Page:Sketch of Connecticut, Forty Years Since.djvu/81

 you alone were liable to deception from those who solicit charity. It is but a short time since a young man brought to my house a paper, signed by several persons, declaring him to be deaf and dumb from his birth. His conduct comported with this declaration. His questions were unintelligible to me, and his eye possessed that earnest, inquiring gaze, which characterizes that interesting, and unfortunate race. Affected at the lot of a being, cut off from all the privileges and joys of society, I was preparing to impart liberally to his wants. My wife, regarding him with a penetrating look, said "she had no doubt he was an impostor, who could hear and speak as well as any of us." He could not avoid turning his head as if to listen, and, more moved by resentment than good manners, answered, "You lie!"

"What," inquired the Lady, "do you consider the best method of doing good, with the least possible harm?" "Undoubtedly, that of relieving the poor, through their own industry," he answered. "Thus, instead of the degradation of beggary you elevate their character, with the consciousness of a right improvement of time. If they are addicted to vices, you diminish their strength, by destroying indolence. You dry up the streams, by choking the fountain. A Christian should seek not merely to relieve bodily want, but to elevate moral character. If you support the children of an intemperate man, you take from him the strongest possible motive to reformation and industry. In those countries where establishments for the indigent