Of the ancient Persians Thucydides said that they preferred giving to receiving.191 To be charitable towards the poor of their own faith was among them a religious duty of the first order.192 Zoroaster thus addressed Vîshtâspa:—“Let no thought of Angra Mainyu ever infect thee, so that thou shouldst indulge in evil lusts, make derision and idolatry, and shut to the poor the door of thy house.”193 The holy Sraosha is the protector of the poor.194 In the Shâyast it is said that the clothing of the soul in the next world is formed out of almsgiving.195

It seems that among the ancient Egyptians charity was considered no less meritorious.196 “The god,” M. Maspero observes, “does not confine his favour to the prosperous and the powerful of this world; he bestows it also upon the poor. His will is that they be fed and clothed, and exempted from tasks beyond their strength; that they be not oppressed, and that unnecessary tears be spared them.”197 In the memorial inscriptions, where the dead plead their good deeds, charity is often referred to. “I harmed not a child,” says one Egyptian, “I injured not a widow; there was neither beggar nor needy in my time; none were hungered, widows were cared for as though their husbands were still alive.”198 In the inscription in honour of a lady who had been charitable to persons of her own sex, whether girls, wives, or widows, it is said, “The god rewarded me for this, rejoicing me with the happiness which he has granted me for walking after his way.”199

Charity was urgently insisted upon by the religious law of the Hebrews.200 “Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land”; “for this thing the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thy works, and in all that thou puttest thine hand unto.”201 Even “if thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink: … the Lord shall reward thee.”202 Especially in the Old Testament Apocrypha and in Rabbinical literature almsgiving assumed an excessive prominence—so much so that the word which in the older writings means “righteousness” in general, came to be used for almsgiving in particular.203 “Shut up alms in thy storehouses: and it shall deliver thee from all affliction.”204 “As water will quench a flaming fire, so alms maketh an atonement for sins.”205 “For alms doth deliver from death, and shall purge away all sin. Those that exercise alms and righteousness shall be filled with life.”206 The charitable man is rewarded with the birth of male issue.207 Almsgiving is equal in value to all other commandments.208 He who averts his eyes from charity commits a sin equal to idolatry.209 To such an extreme was almsgiving carried on by the Jews, that some Rabbis at length decreed that no man should give above a fifth part of his goods in charity.210

Almsgiving, prayer, and fasting were the three cardinal disciplines which the synagogue transmitted to both the Christian Church and the Muhammedan mosque.211 According to Islam, the duty next in importance to prayer is that of giving alms.212 Muhammed repeatedly announces that the path which leads to God is the helping of the orphans and the relieving of the poor.213 “Ye cannot attain to righteousness until ye expend in alms of what ye love.”214 “Those who expend their wealth by night and day, secretly and openly, they shall have their hire with their lord.”215 It is said that “prayer carries us half-way to God, fasting brings us to the door of His palace, and alms procure us admission.”216 Certain alms, called Zakât, are prescribed by law; it is an indispensable duty for every Muhammedan of full age to bestow in charity about one-fortieth of all such property as has been a year in his possession, provided that he has sufficient for his subsistence and has an income equivalent to about £5 per annum.217 Other charitable gifts are voluntary, and confer merit upon the giver.

By Christianity charity of the religious type which we find in the East was introduced into Europe. We have certainly no reason to blame the ancient Greeks and Romans for neglecting their poor. Among them slavery in a great measure replaced pauperism; and what slavery did for the very poor, the Roman system of clientage did for those of a somewhat higher rank.218 Moreover, the relief of the indigent was an important function of the State.219 The Areopagus provided public works for the poor.220 At Rome gratuitous distribution of corn was the rule for many centuries;221 agrarian laws furnished free homesteads to the landless, on conquered or public territory;222 since the days of Nerva a systematic support of poor children was enjoined in all the cities of Italy.223 A few examples of private charity, also, have descended to us already from early times, such as Epaminondas collecting dowers for poor girls,224 and Cimon feeding and clothing the poor;225 and from the days of the Pagan Empire there are recorded several cases of individual beneficence. Charitable bequests are alluded to in the burial inscriptions; when some great catastrophe happened, relief was willingly given to the sufferers; private infirmaries were established for slaves.226 The duty of charity was forcibly enjoined by some of the moralists. The wise man, says Seneca, “will dry the tears of others, but will not mingle his own with them; he will stretch out his hand to the shipwrecked mariner, will offer hospitality to the exile, and alms to the needy.”227 But his alms are not thrown away by chance; his purse will open easily, but never leak. He will choose out the worthiest with the utmost care, and never give without sufficient reason; for unwise gifts must be reckoned among foolish extravagances.228 So also Cicero, whilst styling beneficence and liberality “virtues that are the most agreeable to the nature of man,” is anxious to warn his readers against imprudence in practising them, “lest our kindness should hurt both those whom it is meant to assist, and others.”229

In a very different light was charity viewed by the Christians. Unlimited open-handedness became a cardinal virtue. An ideal Christian was he who did what Jesus commanded the young man to do: who went and sold what he had and gave it to the poor.230 Promiscuous almsgiving was enjoined as a duty:—“Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.”231 The discharge of this duty was even more profitable to the giver than to the receiver. There is perhaps no precept in the Gospel to which a promise of recompense is so frequently annexed as to that concerning charity. Eternal life is promised to those who feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, take in the stranger, clothe the naked, visit the sick.232 Charity was regarded as an atonement. “God,” says St. Augustine, “is to be propitiated through alms for sins past”;233 and countless times is the thought expressed, that almsgiving is a safe investment of money at good interest with God in heaven.234 Cyprian, who is the father of the Romish doctrine of good works, establishes an arithmetical relation between the number of alms-offerings and the blotting out of sins.235 “The food of the needy,” says Leo the Great, “is the purchase-money of the kingdom of heaven.”236 “As long as the market lasts,” says St. Chrysostom, “let us buy alms, or rather let us purchase salvation through alms.”237 The rich man is only a debtor; all that he possesses beyond what is necessary, belongs to the poor, and ought to be given away.238 The poor, no longer looked down upon, became instruments of salvation. To them was given the first place in the Church and in the Christian community. St. Chrysostom says of them, “As fountains flow near the place of prayer that the hands that are about to be raised to heaven may be washed, so were the poor placed by our fathers near to the door of the Church, that our hands might be consecrated by benevolence before they are raised to God.”239 Gregory the Great announces, and the Middle Ages re-echo, “The poor are not to be lightly esteemed and despised, but to be honoured as patrons.”240 Thus it happened that even in the darkest periods, when all other Christian virtues were nearly extinct, charity survived unimpaired.241 Later on Protestantism, by denying the atoning effect of good deeds, deprived charity of a great deal of its religious attraction. And in modern times the enlightened opinion on the subject, recognising the demoralising influence of indiscriminate almsgiving, rather agrees with the principles laid down by Cicero and Seneca, than with the literal interpretation of the injunctions of Christ.

In the course of progressing civilisation the obligation of assisting the needy has been extended to wider and wider circles of men. The charity and generosity which savages require as a duty or praise as a virtue have, broadly speaking, reference only to members of the same community or tribe. Kindness towards foreigners is looked upon in a very different light. “The virtues of the Negroes,” Monrad observes, “are entirely restricted to their own tribe. The doing good to a stranger they would generally find ridiculous.”242 To the Greenlander a foreigner, especially if he be of another race, is “an indifferent object, whose welfare he has no interest in furthering.”243 The Bedouin, says Doughty, “has two faces, this of gentle kindness at home, the other of wild misanthropy and his teeth set against the world besides.”244 At higher stages of civilisation the duty of charity embraces a wider group of people, in proportion to the largeness of the social unit or to the scope of the religion by which it is enjoined. But it is still more or less restrained by national or religious boundaries. M. Amélineau observes that the charity referred to on ancient Egyptian papyri is “la charité limitée à ceux de la même nation.”245 According to Zoroastrianism, charity should be restricted to the followers of the true religion; to succour an unbeliever would be like a strengthening of the dominion of Evil.246 The Zakât, or legal alms of the Muhammedans, must not be given to a non-Muslim, because it is regarded as a fundamental part of worship;247 similarly the Ṣadaqah, or offering on the feast-day known as ʿIdu’l-Fiṭr, is confined to true believers.248 Nor has Christian charity always been free from religious narrowness. Fleury says that the early Christians, in the care they took of the poor, always preferred Christians before infidels, because “their principal regard was to their spiritual concerns, and to their temporal welfare only in order to their spiritual.”249 The principle of the Church was, “Omnem hominem fidelem judica tuum esse fratrem.”250 In the seventeenth century the Scotch clergy taught that food or shelter must on no occasion be given to a starving man unless his opinions were orthodox.251 On the other hand, Christianity of a higher type preaches charity towards all men; and so does advanced Judaism and Buddhism. It is said in the Talmud, with reference to the treatment of the poor, that no distinction should be made between such as are Jews and such as are not.252 In modern times charity now and then steps over the barriers of nationality even when the sufferers belong to distant nations. Whilst our indigent compatriots are generally recognised to have a greater claim on our pity than needy strangers, a great calamity in one country readily calls forth a charitable response in other nations. Mr. Pike believes that the contribution of one hundred thousand pounds sterling which England, in the year 1755, when Lisbon was laid in ruins by an earthquake, sent for the relief of the sufferers, inaugurated this new era of international charitableness. “Compassion.” he observes, “was at last shown by Englishmen, not simply for Englishmen and Protestants, but for foreigners professing a different religion; pity, for once, triumphed over intolerance and national prejudice.”253 And in war, in the case of enemies rendered harmless by wounds or disease, the growth of human feeling has passed beyond the simple requirement that they shall not be killed or ill-used, and has cast upon belligerents the duty of tending them so far as is consistent with the primary duty to their own wounded.254 However, it must not be imagined that this humane principle, which has only lately been recognised in Europe, is a unique outcome of Christian civilisation at its height. It is said in the Mahabharata that, when a quarrel arises among good men, a wounded enemy is to be cured in the conqueror’s own country, or to be conveyed to his home.255 Strangely enough, even from the savage world we hear of something like an anticipation of the Geneva Convention. Among certain tribes in New South Wales, as soon as the fight is concluded, “both parties seem perfectly reconciled, and jointly assist in tending the wounded men.”256

The gradual expansion of the duty of charity is due to the fact that this duty, in the first place, is based on the altruistic sentiment, and consequently follows the same general law of development. Many cases referred to above imply that savages are by no means strangers to affection, and that in their communities there is not only mutual assistance, but general kindness of heart. Numerous instances to the same effect might easily be added. When a Fuegian is very ill the near relatives show much grief;257 and Darwin tells us that the Fuegian boy who was taken on board the Beagle and brought to Europe, used to go to the sea-sick and say, in a plaintive voice, “Poor, poor fellow!”258 The Veddahs are praised not only for their charitable behaviour towards each other, but for their natural tenderness of heart.259 The aborigines of Victoria are said to “have the greatest love for their friends and relatives,” and to testify the liveliest joy when a companion after a long absence returns to the camp.260 Forster mentions an instance of affection among the natives of Tana, which, as he says, “strongly proves that the passions and innate quality of human nature are much the same in every climate.”261 Melville declares that, after passing a few weeks in the Typee valley of the Marquesas, he formed a higher estimate of human nature than he ever before entertained.262 It can hardly be doubted that in every human society there is, normally, some degree of social affection between its members;263 and it seems that the evolution of this sentiment in mankind has been much more in the direction of greater extensiveness than of greater intensity.