are the work of his hands, and have an equal right to human conveniences with myself.

Those who are in sickness and pain, who cannot taste the pleasures of life for anguish, who have their bed in darkness, and their pillow on the thorn, are real objects of pity and consolation.

To visit the sick, and to give them the little comfort we can administer, is an indispensible duty and though the kind offers of condoling pity be unable to stay the feeble knees, or support the drooping head; yet is it not entirely useless; for, besides that in offering our compassion we discharge a duty incumbent on humanity, it is not altogether vain with respect to the object. The wretched, though incapable of the pleasures of society, are pleased to find themselves not neglected in their misery; and it is some alleviation to pain, to find an ear that will attend to, and a heart that will pity, its complaints.

The unhappy objects who have lost both their liberty and their fortunes, who, after encountering the accidents of business, and the difficulties of poverty, at last find a retreat in the solitary horrors of a prison, and are fast bound in misery and iron, are indeed pitiable, for their condition is wretched. To

visit and relieve these unhappy creatures is a charity truly meritorious.

To be excluded the society of mankind, not to mention the want of comfortable conveniences, is a sad condition of being, and in itself sufficiently miserable.

Contrary to the condition of the prisoner, but not much inferior in distress, is that of him to whom our Judge gives the name of a stranger.

I was a stranger, and ye took me not in.

Under this denomination are included all who have no immediate residence in life;

who wander up and down in solitary places, and have found no city to dwell in. To lend these an occasional defence from the inclemency of cold, and the pain of hunger, to help the weary on their way; to be given to hospitality, and to entertain strangers, is not surely too great a task for Christian humanity.

Such is the nature, and such are the objects, of charity mentioned by our Saviour. Give me leave, in the next place, to consider the moral reasonableness of that duty.

II. No man is made for himself, but for the whole. Every individual is as a link in the great chain of society, where all are knit together, and mutually dependent. The ani

mating and connecting principle is self-love, which seeks its own good in that of its fellow creatures. If this principle be wrong directed; if we, through a false conclusion, refuse to assist any member of our species whose necessities demand relief, we neglect the import of moral rectitude and the fitness of things, as well as break through the strongest bond of community, which is mutual support. But the reasonableness of charity needs not to be proved by abstracted speculations; its intrinsic excellence sufficiently recommends it.

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"To contribute freely to worthy and cha"ritable designs is a great and infallible argument of a benevolent mind: a mind that "has honourable thoughts of Providence ; "that relies upon it; and is secure and un"concerned about the events of this life.

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"Such a person seems to understand the "true use of this world, and to have no more "than a just value for it. He will not be governed and made a slave by his fortune, "but is resolved to make use of it for the purposes to which it was given, and chooses rather to live charitably than to die rich.

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"He that forgets not to do good and communicate, gives us a fair assurance that his "conversation is in heaven; that he has made a higher choice, and is in pursuit of nobler

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objects than are to be met with here; for, "if he had no further aim than the views of temporal happiness, if his thoughts were only confined to this world, we should have "reason to believe that he would not part so freely with it."

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There is no stronger proof of the internal excellence of charity, than that admiration it infallibly draws after it, when it appears in low and unwealthy characters; when the abilities of the giver are small! when he has nothing to depend on but what the hand of labour has procured him, and lives successively by the industry of the day!

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When, as St. Paul testifies of the Mace"donians, men are willing not only to their power, but beyond it, and, like the widow "in the Gospel, cast,' as it were, their whole living into the treasury of the poor, this is “ an undeniable, and a glorious evidence of the "benevolence and devotion of their temper, "that they have a worthy apprehension of God, and are generously inclined towards "their fellow-creatures."

Besides the moral necessity and excellence of charity, the reasonableness of it is probable, in that it is consistent with the dignity of human nature.

It is a god-like thing to relieve the necessi

ties of the wretched, and to imitate the noblest attribute of heaven in supporting the poor and defenceless. med t

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“The charitable person, when his fortune "bears any proportion to the largeness of his mind, is the great and universal remedy against the calamities of life: he is a father "to the fatherless, eyes to the blind, and feet "to the lame; he is liberty to the captive; and, if not health, yet ease and refreshment "to the sick."

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To dry the tears of want, and to soothe the anguish of pain; to cheer desponding grief,. and to make the mind of necessity easy and resigned, must be the highest rational satisfaction that the mind of man can be capable of.

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"What a heavenly pleasure is conceived in "beholding a poor object transported with joy on receiving a liberal alms from the hand, " or refreshment from the table, of another! "How delightful is it to abate, if not extin

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guish, the misery of one of our own species, "and to communicate pleasure at so cheap "a rate! To have the conscious satisfaction "and assurance that our minds are gene"rous and humane, that the soul is untainted "by covetousness and envy, and consequently