poor! Empresses themselves have stooped to relieve the miserable, and never appeared so truly great as when they thus stooped.

A very proper season for your alms is, when you keep your days of prayer; that your prayers and your alms may go up together as a memorial before the Lord. Verily, there are prayers in alms: and, "is not this the fast that I have chosen, saith the Lord." The expression of the beggar among the Jews was; "deserve something by me:" Among us it might be ; "obtain something by me."

Miscellaneous proposals to Gentlemen.

THERE is a certain city, in which every house has a box hanging by a chain, on which is written, “remember the poor; and they seldom conclude a bargain without putting something into the box. The deacons have the key, and once a quarter go round the city, and take out the money. When that city was in imminent danger, a man of moderate character was heard to say, "that he was of opinion, God would preserve that city from being destroyed, if it were only for the great charity which its inhabitants express to the poor." It is the richest city of the richest country, for its size, that ever existed: a city which is thought to spend, annually, in charitable uses, more than all the revenues which the fine country of the grand duke of Tuskany brings into its arbitrary master.

"The hands of the poor are the treasury-box of Christ."

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When you dispense your alms to the poor, who know what it is to pray, you may oblige them to pray for you by name every day. It is an excellent thing to have the blessing of those who have been ready to perish, thus coming upon you. Observe here a surprising sense, in which you may be "praying always." You are so, even while you are sleeping, if those whom you have thus obliged are praying for you. And now look for the accomplishment of that word: "Blessed is he that considereth the poor: the Lord will preserve him, and keep him alive, and he shall be blessed upon the earth."

Very frequently your alms are dispersed among such persons as very much need admonitions of piety. Cannot you contrive to mingle a spiritual charity with your temporal bounty? Perhaps you may discourse with them about the state of their souls, and may obtain from them, (for which you have now a singular advantage) some declared resolutions to do what they ought to do. Or else you may convey to them little) books, or tracts, which they will certainly promise to read, when you thus desire them.

Charity to the souls of men is undoubtedly the highest, the noblest, and the most important charity. To furnish the poor with catechisms and Bibles, is to do ( for them an incalculable service. No one knows how much he may do by dispersing books of piety, and by putting into the hands of mankind such treatises of divinity as may have a tendency to make them wiser or better. It was a noble action of some good men, who, a little while ago, were at the charge of printing

* Manus pauperum est Christi gazophylacium,

thirty thousand of the "Alarm to the Unconverted,” written by Joseph Allein, to be given away to such as would promise to read it. A man of no great fortune has been known to give away without much trouble nearly a thousand books of piety, every year for many years together. Who can tell, but that with the expense of less than a shilling you may "convert a sinner from the error of his ways, and save a soul from death." A worse doom than to be "condemned to the mines" rests upon that soul who had rather hoard up his money than employ it on such a charity.

He who supports the office of the evangelical min. istry supports a good work, and performs one; yea, in a secondary way, performs what is done by the skilful, faithful and laborious minister. The servant of the Lord, who is encouraged by you, will do the more good for your assistance: and what you have done for him, and in consideration of the glorious gospel preached by him, you have done for a glorious Christ; and you shall "receive a prophet's reward." Luther said; "what you give to scholars, you give to God himself."* This is still more true, when the scholars are become godly and useful preachers.

I have somewhere met with the following passage: "it was for several years the practice of a worthy gentleman, in renewing his leases, instead of making it a condition that his tenants should keep a hawk or a dog for him, to oblige them to keep a Bible in their houses, and to bring up their children to read and to be catechised." Landlords! It is worth your consideration whether you may not in your leases insert some clauses that may serve the kingdom of God. You are his tenants in those very freeholds in which you are

* Si quid scholasticis confers, Deo ipsi contulisti,

landlords to other men. Oblige your tenants to wor ship God in their families.

To take a poor child, especially an orphan, left in poverty, and to bestow a liberal education upon it, is an admirable charity; yea, it may draw after it a long train of good, and may interest you in all the good that shall be done by him whom you have educated,

Hence also, what is done for schools, for colleges, and for hospitals, is done for the general good. The endowment or maintenance of these is at once to do good to many.

But alas! how much of the silver and gold of the world is buried in hands, where it is little better than conveyed back to the mines from whence it came! How much of it is employed to as little purpose as what arrives at Hindoostan, where a great part of it is, after some circulation, carried as to a fatal centre, and by the Moguls lodged in subterraneous caves, never to gee the light again! "The Christian, whose faith and hope are genuine, acts not thus."

Sometimes elaborate compositions may be prepared for the press, works of great bulk, and of still greater worth, by which the best interests of knowledge and virtue may be considerably promoted; but they lie, like the impotent man at the pool of Bethseda, in silent neglect; and are likely to continue in that state, till God inspire some wealthy persons nobly to subscribe to their publication, and by this generous appli. cation of their property, to bring them abroad. The names of such noble benefactors to mankind ought to live as long as the works themselves: and where the works do any good, what these have done towards the

* Talia non facit bonæ fidei & spei Christianus

publishing of them, ought to be "told for a memorial" of them.

I will pursue this subject still farther. It has been said that "idle gentlemen, and idle beggars, are the pests of the commonwealth." (The saying may seem affronting, but they who are offended at it, must quarrel with the ashes of a bishop, for it was Dr. Sanderson's. Will you then think, sirs, of some honorable and agreeable employments? I will mention one: The Pythagoreans forbade men's "eating their own brains," or "keeping their good thoughts to themselves." The incomparable Boyle observes, that "as to religious books, in general, those which have been written by laymen, (and especially by gentlemen, have (cæteris paribus) been better received, and more effectual, than those published by clergymen." Mr. Boyle's were certainly so. Men of quality have frequently attained such accomplishments in languages and science, that they have become prodigies of literature. Their li braries also have seen stupendous collections, approaching towards Vatican or Bodleian dimensions. An English gentleman has been sometimes the most "accomplished person in the world") How many of these (besides a Leigh, a Wolsely, or a Polhill) have been benefactors to mankind by their admirable writings! It were much to be wished that persons of wealth and elevation would qualify themselves for the use of the pen as well as of the sword, and deserve this eulogium, "they have written excellent things." An English person of quality, in his treatise, entitled, "A View of the Soul," has the following passage: "It is certainJy the highest dignity, if not the greatest happiness, of which human nature is capable in the vale below, to have the soul so far enlightened, as to become the mir