Let a man invite the poor to dinner, and how people would stop, and stare, and gaze with wonder at the stream of poverty creeping along and pouring in at his open door—the lame hobbling on crutches, the blind led by a dog, or little child, the widow clad in rusty weeds, the poor outcast with rags on her back and at her bosom a shrivelled infant, children shivering and shoeless, from streets their haunt by day, from dirty dens and cellars their cold home by night! Not wondered at only, and supposed by many to be mad, the man who dare do this, who would render a literal obedience to Christ’s command, might prepare for no measured censure— people saying, this was to turn the world upside down; to spoil the poor; to inflate them with notions unbefitting their condition; to destroy the lines of demarcation which God in His providence had drawn between the different classes of society. What a talk such a feast would make! Nevertheless, why should it not be tried?—GUTHRIE.
