human frailty and imperfection. If men were such as they should be, we might take less pains in regulating things by the best systems. Were every man endued with those wonderful powers of calculation which have occasionally existed, systems of arithmetic would be almost superseded; and so too were every minister of the Gospel a Paul or an Apollos, rules and superintendence might perhaps be dispensed with; or, were all supplied with prodigious animal strength and energy, we might leave our parishes much larger than has been proposed, and trust that they would receive all necessary care and attention. But it is because men are what they are; because the spirit itself is bowed down with infirmity, and liable to the temptations of humanity, to remissness and weariness and faintings; and because even where the spirit is willing the flesh is weak; that we are of necessity compelled so to order matters as no longer to impose upon them an amount of labour, which their moral and physical powers are alike unable to support.

And why should we despair of effecting so necessary a work? Is it that men will not labour for the good of their brethren? No; for in every quarter of our land energy is displayed in abundance, whenever a work of charity calls it forth. Is it that they are unwilling to conform their labours to the rules of the Church, and to carry out and realize the parochial system? Rather, when fairly appealed to, the laity have

been found eager to take their proper place, as' assistants to the ministers of God's word, in their blessed work. What then is the hopeless obstacle? It is the expense. And yet it is not that we want wealth amply sufficient; for herein God has blessed us beyond the example of any former age. It is, that (in the opinion of the objectors) men will not give what is required, though they have it. It is admitted that thousands, yea hundreds of thousands of our countrymen are perishing around us—men united to us by every tie, who speak the same language, are sprung from the same ancestors, many of whom have actually fought with us and for us against our common enemy-who live under the same laws with ourselves, and are liable to punishment if they invade our security or property, whose labour we are daily using for our necessities, our comforts, our luxuries, "without whom our cities could not be inhabited." These men

are perishing for ever on every side; we acknowledge that the evil admits of a remedy, that the remedy is in our own power and shall we indeed think it visionary to hope that it will be applied? The question is (in a few words) whether or not we will be a Christian land-whether we will give up part of our money for the cause of Christ, or will give up Christ for our money. God and Mammon we cannot serve. Long ago we were warned of the impossibility; and now the choice is offered to us whom we will serve ;

whether we will make our nation an excellency upon the earth, a joy of many generations; by taking God at His word, receiving in faith what He has spoken, and giving liberally to Him of our worldly substance; or whether we will cast His words behind us, and trust to our silver and gold for our private and national prosperity.

And is it visionary to expect that men will awake to a sense of such responsibility, of interests so enormous? Surely although man's corruption be strong, and although the world has mighty power,

yet the commands, and the promise, and the grace. of God, are mightier, and must prevail. When He gave the word, the barren rock opened and sent forth streams for the thirst of His people; and the power of that word is not diminished, that it should not work marvels now as of old. For moral miracles the time is never past. Neither is it a new or unexampled work of grace for which we ask: we have but to pray with the prophet, "Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord! awake as in the ancient days, in the generations of old ;" for our faith and hope have the encouragement of experience, the experience of ages, to the power of the grace of God. Let us look through our own favoured land, and where does the eye not meet the parish church, and all the blessed associations which float around it? And once these were not. Even if it should be thought that we still need as many churches as already exist; the de

mand is only, that in an age of unexampled wealth and luxury, men should give to God as their fathers did out of their poverty. Let us then take courage by the past, and address ourselves to our own portion of the work; thankful that God has accounted us, as well as them, worthy to be partakers of its blessedness.

But when we find men hesitating, and doubting what ought to be done, it can hardly be questioned that they have estimated their actual duties and responsibilities by a defective rule. We have not, indeed, laid aside the Christian name; nay, we have hundreds and thousands among us to whom that name is dearer than "father or mother, brother or sister, wife or children, houses or lands;" (God forbid that it should be otherwise; or what would save our guilty land from the fate of Sodom?) and yet can we believe that even they have sufficiently considered their actual position and its duties; that they have devoted to this great work such a measure of their substance, their time, their talents, and their influence; as the exigency of the case requires, and the commands of God, and the love of Christ, and the rewards of heaven, ought to have engrossed?

The amount of liberality which satisfies the conscience of the mass of worthy and respectable men, may easily be estimated. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. We need not inquire how great a man's private and

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secret alms may be, when he tells us the standard at which he aims. Men too often fall short of their acknowledged principles, but seldom habitually live above them. And we cannot mingle extensively in the society even of religious men, without perceiving that it is their principle that men should give to God and the poor, as much as they can afford. It is held to be a sufficient reason for withholding our hand, that we have already given according to this measure. In one sense, of course, the rule is both rational and Christian. No man should give that which is not in equity his own-that which belongs to his creditors, or is necessary for the due support of his dependants or family; and if the words were commonly used in this sense, all would be well; but the fact is in general far otherwise. Men mean not, they cannot give more without encroaching upon other duties, and disregarding the claims of justice and equity, but that if they did, they would themselves feel the want of that with which they parted. Their pleasures, their appearance and equipage, their amusements, must undergo some diminution; if they devoted more to God. In other words, it is their avowed principle, that the measure of a man's charity ought to be, that which he can give without selfdenial, without any sensible curtailment of his own personal ease and comfort and pleasure. The majority of men accordingly proportion their establishment and expenditure to their in