36

TOKENS FOR GOOD.

soil in which they dig for ore, the souls of men often seem to become senseless as the metal which they pant for and covet even unto death.

For example, it was once a common opinion that the diamond could cure inveterate diseases by its hidden virtues, could promote peace on earth, and impart blessedness to all who could get access to its spell. We laugh at the fond delusion, but even with the smile upon our lips, we hasten to be equally deceived concerning money. As if it could heal disease, and supersede the physician ; as if it could terminate all feuds, and render peace perennial; as if it could counteract poison, assuage the violence of the maniac, spread sunshine instead of gloom, or even avert the onset of death, wealth is now honoured as the diamond once ignorantly was. It is regarded as "the one thing needful," insomuch that the universe of God seems to be constructed mainly for the idolatry of his rival-gold.

It is to be joyfully confessed, however, that a great improvement in men's views of money and its uses has taken place in our day, in contrast with former times. The cause and the cure of man's woe have been discovered by some stewards. The love of God upon the one hand, and of the perishing upon the other, is slowly diffused through the hearts and the homes of men-they sympathise with him who exclaimed—

"O love of gold! thou meanest of amours!"

The mustard-seed is growing, and as the disciples gazed toward glory after their ascending Lord, we may hopefully look forward, and in faith anticipate better and more gene

THE PROGRESS OF TRUTH.

37

rous days to come. True, such cases are still only the exceptions. Among millions the love of acquiring and amassing surmounts every other desire. But still there are some powers at work more mighty even than money. The watchword of the Western world regarding "the almighty dollar" is both blasphemous and untrue, for some men are learning now to keep the love of wealth in its proper place. It is their servant, not their lord; and one of this class has written, "For my part, I enjoy as much worldly prosperity, and am getting money as fast as my heart can wish," yet amid it all, communion with God was the sunshine of his soul. He was rich in faith, as well as in money, and lived for the cause which he knew "demands our soul, our life, our all." Such a man had felt the truth of the quaint words, "The more you take from your store, the more you add to it. It grows in your hands as the loaves did in the Saviour's, as the oil did in the widow's cruse, as the water doth in a well-spring.' Being convinced that "riches are a mere uncertainty, an obscurity, a fallacy, that one while they appear, and another while disappear, as meteors in the air or divers in the water, or as a flock of birds in a man's field: he cannot say that they are his because they sit there," men are learning, in greater numbers, to seek God's blessing in acquiring, and his wisdom in expending their money. If such convictions are ever to become common, it must be by a revision of men's maxims, and a reform in their actions, regarding wealth. The rights of God as proprietor, and the position of man as his steward, must be * Trapp on "Almes."

38

INCREASED LIBERALITY-ITS RATE.

adjusted. Solemnly, conscientiously, and with all the regularity of a moral duty, men must render unto God the things which are God's, must act in the spirit of that wondrous prayer, the Lord's, which teaches us to ask three things for Him ere we ask one for ourselves.

And the time seems not unfavourable for such a revision and reform in regard to riches. While the righteous claims of God are now somewhat more commonly recognised, while men grow more alive to the assurance, "God is not unrighteous, to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name they become also more awake to their responsibility as stewards, and the following facts will indicate the degree of progress.

There are now about one hundred societies in Evangelical Christendom, seeking to spread the light of the glorious gospel through the world. In the year 184647, it was computed that they raised £1,214,442 for that purpose. But twenty-five years previous to that period, their united sums amounted only to £367,373 for the year. It thus appears that in about a quarter of a century, the claims of the Great Owner of all, in one department of his service, were both better understood and more largely acknowledged; for in that brief period, the contributions to his cause had been more than trebled. They are now understood by some to amount to about two millions sterling, and we can thus gauge both the extent and the progress of man's feeling of obligation to God and his cause throughout the church at large.

Or to take a different and a simpler example :-In

THE BIBLE SOCIETY.

39

the year 1854, the sum of £222,000 was raised by the British and Foreign Bible Society alone. Its ordinary receipts for circulating the Scriptures, during that year, exceeded those of 1853 by £8000; so that here also we are enabled, in some degree, to estimate the progress, and from that to cherish hope. That hope would soon become fruition, were men fairly to face and honestly to adjust the question of their responsibility as stewards. "For brass, God would then bring gold, and for iron he would bring silver, and for wood brass, and for stones iron." All that fable has said of a golden age would be far more than realised, by the blessing of Him who waits to be gracious to the children of men.

Nor should we fail to take into account the personal exertions now put forth by many in the cause of God— often without fee and without reward, except the blessedness of doing good. Societies for Christian objects are thus conducted without expense; the mighty enterprises of philanthropy are projected and carried into effect; the uttermost ends of the earth are cared for; and the devoted men of a single city may often be found in anxious consultation for the welfare of their fellow-creatures from Labrador to Patagonia-from the rising of the sun to where he sets. And such contributions of personal exertions, of careful scrutiny and sound judgment, of anxious inquiries, or intrepid doing, are all to be regarded as augmenting men's contributions to the cause of God. They are truly priceless, and prove that some at least have learned to live for that day for which all other days were made-the judgment.

40

LIGHT AND SHADE.

*

The light of hope, however, is here accompanied with shade. From various sources it is computed that scarcely more than one in ten of those who should aid the cause of God really does so. Pride is thus hidden. Boasting is excluded, and men may well sit down in the dust, mourning over such sin or such robbery of God. While the progress which has been described should call forth our thanksgiving, it is manifest that multitudes are still eagerly grasping at God's gifts, instead of acting as his stewards. Upon scarcely any subject have such pungent appeals been uttered, such loud denunciations, such irrefutable arguments. "God may smite thee," one impassioned man exclaims, "with some lingering dispiriting disease, which shall crack the strength of thy sinews, and suck the marrow out of thy bones; and then what pleasure can it be to wrap thy living skeleton in purple, and rot alive in cloth of gold; when thy clothes shall serve only to upbraid the uselessness of thy limbs, and thy rich fare stand before thee only to reproach and tantalise the weakness of thy stomach; while thy consumption is every day dressing thee up for the worms?" But covetousness mocks such appeals, and he that is greedy continues greedy still. Upon a gigantic scale the Holy One is defrauded of his revenue of glory; and either from ignorance or disregard of his claims, men in millions appropriate his bounty as if they were entitled to demand it all for themselves. The appetite which cannot be appeased is pampered and stimulated; the upright and the honourable, as well as the christian,