and how many muft partake in the fad effects of their refentment, I am perfuaded that humanity and compaffion, virtues to which this country never was a ftranger, would in great measure prevent this evil.

When the father of a poor family, who have nothing to depend on for their fubfiftence but his labour and induftry, is torn from them, what can the poor widow and orphans do? For a widow he is, and orphans they are, to all the intents and purposes of forrow and affliction. It is well if they take no worse employment than begging; oftentimes they are tempted to pilfer or fteal, or to prostitute themfelves for bread; and happy is it for them, if they meet with no worse fortune, than to fall into your hands to be corrected and reformed.

In the mean time the wretched father fees himself undone, and his family difperfed and ruined. His fpirits fink under forrow, and defpair eats out his ftrength and life; that fhould you in time relent and release him, it is ten to one but the relief comes too late. He is no longer the fame man; before his imprisonment he was active and strong, and had fpirit to go through his labour; now he is broken in mind and body, and not able to improve to any advantage that liberty, which at last you are willing to allow him.

Would not any one, who confiders this, be apt to imagine, that no man lies in prifon but for fome great debt; that it is impoffible that any one should use another thus cruelly for a trifle? And yet, in truth, the cafe is quite otherwife: there are few, in comparison, who lie for great fums; the far greater

It

number are confined for trifles, for fuch fums as must be reckoned by pence, and not by pounds. is true, they are commonly confined at the fuit of thofe, who are almost as poor as themselves; and the poverty on the one fide is often urged as a juftification of the severity used against the other. But alas! what relief is it to one poor man to undo another? What comfort is it to torment a wretch, whose misery can yield you no profit or advantage?

Whether I have justly represented the confequences of this cafe, or no, you, who have the poor orphans of this city under your care; and you, whofe charitable work it is to correct and reform the vicious and profligate; are beft able to say: for you know all the diftreffes of the poor, and the caufes from whence they fpring. And, to your honour I speak it, you have provided for every evil of life a proper remedy, or a proper comfort. But I need not be your orator; your own deeds will speak for you far better than I can. The report now to be read will fhew both the nature and the good management of the feveral charities under your direction.

Here the report was read.

The account now laid before you is capable of raifing very different fentiments in the heart of a Christian. It is a melancholy thing to hear the poor orphans in one place, the profligate vagrants in another, the lame and impotent in a third, and the distempered in mind in a fourth, reckoned up by hundreds and by thousands. To what miferies is human life exposed!

But ftill, in the midst of these calamities, there is reafon to blefs and adore the goodness of God, who has put it into the hearts of his fervants to provide comfort and relief for these fons and daughters of affliction.

The richest among us, when he views these miffortunes, fees nothing but what he is liable to himself. Examine the condition of these orphans, many of them perhaps born in the midst of plenty, though now they live on charity. There was a time perhaps when their fathers as little thought they should be beholden to an hofpital for the maintenance of their children, as we may think it at this day.

Other calamities make no diftinction between rich and poor; we have no inheritance in the use of our limbs and fenfes, but enjoy them by the good pleasure of him who gave them. And whenever these misfortunes overtake us, our riches make but little difference in the cafe; a rich distracted man, and a poor distracted man, are very near upon an equality; and as far as the power of imagination goes, they often change conditions; the poor man fancying himself to be a prince, whilft the rich one pines and torments himself with the all-fears and anxieties of poverty.

Since then you are so nearly related to all the miseries now placed within your view, need I fay much to move tenderness and compaffion towards a cafe already fo much your own? This is a caufe which nature will plead for in every heart not made of stone. But there is one still greater Advocate to plead this caufe, even he who died for our fins, and rose again

for our juftification. These orphans, these diseased in body or in mind, nay, even the profligate wretches who are brought to you for punishment and correction, are his care; and whatever charity you beftow on them, he will reckon it as done to himself, and acknowledge it in the fight of men and of angels, when he fhall come again to judge the world in righteousness.

DISCOURSE X.

MARK iii. 24.

If a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot ftand.

THOUGH these words are read in the Gospel, yet they have not their authority merely from thence; but for the truth of the observation contained in them, there lies an appeal to common fense and experience. Our Saviour indeed, by ufing this maxim, has approved it; and he could not appeal to the judgment of all men in this cafe, without, at the fame time, declaring his own.

As obfervations of this kind depend on a great number of facts; fo are there in the prefent cafe a great number to fupport it. The many kingdoms and countries weakened or ruined by inteftine divifions, are so many proofs upon record of the truth of this affertion. And did we of this country want to have this truth cleared by fuch inftances, it would be but reasonable to produce the proofs. But we have examples of our own growth, and ftand in need of no affiftance from foreign hiftory. This island has often changed its inhabitants; but the new ones never got poffeffion till the old ones