needeth ;"*—fit disciple of Him who had said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive."+ Still it must be insisted that liberality to the poor is but one office of that benevolence which opposes itself to the desire of selfindulgence and aggrandizement in general; which claims to control every selfish propensity to which we are liable, and to preside over the whole of our conduct towards our fellowcreatures a benevolence which sympathizes with our neighbour, whatever be the relation which his circumstances bear to our own; and, moreover, consults for his feelings as they are naturally modified by his particular rank, pursuit, or occupation, or the stage which he has reached in the journey of life; by his position among the members of a family, or the subjects of the state-by any one of those causes which so manifestly vary the working of individual minds, and so endlessly diversify and complicate the phenomena of the moral world. Our religion inculcates, and is competent to realize, an habitual regard to the interests of others, in whatever manner they may become implicated in the prosecution of our own wishes and designsa sympathy in their behalf which takes pre* Ephes. iv. 28. † Acts xx. 35.

cedency of every selfish gratification and enterprise, and, in a word, corresponds to the supremacy and comprehensiveness of that law, of which it is the living exemplar, and which binds us in every condition, and at every period, of our existence.

We have considered the second great commandment as enjoining such a degree of interest in the welfare of others, as may supply a competent incitement to the fulfilment of that law of equity which is revealed in the Divine Word, and approved by the conscience -such a sympathy as may enable us practically to recognise the rights of every other individual to be as sacred as our own rights, his sufferings equally deserving of relief as our own sufferings, and his errors of judgment and infirmities of temper, equally with ours, occasions for toleration and forgiveness. Now it is observable, and has often been matter of remark, and sometimes even of objection, that our Saviour has occasionally inculcated the love of our neighbour in the most absolute, in wholly unqualified terms-in language which, if strictly understood, would compel us to forego the right of self-defence; to relinquish the claim to restitution or reparation for wrongs inflicted on us; and even to forbear

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remonstrating against an unjust demand of our neighbour. But this unmeasured language is sufficiently explained by the exceeding deficiency of human benevolence in general, and ought impressively to remind us of the excessive, prodigious energy of the selfish principles in our ungoverned, unsanctified nature-the universal and violent proneness to err from the law of righteousness. That insatiate love of self, which craves its own indulgence, and works its own ends, in a total indifference to the claims of others, whether we call it an inordinacy or misdirection of the selfish principle, is, palpably, the instigator of all injustice; of the manifold crimes which disfigure the lives of men, and embitter the experience of the world. This it is which creates the energy of the injurious passions; the endless craft of avarice, the capacious, unbounded grasp of ambition, and the pest of a callous, remorseless sensuality.

Love," writes the Apostle, "worketh no ill to his neighbour."* The words are a manifest truism but it was the weighty and enduring import of his declarations which St. Paul regarded, and not a perishing novelty to the apprehensions of his readers. How preg

*Rom. xiii. 10.

nant, how 'momentous a truism!-Had man retained in his bosom the love of his fellowman, there never would have appeared in the human family, a murderer, a thief, an adulterer, a slanderer-a worker of ill to his neighbour. The human dwelling would never have been sought by the spoiler, nor approached by the steps of the assassin--nay, the homes of uncounted multitudes would have been saved from the stroke of the invader. Man would never have trembled in his weakness, nor have been corrupted by his power; nor would his energies have bred the worm of conscience, corroding his prosperity with the secret dread of final retribution. If the sense and charities of a common nature were not extinguished by the rage of the passions, there never would grow up amongst us men who can obtain the confidence of a fellow-creature to defraud him of his property can reduce him to beggary to glut their own cupidity and appetites-can even betray the charge of the dying parent, and prey upon the food of orphans; nor would there be living amongst us men who can use the hospitalities and friendship of a fellow-creature to profane the sanctuary of his affections; nor men and women who can requite the purity of affection,

and fulfil their most sacred vows, by treachery and desertion. And if there prevailed a cordial sympathy for our neighbour, the pure incentive to rectitude, there would be none solicitous for the name, the reputation only, of probity resenting, as an almost inexpiable offence, a whisper of suspicion, a breath of imputation on their character; but retiring into solitude to the memory and furtherance of deeds that offend the conscience, and shun the light. The professions of integrity, loudly and everywhere heard, would not be answered by a mutual apprehension, and the steps of a distrustful caution. For there would be no insidious schemes, no deceptious contracts, no unscrupulous, delusive promises, no smiling enmities, and secret defamation. The unrighteous act, the injurious purpose, would be unknown-nay, the envious wish unfelt; the hard, discourteous word unspoken, unwritten; nor should we so often dwell upon the verge of mutual disgust and alienation. There would be no appetite for resentment, no relish in revenge, no mood for detractionthe spirit of injustice would cease from the life, and vanish from the consciousness of

man.

Reflecting, for a moment, on the guilt and