when it is more than could be expected from us, our charity should be private, if privacy be practicable: when it is not more than might be expected, it may be public for we cannot hope to influence others to the imitation of extraordinary generofity, and therefore want, in the former cafe, the only juftifiable reason for making it public.

Having thus defcribed feveral different exertions of charity, it may not be improper to take notice of a species of liberality, which is not charity in any fense of the word: I mean the giving of entertainments or liquor, for the fake of popularity; or the rewarding, treating, and maintaining, the companions of our diverfions, as hunters, fhooters, fifhers, and the like. I do not fay that this is criminal; I only fay that it is not charity; and that we are not to fuppose, because we give, and give to the poor, that it will ftand in the place, or fuperfede the obligation, of more meritorious and difinterefted bounty.

III. The pretences by which men excuse themselves from giving to the poor.

I. 1. "That they have nothing to spare,” i. e. nothing for which they have not provided fome other ufe; nothing which their plan of expence,

pence, together with the favings they have refolved to lay by, will not exhaust: never reflecting whether it be in their power, or that it is their duty to retrench their expences, and contract their plan, "that they may have to give "to them that need;" or rather that this ought to have been part of their plan originally.

2. "That they have families of their own, " and that charity begins at home." The extent of this plea will be confidered, when we come to explain the duty of parents.

3.

"That charity does not confift in giving money, but in benevolence, philantrophy, "love to all mankind, goodness of heart, &c." Hear St. James. "If a brother or fifter be "naked, and deftitute of daily food, and one of

you fay unto them, depart in peace, be ye "warmed and filled, notwithstanding ye give "them not those things which are needful to the body, "what doth it profit ?" (James ii. 15, 16.)

4. "That giving to the poor is not mentioned "in St. Paul's defcription of charity, in the "thirteenth chapter of his first Epistle to the "Corinthians." This is not a defcription of charity, but of good-nature; and it is not neceffary that every duty be mentioned in every place. 5. "That

VOL. I.

S

5.

That they pay the poor rates. They might as well alledge that they pay their debts; for the poor have the fame right to that portion of a man's property, which the laws affign them, that the man himself has to the remainder.

6. "That they employ many poor perfons :" —for their own fake, not the poor's-otherwise it is a good plea.

7. "That the poor do not fuffer fo much as we imagine; that education and habit have "reconciled them to the evils of their condition, "and make them eafy under it." Habit can never reconcile human nature to the extremities of cold, hunger, and thirst, any more than it can reconcile the hand to the touch of a red-hot iron befides, the question is not, how unhappy any one is, but how much more happy we can make him.

:

8." That these people, give them what you will, will never thank you, or think of you for "it." In the first place, this is not true: in the fecond place, it was not for the fake of their thanks that you relieved them.

9.

"That we are liable to be impofed up on. If a due inquiry be made, our merit is the fame befide that, the diftress is generally real, whatsoever has been the cause of it.

10. "That they should apply to their pa"rifhes." This is not always practicable: to which we may add, that there are many requifites to a comfortable fubfiftence, which parish relief does not always fupply; and that there are fome, who would fuffer almost as much from receiving parish relief, as by the want of it; and laftly, that there are many modes of charity, to which this anfwer does not relate at all.

f

II. "That giving money encourages idleness "and vagrancy." This is true only of injudicious and indiscriminate generofity.

12.

That we have too many objects of cha

rity at home, to bestow

any thing upon strangers; or that there are other charities, which are more useful, or stand in greater need." The value of this excufe depends entirely upon the fact, whether we actually relieve those neighbouring objects, and contribute to thofe other charities.

Beside all these excufes, pride, or prudery, or delicacy, or love of ease, keep one half of the world out of the way of observing what the other half fuffer.

CHAP. VI.

RESENTMENT.

RESENTMENT may be diftinguished in

to anger revenge.

By anger, I mean the pain we fuffer upon the receipt of an injury or affront, with the ufual effects of that pain upon ourfelves.

By revenge, the inflicting of pain upon the perfon who has injured or offended us, farther than the juft ends of punishment or reparation require.

Anger prompts to revenge; but it is poffible to fufpend the effect, when we cannot altogether quell the principle. We are bound also to endeavour to qualify and correct the principle itself. So that our duty requires two different applications of the mind; and, for that reason, anger and revenge may be considered separately.

CHAP.