the rich is, who shall manifest the happiest invention of expensive follies; that play alone swallows up more resources than would educate and feed all the orphans of the nation, who could fairly or honestly accuse me of misrepresentation? And who that studies and contemplates the deplorable increase of misery in these times, but must shudder at such a crying misapplication of God's bounty? Where, let me conjure you to reflect, is the gratitude we owe to him? What have we that we have not received? Is it to indulge this abominable prodigality that he has mercifully distinguished us from those multitudes that suffer all the excesses of human misery? Which of us can look round at the spectacles which every where present themselves, without feeling the most ardent acknowledgment to Heaven for the blessings he enjoys? There is not probably one man in this vast congregation, who commands not even some of the superfluities of life; not one, at least, without a sufficiency of its common comforts: but how many has a gracious Providence endowed with large hereditary fortunes? how many with the most abundant mediocrity? how many enriched by successful industry? how many conducted by the hand to lucrative employments? how many, almost fatigued, if I may say so, with increasing prosperity? and shall it be possible that the objects of such tender and special predilection can prove eminently unworthy of it?

Nor is the unexampled, and, I may say, cruel dissipation of money, in such times as the present,

D

confined to the upper orders of society alone. No; the example has descended: and there exists in the middling orders of life a melancholy proof how ruinous example is when it beams from an height. The lustre of station attracting every eye brings its habits in contact with the whole body of the community. The manners of the great are a volume of established precedents, which their inferiors consult to fortify themselves with a case in point for every possible trespass against virtue and economy: hence the industrious are led to copy an expensive mode of living, which ultimately leads to bankruptcy and ruin; and hence it follows irresistibly, that, if the higher orders of the community are desirous any longer of being distinguished from those, whom they are pleased to consider as beneath them, the only way I can perceive they have left, is a prompt return to a system of Christian frugality and moderation.

But, I may be told, that, notwithstanding the excesses I complain of, mercy is often remembered. Yes, I confess it: and how should it not be remembered? all human beings occasionally remember mercy; the miser alone excepted. It is the doctrine of all ages and people: in the darkest periods of human reason, when vice the most atrocious was seated upon altars, and honoured by the incense of nations, sensibility to distress remained a sacred, though solitary virtue, amidst the prevailing corruptions of the world. In regions bound in by eternal frost, uncivilized and almost inaccessible, where clement and sterility combine to render subsistence

f

precarious, and seem to shut up the heart, relief is extended to those whom age or infirmity renders unable to toil. Why then should we talk of occasionally obeying a sentiment, which in the children of nature is a burning and invariable instinct? Were I to tell the wildest barbarian that our bread is often withheld from the hungry; that some of us are clothed in soft raiment, and wallow in all the enjoyments of luxury and ease, while multitudes are suffered to perish from the absolute want of aliment; while poverty stalks round us ravenous and de<spairing; while mothers almost devour their young, and orphans dispute offals with the brutes; all barbarous and uncivilized as we call him, I should fill his honest heart with astonishment and horror! And yet we flatter ourselves we are merciful! Oh, my friends, we are too apt to give ourselves credit for the practice of a virtue, of which, in fact, we as yet know little but the name. I am positive when I say this; What pleasure can I have in uttering any thing like reproach? what object in view, but the vindication of truth, and the good of the cause with which you yourselves have entrusted me? I am, in fact, but pleading your own persons against your own passions. Lay then your hands honestly on your hearts, and decide the question yourselves; I desire no other umpire between us. Look into the divine volume of our law; mark the rule of mercy it lays down, and confess the immensity of our distance from it. What does it declare us to be, but trustees to the estate? Does it not adjudge every shilling we can spare from the reasonable

f

support of our stations, to the widow and the orphan, or charge us with their blood? The observation, you may tell me, is trite; but is it the less awful for being trite? Is our security the greater, because every effort of the human mind, and every pulse of zeal have long been exhausted to warn us of our danger? Is it possible to believe in future retribution, and not to know some uneasy moments on this head? Is it possible then, that rational and thinking beings must not occasionally tremble at the uncertainty of life, and certainty of judgment? How many might I mention, in the very first class of our community, who have passed to their account since I last met you in the cause of these children in the course of a little year; some of whom, I could mention several, who heard me on that day, and, for aught I know, with the same tranquillity and indifference, or the same assurance of many years, that you may now! They are gone; and whatever their eternal destiny may be, this is certain, that it may be ours to consider the wealth of worlds as a happy exchange for one hour of that time which is still within our power. Tell me, is there a single Christian before me, who, if the offer were made him at this moment, would be satisfied to stake his salvation on the question of his charity? Oh not one! and yet our consciences are at rest; we flatter ourselves we are merciful. Heavens! If there be any just ground for such a thought, why has it become necessary to prostitute, in some degree, the most sacred of all functions for the purpose of moving and inspiring us to the practice of this virtue? Why

has the pulpit been obliged to descend to the very language of flattery, in order to extort from your vanity what it is hopeless of obtaining from a principle of religion? Why is it become necessary to hold out, on almost every occasion of this nature, the too dangerous doctrine, "that Charity covereth a multitude of sins ;" and thus run the hazard of misleading you on the subject of your own salvation, in order to force you to become the instrument of salvation to others? Why are we obliged to use the arts and colouring of profane eloquence to make appeals to your passions? To search and probe the great body of human misery to the bone? To bring it, I may say, before your hearts, naked and expiring, quivering and disjointed? To expose all its miseries and horrors? To mingle our own tears with the tears of the unhappy objects that invoke us? And after all, why do we often fail? Yes, most deplorably fail? Why does misery often perish in the horrors of famine? or, What is infinitely -worse, shoot up in swarms of infamy and guilt?

"Let no man seek his own, but every man another's wealth."

Having endeavoured to the best of my power, to enforce this noble and disinterested maxim of the apostle, it remains to consider the case which calls us to the exercise of it. But if, in considering the general duty of charity, I have had to struggle with a subject not a little exhausted; what field does the education of poor children present, but one