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/363

 them hither, rather to waste health than to repair it, cannot surely be so intent upon the constant succession of amusements which vanity and affluence have provided, as not sometimes to turn their thoughts upon those whom poverty and ignorance have cut off from enjoyment, and consigned a prey to wickedness, to misery, and to want. If their amusements afford them the satisfaction which the eager repetition of them seems to declare they must certainly pity those who live in sight of so much happiness, which they can only view from a distance, but can never reach; and those whom they pity, they cannot surely hear the promises made to charity without endeavouring to relieve. But if, as the wisest among the votaries of pleasure have confessed, they feel themselves unsatisfied and deluded; if, as they own, their ardour is kept up by dissimulation, and they lay aside their appearance of felicity, when they retire from the eyes of those among whom they desire to propagate the deceit; if they feel that they have wasted life without possessing it; and know that they shall rise to-morrow to chase an empty good which they have often grasped at, but could never hold; they may surely spare something for the purchase of solid satisfaction, and cut off part of that expense by which nothing is procured, for the sake of giving to others those necessaries which the common wants of our being demand, and by the distribution of which they may lay up some treasures of happiness against that day which is stealing upon them, the day of age, of sickness, and of death, in which they shall be able to reflect with pleasure on no other part of their time past here, but that which was spent in the duties of charity. But, if these shall harden their dispositions, if these shall withhold their hands, let them not amuse themselves with the general excuses, or dream that any plea of inability will be accepted from those who squander wealth upon trifles, and trust sums that might relieve the wants of multitudes, to the skill of play, and the uncertainties of chance.

To those to whom languishment and sickness have