Excerpt from Six Months Among the Charities of Europe, Vol. 1 The suggestion was congenial to me, and, on mature consideration, I found it recommended itself too much to my taste not to be accepted with pleasure. I have always been of opinion that nowhere could a better proof of the divine origin of Christianity and of the truth of the Gospel be found than in the story, simply told, of some charitable Institutions. Whatever the Christian religion may apparently have in common with other religions, this much is certain, that true, self denying charity, which seeks the lost, loves the poor, and consoles the sufferer, is exclusively its own. There never were such things as Charities known in heathen dom, however civilised; nor were they even known in Israel before He appeared who taught His people to love their enemies, and to exercise charity towards the harlot, the publican, and the sinner. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.