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Mr. Rodman, in his report to the ministers, said --

"It was announced by the Saviour of the world that his coming to our earth was to seek and to save the lost. He made repeated allusions to the condition of poverty, drawing some of his most thrilling illustrations from it; as of the poor woman and her offerings in the temple; as of the beggar named Lazarus; as of the impotent man at the pool Bethesda; as of the occupants of the hedges and stragglers by the highway sides; as of the sick and suffering in prison. And his own history teaches that he identified himself when here with the poor as a class, never seeking to be known as or called one of the great, noble, rich. His Gospel is an annunciation of mercy to the poor in spirit, and is a word of salvation for the rearing, elevating, ennobling, and blessing the poor and miserable beings of our world. It is for salvation to the ends of the earth -- no more happily- beneficial for me than for my children -- for me than for my servants. ' To the poor the Gospel is preached.'

Here then is the universal Christian platform. Society in all parts of the world now needs, and society in every past age has been in want of it, to act aright. As men have swerved, and as they now do swerve from it, they fall off into error.

We must receive it as our platform, or suffer the evil consequences ourselves.

It is one of the striking characteristics of the Saviour that while he was on the earth he went about doing good, healing all manner of sicknesses and diseases among the people, and carrying consolatory messages to the poor; but in our day it is too far characteristic of us that we go about on our own business, seldom visiting the prisons, penitentiaries, hospitals and poor-houses, condoling with the wretched in them, drawing out words of true consolation from the Gospel of Christ, while we assiduously regard and court the favor of the rich and titled. Conformed ourselves in all the ways of fashion and modes of life, to the gay and thoughtless and busy ones by whom we are surrounded, we forget, and if not forgetting it, fail to exemplify the self-denial of the Son of God -- making ourselves even objects of envy and hopeless aspiration to the poor ones by the way-side, in the hedges, at the pools, in hospitals, alms-houses, and prisons! Can this be right?

The Gospel has produced very great elevation of the human family where it has been and is now preached. Its refining touch has put away or weakened the superstition, cannibalism, paganism of the world, and it has done a great work in liberating the human mind from all error of doctrine and practice, from falsehood, bigotry, degradation, evil and corrupt habits.

But it has not yet, by any means, made man perfect. It has not yet reproduced the scenes and innocence of Paradise. The present attainment is full of error, if not in theory -- in practice. Nominal Christian people live in the constant exercises of pride, self-love, vanity, pleasure, worldliness, etc., in some one or many of their forms. There are few -- very few -- if any, who are true in all things, meek, patient, forgiving, benevolent, as was the Son of God, as know they in their own consciences, they should be.

At the present time, society acknowledges the Gospel idea of benevolence towards the poor, and there are laws that bind us to the performance of this duty. We have our hospitals, our alms houses, homes of refuge, poor houses, etc. But private charity comes in to the aid of the unfortunate, in many cases, or the relief of the State would often be so indiscriminating that the evil and the good mingled together, would seethe into a measure of corruption.

The public provision for the support of paupers, on which matter I chiefly speak, is, a provision to supply all the actually poor people of each town in a State with necessary and suitable temporal relief, it being ascertained that there was a positive certainty of a class of citizens without friends to help them, without health, without thrift, without strength -- a needy, but not strictly criminal class -- a fallen, impoverished class, in danger of starving and of previous great suffering, to the reproach of the State unless provided for.

From a very early period, therefore, here has existed a State law securing the poor the benefit of town support.

The number of actual paupers in a town, who have no property in their own right, is generally conceded as from five to eight for every one thousand inhabitants. The number is probably much greater than this in the large cities, many of whom are destitute foreigners -- often the pauperage of Europe sent here to save their support at home.

In our own country towns, these paupers are the wrecks of society among us, representatives of ourselves; they are what we may become. A town pauper is one (any one) whose residence in any town is such as to give him a settlement there; who cannot support himself, and needs and receives relief from the selectmen of the town or overseers; although it does not follow that he must always remain a pauper.