Some one affirms it to be as probable for an empty sack to stand upright, as for a needy man to be honest. The simile is ingenious and plausible, but as uncharitable. The weakness I have just acknowledged is undoubtedly attributable to my circumstances, though I trust I am still beyond the reach of the graver imputation. But I should be ambitious of proving more than this--the utter extravagance of such a theory; for it is a cruel one, and has caused both mischief and misery. How many otherwise inoffensive persons have I known implicitly to adopt an opinion to the prejudice of their less fortunate acquaintance, merely from their deficiency of the world's wealth! But, not content with this, these persons, who are the very people to esteem poverty as the worst of ills, not satiated with his destitution, must do their utmost to sink him still lower by their treatment of him; little suspecting, too, I should hope, that the most probable means of enticing a man to become a villain, is to convince him that the world deems him to be such. I have known more than one victim to this treatment, for all are not gifted with independency of mind sufficient to defy it. Owing to an insurmountable detestation of my profession, I spent but a few days of the week in my parish. It was not that I was careless, and indifferent for the welfare of my parishioners; for, in spite of myself, I could not but like them. Beyond doubt, it is imperative on a clergyman ever to be in the heart of his parish, employed in bestowing, spiritually and corporally, such assistance as it may fall to his share to be able to bestow. As to relieving their distresses arising from poverty, my finances were much too limited to be of any avail. With regard to those who were suffering on a sick bed, with but slender hopes of recovery, my powers of consolation were even more meagre. I have said that my opinions widely differed from those supposed to be entertained by a Protestant clergyman, and particularly so on the efficacy of a death-bed repentance. Could it then be expected that I was thus to smear myself over with hypocrisy, and to a poor broken-spirited fellow-creature, looking imploringly for religious aid and comfort, utter to his confiding ears such doctrines as, at that time, I unhappily and foolishly thought to be no more "than sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal?" This, then, was not to be thought of or endured; and, therefore, sooner than remain inactive among my people, I was ever, as much as possible, studiously at a distance. Still it could not but annoy me, should my presence have been required on any emergency, while absent; and this, thanks to my fortune, never occurred, though I had many narrow escapes of it.