the perfection of his mind? or how can any enjoyment engage his desires, but that of a pure conscience, and reasonable expectations of a more happy and permanent existence ? Whatever superiority may distinguish us, and whatever plenty may surround us, we know that they can be possessed but a short time, and that the manner in which we employ them, must determine our eternal state; and what need can there be of any other argument for the use of them, agreeable to the command of him that bestowed them? What stronger incitement can any man require to a due consideration of the poor and needy, than that the Lord will deliver him in the day of trouble; in that day when the shadow of death shall compass him about, and all the vanities of the world shall fade away; when all the comforts of this life shall forsake him; when pleasure shall no longer delight, nor power protect him? In that dreadful hour shall the man, whose care has been extended to the general happiness of mankind, whose charity has rescued sickness from the grave, and poverty from the dungeon; who has heard the groans of the aged, struggling with misfortunes, and the cries of infants languishing with hunger, find favour in the sight of the great Author of society, and his recompense shall flow upon him from the fountain of mercy; he shall stand without fear on the brink of life, and pass into eternity with an humble confidence of finding that mercy which he has never denied. His righteousness shall go before him, and the glory of the Lord shall be his rere-ward.

These blessings, and these rewards, are to be gained by the due use of riches; but they are not

confined to the rich, or unattainable by those whom Providence has placed in lower stations. Charity is an universal duty, which it is in every man's power, sometimes, to practise; since every degree of assistance given to another, upon proper motives, is an act of charity; and there is scarcely any mau in such a state of imbecility, as that he may not, on some occasions, benefit his neighbour. He that cannot relieve the poor, may instruct the ignorant; and he that cannot attend the sick, may reclaim the vicious. He that can give little assistance himself, may yet perform the duty of charity, by inflaming the ardour of others, and recommending the petitions, which he cannot grant, to those who have more to bestow. The widow that shall give her mite to the treasury, the poor man who shall bring to the thirsty a cup of cold water, shall not lose their reward.

And that this reward is not without reason decreed to the beneficent, and that the duty of charity is not exalted above its natural dignity and importance, will appear, by considering,

Secondly, The benefits arising from the exercise of charity.

The chief advantage which is received by man. kind, from the practice of charity, is the promotion of virtue amongst those who are most exposed to such temptations as it is not easy to surmount temptations of which no man can say that he should be able to resist them, and of which it is not easy for any one that has not known them, to estimate the force, and represent the danger.

We see every day men blessed with abundance,

and revelling in delight, yet overborne by ungovernable desires of increasing their acquisitions; and breaking through the boundaries of religion, to pile heaps on heaps, and add one superfluity to another, to obtain only nominal advantages and imaginary pleasures.

For these we see friendships broken, justice violated, and nature forgotten; we see crimes committed, without the prospect of obtaining any,positive pleasure, or removing any real pain: we see men toiling through meanness and guilt, to obtain that which they can enjoy only in idea, and which will supply them with nothing real which they do not already abundantly possess.

If men, formed by education and enlightened by experience, men whose observations of the world cannot but have shown them the necessity of virtue, and who are able to discover the enormity of wickedness, by tracing its original, and pursuing its consequences, can fall before such temptations, and, in opposition to knowledge and conviction, prefer to the happiness of pleasing God the flatteries of dependents, or the smiles of power; what may not be expected from him who is pushed forward into sin by the impulse of poverty, who lives in continual want of what he sees wasted by thousands in negligent extravagance, and whose pain is every moment aggravated by the contempt of those whom nature has subjected to the same necessities with himself, and who are only his superior by that wealth which they know not how to possess with moderation or decency?

How strongly may such a man be tempted to declare war upon the prosperous and the great!

With what obstinacy and fury may he rush on from one outrage to another, impelled on one part by the pressure of necessity, and attracted on the other by the prospect of happiness; of happiness, which he sees sufficient to elevate those that possess it above the consideration of their own nature, and to turn them away from their own flesh; that happiness, which appears greater by being compared with his own misery, and which he admires the more because he cannot approach it. He that finds in himself every natural power of enjoyment, will envy the tables of the luxurious, and the splendor of the proud he who feels the cold of nakedness, and the faintness of hunger, cannot but be provoked to snatch that bread which is devoured by excess, and that raiment which is only worn as the decoration of vanity. Resentment may easily combine with want, and incite him to return neglect with violence.

Such are the temptations of poverty; and who is there that can say, that he has not, sometimes, forsaken virtue upon weaker motives? Let any man reflect upon the snares to which poverty exposes virtue, and remember how certainly one crime inakes way for another, till at last all distinction of good and evil is obliterated; and he will easily discover the necessity of charity to preserve a great part of mankind from the most atrocious wickedness.

The great rule of action, by which we are directed to do to others whatever we would that others should do to us, may be extended to God himself: whatever we ask of God, we ought to be ready to bestow on our neighbour: if we pray to

be forgiven, we must forgive those that trespass against us; and is it not equally reasonable, when we implore from Providence our daily bread, that we deal our bread to the hungry? and that we rescue others from being betrayed by want into sin, when we pray that we may not ourselves be led into temptation?

Poverty, for the greatest part, produces ignorance; and ignorance facilitates the attack of temptation for how should any man resist the solicitations of appetite, or the influence of passion, without any sense of their guilt, or dread of the punishment? How should he avoid the paths of vice, who never was directed to the way of virtue ?

For this reason, no method of charity is more efficacious than that which at once enlightens ignorance and relieves poverty; that implants virtue in the mind, and wards off the blasts of indigence that might destroy it in the bloom. Such is the charity of which an opportunity is now offered; charity, by which those who would, probably, without assistance, be the burdens or terrors of the community, by growing up in idleness and vice, are enabled to support themselves by useful employments, and glorify God by reasonable service.

Such are the general motives which the religion of Jesus affords to the general exercise of charity, and such are the particular motives for our laying hold of the opportunity which Providence has this day put into our power for the practice of it; motives, no less than the hope of everlasting happiness, and the fear of punishment which shall never end. Such incitements are surely sufficient to quicken the slowest, and animate the coldest; and