SERMON V. ISAIAH XXXIV. VERSE III. The mountains are melted with their blood. WITH the pleasure which I always feel in addressing you on any subject of charity, may be mingled perhaps, on this particular occasion, some distant sense of national honour, and some small share of national pride; for it has ever been the memorable privilege of this island, to stand forward as the early, and eager champion of all the miseries of man; and though other nations may have fought, and may have gained in arms, and in arts, a name equally glorious with our own, none have ever cherished the 1 wretched stranger as we have done; none have so sheltered the weary exile of other lands; none have ministered, with such melting humanity, to aliens in speech, and blood, who kneeled before us venerable in misery, and pleaded the kindred of misfortune: For when did any people ever fall from their high estate, and there was no one of us to lament them? When was any country ever smitten, and afflicted, and we did not lift them up from the dust? What victims of war, of tyranny, and persecution, have we ever driven back from our shores ? What species of sorrow have we rejected? What shape of misery have we despised? It is pleasant to hear of the virtues of our country; the good deeds our fathers have done, warm our hearts to mercy; their generation is past away, and they are all sleeping in their tombs: but as their blood gives us life, so may their noble thoughts yet dwell in the bosoms of their children. When the poor Palatines presented themselves at the gates of the metropolis, every British heart was roused to a pitch of enthusiasm for their relief: It could not be endured, that a sad, and motley crowd of men, and women, should lie on the bare ground, under the open wintry heaven, begging humbly, and piteously for food; they drank of our cup: they were warmed with the fleece of our sheep; the tears of these poor creatures were dried up, and their hearts opened to new prospects of joy. Not less conspicuous was the charity of this island, at that dreadful epoch when the city of Lisbon was overturned by an earthquake, and one dreadful day made of a beautiful metropolis a heap of hideous ruins. It was from the quick, and efficacious bounty of the British people, that they experienced the first dawn of relief; the blessings of all ranks of people were showered upon us: King, and peasant, were melted by our compassion; and wretched mothers, that lingered weeping over the stones of the city, which covered the mangled bodies of their children, could spare one prayer to Heaven for their benefactors, and their friends. * Why should I remind you of the late unparalleled instance of goodness, and generosity, shown to the poor French emigrants; a generosity which want, and privation of every kind, has not been able to relax, or to extinguish. In the midst of a bloody war, carried on by their own countrymen for our destruction, we have expended millions in support of the French who have sought an asylum amongst us; and while the blood of our brothers, and our friends, has been flowing from the swords of their kindred, they have lived tranquilly amongst us, in the peace of our laws, and the plenty of our land. Induced, by these splendid examples of national feeling, the poor people of Switzerland come tremblingly before you, to beg some small relief in their wretchedness: They come to you, not with the looks of freemen, but in tears, and in chains, naked, hungered, and broken-hearted: The vallies |