care and preservation of the poor would increase population; this, however, was regarded by the divine philosopher and legislator of Israel as a signal mark of the divine complacency, and experience proved it such. Hence he exultingly adds to the passage last quoted; "Thy fathers went down into Egypt with threescore and ten persons, and now the Lord thy God hath made thee as the stars of heaven for multitude!"

And can a question be started whether the Christian religion lessened the claims and rights of the poor, and relaxed the duty of attending to them? or placed them upon a yet broader foundation, and fenced them round by the deepest motives that time or eternity could inspire? It would be an insult upon the spirit and letter of that religion to pursue such an inquiry. Even Bolingbroke saw clearly enough that "general benevolence and universal charity are the distinguishing badges of Christianity." A regular provision for the poor was amongst the first of the apostolic institutions', was established wherever Christianity was spread, and will never 'cease till its spirit shall be utterly extinguished.

In closing these observations upon the sacred right of the poor to relief, as further confirmed by divine revelation, I must remark that this title does not rest upon the foundation of individual worthiness, nor, indeed, does personal demerit abrogate it; though such circumstances may, properly enough,

1

1 Acts, v. 1 Cor. xvi. 2. 2 Cor. viii. Romans, xv. 26. Gal. ii. 10. Cornel. Ep. ad Fab. ap. Euseb. lib. vi. c. 43. Chrys. Hom. 67, in Matth. See Bingham's Origines Ecclesiasticæ, vol. ii. p. 286, vol. vii. p. 446.

be taken into due consideration in its ministration. It is placed upon a very different basis-upon human suffering, and the pleasure of GOD that it should be relieved. If there be one point more pre-eminently clear in our religion than another, it is that we are totally inhibited from making merit the sole passport to our mercy; the foundation of the modern code. Every precept touching this divine virtue instructs us to the contrary', and I defy those who hold the opposite notion to produce one in their favour. A feeling that has to be excited by some delicate senti, mental touches, some Shandean scene, and is to be under the guardianship of worldly policy, may be the virtue of political economy; but this fancy-charity has nothing in common with that disinterested, devoted, unbounded benevolence, which, as Tertullian says, is the mark and brand of Christianity. Nor must I omit to add that, agreeably to this religion, the feelings of the poor are no more to be insulted in relieving them than are their wants to be neglected. Mr. Malthus may, indeed, say, that " dependent poverty ought to be held disgraceful2;" but to save it from that disgrace, GOD has taken poverty under his peculiar protection, and it remains so connected, in every form of religion, throughout the earth. "Jesus Christ" (I quote from Tillotson) "chose to be a beggar, that we, for his sake,

'I shall only refer to our Lord's sermon on the Mount, Matt. v. 43-48, Luke, vi. 33-35, &c., and to his parable of the Prodigal Son, in proof of this. Let those who choose preach another gospel; but it is not Christianity.

• Malthus, p. 410.

Our Saxon ancestors called the poor goder peapran, God's poor, Spelman, Concil, vol. i. p. 523.

might not despise the poor:" or, to use the language of another distinguished prelate, "he seems studiously to have bent his whole endeavours to vindicate the honour of depressed humanity, to support its weakness, to countenance its wants, to ennoble its misery, and to dignify its disgrace2."

Perhaps so much allusion to our religion and its sacred records, may appear very strange in a pamphlet of the present day, and demand an excuse; I will therefore give one, in the terms of the reverend expounders of our common law: "Christianity is part and parcel of the law of the land". It became more particularly so as our immortal legislator, Alfred, left it; who embodied into his institutions the entire spirit, and much of the letter of those passages to which I have been appealing; and with whom that enlarged and systematic charity for which England has, happily, been long distinguished, first commenced.

(8.) Lastly, then, I remark that the poor have a legal right to relief, and one that has been confirmed by innumerable acts of parliament, and enjoyed by them for a succession of ages, and which, when granted, was only a substitute for a far more ancient and ample provision, of which they had been deprived. Mr. Malthus says that they have "no claim as of right;" the constitution of the country says (and here again I express myself in the words of Paley) that "the poor have the same right to that proportion of a man's property that the laws assign them, that the man himself has to the remain

'Arbp. Tillotson, Sermons, p. 566. 2 Bishop Hurd, Sermons.

der1." That much alteration is requisite in the present code of our poor laws, I freely admit; not with a view to overreach the poor, or to serve ourselves; but with a view to benefit them. A plan to this effect I have long considered, and shall, I hope, be enabled to submit to the public; the effect of which would indeed be a considerable diminution in the charge of their sustentation, though I trust the deserving part of them would be greatly benefited, and the rest not deserted. On this, however, I shall not at present enter, further than to say that the departure from the original principle has been the great error, and its restoration and accommodation to the altered condition of the country the necessary remedy: connected with this, a system of assistances seems necessary and desirable, which would likewise become distinctions to the meritorious, and which, without entailing on the country one farthing of expense, would, by appealing to their best feelings, make our great national charity a mighty lever in raising the moral condition of the poor; instead of being, as it now sometimes is, the means of its depression. But to return :

(9.) If the poor have this right to assistance on the ground of natural justice, policy, and religion, it is no wonder that their systematic relief has been established in so many nations of the world; for it is a great mistake to suppose that such has been confined to this, and one or two other countries. The former reasons were abundantly sufficient to introduce such a system into the free states of antiquity. In Greece, we know such to have been the case. In

1

Paley, Moral and Polit. Philosophy, book iii. ch. 5, p. 162.

Athens, for instance', in Rhodes', in Sparta, in Crete, in Phœacia', in short, throughout the states generally". In ancient Rome, the distributions were carried to the most lavish extent. It does not, however, appear that slaves, then forming so numerous a body, were included in these provisions; the honour of stooping to the lowest degradation of poverty and wretchedness was reserved for that religion, in which Mercy and Truth have met together." Under this religion, the vast endowments for the poor were, perhaps, carried to even a mischievous length; and none can read of their magnitude, and indiscriminate distributions in Spain", in Italy', Naples, and elsewhere,

There was a poor law in Athens." (Mitford, vol. iii. p. 15.) Demosthenes says,- "Instead of depriving the poor of what the state bestows, we ought, if there were not this provision, to find out some other means of supplying their necessities." See the whole of his fourth Philippic. Two oboli, at least, besides other largesses, were daily distributed to the poor, in Demosthenes's time, equal to half a bushel of wheat per week. (Leland's translation, vol. ii. p. 12.) See the beneficial effect of this provision, Isocrates, Orat. Areop. 8vo. Cantab. pp. 290, 291.

"The Rhodians laid it down as a maxim, that every man should work while he was able for his own maintenance, but should be as well maintained when he was no longer so, at the expense of the state. (Strabon. Geog. lib. xiv. p. 357. T. Liv. lib. xlvii.)

In Crete, Aristotle informs us, the poorest citizens were provided for at the expense of the state; in Sparta, however, he says, those partook of a like provision who were capable of bearing a proportion of the expense. (Re Repub. lib. iii.; Dr. Gillies' Translation, b. ii., p. 112.)

4

Homer, Odys. lib. vi.

Demosthenes, Philippic iv. Menander, Serm. 37.
Townsend's Travels in Spain.

'Eustace, Classical Tour through Italy. Baretti, Account of Manners and Customs of Italy, vol. ii. p. 100. Arthur Young, Travels in France. The charitable foundations in the City of Milan alone amount to 3,000,000 livres (£87,500). Population 126,000, (p. 645.) In Florence there are 37 hospitals and alms' houses; one of which has 70,000 crowns yearly revenue. (Ray's Observations, &c., p. 325)

Eustace Classical Tour, &c.