144. It is thus a glorious thing to wish well, and
to give freely, with the one desire to do good and not to do
harm. For if we were to think it our duty to give the means to an
extravagant man to live extravagantly, or to an adulterer to pay for
his adultery, it would not be an act of kindness, for there would be no
good-will in it. We should be doing harm, not good, to another if
we gave him money to aid him in plotting against his country, or in
attempting to get together at our expense some abandoned men to attack
the Church. Nor, again, does it look like liberality to help one
who presses very hardly on widows and orphans, or attempts to seize on
their property with any show of violence.