Preface
Among the many customs of the world that one is almost expected to follow, this is one of them: a book must not appear without a preface. This little book willingly submits to that tradition. It comes with a preface, though it will not be one like the gates of Mindus. A greater difficulty, however, arises with another convention: the dedicatory epistle. Dedications have become such hollow and excessive flattery that they are now largely pointless. More often than not, their only purpose is to give critics of the age fresh material for ridicule. The excellent Boyle put it well when he said: “It is almost as unfashionable in such addresses to omit praise (unjust praise, I might add) as it is to actually believe the praise given on such an occasion.” Sometimes authors live long enough to recognize their own mistakes and admit them. An Augustine includes the flourishes he once used in a dedication among the items in his Retractions; a Calvin revokes a dedication after discovering he had directed it to an unworthy person. I might also add that in other cases, everyone can see exactly what the author is after, and how thoroughly he writes for himself when he flatters other men. A different course must be taken here.
If a book of Essays to Do Good were to be dedicated to a person of quality, it should seek a patron who is a true Man of Honor and of uncommon Goodness. Your patron, O Book of Benefits to the World, should be a generous and wide-ranging Benefactor to humanity: one who never considers himself more truly Advanced than when he Stoops to Do Good for all who might benefit from him; one whose Highest Ambition is to abound in Serviceable Condescensions. He should be a stranger to the Gains of Oppression, the common refuge of the oppressed and the distressed, one who will have nothing to do with what is Base. He should be a lover of all Good Men across every persuasion, able to Distinguish them, yet loving them without Distinction. Let him also be one who has nobly stripped himself of Emoluments and Advantages when those things would have burdened his opportunities to serve his nation. Indeed, presume upon one who has governed and adorned the greatest and bravest city on the face of the earth, and who is so much the Delight of that city, as well as of the rest of humanity, that she will never count her honor or welfare more faithfully served than when he appears as her Representative in the most illustrious of all the world’s assemblies: beloved by the Queen of Cities, the fairest and richest lady of the universe.
In a word: a public spirit. For all these reasons and more, let that phrase call to mind Sir William Ashhurst. Just as the ancient poet noted that when Plutarch’s name was spoken, the echo answered Philosophy, so now the name of Sir William Ashhurst will draw the same instant reply from every quarter: a public spirit. Every person who hears it will say so, and say it more times than the famous echo at Pont-Chareton. All people, without exception, place him in the same company as Abraham, Joseph, and those other great figures of antiquity whom Grotius described so well as men born to serve their fellow human beings, who counted every opportunity to do good as a personal gain. Even distant America knows his name; the American colonies watch closely the efforts of his goodness on their behalf. The very ends of the earth know him. Nations of Christianized Indians likewise pray for him as their Governor. To him, a book with this purpose will be welcome, whatever its shortcomings in treating so noble a subject. To him, this work offers the wish that all the blessings promised to those who devise good may be multiplied without end.
I will venture something here that aligns naturally with one of the central principles of this book: that brothers should dwell together in unity and pursue every worthy cause through shared effort. I hope to be forgiven for joining in offering testimony of our deep admiration for a man of honorable character, one devoted to loving good people and doing good in the world: his excellent brother-in-law. The well-known name of Joseph Thompson has long been valued and will always be remembered in the country where this book is published. God will be glorified for the piety that adorns him and for the pure religion that, in the midst of the world and all its temptations, keeps him so unspotted from it. The pagan Asdrubal, as recorded in Livy, once observed that good fortune and a good mind are rarely given to the same person at once. Christianity will, in this gentleman, offer the world a happy proof that this maxim can be overturned. Because a book of essays on doing good will surely find a welcome reception with a man of such good character, and because he serves as treasurer of a corporation formed with the intention of doing in America the greatest good of all, of which Sir William Ashhurst is the governor, he too receives this humble offering; and the book can only wish him all the blessings that goodness brings.
The book now requires some account of itself. Twenty years ago, an envoy from His Britannic Majesty delivered a speech to the Duke of Brandenburg containing this passage: “A capacity to do good not only gives a title to it, but also makes the doing of it a duty.” Ink is too base a liquid to record such words. Letters of gold would be too humble a medium to preserve them. Paper made of asbestos would not be precious or lasting enough to carry them into the future.
To put it simply, Reader: the book now in your hands is nothing more than an illustration and an exploration of that memorable sentence. Gold is capable of remarkable expansion; experiments have shown that it can be stretched so thin that one hundred-thousandth of a grain remains visible to the naked eye. This golden sentence can be extended just as far, and no one can say how far that might be. This book is simply a sustained meditation on it. At the same time, it serves as a commentary on that inspired maxim, “As we have opportunity, let us do good unto all men” (Gal 6:10). Every proposal offered here hopes to be able to say, “When I am tried, I shall come forth as gold.”
I am not entirely unaware that all the rules of discretion and good conduct are contained within that single word: modesty. But it is no violation of modesty to state with full confidence that the only true wisdom available to us lies in communing with the great God and His glorious Christ, and in drawing as many others as we can into that same blessed pursuit. This means advancing His kingdom among the children of men, and dedicating ourselves to doing good to all those around us: being a blessing in each of our relationships, healing the disorders and relieving the suffering of a broken world, to whatever extent our influence can reach. It is no breach of modesty to assert, with complete assurance, that no one begins to be truly wise until he makes this the central purpose and joy of his life. Indeed, every person will at some point come to recognize that everything apart from this is mere foolishness, though sadly, most people do not arrive at that recognition until it is far too late.
Millions of people, across every rank of society, beyond those whose final thoughts are gathered in The Fair Warnings to a Careless World, have ultimately declared their conviction of this truth. I will say plainly, without any arrogance: the person who is not persuaded of the wisdom of making it the central work of his life to do good deserves nothing but the pity we extend to a fool. No foundational principles deserve more firm adherence than these. Or consider it this way: grant only that a final judgment is coming, and my argument wins immediately.
I will not be arrogant, yet I will speak boldly: the person who refuses to embrace this understanding is worse than a pagan. The ancient writers said it well: a good man is a common good; he truly lives who is useful to many; and nothing should matter more to a person than the benefit of others. Only a good person is truly alive in any meaningful sense, and the more good someone does, the more fully he lives. Everything else is death, or belongs to it. You will forgive me for adding this: even the Muslim tradition stands ready to condemn anyone who rejects the principles of this book. For I believe the Quran states no fewer than three times: “God loves those who are inclined to do good.”
This way of living may invite mockery in our current age. The ancient rabbis predicted that in the generation when the Messiah comes, people will call anyone who practices goodness a fool, crying out “Sotah! He’s an idiot!” Yet a wiser generation will come, and wisdom will be vindicated by her children (Matt 11:19). Among the Jews there was an Ezra, whose head they called “The Throne of Wisdom.” Among the Greeks there was a Democritus, known simply as Sophia, wisdom in its purest form. Later ages knew a Gildas, who bore the surname Sapiens, meaning “the Wise.” But when all is said and done, the truly wise man is the one whose deepest desire and settled purpose is to do good. Indeed, if a man had the hundred hands of Briareus, they would still not be enough to do all the good the world requires; he would find occasions calling for even more. England once had a community of men known as the Bon-hommes, or Good Men. The ambition of this book is to revive and expand such a community, one that can rightly claim that name, and more than that, to urge that it grow beyond the boundaries of any sect by drawing all people into its ranks.
Among all the trees in the garden of God, which one does not envy the palm tree, from which Plutarch tells us the Babylonians derived more than three hundred useful things? Or the coconut tree, so generous in its gifts to humanity that a vessel can be built, rigged, loaded, and provisioned from that single source alone? To plant such trees of righteousness, and to prune them well, is the hope of the book now before you.
Those who devise good will allow me to prepare them for a few things that may strengthen them for their great purpose. Gentlemen, you are about to pass between Bozez (meaning “Dirty”) and Seneh (meaning “Thorny”), and you will face a host of obstacles far worse than any Philistines in what you are undertaking.
Misconstruction is one thing against which you would do well to arm yourself with both prudence and patience: prudence to prevent it, patience to endure it. You will inevitably find yourself doing many good things that other people observe only from a distance, without any understanding of your motives or methods. They may even imagine that their own purposes are being crossed or obstructed by what you do, and this will expose you to their criticism. More specifically: in your efforts to do good, you may find yourself dealing with people whose power far exceeds their virtue. It may be both necessary and appropriate for you to soften them with acknowledgments of whatever qualities make them worthy of respect, while refraining, for the moment, from pointing out what may be blameworthy in them. In doing this, your only aim under heaven is to be better positioned to do good to them, or through them to do good for others. And yet, if you are not very careful, this civility of yours may work against you, especially if you later find yourself compelled either to revise your opinion of these people or to call out some failure on their part. The injustice of the criticism you receive could be considerable, much like the situation where Paul, rebuking Felix for his unrighteousness and unchastity, might have been accused of inconsistency simply because, not long before, he had complimented this same Felix and expressed how glad he was to be dealing with someone of such ability and accomplishment, someone so well acquainted with the affairs of his nation. But you must not let it trouble you if you are treated so unjustly. Jerome had written glowingly of Origen as a man of brilliant gifts; later, he wrote just as sharply against certain things Origen was accused of, perhaps wrongfully. People cried out against Jerome for his fickleness, even his dishonesty. He dismissed the slander and replied: “I once praised what I believed was great in him; now I condemn what I find to be evil in him. Where, I ask, is the contradiction?” I say: be cautious. But I say again: do not be troubled by it.
What I would add to this is simple: you must rise above every Discouragement. Expect them, and meet them with a courageous spirit that refuses to be stopped.
Some have observed that the most hidden, and yet the most powerful, of all our passions is Idleness. It binds us in chains as hard as iron, chains of death and darkness. It holds captive every other impulse within us, no matter how strong those impulses may be. The fact that so little harm is done in the world owes a great deal to a kind of sluggish, self-inflicted weariness that settles over the human mind, and the same is true of why so little good is done. A Pharaoh does us no injustice when he says, “You are idle, you are idle.” We almost always have more strength to do good than we have the will to use it. So, friends: get up and get moving! It is far too soon to be writing your epitaph.
If you encounter vile Ingratitude from those on whom you have bestowed the greatest kindness, don’t be surprised. Human nature, in its fallen state, is so corrupt that people would rather carry any burden than the weight of obligation. They will acknowledge small favors, but they repay extraordinary ones with remarkable hatred and malice. They will make it a dangerous thing to be genuinely generous and charitable. Communities do this just as readily as individuals. An excess of merit eventually begins to look like a fault. People will sooner forgive great injuries than great services. The man who built a magnificent castle for the Poles had his eyes put out as his reward, so that he could never build another like it.
Such things are enough to make one sick of the world; but, my friend, they should not make you sick of striving to do good in it. Let your conformity to your Savior, and your communion with Him, carry you through all of it.
It’s impossible to avoid envy. Do right, do good, and do it consistently, and you will find yourself envied by your neighbor. The power that human pride has to produce slander is almost beyond belief. Pride works as a kind of impatience, a refusal to accept that anyone else might be or do more than oneself. As one writer put it, the minds of men have caught the vapors: a good report of anyone throws them into convulsions and agonies, while a bad one refreshes them. You must endure all the outrage that envy brings, and there is only one form of revenge available to you. As another has said, there is no revenge more heroic than the kind that torments envy by doing good.
It’s a striking observation from a recent French author: that a man of genuine merit becomes a kind of public enemy. By drawing so much admiration to himself, admiration that many others would gladly claim for their own, he makes envy inevitable. People naturally come to hate what they esteem too highly but cannot bring themselves to love. Yet, my readers, let’s not be surprised by this. You know who suffered ostracism at Athens, and you’ve heard the charming reason a simple countryman gave for voting to banish Aristides: because everyone, everywhere, always called him “The Just.” You know why the Ephors fined Agesilaus: because he had won the hearts of the Lacedaemonians more completely than any other man. You’ve read why the Ephesians expelled the finest of their citizens, in their own words: “Let no one among us stand above the rest; and if anyone insists on outshining his neighbors, let him find somewhere else to do it.” You know that the man who conquered Hannibal found it necessary to withdraw from Rome, so that the merits of lesser men might finally receive some notice. My sources confirm it: across every era, nothing has proven more dangerous among human beings than a merit that shines too brightly. But, my readers, the fear of this envy must not stop you. I urge you to do good, and rather than shrinking from the most envious attempts to strip you of your reputation, meet them with a generous and undaunted spirit.
I hope I’m proven a false prophet in what I’m about to predict: yet another discouragement you’ll have to face. I mean derision. And please, don’t laugh off the warning itself. It was noted long ago that ridicule often cuts deeper and more effectively than serious argument. It has recently been proposed that mockery, scoffing, and ridicule, what some are pleased to call the Bartholomew Fair method, is a more effective way to undermine all goodness and drive it from public life than fire and execution. No cruelty is more unbearable to the human spirit than cruel mockery. It seems highly likely that the Devil, having been somewhat restrained in many places from more violent forms of persecution, will turn to this method more than ever. Essays to do good will be ridiculed with all the art and wit he can inspire in his foot soldiers, a new order, you might say, that the Grand Sovereign of Hell has established. Refined profanity and buffoonery will be deployed in an attempt to laugh people out of their good intentions. Those who pursue good works will be mocked on the stage; libels, lampoons, and satires, the sharpest ever devised, will be aimed at them; and pamphlets stuffed with lies will be circulated with the sole purpose of making them look ridiculous. Here the Devil reveals himself: he will test whether the fear of being laughed at can cool and frighten a zeal to do good right out of the world.
But press forward all the more boldly. Gentlemen, despise the shame, whatever opposition from sinners you encounter; you know what example was set before you. “Quit yourselves like men, be strong”; you know who gives you that direction. Say with resolve: “The proud have held me in great contempt, yet I have not turned aside from doing as much good as I could.” If you find yourself sharing in such sufferings, I will humbly offer my opinion on the best way to conduct yourself under them: it is neglect and contempt. I have an entire university on my side. The University of Helmstadt, responding to a recent attack made against it, included this noble statement in a formal declaration: that it seemed best to rely on no other remedy than generous silence and devout contempt. Press on to do good, and go well, moving with dignity in your going, like the noble creature that does not turn aside for any. A life spent in diligent efforts to do good will be your most powerful and lasting vindication. It will establish your reputation so firmly in the minds of those who listen to their conscience that a few petty, foolish, and feeble attacks will never be able to destroy it. If they attempt to ridicule you in their printed outbursts, your name will be so well-regarded that no ink will stick to it. I recall that Valerianus Magnus, when attacked by a Jesuit who had labored, through what was called a “modest inquiry,” to make him look ridiculous, offered no other defense than to append to each charge the words: “That is a most impudent lie, sir.” And that same answer could truthfully be given to every line of certain stories I have seen elsewhere, brewed by someone who is no Jesuit.
But even that much of a reply to such foolishness is more attention than it deserves. It has been well observed that contempt for such attacks discredits them and takes away the pleasure of those who make them. And there is another observation worth noting: when someone of whom we have heard very ill turns out, on closer acquaintance, to be very good, we naturally conclude that they possess a merit that is troublesome to certain other people. The rule, then, is this: be very good, do very much good, and cast a generous disdain on insults; that is the great remedy against them. If you need a model, I can offer you an imperial one. It was Vespasian who, when someone spoke ill of him, said: “Since I do nothing worthy of being insulted for, I care nothing for lies.” And I would be very much mistaken if it isn’t an entirely achievable thing to be as honest a man as Vespasian.
Sirs, what I am urging upon you now is an Unfailing Resolution to Do Good, and an Unwearied Well-Doing. May this little book serve its purpose as a Monitor to everyone who reads it.
I won’t claim to have spent as many weeks writing this book as Descartes, despite being a profound geometer, says he spent solving a single geometrical question. Even so, the work has grown longer than I intended, and there is not one Proposal in it that, if seriously pursued, would not yield the mind a more solid and lasting satisfaction than solving every problem in Euclid or Pappus. It is a writer’s vanity to apologize to readers with a dismissive “sorry it isn’t better.” Instead, I will say plainly: I have written something worth your time. If I didn’t genuinely believe that, I would not publish it. No one has demanded this of me; it was not published, as authors so often pretend, to satisfy the insistence of friends. It was published to press a point on readers who, I believed, needed pressing. And I will venture to say that there is not one foolish idea among all my proposals. I propose nothing that the conscience of every good person will not affirm: it would be well if this could be accomplished. A certain writer put it rightly when he said he couldn’t understand how any honest person could print a book while claiming he thought no reader would be wiser or better for having read it. I will admit that my subject deserves far better treatment than I have given it, and my handling of it is not so accomplished that I would dare do what the famous painter Titian did on his works: sign his name with a double Fecit, meaning “very well done.” I would also have suppressed the book entirely had I shared the temperament of Cimabue, another celebrated painter, who would utterly deface and destroy his work if he or anyone else spotted the slightest flaw in it, even after a full year of labor. Yet I will say this: the book is full of Reasonable and Serviceable things. It would do us all good to take such things seriously, and I have done well to offer them.
Who wrote this book is not something that needs to be asked. Those nearby will figure it out soon enough. But writing without a name (and not for personal gain either) will keep the author’s identity hidden from most readers who encounter it. Concealing his name may actually benefit the book, because now the only question worth asking is not who wrote it, but what it says.
One author made the vain demand, “If you have read my work, acknowledge me”. In plain English, that amounts to saying: whatever you do, reader, make sure you recognize the author as someone important. But really, sir, who are you that the world should concern itself with you at all? There was a man, as great as any church office could make a person, who refused to have even his name on his epitaph. He asked only for this: “Here lies a shadow, ashes, nothing”. This book will carry no other name either. Here writes (or strives and dares to write) a shadow, ashes, nothing.
That said, the author is firmly convinced that a day is fast approaching when books with this kind of purpose will be the most welcome things imaginable to many thousands of readers, and will go through more than one edition. Yes, great will be the army of those who publish them! The year 1716 is coming.
A vast range of new ways to do good will be discovered: paths that no bird, however gifted for noble flight, has yet known; paths that even the sharpest vulture’s eye has never seen, and where the lions of the strongest resolve have never walked.
Scotland will stand apart from the rest, blessed (if I may use the term, “Goshenized”) by rays of Heaven’s favor directed toward it with unmistakable purpose. Within that reformed and celebrated Church of Scotland, a remarkable group of men will be found for whom the most thoughtful and far-reaching efforts to do good come as naturally as breathing, and the whole world will be better for it. To these men, this book is humbly offered by one who deeply admires the good work being done among them daily. He knows that if it finds a welcome nowhere else, it will find one there. They will not fail to receive such a stranger warmly. As for the charge of writing too much (even if he were to go as far as Terentianus Carthaginensis tells us Varro did), he considers it beneath him to respond. And why not also charge him with preaching too much, while they are at it? But Erasmus, who wrote far more, has already supplied him with the only answer he ever intends to give: “Others accuse me of having done too much; my own conscience accuses me of having done too little, and of having been too slow.” May God, in His goodness, forgive his laziness.
