you may fling a scanty and occasional pittance to the wretches whom you see struggling beneath; but it places you with them, side by side, toiling onward the same way, only better furnished for the journey, and called on by the voice of God and all the charities of the human heart, to reach forth your hand to your weaker and more helpless fellow-travellers**.

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If these principles be recognized in the Gospel of Christ, then none who profess to make that Gospel their hope, can safely disregard them. None can be justified in refusing their aid to promote our labours of love. As brother men we must feel for the distresses of others: as brother christians we are bound to relieve them,bear one anothers burdens, and so fulfil the love of Christ." It is possible, indeed, that the painful realities which call for the exercise of such duties may be unheeded and unthought of by many of the children of men, who, all their lives long, have been nursed in the lap of luxury and indolence, and are strangers to every circumstance of poverty but the name. They who would adopt the language of the ungodly men described by the son of Sirach, and say "Let us fill ourselves with costly wine and ointment; and let no flower of the spring pass by us; let us crown ourselves with rosebuds, before they be withered; let us leave tokens

Wolfe's Remains. Sermon xi.

+ Gal. vi. 2.

of our joyfulness in every place; for this is our portion, and our lot is this*," may live on from day and day, and year and year, in total ignonorance of that " sore travail" which God hath "given to the sons of men to be exercised therewitht." Little do they think that, while they are basking in the sunshine of prosperity, and revelling amid every pleasure, as if they had no other or higher object than to take their ease, eat, drink, and be merry," there may be seen on every side of them, the saddest realities of life in all their variety of form. But though they shut out this prospect from their view, they cannot do away with it. The careworn wife and famished children clinging to the arms of that father by whose strength they were enabled to eat, but who, enfeebled by disease and racked by pain, can no longer supply their wants or his own, are objects too dismal for the sons of pleasure to contemplate, and their cry is too irksome to be patiently borne with. But their cry, remember, is heard by "the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth Eternity §;" day and night does it come up before Him; and if it should reach His throne, loaded with the unfeeling contempt and proud refusal of the brethren who should have listened and relieved, think with what fearful aggravation it

⚫ Wisd. ii. 7, 9.

Js. lvii. 15.

+ Eccles i. 13.

Luke xii. 19.

will recoil upon the heads of those who have so fatally abused the talents entrusted to their charge. Do not, I beseech you, thus provoke the anger of the Lord: do not cast away the great and glorious privileges committed to you; but join with us, heart and hand, in upholding the welfare of that Institution, which would alleviate these miseries, which would visit the abodes of poverty with the light of hope, and cause the bones that are worn down with sorrow to rejoice*.

Let it not be said, that I am addressing many who have no interest in this place beyond that of the passing hour; who have claims of their own to satisfy at home; and who cannot listen to the demands of that charity which they are not locally connected. For I have said already, that the benefits which this Hospital confers are not local; that it professes to succour, and does succour the maimed and the sick from every quarter; and that the establishment of it in this place is a pledge for those blessings being diffused most widely and most beneficially. But if there are still any with whom these considerations have no influence, and who would close the hand of compassion, because it is a stranger who solicits their support, I would meet them on their own ground, and say, that the very fact of their

Ps. li. 8.

being only sojourners for a season amongst us, makes it imperative upon them not to turn a deaf ear to our supplications. For I would ask, can the high born and the wealthy assemble here, and not draw after them the poor and the dependent? Can fashion and pleasure spread out all their vanities of attraction before our eyes, and beggary and wretchedness not follow in their train? Alas! My brethren, you need not the voice of the preacher to remind you that such is and must be the necessary condition of this state of trial; that "the poor you have always with you*;" and that they who are "arrayed in purple and fine linen" cannot pass the threshold of their doors, without seeing there some forlorn Lazarus, “full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fall from their rich tablet." If this, then, is the result which inevitably follows from the present state of things,if these are the broad lights and shadows which are scattered over the whole picture of life; and neither the palace of the Sovereign, nor the mansion of his wealthy subjects can lift up their heads, without drawing about them in crowds the lowly cottages of the poor, may we not, with good reason, intreat you to remember those whom your presence has attracted hither? If they have their duty to

perform in working the labour of their hands with honest industry, so is it your part to lighten those burdens which the utmost vigilance and prudence cannot avert, and which, if there be none to help, must bring them to the dust. You may leave this place, and bear with you the recollection of happy hours passed here; but will it not give a brighter and holier charm to those associations, if the consciousness of having helped the needy, and healed the sick, shall be among them? Will it not impart a satisfaction to your mind far superior to those which the transient vanities of life can yield, to feel that the hours spent here have not all been spent in vain ;-that while you have enjoyed the gifts of Mercy, you have not been forgetful of the Giver; and that, though absent in body, you may still be present in `spirit, as you reflect upon the consolations which you have poured upon the aching heart and drooping spirit? "Cast thy bread upon the waters, and thou shalt find it after many days*."

To those among you, who are tarrying on these shores, that you may, by God's blessing, reanimate the strength of a languid frame, and enjoy once more the fresh glow of health, I surely may be allowed to make my appeal on this occasion, in the hope that it will be answered by

Eccles, xi. 1.