The Safety-valve-Two views of Wills-Heirs bribed to rejoice- Examples Squandering by heirs-Maxims in making Wills— Mammon" quoted-Distribution one law-Hoarding another— MAN AND HIS MONEY. CHAPTER I. EXPLANATIONS. "Occupy till I come."-LUKE xix. 13. The case stated-Principles announced-Proprietorship-Stewardship- To make our world better, and therefore happier, is one design of God over all, alike in Providence and Redemption. But man's wayward heart often mars that purpose. He sets aside the Supreme Will, and makes self, not God, his centre. This dislocates our whole social system; it acts in morals as a suspension of the law of gravitation would act in physics. Such selfishness detaches man from his great centre, God, and leaves him, like a wandering star, to hasten onward to extinction. When thus detached, man becomes a moral falsehood;-he is false in all the B relations of life, as well as to himself, and by a necessary law, becomes a source of ever-deepening misery. In no respect is this disorder more remarkable than in the acquisition and the use of Money; and as the following sections are designed to draw attention to that subject, the path may be more clear for the discussion if some preliminary explanations be submitted. The use or the abuse of riches is a topic upon which very extreme opinions have been held. Some men act as if they were the unchallengeable proprietors of all that they possess, or were responsible to none for their mode of employing what God has bestowed. Their own persons, or their own homes, their pomp, pride, and circumstance, absorb or demand the whole. Others, again, have prescribed rules upon the subject of money, and its use, which it would be difficult or impossible to practise. They would fetter and restrain us by laws and rates where He who gave us the gospel has left us free as the gospel itself. But, with the word of the Great Arbiter before us, we would avoid both of these extremes. In regard to his possessions, man is a steward, not a proprietor—that is, the scriptural position against those who use the gifts of God, his bounty and benificence, without reference to his will, his purposes, or his glory. Here at least Proudhon's maxim is unanswerable—“ Property is robbery ;” and the words, "It is the Lord's," occurring again and again with solemn emphasis in the Pentateuch, embody a deep principle alike for Gentile and Jew. On the other ACCUMULATION-BEQUESTS. 19 hand, "Freely ye have received, freely give," is the scriptural position against those who would cramp and fetter the believer in Jesus by statute, or some unvarying proportion applicable to every steward. "Free-will offerings " are to be presented to the Lord of all, and they who have learned to bring such gifts with a ready mind, according to the word of God, will "pour blessings round them like a shower of gold." Farther, we do not agree with those who argue that it is not lawful for Christians to lay up wealth at all. Accumulation, no doubt, is-what it has been calledthe crucible of character; and many have suffered, or perished morally there. Yet, were it to be proscribed because it has been abused, many of the noblest and most beneficial enterprises in the world would be abruptly closed. There is truth in the picture, that if capital were abolished among Christians, till all were equally poor, or equally rich, a withering blight would sweep like the Sirocco over some of the very plans for winning man back to his God which signalize our day.* This subject will hereafter be fully considered. And neither do we argue here, as some have done, that it is wrong for a Christian to leave any property to his children, or his heirs. Remarkable cases pointing in that direction are not to be erected into a rule, and with the only infallible guide before us, it is manifest that it is not necessarily a sin, a snare to children, or a distrust of God, to leave a heritage behind us. If some, in defence of their views, can quote the Saviour's language, "Lay * See The Bible in the Counting-House, by Dr Boardman, p. 102. 20 IRVING JUDGE HALE-LUTHER. not up for yourselves treasures on earth," then, apart from all other explanations, we can quote the words of his apostle, "The children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children." "Put no money in the bank for thy wife or children," said Edward Irving, "but write prayers for them in the Book of life. Be this thy bank of faith; be this thy exchange, even the providence of God, and let the lords of thy treasury be the prophets and apostles who went before thee." But, soberly viewed, the word of God enacts no such rules; nay, by general principles, by precept and example, it teaches the reverse. No doubt, some noble examples, such as Irving himself was honoured to give, are needed to startle men out of their selfish complacency; and as certainly, parents and others, in countless cases, act in this respect in a manner utterly opposed to the spirit of God's word. They seem to think that what Judge Hale called "a massy and a huge bequest to posterity," is essential to their happiness here and their preparation for eternity. But upon that subject also there will hereafter be occasion to comment; meanwhile, it is enough to say, that we argue neither for the neglect of children, nor for aught that would render them independent of a heavenly Father's care, and bequeath to them only a heritage of woe. Luther's words, no doubt, are weighty. In the full confidence of a simpleminded believer, he said, before he died, "I have no house, no field, no possessions, no money to leave. Thou, O Lord, hast given me a wife and children. To thee I restore them. Nourish, teach, preserve as hitherto |