s are provided by the
merciful Author of nature for most of the afflictions in human life.
There is kind provision made even against our frailties: as we are so
constituted that time abundantly abates our sorrows, and begets in us
that resignment of temper, which ought to have been produced by a better
cause; a due sense of the authority of God, and our state of dependence.
This holds in respect too far the greatest part of the evils of life; I
suppose, in some degree, as to pain and sickness. Now this part of the
constitution or make of man, considered as some relief to misery, and not
as provision for positive happiness, is, if I may so speak, an instance
of nature's compassion for us; and every natural remedy or relief to
misery may be considered in the same view.

But since in many cases it is very much in our power to alleviate the
miseries of each other; and benevolence, though natural in man to man,
yet is in a very low degree kept down by interest and competitions; and
men, for the most part, are so engaged in the business and pleasures of
the world, as to overlook and turn away from objects of misery; which are
plainly considered as interruptions to them in their way, as intruders
upon their business, their gaiety, and mirth: compassion is an advocate
within us in their behalf, to gain the unhappy admittance and access, to
make their case attended to. If it sometimes serves a contrary purpose,
and makes men industriously turn away from the miserable, these are only
instances of abuse and perversion: for the end, for which the affection
was given us, most certainly is not to make us avoid, but to make us
attend to, the objects of it. And if men would only resolve to allow
thus much to it: let it bring before their view, the view of their mind,
the miseries of their fellow-creatures; let it gain for them that their
case be considered; I am persuaded it would not fail of gaining more, and
that very few real objects of charity would pass unrelieved. Pain and
sorrow and misery have a right to our assistance: compassion puts us in
mind of the debt, and that we owe it to ourselves as well as to the
distressed. For, to endeavour to get rid of the sorrow of compassion by
turning from the wretched, when yet it is in our power to relieve them,
is as unnatural as to endeavour to get rid of the pain of hunger by
keeping from the sight of food. That we can do one with greater success
than we can the other is no proof th