I have not Peru in my desires,
but a competence and ability to perform those good
works to which he hath inclined my nature. He is
rich who hath enough to be charitable; and it is hard
to be so poor that a noble mind may not find a way to
this piece of goodness. "He that giveth to the poor
lendeth to the Lord:" there is more rhetorick in that
one sentence than in a library of sermons. And indeed,
if those sentences were understood by the reader with
the same emphasis as they are delivered by the author,
we needed not those volumes of instructions, but might
be honest by an epitome. Upon this motive only I
cannot behold a beggar without relieving his necessities
with my purse, or his soul with my prayers. These
scenical and accidental differences between us cannot
make me forget that common and untoucht part of us
both: there is under these centoes<101> and miserable
outsides, those mutilate and semi bodies, a soul of the
same alloy with our own, whose genealogy is God's as
well as ours, and in as fair a way to salvation as our-
selves.
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