blessings, and do you offer the prayers of a grateful heart to God? Do you feel God's goodness in the light of heaven, in the air you breathe, in your health, and in the cup of water, and the bread, you may alone have to sustain you?-While I am thus conversing with the destitute and the suffering, I bring to my recollection the words of Christ, "the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach glad tidings to the poor;" and I feel that I am indeed preaching glad tidings to them, when I am aiding them to understand, that in their poor apartments, or when they are abroad in their labors, and amidst all their privations, and even under the heaviest pressure of adverse circumstances, unnoticed and without sympathy as they may be, they may yet be maintaining the most exalted piety and virtue; they may every day be not only advancing towards heaven, but actually obtaining, even here, more and more of the very spirit of heaven. For what is the spirit of heaven, but the spirit of truth, and purity, and justice, and benevolence, and gratitude, and trust, and devotion? If the day laborer denies his appetites, when they tempt him to excess; if he governs his passions; if he judges himself, in the discharge of his duties, by the principles by which he is to be judged before God; and if he be faithful to the offices of christian piety, think you that God, from his throne of glory in the heavens, sees on the earth one who is more an object of his interest, his regard, his favor, than this poor laborer? See what is the estimation in which God and our Saviour hold the desires, the motives, the well meant efforts of the most obscure, the most unnoticed of our fellow beings, in the piety and virtue to

which the gospel calls us. "As Jesus sat over against the treasury, he beheld how the people cast money into the treasury. And many that were rich cast in much. And there came a poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing. And he called unto him his disciples, and said unto them, verily I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they that have cast into the treasury. For all they did cast in of their abundance. But she, of her want, did cast in all that she had, even all her living."

Again Christianity is adapted for the poor, scarcely less in the condition in which our Lord lived in the world, than it is in the doctrines and duties of his religion. I refer to the circumstance, that the divine author and finisher of our faith was himself poor.

When professing to bring glad tidings to the poor, Jesus stood before them, as one who was himself poor. They knew that he had no earthly possessions; that he had not where to lay his head: they knew that, except when he partook of the food which was enlarged by his own miraculous power, he lived upon the bounty of those with whom he lived and yet, they saw in him all the piety which he inculcated, and all the virtue to which he called those who heard him,-except repentance. They saw him, indeed, invested with an unspeakable dignity and grandeur. They saw him awaken awe in the most powerful, and impose the strongest restraints upon the envy, and jealousy, and malignity of those, whose authority' would have silenced, and whose resentment could at once have destroyed, any other than himself. And they saw him calm, secure, strong, undaunted, alone through the power of that very

piety and virtue; through which he was assuring them that they might obtain the greatest of blessings. This, to my mind, is a very sublime and attractive view of our Saviour, and of his religion. Upheld by no civil connexions, by no opulent relations; seeking no intimacy with those who had hitherto exerted an uncontroled influence over the multitude; without any earthly offices, or honors, or compensations in any form, to give to those who should follow him; watched at once with the meanest and the most virulent suspicion, by those who thirsted for his blood, and who had all the gifts in their disposal which the people could look for, as mere outward inducements to follow a leader; the people still felt, that never man spake like this man, because they saw, that never man lived like this one. To the poor, then, I say, "Behold our master and Lord, as poor as you are. And does he, nevertheless, stand before you in all the majesty of moral perfection? This perfection, then, is consistent with poverty, and is attainable in poverty. As far as your soul is concerned, as far as the cause of your piety and virtue is concerned, as far as your hopes in eternity are concerned, you have no need of any mere outward, or worldly possessions. See him girded with a towel and washing his disciples' feet. Do you understand the principle of this condescension? That principle, living and acting in your own heart, will bring you into a nearer union with Christ, and to a better qualification for heaven, than to understand all the mysteries, about which men have disputed since they first began to differ in the world. Hear him, when he says to you, if any man willcome after me, let him deny himself, and take up bs cross daily,

and follow me.' That self-knowledge, and self-government, which he thus inculcated, that humility, and subjection of the will to duty, to which he thus calls us, confer on him who has them a nobler power, bring to him a richer treasure, and raise him to a higher excellence, than any other possession, or knowledge, or power can bring to man."—If Jesus Christ had come to the world invested with civil authority, and abounding in earthly riches, I need not ask, if his religion would have been of comparative interest, even to the most favored among us? I will not even ask you to indulge your imaginations on this supposition. But I may ask, identified as his religion is with himself, if it be not, in his very poverty, most admirably and happily adapted to the poor? I may ask, if in the poverty of our Lord, the poor have not the most glorious illustration that could be given of the truth, that infinitely the highest possessions, that is, all the piety and virtue of the gospel, may be as fully attained even in the state of the greatest indigence, as in the most favored condition of human existence? And is not this good news to the poor? In this reference to our Lord himself, while pronouncing the blessing, do we not more fully comprehend the import of his words, "Blessed be ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of heaven ?"

There is one other circumstance in this connexion, to which I attach great importance. I refer to the circumstance, that Christianity is suited to extend unspeakable good to the poor, and in proportion as it is received, that it must be to the poor an unspeakable blessing, is the influences which it is intended to exert upon the rict.

We should want nothing more for illustration of our Lord's benediction in the text, if the objects of Christianity in regard to the rich were but generally accomplished in them. Could we but call into full action, in the hearts of those whom God has blessed with abundance, Christian sentiments respecting riches,-their purposes, and value; Christian sentiments of the relation of man to his fellow men, and of all to God; Christian sentiments of virtue,-of its incomparable worth and excellence; and Christian sentiments of happiness, and its indissoluble connexion with virtue ; there would then be no want of interest in the condition of those, who are struggling with difficulty and poverty; and no want of sympathy with those, who need pity, and care, and aid in their sufferings. Let those of us who are rich feel, as the gospel of Christ intends that we shall feel, that God has made us to differ from others, that we may be the instruments of his benevolence to others; that our possessions are a trust, for which we must give account; that the only enduring treasures are those of the soul that we shall soon be poorer than is the poorest now among us, if, in death, we are not found to be rich in the good works,—the works of benevolence, which our religion requires of us; and, that all outward riches are in reality to any one a good, only as they are made the means of ministering to piety and virtue; and every heart will be brought to the enlargement of a divine charity. Every one, then, in proportion as God has blessed him, will need no monitor but conscience, to excite him to every act of Christian love which he can perform. Every one in proportion as he is himself blessed, will then be God's minister, for the communi