Eu. Let us learn of St. Paul, both how to abound, and how to suffer Want.  When we want, let us praise God, that he has afforded us Matter to exercise our Frugality and Patience upon:  When we abound, let us be thankful for his Munificence, who by his Liberality, invites and provokes us to love him; and using those Things the divine Bounty has plentifully bestowed upon us, with Moderation and Temperance; let us be mindful of the Poor, whom God has been pleas’d to suffer to want what he has made abound to us, that neither Side may want an Occasion of exercising Virtue:  For he bestows upon us sufficient for the Relief of our Brother’s Necessity, that we may obtain his Mercy, and that the Poor on the other Hand, being refresh’d by our Liberality, may give him Thanks for putting it into our Hearts, and recommend us to him in their Prayers; and, very well remember’d!  Come hither, Boy; bid my Wife send Gudula some of the roast Meat that’s left, ’tis a very good poor Woman in the Neighbourhood big with Child, her Husband is lately dead, a profuse, lazy Fellow, that has left nothing but a Stock of Children.

Ti. Christ has commanded to give to every one that asks; but if I should do so, I should go a begging myself in a Month’s Time.

Eu. I suppose Christ means only such as ask for Necessaries:  For to them who ask, nay, who importune, or rather extort great Sums from People to furnish voluptuous Entertainments, or, which is worse, to feed Luxury and Lust, it is Charity to deny; nay, it is a Kind of Rapine to bestow that which we owe to the present Necessity of our Neighbours, upon those that will abuse it; upon this Consideration it is, that it seems to me, that they can scarcely be excus’d from being guilty of a mortal Sin, who at a prodigious Expence, either build or beautify Monasteries or Churches, when in the mean Time so many living Temples of Christ are ready to starve for Want of Food and Clothing, and are sadly afflicted with the Want of other Necessaries.  When I was in England, I saw St. Thomas’s, Tomb all over bedeck’d with a vast Number of Jewels of an immense Price, besides other rich Furniture, even to Admiration; I had rather that these Superfluities should be apply’d to charitable Uses, than to be reserv’d for Princes, that shall one Time or other make a Booty of them.  The holy Man, I am confident, would have been better pleas’d, to have his Tomb adorn’d with Leaves and Flowers.  When I was in Lombardy, I saw a Cloyster of the Carthusians, not far from Pavia; the Chapel is built from Top to Bottom, within and without, of white Marble, and almost all that is in it, as Altars, Pillars, and Tombs, are all Marble.  To what Purpose was it to be at such a vast Expence upon a Marble Temple, for a few solitary Monks to sing in?  And ’tis more Burthen to them than Use too, for they are perpetually troubled with Strangers, that come thither, only out of mere