cause of God, "as He has prospered,”—and that as carefully, conscientiously, and uprightly, as they deal with their fellow-men. There is reason to fear that when men contribute at all, it is too often from habit, from impulse, or some vague, indefinite sentiment-not from a solemn sense of responsibility to God. The Great Giver is not made a party. Some give from compulsion, because parliaments enact, and laws enforce the duty. Others give at random, and without forethought. They do not remember that they are stewards, and therefore responsible to the Great Proprietor; and, in consequence of that oblivion, millions of His property are employed without his will being once consulted. A remedy for that state of matters is urgently needed.

Moreover, there are some peculiarities in our times which seem to invite our special attention to this subject. The sad disclosures which have recently been made, as to the utter insufficiency of mercantile honour to resist the impetuous current of speculation, or the love of money, indicate that there is surely some better way to happiness than that which myriads are pursuing. forgeries and other crimes of Fontleroy, with his eventual execution, are still fresh in the memory of many. Then railway speculations, urged till they became a mania ending in wide-spread ruin-seats in Parliament ignominiously vacated for frauds committed-friends and

The

families worse than beggared, disgraced-and more recently still, men of high rank and wide-spread influence placed at the bar of Justice as felons, and there condemned to long years of penal servitude-all these seem loudly to warn our nation and the world, that there is far more truth in God's word on the subject of Money than multitudes have hitherto believed.

True; any attempt to counteract so gigantic an evil seems a forlorn hope. The world is so deeply posted in its worldliness that it appears in vain to seek a remedy. Yet as a large measure of the trade and the commerce of Britain is understood to be at this moment in the hands of comparatively young men, around whom the world's entanglements have not yet been very tightly wrapt, we may see in that fact one encouraging reason for efforts like the present.

On the other hand, however, if men have hitherto been "mad upon their idol," riches, some events which are now occurring are fitted to render them still more thorough devotees. Till a very recent date, Brazil and Russia furnished the chief supplies of gold to the world. In the former country, a ton of solid rock had to be crushed and sifted before science and handicraft combined could gather up more than half an ounce of gold. In Russia, again, the gold sands of Yegoro Kankuiski yield one pound troy for every hundred and forty tous

of sand. At Toulubinsk that quantity of gold cannot be procured from less than one hundred and ninety tons, while at the mines of Maryninsk two hundred and thirteen tons are required to yield the pound. In some of the recently-discovered gold-fields, however, a single cart-load of earth will yield an ounce or two of gold, while in many cases, all that is needed by the goldhunter is a knife to pick the metal from the substance in which it lies embedded. In some instances, masses of gold weighing many pounds are dug up. In the year 1851, for example, a nugget called "a hundredweight of gold," but weighing one hundred and six pounds, was discovered, and other nuggets, weighing twenty-seven, twenty-eight, forty-five, forty-eight, nay, even one hundred and twenty-six pounds, have been obtained.

Again, "this new and leviathan produce" of goldland began at a period when the value of all the gold that had accumulated in man's possession since time began, was estimated at £600,000,000 sterling, of which, perhaps, about a fourth part existed as coin. But since the year 1848, when California first became famous for its produce, the average annual rate from all the fields, for a period of six years, is estimated at about £20,000,000; so that in about thirty years, the quantity of gold in the world may be doubled. The following table will ex

Do.

1848, Trifling. Not discovered. £ 8,000,000 £8,000,000

1849, £2,000,000

8,000,000 10,000,000

Now, the effects of such quantities of this precious metal poured into the lap of man in so brief a period, have already been manifold. Some of the poor have suddenly become rich; cities have been thinned of their inhabitants in some cases, and as suddenly doubled or trebled in others. Servants have become masters, and, by sad reverses, masters have sometimes become servants. Banks have been bewildered; governments have been brought to a dead-lock in their legislation on the subject; while profligacy has increased to a humbling extent, and organic changes have been wrought, and forced populations have sprung up, over wide regions of the world.

But amid all these movements, we do not notice that He who created the silver and the gold, or gave the earth which contains them to the children of men, is

generally acknowledged, thanked, or honoured with His own. Everywhere, too many still act like the rich fool of the Scriptures, and say, "My barns," "my fruits," 'my goods," without once recognising the Bountiful And, if God be largely forgotten, ought

Giver of all.

He to be so?

If men, like Tyre of old, "by their great wisdom, and by their traffic, have increased their riches;" "if their heart be lifted up because of their riches ;" and if they have set their heart as the heart of God," should not the lofty look be abased? At least, should men not be called on to recognise the rights of Him who is Proprietor of all, and to use his gifts according to his mind?

The following pages, then, are designed to promote that end-to assert the supremacy of God, and recall some at least, to a sense of their dependence, that they may be rich indeed. We would seize the opportunity which is suggested by man's still unsated, nay, enlarging, appetite for wealth, to tell him of its use and abuse. Many are now dissatisfied with the prevailing practices and views. Opinions which point in the right direction are floating in their minds, and an attempt is here made to collect and embody these, or to stamp them with the impress of Him to whom the earth and its fulness belong. If even Christians could be induced fairly to consider, and systematically to adjust, the question