most excellent principles? No, my friends, this as christians you will not, you cannot do. Make use of a prudent circumfpection in the diftribution of your bounty; this is your duty. Be obdurate, be inexorable towards thofe who you know for certain will mifemploy it; this the fafety and welfare of human fociety demand. But be not rafh in the judgments you form concerning the deferts, the fentiments and views, of the neceffitous. Be not an auftere, but a compaffionate and indulgent cenfor of your brother's conduct; judge him fo as you may reasonably defire that God fhould judge you. As it is far better that ten guilty fhould be acquitted, than that one innocent perfon fhould be condemned; fo it is likewife far better that you fhould do good to ten undeferving perfons, than, for the fake of avoiding this poffibility, that you should let one worthy fufferer that applies to you for relief, be fent away without it, Require not, in fine, that human inftitutions and establishments, fhould attain to a perfection which perhaps may exceed our human faculties; and refuse not to promote and encourage things which are good or generally ufeful, because they might perhaps be better and more generally ufeful. Confider too, that God, whofe good plea-` fure fhould be always of the utmost moment to us, looks more at the pious and christian intention in which we distribute our benefactions, than to the effects they actually produce; and that in his retributions, he guides himself more by them than he does does by thefe. Our good works in numberless inftances refemble the feed that lies long concealed in the ground, and which at length fhoots upward, and brings forth fruit, though even we may probably have forgot that ever we fowed it. Let us but do our duty; let us do it with cheerfulness and without being weary, and leave the confequences of it to that God who knows and governs all things, and under whofe adminiftration no good deed can be done in vain. Let us then at prefent, my beloved brethren, make no account of these futile objections that arife from avarice or unfeasonable parfimony, but fulfil the sweet and bleffed duty of beneficence, according to our utmost abilities, now when I have to recommend to you a contribution towards the erection of work-houfes and houfes of correction - now, when the foundation of an establishment is to be laid, which many of you, with the greatest reafon, have fo often wished for, and the utility whereof may extend to all future ages, becoming greater and more various from day to day. And what arguments are wanting to us, my friends, on this occafion, to be liberal, and to lead us to expect from our liberality the most bleffed effects? The harder the times, and the dearer provifions may be; the more certain it is that numbers of the poor look out for work in vain, and the more eafily may they be alJured to unlawful attempts, and to predatory attacks on the public fafety; the more undeniable in fhort fhort it is, that wicked or profligate men by painful and ignominious corporal punishment usually become still more wicked and profligate, on the other hand by discipline and labour often better; fo much the more needful are institutions like the present, and the lefs fhould we fhrink from contributing of what we poffefs to the foundation and endowment of them. The poor, my friends, who from no fault of their own are poor, and would willingly work had they the means and opportunity, most certainly compose a clafs of fociety that is entitled to all poffible confideration and regard: but also thofe, who by their own inadvertencies, or from the want of a good education, are fallen into poverty, or even by po. verty have been betrayed into acts of injuftice and theft, are not totally unworthy of our care and compaffion. They may probably be ftill capable of amendment; they may probably ftill be made ufeful members of society; they may at least be checked in their disorderly courfe of life, and be preferved from yet greater and mure heinous enormities. They have like us immortal fouls that are ca pable of everlasting happiness; and these souls may be brought to reflection by difcipline and labour, may be penetrated with remorfe and repentance at the fight of their fins and vices, awakened to better and more chriftian fentiments, and thus be ref cued from that horrible perdition which awaits the hardened and impenitent finner. And fhall we not cheerfully cheerfully do all that in us lies to the promotion of this generous defign? Wherein can we better em ploy the goods that God has given us, than in providing for and in reforming fo many poor and wretched objects, who are ftill our brethren, both as men and as chriftians? Indeed, what we are now able to do cannot at once, and probably can never wholly supply the various wants of this too nume rous clafs of mankind. Indeed, the fruits of the good institutions we are now to promote cannot be fo remarkably abundant in the first years of their foundation. But do not the best human regulations and attempts only by degrees attain to their perfection? Must we not firft fow, before we can reap? May not that, which at its commencement can only be ferviceable to a few, in the future be useful and a bleffing to thousands? Would not almost every charitable institution, and public spirited establishment, have foon fallen to the ground, if it had not been fupported from other motives than the complete affurance of the beft effects? Oh let us then look not only at the prefent, but also at the future; and place our perfect confidence in the providence of God, that whatever is good he will certainly profper. Let us frequently indulge in fuch animating reflections as these I am now committing good grain to the earth, I am now actuated by the purest motives and aiming at the best ends, contributing what I can to the maintenance of difcipline and order; that idlenefs, and the innumerable numerable miferies and crimes that grow out of it, may be restrained; that the innocent may be refcued; that the tranfgreffor may be chaftened and reformed; that the poor who is in want of bread, or is obliged to acquire it by begging, may find a proper fupport. What numbers may hereafter blefs the kind inftitutions in behalf of which I am now pleading, that his dreadful pains and torture did not quite overwhelm him*, and that his innocence was brought forth as clear as the day. What numbers will owe it to these inftitutions, that they were deterred from the ways of fin and ruin, or recovered from them; that they were fnatched from the extreme of mifery and from defpair; that they found food for their body, and help and deliverance for their foul. What profpects! Who can remain unmoved and cold at the bare idea of the manifold good that may and will arife from these institutions? What generous, what chriftian heart will not make it his duty and his joy to contribute what he is able to the realizing of thefe glorious hopes? This is what you will do; I expect it from your chriftian and beneficent difpofitions: and if ye do it heartily and in fincere intentions, I can confidently promise you, in the name of God, who through The abolition of the torture throughout the electorate of Saxony in 1771 gave the firft occafion to the erection of thefe houses of correction and work-houfes. me |