But, if much hath been already done from liberal contributions, bear in mind, I beseech you, that much requires to be done from similar sources of aid; and it has been, if I may so speak, on the faith, and with the conviction, that such expectations will be realised, that those expenses and that responsibility have been incurred, without which it was impossible to give consistency and efficacy to the plan, so that it might meet the wishes of the enlightened and humane; and so as, in fact, to remedy the evil of which the existence was but too obvious and general.

Yet more hath been done than giving proofs of the speedy appearance of the outward form of this establishment. Instruction, necessarily to a limited number, hath been already imparted. A sixth portion only of those to be admitted within the walls of the Institution, have been making advances in moral and religious improvement; and many of those voices, which you have heard this day exercised in their Maker's praise, had, scarcely two months ago, perhaps, been taught to pronounce his holy name; or if pronounced, to make it a by-word and a jest. Here, surely, my brethren, here is a promise of future

excellence: here is an earnest of great and incalculable benefit! Here are no theoretical visions of doubtful good, but obvious demonstrations of positive and substantial advantage. Promote them therefore by your friendly and generous aid. Encourage such virtuous habits: strengthen such infantine weakness; give maturity to the seed, which hath been already dropped into the earth; for your countenance and support shall be as the sun and rains of heaven to cause that seed to grow up into a goodly tree, and to yield abundant and nutritious fruit. If that support be withdrawn, then shall it be as the cold frost and the cutting blast which shall cause its premature dissolution.

But one word more, and I conclude. The temple of worship in which you are now assembled, hath been recently consecrated* according to the religious rites and ceremonies of our country. An equally acceptable deed of consecration to God, is yet to follow. Consecrate it by your ALMS. It is the first donation which you are called upon to make-but give, as if it were the last for who shall calculate on the casualties of human life!

*See CONSECRATION SERMON; ante.

Faith and hope, great and acceptable as these virtues are to Almighty God, are yet, we are told, inferior to that work of CHARITY. I will therefore only sincerely and conscientiously add, that, whatever be your donation—be it great or small-bestow it readily, and from the heart: "not grudgingly or of necessity, for God loveth a CHEERFUL giver."

SERMON XI.

Luke xvi. 25th verse.

But Abraham said, "Son, remember that thou in thy life time receivedst thy good things, and Lazarus evil things-but, now, he is comforted, and thou art tormented.*

THE

HE parable of the Rich Man and the beggar Lazarus-is, perhaps, of all those in the New Testament, one which is the most strongly impressed upon our memories from youth upwards. Through the whole of this parable, the invisible state after death is described by images borrowed from the present life, and from the objects of our senses: yet is the whole marked by something awful and preternatural. The place of the wretched, and of the happy, each strikes us with a peculiar and a powerful emotion: the dark and desperate state of the rich man, and the

* Preached at St. Mary's, May 27, 1824.

heavenly and enviable state of the poor man —each contrasted by their previous conditions—makes a strong hold upon the imagination: but wise and prudent would it be, my brethren, if, in recollecting the circumstances of the rich man and the beggar, we pondered maturely upon the consequences: on the lesson to be learnt from gluttonous and rapacious voluptuousness, and from treating the wants of our distressed fellow creature with cruelty and contempt.

The parable is thus written by St. Luke. "There was a certain rich man which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day. And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, who laid at his gate full of sores; and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table-moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores."

This description is sufficiently strong to convince us that the former character enjoyed all the luxuries of this life; that his equipage, if I may so speak, was splendid; his attire gorgeous; his servants numerous, and his fare, or repasts, sumptuous in the extreme. If unbounded wealth and perpetual variety of sensual gratification could have made the