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"( THERE ARE NO CHARITIES."

Christian, and yet to whom no one will turn in his need, as to a certain friend, for body or for soul. Alas for that man from whose door a neighbour in distress instinctively turns away; to whom collectors for any holy work never think of going! O, who would rest under a roof upon which no man's blessing comes? Not long ago one rich man was letting a splendid seat to another rich man, and, mistaking the character of his customer, he stated, among the many attractions of the place, this great attraction,-"And there are no charities!" Ah! lay not your dying head on that man's pillow!

The Gospel will be adorned only by men who, not in word and in tongue, but in deed and in truth, love their neighbour, body and soul;-by men in whom the character of Christ, to some extent, re-appears, that character of love and self-sacrifice to which the glory of God and the salvation of man were the sole objects; wealth, or ease, or pride, nothing. Aim, then, aim at such a standard of beneficence as shall attract to the religion you profess the admiring eye of many, who before had seen in it no loveliness!

I plead for the Gospel's sake, that it may be diffused. The Lord's commission is, that we "go into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature." "To every creature!" Let us remember that injunction. While a human being lives to whom the good tidings of great joy have never been told, our commission is not executed. How

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much has been done already toward its execution? Half the race of man, and more, are this day without Preachers of the Gospel! And even within

Christian lands numbers of holy works, for which the need is reproachfully plain, remain undone, because the church of God is not sufficiently selfdenying 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 winds, 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 Fiji 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, in his

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GIVING FOR THE LORD'S SAKE.

Essay, 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, my Lord, whether we look at your wealthy Establishments, or at our poorer Societies, it is certain that were all their members but brought up even to the practice of giving a tenth, then would the ability of your Establishments 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

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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 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

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SHOWING GOD'S IMAGE.

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 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