for us! Ye patient poor who thus unrepiningly have seen us supported! Blest be your kingdom! Long live your virtuous sovereign? Be heavenly peace your portion! and never may ye know the sorrows of national divisions!"

Yet, to many it may appear, that where so much has been done, nothing more can be required. This is rather a mistake from failure in reflexion than in benevolence. To such, it is sufficient to ask, "Why gave ye at all?"

The answer is obvious; to save a distressed herd of fellow-creatures from want.

And are they less worth saving now, their helplessness, unhappily, being the same? Was the novelty of their appearance and situation a plea more forcible than acquaintance with their merits? than the view of their harmless lives, their inoffensive manners, their patient resignation to the evils of their lot?

But—are we to give, ye cry, for ever?

Ah! rather, and for more generously, reverse the question, and, in their names exclaim, "Must we receive for ever? will the epoch never arrive when our injuries may be redressed, and our sufferings allowed the soft recompence of manifesting our gratitude?"

O happy donors! compare but thus your subjects for murmuring with the feelings of your receivers! and do not, because ye see them, bowed down by adversity, thus lowly grateful for the pittance that grants them bread and covering, imagine them so unlike the human race to which they belong, that sometimes, in bitterness of spirit, they can forbear the piercing recollection of better days; days, when beneficence flourished from their own deeds, when anguish and poverty were relieved by their own hands!

Still a little nearer let us bring reflexion home, and entreat those who having done much, would do no more, to suppose themselves, for a moment only, placed in l'Eglise des Carmes, in Paris, on the 2d of September, 1792, in full sight of the hapless assemblage of this pious fraternity, who there sought sanctuary—not for the crimes they had committed, but for the duty they had discharged to their consciences, not from just punishment of guilt, but from fury against innocence.

Here, then, behold these venerable men, collected in a body, enclosed within walls dedicated to holy offices, bewailing the flagitious actions of their country-men, yet devout, composed, earnest in prayer, and incorruptible in purity.

Now, then, in mental retrospection, witness the unheard-of massacre that ensued! Behold the ruffians that invade the sacred abode, each bearing in his hand some exterminating weapon; in his eye, a more than fiend-like ferocity. Can it be you they seek, ye men of peace? unarmed, defenceless, and sanctuarised within the precincts of your own religious functions!——Incredible!—

Alas, no!—behold them reviled—chaced—assaulted. They demand their offence? They are answered by staves and pikes. They fly to the altar—to that altar where, so lately, salvation seemed to hang upon their benediction.—

Here, at least, are they not safe? At this sanctified spot will not some reverence revive? some devotion rekindle? Will not the fell instruments of destruction fall guiltless from the shaking hands of their contrite pursuers? Will not remorse seize their inmost souls, and vibrate through the hallowed habitation, in one universal cry of, "O men of God! live yet—so forgive—and pray for us!"—Ah, deadly shame! indelible disgrace! not here, not even here, could compunction or humanity find a friend—

"Would not those white hairs move pity?"—

No!—the murderers dart after them: the pious suppliants kneel—but they rise no more! They pray—and their prayers ascend to heaven,