The spirit of charity, so essential in its exact interpretation, may be applied to the regard and delicate attention that different degrees of talents, render necessary: society, under this relation, has also its rich and poor; and we know the extent of charity and the secrets of our moral nature, when we practice that general benevolence, which preserves others from feeling a painful sentiment of inferiority, and which makes it a duty to respect the veil, that a beneficent hand has designedly placed between the light of truth and those imperfections which we cannot entirely correct. It is always about the generality of men that the author of christianity seems to be interested; the gospel takes cognizance of their private sentiments, condemning pride, and recommending modesty; and it applies itself to level those distances which appear to us so important, when we only view the little points of gradation which compose our scale of vanity. Religion enables us to discern that haughtiness and contempt, only display our ignorance and folly: _what hast thou, that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory?_—What is the pride that does not melt away before these awful words? Religion seems ever to tend towards the same end, and by continually reminding us of the brevity of life, to prevent strong illusions from engrossing our thoughts. The greater part of ancient moral instructions were in general addressed, either to man considered as an individual occupied with the care of his destiny, or to the citizen connected by his duties to his country, and none of them had sufficient extent: it is necessary, when giving counsel to a solitary individual, only to try to free him from those passions which would destroy his repose and happiness; and the obligations that are imposed on the different members of a political state, necessarily participate of a jealous spirit, which the will of the government may turn into hatred. The Christian religion, more universal in its views, turns its attention from the contrariety of interests which divide men when they belong to different governments; it considers us indistinctly as citizens of a great society, united by the same origin, nature, and dependencies, and by the same sentiment of happiness. Recommending the reciprocal duties of benevolence, the gospel does not make any difference between the inhabitant of Jerusalem and Samaria; it takes man in the most simple of his relations, and the most honourable, those which arise from his intercourse with the Supreme Being; and under this point of view, all the hostile divisions of kingdom against kingdom, absolutely disappear; it is the whole human race which has a right to the protection and the beneficence of the Author of Nature, and it is in the name of every intelligent being that we credit the alliance which unites heaven to earth.