We

the necessities of your fellow-creatures! Consider the nature of riches, they receive their splendour only from their use-consider too, their uncertainty, that they are liable to be wrested from their possessors by a thousand unforeseen accidents. read in the gospel of a person full of wealth, and little knowing how to employ it, who gave orders for enlarging his barns, forgetting that the necessities of the hungry were large enough to contain all he had to spare; and forgetting too, that there could be no other use to him from the increase of his stores, but to gaze upon them, and even that was more than was allotted him. "For what?" says the wise Dispenser of all things-thou fool, this "night shall thy soul be required of thee, "and then, whose shall all these things "be?" He heaped up riches, but could not tell who should gather them. "So is

he," saith our Saviour, "who layeth up “treasures for himself, but is not rich

"towards God, and in consequence of "this, he exhorteth those that heard him ❝to give alms, to provide for themselves "bags which wax not old, a treasure in "the heavens that faileth not, where no "thief approacheth, neither moth cor"rupteth."

The same argument may be applied to all ranks of men, whether abounding in affluence, or blest only with a moderate portion of the good things of this life, there are very few that cannot find something superfluous to bestow upon the relief of the wretched; and all are liable to be visited by the same dreadful calamity that has reduced these unhappy sufferers to plead for compassion-we know not how soon the poorest or the wealthiest amongst us may himself want the charity which he now refuses to another. What is the substance of any individual to the Almighty! he changes the greatest property in an instant; he

armeth the elements against us; he bringeth low, and lifteth up-so absolutely does he retain the disposal of all things, though he permits us at his pleasure to partake of them for a while, that no man can assure himself what one moment may bring forth; but every man may assure himself, that if he has applied the blessings of God to answer the merciful end' designed by Providence, to complete his system of brotherly love he will not be forsaken in the time of trouble; he will be rewarded with the sweetest joy that the human heart is capable of experiencing, the recollection of the good he has done.—. Like holy Job, in the midst of the severest afflictions, he will call upon the months past to bear testimony to his goodness, and say with him, "when the ear heard me, "then it blessed me; and when the eye 66 saw me, it gave witness to me; because "I delivered the poor that cried, and the "fatherless, and him that had none to

"help him—the blessing of him that was "ready to perish came upon me, and I caused the widow's heart to sing for

"joy." May it be your care, my brethren, so to cherish and indulge this generous propensity to benevolence, which the Almighty has implanted in your natures, that you may one day be rewarded with the sweet remembrance of your own bounty, and your fervent charity shall be remembered in the great day of account, to cover the multitude of

your sins.

END OF VOL. I.

Printed by Joyce Gold, 103, Shoe-lane, London.