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OF RICHES.
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and prisons, the sick and afflicted members of our Lord's body. "If we converse in hospitals and almshouses, and minister with our own hand what our heart hath first decreed, we shall find our hearts endeared and made familiar with the needs and with the persons of the poor, those excellent images of Christ." And assuredly there is no one who habitually practises this duty, without finding in it its own reward. He will find "the poor rich in faith," living from day to day, without store of this world's goods, on what may seem the casual chance of obtaining employment, not knowing literally how the necessities of the next week are to be supplied, nay sometimes almost finishing their last loaf, and not able to tell whence the next is to come; and yet with all this, calm and contented, happy and cheerful, knowing that theirs is an inexhaustible store, even the store of His possessions whose are all things in heaven and in earth and under the earth; living upon His promise, which they trust, because He has spoken it, and because they have long ago by experience proved its truth, and know that all needful things have ever been added unto them, and are confident that they ever will. Such is the faith of many a widow and orphan among the poor. And where else is it to be found? Even among those who trace all their worldly comforts to God's bountiful hand, and acknowledge them continually as His gift, is not the gift too often the object of