To that subterraneous idol, and god of the
earth, I do confess I am an atheist. I cannot persuade
myself to honour that the world adores; whatsoever
virtue its prepared substance may have within my
body, it hath no influence nor operation without. I
would not entertain a base design, or an action that
should call me villain, for the Indies; and for this only
do I love and honour my own soul, and have methinks
two arms too few to embrace myself. Aristotle is too
severe, that will not allow us to be truly liberal with-
out wealth, and the bountiful hand of fortune; if this
be true, I must confess I am charitable only in my
liberal intentions, and bountiful well wishes. But if
the example of the mite be not only an act of wonder,
but an example of the noblest charity, surely poor men
may also build hospitals, and the rich alone have not
erected cathedrals. I have a private method which
others observe not; I take the opportunity of myself
to do good; I borrow occasion of charity from my own
necessities, and supply the wants of others, when I am
in most need myself: for it is an honest stratagem to
take advantage of ourselves, and so to husband the acts
of virtue, that, where they are defective in one circum-
stance, they may repay their want, and multiply their
goodness in another.
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