They are the monuments of its triumph; monuments, which will outlast all the splendid tributes to human ambition, and bless the world long after combatants and conquerors shall have ceased to curse it. The whole history of earth, is marked by strife and miseries; but what portion of it, except the Christian, is marked by the footsteps of benevolence and the reign of charity? You may find, upon many shores, the relicks of military columns, triumphal arches, and spacious amphitheatres, where men and beasts contended and bled for the entertainment of the populace, and statues erected to successful warriors and fabulous gods. But the walls of asylums, retreats, and hospitals, and statues to benefactors and philanthropists, will be found only in those lands, which have learned the nature of true glory from him, who spoke the praises of the good Samaritan.

The general character of christendom thus proves the attention which has been paid to our Lord's command. Many are the individuals, also, who have, from this cause, obtained a good report, and left a blessed memory to the world. Their examples deserve to be kept brightly before men, that others may be stimulated to go and do likewise. Let me name a few, who should never be forgotten.

Let me name John Kyrll, the man of Ross,'-who, with an annual income of five hundred pounds, accomplished almost prodigies of beneficence, and scattered happiness with a lavish hand, which has been placed beyond oblivion by the deathless tribute of one of the first of

poets.*

All our praises why should lords engross ?
Rise, honest muse! and sing the MAN OF Ross.
Pleas'd Vaga echoes through her winding bounds,
And rapid Severn hoarse applause resounds.
Who hung with woods yon mountain's sultry brow?
From the dry rock who bade the waters flow?
Not to the skies in useless columns tost,

Or in proud falls magnificently lost,

But clear and artless pouring through the plain
Health to the sick, and solace to the swain.
Whose causeway parts the vale with shady rows?
Whose seats the weary traveller repose?
Who taught that heaven-directed spire to rise?
"The Man of Ross," each lisping babe replies.
Behold the market-place with poor o'erspread!
The Man of Ross divides the weekly bread;
He feeds yon alms-house, neat, but void of state,
Where age and want sit smiling at the gate;
Him portion'd maids, apprentic'd orphans blest,
The young who labour, and the old who rest.'

John Wesley, who was content to live upon twenty-eight pounds a year, that he might devote the remainder of his income to the unfortunate and poor; and thus, in fifty years, was the distributor of nearly thirty thousand pounds.

Edward Colston,-on whose monument are registered his public charities to the amount of seventy thousand pounds,— in addition to his private charities, which were bestowed not in tens only, nor in hundreds, but in thousands, on one occasion in the splendid gift of twenty thousand pounds.

Richard Reynolds,-who, like a twin brother of Colston, devoted himself, his time, his sympathy, his wealth, to the unfortunate; and at his death received the highest honours from the city of Bristol, among whose destitute and suffering inhabitants he had distributed more than two hundred thousand pounds.

Let me pass to some of a different character.

Benjamin, Count Rumford,—a native of our own state, and not its only generous son,-whose charities were the admiration of Europe; and whose monument, erected by the publick gratitude of an imperial city, bears this inscription: 'To him, who rooted out the disgraceful evils of idleness and mendicity; who relieved and instructed the poor; and founded many institutions for the education of our youth. Go, stranger; strive to equal him in genius and activity, and us in gratitude.'

Elizabeth Fry,-the reformer of Newgate, the guardian. angel of the prison house,-who has changed its confusion and filth into order and industry, and has turned Newgate, as we might say, from a den of thieves into a house of prayer.

Anthony Benezet,-one of the first who understood and felt the misery of Africans,-who appealed earliest in their behalf to princes and to the world; who lived, and watched, and toiled, always, and almost solely, for that unhappy race.

Thomas Clarkson,-memorable advocate of humanity,who, undeterred by prejudice, obloquy, and opposition, pressed forward through obstacles that might have discouraged and delays that might have wearied, a less persevering spirit, neither despairing nor pausing until the rights of man were accorded to the slave, and the brand of infamy was fixed deep on the traffick in human flesh; who toiled in this noble service, till his constitution was literally shattered to pieces; his hear

ing, memory, and voice, nearly gone; and incapable of further exertion, he was borne out of the field,' where he had esteemed it his honour to spend and be spent.

And, fit companion of Clarkson, Joshua Steele, that good old man, who left home and its comforts, in his eightyfirst year, and crossed the ocean to a strange and distant clime, that he might test, by an experiment of his own, the capacity of the unhappy negroes for freedom and selfgovernment.* Let some share of that admiration, which is lavished on the noble spirit, who left home, and fortune, and hope in the bright day of his youth, to plunge in the dust and blood of our inauspicious struggle,' be awarded to this aged bero,-who, with grey hairs, but a youthful ardour, went forth, as intrepidly and disinterestedly, on a pilgrimage as noble and as inauspicious.

Vincent of Paul,-the French Howard,-who has been called, 'the best citizen of his country, the Apostle of humanity.'† Having in his youth been a slave in Tunis, he afterward devoted himself to promote the relief and comfort of unfortunate men at the galleys. And it is related of him, that being once moved by the extreme suffering of a young man, condemned to the galleys for three years, for his first offence, in the spirit of a chivalrous and romantic disinterestedness, perfectly unexampled, he took his place at the oar, and for eighteen months suffered in his stead. This was the spirit which actuated his whole life, devoted to the interests of his fellow men. In the provinces, distressed by war, many villages were saved from famine by his indefatigable benevolence, and thousands of his countrymen delivered from death. His country still bears the record of his deeds, in the ten institutions of important public charities which he founded. If other men are immortalized because they have endowed one hospital, what shall be the reward of him who established ten, and whose institutions of benevolence bless every province of the empire?

But the time would fail me only to name those who have devoted their fortunes, or consecrated their labours, or ex

* The history of this case is so remarkable, and at the same time, we believe, so little known, that we have copied it for our readers in the Collection of this number.

† Maury, Essai sur L'Eloquence de la Chaire. I. 279.

pended their strength, or hazarded their lives, for the consolation of sufferers, the relief of the poor, the rescue of the exposed, the salvation of the perishing. Their witness is in heaven, their record is on high ;' and, oh, it will be a glorious company, yea, and a numerous company, to whom the Judge shall say Inasmuch as ye did it unto these my brethren, ye did it unto me; enter into the joy of your Lord.'

I should, however, be unjust to the occasion, if I should pass unremembered in this connexion, that name, which adorns the society on whose account we are assembled, and which offers an example that may well be dwelt upon for our encouragement and excitement in charity. Many have done virtuously, but Howard excelled them all. His name not only stands first on the list of philanthropists, but has become in a manner synonymous with philanthropy itself. It was well observed by the celebrated Bossuet,* that it is the singular glory of Alexander the Great, that his name finds a place in all our panegyricks; and that no prince can receive praises, in which he is not remembered and participates. The same may be said in regard to Howard; it is his singular felicity to be remembered in all our praises of benevolence, and to partake in every eulogy upon the benefactors of man. There was in that man a stern energy and persevering devotedness of soul, which carried him in action further than others had gone in imagination. And this, without any wildness of enthusiasm, or rash injudiciousness, or careless inconsistency. No man planned and executed with greater coolness, or guarded with greater jealousy against imposition from himself or from others. And so consistent was he, that when most largely engaged in his extensive investigations abroad,-which might have excused his forgetfulness of less pressing interests at home,-yet he never forgot them; but at all times devoted a share of his beneficence to the dependant cottagers of his own village. To appreciate rightly his laborious and self-denying life, one must know the particulars of his indefatigable history, and acquaint himself minutely with the magnitude of his plans, the obstacles to their execution, which he overcame, and the sacrifices to which he submitted. You must follow him in his march through the nations, from prison

Oraison funébre de Louis de Bourbon.

to prison, from dungeon to dungeon, through scenes of horror and infection from which the mind shrinks. You must know how he persevered, when the authority of the state threatened his liberty, and when raging pestilence lay in wait for his life. You must mark him boldly expostulating against abuses with men in power, and rebuking princes to their face. You must watch his progress and success, until, from an opposed and suspected man, he became the most honoured personage in his own country, and the most admired throughout the world; when parliament consulted and flattered him; when foreign princes bowed to him; and enthusiastick friends prepared to erect a statue to his fame.

One cannot follow the path of this remarkable man without astonishment. For seventeen years he travelled from land to land, again and again visiting the principal places in Europe, that he might the better understand, and more fully expose, and more permanently relieve, the miseries of men; that he might,-in the fine language of Burke, which it is not possible to escape in this connexion,-'that he might remember the forgotten, attend to the neglected, visit the forsaken, and compare and collate the distresses of all men in all countries.' From these 'voyages of discovery,' these 'circumnavigations of charity,' he allowed himself no respite, but to arrange and publish his observations, when he again and again set forth. He seemed to live but for this object. Every other passion he smothered. Every other gratification he denied himself. A lover of the fine arts, to which he ardently attached himself in his youth, and frequently passing through the countries where their finest specimens are collected, he yet refused even to visit them, lest he should for a moment be distracted from that darling object, which he pursued both as a passion and a duty. Though enthusiastically admiring the extraordinary musick of Italy, which seemed to him more of heaven than of earth, yet even this he would not hear, lest the indulgence should divert his mind, and unfit him for his labours. This was heroick self-denial; and it exemplifies his strict fidelity to his own maxim. Our superfluities should be given up for the convenience of others; our conveniencies should give place to the necessities of others; and even our necessities should give way to the extremities of the poor.' To this maxim he seems never to have been