to support, to cheer, and to console, in the circumstances which would seem to many to forbid even consolation. I leave her, and pass to the dwelling of an aged couple. The room in which they live is poor and old, and they have no means of adding to its comforts. They have scarcely strength to perform the most necessary labors for each other, and none by which they may earn the bread of the passing day. And yet I have never heard them complain. I ask them of the ground of their comfort, their contentment. It is the word which Jesus has spoken. They believe in God, in Christ, in heaven. They are humble, and patient, and resigned, because they believe that God has appointed to them their trial; and their strongest desire is, to be approved by him, and more essentially and perfectly united with their Maker and their Saviour. They feel that they are not forgotten, and are not forsaken, because they feel that their father is with them, and because they can pray. And in the hope that their repentance, and faith, and trust, and devotion are accepted, they are looking for a part in the blessedness of the Christian's heaven. I am instructed, and comforted, and encouraged by all I have seen and heard in my intercourse with these poor followers of Jesus; and I go from them to the most destitute, the most ignorant, the most vicious, to whom I would speak of the doctrines of our religion.

Who is there of you, my friends, whom God has blessed with affluence, or with a competency of the good things of the world, and who has visited the abodes of the poor, and has not strongly felt the contrast even of outward condition, between the virtuous and the vicious

of this great class of society? And yet, even this contrast is nothing, when compared with that of their moral condition. I need but name to you the thoughtless, ignorant, reckless, improvident, intemperate poor, and, if you know them, I shall call up to your minds the associations of restlessness, dissatisfaction, complaint debasement, misery. But are these fellow-beings to be despised, avoided, abandoned to all the influences of their lawless appetites and passions? Are there no good elements in the hearts even of the most vicious among them? So have I not learned human nature; and I pray God to preserve both you and me from the blasting influence of the sentiment, which would shut out one human being from our sympathy; or close even against the greatest sinner, the hope of salvation, while God shall spare him, and while one means is yet left untried for his recovery. I would go, then, to the most fallen of our race, and speak to them of God, whose name they hardly know, but as they use it in the language of profaneness; I would tell them, and as far as possible aid them to understand, and to feel, that he is their Maker, their Father, and has for them more than they can conceive of a father's love. I would tell them, that, equally for them, as for those who seem to be the most favored, God sent his Son with the message of grace and mercy, which we have in the gospel. I would reason with those who are living thoughtless of their souls, and of eternity, who are complaining of their condition, and are outraging God's laws, and do what I can to convince them, that this Almighty Father is in truth no respecter of persons; that he has as deep an interest in them as in the richest in the world; that they are, not to be,

but already, immortal beings; that poverty and riches are alike trials; and that the poorest on earth, though, like Lazarus, he should be left to die by the way-side, an unpitied beggar, may, and will, if the purposes of his trial are accomplished in him, be carried by angels to Abraham's bosom. I would say to him, who feels that he is cut off from all his race, except those who are as poor as himself, "You are my brother, and the brother of the wisest, the richest, the most powerful and the most honored of men." I would say to him, who tells me that he knows not God, "You are God's child; and he calls you to be an heir of heaven, and a joint heir of Christ. From this dark and cold chamber, and from that poor bed, you may offer prayers, as acceptable as I can offer; prayers, which will ascend to the throne of mercy, and bring down for you an inestimable good; the good of a sense of God's presence with you, for your support and comfort, and of his holy spirit to aid you in every duty. You are indeed a sinner: but so am I; and, equally as I, you have the promise, that if sin be confessed and forsaken, it will be forgiven. You want, and you suffer. But you are not unregarded by God in one want, in one suffering; and many thousands, through want and suffering, as great as yours, have passed into eternal glory and blessedness. You would have many wants, and many sufferings, even if you were rich; and you are not sure that you would bear the trial of riches, better than that of poverty. There is not a hope of the Gospel, there is not a promise of heaven, which God is not addressing to yourself. Do what God commands, live as God would have you live, and your very poverty may be the means to you

of everlasting riches. Believe in God, and be a true disciple of Christ, and in a short while you will be with the just made perfect of all ages and nations; you will be equal to the angels of God in heaven; you will be with Jesus Christ, and be like him who has loved you, and who has died to redeem you; and you will know God more perfectly, and infinitely more enjoy him, for you will see him as he is. There you will hunger no more, neither will you thirst any more, nor be weary, nor anxious, nor exposed to temptation, or sorrow, or sin, or death." Are not these doctrines to enlighten, to strengthen, to encourage, to improve, and to rejoice the poor who receive them?" Children of poverty, your Father in heaven forgets you not. He has sent to you the glad tidings of his love, his compassion, his readiness to hear and answer all your prayers, and to forgive your sins; and, though you may not be able to call a foot of all this earth your own, he is offering to you eternal possessions. Believe in him, believe in his Son Jesus Christ, understand the excellence of the capacities of your immortal nature, and act under a conviction of God's constant parental government and designs, of your own responsibility, and of the reality and glory of the heaven to which he is calling you, and will your poverty be intolerable? Or rather, with this faith, this sense of your relation to God, and with the Christian's hope in your soul, may you not be happy, even under the greatest earthly deprivation, and earthly suffering?" If I look not beyond this single view of the tendency of Christianity upon the mind, the heart, the whole condition of the poor, I feel that there is much, very much, that is most deeply interesting in the

language of Christ: "Blessed be ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of heaven." I begin to understand in what consists the blessing, and how the poor are to be blessed, or to be made happy, by the gospel.

I would re

But I would proceed another step. mark, secondly, that Christianity is a religion for the poor, and an unspeakable blessing to the poor who receive it, in its duties; in all its offices of piety and virtue.

Look at these duties, whether of piety, of personal or of social morality. Is there one, which the poorest may not practise? Is there one, in which the poorest may not rise even to the highest excellence? Is there one, to excellence in which, poverty may not even be made conducive? Or, is there one, which, if faithfully maintained, will not exert the happiest influence on the mind, even in the most indigent condition of human existence? Our Lord Jesus Christ called the poor to happiness, by calling them to piety and virtue. He called them indeed to the only happiness, which can be possessed by the richest, the most favored of the race; for, in truth, there is no enduring happiness, but that of the mind,-that of virtue. See, then, how admirably Christianity is adapted to the happiness of those who, in the eye of the world, have nothing.

The poorest, who has no leisure, and no means for the cultivation of other knowledge, can cultivate the self-knowledge to which the gospel calls him. The poorest, who can extend his influence to no other being, -who is even the slave of his more powerful brother, is called by our religion to the noblest liberty of man; to a liberty on which man can make no encroachment; and