STUDY XIIÏ. 103 



Wrings my heart. I do not reckon my obligation 

 to them acquitted, when I have paid them a pecu- 

 niary confideration for their fervices. It is a maxim 

 of the hard-hearted rich man, " that artifan and 

 *' I are quit," fays he, ** I have paid him." The 

 money which I give to a poor fellow for a fervice 

 which he has rendered me, creates nothing new 

 for his ufe; that money would equally circu- 

 late, and perhaps more advantageoufly for him, 

 had I never exifled. The people fupports, there- 

 fore, without any return on my part, the weight of 

 my exiftence : it is ftill much worfe when they are 

 loaded with the additional burthen of my irregu- 

 larities. To them I ftand accountable for my vices 

 and my virtues, more than to the magiflrate. If 

 I deprive a poor workman of part of his fubfift- 

 ence, I force him, in order to make up the defi- 

 ciency, to become a beggar or a thief; if I feduce 

 a plebeian young woman, I rob that order of a 

 virtuous matron ; if I manifefb, in their eyes, a 

 difregard to Religion, I enfeeble the hope which 

 fuftains them under the preffure of their labours. 

 Befides, Religion lays me under an exprefs injunc- 

 tion to love them. When (he commands me to 

 love men, it is the People (he recommends to me, 

 and not the Great ; to them fhe attaches all the 

 powers of Society, which exift only by them, and 

 for them. Of a far different fpirit from that of 

 modern politics, which prefent Nations to Kings 



H 4 as 



