. Solitude is voluntary, as of a hermit in his cave, and it strengthens, ennobles and illuminates. Solitary I have always been in a sense; lonely never. I chose to live here and still do, knowing that here and here only was the place where I could obey the two-fold call I had heard in youth and do the work that I had been sent into the world to do. And the older I get the more sure do I become that this is true and that to have acted in any other way would have led to bitterness, self-reproach and the divided mind that seems so tragically common today.

— Margaret Barr (born March 19, 1899)