STUDY XIII. 



203 



puloufnefs of confcience, melancholy, chagrin, and 

 {o many other diftempers which prey upon the 

 foul. Befides, how many circumftances change, 

 to every particular auditor, the nature of the pain 

 which he endures, and render totally ufelefs to 

 him all the parade of a trim harangue. It is no 

 eafy matter to find out, in a foul wounded, and 

 opprefTed with timidity, the precife point of it's 

 grief, and to apply the balm and the hand of the 

 good Samaritan to the fore. This is an art known 

 only to minds endowed with fenfibility, who have 

 themfelves fufFered feverely, and which is not al- 

 ways the attainment of thofe who are virtuous only. 



The people feel the want of this confolation ; 

 and finding no man to whom they can make ap- 

 plication for it, they addrefs themfelves to ftones. 

 I have fometimes read, with an aching heart, in 

 our churches, billets affixed by the wretched, to 

 the corner of a pillar, in fome obfcure chapel. 

 They reprefented the cafes of unhappy women 

 abufed by their hufbands ; of young people la- 

 bouring under embarraffment : they folicited not 

 the money of the compaffionate, but their prayers. 

 They were upon the point of finking into defpair. 

 Their miferies were inconceivable. Ah ! if men 

 who have themfelves been acquainted with grief, 

 of all conditions, would unite in prefenting to the 

 fons and daughters of afilidtion, their experience 



and 



