your love for Jesus, the Father of the poor? Or rather, are you not induced by the desires of removing, as quickly as possible, such a disgusting object from your sight? And does it not frequently happen that, instead of fixing your eyes on the nauseous spectacle, and endeavouring to form an idea of the ulcérated wounds of your own souls in the sight of God, you distribute your charity by the hands of a servant, in order that your delicate feelings might not be injured? If this be the truth, your delicacy, perhaps, is as offensive to the Almighty, as the indifference and neglect of the rich man.

Lastly it is said that Lazarus desired the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table, and that no one did give him. It is not, however, said, that Lazarus asked for them, or that the rich man refused to give them: he desired, says the parable, and no one did give him. The inattention was undoubtedly cri

minal. But was it to be expected that a man of his rank and condition should send relief from his own table ? would it not have sufficed if he had given general orders to his domestics to administer to him? This is what is usually done by the great: (and this might have been done by the rich man) and yet they do not consider themselves responsible, if their orders are neglected. In a word, the rich man is censured, not on account of any thing hardhearted or unfeeling in his character, but on account of the indolence of his disposition, and his want of attention to the distresses of Lazarus.

Thus, when Abraham declares to him the cause of his condemnation, he does not say, in the words which will be pronounced by the great Judge at the day of judgment: "Lazarus was naked, and thou didst not clothe him; he was hungry, and thou didst not give him to eat; he was sick; and

thou didst not visit him :" but, "Son, remember, thou didst receive good things in thy life thou didst seek thy consolation in the world: thou didst make the abode of thy pilgrimage the place of thy delights. Here every thing is reversed the tears of Lazarus are wiped away, and thy laughter and joy are turned into mourning: Son, remember thou didst receive good things in thy life, and Lazarus also evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented." This is his great crime. A life of luxury and ease is the great cause of his condemnation; and rash would it be for us to assign other reasons than those which the Spirit of God has assigned in the gospel.

This, perhaps, may excite your surprise. But, my beloved, will it require any deep consideration to discover that the practice of christian virtue is necessary for salvation? Ah! if a disciple of Moses, living under a car

nal and imperfect law,-a law, which neither inculcated the sublimer precepts of the gospel, nor so rigorously forbad sensual pleasures; if he, I say, is condemned because he led a soft, voluptuous life; what will be required of the Christian, the member of a crucified. Jesus, the child of the new law,-the disciple of the gospel? What will be the eternal lot of the Christian, whose life ought to be so perfect, whose selfdenials so frequent, whose sensual indulgences so few, and whose expiatory sufferings so numerous? Will he be treated more favourably, do you suppose, than the rich man, if he lead the same voluptuous life, and is careful. only to abstain from shameful and criminal excesses ?

It is an undeniable truth, founded on the unerring testimony of the word. of God, that unless we are conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, we never shall be admitted into the

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number of his elect. Now, is nothing more necessary, in order to shew forth in our bodies the image of Christ crucified, than to abstain from adultery, from theft, from intemperance, and from the other grosser crimes? Our divine Model, it is true, was free from all these vices: but was this the whole of his virtue? Far from it in addition to this, He was meek and humble of heart: He forgave and prayed for his greatest enemies: He was not conformed to this world: his life was in direct opposition to its maxims: He neither courted or enjoyed its pleasures or its vanities: He was a stranger to ease He had not a place whereon to lay his head: He carried his cross from his birth, and He finished his course in the midst of the severest torments the grand principle, which He came to establish among men, was the principle of self-abasement and selfdenial, and his whole life was con