moment the assistance of our fellow-creatures; whom perhaps our Maker enables us at present to repay by mutual kindness, but whom we know not how soon we may be necessitated to implore, without the capacity of returning their beneficence.

This reflection surely ought immediately to convince us of the necessity of charity. Prudence, even without religion, ought to admonish every one to assist the helpless and relieve the wretched, that, when the day of distress shall come upon him, he may confidently ask that assistance which he himself, in his prosperity, never did deny.

As it has pleased God to place us in a state in which we are surrounded with innumerable temptations; so it has pleased him, on many occasions, to afford us temporal incitements to virtue, as a counterbalance to the allurements of sin; and to set before us rewards which may be obtained, and punishments which may be suffered, before the final determination of our future state. As charity is one of our most important duties, we are pressed to its practice by every principle of secular as well as religious wisdom; and no man can suffer himself to be distinguished for hardness of heart, without danger of feeling the consequence of his wickedness in his present state; because no man can secure to himself the continuance of riches or of power, nor can prove that he shall not himself want the assistance which he now denies, and perhaps be compelled to implore it from those whose petition he now rejects, and whose miseries he now insults. Such is the instability of human affairs, and so frequently does God assert his government

of the world, by exalting the low, and depressing the powerful.

If we endeavour to consult higher wisdom than our own, with relation to this duty, and examine the opinions of the rest of mankind; it will be found that all the nations of the earth, however they may differ with regard to every other tenet, yet agree in the celebration of benevolence, as the most amiable disposition of the heart, and the foundation of all happiness. We shall find that, in every place, men are loved and honoured in proportion to the gifts which they have conferred upon mankind; and that nothing but charity can recommend one man to the affection of another.

But if we appeal, as is undoubtedly reasonable and just, from human wisdom to divine, and search the holy Scriptures, to settle our notions of the importance of this duty, we shall need no further incitements to its practice; for every part of that. sacred volume is filled with precepts that direct, or examples that inculcate it.

The practice of hospitality among the patriarchs; the confidence of Job, amidst his afflictions, arising from the remembrance of his former charity; the precepts of the prophets, and the conduct of the holy men of all times, concur to enforce the duty of attending to the cries of misery, and endeavouring to relieve the calamities of life.

But surely all further proof will be superseded, when the declaration of our blessed Redeemer is remembered, who has condescended to inform us that those who have shown mercy shall find mercy from him; that the practice of charity will be the

great test by which we shall be judged; and that those, and those only, who have given food to the hungry, and raiment to the naked, shall, at the final doom, be numbered by the Son of God amongst the blessed of his Father.

There can nothing more be added to show the necessity of the practice of charity; for what can be expected to move him by whom everlasting felicity is 'disregarded, and who hears, without emotion, never-ending miseries threatened by Omnipotence? It therefore now remains that we inquire,

Secondly, How we may practise this duty in a manner pleasing to him who commanded it; or what disposition of mind is necessary to make our alms acceptable to God.

Our Saviour, as he has informed us of the necessity of charity, has not omitted to teach us likewise how our acts of charity are to be performed: and from his own precepts, and those of his apostles, may be learned all the cautions necessary to obviate the deceit of our own hearts, and to preserve us from falling into follies dangerous to our souls, while we imagine ourselves advancing in the favour of God.

We are commanded by Jesus Christ, when we give our alms, to divest ourselves of pride, vainglory, and desire of applause: we are forbidden to give that we may be seen of men, and instructed so to conduct our charity that it may be known to our Father which seeth in secret. By this precept it is not to be understood that we are forbidden to give alms in public, or where we may be seen of men;

for our Saviour has also commanded, that our 66 light should so shine before men, that they may see our good works, and glorify our Father which is in heaven." The meaning therefore of this text is, not that we should forbear to give alms in the sight of men, but that we should not suffer the presence of men to act as the motive to our charity, nor regard their praise as any object to our wishes; a precept surely reasonable; for how can that act be virtuous, which depends not upon our own choice, but upon that of others, and which we should not have performed, if we had not expected that they would have applauded it?

Of the same kind, though somewhat different in its immediate and literal acceptation, is the instruction contained in the text, in which we are taught by St. Paul, that every man ought to give according to the purpose of his own heart, not grudgingly, or of necessity; by which it is commanded, that we should, as our Saviour had already taught us, lay aside, in the distribution of our alms, all regard to human authority; that we should give according to the purpose of our own hearts, without respect to solicitation or influence; that we should give, because God has commanded, and give cheerfully, as a proof of ready and uncompelled obedience; obedience uncompelled by any other motive than a due sense of our dependence upon the universal Lord, and the reasonableness of observing the law of him by whom we were created.

There are likewise other rules to be observed in the practice of charity, which may be gathered, at least consequentially, from the holy Scriptures; and which the common prudence of mankind at the

same time evidently prescribes. It is necessary that, in bestowing our alms, we should endeavour to promote the service of God, and the general happiness of society, and therefore we ought not to give them without inquiry into the ends for which they are desired; we ought not to suffer our beneficence to be made instrumental to the encouragement of vice or the support of idleness; because what is thus squandered may be wanted by others, who would use our kindness to better purposes, and who, without our assistance, would perhaps perish.

Another precept, too often neglected, which yet a generous and elevated mind would naturally think highly necessary to be observed, is, that alms should be given in such a manner as may be most pleasing to the person who receives them; that our charity should not be accompanied with insults, nor followed by reproaches; that we should, whenever it is possible, spare the wretched the unnecessary, the mortifying pain of recounting their calamities, and representing their distress; and when we have relieved them we should never upbraid them with our kindness, nor recall their afflictions to their minds by cruel and unseasonable admonitions to gratitude or industry. He only confers favours generously, who appears, when they are once conferred, to remember them no more.

Poverty is in itself sufficiently afflictive, and to most minds the pain of wanting assistance is scarcely balanced by the pleasure of receiving it. The end of charity is to mitigate calamities; and he has little title to the reward of mercy, who afflicts with one hand, while he succours with the other. But