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RESULTS OF ADOPTING THIS PRINCIPLE.

need is reproachfully plain, remain undone, because the church of God is not sufficiently self-denying to give the means. It is easy to sympathize with missions; to applaud earnest speeches, and kindle with lively hymns. It is easy to feel a generous glow while we sing, in the words of Heber

"Waft, waft, ye wind, the story,

And you, ye waters, roll,

Till, like a sea of glory,

It spreads from pole to pole!"

But listen! the winds are sweeping, and have been sweeping from the beginning, over the peaks of the Himalaya and on the shores of Lake Tsad. Now it is the rustle of the breeze, now the shock of the tempest; but listen! Does either sound on the ear of the Heathen the name "JESUS ?" The waves are rolling, and from the beginning have been rolling, on the shores of Fijii and of Japan; but does either the gentle ripple, or the boom of the mighty wave, sound the word, "Mercy?"

No; if the story is to be told, it must be told by the voice of living men. And whence are the means to come, to send forth messengers to tell the tidings of grace "to every creature?" Dr. Morgan has said that some such change as was effected in science by the discovery of gravitation, or in mechanics by that of steam, would be effected in the powers of the church for good, by the general adoption of the observance for which we plead. And whether we look at our wealthy or our poorer

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churches, it is certain that were all their members but brought up even to the practice of giving a tenth, then would their ability to flood the earth with Christian agencies be increased to the astonishment of mankind; while our Societies, though in a lower degree, would put on a new, and hitherto unheard-of, might.

We are drawing near to the hour when we shall take flight from this shore for another. At whatsoever moment we depart, many other souls, from all lands, will be departing too. Who would wish that, in the flight of souls of which he will be one, the majority should be of those who had never heard of Jesus? If this is not to be our case, if that name is to sound on all ears, and to be invoked in all tongues, up and be earnest! Spare not your goods, that the poor in soul may be rich at last.

I PLEAD reverently it must be said-FOR THE LORD'S SAKE. It is true that all idea of giving a benefit to Him is for ever excluded. "Is it any gain to Him that thou makest thy ways perfect?" The sun He has set in our firmament, has rejoiced our world from Adam until now. On him all its beauty and its life depend. Now that he is hidden, the rose has no blush, the lily no whiteness, the meadow no green; a cheerless gloom reduces them all to sameness. To-morrow when he re appears, all the beauties of the landscape will come forth anew. Suppose that then we were all seized with an impulse of admiration, and desired to show how much we

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GIVING FOR THE LORD'S SAKE.

valued his services to man; not all the powers of our race could send him up a ray to make him grander.

He is the emblem of his Maker. In one eternal outflood, benefits stream from Him upon His creatures. Life, joy, redemption,-all come from Him. After ages of daily debt, were all our race this moment seized with a passion of gratitude, did every human heart ask, "What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits?" then, though every bosom throbbed, and every hand were strained, we could not add one ray to His glory, one step to the elevation of His throne, one hairbreadth to the extent of His dominions, or one moment to the duration of His reign. Inhabiting eternity, He sits "in the high and holy place," as far above our power to benefit as to injure Him, equally incapable of accession and decay.

Yet He intrusts to us interests that are dear to Him; and, therefore,―

I plead for the Lord's sake, that His image may be worthily reflected. The inanimate works of His hand tell much of His strength and skill; the lower animals much of His wisdom to contrive and His might to control: but all this they tell not to themselves, but to their superior, man. They are but works of His, not children, who can show His image, or be "partakers of the Divine nature." From them man can learn nothing as to his Maker's mind on moral questions, on the points whereupon the

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deepest anxieties of the conscience turn,―right and wrong, justice, pardon, judgment, and the future. It is only through man that his fellow-men can see the image of God,-man, that wonderful creature, whose complex nature unites the lowest to the highest worlds, bringing matter, animal and spirit, into one being,—a being who, on one extreme, is equal with the clod, and, on the other, by the communing of the Spirit reaches to the throne of the Highest. In him, and in him alone, the image of the holy God may be so reflected, that men here shall learn to "glorify their Father who is in heaven.”

But how does he reflect this image who, professing to be a child of God, is yet known to delight in holding and in storing, but to feel a pain in giving? Nothing can be more strictly opposite to the Divine nature than this. The unceasing action of that nature is to pour out unrequited bounties. Return or gain it knows not; and so does it delight in bounty, that no man gives to another in the Lord's name, but He counts the deed as done to Himself. Blessed is that human being in whose goodness some mind first discerns glimpses of the goodness of God!

I plead for the Lord's sake, that His claims may be vindicated. I have already said, that many who are willing to look upon Him as God of the world to come, feel as if this world's property was not so directly His and under His hand. For the Creator's glory and the creature's rest, it is needful that all be

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taught that the gold and silver, the harvest's yield, flocks, herds, and fisheries, are all His property; that whatsoever man has in his hand, is there only in trust and stewardship, not created nor yet retained by his power; that a Hand unseen can at any moment empty his hand, and a Mind unseen blight the fruit of a life's prudence, by the mistake of a day.

Go, then, and assert the Lord's claims; go and teach man's stewardship, not in word, but in deed. Steadily devote the first-fruits of all wherewith you may be intrusted to holy uses. Let your daily actions say in your neighbours' ears, "Freely ye have received, freely give!"

I plead for the Lord's sake, that His due praise may be rendered. In speaking of the effect of Christian liberality, St. Paul tells us that it does not stop at those who are benefited, but passes on, in a certain sense, to the Lord Himself,-" abounds by many thanksgivings to God." To abound does not mean to suffice, but to more than suffice; not only to fill a vessel, but to wave out, or overflow from it. Thus, when an act of Christian goodness fills a suffering heart with joy, it not only thanks the human hand that comforts it, but overflows in the words, "THANK GOD." There is an ear, an open ear, which never closes to the cry of want; but when it listens from heaven to the children of men, to hear if there be any that thank God, often it listens in vain,often hears praises for the creature, murmurs and