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    oar path hedged up by moral restraints to keep us from the regions of vice and danger ; and have they no claim for our cautions , our directions , our righteous influence ? Have we that gospel which was to be preached to every creature ; and shall we not even send it to those who perish at our very doors ? We anticipate judgment , immortality , heaven : that is , we

    anticipate , and we must make it truth , that Christ , both judge and brother of mankind , shall say , " Forasmuch as ye did it unto these , ye did it unto me . " We hope for the final restoration of all to holiness and happiness ; have not those within the reach of our influence a claim upon us that we minister to their restoration now f

    This mission is in the very spirit of the gospel . In the text , Christ rebukes Judas for his hypocritical pretence ^ of charity , when he was not caring for the poor , but wishing to appropriate the cost at which a penitent shewed her gratitude . It has been unreasonably extended into an assertion of the necessary perpetuity of a state of poverty on the earth .

    Were it so , I should say the next sentence assigns the cause . If we have the poor ( the moral and physical evils of poverty ) always with us , it is because we have not Christ always-with us , in the spirit and power of his religion . In proportion as the one is present , the other retires . Let him but be with us , in the influence of Christian principle on individual mind and social institution , and the poor cease to be with us , the present

    unmitigated wretchedness of poverty is annihilated . The rich and the poor will approximate in the common brotherhood of humanity . Much has already been done , but much remains to be done , for the full accomplishment of his mission . It devolves upon his followers from age to age to do their part in carrying on the great work , and blessing man on earth while they

    prepare him for heaven . You will do yours on this occasion , by your contributions to the collection which will be made at the doors , for the purpose of so enlarging the funds of the Unitarian Association as that its Committee may forthwith commence the trial of this wise and beneficent plan . You will thus enable them to send forth men whose office shall be more

    like that of the apostles and evangelists than can possibly be that of a stated ministry in the present condition of society in this country . Their work will bear an humble but honourable resemblance to that of their great Master . ** The spirit of the Lord is upon me , because he hath anointed me to preach glad-tidings to the poor : he hath sent me to heal the

    brokenhearted , to preach deliverance to the captives , and recovering of sight to the blind , to set at liberty them that are bruised , to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord / ' And soon may your well-timed liberality \> e nobly recompensed by results of usefulness and blessedness , the narrative of which shall make you , with no unworthy accommodation of the words , devoutly exclaim , " This day is this scripture fulfilled in our ears !"

    Untitled Article

    804 The Claims of the Poor on the Followers of Christ .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1831, page 804, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2604/page/8/