reach that death opens in the constitution, nature
kindly covers with insensibility.

Thus providence has given the wretched two advantages over the happy, in
this life, greater felicity in dying, and in heaven all that
superiority of pleasure which arises from contrasted enjoyment. And this
superiority, my friends, is no small advantage, and seems to be one of
the pleasures of the poor man in the parable; for though he was already
in heaven, and felt all the raptures it could give, yet it was mentioned
as an addition to his happiness, that he had once been wretched and now
was comforted, that he had known what it was to be miserable, and now
felt what it was to be happy.

Thus, my friends, you see religion does what philosophy could never do:
it shews the equal dealings of heaven to the happy and the unhappy, and
levels all human enjoyments to nearly the same standard. It gives to
both rich and poor the same happiness hereafter, and equal hopes to
aspire after it; but if the rich have the advantage of enjoying pleasure
here, the poor have the endless satisfaction of knowing what it was once
to be miserable, when crowned with endless felicity hereafter; and even
though this should be called a small advantage, yet being an eternal
one, it must make up by duration what the temporal happiness of the
great may have exceeded by intenseness.

These are therefore the consolations which the wretched have peculiar
to themselves, and in which they are above the rest of mankind; in other
respects they are below them. They who would know the miseries of the
poor must see life and endure it. To declaim on the temporal advantages
they enjoy, is only repeating what none either believe or practise. The
men who have the necessaries of living are not poor, and they who want
them must be miserable. Yes, my friends, we must be miserable. No vain
efforts of a refined imagination can sooth the wants of nature, can
give elastic sweetness to the dank vapour of a dungeon, or ease to the
throbbings of a broken heart. Let the philosopher from his couch of
softness tell us that we can resist all these. Alas! the effort by which
we resist them is still the greatest pain! Death is slight, and any man
may sustain it; but torments are dreadful, and these no man can endure.

To us then, my friends, the promises of happiness in heaven should be
peculiarly dear; for if our reward be in this life alone, we are then
indeed of all men the most miserable.