 unhappy; the sick, the naked, the houseless, the heavy-laden, and
the prisoner, have ever most frequent promises in our sacred law. The author of
our religion every where professes himself the wretch's friend, and unlike the
false ones of this world, bestows all his caresses upon the forlorn. The
unthinking have censured this as partiality, as a preference without merit to
deserve it. But they never reflect that it is not in the power even of heaven
itself to make the offer of unceasing felicity as great a gift to the happy as
to the miserable. To the first eternity is but a single blessing, since at most
it but encreases what they already possess. To the latter it is a double
advantage; for it diminishes their pain here, and rewards them with heavenly
bliss hereafter.
    But providence is in another respect kinder to the poor than the rich; for
as it thus makes the life after death more desirable, so it smooths the passage
there. The wretched have had a long familiarity with every face of terror. The
man of sorrow lays himself quietly down, without possessions to regret, and but
few ties to stop his departure: he feels only nature's pang in the final
separation, and this is no way greater than he has often fainted under before;
for after a certain degree of pain, every new breach that death opens in the
constitution, nature kindly covers with insensibility.
    Thus providence has given the wretched two advantages over the happy in this
life, greater felicity in dying, and in heaven all that superiority of pleasure
which arises from contrasted enjoyment. And this superiority, my friends, is no
small advantage, and seems to be one of the pleasures of the poor man in the
parable; for though he was already in heaven, and felt all the raptures it could
give, yet it was mentioned as an addition to his happiness, that he had once
been wretched and now was comforted, that he had known what it was to be
miserable, and now felt what it was to be happy.
    Thus, my friends, you see religion does what philosophy could never do: it
shews the equal dealings of heaven to the happy and the unhappy, and levels all
human enjoyments to nearly the same standard. It gives to both rich and poor the
same happiness hereafter, and equal hopes to aspire after it; but if the rich
have the advantage of enjoying pleasure here, the poor have the endless
satisfaction of knowing what it was once to be miserable, when crowned with
endless felicity hereafter; and even though this should be
