In dealing with the poor is made
More, than by any other trade;

You know full well, that here I clark it,
And regulate, or tell the market.
Whate'er by you to them is lent
Shall here return in Cent. per Cent.;
For this a bond, already given,
Is long since register'd in heaven.
The rich to poor men may give wealth,
And you to sick men may give health;
Yet, O my friend, of this be sure,
More may be given by the poor.
His prayer, for ever, upward goes,
The bail of joys, the shield from woes.
The poor will pray for your success,
And into cures your med'cines bless.
His blessing therefore be your fee,
That you may heal the rich, and

ME.

148. Whatsoever our pride mixes or interferes with, becomes immediately a matter of consequence with us, occasions violent struggles, and stirs up bitter disputes. Distinction is the chief of these. Who is, or shall be deemed a gentleman, that is, one raised above vulgarity, is a point not less necessary to a large class of minds, than even the enjoyment of a competency; families that are hard put to it for the necessaries of life, put in a claim to this title, and support it by various pretensions, which often have no relation to it, and which, if they had, the claimants are wholly, or almost wholly, destitute of. One must needs be a gentleman, because he hath got a liberal education; another, because his manners are pitched above moral turpitude; another, because he dresses well, and can make a good bow; another, because he is possessed of some employment which supports him above the meanness of manual labour; another, because his exterior address is that of a well-bred man; another, because he affects the reputation of a man of honour, though there is hardly an instance of knavery or baseness, which he is not occasionally prepared for; another, because he hath, somehow or other, acquired riches enough to live independent, as he calls it. Undoubtedly, this last makes the nearest approach to the title; but he must nevertheless give it up, if it is still remembered among his neighbours,

that his fortune was made by a mechanic, by trade, or by base arts, in himself, his father, or his ancestors, if indeed he had any ancestor. The man said sensibly, who going to an auction of portraits, which belonged to a decayed family, and being asked, whither he was moving, and for what, answered, I am going to buy ancestors. The great Lord Burleigh hath ruled the definition of a gentleman, and that, according to the received opinion of mankind, namely, the possession of old riches, handed down through a family from time immemorial. The compliment of this title, therefore, is founded on riches, on antiquity of riches; and it is rightly observed, that the king can make a lord, but not a gentleman. The title then is worldly, and issues from an office long ago held, or riches long ago gathered, and is set and held up by pride alone. In the rank of real gentlemen, as classed by Lord Burleigh, and indeed by the world, there are many, who make a jest of imputed sin and righteousness; and yet found their whole distinction on imputations from progenitors, not patriots, not heroes, but for the greatest part, purse-proud oppressors. These will cavil at the genealogy of Christ, and shew a family-tree of their own, with many a branch lopped off, and as many grafts inserted from great and wealthy families, which you neither know, nor care to distinguish; and so the shewer passes for a gentleman, if not for a prince, and you must make your bow accordingly, at least to the tree, as if inhabited by a goddess, at the time you contemn the scoundrel branch. Every one now-adays, above the condition of a scavenger, is a gentleman, if he can but trace himself to somebody. Nay, the wife and daughter of a grocer shoot up into ladies, before he can get off his apron ; but he drudges on, in hope, that he too shall one day, look a little lordly in a curricle and country-house, which may swell into a coach and country-seat, at least in the days of his son. In the mean time, violently disposed as the men are to swell into an ideal magnitude, the women in hoops outgrow, and outstride them so fast, that the poor husband looks like one of an inferior species to his wife. If old wealth makes the gentleman, how shall we distinguish him who hath no wealth, old or new? Or how long is the unnatural union to last, which is made between poverty and vanity? Not only the mob of mankind, and nice heralds they are, but families, grown rich only ere-yesterday, are careful to keep down the son of a dunghill, who emerged but yesterday. It never went well with religion, since the clergy set

in

up for gentlemen. The haughty title is of this world, and can never suit the character of a Christian, whether lay or clerical, because Christ's kingdom is not of this world. But as Christ took upon him the form of a servant,' was born in a stable, and cradled in a manger, how can the servant of this servant become a gentleman? How can he think of renouncing the kingdom of Christ, and set up for pomp and figure? How can he think of building on church emoluments, given by piety for the purposes of charity, a fastuous or luxurious scheme of life? How can be, as from himself in a sermon, or as from Christ in a psalm or lesson, inculcate humility, if he makes it evident to his people, that, after all, he is but a gentleman, that is, hath taken from this world, or rather from the devil, whom, as even a Christian, he had solemnly renounced, a title, on which he wishes for respect? One should think, that on the footing of common sense only, he ought to aim at a little consistency, and at that sort of respect, which is due to the sacred character he assumes. To set up for more, any sense, than his Divine Master did while here, and to spunge on the faith of his parishioners for the materials of that pride and luxury against which he must declaim in the pulpit, only that he may swagger over the heads of other Christians, hath somewhat in it too preposterous, nay, too base, for the only dignity he values himself upon, that of a gentleman. The son of a king, or a lord, the moment he becomes a clergyman, becomes a servant, as Christ, Son to the King of kings, and Lord of lords did, when he took our nature upon him. It was in this nature, that he, exhibiting a proof of humility, infinitely exceeding all possibility in other men, of equal condescension, said, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' What! a kingdom for the reward of humility! How can a minister of the gospel read this to others, over and over again, and never to himself? He can, it seems, without understanding one tittle of its meaning, for he is still a gentleman. A sorry gentleman indeed! whose income must die with him; and his family, after saucily indulging themselves in figure and luxury, must sink into indigence and contempt. A sorry gentleman, above the duties of his office, unfaithful to his Master, and now exposed to an account, inevitably terminating in everlasting infamy! Too proud to bear such behaviour in his servant, as he hath rendered to his God and master, how shall he stand the trial he is to undergo? Will he plead, he was a gentleman? What! an ungrateful, unfaithful, and trea

cherous gentleman! The very best among us, after doing all he was commanded to do, must acknowledge himself an unprofitable servant,' inasmuch as he never could repay the price which was laid down for his soul. What then will become of him, who set up for a gentleman, and assumed a superiority over the other servants, only because he found means to riot in the fruits of their labour, while he almost wholly neglected his own duty, as if he took his master to be an idiot! If at any time, in obedience to a statute, he piddled at a formal performance, he did it with such a cold indifference to the success, with such a disregard to religion and its Author, and with so much the air of a gentleman about him, that the office proved useless and disgustful in his hands to the plain Christian, who could not forbear comparing his with the behaviour of Christ, when he washed the feet of his disciples. If a poor man uncovered in the rain, had the boldness to speak to him, his answer was like that of a Nabal, who was such a son of Belial, that a man could not speak to him.' This is but a faint picture of a servant turned gentleman. Howsoever other clergymen, and their wives, may think of this matter, I declare it utterly impossible for me ever to have been a gentleman. My father had ten children, and so scauty means for their support, that, had it been left to one only, it could have but barely raised him above indigence. And now, that I am undeservedly beneficed, it never enters in my head to consider myself in any other light, but that of a parish-charge; and now and then, in a hard year, as an illiberal treasurer of my parishioner's money for the relief of their poor. Lord, pity me, an unworthy servant; but had I been a gentleman, I should probably have been still more so. Was Peter, John, or Nathaniel, gentlemen? Or did any one ever hear of a gentleman going to be hanged for our religion? At least, if any one did, was he called a gentleman by the attending mob, those best judges and adorers of gentlemen? I shall readily own, there is a species of ambition, or call it pride if you please, which is so far from being culpable, that the Spirit of God applies to it, as an instrument within us of the noblest virtues, namely, the promise of 'eternal life to them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory, honour, and immortality.' Here it is, that the true clergyman, laying his low foundation in humility, and working like a real labourer in Christ's vineyard, by bringing down the contumacious, by comforting the disconsolate, by instructing the ignorant; now by the terrors of the Lord persuading men,' and

then again by his promises animating them in their pilgrimage to a better life; and in all these by his charities, temporal and spiritual, as by so many miracles, wrought in the face of a selfish and hardened world, proves his mission from the fountain of all good. Here he soars far above the character of a gentleman, treads on his own and the pride of others, and rises so high above this world that its paltry gentlemen, nay, its lords and kings, had they the right sort of eyes, might, from their vale of misery, see his crown sparkling with stars, and a higher order of beings crowding round him, who, though encompassed with flesh and blood, hath fought the good fight of faith,' and is soon to hear the triumphant approbation of his master, 'Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.' Now, what can the herald or the mob give, that does not become despicable in comparison with this? Why then should a parson stupidly wish to be a gentleman? But even in the present state of things, and far as mankind have degenerated into an admiration of worldly greatness, I will venture to say, that the character of a clergyman, well and uniformly supported, will not fail to attract from all around him a present degree of honour, far exceeding that of all the titles in this world. In a state of so base and so general an inattention to the duties of our function, and that so evidently arising from the pride we take in the worldly emoluments wherewith it is endowed, a conscientious clergyman, with but half the exertion required of him, might appear like a saint, at least of the second magnitude, in the first century of Christianity. A very moderate degree of goodness in himself, and of fidelity in the discharge of his duty, would, by its rarity, raise a clergyman, in these degenerate days, to credit and honour, above those of nobility itself, I mean in the esteem of all who have any right to establish the characters of others. This is an equally shameful and melancholy reflection. But I appeal for the truth of it to the few who have made the experiment. As to the censure and report of mankind in general, it will ever be of a piece with that which our blessed Saviour found it in the midst of his speaking, 'as never man spoke,' and doing as never man could do. Hear him on the subject of humility. He that humbleth himself shall be exalted; and he that exalteth himself shall be abased. If I your lord and master have washed your feet, ye ought to wash one another's feet.' The least among you shall be the greatest, and the greatest least. He understands little or nothing of the work