wants, and diseases to encounter loathsome sights, and endure offensive smells within the very sphere of infection; to give time, and thought, and talent, and labour, and property -this is the substance and not the shadow of virtue: the pleasure of sensibility may be greater; but greater also is the danger of self-deceit. Death-bed scenes, eloquently described, delight the imagination; but they who are most delighted, are not always the first to visit a dying neighbour, and sit up all night, and wipe away the cold sweat, and moisten the parched lip, and remove phlegm, and contrive easy postures, and bear with fretfulness, and drop the pious thought, and console the departing spirit! Ah, no. These boasted children of sentimental benevolence, may often repair to the temple of virtue, but not to sacrifice. Extreme sensibility is a mental disease; it unfits us for relieving the miserable, and tempts us to turn away, like the cold-hearted Priest and Levite. It avoids the sight, and suppresses the thought of pain -stops the ears to the cry of indigence, passes by the house of mourning, and abandons the nearest friends, when sick, to the care of the nurse and the physician; and when dead, to those who mourn for hire. And all this under the pretence of delicacy of feeling, and a tender heart! Such was not the benevolence of the Bristol Philanthropist. Those acts of bounty which flow from the influence of sensibility, soon fail; like the good seed fallen on stony ground, they soon spring up, and soon wither. But the benevolence of Richard Reynolds, purified, strengthened, and animated by Christian principle, was steady, uniform and persevering. Neither ingratitude, nor imposture, nor opposition, nor even the frost of age, could chill its ardours or relax its exertions. It was active and industrious. His eloquence was not that of words, but that of deeds. He said little, but he did much. He left others to define benevolence; he studied the practice of it. While the child of sensibility was weeping, he was extending relief. While philosophers were disputing whether philanthropy arose from selfishness, or instinctive tenderness, or modes of education, or the force of early and local associations, or from the combined influence of all these causes-heedless of their contentions, he was exemplifying in real life, privately, and before the world, the character of a true philanthropist. Their speculation he reduced to action;

their abstract notions he embodied; and to their airy nothings, he gave not only habitation, but a reality, a substance, and a form. Like his belovered Master, whose spirit he had imbibed, and whose example he closely copied, he went about continually doing good.

"His beneficence was guided by wisdom and discretion. It was not scattered promiscuously and at random, but bestowed upon such objects, and in such a way, as he deemed, (and he was a most excellent judge,) the most effective in promoting the individual and general good. To furnish employment for the healthy and the strong; to supply the wants of the really indigent and necessitous; to ease the aching heart of the father, who after toiling the live-long day, finds, instead of rest at home, that he is called to bear, what he is least able to bear, the cries of a numerous family, demanding bread, when he has none to give; to assuage the sorrows of poverty, overtaken by sickness, or overwhelmed with misfortune; to smooth the furrowed cheek, and make the winter of age wear the aspect of spring; to act the part of a father to helpless orphans, on whom no parent of their own ever smiled; to supply the want of sight to the blind, feet to the lame, and speech to the dumb; to rescue vice from guilt, and infamy and ruin; and during the season, afford a shelter from the fury of the storm: to relieve the distress, and yet spare the blushes of those who have known better days, by administering that bounty, which they in the time of their prosperity were ready to administer to others—these, were the employments of Richard Reynolds-these were the offices of mercy, in which he delighted! His heart told him what to do; his conscience, as the Vicegerent of Heaven, reminded him of the claims of moral obligation, and insisted that it must be done. His head devised the means, and arranged the plan of action; and his hands, obedient to the dictates of his heart, and the mandates of conscience, were ever ready to execute the plans which his head had formed. Thus his WHOLE existence was consecrated to the cause of benevolence? If we love the modesty which concealed the hand that bestowed the princely donation, we revere the courage which occasionally stepped forward to avow him. self the donor, when his design was to stimulate others to follow his example. His whole conduct was marked by the

most consummate wisdom; and left us at a loss whether to admire most the benevolence of his heart, or the power of his understanding the deeds of mercy which he performed, or the manner in which he performed them.

"All his prudence and benevolence was adorned with modesty and humility. So far was he from being inflated with the pride of wealth, that he spoke the genuine sentiments of his heart, when he said to a friend who applied to him with a case of distress, "My talent is the meanest of all talentsa little sordid dust; but the man in the parable, who had but one talent, was accountable: and for the talent that I possess, humble as it is, I am also accountable to the great Lord of All." His bounty was not the result of fear, like the obedience of a slave, who trembles under the Scourge of a haughty tyrant. It was not excited by the prospect of remuneration, nor extorted by the dread of punishment, nor performed with a view to merit an inheritance in the kingdom of Heaven.

His

"Enamoured with the charms of Virtue, he delighted to behold her native beauties, and to obey her sweet commands. He practised benevolence for the sake of the pleasure with which the practice of it was attended. He felt a luxury in doing good, and he determined to enjoy that luxury. own experience taught him, that the God of Mercy, who formed the heart of man to be the dispenser of his bounty, has ordained, that like the vital fluid, which goes from the heart, to diffuse life and genial warmth through the whole system, it should return, in the course of circulation, not impoverished, but enriched, to the source whence it flowed. His goodness might sometimes be requited with evil, but this moved him not. He knew that no deed of mercy could be wasted; that some ministering angel is stationed in every department of the moral world, to gather up the fragments that fall from the table of benevolence, that nothing may be lost."

I may here introduce an extract from the last exhortation of MATTHEW FRANKLIN, delivered in Friends' Meeting, Pearl street, New York, January 9th, 1815.

"Pure religion, and undefiled before God and the Father, is this—to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction." "I do not apprehend that the apostle James intended to confine the duty of Christians to this part of benevolence only,

but being desirous of establishing in the minds of the followers of Jesus, the principles of an expanded beneficence, gave this as a prominent example of what they were bound to perform. He doubtless intended to be understood, that the cherishing of those feelings of compassion and humanity, was one of the best evidences, to show that men were the friends and not the enemies of our Lord and Saviour.

"When man's heart is touched and enlightened with God's Spirit, he endeavours to derive his happiness from these higher sources. He endeavours to feel for the distresses of all-he attempts to relieve and alleviate them: he seeks out the subjects of affliction, and labours to gladden the heart of the wretched.

"This is illustrated by the parable in the holy writ, respecting the good Samaritan. A certain man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, fell among thieves, that robbed him, and wounded him, and left him half dead. A priest and a Levite, in passing that way, observed him, but they had no compassion on him. They passed by, it is said, on the other side. But a Samaritan was actuated by a different spirit-by the spirit of true religion: for when he saw the sufferer, he hastened to him-he bound up his wounds, pouring balm into them. He was not deterred from the performance of his duty, by any consideration of expense, but made provision with a liberal hand for the future necessities of him on whom he had pity.

"We are generally too remiss, cold, and negligent in seeking out the abodes of poverty and sorrow. We should be active, zealous, and vigilant in the pursuit of them. Those who are of my sex, should devote time to prosecute this benevolent concern. And you, my friends of the female sex, should also be engaged. You are better calculated than we are, to exercise the plans of charity—you know better in what manner to make the necessary inquiries in order to discover latent afflictions, and afford consolation, and apply the proper remedies. We ought each to go there, hand-in-hand together.-O my friends!"

Here he was suddenly stopped, while he was in this way, pleading with his usual earnestness and affection, the cause of the indigent and friendless, by a mandate from the counsels of eternal wisdom; which arresting him at the com

mencement of a sentence, instantly closed his testimony, and shut up his mental powers in utter oblivion to the woes and sufferings of his fellow creatures, an awful lesson to all those who duly consider it.

Mr. O'Connel in his late patriotic address on the sufferings of the poor, proves, beyond the possibility of refutation, that Ireland is above all islands on earth, the most fertile and salubrious, and exports more provisions; and yet the oppressed labourers always suffer privation, and sometimes starvation. And to consolidate the assertion, he demonstrates that "out of a population of 8,000,000, 3,000,000, have to be supported by charity!" and that charity so scanty, as merely to sustain life.

The parable of the rich man and Lazarus will instantly hush into eternal silence, any doubts relative to the deserts of the poor, and "you'll quite forget their vices in their woe.' Those who know their own defects, are always ready to make allowance for the defects of others. But, alas! selfignorance will often hide or excuse, or palliate our own faults, and magnify and accuse those of our neighbours.— Were we to examine our conduct by the light of divine truth, we would find enough to despise and censure at home, and we would learn to spare the feelings of the poor, and not suffuse the supplicating countenance of the unfortunate, with confusion and grief, which I am sorry to say is too often done. Were we properly impressed with a sense of our duty as Christians, we would not require entreaties, solicitations and remonstrances, to stimulate us to perform the duties of philanthropy. The recollection of God's kindness to us all, should incline us to be kind to each other; more especially in the time of affliction. Nothing, in my humble opinion, is more hateful and detestable in the sight of our merciful God, than to see a rich man hoarding up in his coffers, the eyes of the blind, the feet of the lame, the health of the sick and decrepit; while at the same time, he daily sees passing and re-passing, those poor objects of misfortune and affliction, whom God has put it in his power to relieve and comfort. But, alas! instead of opening his coffers and bestowing some of that which would be eyes to the blind, feet to the lame, and health to the sick and decrepit, he shuts up his bowels of compassion against them, and eventually