and at the end of his walk has given a shilling, which in his
ordinary methods of expense would have gone for coach-hire, to the
first necessitous person that has fallen in his way. I have known
him, when he has been going to a play or an opera, divert the money
which was designed for that purpose upon an object of charity whom
he has met with in the street; and afterwards pass his evening in a
coffee-house, or at a friend's fireside, with much greater
satisfaction to himself than he could have received from the most
exquisite entertainments of the theatre. By these means he is
generous without impoverishing himself, and enjoys his estate by
making it the property of others.

There are few men so cramped in their private affairs, who may not
be charitable after this manner, without any disadvantage to
themselves, or prejudice to their families. It is but sometimes
sacrificing a diversion or convenience to the poor, and turning the
usual course of our expenses into a better channel. This is, I
think, not only the most prudent and convenient, but the most
meritorious piece of charity which we can put in practice. By this
method, we in some measure share the necessities of the poor at the
same time that we relieve them, and make ourselves not only their
patrons, but their fellow-sufferers.

Sir Thomas Brown, in the last part of his "Religio Medici," in which
he describes his charity in several heroic instances, and with a
noble heat of sentiments, mentions that verse in the Proverbs of
Solomon: "He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord." There
is more rhetoric in that one sentence, says he, than in a library of
sermons; and indeed, if those sentences were understood by the
reader with the same emphasis as they are delivered by the author,