While then, my brethren, we have every encouragement to persevere in works of beneficence, though they may be accompanied with labor, and be repaid with human ingratitude, let us be duly thankful that there are other occasions on which we can discharge duty, and at the same time open a source of the purest and noblest gratification. Yes--painful as may be some of those walks of charity which the christian must pursue, and revolting as are some of those objects which he must encounter, we know that there are paths for the benevolent where their footsteps fall pleasantly, and a refreshing fragrance surrounds them, and smiling objects meet them, and satisfactions the most delightful, urge them forward. We can sometimes give, and pleasure shall accompany the act, and unmingled good shall follow it, and gratitude shall reward it, and God himself shall crown it with the brightest wreath. Say I not true when I speak of giving to the destitute orphan? Is not this a deed of unalloyed satisfaction, is it not one upon which the _bountiful eye_ may look to fill the soul with an unrestrained generosity? Here is required no cold calculation of the amount of good to be effected, here is no room for anxious doubt concerning the result of the benevolent act. Asylums for the destitute orphan are among those institutions which even the severe, and in some respects, the cold and selfish principles of Political Economy cannot justly disapprove of. To the truly benevolent, and to the pious christian, they have always been, and must ever be, objects of deep interest. Other charities may be perverted in some degree to evil purposes. Their effect may be to encourage idle and dissolute conduct, and to increase the evil they would remedy, by operating as a bounty upon pauperism. To some extent this has been the effect of alms-houses, and of many of those societies which, with the best intentions, have been administered to adult persons. We acknowledge, indeed, that protection, shelter, and subsistence for the aged and decrepit, who are past the ability to labor for their own daily food, medicine and medical advice, and in cases of absolute poverty, the retreat of the hospital, are real charities, such as suffering humanity requires, and pure benevolence will provide for. But in other cases, it is questionable whether relief can be given without ill effects, except it be accompanied with the opportunity and the necessity for bodily labor. I am not, however, upon the present occasion to discuss the general question of charitable societies. It is one of great importance, and one which we think is not yet generally understood. Much light has recently been thrown upon it, especially in this city, by the active and intelligent exertions and experiments of some of our fellow citizens,--and it should continue to occupy the serious attention of our civil authorities, and of every benevolent and public spirited person.