West Port Experiment

“To appropriate his little vicinity—to lay it down in the length and the breadth of it—to measure it off as the manageable field within which he can render an entire and a lasting benefit to all its families—to know and be known amongst them, and thus have his liberality sweetened by the charm of aquaintanceship with those who are the objects of it—instead of dropping as heretofore of his abundance, into an ocean where it was instantly absorbed and became invisible, to pour a deep, and a sensible, and an abiding infusion into his own separate and selected portion of that impracticable mass which has hitherto withstood all the efforts of philanthropy—instead of grasping in vain at the whole territory, to make upon it his own little settlement, and thus to narrow at least the unbroken field which he could not overtake—to beautify one humble spot, and there raise an enduring monument, by which an example is lifted up, and a voice is sent forth to all the spaces which are yet unentered on—this is benevolence reaping a reward at the very outset of its labours; and such a reward, too, as will not only insure the accomplishment of its own task, but as must, from the ease, and the certainty, and the distinct and definite good which are attendant upon its doings, serve both to allure and to guarantee a whole host of imitations.”

-Thomas Chalmers, The Christian & Economic Polity of a Nation, p. 101.