A tenth part of the produce of the land was set apart for the maintenance of the clergy, and the support of the destitute. Charity, when resulting from the unaided impulses of humanity, has no permanence. Bestowed merely to relieve ourselves from the painful sight of misery, the virtue blesses neither the giver nor the receiver. But proceeding from the love of God, it is steady and uniform in its operation, not wayward, not lukewarm, not affected by starts and fancies, and ministering to more than the bodily wants of those who are in need. Paupers, such as we now see, then rarely existed. Bad as it was, the system of slavery had given a house and a home to the great mass of the lowest orders. And the laws, which placed the middling classes under the protection, and at the same time under the control of the more powerful, prevented all such as really belonged to society, from experiencing any severe privations in those years when the people were not visited by any particular misfortunes. But mankind were then subjected to many calamities, which have been moderated in our times. If crops failed, and the earth did not bring forth her fruit, vessels arrived not from distant parts, laden with corn. Hunger wasted the land. Sickness and pestilence followed, and thinned the remnant who had been left. Families were broken up, and the survivors became helpless outcasts; for the people of each country raised only as much grain as was sufficient for their own use, and could not supply their neighbours. War often produced still greater miseries. In all these distresses, the spirit of Christianity constantly urged those who were influenced by this enduring spring of action, to exert themselves in affording relief;--to clothe the naked and feed the hungry,--to visit the sick--and bury the corpses of the departed.