LXXXVII. But not to strict justice alone our conduct towards our fellow-men must conform itself; we are bound to act on the principles of the most generous benevolence and charity. Those acts of a noble mind and a magnanimous heart, commonly called virtue, which are by moralists only _recommended_, as meritorious works, are by the Divine law _enjoined_, as obligatory, in the most absolute sense. Alms, for instance, are, in the Mosaic law, a duty of the rich, and a right of the needy. God is the owner of the land; He gave it to the diligent to cultivate, and through His blessing their labours prosper; He assigned to the poor His dues on the cultivated soil, and ordered that to them should be left the total produce of every seventh year, the tithes of some other years, and the gleanings of the fields and vineyards. It was not thereby intended to render charity legal and compulsory, depriving it of its noblest attribute, which is spontaneity, but to show more conspicuously the importance attached to it, having otherwise left free all acts of kindness and mercy, to which the law does not fix any measure. To this class also belong the precepts, which make it a duty to give timely assistance to him who is about to succumb to fatigue and labour, to supply with provisions the discharged servant, to restore before sunset the clothing taken in pawn, to obviate danger in building a house, to put no obstructions before the blind, to grant every kind of relief to whomsoever stands in need, without exacting, or even expecting, any remuneration, to rescue those who are in danger, to defend the weak, to protect the widow and the orphan, to attend the sick, and to give sepulture to the dead. These and other similar prescriptions, which make of charity a duty, carry with them the great lesson, that justice must go always hand-in-hand with mercy, since the all-just God is also all-merciful, and he who satisfies not both alike, does not fully discharge his duties to society.