one of the essential qualities, which her precepts most directly and
strongly enjoin, and which all her various doctrines tend to call forth
and cultivate; and humility, as has been before suggested, lays the
deepest and surest grounds for benevolence. In whatever class or order
of society Christianity prevails, she sets herself to rectify the
particular faults, or, if we would speak more distinctly, to counteract
the particular mode of selfishness, to which that class is liable.
Affluence she teaches to be liberal and beneficent; authority, to bear
its faculties with meekness, and to consider the various cares and
obligations belonging to its elevated station, as being conditions on
which that station is conferred. Thus, softening the glare of wealth,
and moderating the insolence of power, she renders the inequalities of
the social state less galling to the lower orders, whom also she
instructs, in their turn, to be diligent, humble, patient: reminding
them that their more lowly path has been allotted to them by the hand of
God; that it is their part faithfully to discharge its duties, and
contentedly to bear its inconveniences; that the present state of things
is very short; that the objects, about which worldly men conflict so
eagerly, are not worth the contest; that the peace of mind, which
Religion offers to all ranks indiscriminately, affords more true
satisfaction than all the expensive pleasures which are beyond the poor
man's reach; that in this view, however, the poor have the advantage,
and that if their superiors enjoy more abundant comforts, they are also
exposed to many temptations from which the inferior classes are happily
exempted; that "having, food and raiment, they should be therewith
content," for that their situation in life, with all its evils, is
better than they have deserved at the hand of God; finally, that all
human distinctions will soon be done away, and the true followers of
Christ will all, as children of the same Father, be alike admitted to
the possession of the same heavenly inheritance. Such are the blessed
effects of Christianity on the temporal well-being of political
communities.

But the Christianity which can produce effects like these, must be real,
not nominal, deep, not superficial. Such then is the Religion we should
cultivate, if we would realize these pleasing speculations, and arrest
the progress of political decay. But in the present circumstances of
this country, it is a