If I give all I possess to the poor…but do not have love, I gain nothing. 1 Corinthians 13:3
“Though I divide all my real and all my personal estate into small portions (so the original word properly signifies) and diligently bestow it on those who, I have reason to believe, are the most proper objects; yet if I am proud, passionate, or discontented; if I give way to any of these tempers; whatever good I may do to others, I do none to my own soul. O how pitiable a case is this!
Who would not grieve that these beneficent men should lose all their labour! It is true, many of them have a reward in this world, if not before, yet after their death. They have costly and pompous funerals. They have marble monuments of the most exquisite workmanship. They have epitaphs wrote in the most elegant strain, which extol their virtues to the skies. Perhaps they have yearly orations spoken over them, to transmit their memory to all generations.
So have many founders of religious houses, of colleges, alms-houses, and most charitable institutions. And it is an allowed rule, that none can exceed in the praise of the founder of his house, college, or hospital. But still what a poor reward is this! Will it add to their comfort or to their misery, suppose (which must be the case if they did not die in faith) that they are in the hands of the devil and his angels.
What insults, what cutting reproaches, would these occasion from their infernal companions! O that they were wise! That all those who are zealous of good works would put them in their proper place; would not imagine they can supply the want of holy tempers, but take care that they may spring from them!”
John Wesley (1703-1791) excerpt from On Charity, Sermon 91.8.