we needed not those volumes of instructions, but might be honest by
an epitome.

This passage of Scripture is, indeed, wonderfully persuasive; but I
think the same thought is carried much further in the New Testament,
where our Saviour tells us, in a most pathetic manner, that he shall
hereafter regard the clothing of the naked, the feeding of the
hungry, and the visiting of the imprisoned, as offices done to
Himself, and reward them accordingly. Pursuant to those passages in
Holy Scripture, I have somewhere met with the epitaph of a
charitable man, which has very much pleased me. I cannot recollect
the words, but the sense of it is to this purpose: What I spent I
lost; what I possessed is left to others; what I gave away remains
with me.

Since I am thus insensibly engaged in Sacred Writ, I cannot forbear
making an extract of several passages which I have always read with
great delight in the book of Job. It is the account which that holy
man gives of his behaviour in the days of his prosperity; and, if
considered only as a human composition, is a finer picture of a
charitable and good-natured man than is to be met with in any other
author.

"Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved
me: When his candle shined upon my head, and when by his light I
walked through darkness: When the Almighty was yet with me; when my
children were about me: When I washed my steps with butter, and the
rock poured me out rivers of oil.

"When the ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me,