miseries of this
world are allotted as their natural portion--those who eat the bread of
bitterness, and drink the waters of affliction, have more interest in
futurity, and are therefore more prepared to receive the promises of the
Gospel. Yes, sir; mark the disingenuousness of many of our modern
philosophers; they quarrel with the Christian religion, because it has
not yet penetrated the deserts of Africa, or arrested the wandering
hordes of Tartary; yet they ridicule it for the meanness of its origin,
and because it is the Gospel of the poor: that is to say, because it is
expressly calculated to inform the judgments, and alleviate the miseries
of that vast promiscuous body which constitutes the majestic species of
man. But for whom would these philosophers have Heaven itself
interested, if not for the mighty whole which it has created? Poverty,
that is to say, a state of labour and frequent self-denial, is the
natural state of man; it is the state of all in the happiest and most
equal governments, the state of nearly all in every country; it is a
state in which all the faculties, both of body and mind, are always
found to develope themselves with the most advantage, and in which the
moral feelings have generally the greatest influence. The accumulation
of riches, on the contrary, can never increase, but by the increasing
poverty and degradation of those whom Heaven has created equal; a
thousand cottages are thrown down to afford space for a single palace.
How benevolently, therefore, has Heaven acted, in thus extending its
blessings to all who do not disqualify themselves for the reception by
voluntary hardness of heart! how wisely in thus opposing a continual
boundary to human pride and sensuality; two passions the most fatal in
their effects, and the most apt to desolate the world. And shall a
minister of that Gospel, conscious of these great truths, and professing
to govern himself by their influence, dare to preach a different
doctrine, and flatter those excesses, which he must know are equally
contrary both to reason and religion? Shall he become the abject
sycophant of human greatness, and assist it in trampling all relations
of humanity beneath his feet, instead of setting before it the severe
duties of its station, and the account which will one day be expected of
all the opportunities of doing good, so idly, so irretrievably lost and
squandered? But I beg pardon, sir, for that warmth which has transported
me