Some of you will say, perhaps, The wants of the poor are numerous and perpetual. Be it so: And is not this a reason why your charity should be liberal and perpetual also? Because there are many poor, will you leave them to languish and die? Because their wants are numerous and claim much, do you resolve to bestow litile? Is this the resolution of the household of faith! Are these the feelings of hearts, softened by grace, and full of the hopes of immortality!

Alı! my brethren, complain not of the number of the poor, or of their wants. Know you not who it was that said, The poor ye shall always have with you. JESUS, Master, I thank thee for this promise, that in the persons of the poor I may testify my respect for thee !

The poor we have said, particularly the pious poor, are the family of Jesus. And this know, if he demands your charity for their support it is not because he needs it. The treasures of the universe are his own and at his disposal. He can supply their wants in a thousand ways. Let him but speak, "And the earth shall bring forth salvation, the mountains drop down new wine, and the hillsflow with milk!"-I repeat it therefore, though he demands your charities, he needs them not-Why then does he demand them? Because he loves you. He knows it is better to give than to receive. He furnishes you therefore with treasures-then commands you to dispense those treasures among the miserable objects whom he places around you. And he does this that he may furnish you with an opportunity, practically, of resembling HIM, who in the dispensation of boundless riches, is good and does good, and whose tender mercies are over all his works.

The opportunity, however, of acting thus nobly with respect to the relief of misery, is very short. Can you want evidence of this? The changes daily taking place around you furnish it. One who a few days since dispensed these charities is now no more.* The cold earth lies upon her bosom! The darkness of the grave hides from her eye the miseries of the poor, and its silence shuts from her ear the widow's and the orphan's sigh! In behalf of these her last services were performed. Her stewardship is now ended. She is gone to God, to render to him an account of it; and her bereaved children need, and are receiving from others in kindly reversion, the sympathy she bestowed.

Hearer-father-mother of a family, GOD only knows how soon this may be your lot! Mutable is the world! Misfortune may soon dissipate the riches you possess, death may suddenly cut off the life which you enjoy, and your children left dependent orphans, may be fed from the charity which you now bestow.

And is this our situation? And can we knowing it to be so, still be slothful? Presently will thine hand, palsied by death, be incapable of bestowing almsthine eye closed in darkness, of pitying misery-and will thy bosom soon, unfeeling as the clods that cover it, cease to palpitate at the tale of woe; and canst thou now shut up the bowels of thy mercy, or contribute with parsimonious exactness only, to the relief of those suffering objects which surround thee ? Hark!--From the heavens a voice cryeth, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, because there is no work nor device in the grave whither thou goest." It is the voice of Jesus, who adds, hearer, for thine encouragement, Behold I come quickly, and my reward is with me. Blessed is that servant whom, when his Lord cometh, he shall find so doing.

Go then, ye collectors of the bounty of the evening, and receive our charities. Go and let us see who will give unto the poor-Pardon my mistake. I mean who will lend unto the Lord, and in what abundance they will lend. And I pledge myself-Again, what am I saying? GOD pledges himself, however much you may bestow, in faith, that he will repay you again good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, even everlasting consolation will he repay into your bosoms. Almighty God! give us grace on this occasion to act worthy of the children of such a parent, and to thy name shall be the glory in CHRIST. AMEN.

APPENDIX.