Blair Collection > Practical grammar of the antient Gaelic, or, Language of the Isle of Man, usually called Manks

A SERMON.*
For the poor shall never cease out of the land ; therefore, I com-
mand thee, saying, Thou shaltopenthinehand wide unto thy brother ^
to thy poor, and to thy needy in thy land. — Deut. xv. 11.
TO the superficial observer of the Divine lawSj it may appear
unaccountable that the Almighty, in His intended partition
of the land of Canaan among the twelve tribes of Israel, should
not have adjusted the portion of each individual, and guarded
against the alienation and abuse of property in such a manner
as to have precluded the necessity of appealing to the humanity
of man to remedy and supply the inadequacy of the benevolence
of God ; but that, at the instant He was introducing them to a
good land — " a land flowing with milk and honey,"t He should
pronounce the severe sentence, that " the poor should never cease
out of the land."
A small degree of attention to the dispensations of God and
the nature of man, will remove this difficulty. To produce a
perfect state, or perfect men, was not in the contemplation of the
Deity. His laws under the Jewish economy were for the most
part general ; they placed before the children of Israel blessing
and cursing, good and evil ; they restrained not absolutely the
human will, but in every instance left man a moral agent. It
[• The above is the sermon referred to in the Biography, page xx.] f Exodus iii. 8,