Page:The Works of Samuel Johnson ... A journey to the Hebrides. The vision of Theodore, the hermit of Teneriffe. The fountains. Prayers and meditations. Sermons.v. 10-11. Parliamentary debates.pdf/358

 place them above the reach of the spoiler, and exempt them from accident and danger; can purchase to himself that satisfaction which no power on earth can take away; and make them the means of happiness, when they are no longer in his hands. He may procure, by this means of his wealth, what he will find to be obtained by no other method of applying it, an alleviation of the sorrows of age, of the pains of sickness, and of the agonies of death.

To enforce the duty of charity, it is so far from being necessary to produce any arguments drawn from a narrow view of our condition, a view restrained to this world, that the chief reason for which it is to be practised is the shortness and uncertainty of life. To a man who considers for what purpose he was created, and why he was placed in his present state, how short a time, at most, is allotted to his earthly duration, and how much of that time may be cut off; how can any thing give real satisfaction that terminates in this life? How can he imagine that any acquisition can deserve his labour, which has no tendency to the perfection of his mind? Or how can any enjoyment engage his desires, but that of a pure conscience, and reasonable expectations of a more happy and permanent existence? Whatever superiority may distinguish us, and whatever plenty may surround us, we know that they can be possessed but a short time, and that the manner in which we employ them must determine our eternal state; and what need can there be of any other argument for the use of them, agreeable to the command of him that bestowed them? What stronger incitement can any man require to a due consideration of the poor and needy, than that the Lord will deliver him in the day of trouble; in that day when the shadow of death shall compass him about, and all the vanities of the world shall fade away, when all the comforts of this life shall forsake him, when pleasure shall no longer delight, nor power protect him? In that dreadful hour, shall the man, whose care has been extended to the general happiness of mankind, whose charity has rescued sickness from the grave, and poverty