The consideration of the _person_ is a main point: for we are to give by choice, and not by hazard. My inclination bids me oblige one man; I am bound in duty and justice to serve another; here it is a charity, there it is pity; and elsewhere, perhaps, encouragement. There are some that want, to whom I would not give; because, if I did, they would want still. To one man I would barely offer a benefit; but I would press it upon another. To say the truth, we do not employ any more profit than that which we bestow; and it is not to our friends, our acquaintances or countrymen, nor to this or that condition of men, that we are to restrain our bounties; but wheresoever there is a man, there is a place and occasion for a benefit. We give to some that are good already; to others, in hope to make them so: but we must do all with discretion; for we are as well answerable for what we give as for what we receive; nay, the misplacing of a benefit is worse than the not receiving of it; for the one is another man’s fault; but the other is mine. The error of the giver does oft-times excuse the ingratitude of the receiver: for a favor ill-placed is rather a profusion than a benefit. It is the most shameful of losses, an inconsiderate bounty. I will choose a man of integrity, sincere, considerate, grateful, temperate, well-natured, neither covetous nor sordid: and when I have obliged such a man, though not worth a groat in the world, I have gained my end. If we give only to receive, we lose the fairest objects of our charity: the absent, the sick, the captive, and the needy. When we oblige those that can never pay us again in kind, as a stranger upon his last farewell, or a necessitous person upon his death-bed, we make Providence our debtor, and rejoice in the conscience even of a fruitless benefit.