THE MISSION 




THE CHURCH 



SYSTEMATIC BENEFICENCE. 



BY REV. EDWARD A. LAW REN' E 




! 

; CHRISTIAN LIBSAEY ASSOCIATION, 

or Tim 

! CTI1TIHSITY ©F MICHIGAN, 

By ... .. A&£ JUbL. It****—. 

REGULATIONS. 

I. The Library is free to all the members of the 

University. 

II. Books may bo drawn at any time when the 
University Library is open. 

\ III. Every person drawing Books will be held re- 
sponsible for their proper preservation and safe 
return. 

IV. No Book shall be retained longer than two 
weeks. 



N 



w 



the 



MISSION 0¥ THE CHURCH 



SYSTEMATIC BENEFICENCE. 



BY REV. EDWARD A. LAWRENCE, 

MAHBLEHEAD, MASS. 



Israel shall blossom, and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit, 
Isaiaii 27 : 6. 



PUBLISHED BY THE 

AMERICAN TRACT S C I E T Y . 

1*0 NASSAU-STREET, NEW YORK. 



.L3- 



In £Ucaa, 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. 

THE SPIRIT OR ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES OF 
BENEFICENCE. 

The elements of Christian beneficence are, 

1. An intelligent spirit, • 7 

2. A difFusi ve spirit, 10 

3. An equitable spirit, 14 

4. A benevolent spirit, 10 

5. A self-denying spirit, 17 

6. A spirit of grateful love, 18 

7. A spirit of prayer, 22 

CHAPTER II. 

PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. 
First general proposition. — Every man's charitable contributions 
should be proportionate to the vastness and importance of the 

objects sought in beneficence. 25 

■ ' A brief survey of the field — Statement of the objects, 25 

Second general 'proposition. — Every man's charitable contribu- 
tions should be proportionate to the adequacy of the instrumental- 

1 ity to be applied, 37 

The insufficiency of certain alleged remedial agencies — The gospel 
the only adequate instrumentality — Harmony of the instrumental- 
ity with the objects of beneficence, 38 

Third general proposition. — Every man's charitable contributions 
should be proportionate to his pecuniary means and facilities for 
applying the instrumentality, 

1. The beneficence of the Jewish church, 

2. The beneficent spirit of the early Christian church, 

3. The scripture declarations concerning property, and the du 
iberality, 

Particular prof)ositioiis. — Every man's beneficence should be pro- 
portionate, 



4 CONTEXTS. 

1. To the sum total of his property, 76 

2. To his annual income, 83 

3. To what he can earn by industry, 90 

4. To what he can save by economy, 96 

5. To what he can spare by self-denial, 102 

Motives. — Beneficence gives to wealth its greatest value, secures our 

own highest interests, and promotes the glory of Grod, J 07 

CHAPTER III. 

SYSTEM IN BENEFICENCE. 

I. Provisions of system. 

1. Instruction concerning the use of property, and communicating 
information respecting the condition and wants of the world,- 116 

2. The appropriation by every one, at stated times, of a due propor- 
tion of his property to charitable purposes: 1. The weekly period. 
2. The monthly period. 3. The annual period. 4. Setting 
apart a portion of each gain in every enterprise, 121 

3. Some plan by every church for collecting its contributions, and for 
applying them to their objects. 130 

II. Tendencies and advantages of system. 
1 To diminish the expenditure of benevolent societies. 134 

2. To secure a larger number of contributors, 135 

3. To secure from each contributor an amount more proportionate to 
his ability, 136 

4. To give to charitable contributions the more scriptural form of 
free-will offerings. 139 

5. To make these free-will offerings the fruit of a more cheerful 
spirit, 142 

6. To give consistency and efficiency to the character of Christians, 
by bringing their life into harmony with their doctrines and profes- 
sions, 145 

7. To raise the church in its charitable contributions to a more ele- 
vated Christian devotion, 149 

8. To promote union among Christians of different denominations, 
and thus increase the power of the whole church for the good of 
the world, 153 

Co:cclusion, 159 



THE 



MISSION OF THE CHURCH, 



CHAPTER I. 

THE SPIRIT, OR ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 
OF BENEFICENCE. 

The mind that was in Christ, the spirit that 
moved him through the whole period of his earthly 
life, was a deep, ever-flowing spirit of love. It was 
an illimitable and inexhaustible benevolence. E very- 
stage of his history, from the manger to the cross, is 
a peculiar expression of " good will towards men." 
By his life he became an example, and in his death 
he made atonement for sin ; thus illustrating the 
spirit of Christianity, and opening a way whereby it 
might be infused into the hearts of his disciples. In 
its impulses and ope *ations, both in the Head of the 
church and in its it embers, it is the spirit of benefi- 
cence. To be Christian, therefore, beneficence must 
be 'prompted by the Christian spirit, and be in 
harmony with the great design of Christ in his 
redeeming work. This gives it the fullest scope in 
the objects of the gospel, and the highest character 
in the spirit of the gospel. By the development of 



6 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

this spirit in the church, through the perfecting of 
the Christian life of its members, it finds its true 
mission in seeking the salvation of the race. It thus 
answers its fittest description — " the salt of the 
earth," "the light of the world:' 

The spirit of Christian beneficence is distinguished 
from mere human kinchiess, which is neither uni- 
versal in its extent, uniform in its operations, noi 
Christian in its principle. It is distinguished from 
natural pity, in that this arises from spontaneous 
sympathy, and does not take into account the praise 
or blameworthiness of its objects. It differs from 
generosity, which is not scrupulous to abide by the 
rules of justice, and has no end in the honor of God, 
or the highest welfare of man. It is unlike that de- 
sire of apjilaiise, which in the spirit of Phariseeism 
often prompts to liberal donations, but only "to be 
seen of men." Its bestow T ments are dissimilar to the 
grudging remittances made to purchase relief from 
the wearying importunity of persevering applicants. 
It is distinguished from the reluctant yielding of the 
crumbs which fall from the table of abundance, in 
order to pacify a clamorous conscience, and procure 
exemption from its upbraidings. It is the antagonist 
of that alms-giving which is relied on as the ground 
of justification before God, thus making salvation 
by grace superfluous and impossible. 

Between all these and that beneficence which is 
truly Christian, there is a wide difference. Chris 



SPIRIT OF BENEFICENCE. 7 

tian beneficence neither disowns the constitutional 
principles or emotions, nor takes its character from 
them. Incorporating into itself all the elements of 
joy and sorrow, pity and sympathy, honor and gen- 
erosity, it constitutes a complex principle, above and 
beyond any one or all of them. Jesus was kind, 
and sympathizing, and compassionate, and generous 
But he was something more than these. Purer mo- 
tives urged him — a higher impulse moved him — a 
nobler spirit inspired him. It was the impulse of 
love, whose spontaneous outgushings made his life 
an example of the most sublime beneficence. 

Among the peculiar and positive elements of be- 
neficence, distinguishing it as Christian, is, 

1. An intelligent spirit. Whosoever would dis- 
charge the duties of life, must first know what they 
are. In nothing is this more manifest than in efforts 
to do good. As all alms-giving is not from benevo- 
lence, so neither is it all beneficent. It is as essen- 
tial to the latter, that it should be directed to a right 
end, as to the former that it should spring from 
a right principle. Nor does even a good motive in 
the donor necessarily secure to his deed the character 
of beneficence, unless it is well directed ; the ac- 
tion may be praiseworthy in its purpose, while, from 
want of knowledge, it may be disastrous in its effects. 
Under the incubus of ignorance, well-meaning men 
may multiply the ills which they would remove. 
Through unacquaintance with the condition of thos* 



8 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

whom they -wish to benefit, or through ignorance of 
the proper remedial agencies or modes of applying 
them, they may diffuse the bane instead of the anti- 
dote, propagate darkness instead of disseminating 
light, and carry havoc and dismay where they in- 
tended only healing and consolation. And the more- 
munificent is such ill-directed charity, the greater the 
waste — the more wide-spread the ruin. 

Christian beneficence w 7 alks not forth blindfold 
amidst the world's mendicity and its mendacity, 
scattering alike to both. She wields not her full 
hands, as the Cyclops his huge limbs, at random. 
Her zeal is an enlightened ardor, never roaming in. 
the dark, and nevei impatient of results that come 
only through the gradual operation of appropriate 
causes. 

In this age of busy reform, all kinds of objects have 
their solicitors. Men who aspire to philanthropy 
even, must discriminate : much more does Christian 
beneficence demand a wise and careful circumspec- 
tion. She wishes to know what the work is, and 
where it is, and how it is to be done. She sends 
out her pioneers to survey the ground and gauge the 
difficulties. She takes the altitude of mountains to 
be brought low, and the depth of valleys to be filled. 
She examines the crooked places to be made straight, 
and the rough places to be made smooth, and trav- 
erses "the wilderness and solitary place," which, by 
her culture, are to " bud and blossom as the rose." 



SPIRIT OF BENEFICENCE. 9 

By this pioneer service, in which such men as How- 
ard and Buchanan and Marty n and Marshman have 
been most successful explorers, benevolent men are 
better enabled to adapt means to their ends. They 
obtain a quicker discernment of the various phases of 
wickedness and want, and of the avenues of access 
to them. The delusive fancies of sentimental phi- 
losophers concerning the virtues and happiness of 
the savage state, have been thus dispelled. The 
glowing eulogies pronounced upon the mythology of 
modern paganism, have, by the testimony of honest 
and indefatigable examiners, been thrown into entire 
discredit. The principles of evil, inherent in fallen 
humanity, are found to hold their woful empire over 
the comparatively mild inhabitants of Southern Asia, 
"with such an absoluteness of possessive power, and 
displaying this disposition in such wantonly versatile, 
extravagant, and monstrous effects, as to surpass all 
our previous imaginations and measures of possi- 
bility." 

For those who desire information concerning these 
things, the means are at hand. Let them study the 
character and operations and claims of the various 
humane and benevolent associations, as cxl libit ed in 
their lucid and condensed reports and other publica- 
tions. Let them study the providences and prophe- 
cies and promises of God, in his works and word. 
His providence is casting clearer light upon the 
prophecies, and his Spirit is fulfilling the promises, 



10 the mission or THE church. 

to a degree that illumines the whole Christian world. 
The spirit of Christian beneficence, in her reforma- 
tory power, is entering the convict's cell, and is 
applying her benign and recovering agencies to the 
condition of the poor, the orphan, the sick, the insane, 
the deaf, the dumb, and the blind. She is penetrat- 
ing the darkest nooks of heathenism, inspecting its 
habitations of cruelty, and scattering light concern- 
ing the wants and woes of the race. A goodly 
cluster of eleemosynary institutions — of almshouses, 
hospitals, and asylums, is diffusing an ameliorating 
and remedial influence throughout Christendom. A 
bright constellation of Bible, Missionary, Tract, and 
other kindred and affiliated societies, is pouring a 
flood of light upon the world, demolishing the tem- 
ples of paganism, hastening the wane of the crescent, 
dissipating the delusions of Judaism, and discovering 
the hoary abominations of the man of sin. The Sun 
of righteousness begins to gild the hill-tops of India, 
Southern Africa, Syria, Persia, and Turkey, and has 
generated moral greenness and beauty in many of 
the islands of the sea. These things, all who wish 
to know, can know, and all who can know, should 
know. 

2. The spirit of Christian beneficence is a diffu- 
sive spirit. The distinctions of home and foreign, far 
off and near, it knows only as different spheres for the 
occupancy of the same general agency, and for the 
achievement of the same lofty ends. Remoter guilt 



SPIRIT OF BENEFICENCE. \] 

and misery affect the heart of the benevolent, if not 
as sensibly, yet with as really a moving power, as 
do those more near. Moral wretchedness ma 
its appeal as urgently from India as from Ireland, 
from the Celestial empire as from Wisconsin. And 
yet, in his beneficent mission to the far distant, the 
benevolent man averts not his eye from sin and 
suffering at his own door. No one is more eagle- 
eyed to espy the mute signs of contiguous want, or 
more ready to respond to the calls of charity at home, 
than he who, overstepping such narrow limits, car- 
ries the blessings of his bounty to the farthest verge 
of sin and woe. 

The plea of " charity at home" has passed into a 
proverb, the significance of which seems often to be, 
hoarding all one gets, and getting all he can. It 
is sometimes only the sanctimonious garb of parsi- 
mony, put on to cover the shame of its nakedness— 
the formulary by which covetousness seeks baptism 
at the hands of the Christian priesthood — a broad 
phylactery worn by one who " devours widows' 
houses." " Charity begins at home." True. And 
where else should she begin ? She is born at home, 
and she begins to act where and when she receives 
her birth. This is the order of nature. All vital 
principles work from the centre outwards. It is the 
order of Providence also. But it is contrary both to 
nature and to Providence, for charity io seek only 
; her own," and allow her cultivated and fertile fields 



12 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

to do no more than " supply their own wants and 
replenish their own wastes." 

He, therefore, who in Christian beneficence ends 
with the beginning, cannot be said to have begun at 
all. And he who bestows nothing to relieve the 
misery of which he only hears the description, will 
be likely to turn away from that of which his eye 
gives him the living picture. Or if perchance, by 
some sudden antagonistical impulse, his iron-nerved 
grasp be tremulously relaxed, it is but to let slip a 
pittance much nearer the mockery of woe than its 
mitigation. He who thus contravenes the order of 
nature, of Providence, and of the word of God, gives 
no equivocal proof of being tight bound in the chains 
of icy selfishness. Covetousness has cast him into 
her iron-cage, and crushing out of him all humane 
and generous feelings, has contracted Iris aims to the 
narrow circle of his own selfish involutions. Doing 
good to his fellow-men is not his mission. He has 
lost the primal dignity of man. He has set himself 
aside from the human brotherhood, and his ear is 
bored in servitude to mammon. He no less needs 
a mission of mercy from the abode of angels, to re- 
assert in him the power of conscience, and restore 
him to his lost human fellowship, than does the poor 
idolater who makes to himself a god of one piece of 
his wood, and warms himself at the fire kindled by 
the other. The one worships a god of wood — the 
other, a god of gold. 



SPIRIT OF BENEFICENCE. 13 

The spirit of Christian beneficence neither halts 
nor hesitates at geographical boundaries. Contiguity 
of guilt and misery has the advantage only as afford- 
ing opportunity for speedier relief. Hence, the faint- 
est sigh of want, and the softest wail of sorrow, from 
whatever source they come, touch a responsive chord 
in the soul of the benevolent man, and vibrate there 
as the voice of God. 

Thus diffusive is the spirit of Christian benefi- 
cence. Her "field is the world." Her own nature 
allows her no narrower limits as the sphere of her 
action, and the circle of the globe no wider one. 
With "onward" for her motto, she shrinks from no 
region however rigorous, and from no clime however 
sultry or remote. No barbarism is too rude, and no 
forms of error too venerable, for her assailment. No 
human condition is so degraded and no misery so 
woful, no wretchedness is so appalling and no terror 
so intimidating, as to check her flowing sympathy or 
daunt her adventurous courage. The arm of power 
may be raised to protect or to repel her, yet, with 
her eye upturned to the throne of the Eternal, and 
her hand fast hold of the cross, she goes forth to her 
work. See the illustration of her diffusive energy in 
(lie propagation of primitive Christianity, which, in 
less than three centuries, she made the sole accred- 
ited religion of the civilized world. See her too, in 
this age, planting her standard amid the snows of 
Greenland, and on the burning sands of India. She 



14 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

is unfurling the banner of the cross in every quarter 
of the globe. She is climbing the snow-clad sides of 
the Himmaleh and the Andes, crossing the Rocky 
Mountains and ranging the coasts of the Pacific, 
bearing in one hand the torch of truth, and pointing 
With the other to the Lamb of God. Nor will she 
rest, till every son and daughter of Adam is blessed 
by the gospel, and the whole earth smiles with the 
beauty and verdure of heaven. 

i; Breathe all thy minstrelsy, immortal harp, 
Breathe numbers warm with love, while I rehearse 
Thy praise. Charity; thy labors most 
Divine, thy sympathy with sighs, and tears, 
And groans ; thy great, thy godlike wish to heal 
All misery, all fortune's wounds, and rnaks 
The soul of every living thing rejei. 

3. The spirit of Christian beneficence is an equi- 
table spirit, recognizing the principles of steward- 
ship. From just views of man's relations to his 
Maker arises the idea of right ; and from the idea 
of right, comes the sense of moral obligation or duty. 
It is indeed essential to true beneficence, that it 
should be voluntary. " God loveth a cheerful giver." 
But it is alsc 1 that respect should be had to 

a higher than human will, as the rule of duty. Thus 
then stands the case. Man is free to give, and free 
in giving. But he is also bound to give, and to [ 
Lply. 
v man is a of God All that lie 



SPIRIT OF BENEFICENCE. 15 

possesses is committed to him in trust, with the In- 
junction, " Occupy till I come." At a future day it 
will be said, " Give an account of thy stewardship." 
Of every one who hides his Lord's money by hoard- 
ing, or embezzles it by squandering, it shall be said, 
" Bind the unprofitable servant, and cast him into 
outer darkness." He, on the other hand, who em- 
ploys it for the glory of his Master and the good of 
mankind, shall receive the faithful servant's approv- 
al, "Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." 

Give to this idea of stewardship a practical preva- 
lence in the church, and it bars out covetousness, and 
raises multitudes of nominal professors from guilty 
worshippers of mammon, into honored coworkers 
with Christ in the world's redemption. 

4. The spirit of Christian beneficence is a benevo- 
lent spirit. "Love thy neighbor as thyself," is the 
great philanthropic principle of the gospel. It anni- 
hilates selfishness, and brings men into the sweet 
bonds of one common brotherhood. It plucks from 
the heart the "root of all evil," and plants in its 
stead the seeds of a universal charity. 

We love our children, in some sense, as we love 
ourselves ; but this is not benevolence : our instincts 
prompt it. We make common cause upon some sub- 
jects, and on some occasions, with our kindred or 
friends; but this is not benevolence : self-interest dic- 
tates it. We join in civil compact, and pledge "our 
j*«7"es, our fortunes, and our sacred honor," and some- 



16 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

times pour out our blood like water for the common 
weal ; but this is not benevolence : call it patriotism, 
or what we will, it has no Christian element, and 
oftentimes conflicts with every gospel principle, and 
charitable feeling. Benevolence makes a man the 
denizen of the world. By its inherent tendency to 
"do good unto all men," it annihilates distance, and 
by sympathy brings remote evils near. It knows no 
demarcation lines of sect, or tribe, or color. Its boun- 
daries are the limits of humanity. In its expansive 
schemes, it regards men as under one common condi- 
tion of guilt and suffering ; subjects of one common 
righteous government ; liable to one common woe ; 
and for whom there is provided one common divine 
dispensary — one Gilead of the world. The African 
is our "neighbor," and has fallen "among thieves;" 
benevolence calls for the appliance of our " oil and 
wine." The Hindoo is our brother, and is " sick ;" 
it bids us bear to him the " balm" from " Gilead," 
and tell him of the " Physician there." 

To what enlarged schemes of beneficence would the 
prevalence of this spirit prompt the church. What 
masses of wealth would it consecrate to the cause of 
humanity. What thousands of devoted men, glow- 
ing with the spirit of Mills and Martyn and Brainerd, 
panting to carry the light of truth to lands darkened 
by sin, would it bring into the educational processes, 
preparatory to such a work. What fleets would it 
give to the winds, taking their course towards the 



SPIRIT OF BENEFICENCE. 17 

heathen world, laden with the printed word, and the 
living preacher. How sublime the spectacle — the 
whole Christian church moved by such a spirit of 
beneficence. 

5. The spirit of Christian beneficence is a self' 
denying spirit. It is the nature of sin to exalt self 
to preeminence. This disorders our relations both 
to God and to our fellow-men. It subverts the 
law of love. It discards the divine will as the rule 
of action, and substitutes each man's own will. Its 
tendency is to convert the world into an arena ol 
ceaseless and sanguinary conflict, for as many sepa- 
rate interests as there are individual combatants. 

Now, the tendency of Christianity is directly the 
reverse of this. It casts down self and enthrones 
the Creator in the soul. It meets the selfish spirit 
in all its vicious cravings, with an imperative denial. 
The foundation of the Christian faith was laid in a 
sacrifice, " Jesus Christ himself being the chief cor- 
ner-stone." And as each disciple is built on this 
foundation, he receives from it a subduing power, 
which imparts to him this self-denying spirit. The 
beneficent career of Jesus on earth was marked in 
every period by humiliation and suffering and sacri- 
fice. And shall his followers have no fellowship 
with him in these ? Is the vital sap of the branches 
unlike that which flows in the vine ? Shall there be 
self-sacrifice in the head, and self-indulgence in the 
members ? Self-denial is the condition of spiritual 

Miw. ofChu 2 



]& THE MISSIOH OF THE CHURCH. 

progress. "A despicable indulgence," says Henry 
Martyn, " gave me such a view of my character, that 
on my knees, I resolved to live a life of greater self- 
denial. The love and vigor of my mind rose rapidly, 
and all those duties from which I usually shrank, 
seemed recreations." Self-denial is the very condi- 
tion of discipleship. "If any man will come after 
me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross 
daily, and follow me." 

See this spirit burning in the bosom of the apos- 
tle to the Gentiles. With unsurpassed devotion, he 
lays his ease and learning and cherished hopes joy- 
fully at the feet of his Saviour. He is " in perils of 
waters, hi perils of robbers, in perils by his own coun- 
trymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, 
in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in 
perils among false brethren ; in weariness and pain- 
fulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in 
fastings often, in cold and nakedness." And does he 
complain that his labors and sacrifices are too weari- 
some, or too costly ? Rather does he glory that to him 
is " this grace given," that he may " preach among 
the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ." The 
same flame glowed in the breasts of the martyrs, and 
the same holy fire should be kindled in the bosoms oi 
the whole company of the disciples, consuming selfish- 
ness, and converting their hearts into censers, whence 
should perpetually ascend sweet incense unto God. 

*». The spirit of Christian beneficence is a spirit of 



SPIRIT OF BENEFICENCE. 19 

grateful love, The most concise definition of the 
Christian religion is love. "God is love," and "love 
is the fulfilling of the law." " Though I bestow all 
my goods to feed the poor, and give my body to be 
burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing." 
The love of Christ takes the deepest hold of all the 
principles of our being. It allows no rival. It ad- 
mits no equal. It must reign supreme in the soul, con- 
trolling all its emotions, and directing all its energies. 
Under the influence of this love, benevolent impulses 
become permanent affections. Our strongest desires 
for the welfare of man and the glory of God, assume 
the character of fixed princijjles. Beholding the 
world as the scene of moral achievement, surveying 
its desolations, its poverty and misery, its hatreds 
and strifes, its malice and murders, how sublime ap- 
pears the enterprise of its recovery. Ascending the 
mount of vision fast by the cross, and witnessing the 
vast funeral processions bearing annually on their 
biers to the world of woe, twenty-five millions of lost 
souls, how moving the spectacle, how imploring the 
scene ! Yea, Christian, mounting up to the throne 
of the Eternal, see Him whom your soul loveth 
casting down his cross upon the golden pavements 
of the celestial city, and by all his agonies upon it, 
by the accumulated worth of six hundred millions 
of guilty human spirits, to whom the church has not 
these eighteen hundred years carried his saving gos- 
pel, see him interceding for that church, that it may 



20 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

be filled with his own spirit, that it may become more 
self-denying, that it may cease its strifes at home, 
and go on its mission abroad : see this, and if love does 
not burn like a fire in your bones, if apathy does not 
seem madness, and the consecration of all fit means 
to such an end but a poor return, the very least you 
can offer, thou hast not known the love of Christ. 

When Dr. Doddridge, having procured a pardon for 
a condemned criminal, entered the prisoner's cell, the 
grateful man threw himself at his feet, exclaiming, 
" Every drop of my blood thanks you, for you have 
had mercy on every drop of it Wherever you go, 1 
will be yours" So entire is the devotion prompted 
by grateful love. But redeeming love ! Oh, it is this 
which awakens all that is tender in affection, all that 
is generous and self-sacrificing in devotion, and which 
gives direction to all that is executive in energy for 
high moral achievement. It imparts to the meanest 
sacrifice a divine fragrance. It gives to " a cup of 
cold water" a preeminence on the catalogue of be- 
neficent acts, not reached by the pharisaic donor of 
millions. It clothes the simplest prayer of the poor- 
est disciple with a power for the world's conversion, 
to which the most skilfully adjusted moral machinery 
can make no approach. It is the divine alchymy, 
which transmutes in its crucible the baser metals 
into gold, and sets the smallest gift as a priceless 
jewel in the diadem of Him on whose head are 
11 many crowns." 



SriRIT OF BENEFICENCE. 21 

As Christ's mission was to the poor, these, wnorn 
we "have always" with us, should be regarded as 
his representatives. To each of his disciples, he says, 
"In these I am 'an hungered;' feed me: 'thirsty; 1 
give me drink : I am ' sick ' in the islands of the sea ; 
minister to me there : I am a prisoner in Asia ; procure 
my release : I am bound in Africa; seek my deliver- 
ance. ' Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the 
least of these, ye have done it unto me.' " And when 
you have laid all your possessions and yourself with 
them, at the foot of the cross, and viewed him sus- 
pended upon it, how insufficient seem all human en- 
ergies and offerings as a requital of his love. You 
wish that gold had a million times more value, and 
you a million times more gold to devote to him ; that 
your energies were augmented into superangelic pow- 
ers, that in the consecration of them all, your grateful 
love might find more fit expression. 

"Oh tliou who keep'st the key of love, 
Open thy fount, eternal Dove, 

And overflow this heart of mine j 
Enlarging, as it fills with thee, 
Till, in one blaze of charity, 
Care and remorse are lost,' like motes in light divine. 

"Till, as each moment wafts us higher, 
By every gush of pure desire, 

And high-breathed hope of joys above, 
By every sacred sigh we heave, 
Whole years of folly yve outlive, 
In His unerring sight who measures Life by lovt" 



22 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

7. TLe spirit of Christian beneficence is a spirit 
of prayer. It is this which distinguishes the enter- 
prises of the church from all other schemes for amel- 
iorating the condition, and relieving the wants and 
woes of the race. While it does not impair the feel- 
ing of responsibility, it impresses the sense of depend- 
ence. It impels the heart to look upward for wis- 
dom to direct its efforts, and for power to render them 
efficacious. Plans of moral achievement which, on 
any other principle than that of the divine efficiency, 
would be Utopian, by this are rendered rational and 
hopeful. It clothes the most gigantic and daring 
moral heroism with the garments of humility, and 
elevates the simplest efforts of faith and love to the 
most honorable position of successful instrumental- 
ity. Recognizing the divine agency as the sole effi- 
cient cause of all beneficent human agency, his peo- 
ple lay their gifts upon the earthly altar, and in 
answer to prayer, the angel presents them as an 
accepted offering upon the golden altar before the 
throne. AYithout prayer, alms fall like lead to the 
ground. On the wings of prayer they seek the skies, 
and come up as an acceptable "memorial before 
God/' 

Even Jesus the Son of the Most High labored not 
to do good without prayer. His life was one fervent 
intercession, the ardor of which abated not when it 
had consumed him on the cross. It mounted up to 
heaven. It still breathes and burns in the ear of 



SPIRIT OF BENEFICENCE. g3 

God, with a prevalence that gives birth, in the mis- 
sion of the Spirit, to all human prayer, and efficacy 
to all human instrumentality for the good of the 
world. 

See too how the apostles prayed when entering upon 
their beneficent work. Returning from the mount 
from which they had seen their Master ascend, 
they retire to " an upper room," and continue with 
one accord in prayer and supplication, until their 
baptism by the Holy Ghost. They then go forth to 
their labors praying with the conviction that they 
can do nothing without prayer, and laboring as if 
they could accomplish all things without it. Behold 
the martyrs, kindling their ardor at the altar of 
prayer, and pouring out their blood on the altar of 
sacrifice. The period of the Reformation was a pe- 
riod of intense, concentrated prayer. And the effi- 
cient power of all beneficent enterprise is a power 
answering to the voice of prayer, going up from the 
heart of the church. Here is a field into which all 
may enter as reapers. The pathway to the throne 
of grace is barred to none, and none are more ac- 
cepted laborers than those who, having nothing else 
to bestow, pour out their strongest desires and their 
richest aflections upon the angel's "golden censer." 

Here is the divine philosophy of Christian beneil- 
.icnce. The church lays down her offerings at the 
cross, and sends up her prayer to him who died upon 
it, and one angel descends into the Bethesda around 



24 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

which earth's "impotent" are gathered, and anothei 
" angel having the everlasting gospel," is seen flying 
through the earth, " to every nation, and kindred, 
and tongue, and people," and " great voices are heard, 
saying, The kingdoms of this world are "become the 
kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall 
reign for ever and ever." 

Such are the leading elements which give charac- 
ter to beneficence as a Christian work. 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE 25 



CHAPTER II. 

PROPORTION IN" BENEFICENCE. 

Every man's charitable contributions should evi- 
dently be proportionate to the vastness and im/p&r- 
tance of the objects sought ; to the adequacy of the 
instrumentality ; and to his 'pecuniary means and, 
facilities for applying that instrumentality. 

FIRST GENERAL PROPOSITION. 

Every man's charitable contributions should 
be proportionate to the vastness and impor- 
tance of the objects sought in beneficence. 

"What, then, is the object or end which Christian 
Beneficence proposes to secure ? Comprehensively, 
and in a word, it is, the recovep^y of the human 
race from sin to holiness. " The field is the 
ivorld." Ascend some mount of vision and behold 
the spectacle — a world in ruins. Sin has entered 
and strode across it, and death follows, mercilessly 
sweeping its guilty generations into the unfathom- 
able abyss. 

1. Look at Protestant Christendom, and what 
do you see ? In the most favored lands, where the 
governments are popular and the people free, where 
science is cherished and the arts flourish, where civ- 
ilization smiles and the word of God has free course, 
how do ignorance of the divine law and defiance of 



26 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

right join in unhallowed compact, and generate a 
race of giants in wickedness ! How are such lands 
covered over with houses of correction, and jails, 
and dungeons, and filled with the insignia of deprav- 
ity — the proofs as well as preventives of dishonesty, 
treachery, and crime. How are all remedial and 
sanative agencies despised or disregarded by multi- 
tudes of the people ; while cupidity gloats on gain 
and ambition strives to supplant and trample on a 
rival, and lust reeks in her dens of infamy, or saun- 
ters forth in the guise of innocence to capture and 
destroy. 

2. Inspect those portions of the earth's surface, 
designated as Roma?i- catholic Christendom. They 
are left to the occupancy of a religious system that 
incarcerates in dead languages the prophets and 
apostles, and dispenses its dry dogmas and uncom- 
manded ordinances where the Saviour has appoint- 
ed the nutritious bread of heaven and the healing 
waters of life — a system, in whose fiscal arrange- 
ments sin is set down as a marketable commodity, 
by traffic in which, the guilty may purchase indul- 
gence to any amount, and with no penalty except 
the prescribed pecuniary one, may escape from De- 
lilah's lap into Abraham's bosom — wherein prayers 
and pardons, births and burials, suspensions of the 
divine law and its satisfaction, every thing, in short, 
is paid for in gold, except the Hberty to believe and 
to teach the pure gospel — wherein the living are laid 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. 27 

under tribute fbr the benefit of the dead, whom, not 
content with assessing while in the flesh, it consigns 
to purgatorial torments, release from which can be 
procured only by purchased Pater-nosters and Ave 
Marias: a system in which freedom is fettered, and 
conscience is bound, and the right of private judg- 
ment has fallen among thieves, and the priest passes 
by on the other side — in which the Redeemer of the 
world is displaced from his mediatorial office by the 
elevation of his virgin mother ; and the holiness of 
the poor canonized saint, is made transferable for 
the benefit of the rich repenting sinner — in which 
" science and ignorance, refinement and barbarism, 
wisdom and stupidity, taste and animalism, mistaken 
zeal and malignant enmity, may sanctimoniously 
pour out their virulence against the gospel, and cry, 
1 Hosanna,' while they go forth to shed the blood, 
and wear out the patience of the saints of the Most 
High." 

And if in any thing the workings of this match- 
less machinery for deceiving the people and destroy- 
ing its opponents, is less wasteful than formerly of 
human blood, as the means of giving prevalence to 
its dead but gigantic formalism, it is because its for- 
mer plenary <poiver has departed, and it is hemmed 
in by moral and political influences which render 
such means both impolitic and impracticable. It is 
not, we believe, from any essential improvement in 
the system. That is unchanged and unchangeable. 



28 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

Reform in the spirit and principles of the church ol 
Home, would be its ruin. Let it but give an open 
Bible to the people, with liberty to read and think for 
themselves, and it bites the dust. Yet, to the bale- 
ful nurture of this "mother of harlots," more than 
one hundred millions of the dwellers on the globe are 
subject, displaying the full " effects of knowledge de- 
nied" — of " a famine of the words of the Lord." 

3. Next, turn your eye to the followers of the false 
Prophet, of whom there are over one hundred mill- x 
ions more. Here, instead of the Bible, you find the 
Koran — instead of the cross, the crescent. If the tu- 
telary genius of Mohammed complimented the patri- 
archs, it was to "beguile the Jew." If the Saviour 
of the world was admitted as among the prophets, 
it was as a lure to nominal Christians. And by hold- 
ing out to the faithful the certainty of sensual grati- 
fication, it was seen that a more easy conquest would 
be secured over papists, pagans, and infidels. The 
moral maxims from the Bible incorporated into the 
system, were only sufficient to give plausibility to its 
claims, and durability to the compact. Strong and 
resolute in the ignorance which it inculcates, its 
darkness has "strangled the travelling lamp" of 
truth, and its pride beaten back even the precursors 
of knowledge. To make disciples was its first ob- 
ject. Its second, was to make them iron-nerved and 
ferocious The third, was to crush all whom it 
could not lure or compel to the faith. Occupying 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. 29 

for centuries the fairest portions of the earth, it has 
converted them into a -wilderness, and covered them 
with moral desolation. Thanks to an overruling 
Providence, Islamism is in its dotage. " The keepers 
of the house tremble, and the strong men bow them- 
selves. The daughters of music are brought low ; 
fears are in the way, and the grasshopper is a bur- 
den." 

4. To complete the view of the field which benefi- 
cence seeks to occupy, cast the eye over lands shroud- 
ed in Paganism. Bereft of the idea of one all-perfect 
and controlling divinity ; with no standard of truth 
and right — no guiding demonstration, leading to a 
comparison of the false with the true, the malignant 
with the ,good — the appetites and passions rising 
into supremacy and converting the enfeebled remains 
of moral sense into auxiliaries of debasement, what 
can Paganism be but one "mighty labor of human 
depravity to confirm its dominion?" Vedas and 
shasters, filled with interminable genealogies, and 
transmigrations of the human soul, and of male and 
female divinities, are its holy books, containing neither 
precept nor example of moral excellence. Brahma, 
Vishnoo, and Siva, the consecrated patrons of the 
vices, are its chief deities. Yain theorists, skilful 
impostors, and lascivious sorcerers are its only guides 
and intercessors. Parricide, infanticide, sutteeism, 
self-torture, laborious pilgrimages, and obscene rites 
are its most approved forms of religious service. 



30 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

Caste, with its impassable walls, fixing unalterably 
the station of each individual, annihilates all motive 
to improvement in the lower classes, and gives to 
the higher free course in vice and crime, by securing 
them against deposition or disgrace. " The entire 
empire of polytheism," says Harris, " is a realm of 
diabolical dominion. It assembles its votaries only 
to blaspheme the name of God ; erects its temples 
only to attract the lightning of the impending cloud 
on their devoted heads ; calls them around its altars, 
only that, in the very act of supposed atonement, 
they may complete their guilt ; and gives them a 
pretended revelation only that ' they should believe 
a lie.'" 

And the worst feature of all is, that in the systems 
of Paganism, there is no element of improvement, no 
principle of progress, except in the road from bad to 
worse. Time only deepens the gloom, and legitimizes 
among them the processes of ruin. Even the moral 
sentiments that here and there shone out of ancient 
heathenism, like stars in deep night, and the skill 
and taste apparent in the temples and divinities of 
Greece and Rome, find no place in modern Paganism. 
It has no recuperative, but only a degrading and de- 
structive power. 

And does no Macedonian cry, coming up from such 
an Aceldama, make its appeal to Christian hearts 
for some more vigorous and sustained beneficent ef- 
fort ? Behold poor, abused, bleeding Africa, pillaged 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. 31 

and plundered by lawless and inhuman marauders, 
yielding up her tawny, barbarous sons to still more 
barbarous strangers from Christian lands. See Asia, 
" wholly given to idolatry," her miserable poor crushed 
under the heel of an oppressive and polluted priest- 
hood — Asia, the cradle of the race, torn by intestine 
feuds and foreign aggressions, pouring her dense 
population of wretched and guilty spirits into the 
abyss of woe — Asia, with no Bible and no Sabbath ; 
with no Saviour but the Ganges and her countless 
idols ; with no worship but that of demons, or rep- 
tiles, or monsters of vice ; and with no morality ex- 
cept what hastens the desolating work, and hurries 
human souls to perdition — how does she lift up hex 
imploring voice, and call on us for a deliverer. 

u 0h, could I picture out the full effect 
Of that soul-withering power, idolatry, 
I'd write a page which, whoso dared to read, 
His eye, instead of tears, in crimson drops should bleed.' 

Now, it is the object of Christian beneficence to 
recover this guilty and lost world to the service and 
enjoyment of God. It is to purify the earth fiom 
all its vile abominations, and clothe it in the loveli- 
ness of moral beauty. It is not her work to admire 
the proportions of ancient architecture, or the state- 
liness of modern palaces ; to imitate the great mas- 
ters in statuary and painting, or to gather the result? 
of modern science ; it is not to adorn the galleries oi 
art, or enrich the collections of antique curiosities ; 



32 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

not to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics, or muse 
on the remains of ancient grandeur, laudable as all 
this may be ; but it is her work to found hospitals, 
open dispensaries, and establish asylums, wherein 
the poor may be cared for, the sick visited, the blind 
be made to see, the deaf to hear, and the dumb to 
speak. For such beneficent institutions, there was 
no place among, all the public edifices, or structures, 
or organizations of ancient heathenism, as for them 
there was no name in all their languages. We might 
say, it is the mission of the church to raise up 
debased and brutalized mind, oppressed and degraded 
almost to extinguishment, and impart to it vigor and 
fertility ; to give exercise to the kindlier sympathies 
and more elevated sentiments of the heart, and to 
restore liberty and supremacy to conscience. She 
aims to bury every tomahawk, to " beat swords into 
ploughshares and spears into priming-hooks," to bear 
the olive-branch into all climes, plant the tree of 
peace in every soil, and bring wandering, warlike 
tribes into a social, civil, and religious position, sur- 
passing that of the happiest and most prosperous 
community on the globe. What objects of temporal 
good are comparable with these ? What career more 
like the earthly mission of Him who went about 
doing good ? 

But beneficence has a still higher object than to 
bless men in this life. She carries her projects for 
consummation, across the boundary of time, into the 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. 33 

vast and indescribable eternity beyond. In the ac- 
complishment of her design, she seeks to open a 
moral Bcthesda in every land, and to make the Bible, 
God's directory to heaven, the book of the world ; to 
" preach the gospel to every creature," and to make 
it " the power of God unto salvation" in every heart. 
She aims to break the frightful coalition of ignorance 
and crime, formed by " the prince of the power of 
the air," and to transfer the wretched captives from 
the power of Satan unto God. She seeks to tear 
down the funeral pile of the miserably devoted wid- 
ow, and to give her, in her affliction, to the benign 
influences of the heavenly Comforter ; to detach from 
the blood-stained car of Juggernaut its murderous 
human propellers, to raise up from before its ponder- 
ous wheels the deluded human victims, and to send 
them to the shrine of a pure worship, and to the al- 
tar of the living God. She enters the precincts of 
the demon-temples, surveys the abominable, soul-de- 
stroying rites, weeps over the appalling spectacle, 
and wrests from " the ruler of the darkness of this 
world" the prostrate human spirits there trampled 
into the dust. She points them to the cross of Christ, 
and tells them that " God so loved the world, that 
he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever be- 
lievcth in him, might not perish, but have everlast- 
ing life." She stands by the Ganges, and assures 
the suicidal worshippers that the path to heaven is 
not through its turbid stream, opens to them Jesus 

Miss, of Church. 3 



34 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

as " the way," and bathes them in the pure waters of 
the river of life. Like a visitant from the bosom of 
love, she sits by the shrines of Brahma, Yishnoo, and 
Siva, and proclaims to the millions of eager votaries, 
that these " cannot answer, and save them out of 
trouble." She would bear the cross into the very 
heart of Mohammedan imposture, and plant it with- 
in the grand mosque at Mecca, sprinkling the multi- 
tudinous mass of deluded pilgrims with the blood 
which " cleanseth from all sin." She would pour 
the light of a pure Christianity upon the darkened 
domains of Romanism, and introduce "the power o) 
godliness" to a region wherein is found little save 
its gorgeous but lifeless forms. She would dispel the 
dark and inveterate disbelief of the Jews, scattered 
and peeled and oppressed, and lead them, through 
their own prophets, to the acknowledgment of Jesus 
as the Messiah, and unite all the dwellers on the 
earth under his tranquil and happy reign. 

And is it nothing to you, that a mission is pro- 
posed for the accomplishment of such an object ? 
Are there found in such forms and fruits of sin any 
sufficient remedial agencies to justify apathy and in- 
action ? And is it thus you would shield yourself 
from the urgency of appeal which the case presents, 
and baffle the beneficent design of Immanuel in giv- 
ing his life a ransom for the world ? Can you think 
that pollution is as good as purity ; that idolatry is as 
likely to lead to heaven as the service of G od ; that 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. $$ 

blasphemy and defiance of divine command arc as 
efficacious for salvation as faith in Jesus ? Will the 
eternal law of truth and rectitude be repealed, in 
consideration of the prevalence of error, imposture> 
and crime ? Will ablutions in the Ganges, or the 
declaration of pardon by a darkened and ambitious 
priesthood, make their robes white, as if washed in 
the blood of the Lamb ? Will the flames of suttee- 
ism purify the guilty soul like the sprinkling of the 
clear waters of the gospel ? Do the rumblings of 
Juggernaut's bloody car make sweet music in the 
ear of God, like the prayer and praise of redeemed 
spirits, uttering their thanksgiving and love ? Oh, 
speak it not — think it not. " Without faith it is 
impossible to please God." "But how shall they 
believe on Him of whom they have not heard ? And 
how shall they hear, without a preacher ? And how 
shall they preach, except they be sent?" Such is 
the resistless logic of the apostle, which divinely de- 
monstrates the necessity of a mission to the ignorant 
and guilty in every land ; and which proclaims the 
gospel as the sovereign balm for all wounded spirits — 
the grand panacea for all human ills — the "pharos 
of a benighted world." 

To carry this gospel to the guilty and miserable 
of earth's teeming population, is the appropriate 
mission of the ciiuRcii. It is to tell them of the 
amplitude of God's love to man, and raise them to 
him by the efficacy of that love. It is to efface the 



36 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

foul blot of sin from the polluted soul of man, to re- 
store primeval paradise io earth's outcast inhabitants, 
to people heaven with redeemed and blissful dwellers, 
and to give back to God his revolted, dismembered 
kingdom., in sweet and peaceful subjection. 

How lofty is this aim ! How sublime the end ! 
It is in agreement with the end of Jehovah in creat- 
ing the race. It is promotive of the object for which 
Christ died. It is included in the grand sweep of 
God's providential plan for the government of the 
world. It is identical with the main design of Heav- 
en in the constitution of the church, and the continu- 
ance of redeemed ones for a time, as pilgrims on the 
earth. All holy motives converge to this one point, 
the glory of God in the salvation of men. All moral 
arguments, in their loftiest bearings, strengthen and 
confirm this. All spiritual appliances, in their ulti- 
mate reference and highest utility, minister to this 
one comprehensive and sublime end, the healing of 
the nations by the gospel of Christ, " to the praise 
and glory of God's grace." Nor will the period ar- 
rive when it can be said of the work, " it is finished," 

till 

" The dwellers in the vales, and on the rocks 
Shout to each other, and the mountain-tops 
From distant mountains catch the flying joy — 
Till, nation after nation taught the strain, 
Earth rolls the rapturous Hosanna round." 

Now, if we have succeeded in impressing the read- 
er with the vastness and importance of the objects 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICLNCE. 37 

of Christian beneficence, he has probably been led 

to the following conclusion : if there is an adequate 
instrumentality for the accomplishment of this object, 
the question of expense is worthy to be considered 
only so far as to ascertain whether it is within the 
limits of possibility to meet that expense. He will 
say, the cost is nothing in comparison with the end 
to be gained. If the work is practicable, it cannot 
cost too much. He feels that it is paltry meanness, 
with such an object in view, to haggle about dollars 
and cents ; that it is treason against humanity to 
withhold giving, where such motives urge to liber- 
ality. He sees that he may never have taken a just 
view of his own duty and responsibility in this mat- 
ter, and he resolves that his rate of benevolent contri- 
bution, in time to come, shall be more proportionate 
to the value and importance of the end sought in 
beneficence. And he also determines that what is 
done, should be done quickly. " Roma deliberat, 
Saguntum perit" — "While the church deliberates, the 
heathen perish. 

SECOND GENERAL PROPOSITION. 

Every man's charitable contributions should 
be proportionate to the adequacy of the instru- 
MENTALITY TO BE APPLIED. 

The fallen world — what can raise it up from its 
revolted and degenerate state, and give it back to 
God redeemed, and clothed in its primeval loveliness 



38 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

and beauty ? What can make atonement for sin, 
and give satisfaction to the dishonored law of God, 
and repair the ruin wrought ? What can penetrate 
the obdurate heart of man, and turn its selfishness 
into benevolence, and impel the tide of its sympa- 
thies, ever tending inward to the contracted centre, 
to flow outward to the circumference and upward 
towards its Maker ? Is there an adequate redeem- 
ing power ? Are there sufficient remedial agencies 
for a work so vast, so momentous ? These are ques- 
tions which press upon the spirit of every earnest 
inquirer concerning the means of man's redemption, 
and of the mission of the church to the world. 

The great desideratum with Archimedes, for mov- 
ing the world, was a place whereon to stand. This 
was his necessity. A similar necessity meets the 
Christian philanthropist in the scheme for bringing 
back the revolted world into the sunlight and favor 
of heaven. The philosopher could obtain no such 
stand-point. The Christian can. The one could 
find no place outside of, or above the world which 
he wished to move. The other takes his stand on 
the Gospel of Christ, which is "from heaven" and 
not " of men." This gives him a position and a 
power fully adequate to his most enlarged and com- 
prehensive benevolence. All other expedients for 
the conversion of the world are cumbered by the 
same unremovable difficulty which met the Syra- 
cusan philosopher 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. 39 

Within the most costly temples of Paganism, no 
divine light illumines the benighted worshippers, 
and no celestial fire warms their devotion into life. 
In the very act of giving " the fruit of the body for 
the sin of the soul," they but enhance the evil which 
they would remove. Notwithstanding the smoke of 
their ten thousand sacrifices, ascending to blacken the 
heavens they would appease, the sting of conscience 
rankles in their guilty bosoms still. In all these 
things, "they feed on ashes." "Pass over the isles 
of Chittim and see, send unto Kedar and consider dili- 
gently, and see if there be such a thing. Hath a 
nation changed their gods, which are no gods ?" 

Nor is there more hope in the alleged recuperative 
power of reason, and the progress of science. For 
nearly six thousand years, there have been promul- 
gators of the doctrine of human perfectibility, and 
dreamers of such a result through the devices of rea- 
son and the advance of science. And successive gen- 
erations have been working out demonstrations of the 
futility of the doctrine, as decisive as they are hu- 
miliating. Human reason has no such recovering 
moral energy. It can never relieve itself from the 
dominancy of the passions, or rise from its subjection 
to the perverse will. It may intimate, in some 
things, the right, the true, and the good ; but it can- 
not compel to their observance. Reason and science 
may polish the exterior into a degree of comeliness 
and decency, but they cannot successfully resist the 



40 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

on- workings of the law of sin. They cannot remove 
from the soul its appalling sense of guilt. They can- 
not lead man to " deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, 
and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this 
present world/' See their boasted triumphs in the 
reign of terror which swept across France at the 
close of the last century, deluging the land with 
blood, and leaving it in a state which forced from 
the republic the humbling confession, that their 
11 children are without any idea of divinity, with 
out any notion of what is just or unj - 

And what are the claims alleged in favor tit civil 
: ion as a remedial agency ? It should be a suffi- 
cient answer to say, that civilization contemplates 
man only as an inhabitant of this terrestrial globe, 
and provides not for his weal beyond. And its most 
beneficent instrumentality is composed of the imple- 
ments of agriculture, and of the mechanic arts. It 
sends to the savage tribes of the earth, as its best 
boon, the plough, the spindle, and the loom, whereby 
they may clothe themselves "in purple and fine linen, 
and fare sumptuously every day;' 5 but it leaves the 
soul a prey to remorse, and under the frown of heav- 
en. It excites no hope of future good ; awakens no 
gratitude to the Father of mercies ; points to no 
divine, atoning work ; tells of no redeeming k \ 
through which is seen, 

"Up earth's d a rk g 
The gate of heaven onck 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. 4] 

The Bible, the Sabbath, and the cross constitute no 
elements of beneficent power, in all its boasted in- 
strumentality. In its happiest influences, it leaves 
man as it finds him, guilty and miserable, in darkness 
and distress, where he most needs light and relief. 

Nor can there be more reliance upon the enact- 
ment of civil laio. This is only a defensive expedi- 
ent, adopted by communities to prevent such overt 
crimes as are injurious to the social compact. But 
in preventing the criminal act, can it dictate to the 
heart, and sway a resistless sceptre over its stormy 
passions, and hush its wild discord into harmony and 
peace ? Can it carry the force of truth into the dark 
caverns of the soul, combating and conquering ini- 
quity, dethroning selfishness, purging away lust, cast- 
ing out revenge, and turning the plottings of villany 
into plans of benevolence ? Can it restore to the 
conscience its legitimate supremacy, and cast down 
pride, and introduce love and mercy and meekness ? 
Can it break up "the fallow ground," and "scatter 
the good seed," and fructify the barren soil, and 
cause it to bring forth a rich harvest unto God ? 
"Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook; or 
bore his jaw through with a thorn?" Law is a rule, 
not a remedy. Its language to the guilty is of pun- 
ishment, and not of pardon. "The letter killeth." 
It is the Spirit that giveth life. It is not the twelve 
tables and the Justinian code that man needs, but the 
four gospels and the twenty-one epistles. 



42 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

Literature and its refinements are no more ade- 
quate to the ends of Christian beneficence, than is 
civilization or law. If we look to the periods of an- 
tiquity in which the arts were carried to the highest 
degree of refinement, and the muses were most suc- 
cessfully wooed ; if we take our stand at Athens, the 
eye of ancient Greece, and muse on the banks of the 
Ilyssus with Socrates, or sit in the academy with 
Plato, or walk in the grove with the Stagyrite ; or 
if we ascend Parnassus to Apollo and the muses, or 
sit by the Castalian fount, what do we see and hear? 
Poetry, the enchanting priestess of Nature, by her 
creative genius originating a popular, pantheistic my- 
thology, breathing an ideal divinity into inanimate 
objects ; singing of Elysian fields, and delighting and 
deluding the people by allegory, fable, and fiction — 
Sculpture, setting forth her matchless skill in the 
works of a Phidias and Praxiteles, to maintain, amid 
the perfection of physical development by gymnas- 
tic exercises, the endangered preeminence of the 
gods — Eloquence, with ease, with grace, with action, 
"pouring the persuasive strain," and stirring the 
soul to deeds of daring and of blood — and "Philos- 
ophy, flitting across the night of Paganism like the 
lantern-fly of the tropics, a light unto herself, but 
alas, no more than an ornament of the surrounding 
darkness." 

In surveying the wide field of ancient literature, 
the Christian eye scarcely rests upon one spot of 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. 43 

moral greenness and beauty. Rich in intellectual 
productions, abounding in tbe fruits of taste, acute 
m metaphysical discrimination, and sparkling some- 
times with admirable moral precepts, the mass of 
ancient literature is nevertheless, in its moral influ 
ences, corrupt and corrupting. 

Nor has the literature of modern times, when di- 
vorced from Christianity, accomplished any thing 
more beneficent for the world. The offspring of 
scepticism and sensuality, baptized by the priests of 
mammon, it has sold itself as the servile minister of 
selfishness, the base pander to lust, to pride and 
power. It is the arsenal of evil, rather than an 
auxiliary of good to mankind. The unsanctified lit- 
erature, the prostituted press of the nineteenth cen- 
tury opposes one of the greatest obstructive forces 
to the progress of Christianity. 

Almost equally imbecile has a corrupted Christi- 
anity been found, in the work of repairing the ruin 
of sin. When its doctrines are adulterated by the 
subtleties of the schoolmen, and its morality is dis- 
placed by the refinements of Jesuitical expediency ; 
when the church, instead of transporting the word 
of God to the benighted abroad, locks it up in clois- 
ters at home, practically teaching salvation through 
the efficacy of sacraments, rather than by the power 
of the cross ; when priestcraft joins unholy alliance 
with kingcraft to pervert the pure gospel into an en- 
gine of state, fettering freedom and forging chains lor 



44 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

conscience ; when pride and power put on the sacer- 
dotal garb, and ambition strides into the metropoli- 
tan chair, and wicked men lord it over God's heri- 
tage, and shut up the fountains of living waters from 
the thirsty people, and give the hungry children's 
bread to dogs — then Christianity is shorn of its 
mighty power, and grinds in the prison-house of its 
enemies. Such dreadful perversion blots out the 
sunlight of heaven, and leaves men to walk in dark- 
ness. It intercepts them in their approach to the 
inner court and the mercy-seat, and leaves them to 
wander around their heavenly Father's house as 
orphans or criminals. It bolts the windows of heav- 
en, pushes back the hand reached down for human 
deliverance, and turns out of its appointed channels 
the current of divine life gushing forth for the cleans- 
ing of human souls. Oh, how has such corruption 
made the church, instead of light and life and salva- 
tion, a kind of pestilence and plague, the occasion of 
a more malignant development of the general dis- 
ease, rather than of its cure ! "If the light that is 
in" her " be darkness, how great is that darkness !" 
From all such instrumentality, Christian benefi- 
cence studiously withholds herself. Instead of rely- 
ing upon such means, it is her appropriate work to 
assail them, and by rectifying reason, sanctifying gen- 
ius and taste, and leading men to the pure foun- 
tains of divine science, to transfer them from the 
heathen to the Christian side of the conflict. For 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. 45 

this she levies no armies, except those bearing the 
weapons of a spiritual warfare. She sends out no 
fleets, save those under commission from the great 
King. She lays no siege but for the bombardment 
of the strongholds of principalities and powers, and 
to pour forth the "junipers of hot conviction" into 
the ancient battlements of spiritual wickedness in 
high places. She has no gaudy trappings, no glit- 
tering pageantry, no bewitching mysticism for the 
vain-glorious and imaginative. She comes to us with 
the Gospel of Jesus. The hopes of the race are sus- 
pended on the simple but powerful doctrine of the 
cross, rendered effectual by the Holy Sjririt. 

See now its operation. It lays its account directly 
with the heart, and in the attire of simple truth, 
seizes the conscience, piercing the innermost soul 
with the conviction of sin, and pointing the guilt- 
stricken sinner to the cross of Christ. Subduing the 
heart, its first conquest gives the pledge of victory in 
all its subsequent encounters. It unites the believer 
through a living faith to a divine Redeemer, by whom 
he is borne up into the dazzling visions of the spirit 
ual world, and permitted to look upon glories that 
eclipse the brightness of all earthly splendor. It 
presents to him the great overmastering truth, that 
" God is love," and illustrates it to him by the cross. 
" Herein is love." 

" God so loved the world, that he gave his only be- 
gotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should 



46 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

not perish, but have everlasting life." " "What words 
are those you read ? What sounds are those I heard ? 
Let me hear those words again," exclaims a poor 
South Sea islander, as the missionary Nott is read- 
ing this passage from the gospel of John. " Is that 
true ? Can that be true ? God loved the world 
when the world did not love him ! Can that be 
true ?" And when assured that it is true, with a 
heart too full for utterance, he retires to meditate on 
the amazing love of God, which has reached and 
subdued his soul. A wretched pilgrim on the coast 
of Malabar inquires of his priests how he can make 
atonement for his sins, and is directed to drive iron 
spikes through his sandals, and walk four hundred 
and eighty miles. While he reposes under a shady 
tree, and waits for healing and strength, as from 
the loss of blood he is often compelled to do, the 
herald of the gospel comes forth, and preaches to 
him from the words, " The blood of Jesus Christ 
cleanseth us from all sin." The victim of Pagan 
delusion rises from the ground, throws oil his tortur- 
ing sandals, and crying out, " This is what I want," 
becomes a living witness of the power of the truth 
to which he listened. " That is what I want, that is 
what I want" exclaimed a poor Hindoo, on hearing 
that "the Son of man came to seek and to save that 
which was lost." And this is what the heathen 
want — what all men want. It is light in darkness, 
hope in despair, life in death. 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. 47 

And this is just the instrumentality which heaven 
has provided. To the polluted, the gospel opens a 
fountain of cleansing waters. To the condemned, 
it presents a forgiving God. To the thirsty, it is a 
river of life. To the hungry, it is the bread of heav- 
en. The weary it lays in sweet repose on the bosom 
of a loving Saviour. The fallen heir of glory it 
makes a king and a priest unto God. It illumines 
the darkened understanding. It rouses the slumber- 
ing conscience. It subdues the rebellious will. It 
descends into the affections, and like the angel- visit- 
ant at Bethesda, imparts a purifying and healing 
power, and recovers the whole man. 

See, too, the harmony in the operations of this in- 
strumentality, by principles seemingly paradoxical. 
The doctrine of man's apostasy is most impressively 
taught by the means appointed for his recovery. 
The soul is impressed with a sense of its ruin by 
that which takes from it the deep gloom of despair. 
Provision is made for the pardon of sin in a way 
which demonstrates that it cannot be palliated. The 
gospel provides for moral purity by a transaction 
which deepens the sense of moral pollution, and dis- 
pels the terrors of guilt by a fact that proclaims the 
turpitude of transgression. It awakens the keenest 
sensibility to the claims of duty by that which makes 
propitiation for the sin of neglected duly. It recti- 
fies reason and subdues the will by a process which 
elevates the moral sentiments. It nurtures zeal 



48 THE MISSION. OF THE CHURCH. 

without making zealots, and leads to the contem- 
plation of mysteries, yet has no tendency to make 
mystics. It fosters alike reflection and action, joins 
faith and charity, teaches dependence and respon- 
sibility, harmonizes the discordant elements of our 
nature, and turns all our energies into the channel 
of sweet obedience and love. It unites sublimity 
with simplicity, gives high moral dignity to the 
smallest act of obedience, and chronicles for the ad 
miration of the world the donation of " two mites " 
as the testimonial of love. Prudent, it is neither 
temporizing nor timid ; cautious, it is nevertheless 
decisive and energetic; ''sorrowful, yet always re- 
joicing ; as having nothing, yet possessing all things." 
Thus radically and thoroughly, and almost paradoxi 
cally, does the gospel work in the heart of the indi 
vidua! > preparing its way to permeate and pervade 
society. 

Going forth into the ivorld, the gospel knows no 
truce with error, no compromise with sin, no compact 
with artifice, no resort to stratagem. Openly and 
boldly it lays the axe at the root of every evil tree, 
and destroys its fruit, not by clipping off the twigs, 
but by hewing down the trunk. It dries up the 
streams of human woe, not by artificial processes 
of heating the air, but by closing up the fountains. 
And it gives good guarantee of its effectual working 
by the class among whom it begins. "To the poor 
the gospel is preached ;" and from this class it works 



riiOrOIlTION IN BENEFICEKCE. 4 9 

upward through all the intermediate strata of society 
to the highest. 

The gospel comes to man as a henefactor in his 
social relations. Prescribing his duties, it utters its 
severest anathemas against those who rudely trench 
upon the rights and privileges, or overleap the boun- 
daries of the social state. It raises woman from ser- 
vile, almost soulless barbarism, to civilized and Chris 
tian refinement, and leads her, as among the CafTres, 
to regard the missionary as " the shield of woman," 
and to consider his approach, as the female savages 
of New England did that of Eliot, the "advent of 
an angel." It nurses feeble infancy, and trains the 
opening mind to virtue and happiness. It extendi 
its protecting arm to infirm old age, and adminis- 
ters rebuke to the "child" that demeaneth himself 
" proudly against the ancients." All " the lesser 
charities that soothe, and cheer, and bless," the do- 
mestic virtues, the sacred endearments which consti- 
tute the bliss and charm of social life, all find their 
source in the gospel of Christ. 

With equal efficiency and success, does the Chris- 
tian religion operate upon the civil condition of man. 
By creating a sense of individual responsibility, it 
awakens a desire for personal freedom ; and through 
the restraint which it imposes, by motives drawn I 
higher than human enactments, it makes that free- 
dom safe and salutary. It presents the Bible as the 
great statute book of heaven for men, and creates 

Miss, of Church. 4 



50 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

loyal subjects, by securing just rulers and the enact- 
ment of just laws. It maintains incessant warfare 
with pride and ambition and false honor, the three 
grand procurers of barbarism, brutality, and blood- 
shed. It sets forth the lav/ of equity, humility, and 
love as the rule of international commerce, and 
binds kings as veil as subjects by the principles of 
individual responsibility and honesty. Under the in- 
fluence of the gospel, oppression shall cease from the 
earth. The clarion of war shall no more call hostile 
armies to the field of sanguinary conflict. The hero 
shall be stripped of the guise of false glory, in which 
men 

"Smile assent at giant crime, 
And call the darkest deeds sublime;*' 

and he only whose works of love and mercy procure 
for him the approval of heaven, shall receive the 
applause of men. A new standard of glory will 
Christianity present to the nations of the earth, and 
challenge kings and potentates to a new style of 
achievement. To do gcod and not evil, to save man 
and not destroy him, will characterize that day when 
love shall smile in every eye, and peace shall dwell 
in every bosom, and earth shall become a type and 
foretaste of heaven. 

The auspicious dawn of such a day already gilds 
the eastern horizon. What has swept idolatry with 
its diabolical abominations from the Tahitian, Sand- 
wich, and Society Islands, and from nearly a hun- 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. Q\ 

dred adjacent and other islands of the sea, and is 
leading to its downfall in India ? The Gospel. What 
has brought nearly half a million of the Worshippers 
of stocks and stones to the knowledge of the true 
God, and gathered half as many more youthful and 
adult pupils into schools in the process of intellect- 
ual and moral improvement? The Gospel. Behold 
a New Zealand chieftain, the veteran warrior of 
many battles, rising in the midst of a group of New 
Zealand children assembled by their native teachers 
for examination in the presence of their parents. 
Hear him exclaim with irrepressible emotion, "Let 
me speak ; I must speak. that I had known that 
the gospel was coming ! that I had known that 
these blessings were in store for us ! Then I should 
have saved my children, and they would have been 
among this happy group, repeating these precious 
truths ; but alas, I destroyed them all, and now I 
have not one left." Then bursting into tears, and 
cursing the gods which they had formerly worship- 
ped, he continues, "It was you that infused this sav- 
age disposition into us ; and now I shall die childless, 
although I have been the father of nineteen children. 
that some one had seized my murderous hand, and 
told me the Gospel is coming to our shores." What 
has wrought this change ? The Gospel. What lias 
enabled the missionary to exclaim of two hundred 
thousand converts gathered into more than a thousand 
Christian churches, as Paul did of the Ephesians, "Ye 



52 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

were sometime darkness, but now are ye light in the 
Lord?" The Gospel. "What has borne up before the 
throne that bright throng of ransomed ones. " out of all 
nations and kindreds and people and tongues/' from 
South Africa, from Eastern Asia, from Greenland, 
from the savage tribes of Xorth America, and from 
the islands of the sea ; and has put a new song into 
their mouth, " Salvation to our God which sitteth 
upon the throne, and unto the Lamb V The Gospel 
proclaimed by the missionary. Oh, it is this pre- 
cious doctrine, Christ and him crucified, that shall 
be the instrument of bringing down out of heaven 
the new Jerusalem from God, " which shall have no 
need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it ; 
for the glory of God shall lighten it, and the Lamb 
shall be the light thereof." It is by this only, that 
guilt is cancelled and sin taken away, the polluted 
cleansed; the outcast called home, and the miserable 
filled with " the peace of God"' and '-'the comfort of 
love." Who can compute the results of such an 
instrumentality ? They are measureless as the bliss 
of heaven, endless as the duration of God. Who 
can estimate the importance of such instrumental- 
ity ? It is wise as the councils of heaven, il precious 
as the blood of Christ," necessary as the salvation 
of the soul, and commensurate with the most wide- 
spread and disastrous consequences of sin. 

But can this instrumental agency prevail over all 
the might v and malignant foes which set themselves 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. Q$ 

against it? The trial Las Lccn met, the experiment 
made. Benevolence has prevailed over selfishness, 
love over hate, God over man. The church has sur- 
vived, and not only so, but she has flourished in her 
bitterest persecutions. Fire cannot burn her, water 
cannot drown her, nor the "wild beasts out of the 
wood" devour her. Two converts are born, for 
every one that is burnt. " The blood of the mar- 
tyrs is the seed of the church." The fires burnish 
her, and the waters purify her. Dangers enlarge 
her, and the rack emancipates her. Her opposers 
help her on, and her foes build her up. The fulmi- 
nations of kings and cardinals against her hasten 
the accomplishment of the purposes of the King ot 
kings in her favor. From temporary defeat, she 
rises with renewed energy for permanent triumph. 
Every external pressure she throws off by the op- 
eration of an internal divine power. Decrees and 
bolts and bars and fire and faggots hinder not her 
progress. Bonds and tortures and terrors and death 
prevent not her increase. Yea, in all these, and by 
means of these, she triumphs. What would destroy 
other things, developes the mighty power of the gos- 
pel. What would put back other causes, advances 
this. Under those circumstances in which other 
organizations would perish, the church prevails. 

Do you ask how these wonders are to be accounted 
for? By the inherent divine power, by the elements 
of increase and of immortality residing in the Gospel 



54 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

of Jesus. The covenant of the church, in carrying 
out its grand beneficent work of converting the world, 
is with her almighty Head, who sits above the storms, 
and infuses his own insuppressible and indestructible 
spirit of energy into the hearts of all his followers. 
" The Lord her God in the midst of her is mighty." 
" The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes 
of all nations," therefore, " all the ends of the earth 
shall see the salvation of our God " Is not this an 
instrumentality adequate to the most sublime and 
comprehensive benevolence of the church ? Is it not 
adapted to every want of man, in every clime and 
every condition ? It is the "power of God." W r hat 
can resist it ? It is " the wisdom of God." "What 
can counterwork it ? It involves the highest moral 
energies, the purest moral influences, and the wisest 
adaptation of moral means to their ends. It is heav- 
en's matchless instrumentality for accomplishing 
heaven's own most gigantic purposes of love. 

See now, how this instrumentality harmonizes 
with the ends sought in beneficence. Are they vast ? 
It is commensurate in its achieving power with their 
mightiest and most far-reaching aspirations. Are 
they important ? It is equal in efficiency to the ac- 
complishment of their weightiest results. The im- 
mortal soul, with its expanding capacities for happi- 
ness or misery, may be safely trusted to its redeeming 
efficacy. It has borne millions of such souls from the 
pollutions and miseries of earth, to bask in the sun- 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. 55 

light and bliss of heaven, clothing them in robes of 

spotless purity, and placing on their heads crowns of 
fadeless glory. Millions more, now on the earth, it 
is bearing on to the same glorious consummation. 
And of the countless spirits yet to pass through this 
world of sin and sorrow, not one, to whom its mighty 
power may be applied, shall fail to reach that " bet- 
ter land," where faith passes into bright fruition, and 
hope melts away into the fulness of inexpressible 
bliss, and love achieves her seraphic heights and 
burns with more than seraphic fire. 

" Rise, kindling with the orient beam ; 
Let Calvary's hill inspire the theme ! 

Unfold the garments rolled in blood; 
touch the soul, touch all her chorda 
With all the omnipotence of words, 

And point the way to heaven — to God." 

THIRD GENERAL PROPOSITION. 

Every man's charitable contributions should 
be proportionate to his pecunmty means and fa- 
cilities for, applying the instrumentality. 

This is the divinely established rule of proportion. 
"According to the ability that God giveth." "As 
God hath prospered you." " Every man according 
to his several ability." In these and similar pa 
ges of the word of God, it is implied that every one 
is able to do something, and it is affirmed that each 
one should do according to that ability. The only 
question on which there can be doubl or difficult} is, 



56 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

AYhat is each man's ability ? In determining this 
question, we shall he assisted by the three following 
references. 

1. By reference to the beneficence of the Jewish 
church. There is a tendency to make the benefi- 
cent economy of the former dispensation a directory 
in the Christian dispensation ; and most men feel 
that by employing a tenth of their income for char- 
itable purposes, they are meeting the requirement of 
the Mosaic law, and consequently fully discharging 
their duty. But there are two errors in such an 
hypothesis. One is in supposing the proportion re- 
quired by the Jewish system to be only a tenth ; and 
the other in assuming that the measure of liberality 
which answered the law of Moses, equally harmo- 
nizes with the law of Christ. 

After their deliverance from Egypt, the first-born of 
every creature was required to be consecrated to the 
Lord, in memory of that signal event. The first- 
born child belonged to the Lord, and was to be re- 
deemed at the age of one month, by a price paid to 
the priest. Such beasts as it was not lawful to offer 
in sacrifice, as horses and camels, might be redeemed 
or exchanged for such as were lawful to be offered, 
as sheep or oxen. The first-born of all clean beasts 
were to be sacrificed, and their flesh given to the 
priest. At the harvest and vintage, the first-fruits 
of the fields, the corn and wine and oil, were to be 
brought to the priest, and the gleanings and the 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. 57 

corners of the fields were to he left fjr the poor. 
Also the first-fruits of the wool when the sheep were 
shorn, of the wheat when threshed, of the dough 
when kneaded, and of the bread when baked, were 
to be offered before the Lord. Of fruit-trees, they 
were allowed to gather nothing for themselves, unti] 
after the fourth bearing year. All fruit till this 
period was considered sacred to the Lord, and was 
given to the poor, as was also the spontaneous fruit 
of the fields every seventh year. In addition to these, 
one tenth was paid to the Levites, as a remuneration 
for their services to the church and nation; and 
after this, what remained was again assessed, and 
another tenth was expended in the feasts and sacri- 
fices of the temple, and for the poor. At their 
feasts, besides the Levites, widows, orphans, stran- 
gers, and the poor of every description, were to be 
invited. And at the close of every third year, that 
there might be no evasion of the law, all were re- 
quired to make solemn asseveration before the Lord, 
that the whole of this second tithe had been applied 
to the prescribed objects. Lev. 27 : 30-3-i ; Dent. 
12:17,18; 14:22-29; 26:12-15. 

And what was the chief point of instruction which 
Jehovah designed to impress upon his people by such 
an admirably arranged system of beneficence ? That 
he was the proprietor of their fields, their flocks, and 
their herds, and that they were dependent on him 
for sunshine and rain, for seed-time and harvest. 



58 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

How expressively, then, does the patriarchal and 
Mosaic doctrine of tithes carry along with it the 
Christian idea of steicardship. How suited to meet 
and to counteract the tendencies of the human heart 
to covetousness. It should also be remembered, that 
this proportion, large as it is, was the minimum meas- 
ure of Jewish liberality, the least which their system 
allowed ; while the attractive and exciting circum- 
stances under which they presented their tithes and 
offerings, and the influence of the temple service, 
especially of their public festivals, led them often 
greatly to exceed the rule. 

But there were peculiar exigencies in the history 
of the Jewish church, which illustrate the spirit of 
their beneficence even better than the annual im- 
posts levied upon them by the law of Moses. The 
liberality of the Jews in the construction of the tab- 
ernacle, and the erection of the temple, has seldom 
been equalled in the Christian church, and perhaps 
never surpassed. Just emerging from the oppressive 
bondage in Egypt, and destined to be wanderers for 
forty years in the wilderness, we should hardly have 
expected them to be called on to make large offerings 
for any purpose. Yet scarcely were they free from 
their pursuers, ere the word of the Lord came to 
Moses, saying, "Speak unto the children of Israel, 
that they bring me an offering : of every man that 
giveth it willingly with his heart, ye shall take my 
offering. And this is the offering that ye shall take of 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. £9 

them; gold, and silver, and brass, and blue, and pur- 
ple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats' hair, and 
rams' skins dyed red, and badgers' skins, and shittim- 
Wood, oil for the light, spices for anointing oil and for 
sweet incense, onyx stones, and stones to be set in 
the ephod, and in the breastplate." Out of these, 
the tabernacle and its utensils and appurtenances 
were to be constructed, the ark of testimony, the 
mercy-seat, the altar, and laver and candlesticks, all 
wrought of the most precious materials, and overlaid 
with pure gold. See now this people, just from their 
degrading servitude, with comparatively small pos- 
sessions, and little means of adding to them. When 
religion is to be promoted at the call of God, they 
withhold nothing, until the end is accomplished. 
All give with a willing mind, not a certain portion 
of their income, but a large part of their possessions. 
They devote it freely and joyfully to the service of 
the church. And they thus give an example of lib- 
erality which it has pleased the Almighty to trans- 
mit to all following generations, as an incentive to 
the same devotion, and a proof that inauspicious cir- 
cumstances are not always an excuse for refusing the 
-calls of benevolence. 

Pass now to the reign of David. It was not for 
him to build the temple, although it was in his heart 
so to do. Yet, before the affairs of his kingdom were 
settled, and he was quietly seated on the throne, he 
began the work of gathering materials for the mag- 



50 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

nificent structure. " Behold," says he to his son, u in 
my trouble I have prepared for the house of the 
Lord a hundred thousand talents of gold, and a 
thousand thousand talents of silver ; and of brass and 
iron without weight, for it is in abundance ; timber 
also and stone have I prepared ; and thou mayest add 
thereto." " Of the gold, and the silver, and the brass, 
and the iron, there is no number." With these im- 
mense and other additional materials, the vast and 
splendid edifice was reared, at an expenditure esti- 
mated by some at three thousand millions of dol- 
lars. How did they respond to this extraordinary 
call ? Reluctantly ? No. Did they allege pleas of 
poverty, or of concurrent claims for other objects ? 
Not one. The people rejoiced, for they offered will- 
ingly, and more than was needed. And David 
blessed the Lord before all the congregation, and 
said, "Who am I, and what is my people, that Ave 
should be able to offer so willingly after this sor 

Now, what is the principle upon which is made 
this voluntary consecration of treasure unto the Lord ? 
This happy monarch's eucharistical prayer contains 
its announcement : ;; Lord our God, all this store 
that we have prepared to build thee a house for 
thine holy Name, cometh of thine hand, and is all 
thine own;" "for all things come of thee, and of 
thine own have we given thee." It is the Chris- 
tian principle of stewardship, which inheres as an 
essential element of every dispensation from Gene- 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. Gl 

sis to Revelation. It is the doctrine, that " the silver 
and the gold are the Lord's ;" that he has an indis- 
putable right to all that his creatures possess ; that 
there are higher uses to which it may be applied, 
yielding purer and more elevated and permanent 
enjoyment than personal aggrandizement or selfish 
gratification ; and that when God calls, whatever 
may be the proportion or amount, man's cheerful 
response always secures the divine favor. 

When Christians refer to the tithing system of the 
Jews, as a guide in adjusting the proportion of their 
income which should be devoted to objects of benefi- 
cence, it is important to take into account the free- 
will offerings which accompanied the working of 
the system, as well as the regular imposts laid upon 
the people. The deep, underflowing sjririt of the 
economy should be understood, as well as the simple 
letter of its statutory enactments. Yet, the careful 
collation of these laws will be sufficient to explode 
the popular idea, that the devotement of a tenth of 
our income brings our beneficence into agreement 
with the divine rule given to the Jews. The Old 
Testament doctrine upon the subject of beneficence 
cannot be fully exemplified by a less proportion, as 
we have said, than one fourth of a man's income 

And this proportion was required of the Jews, 
under circumstances, in some respects, widely differ- 
ent from those under which Christians are called to 
live, It was simply for charity, and the mainte- 



62 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

nance of religion at home. The Jewish church had 
received no commission to diffuse her religion abroad. 
The difference in this particular, between the clispen 
sations of Moses and of Christ, is great. The former 
was simply conservative and defensive. The latter is 
essentially reformatory and aggressive. The one was 
a system of special rules and of a cumbersome ritual 
service. The other is a system of religious principles, 
and of spiritual worship. One was for the twelve 
tribes; the other is for the world. In the one, THE 
truth dwelt iii gorgeous symbols and attractive cer- 
emonies ; in the other, He manifested himself in " the 
fulness of the Godhead, bodily," and still is present 
by his spiritual and subduing power. 

Can those living under dispensations so diverse, 
with blessings so unequal, have devolved upon them 
only an equal measure of duty and effort ? Can we 
make the rule of Jewish beneficence in a conserva- 
tive system, the measure of our own in a diffusive 
and an aggressive one ? Can the Christian con- 
science be satisfied with a scale of liberality, for both 
domestic and foreign beneficence, less than half as 
large as that which the claims of one of these ob- 
jects made upon the Jewish conscience ? 

An opulent man deducts one tenth from his in- 
come for charity. Half of the remainder may be re- 
quired for his necessary family expenditures. After 
this he adds four times as much to his stock in trade, 
or capital at interest, as he allows for charity. He 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. 63 

reserves for himself nine parts of all that with which 
he has been blessed, and allows one part to God for 
the salvation of the world. Is he benevolent ? 

There are circumstances, it is true, in which a 
tenth of a man's income, would be a large proportion. 
But there are other circumstances, in which it would 
be a small proportion. In some, it would cost sell- 
denial. In others, it would not be felt. Three 
fourths of a large income might be a less proportion 
than one tenth, or even one fiftieth of a small one. 
So that he who gave least would, in an important 
sense, give most, for he would do it at the greatest 
sacrifice. Such is the inequality which would result 
from adopting any fixed proportion as applicable in 
all cases. 

2. A reference to the beneficent spirit of the early 
Christian church. It will be admitted, that the 
early Christians were in a condition, as favorable at 
least, for forming a correct judgment in the matter 
of beneficence, as any who have come after them. 
Some of them were called by the Saviour himself. 
They received instructions from his own lips. The 
sweet and elevating influence of his personal pres- 
ence and conversation, embalmed in their memory 
the recollection of all that he did and said and suf- 
fered. Under this influence, they went forth to the 
world, bright examples of Christian beneficence. 
They " sold their possessions and goods, and parted 
them to all men as every man had need." They 



G4 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

felt that they were made the executors of their Sav- 
iour's last will and testament to a lost world, and 
that whatsoever of their possessions could subserve 
the accomplishment of the sacred trust, should be 
freely laid upon the altar of sacrifice. Nothing short 
of the dedication of their entire substance and lives 
to the cause of such a Master, in the execution of 
such a testament, met their ideas of duty, or ex- 
pressed their sense of gratitude and love. Their 
renunciation of the world in its pride and pomp 
and power, was actual and entire. They lived in 
it only to do good. The glad tidings which they 
had received, it was their great object to communi 
cate. They had contemplated the infinite riches 
of the grace of God, and had lost the desire for 
all other riches. Honor, power, wealth, learning, 
eloquence, were valued by them only as they con- 
tributed to diffuse the blessings of the cross, or con- 
stituted the means of a more costly sacrifice to Him 
who died upon it. The cross ! For this, they could 
relinquish all, and endure all. In this, they gloried. 
And in the ardor of love, inspired by this, they " took 
joyfully the spoiling of their goods," and the crown 
of martyrdom. Selfishness was nearly annihilated 
by the antagonist power of the cross. Covetousness 
was quite dead, from the withholding of all that 
whereby it lives. A parsimonious Christian would 
speedily have obtained among them the unenviable 
notoriety of an Achan, or a Judas In giving them- 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. 65 

selves to Christ, they gave all," and were made rich 
by what they gave. More than this they could not 
do ; less, their love would not allow. And to make 
more sure to themselves the blessings, of such liber- 
ality, and as a safeguard against the growth of a 
penurious spirit, "On. the first day of the week, 
they laid by in store as God had prospered them." 
Of the Macedonian churches the apostle says, " In 
a great trial of affliction, the abundance of their 
joy, and their deep poverty, abounded unto the 
riches of their liberality. For to their power, I bear 
record, yea, and beyond their power, they were will- 
ing of themselves ; praying us with much entreaty, 
that we would receive the gift, and take upon us the 
fellowship of the ministering to the saints." 

The test and the fruit of discipleship among these 
early Christians, was a spirit of entire devotion. 
But were their obligations more imperative than 
ours ? Was the commend " to do good and to com- 
municate," more binding then, than now? "Were 
the blessings promised to the liberal soul, more rich 
or full, or the danger and evils of covetousness less, 
or the calls of sorrow and of want more urgent ? 
Were souls in greater peril then than now, or was 
the Gospel more effectual ? No ; the difference is 
not in the gospel, but in the spirit of the men re- 
ceiving it. They understood Christianity; they felt 
its beneficent power, and they exemplified it . Taking 
their divine Master as their model, they "pressed 

Hiss. <tf Church. 5 



66 THE MISSION OP THE CHURCH. 

towards the mark for the prize of their high call- 
ing." " Our blessed Lord," says one of the early 
fathers of the Christian church, " ate his food from a 
common dish. He sat upon the ground, and washed 
his disciples' feet without a silver basin. Nay, he 
quenched his thirst from the earthen pitcher of a 
poor Samaritan woman. And are we better than 
he ? Will not a table contain our food, unless its 
legs be ivory ? Certain it is, that a lamp made by 
a potter will give light as well as if it were the 
work of a silversmith." 

The spirit of beneficence among these primitive 
Christians, led them to make no provision for the 
flesh. They counted self-denial better for themselves, 
as well as more honorable to their Master, than self- 
indulgence. They were Christians, and they gloried 
in maintaining their consistency, despite the sword 
and the stake. Says another of them, " We say we 
are Christians, and we say it to the whole world, 
under the hand of the executioner. In the midst of 
all the tortures you can heap upon us to make us 
recant, torn and mangled and covered with our own 
blood, we still cry out as loud as we are able, we are 
Christians. Call us by what names you please. 
Fill our flesh with fagots to set us on fire, yet let me 
tell you that when we are thus begirt and dressed 
about with fire, we are in our most illustrious ap- 
parel. These are our victorious palms and robes ol 
glory ; and, mounted on our funeral pile, we feel our- 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE 07 

selves as in a triumphal chariot. "We conquer when 
we die, and the spoils of that victory is eternal life." 
" What you reproach us with as stubbornness, is the 
best means of proselyting the world. For who has 
not been struck with the sight of such fortitude, and 
from thence pushed on to look into the reason of it ? 
And who ever looked well into our religion, hut em- 
braced it ? And who ever embraced it, but was 
willing to die for it?" 

Does any one now ask what proportion of their 
possessions such men devoted to beneficence ? They 
gave the ivhole, and themselves with it. Does he 
ask how much they were able to do for the diffusion 
of Christianity ? They were able to live for it — to 
die for it. Their ability was measured only by the 
extent of their possessions, the length of their lives, 
and their capacity to labor and to suffer. They 
stopped not a whit short of this. But was their lot 
cast in a different dispensation from ours ? JNTo, it 
was the same dispensation. What then constitutes 
the difference ? Ah, we repeat, it is in the spirit of 
the men. The early Christians were wholly devoted 
to their Master. The hearts of later ones are divided 
between him and the world. Covetousness has crept 
into the church, and like the strong man armed, 
has bound its members and spoiled their goods. This 
is the difference. We of the nineteenth century sow 
sparingly and reap also sparingly. The early Chris- 
tians sowed plentifully, and they reaped also plcuti- 



68 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

fully. We say, charity costs too much, and yield 
only a pittance. They said, it cannot cost too much, 
and laid down their lives. 

3. A reference to the Scripture declarations re- 
lating to property, and to the duty of liberality. 
" To the law, and to the testimony ; if we speak 
not according to this word, it is because there is no 
light in us." What then saith the Scripture ? Does 
it prescribe the exact proportion of his income which 
should be devoted to charitable purposes ? JS"o. It 
is a book of facts, of doctrines, of principles and pre- 
cepts. It proceeds on the assumption that inquiry, 
reflection, and prayer are essential to the develop- 
ment of the Christian character. It leaves men to 
a sense of responsibility in employing the facts, and 
applying the principles to the question of individual 
duty. Does a man wish to know what proportion 
of his property should be consecrated to beneficence ? 
He will not find it stated in so many words, whether 
one tenth, or one fourth, or more, or less, ought to 
be thus employed. But by a careful consideration 
of the scripture doctrine contained in the following 
passages concerning property and the duty of liber- 
ality, he may be led to conclusions as safe and as 
certain, as if the amount were determined in every 
case by specific divine command. 

(1.) Riches are from the Lord, and belong to him. 
" Both riches and honor come of thee." " The silver 
is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. 69 

hosts." " Every beast of the forest is mine, and the 
cattle upon a thousand hills." " The earth is the 
Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world and they 
that dwell therein." " The Lord maketh rich." 
" The Lord thy God, it is he that giveth thee powei 
to get wealth." 

(2.) Riches are in themselves a transient, unsat- 
isfying, and disquieting possession. "Nor trust 
in uncertain riches." " Riches are not for ever." 
" Riches make themselves wings and fly away." 
" Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, 
where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves 
break through and steal." " There is that maketh 
himself rich, yet hath nothing." " He that loveth 
silver, shall not be satisfied with silver ; neither he 
that loveth abundance, with increase." "There is 
one alone, and there is not a second ; yea, he hath 
neither child nor brother ; yet there is no end of his 
labor, neither is his eye satisfied with riches ; neither 
saith he, For whom do I labor and bereave my soul of 
good ? This is also vanity, yea, it is a sore travail." 
" He that is greedy of gain, troubleth his own house." 
" In the revenues of the wicked is trouble." " The 
abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep ' ' 
" Then I looked on all the works that my hands had 
wrought, and behold, all was vanity and vexation 
of spirit ; and there was no profit under the sun." 
"For what hath man of all his labor, and of the vex- 
ation of his spirit wherein he hath labored ! For all 



70 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

his days are sorrows, and his travail, grief; yea, his 
heart taketh not rest in the night." 

(3.) They brmg no relief in mans greatest dis- 
tress. "Riches -profit not in the day of wrath." 
" Their silver and their gold shall not be able to 
deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord." 
" Because there is wrath, beware lest he take thee 
away with his stroke : then a great ransom cannot 
deliver thee. Will he esteem thy riches ? JNTo, not 
gold, nor all the forces of strength." " There was 
a certain rich man which was clothed in purple and 
fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day. The 
rich man also died, and was buried. And in hell, 
he lifted up his eyes, being in torments." 

(4.) It is unlawful and dangerous to trust in and 
to /ward them. " If I have made gold my hope, or 
have said to the fine gold, Thou art my confidence ; 
if I rejoiced because my wealth was great, and be- 
cause mine hand had gotten much ; I should have 
denied the God that is above." " If riches increase, 
set not your heart upon them." N Lay not up for 
yourselves treasures upon earth." " Labor not to be 
rich." "Beware, lest when thou hast eaten and 
art full, and when thy herds and thy flocks are mul- 
tiplied, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied ; 
then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the 
Lord thy God, and thou say in thine heart, My power, 
and the might of mine hand, hath gotten me this 
wealth." " Covetousness, let it not be once named 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. 71 

among you, as becometh saints." " He that trusteth 
in his riches shall fall." " How hard is it for them 
that trust in riches, to enter into the kingdom of 
God." " The cares of this world and the deceitful- 
ness of riches choke the word, and he becometh un- 
fruitful." " He that hideth his eyes from the poor 
shall have many a curse." " Woe unto them that 
join house to house, that lay field to field." " They 
that will be rich, fall into temptation and a snare, 
and into many hurtful and foolish lusts, which drown 
men in destruction and perdition. For the love of 
money is the root of all evil ; which, while some 
have coveted after, they have erred from the faith, 
and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. 
But thou, man of God, flee these things." " 1 
have seen riches kept for the owners thereof to their 
hurt." "Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl, 
for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your 
riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth- 
eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered ; and the 
rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall 
eat your flesh as it were fire." " JSTo covetous man 
hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of 
God." Balaam " loved the wages of unrighteous- 
ness, but was rebuked for his iniquity." " Aelian 
answered Joshua, and said, Indeed, I have sinned 
against the Lord God of Israel. When I saw among 
the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and two hun- 
dred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty 



72 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

shekels weight, then I coveted them, and took them- 
And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us ? the 
Lord shall trouble thee this day. And all Israel 
stoned him with stones." To Gehazi, for coveting 
the Syrian's silver and the garments, the prophet 
said, " The leprosy therefore of Naaman shall cleave 
unto thee and unto thy seed for ever. And he went 
out from his presence a leper as white as snow." 
" Judas, when he saw that Jesus was condemned, 
repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces 
of silver to the chief priests and elders. And he 
cast down the pieces of silver in the temple and de- 
parted, and went and hanged himself." 

(5.) Liberality is characteristic of the righteous, 
and is expressly commanded. " The righteous show- 
eth mercy and giveth." " He that honoreth his 
Maker, hath mercy on the poor." " The righteous 
considereth the cause of the poor." "Withhold not 
good from him to whom it is due, when it is in the 
power of thine hand to do it." " Say not to thy 
neighbor, Go, and come again ; when thou hast it 
by thee." " Give to him that asketh thee." " Give 
to him that needeth." " Give alms of such things 
as you have." "Honor the Lord with thy sub- 
stance." "To do good, and to communicate, forget 
not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased." 
" Charge them that are rich in this world, that they 
be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to 
communicate ; laying up in store for themselves a 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. 73 

good foundation against the time to come, that they 
may lay hold on eternal life." "Whoso hath this 
world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and 
shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how 
dwelleth the love of God in him?" "Thou shall 
not harden thy heart, nor shut thy hand from thy 
poor brother ; but thou shalt open thy hand wide 
unto him." " As ye abound in every thing, see that 
ye abound in this grace also." " Freely ye have 
received, freely give." " Upon the first day of the 
week, let every one of you lay by him in store, as 
God hath prospered him." 

(G.) The highest and best use of riches is in be- 
neficence ■, which secures exemption from want and 
the blessing of heaven. " Make to yourselves friends 
of the mammon of unrighteousness." "The angel 
of God said unto Cornelius, Thy prayers and thine 
alms arc come up as a memorial before God." 
" Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he 
said, It is more blessed to give than to receive." 
" And there came a certain poor widow, and she 
threw in two mites, which make a farthing. And 
he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, 
Verily I say unto you, that this poor widow hath 
cast more in than all they which have cast into the 
treasury. For all they did cast in of their abun- 
dance ; but she of her want did cast in all that she 
had, even all her living." "For if there be first a 
willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man 



the m: ivrch. 

bath, aud not ttg to that he hath not 

J] not lack.'* * T 

lH thou dwell in 
land, and thy 

id upon : for thou shalt find 

many d ays Be that hath pity upon the poor, 

lendeth to the and that which he hath g: 

all thine in- 
barns be 61] 
and 

" B. :h the poor. 

tha: 

a the poor, happy is he." There 

the liberal 

soul shall be ma : shall 

be v and it shall be 

good m. jssed down, and 

sha. 

_ood and lend, hoping for 

not; g ail be great, and 

be the children of th hen 

the a the poor, the maimed, the 

lame, and the U 1 thou shalt be 

• :iou shalt bo :i of 

the . to the hun- 

5oul ; then shall thy 
light rise in obso the 

noonday. And \. ihaU guide *... nu- 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. J fj 

ally, arid satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat 
thy hones ; and thou shalt be like a watered garden, 
and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not." 

Now, if the word of God is admitted as an infalli- 
ble guide, will it not aid an inquirer in determining 
his ability, to reflect upon these passages until his 
mind is imbued with their spirit ? Will it not give 
the claims of benevolence a firmer hold on his con- 
science, and check the tendency to covetousness, to 
read that God regardeth it as idolatry, that the 
love of money is the root of all evil, leading the soul 
into foolish and hurtful lusts, piercing it through with 
many sorrows, and drowning it in perdition ? Who 
would not feel his ability to give in charity increas- 
ing under the growing conviction that he that sow- 
eth bountifully, shall reap also bountifully? Does 
a wise man grudge the seed grain, when the increase 
depends on the amount that he scattereth? Will 
he garner up what he gathers, when he feels that 
much as he may have been blessed in receiving, he 
would be more blessed in giving ? But alas, unbe- 
lief is the vampire that consumes the ability of the 
church. Men do not believe, when the mouth of 
the Lord hath spoken it, else they would not be so 
slow to lend to him. Let them study these pas- 
sages in their full signifrcancy, and imbibe their 
heavenly spirit, until all doubt vanishes, and the 
soul is raised up in liberality to the high ground of 
the Bible doctrine. Stand by the cross and Btudy 



7G THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

them there, invoking the divine Spirit to guide you 
into the truth. Cast yourself forward to the soul'rf 
transit into eternity, and study them there. Plaee 
yourself at the tribunal of God, amidst the throng 
of ransomed spirits in the heavenly glory, and study 
them there. Behold those shining ones casting their 
crowns at the feet of Jesus, and sweeping their harp- 
strings in full chorus to his praise, " Saying with a 
loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to 
receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, 
and honor, and glory, and blessing :" do this, and it 
will be easy to understand the scripture doctrine of 
beneficence, and to determine the proportion of your 
property which it is your duty and privilege to em- 
ploy for Him on earth, who has all riches ascribed 
to him in heaven. 

PARTICULAR PROPOSITIONS RESPECTING 
PROPORTION. 

If the reader has gone along with us in our refer- 
ence to the liberality of the Jewish church, to the 
beneficent spirit of the early Christians, and to the 
scripture declarations relating to property and the 
duty of liberality, he will be prepared to consider the 
subject of proportion in beneficence, in the following 
particular propositions. 

1. Every man's beneficence should be proportion- 
ate to the sum total of his property. It will be appar- 
ent in the outset, that we have to do with something 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. 77 

more than the single question of income. For al- 
though with a man who, from the commencement 
of his business life, has regulated his charities by 
the scripture rule, it might he only a question of 
income, yet as there are few who have done this, 
in determining each man's ability it is obvious that 
any inquiry would he partial, and any result de- 
fective, which should not involve a consideration 
of the sum total of a man's property. It may be, 
that, lured out of the pilgrim's path by the winning 
voice of Dcmas, you have been digging at the mine 
in "the little hill called lucre," and hoarding more 
than, is meet. It may he, that overpowered by the 
spirit of worldliness which steals away the vigor of 
piety, you have heen adding income to capital, that 
you might retire from business and live in ease and 
luxury and splendor, until a rate of liberality adjusted 
to your present ability would trench on your vested 
capital, or break in upon your accumulated stores. 
It may be, that the influence of fashion, or of iner< 
tng wealth, or of a plan of early retirement, like a 
subtle poison, has benumbed the moral sensibilizes, 
and rendered you reluctant to draw, for benevolent 
purposes, upon your vested funds. All this is very 
natural and very probable. Early in life, John 
Wesley said that he had known but four men* whose 
piety ha,d not suffered from their becoming rich. 
Longer observation led him to make no exception. 
His own case, however, may be alleged as an exam- 



78 THE MiSfelON OF THE CHURCH. 

pie of the power of grace to "withstand the withering 
influence of increasing wealth. His income at first 
was thirty pounds a year. Of this, he reserved two 
pounds for charity. The next year, it was sixty 
pounds. Still using but twenty- eight for himself, he 
employed thirty-two pounds in charity And when 
his income amounted to a hundred and twenty 
pounds, he lent ninety-two pounds to the Lord, and 
lived himself on twenty-eight as at first. At his de- 
cease, his whole property was found to consist of his 
clothes, his books, and a carriage, although he had 
probably given away more than a hundred thousand 
dollars. Did the root of all evil find no more con- 
genial soil in the hearts of other men, than it did in 
that of John Wesley, how different would be the state 
of the world ! But alas, it strikes deep, and entwines 
its threads about every fibre of the soul, and " chokes 
the word, that it becometh unfruitful." 

Are you sure that a course of constant accumula- 
tion is right ? Are you never troubled with doubts 
in withholding your tens of thousands, and it may be 
hundreds of thousands, from the cause of God, merely 
as security for your own future ease, or for the grati- 
fication or aggrandizement of your children ? Are 
you certain, hi view of the pressing calls in our own 
land and from the heathen world, that such a course 
is consistent with your public vows as a disciple of 
Christ ? Is it plain, that a portion of your interest 
money and other income, is all that you are called 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. 79 

upon to consecrate to Christ, for the salvation of a 
world for which he died? Did you begin right? 
And if so, have you continued as you began ? Have 
you, in past time, laid by in store for yourself, no 
more than you should have done — no more than you 
would have done, if your piety had been as elevated 
as was that of Brainerd or Martyn, or your love as 
glowing as that of John ? Has avarice, or covetous- 
ness, or selfishness had no voice in determining the 
amount laid up for yourself? And if you have been 
influenced by such a motive in amassing more than 
was meet, is it from any better motive that you now 
withhold what has been thus accumulated ? Might 
not a portion of your property, invested in charily 
for the poor, in missionary labor and in Bibles for the 
conversion of the world, yield you a larger revenue of 
happiness and enrich you more than the whole now 
does ? By the accredited maxims of the world, and 
even of the church, we readily admit, that the man 
who devotes all his income to charity is justly re- 
puted liberal. But are you sure, that under your 
circumstances, this is a rate of liberality proportion- 
ate to the " ability which God giveth?" Is it open- 
ing thy hand wide unto thy poor brother ? Is it 
sowing plentifully — abounding in the grace of giv- 
ing ? Is it acting on the principle, that it is more 
blessed to give than to receive ? Is it fulfilling the 
injunction, Freely ye have received, freely give ! 
"We would not be understood as implying, iliat 



SO THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH 

there are no circumstances in which men may law- 
fully accumulate property. They may have large 
schemes of benevolence, in reference to which they 
are every day prosecuting their labors. There are 
also departments of business, extensive manufactur- 
ing and commercial interests, the successful conduct 
of which requires large capital. Under the influence 
of a benevolent spirit, and on the principle of doing 
all to the glory of God, this employment of funds 
need not conflict with the claims of charity. But to 
retain large fortunes with no such projects in view, 
devoting only the income to beneficence, places a 
disciple of Christ in a false position. His wealth is 
out of proportion to his necessities, and to the claims 
of benevolence. And nothing but the bestowment 
of a portion of his accumulated treasure, will restore 
him to his true position. 

We are not unapprised of the plan whereby some 
endeavor to recover their consistency. They have 
made a testamentary bequest, a plan truly benevo- 
lent in circumstances which render an earlier dis- 
posal of property impracticable. But in many cases, 
a will is only an expedient of covetousness, to satisfy 
conscience, and atone for the sin of sending the needy 
away empty in our lifetime, by allowing the claims 
of charity to take effect when we arc dead. God 
has made you his steward, and has nowhere author- 
ized you to leave to others, that which he has re- 
quired you yourself to do. The calls of benevolence 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. SI 

will never be more urgent than now. Your property 
will never do so mueh good as now. Every day 
that you postpone its devotement, you by so much 
lessen the time in whieh it might be bearing fruit 
unto Christ. Therefore, God would have you th<s 
executor of your own will. No one can administer 
vour charities so advantageously as yourself. By so 
doing, you make the most profitable investment of 
your money, and avoid the danger of losing, by re- 
verse of fortune, what you had intended to bequeath 
to benevolent objects. God would also that your 
death be deplored as a loss to the church, rather than 
welcomed as a gain to its beneficent operations ; that 
the world be blessed with the influence of your be- 
neficent example while living, rather than be left in 
doubt concerning the motives of your testamentary 
charity when you are dead. He would not have you 
deprived of the blessedness of giving, by the interven- 
tion of a ivill, rendering it necessary for you to be 
cast out of your stewardship, before your Loid's 
money can be put to " the exchangers." 

We have read of " a faithful steward," whose 
whole property at the commencement of his busi- 
ness life, besides the wilderness land on which he set- 
tled, valued at forty dollars, consisted of a horse and 
an axe. With this God gave him " power to get 
wealth." He began on the principle of honoring the 
Lord with his substance, and with the first- fruits of 
aM his increase, and his barns were filled with plenty 

Miss, of Church, 6 



82 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

and his presses burst out with new wine. Togethei 
with the expense of rearing a large family of chil- 
dren, he is supposed to have contributed to benevo- 
lent objects not less than thirty-five thousand dollars 
" He made two wills at an interval of twenty-eight 
3'ears, but he lived to be his own executor, paying 
his bequests and settling his accounts to the utter- 
most farthing; so that, in fulfilling his last testa- 
ment, nothing remained to be looked after when he 
was gone but his wearing apparel, the large Bible, 
Scott's Family Bible, a psalm-book, the case in which 
he had kept them, and the spectacles with which he 
had read them. Not a pound — -no, not a penny, was 
found hid in the earth or laid up in a napkin." 

Thence we conclude, that in adjusting each man's 
proportion in beneficence, the sum total of his prop- 
erty should be taken into the account, and that char- 
itable bequests are an unsatisfactory substitute for 
living benevolence. In view of the subject, let us 
"charge them that are rich in this world, that they 
be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to 
communicate, laying up in store for themselves a good 
foundation against the time to come, that they may 
lay hold on eternal life." 

"Largely thou givest, gracious Lord; 

Largely thy gifts should be restored : 

Freely thou givest, and thy word 

Is, ' Freely give. 7 

He only who forgets to hoard, 

Has learned to live." 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. S3 

2. Every man's beneficence should be proportion- 
ate to his annual income. As there are some with 
whom the adjustment of their proportion might trench 
on vested capital, so there are others from whom it 
would require only a portion of their income. We 
now refer to the latter class. Your income, then, is 
to be divided between your own personal and family 
necessities, and the claims of benevolence. On what 
principle should the division be made ? You are a 
young man just entering on business, wishing to 
arrange your plans of benevolence according to the 
principles of the gospel. You will thence seek to be 
governed, in your expenditures, by Christian simplic- 
ity. In this, you will find the more difficulty; be- 
cause the prevalent customs and fashions of society 
are so adverse to it. Yet be not conformed to the 
world, You can no more be a devotee of fashion, 
than a worshipper at the shrine of mammon. 

If you would make the duty of beneficence easy 
and delightful, you will commence your charitable 
donations where your income commences, and give 
as the Lord prospers you. Let your maxims and 
motives of liberality be drawn from the word of God, 
and not from the practices and opinions of those 
around you. Let your plans and principles be fixed 
in the outset, subject only to such revision as increase 
of light and love may suggest. Before the love oj 
money shall be strengthened by increase of gains, 
you will be more likely to judge correctly in tin 



84 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

matter of proportion. Your liberality will then 
readily grow into habit, and habit will make it a 
delight, and both will perfect and confirm your prin- 
ciples of benevolence, and give symmetry and beauty 
and energy to your whole Christian character. 

Your clanger is not of a too rigid economy, but that 
you may practise it from wrong motives — with a de- 
sire of hoarding rather than of giving. Beware of 
covetousness, which is idolatry. Here will be your 
chief temptation, despite your firmest benevolent re- 
solves. The present low standard of liberality among 
older and more experienced Christians, and the fact 
that covetousness scarcely militates against a reputa- 
ble profession of Christianity, will enhance this dan- 
ger. Necessary contact with business men, with 
whom a distinction between the morality of trade and 
the morality of the Bible involves no solecism, will 
add to it. The unhallowed estimate placed upon 
money, by which " worth means wealth, and the only 
wisdom, the art of acquiring it," will increase your 
danger. The world is not atheistic, but the god it 
serves is gold. "I do confess I am an atheist," says 
Sir Thomas Brown. " I cannot persuade myself to 
honor that the world adores." Fortify yourself 
against all such peril in the beginning, by putting 
on the whole armor of God. Resist the devil of 
cupidity, when he proposes to give you all the king- 
doms of the world, and he will flee from you. 

When you are deciding on the proportion of your 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. 8fi 

income to be added to your capital, or invested for 
future contingencies, two questions deserve particu- 
lar attention : "What are the objects for which you 
make this reservation ; and what are the 'motives 
that prompt you to do it ? 

In reply to the first question you will probably say, 
" My object is to make provision for the education 
and, settlement and usefulness of my children.' ' We 
admit the legitimacy of the object, and only ask your 
attention to the amount necessary for its accomplish- 
ment. You wish to employ your property, in respect 
to your children, in such a way as shall prepare them 
for the greatest usefulness here, and the highest hap- 
piness hereafter. 

Now it is essential to this, that you should make 
provision for the development of their physical, intel- 
lectual, and moral powers ; that they should be in- 
structed in relation to their social, civil, and religious 
duties ; that they should be subject to the influence 
of pure examples, and brought under the power of 
the gospel of Christ. You wish for them, under the 
combined influence of culture and Christianity, that 
mental expansion, that refinement of taste, that ele- 
vation of sentiment, and that firmness of moral prin- 
ciple, which will harmonize with their sphere of 
action, and with the highest ends of their existence. 
Is not this the sum total of what they require at your 
hands, the substance of your parental duty ! Bui is 
it necessary lor this, that you should lay up for them 



86 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

large stores of wealth? Would not these ends be 
better secured by such a degree of liberality on your 
part, as would leave them, when entering upon the 
responsibilities of life, dependent, under God, chiefly 
on their own exertions ? Yea, do not facts abun- 
dantly demonstrate, that by exemption from the 
necessity of effort, through reliance on inherited, or 
expected wealth, their prospects of success in busi- 
ness or in professional life would be greatly dark- 
ened? On whom have the Indies bestowed their 
richest treasures, and to whom have the mines of 
Peru yielded most abundantly their shining dust ? 
Who are the master-spirits of the age, that in the 
senate, at the bar, or in the pulpit, hold in their 
hands the secret of power, and wield most resist- 
lessly the sceptre of influence, and sway as by a spell 
the councils of nations, and the destinies of men ? 
Are they those whose paternal ancestry spent their 
lives in toil and parsimony that they might leave their 
children rich ? Are they those who commenced their 
career cumbered by the cares of wealth, and subject 
to influences which prevent personal exertion, and 
paralyze the power of noble achievement ? No ; they 
are generally those, for whom their parents could do 
little except in the way of thorough mental and 
moral training, and the formation of industrious hab- 
its ; whose chief inheritance was a healthful influ- 
ence and a bright parental example ; and who came 
forth to meet the trials of life, and to discharge its 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. 87 

duties, trusting in Providence, and dependent on their 
own industry and skill. 

But if you can overlook such well-attested facts, 
and jeopard the temporal interests of your children, 
by amassing for them the almost certain means of 
their failure, turn to another aspect of the subject. 
You desire above ail things their usefulness, and their 
religious welfare. What can you do better to render 
them useful, than to be so yourself? You wish them 
to form habits of benevolence. How can your desire 
for them be more effectually accomplished than by 
the influence of your own example of benevolence ? 
Withholding your property from objects of charity 
will not teach them to be charitable Hoarding your- 
self large stores of wealth, will not dispose them to 
consecrate it to Christ. If you would teach them that 
the value of money consists primarily in the good 
which may be accomplished by it, in what way can 
you do it so successfully, as by showing them that this 
is the great end for which you are acquiring it ? And 
if you would secure to them the blessing of heaven, 
how can you do it more certainly, than by demising 
to them your own bright example — the illustration 
of your full conviction that the love of money is the 
root of all evil? L< this way, a check will be early 
given to the tendencies of selfishness, and their hab- 
its be formed on the principles of Christian benevo- 
lence. You will thus bring your children to the 
altar, not like Hannibal, to swear denial enmity to 



88 1HE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

a hostile nation, but to encourage in them, by the 
most sacred domestic influences, a desire to " do good 
unto all men, as they have opportunity." 

Recur now to the second question, the motives 
which determine the proportion to be reserved for 
future contingencies. AYrite down the various ob- 
jects of benevolence which solicit your attention: the 
claims of the poor, the ignorant, and the oppressed ; 
the calls of Home and of Foreign missions, of the 
Eible, the Tract, Educational, and Seamen's asso- 
ciations, and other kindred humane and reforma 
tory agencies. Against these, set down the amount 
which you have appropriated to them. Considei 
this amount as the measure of your regard for the 
poor, your interpretation of the law of benevolence, 
and the exponent of your love to Christ. Then write 
down on the opposite page the items of your per- 
sonal and family expenditure, with the several sums 
applied to them. Look upon these as the index oi 
your sense of personal and family necessities, as 
what you have considered due to your station in life. 
Then compare the balance-sheets. Carry them with 
you to your closet, and when you pray " after this 
manner," " Thy kingdom come," see how much you 
are in earnest, by the portion of your income appro- 
priated to the advancement of that kingdom. And 
when continuing, you repeat the petition, " Give us 
this day our daily bread," inquire if you may not 
have been taking much more than you have asked 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. 89 

from God. And when you further say, " Lead us not 
into temptation, but deliver us from evil," ask your- 
self if some of your expenditures may not have had 
a direct tendency to lead you into that from which 
you pray to be kept, and to confirm in you that from 
which you seek to be delivered. Write over one side 
of the equation, " The claims of the poor, the blind, 
the naked, of ignorance, misery, and sin;" and over 
the other, " The claims of myself and family soon to 
pass to our final account." Then decide whether 
you have consecrated of your income to charity, 
according to the ability that God giveth. Do this, 
and the result will assist you in determining the mo- 
tives by which you have been governed in your cur- 
rent expenditures, and in your reservations for future 
use. Is this asking too much? Does it seem un- 
necessarily exacting ? But why should you shrink 
from such a test ? Is it that you are fearful of the 
results ? If your scale of liberality is such as your 
own interests and the claims of beneficence require, 
an examination like this would only confirm your 
convictions of duty, and render its discharge more 
easy and delightful. But if it is otherwise, and you 
fear the necessity of retrenchment on the side of per- 
sonal ease and gratification, 

"Think heaven a better bargain, than to give 
Only thy single market-money for it. 
Join hands with God, in making men to l^ve. , ' 

Oh. it is sweet to know that we are doing the will 



90 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

of God, and nowhere more so, than in dealing our 
bread to the hungry, lighting up the abode of sorrow 
with the smile of gladness, recalling the wandering 
prodigal, and. guiding the weary pilgrim to his heav- 
enly home. 

3. Every man's beneficence should be proportionate 
to what he can earn by industry. Labor, although 
connected with the curse pronounced upon man in 
consequence of his sin, must yet be considered as a 
blessing. His physical, mental, and moral condition 
renders it necessary to his own welfare. The gen- 
eral law of equity also requires it. " If any man 
work not, neither should he eat." " Not slothful in 
business," holds an important place among the apos- 
tolic injunctions. Idleness is therefore an evil and a 
sin. It is burying our talent, and exposing ourselves 
to the condemnation of the slothful servant. No 
one, however opulent, is at liberty to be indolent. 
Self-interest forbids it, and the law of benevolence 
forbids it. To how many reputable disciples might 
the Saviour now say, " Why stand ye here all the 
day idle ?" What are they accomplishing by their 
personal exertions, for the honor of God or the wel- 
fare of men ? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Yet 
health, and time, and power of productive enterprise 
are talents intrusted to us, even more directly than 
is wealth, acquired by means of these. "It is God 
that giveth power to get wealth." "Well-directed 
labor, either manual or mental, in some of the van- 



PROTOilTION IN BENEFICENCE. 91 

ous forms of human effort, is therefore a means of 
doing good, which cannot be left out of account in 
estimating proportion in beneficence. 

By this means, many a poor man might obtain the 
blessing of giving, who now contents himself with 
that of receiving. By toiling a little longer, or a 
little harder, or by turning their labor into more pro- 
ductive channels, not a few, from being themselves 
objects of charity, might become its happy distrib- 
uters. Instead of drawing upon the resources of the 
benevolent, they might help to swell their amount 
by the addition of their own " farthing." And if 
they could do this, should they not do it? Would 
not their temporal condition be improved by the 
effort, and they find by sweet experience that it is 
more blessed to give than to receive ? AYe have 
read of a woman in very needy circumstances, who 
offered to subscribe a penny a week to the mission- 
ary fund. " Surely," said one, " you are too poor 
to afford this." She replied, "I spin so many skeins 
of yarn a week, for a maintenance : I will spin one 
more, and that will be a penny for the Society." How 
beautiful in its simplicity is this illustration ! Let 
each poor man so employ the fragments of time, that 
it may be said of him as of Henry Martyn, " He is 
the man that never lost an hour," and he shall eat 
the labor of his own hands, and "have to give to 
him that needeth." 

The rich, too, who in their ease can give of their 



92 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

abundance, by diligence would be able to abound in 
this grace. Where is the warrant for a Christian to 
retire from active life while in the full enjoyment 
of his business powers ? It is obvious, however, 
that men may sometimes be called to leave the 
sphere of labor in which they have accumulated 
their property, in order to superintend its beneficent 
expenditure. Public interests may require such a 
portion of their time and attention as shall be incom- 
patible with the continuance of their more private 
business schemes. 

But how different is this from the case of those 
who bring to a period their active business career at 
a time of life when they are most capable of con- 
tinuing it with success. In the course of twenty or 
thirty years of prosperous enterprise, a man finds 
himself in possession of a competency, that is, he has 
become affluent. Now he is content. He will re- 
tire and give place to others. He has enough. But 
why does he retire ? That he may enjoy the luxury 
of dealing his bread to the hungry, and of endowing 
institutions for the promotion of science and religion, 
or for the mitigation of human woe and the reclama- 
tion of man from the power of Satan unto God? 
No ; but because he has enough. Enough for what ? 
Enough for himself, for his idol, self — enough for his 
own enjoyment, for ease and elegance — enough to 
vie with the devotees of fashion, and to revel in 
splendor. So, these are the motives which have 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. 93 

impelled him forward in his eager haste to he rich — 
ease, elegance, splendor. No thoughts of God enter 
into his purposes. No pity for the poor influences 
his plans. Poor man, thou art dead while thou liv- 
cst. Thou hast "denied the God that is above," 
and disowned thy brother. No beam of heavenly 
light guides thee in thy dark career. No genial 
fire of love melts thy icy selfishness. " Lo, this 
is the man that made not God his strength, but 
trusted in the abundance of his riches." "The 
righteous shall see, and shall laugh at him." "Men 
shall clap their hands at him, and hiss him out of 
his place." 

But it may be, that amid the smiles of Providence 
and your increasing stores, you have not been alto- 
gether unmindful of the fatherless and the widow. 
Yet you propose to retire from business. You are a 
professed disciple of Christ and have sympathy with 
suffering and sorrow, and have not forgotten "to do 
good and to communicate," and yet you have enough. 
And can you then do all that you desire for the cause 
of God, and of humanity ? Are there no poor that 
will remain destitute ; no benighted that will be left 
sitting in darkness, when you have done what you 
can ? Is the Bible translated into every tongue ! 
Has the missionary visited every land, and carried 
the gospel to every tribe, and made it the power oi 
God in every heart? Oh, no. And yet you have 
enough. You are retiring from business, it may be, 



94 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

at the very maturity of your powers of business. 
Has Providence then smiled on your efforts and poured 
into your lap the fruits of the earth, or the products of 
commerce, that you might take your discharge from 
his service? " What, know you not that you are not 
your own," and that "none of us liveth to himself?" 
Have you forgotten the price with which you were 
bought ? Does gratitude call for no more self-denial ? 
Does the cross oppose no obstruction to your plan of 
ease and indulgence ? 

You may indeed be giving according to what you 
have. But are you giving according to what you 
might have ? Your powers of business are no in- 
considerable part of the ability that God giveth. 
His command is, "Go work in my vineyard." And 
it is also, " Work while the day lasts." 

Besides, if you would give more if you had it, why 
cease acquiring ? Is your beneficence on a large scale 
now ? By adding to it the products of your contin- 
ued labor, you would make it still larger, and would 
enjoy a richer blessing, both in what you bestow in 
charity and what you expend for yourself And this 
blessing might come in the form of a better phys- 
ical and mental, as well as of an improved spirit- 
ual condition. You would be preserved from wast- 
ing indolence and enervating ennui. By continued 
efforts to acquire, that you might abound still more 
in giving, you would be kept from the danger of cov- 
etousness attending undue concern respecting what 



PROPORTION IN BEN] 1 P I C E N C E . 9 6 

you now possess. By observing the command, (c Oc- 
cupy till I come," you would be protected from the 
ensnarements accompanying a life of leisure, and 
procure at last that highest approval of your Master, 
"Well done, good and faithful servant; enter thou 
into the joy of thy Lord." 

What if Christ had retired from his work, ere he 
had arrived at that period when he could say, "It is 
finished." What if he had ceased from his weary- 
ing toil, and ascended to his throne of glory, before 
he had come to that labor of soul in the garden, and 
that conflict of spirit on the cross — where would then 
have been the hope of the world ? And why did he 
not thus retire ? Ah, he was joined to his work by 
the invincibility of his love, and his devotion to his 
Father's will. Thence he toiled up to the very hour 
of his death, and expended the last of his human 
powers in completing his redeeming work. And 
shall his example have no influence to retain his fol- 
lowers in the field ? thou Son of Mary and ol 
God, didst thou spend thy life in poverty and in toil 
for the miserable and the guilty, and in a world all 
thine own, have not where to lay thy head? And 
shall we who reap the fruits of thy godlike labor, 
seek exemption from service, and weary out our lives 
ill ignoble sloth ? Didst thou bear thy heavy cross, 
and wear thy thorny crown, and drink thy bitter cup 
that we, clothed in purple and fine linen, might re- 
cline upon our couch of ease ? 



9G THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. ' 

"Y\ r oe -worth these barren hearts of ours, 
Where thou hast set celestial flowers, 
A.nd watered with the balmiest showers, 
Yet naught we yield." 

4. Every man's beneficence should be proportion- 
ate to what he can save by economy. In any ade- 
quate view of this subject, it is apparent that some 
limits are to be placed to the scale of expenditure. 
The gospel is no more explicit against covetousness, 
than against prodigality. JNTor is the sin of the one 
greater than of the other, or the evil of it more af- 
flictive to the church. These seemingly contradic- 
tory vices are sometimes found in the same person. 
He covets another's wealth and squanders his own. 
So intense sometimes is the sense of want occasioned 
by wasteful expenditure, that the prodigal, as the 
miser, not only " stoppeth his ear against the cry of 
the poor," but rapaciously devours widows' houses, 
as the means of continuing his riotous living. Thus 
prodigality leads to covetousness, and covetousness 
to rapacity. Unholy desire clamors for gratification, 
and gratification only increases the intensity of insa 
tiable desire, until, in the midst of abundance, the 
soul finds itself in famine, flooded with waters, yet 
pining in thirst. 

The economy induced by the spirit of beneficence, 
is equally remote from covetousness and from prodi- 
gality. It neither wastes nor buries the intrusted 
talent, but uses it. And the expenditure which is 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. 97 

consistent with the claim s of charity, is also m har- 
mony with what is due to our station in life. True 
dignity is never found in conflict with benevolence. 
When the calls of the latter are responded to by an 
appropriation of the just proportion of our property, 
the residue will be found to impart the highest dig- 
nity to rank and station, and the most benign and sal- 
utary influences to character. " Whatsoever things 
are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever 
things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatso- 
ever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good 
report," are in happiest agreement with its claims. 
But it dissuades from enervating indulgences, from 
effeminate voluptuousness, from factitious and extrav- 
agant conventionalism, as being as incongruous with 
the spirit of the gospel, as the former virtues are be- 
coming and accordant with it. 

Nor can prodigal expenditures, coming as they do 
into the class of unproductive consumptions, be more 
easily justified by the principles of 'political economy , 
than by the spirit of benevolence. Consumed as 
they are in needless, if not hurtful self-indulgence, 
the use of luxuries adds less to the national wealth 
than do beneficent appropriations. Rightly directed, 
Charity touches the deep springs of the mental and 
moral energies, and instead of wasting them in prof- 
itless excitement, arouses them to the most healthful 
and productive effort. She feeds the poor and clothes 
the naked ; she enlightens the ignorant, assists the 

Miss, of Church, 7 



98 THE MISSION OF THE CIICRCII. 

feeble, and raises up the fallen. She discourages 
vice, that waster of time and money, that weakener 
of physical, intellectual, and moral vigor. She en- 
courages Yirtue, and leads her into the field as the 
most productive laborer for the weal of the race. She 
excites industry and rewards it, and stanches earth's 
flowing miseries by healing its deep wounds of sin. 
She turns the current of human desire from war to 
peace, from oppression to freedom, from idolatry, big- 
otry, and imposture, to the pure worship of the true 
God. 

Such is the productive mission of charity to which 
we would divert the streams of wealth, now flowing 
in the spendthrift channels of wasteful superfluity. 
And for one who admits her claims as obligatory, it 
would not seem difficult to arbitrate between them 
and those of prodigality. Perceiving the difference 
in their nature from their different results, he will be 
sweetly impelled to economy, feeling that the noble- 
ness of the end raises it above the suspicion of mean • 
ness, to the rank of the most generous and honorable 
virtues. He will reflect that what he expends in 
luxury and self-aggrandizement, is so much withheld 
from the poor, so much refused as a loan to the Lord, 
leaving a corresponding amount of grief unassuaged, 
of vice unchecked, and of eternal misery unprevent- 
ed. He will reflect that such expenditures not only 
diminish his power, but lessen his desire to do good ; 
that they are not only a robbery of others, but an 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. 09 

injury to himself. He will remember that such su- 
perfluities, by placing him in the rank of eager com- 
petitors in the circle of fashion, take him out from 
the simplicity of the gospel, and setting him in prac- 
tical contradiction to its precepts, present him as a 
tempter to others by his evil example. 

Are you anxious to do good on a larger scale than 
you have felt your means would allow ? Inspect 
your wardrobe, and see if something may not be 
saved by economy from the imposts which it has 
laid upon your resources, and your condition be as 
comfortable and your attire as comely. Survey your 
table, and see if something may not be spared from 
its viands and dainties, and enough remain for rich 
contentment and hospitable cheer. Make Conscience 
the steward of thy house, holding his lamp, like that 
in the urn of Olybius, " alive and light, although 
close and invisible." Let him report of all your ap- 
propriations, how much is for the gratification of the 
appetites, how much ministers to pride, to vanity, to 
ambitious rivalry with lovers of themselves. Let his 
inspection be minute, and deem him not an inter- 
meddler. Accept his report, and from all upon which 
he writes "extravagance," turn the current of your 
expenditures into the channels of beneficence. Are 
you reluctant to do this? Reluctant to part with 
your superfluities, your luxuries — ministers to pride 
and fashion and voluptuousness — in order to obtain 
the means of a more enlarged beneficence ! 



106 THE MISSION Of THE CHURCH. 

But " my station in life is fixed, and I must con- 
form to the circle in which I move." If you belong 
to a circle, the customs of which require you to waste 
your Lord's money, may it not he your duty to 
" come out from among them, and he separate ?" 
Would not this, besides enabling you to give more, 
exempt you from many temptations and evils from 
which your character and influence are now suffer- 
ing. 

Are you unable to give more in charity than you 
now do ? How can this be, when you are able to 
spend so much in superfluous and costly attire, jq 
ornaments, " the chains and the bracelets, the rings 
and changeable suits of apparel, and mantles, and 
wimples, and crisping pins?" If you are too pooi 
to appropriate more in beneficence, are you not too 
poor to wear such exponents of wealth, too poor to 
feast on such costly dainties, too poor to dwell in 
habitations which are the index of princely fortunes ? 

You can afford to give no more ! Yes, if you will 
economize, you can. If you will " remember the 
words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more 
blessed to give than to receive," you will feel that 
you are too poor to give so little. Has not your econ- 
omy, if you have practised it, been rather in the de- 
partment of beneficence, than in that of superfluous 
expenditures ? Transfer retrenchment from the giv- 
ing to the expending side, and you will be able to 
give more. Wear less of your wealth, and you will 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. 101 

be able. Consume less in the Epicurean delicacies 
of your table, and you will be able. Dispose of that 
part of your plate and jewelry which subserves no 
higher purpose than ostentatious display, and you 
will be able to give more for the mitigation of hu« 
man woe, and the salvation of the world. The very 
decision to commence such retrenchment from benev- 
olent motives, would bring your Christian character, 
under God, to the period of a new development, and 
the recollection of such economy, for such a purpose, 
would be a sweet reflection mingling in your dying 
thoughts. 

Happy was that distinguished example of Chris- 
tian simplicity, economy, and beneficence, John Wes- 
ley, in the generous devotion with which he conse- 
crated his substance to the cause of humanity and 
of God. Suspecting that he had more wealth than 
was apparent, the Accountant-general sent him the 
following note, with a copy of the " Excise order for 
the return of plate." " Reverend sir — As the com- 
missioners cannot doubt but you have plate, for which 
you have hitherto neglected to make an entry/' etc. 
To this, the following answer was returned : " Sir, 
I have two silver spoons at London, and two at Bris- 
tol, and I shall not buy any more while so many 
around me want bread." 

If all Christians would devote to beneficence the 
fruits of a reasonable economy, from what practical 
inconsistency would the church be reclaimed. From 



102 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

what reproach would she be saved, among those 
who now see her bowing with the eagerness of a 
devotee at the shrine of Fashion, that " Juggernaut 
of Christian lands." Oh, how would it contribute 
to make her "the perfection of beauty, the joy of the 
whole earth." 

AYe do not assume to prescribe any certain degree 
of economy or scale of retrenchment, or to interfere 
with the refinements and proprieties of a pure Chris 
tianity ; but only to assert, that no one can be sure 
that he is doing what he ought in works of charity, 
unless he has introduced the principle of saving by 
economy. No rank or station or amount of wealth 
can exempt him from the obligation involved in it. 
And no one, from love to God, can thus bring his bene- 
ficence into harmony with his ability, without great 
benefit to himself. Subjected to the influence of His 
example who never wasted a single moment, nor 
squandered a single feeling, but turned every thing 
to the beneficent account of saving the world, his life 
w r ould be more happy, his death more peaceful, and 
a brighter crown would wreathe his brow in the 
heavenly glory. 

5. Every man's beneficence should be proportion- 
ate to what he can spare by self-denial. "What is 
self-denial ? Is it to give liberally of our income, 
yet withholding for ourselves the whole of the vested 
wealth from which it is derived? Is it to make 
lanje donations to the destitute and miserable, retain- 



PROFOETION IN BENEFICENCE. 1Q3 

ing enough to live according to the fashion of this 
world, in luxury and splendor? Is it to cut off the 
extravagances and superfluities of life, reserving for 
ourselves all its conveniences and comforts ? Is it 
not something more than this ? Look at the spirit 
of devotion signalizing the conduct of some Chris- 
tian philanthropists, of Mrs. Fry, of Sarah Martin, 
and of Howard, " the habitual passion of whose mind 
was a measure of feeling almost equal to the tempo- 
rary extremes and paroxysms of common minds. " 
Look at the self-sacrificing spirit of not a few modern 
missionaries — of a Harriet Newell, a Mrs. Judson — 
of a Swartz, a Cary, and a Morrison — of a Dober 
and a Leopold, who, that they might tell the poor 
negroes of a Saviour's love, offered to sell themselves 
into slavery, if no other means could be found of 
access to them. Look at the patriarchs — -Abraham 
offering up his son, his only son, at the command 
of the Lord; Moses "refusing to be called the son of 
Pharaoh's daughter, esteeming the reproach of Christ 
greater riches than the treasures in Egypt." Look 
at the apostles, counting not their own lives dear 
unto them, " rejoicing that they were counted worthy 
to suffer shame" in. their Master's cause. Look at 
the life of Jesus, at his humiliation, his ignominy, 
his agony, and learn what self-denial is. Are you 
poor ? So was he, yet it was for your sake. Are 
you rich? So was he, yet "he became poor, that ye 
through his poverty might be rich." He ''redeemed 



104 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

us from the curse of the law, being made a curse foi 
us." It is in Christ crucified as a sacrifice for sin, 
that we are to learn the full significance of the term 
self-denial. It was not simply in his leaving the 
bosom of the Father, in his enduring the contradic 
tion of sinners, that Christ's sacrifice consisted, no, 
yet in the infamy of being pronounced guilty, and sen 
tenced as a malefactor at a human tribunal ; but i- 
was in the burden of sin which he assumed, aw* 
on account of which he was forsaken of his Father 
It was in the agony of soul — the anguish of a spirit: 
which " knew no sin, yet was made sin for us." Here 
is suffering — sacrifice — here is self-denial in its di- 
vinest form. The subjection of our personal ease 
and tastes and conveniences, our comforts and time 
and possessions, to the will of Christ, for his glory 
and human good, is in us, its highest realization. It 
leads to the performance of whatever may contribute 
to Christ's glory, and to the relinquishment to his dis- 
posal of whatsoever of our possessions may subserve 
the advancement of his kingdom. 

Self-denial is the great law of our religion. It 
began in Christ, our Head. It must pervade all the 
members. It led him to give up all for us. It should 
lead us to give up all for him. Whosoever therefore 
would become a benefactor of the race, must share the 
wants and woes of his fellow-men by personal sacrifice, 
in his efforts to relieve them. This is self-denial, the 
subjection of self to the principle of love, the annibi- 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. 105 

lation of selfishness, and the enthronement of Christ 
in the soul. Away, then, with the idea of ease, of 
luxury, when that work of mercy, commenced with 
such a sacrifice, is pressing upon the church with all 
the urgency of the Saviour's last command. Away 
with the idea of convenience, of comfort, when such 
a motive calls us to sacrifice and self-denial. Oh, it 
is a shame that a work like this should he retarded 
by the self-indulgence of the disciples of so self-deny- 
ing a Master. It is a sin that devoted co-laborers 
with him should be allowed to feel the necessity of 
retrenchment in their heaven-commissioned work, to 
stop their presses, disband their schools, and give back 
half-reclaimed territory to the barrenness and blight 
of Paganism ; and this, because those who sent them 
to the work, are unwilling to deny themselves. We 
blush to remember, that in the progress of modern 
missions, laborers have been kept back from the 
whitening fields, and the reaper's sickle has been 
hung upon the bough, and the harvest has wasted 
because there were none to gather it, and this for 
want of nothing but self-denial. And we pray the 
Lord of the vineyard to forgive our apathy and self- 
indulgence, to blot out the record of the past, and to 
save his people from causing it again to be traced. 
Under the most pressing pecuniary embarrassments, 
imbued with the beneficent spirit of the gospel, and 
influenced by the example of Jesus and the worth 
of souls, the church could have doubled her contribu- 



10G THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

tions from what she might have spared by self-denial. 
Constrained by the influence of such motives, self- 
denial becomes a kind of self- gratification, and it is 
tenfold harder to retain what can be spared by self- 
denial, than to lay it at the feet of Christ. Before 
the cross, the sanctified soul repels the idea of re- 
stricting its offerings to that which costs it nothing. 
Gratitude casts all her living into the treasury of 
the Lord, and Love pours her most precious ointment 
upon the Saviour's dying head. The one feels that 
her all is too little, and the other, that her most 
costly tribute is too poor to express the fervor of her 
affection, and the entireness of her devotion. 

Go, then, walk with Christ in the garden. Stand 
by him upon Calvary, and witness his ignominy and 
his agony. Remember, that " He was wounded for 
your transgressions," that " He was bruised for your 
iniquities." By the crown which he left in heaven, 
by the cross which he endured on earth, by the love 
which he bears for you, by the worth of the soul for 
which he died, he calls you to deny yourself. By 
the superior moral value of the gleanings of self- 
denial over the surplusage of abundance, and by the 
heavenly glory, the way to which is through his 
own sacrifice, he calls you to deny yourself. He 
calls you to this, as the only proof that " the same 
mind is in you which was also in him." He asks 
for your choicest treasures, your best services. Whom 
wilt thou deny? Him, or thyself? When, as from 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. 1 07 

the cross, ye hear him say, "Freely ye have received, 
freely give," will ye not freely give? When, as 
ascending up on high, ye see him pointing to the 
whitening fields, will ye not deny yourselves, that 
the wasting harvest may be gathered in ? 

" Commit to Christ thine all, so shall thy treasure be 
Secure from moth and rust, from theft, and fire, and aea ; 
And in the final day, transmuted to pure gold, 
Thy safe investment then shall yield thee wealth untold." 

We have now submitted the main principles relat- 
ing to proportion in beneficence. We have endeavor- 
ed to show that each man's charitable contributions 
should be proportionate to the ends sought, to the 
instrumentality to be applied, and to his pecuniary 
ability. We have examined the question of ability 
in the light cast upon it by the beneficence of the 
Jeivish church, by the beneficent spirit of the early 
Christians, and by the Bible doctrine, as deduced 
from the express declarations of Scripture. We have 
also viewed the question of each man's ability, ac- 
cording to which his proportion should be adjusted, 
in its relation to the sum total of his property, to 
the amount of his income, to what he can cam by 
industry, to what he can save by economy, and to 
what he can spare by self-denial. 

In concluding this part of our subject, Ave wish 
comprehensively to re-state and to enforce the lead- 
ing MOTIVES which should secure the practical adop- 
tion of the principles. 



108 'I HE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

1 , The devotement to beneficence of a just por- 
tion of our property gives to it its highest value 
Nothing is more obvious than that the value of 
money is wholly relative, and that it is determined 
by its use. We concede the legitimate value and 
use of property for sustenance and comfort, for in- 
tellectual and moral improvement. And the amount 
thus applied should be all that the circumstances 
require. What is not necessary for these purposes, 
finds its highest value when devoted to beneficence. 
Compare its value, when thus consecrated, with that 
which it possesses when expended for selfish pur- 
poses. One man accumulates and hoards. His gains 
answer no higher an end than to inflame a sordid 
desire for wealth, and to feed a hidden fire that con- 
sumes all humane and generous affections. He makes 
"gold his hope, and says unto the fine gold, thou 
art my confidence." He toils for wealth, but when 
obtained, he will not use it. And the more he ac- 
quires, the less he is satisfied with what he has. 
His wants increase faster than his possessions, so 
that the richer he becomes, the poorer he feels. 
To such madness has this abuse of wealth been per- 
mitted, in judicial visitation, to carry men, that the 
possessor of thousands has clung to his hoarded 
treasures with such an insane tenacity, and been in 
such an agony of want for more, that he has died ol 
actual starvation. Truly, " There is that maketh 
himself rich, yet hath nothing." Well does the 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. 109 

Scripture say of sucli an one, "He shall be buried 
with the burial of an ass." "His riches are cor- 
rupted, his garments are moth-eaten, his silver and 
gold are cankered, and the rust of them shall be a 
witness against him, and shall eat his flesh as it 
were fire." 

Another accumulates and squanders. Appetite 
and pleasure absorb his substance. Disease is en- 
gendered, time wasted, vice nurtured, and mind 
imbrutcd. And the more he squanders in sensual 
gratification, the more imperious is the demand for 
still farther gratification, until "the floor of the 
wine-press shall not feed" him, and "he shall eat, 
but not have enough." Thus, whether wealth be 
hoarded or squandered, it loses its value. It is an 
abuse of the divine bounty — an abuse which deranges 
the mental and moral, as well as the physical pow- 
ers, and dooms the soul to eternal penury — an abuse 
which has made the world an abode of paupers and 
prodigals, of misers and maniacs. 

See, now, the value of wealth when appropriated 
to charity. It feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, 
is eyes to the blind, and feet is it to the lame. 
It " visits the fatherless and the widow," reclaims 
the vicious, and leads wandering, guilty man back 
to the fatherly mansions, and to a forgiving God. 
Such a use gratifies the benevolent desires, and this 
gratification adds to their strength and intensity, 
and every such increase of force imparts a greater 



HO THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

excellence to the character, by bringing it into agree* 
merit with the character of God. In this way wealth 
attains its highest value. Thus applied, it harmo- 
nizes with the benevolence of the Creator, and with 
the compassions of the Redeemer. It is promotive 
of the end for which God created man, and of the 
objects for which Christ died. Its use is based upon 
the recognition of a higher than sensual principle in 
man, and a loftier than earthly destiny. It sets 
forth the cross as the grand central attraction, and 
proceeds on the conviction that the noblest of all 
influences, and the sublimest of all agencies, are 
those which combine to draw men unto it. It is, 
we repeat, precisely here that wealth attains its 
highest value — in subserving the interests of hu- 
manity, and the glory of God. This end, from its 
intrinsic dignity, imparts to whatsoever means it 
employs their greatest worth. Apart from this, 
nothing is truly noble or exalted. This makes giv- 
ing the art of gaining — the true philosopher's stone. 
It turns the hoarded gold into lead, and the given 
mite into gold. When one sees that beneficence 
thus embalms his wealth in the form of its highest 
possible value, and gives it to him as a perpetually 
increasing fund, as an instrument of good, as a means 
of grace, and as an auxiliary of heaven, will he not 
labor to acquire, and acquire that he may give ? 

2. The devotement to beneficence of a just por- 
tion of our property, secures our oivn highest inter- 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. HI 

ests. It is a satisfaction to know that the proportion 
of our substance devoted to beneficence is in agree- 
ment with the divine will. It is an additional satis- 
faction to feel that our wealth is thus attaining its 
highest value. It is a happiness to witness the 
blessed influence thus exerted, in the alleviation of 
human woe, and the removal of human sin ; in 
kindling immortal hopes, and adding star after star 
to Immanuel's diadem. To know and feel this, is 
to enjoy the luxury of doing good. " When the ear 
heard me, then it blessed me ; and when the eye 
saw me, it gave witness to me : because I delivered 
the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that 
had none to help him. The blessing of him that 
was ready to perish came upon me ; and I caused 
the widow's heart to sing for joy." Such a use of 
our property brings us into harmony with the attri- 
butes of God, and with the highest interests of man. 
It identifies our interests with the interests of Jeho- 
vah. Placing them under the protection of infinite 
power and the guidance of infinite wisdom, by the 
operation of all moral principles and the immutabil- 
ity of the divine purposes it secures them beyond 
the possibility of invasion. 

The great secret, then, of advancing our own in- 
terests, is in the annihilation of selfishness, and in 
assimilation to God. His peculiar blessedness con- 
sists in doing good. He " givelh us richly all tilings 
to enjoy." Air and sunlight, rain and dew. are 



112 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

ceaselessly flowing from his hand. Our happiness 
will be like his, as, in beneficence, our lives resemble 
his. Hence, it is more blessed to give than to re- 
ceive ; for giving brings us into more perfect sym- 
pathy with Christ in his redeeming work, and pours 
into the soul the blessedness which he contemplated, 
when, " for the joy that was set before him, he en- 
dured the cross." "What we give is given back to 
us again, good measure, pressed down, and running 
over. It is this that scattereth, and yet increaseth. 
This maketh rich, and addeth no sorrow therewith 
We honor the Lord with our substance and our barns 
are filled with plenty, and our presses burst out with 
the new wine of joy. "We sow bountifully, and we 
reap also bountifully of all the fruits of the Spirit. All 
that we thus give in charge to Providence, shal] 
return in the elements of a greater good. All that 
we thus employ for Christ, will be treasure laid up 
in heaven to await our arrival. For all that we thus 
give to the poor, we " shall receive manifold more in 
this present time, and in the world to come life ever- 
lasting." Thus is solved that old, paradoxical epi- 
taph, " W r hat I kept, I lost) what I gave, I have." 
Truly, " There is that maketh himself poor, yet hath 
great riches." When we see that it is only what 
w r e give that enriches us, shall we not give ? W r hen 
we see that, in respect to property, we are worth 
just the amount of good which we do with it, shall 
we not do good ? When we see that beneficence is 



morORTION IN BENEFICENCE. 1 ] 3 

the chief work of God, that we live in a world cf 
which the fittest description is, it "is full of his good- 
ness ;" when we see that our happiness can he like 
his, only as our character and conduct resemble his, 
shall we not be beneficent ? 

3. The devotement to beneficence of a just portion 
of our property, promotes the glory of God. This 
is the highest motive which can influence holy beings, 
the noblest end to which they can devote their lives. 
This overwhelms all conflicting influences, and, go- 
ing beyond all considerations of self-interest, leads to 
entire consecration. It is this — its direction to the 
noblest end — that gives to Christian beneficence in 
the simplest act, its intrinsic worth and dignity. 
This joins the " farthing" of a grateful love to the 
ends for which Jehovah created and is governing 
the world. It brings it within that system of means, 
by which is to be wrought out, in the recovery of 
a lost world, the demonstration that "God is love." 
Every beneficent act ascends up high as the throne 
of God, and, incorporated among the redeeming agen- 
cies of the cross, stretches wide as the curse is found. 
It is in this connection of beneficence with the 
meaus and influences by which the Almighty is ac- 
complishing the redemption of the world, "to 1 lie 
praise and glory of his grace," that we find the 
most urgent calls to it. Here motive reaches its 
highest power, and argument its most persuasive 
appeal. In this is the realization of man's highest 

MiM.ofOuuvh. 8 



114 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

interests, by the attainment of the highest ends of 
his being — the ceaseless oblation of his substance 
and himself to God, as a living protestation against 
the selfishness which dishonors and would dethrone 
him. 

Is the divine glory promoted by human obedience ? 
Beneficence is obedience. Is God honored by the 
expression of a grateful sense of his goodness ? Be- 
neficence is such an expression. Does he delight in 
the testimonials of a fervent love ? Beneficence is 
such a testimonial. " Inasmuch as ye have done it 
unto them, ye have done it unto me." Do the oppo- 
sites of these dishonor God ? Covetousness is the 
concentration of them all. It closes the ear to his 
claims in the cries of his poor, and withholds from 
him the heart. It denies him his crown, and places 
a stigma upon Christ's voluntary assumption of pov- 
erty for the redemption of the world. " Take heed, 
and beware of covetousness." It is among the most 
humiliating forms of sin — among the greatest tri- 
umphs of Satan. Shall we dishonor him whom all 
the angels in heaven adore ? Shall w r e withhold 
from him what it should be our chief joy to lay at 
his feet, our wealth, our influence, our all ? By the 
highest value of riches, by your own best interests, 
by the honor of the Saviour, by the glory of God, 
"trust not in uncertain riches." By the goodness 
of the Lord, by the love of Christ, by the bliss oi 
heaven, be "rich in good works, ready to distribute. 



PROPORTION IN BENEFICENCE. 115 

willing to communicate, laying up for yourselves a 
good foundation against the time to come, that ye 
may lay hold on eternal life." 

'* Thy gold's true worth, thy weal, God's glory, are agreed 
Then scatter wide and free thy heaven-intrusted seed -, 
So shalt thou reap a golden harvest most divine, 
And like the brightness of the firmament shalt shin?.*' 



116 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

CHAPTER III. 

SYSTEM IN BENEFICENCE. 
I. PROVISIONS OF SYSTEM. 

No system can be considered as complete, as suit- 
ed to develope in the church the beneficent spirit of 
the gospel, and secure from each of its members a 
just proportion of his substance in charitable contri- 
butions, which does not make provision for proper 
instruction concerning the use of property, and for 
communicating information respecting the concli 
tion and icants of the ivorld ; for the appropriation, 
at stated times, by each one, of a due proportion of 
his substance to beneficence ; and for some plan on 
the part of every church for collecting the contribu- 
tions of its members, and for applying them to the 
objects for which they are designed. 

1 . System in beneficence provides for instruction 
concerning the use of property, and for communi- 
cating information respecting the condition and 
wants of the ivorld. Too much may have been pre- 
sumed on the knowledge of Christians respecting the 
use which God requires them to make of their prop- 
erty, and consequently, in the prosecution of their 
business, they have, through ignorance, been exposed 
to the growth of a covetous spirit, with the increase 
of their possessions. From motives of delicacy, relig- 
ious teachers who receive their support from the vol- 



SYSTEM IN BENEFICENCE. 117 

untary subscriptions of their people, may have .shrunk 
from the same degree of cxplicitness upon this sub- 
ject which they have felt to be necessary in respect 
to other Christian duties. And the difficulty which 
some pastors have experienced in securing the full 
amount of their support, or the consciousness that 
when received it was inadequate for this purpose, 
has increased the embarrassment. 

And many hearers, who have been ready to ap- 
plaud the clearest and fullest exposition of dogmatic 
truth, have sometimes evinced a remarkable sensi- 
tiveness to any direct application of the duty of be- 
neficence. They are sound on all points of accredited 
orthodoxy, and lend their approval to the rebukes of 
all heresy, except that of believing that their money 
is their own, and that they may expend it as they 
please, without let or hinderance. That such has 
been the feeling of not a few hearers, and such the 
condition of some pastors, is quite certain ; and as a 
natural consequence, many churches, that have been 
thoroughly taught in respect to other Christian doc- 
trines and duties, have failed to receive due instruc- 
tion upon the subject of Christian beneficence. 

If a people feel that they are too poor to contribute 
to charitable objects, let the pastor ascertain whether 
it may not be merely a matter of feeling, occasioned 
by the want of more scriptural views, or by the 
absence of information respecting the wants o( the 
world, for which they may justly have looked to 



118 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

him. Are they poorer than the widow who cast 
into the treasury of the Lord all her living ? If not, 
instruct them in the doctrine, and duty, and bless- 
edness of Christian liberality, and they will give. 
Spread out before them the wastes and wants of the 
world, and they will give. Let them give a little 
once, and they will wish to give again, and a little 
more. And what they give to other objects will 
not be taken from the support of him who is lead- 
ing them to the luxury of doing good. The specific 
for a pastor to starve himself away from his people, 
is to decline instructing them in the duty of benefi- 
cence, and to withhold from them a knoioledge of 
the ivants of a 'perishing ivorld. By such a course, 
he injures both them and himself, and dishonors his 
Master. His people are entitled to instruction. It 
is his duty to give it to them. This should enter, 
as an important element, into his plans of ministe- 
rial labor among them. If they will be covetous, 
let them know that no " covetous man, who is an 
idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of 
Christ and of God." If they refuse to deny them- 
selves, they should understand that self-denial is the 
condition of discipleship, and that they have turned 
away from the cross, " sorrowful," it may be — yet 
they have turned away. 

But no ; those who love our Lord Jesus Christ 
will no more disobey him here than elsewhere, if 
they are rightly instructed in their duty. The 



SYSTEM IN BENEFICENCE. HQ 

church, will respond to his calls, if she understands 
them. She did do it in the days of the apostles arid 
primitive Christians, and she is beginning to do it in 
our own days. Let the spirit of beneficence, as the 
antidote to selfishness, be developed in the hearts of 
Christians, by instruction from the pulpit, in the 
concert of prayer, or convention. Let the claims of 
benevolence be freely canvassed. They are founded 
in principles of the most genuine philanthropy and 
the purest religion. They are enforced by the power 
of the cross. They are urged by the woes of count- 
less millions, and by the bliss of which these mill- 
ions arc capable. Oh, let them be known, let them 
be seen by the church, and she will open her arms 
to leceive them as the representatives of her divine 
Redeemer, and honor them with her most precious 
treasures. If we would displace covetousness from 
the hearts of Christians, and introduce benevolence 
in its stead, we must apply the power of Christian 
doctrine, and open before them the channels of Chris- 
tian beneficence, and lure them by the attraction of 
Christian motives. This is God's remedy, and, if 
applied, it ivill be made effectual. 

If the world is to be recovered by the propaga- 
tion of Christianity, nothing is more evident than 
that the rising generation is to be prepared, by 
thorough instruction, for a more martyr-like devot- 
edncss, and a higher style of achievement than has 
marked the present generation. Tin 4 hope of the 



120 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

church, in respect merely to its own perpetuity, is v 
under God, in the young. For any reasonable plans 
of successful propagation, the main preparatory work 
must be with them. The present generation has 
accomplished more in this respect than did the last. 
The next must go far beyond the present. But, for 
this, the spirit of beneficence must be earlier infused 
into it, that, through its deeper root in a richer soil, 
it may yield a riper and more abundant fruit. " Tell 
your children of this, and let your children tell their 
children, and their children another generation." 
But who shall give this instruction ? TVe answer, 
first, an important duty devolves on parents. They 
should teach their children, by precept and example, 
to give liberally and systematically. The shepherd 
of the flock has also a responsible agency. It is his 
work, made incumbent by his relations to his people, 
and by the terms of his commission. The main reli- 
ance, under God, for the cultivation of a beneficent 
spirit in the church, and for making her charity a 
work of intelligence, of principle, and of habit, must 
be upon her ministers. And auxiliary to the min- 
istry in securing this important result, is the Chris- 
tian press. By religious journals, and reports oi 
benevolent societies, by tracts and treatises upon 
missions and beneficence, much may be done to dif- 
fuse information, cultivate a sense of stewardship, 
and awaken the elevated sentiments of Christian 
philanthropy. In this view, the religious press is 



SYSTEM IN BENEFICENCE. 121 

as the right arm of the Christian ministry, the cir- 
culation of a good book like a perpetually self-repeat' 
iri£ sermon, and all beneficent organizations are as 
dutiful handmaids to the Christian church. 

2. System in beneficence provides for the appro- 
priation by every one, at stated times, of a due pro- 
'portion of his property to charitable purposes. This 
provision of the system is essential in order to secure 
the full benefits of the former provision. Without 
something of this, the principles inculcated might be 
left inoperative, and the impressions made be soon 
effaced, to be revived perhaps, from the pulpit, and 
lost again by inaction, or the resumed reign of cov- 
etousness. There are three stated periods, the weekly, 
the monthly, and the annual, which deserve partic- 
ular consideration. 

(1.) The weekly period. "Upon the first day 
of the week," says the apostle to the Corinthians, 

" LET EVERY ONE OF YOU LAY BY" HIM IN STORE, AS 

God hatii rnosrERED him." The same direction he 
also gives to the Galatians. Here is a simple but 
comprehensive system. Each one is required to gn e 
something. This is bencjicence. His charity is to 
be " as God hath prospered him." This is propor- 
tion in beneficence. It is to be laid by " upon the 
first day of the week." This is system in benefi- 
cence. 

The chief characteristics of this apostolic pi; 
proportion and system, are precisely those in re* 



122 THE MISSION OF THE CIICRCH. 

spect to which the beneficence of the church is most 
defective. And it is a little singular, that this divine 
type should have been left on record for the express 
benefit of the church, and yet should have been so 
little regarded. It is simple, easy of application, 
and effective. That some such plan should not have 
obtained general adoption, may perhaps be best ac- 
counted for by the absence of that beneficent spirit 
which prevailed in the primitive church. 

The advantages of this plan are obvious. It rs 
the occasion of very frequent recurrence to the prov- 
idence of G od as the source of our prosperity, and of 
a recognition of our dependence upon him, and of 
our obligation to him for all that we receive. It is 
suited to mingle thoughts of him with the pursuit 
of all our worldly affairs, so that our religion, instead 
of being secularized by our business, is made to ele- 
vate and sanctify it, by leading to its prosecution 
upon the highest principles. By bringing us to so 
frequent a review of our stewardship, it deepens the 
feeling of responsibleness, and quickens the sensibil- 
ities to the condition of our fellow-men, and to our 
final account. The mind being kept thus constantly 
familiar with the ennobling principles and constrain- 
ing motives of Christian beneficence, selfishness is 
restrained, and covetousness meets with constant 
and almost impassible barriers. Thus a more cor- 
rect judgment will be formed of the proportion which 
duty requires, and the devotement of that proportion 



SYSTEM IN BENEFICENCE. 123 

will be prompted by more elevated religious affec- 
tions. 

The most indigent can probably lay aside a rent 
a week for an object to which they may feel unable, 
at any one time, to contribute fifty-two cents. Many 
more can invest in this way five, ten, or twenty 
cents a week, who would think it impossible to sub- 
scribe two dollars and a half, or five dollars, or ten 
dollars at any one time in the year, and who per- 
haps may not, at any one time, be in possession of 
an amount so large. And yet, by giving it in smal] 
weekly instalments, they will defraud no one ; but, 
doing it from gratitude to God and love to man, they 
will become better neighbors, better citizens, better 
men, and better Christians. 

Some forty years ago, a worthy deacon of an 
infant church in Vermont adopted this plan, from a 
simple desire to obey the injunction of the apostle. 
While under the elevating influence of the Sabbath 
services, he consecrated to beneficence such a portion 
of his income as would meet the measure of his 
prosperity. From this deposit the various calls of 
charity were answered, and the poor and needy were 
never allowed to go empty away, unless it had been 
previously much overdrawn. In this practice lie 
continued until his death, greatly to his own tempo- 
ral and spiritual advantage; for "his root was spread 
out by the waters, and the dew lay all night on his 
branch." There are those who still remember the 



124 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

small tin trunk to which he committed these weekly 
instalments, and who, receiving the rich legacy of 
his example, bear testimony to its happy influence 
upon themselves, the prosperity of the little church, 
and the destitute around. 

The only plausible objection to this plan may arise 
from the difficulty which some might experience in 
estimating the profits of their business, so as to ad- 
just their weekly proportion. "With day-laborers, 
and multitudes of others, this objection could have 
little weight. With not a few it might be removed 
by a different mode of conducting their affairs, and 
the change might make them safer and more pros- 
perous business men. But those whose vocations 
are of such a nature that this plan could not be 
fully carried out, might still lay by something, and 
refer the full adjustment of their proportion to the 
monthly or annual estimate, as the Jews were allow- 
ed to close the appropriation of their tithes for feasts 
and sacrifices at the expiration of every third year, 
if not done before. 

(2.) The monthly period. Those who cannot 
decide on their degree of prosperity week by week, 
may be able to do it once a month, and to "lay by 
in store " accordingly. But for those who adopt the 
monthly system, the temptation to withhold may be 
increased by their being under the necessity of con- 
secrating a sum four times as large as the weekly 
adjustment would require. And there may be less 



SYSTEM IN BENEFICENCE. 125 

tendency to create a sense of constant dependence 
upon God, and to form as perfectly the habit of asso- 
ciating his glory with the prosecution of all their 
worldly affairs. Still, as a substitute, in the case of 
those who cannot do it oftener, let them adopt the 
spirit of the apostolic direction, and " lay by in 
store" every month, "as God hath prospered them." 
This has been found to possess important financial 
as well as religious advantages. Says a prosperous 
merchant who has adopted this plan, " This system 
has saved me from commercial dangers, by leading 
me to simplify business and avoid extensive credits. 
It has made me a better merchant ; for the monthly 
pecuniary observations which I have been wont to 
take, though often quite laborious, have brought me 
to a better knowledge of the state of my affairs, and 
led me to be more cautious and prudent than I 
otherwise should have been. Since adopting this 
plan, I have been no longer perplexed with doubts 
about giving, and there is no one I meet with more 
cheerfulness than a servant of Christ calling for 
aid." 

(3.) The annual period. To an annual survey 
of one's business affairs, and an apportionment of 
profits to beneficence, there can be no objection from 
its impracticability. It accords with the principles 
and habits of the best business men, to take an 
annual account of stock, and estimate profits and 
losses. The reputation and success li any one lis a 



126 THE MISSION OP THE CHURCH. 

business man require this. Men who do nothing of 
it evince so little practical wisdom, that not much 
can be expected from them on the score of systematic 
beneficence. If they give largely at one time, their 
generosity may be at the expense of their justice, 
and they cannot be counted upon as having any 
thing to give when the call is repeated. But he who 
annually casts up his accounts will know what are 
his profits, and what the whole amount of his prop- 
erty. Then let him apply the rule of proportion, 
and set apart for the cause of his Master, the amount 
which that rule requires, and let the consecrated 
sum be considered as sacred to charity. Only let 
him be sure that the amount does not fall beloiv the 
claims of duty, and of well regulated self-interest. 
And if he should act upon his right to go a little 
beyond mere duty, transcending the stern mandates 
of conscience, and borne on by the higher sentiments 
of gratitude and love, he would neither do himself 
wrong, nor his neighbor harm. 

We cannot withhold a joint letter, written in 1822, 
to the treasurer of one of our foreign missionary so- 
cieties, by two individuals who had adopted a plan 
similar to that which it has been our object to rec- 
ommend. 

" When, a few years since, we commenced house- 
keeping, God in his providence saw fit to commit to 
our care a small farm in a country town, for which 
we owed about one-quarter of its value. We had 



SYSTEM IN BENEFICENCE. 127 

lead the various accounts of the benevolent exertions 
of the day, and were anxious to join with our fellow- 
Christians in their acts of charity. But how could 
we obtain the means ? Our family must be support- 
ed, and we must pay our debts, or wc should wrong 
one man while giving to another. 

" After deliberating upon the subject, and reflect- 
ing that what we owed would not probably all be 
wanted for several years, we concluded, in the first 
place, to attend diligently to business, as God should 
give us health and strength, and to expend nothing 
for the support of ourselves and family but what was 
absolutely necessary for our health and comfort 
We then fixed upon a certain proportion of our debts, 
which we would endeavor to pay annually, and so 
much only, unless more was wanted ; but if wanted, 
we would pay to the last of our ability. After pay- 
ing the proportion of our debts agreed upon, the 
remainder of our income, whether more or less, was 
to be expended, according to the best of our judg- 
ment, in doing good. 

" When we adopted this plan, we concluded that 
it was best to review it at stated periods, and if we 
conscientiously thought it our duty, to alter it ; but 
not otherwise. After several years' experiment, we 
are more and more convinced that it is our duty 
strictly to adhere to it. God has blessed our labors 
in a remarkable degree. We can almost say that 
he has fulfilled to us his promise to Israel, that he 



123 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

would bless them in all that which they should put 
their hands unto." 

How striking is this illustration of the ease with 
which systematic arrangements may be introduced 
into our beneficent operations, even in difficult cir- 
cumstances. Let every disciple of Jesus go and do 
likewise, and the days of retrenchment and penury 
and mourning to the cause of benevolence would be 
ended, and " Israel would blossom and bud, and fill 
the face of the world with fruit." 

(4.) There is yet one other plan, which has been 
adopted by some with advantage. It is that of set- 
ting apart a certain portion of each gain in every 
enterprise, and devoting it to beneficence. This per- 
haps approaches nearer to the Jewish system than 
either of the others. Of all their several gains, the 
Jews were required to give a portion to the Lord, in 
the form of first-fruits and tithes. This brought them 
almost constantly under the influence of some sacred 
claim upon their substance. Every where they were 
reminded of their dependence upon their Maker, and 
of their obligations to him. Everywhere they were 
taught that they were constant receivers, by being 
called to be constant givers. And why was this but 
to prevent and destroy covetousness, and to induce 
habits of beneficence ? And what could be more 
admirably adjusted as means to the end, everywhere 
meeting a divine claim, or the most animating mo- 
lives to liberality ? How must such a system bring 



SYSTEM IN BENEFICENCE. 129 

one into an all -surrounding atmosphere of benefi- 
cence. 

Its advantages are nearly allied to those of the 
first-named plan. And the near resemblance of the 
system proposed by the Jewish lawgiver to that pre- 
sented by the Christian apostle, is easily account rd 
for by the fact, that both the lawgiver and the apos- 
tle were under divine guidance. It was in both 
cases the all-creative Mind propounding to man 
principles of beneficence most suited to his charac- 
ter and condition, and most conducive to his highest 
interests and the glory of God. 

The operation of these principles is beautifully 
illustrated in the following epistle, written in 1823, 
and addressed to the secretary of one of our benevo- 
lent societies. 

" I have long been desirous of rendering some aid 
to your society. My circumstances, however, have 
been such that I knew not how to contribute money. 
But having recently commenced business, with very 
moderate prospects, it occurred to me that I had a 
rigid, if it were not clearly my duty, to set apart a 
certain portion of the Lord's gifts, for his cause in 
the earth. I have therefore taken a certain part oi 
every gain, small or great, and devoted it to the 
service of God. I would not trouble you with this 
communication, were it not to tell you of the suits' 
faction I have derived from this plan. The money 
laid aside is not considered mine. The only inquiry, 

Miss, of Church. ^ 



130 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

when an application is made, is, ' Have I any thing 
in the treasury, and how can I dispose of it to the best 
advantage V I feel as though I were putting my hand 
into the Lord's treasury and acting for him. I have 
no doubt, sir, that the deductions made on every 
gain have been saved in carefulness and economy!'' 

Who can resist the conviction of the superior ex- 
cellence of such principles as this letter and the pre- 
ceding illustrations exhibit ? Who can doubt the 
utility of reducing them, as these Christians did, to 
systematic operation ? Were they not better for their 
beneficence ; richer in all that which constitutes 
true worth — richer in the means and the desire of 
doing good — richer in all the elements of rational 
enjoyment here, and in the immortal hopes of bless- 
edness hereafter ? 

3. System in beneficence provides for some plan 
in every church for collecting its charitable contri- 
butions, and for applying them to the objects for 
ivhich they are designed. It is obvious that this is 
essential to the completion of a perfect system. 

There are some objects to which the donors them- 
selves should be the distributers of their own bounty, 
as the poor, the sick, and the afflicted, within the 
sphere of their immediate action. The benign and 
salutary influence of bestowing private charities is 
too precious to be lost by making another the almo- 
ner of our bounties, when we arc in circumstances 
to apply them ourselves. 



SYSTEM IN BENEFICENCE. l!jl 

It is mainly with respect to the prominent and 
accredited institutions of benevolence, whether relajt 
ing to the claims of our own or of other countries 
that this part of our system is to be arranged. Foi 
these various objects, collections are sometimes taken 
at the close of public service, at the time when the 
objects are presented. It is an objection to this 
method, that it leaves out of account those who may 
on such occasions be absent, and secures a smaller 
sum from those who are present, than a different 
plan might elicit. Cards are sometimes placed in 
the slips of the church, upon which each one is 
recpiested to write his name, with the sum which 
he wishes to give. In addition to the above-named 
objection, which is equally applicable to this mode 
many who would otherwise contribute a little, dis- 
liking to place their names to a small sum, subscribe 
nothing. "We believe that by some wise system; a 
larger amount may be secured, and with greater 
advantage to the donor. The minutiae of a plan 
for charitable collections must be determined by the 
peculiar circumstances of the case. Little more can 
here be done than to draw the outline of one, which 
can be filled up by those who may carry it into 
operation. 

Let provision be made by the church, at the open- 
ing of the year, for the presentation of the claims of 
the various benevolent objects at tidied tizzies, and 
let one or more suitable persons be appointed lor 



132 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

each different object, to solicit donations hi its be- 
half. 

"When these stated periods arrive, it will be in 
harmony with the provision for systematic instruc- 
tion, for the pastor, either himself or by an agent, to 
present such facts and principles as will increase the 
religious intelligence of the people, elevate in their 
minds the great work of Christian beneficence, and 
bring them more under the influence of appropriate 
motives to liberality, in behalf of the particular ob- 
ject presented. 

Let the solicitors appointed follow the presentation 
of these claims by calling from house to house, giv- 
ing an opportunity to each individual, children as 
well as parents, to contribute what they may have 
appropriated for the object, answering any inquiries, 
and imparting such additional information as they 
way be able to give. 

Let each one of these solicitors make a list of the 
names of those upon whom he calls, with the sev- 
eral sums contributed by each, to be given to the 
pastor when the collection is completed. Of the 
sum total of his collections let him also make a return 
to a treasurer chosen for the purpose, or to the pas- 
tor, by whom the money will be transmitted as soon 
as practicable to the treasurer of the society for 
which it is designed. 

From the lists returned for the several objects 
during the year, let the pastor make an annual 



SYSTEM IN BENEFICENCE. 133 

report to the church and congregation* with such 
instructions and remarks as the facts in the case 
may suggest. 

Such are the provisions which seem essential to a 
complete system in beneficence, whether viewed in 
relation to the wants of the church, or the condition 
of the world. A system like this imposes a duty 
upon pastors, upon individual Christians, and upon 
the church. It secures instruction and religions in- 
formation, thus touching most effectively the springs 
of beneficent action. It provides for a slated time, 
at which each one shall apply the rule of propor- 
tion, and lay by in store according to the ability 
that God giveth. It includes a simple but compre- 
hensive plan for charitable collections, and for apply- 
ing funds to the objects for which they are designed. 
It is in harmony with the means appointed by the 
Redeemer for the sanctifi cation of his people, and 
through them for the salvation of the world. And 
it may be regarded as a recommendation to this plan, 
that while it recognizes the instrumentality of the 
general benevolent organizations, as the applying 
agents of the church, their influence comes in to 
confirm, rather than disturb the relations of the pas- 
tor to his people, and to impress upon the church i:s 
responsibility in regard to its beneficent mission as 
the great divinely instituted body for the world's 
conversion. 



134 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

IT. TENDENCIES AND ADVANTAGES OF SYSTEM. 

1. System in beneficence diminishes the expen- 
diture of benevolent societies for agencies. It is 
one of the evils resulting from the present unsys- 
tematized beneficence of the church, that so much 
expenditure is necessary for the support of agents 
for collecting funds. There can be no doubt, that 
in regard to the principal benevolent organizations, 
some expenditure of this kind in the past state of 
things has been necessary. But any considerable 
appropriation for this purpose has come to be felt by 
all to be a serious drawback, not only in respect to 
the funds thus expended, but also from its tendency 
to occasion distrust in the minds of the less informed 
and less interested. And it is also felt that the 
time has come when, by means of system, nearly 
the whole of this expenditure might be saved. The 
secretaries and officers could communicate intelli- 
gence to the pastors and churches through reports 
and periodicals. The pastors could diffuse informa- 
tion by the circulation of these publications, and by 
their own preaching impart such instruction as might 
secure systematic contributions, and regular remit- 
tances to the treasurers of the several societies. This 
plan carried out would be found effective, and would 
save to the cause of beneficence thousands of dol- 
lars. 

But would it be safe to discontinue all agencies 
for the collection of fluids ? This question will find 



SYSTEM IN BENEFICENCE. ]?jTj 

an answer in the reply to another question. Will 
the pastors and churches adopt the plan ? Will they 
reduce their beneficence to system, and carry out the 
system ? If they will do this, it will be safe. Indeed, 
there seems scarcely an alternative. The busin 
of raising funds belongs to the churches. The ten- 
dency, in the progress of benevolent operations, espe- 
cially for the last few years, has been to devolve it 
upon them. It should not be a matter of expense 
to those organizations whose appropriate work is to 
apply these charities. This expense is not allowed 
in other corporate institutions. The stockholders 
pay in their assessments at their own expense. And 
thus it should be in furnishing supplies for our be- 
nevolent associations ; and thus it might be, if Chris- 
tians would conduct their beneficence as other men 
do their business, on principles of economy and by 
system, not allowing "the children of this world" 
to be " wiser than the children of light." 

2. System in beneficence tends to secure a larger 
number of contributors. It has been ascertained, 
that of the professed Christians who regard one -of 
our oldest and most efficient boards as the organ of 
their appropriations for foreign missions, but little 
more than one half contribute any thing to promote 
the object. Can it be that they feel no interest in a 
work so plainly enjoined by the Head of the church? 
Is not the reason rather to be found in the want oi 
instruction respecting their duty, of information eon- 



136 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

ceming the condition of the world, and of a system- 
atic plan for securing their Cooperation ? 

The churches which include the largest number 
of regular contributors, are those on which most pre- 
paratory labor has been expended. Let the same 
labor be bestowed upon other churches, and accord- 
ing to their ability will their members become inter- 
ested and uniform coworkers with other laborers in 
the vineyard of the Lord. Let them have arrange- 
ment, system, plan in beneficence, and they will 
bring forth fruit in this department of duty as cer- 
tainly, as by similar means they do in other depart- 
ments. He who performs one religious duty from 
the right principle, may be led by proper influences 
to perform any oilier. 

Thus does system in beneficence tend to secure to 
charitable enterprises a larger number of contribu- 
tors, and to make their cooperation more regular and 
effective. It opens fountains of benevolence "in a 
dry and thirsty land, where no water is," and turns 
intermittent springs into the sources of perennial 
streams, which shall fertilize the barren wastes, and 
11 make glad the city of our God." 

3. System in beneficence tends to secure from 
each contributor an amount more proportionate to 
his ability. Men sometimes do less than duty re- 
quires, for no other reason than that they do not 
know how little they are doing. System would tend 
to remove this difficulty, and to raise the standard of 



SYSTEM IN BENEFICENCE 137 

tlieir liberality. Those who give at random, and 
from impulse, frequently imagine that the amount of 
their charities is greater than it really is. This mis- 
apprehension leads them to withhold more than they 
would otherwise feel at liberty to withhold. System 
would correct this mistake, and enlarge their dona 
lions. Many, also, give little, because they have no 
plan for giving any thing. The thing wanting is a 
purpose. There may be the elements of beneficence, 
but they are chaotic. What is needed is develop- 
ment and direction. Temporary ebullitions are not 
sufficient. Fitful, meteoric bursts of feeling are fol- 
lowed by a darker day of apathy and inaction. Ex- 
traordinary, spasmodic exertion, occasioned by the 
galvanism of large assemblies and exciting speeches, 
is not the kind of effort which the objects of benefi- 
cence demand. There may be excitement awaken- 
ed — enthusiasm. No vast and noble achievements 
are secured without this. But how unlike to an 
elevated moral state are those flashes of benevolent 
feeling, which for a moment astonish the beholders 
by their glare, and in a moment more leave them in 
equal amazement at the darkness which follows. 

The excitement which the church needs to bring 
its beneficence into agreement with its ability, is 
occasioned by deeply pondering the principles of the 
gospel, and considering the miseries and the guilt 
of mankind ; by constant contemplation of the char- 
acter of Jesus, and communion and sympathy with 



138 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

him. It is enthusiasm generated by the spirit of 
God in the deep well-springs of the soul, which bears 
the whole man right on, over all obstacles, in the 
steady prosecution of the great work of beneficence. 
It is excitement and enthusiasm which come from 
the union of the heart and the head, the blending of 
feeling and intellect in a uniform, growing desire to 
do good. Where this is, there is little danger that a 
man's charities will be disproportionate to his means. 
Every one in whose heart this healthful excitement 
has been produced, will give " to his power," and 
be willing even "beyond his power." Yet this is 
no hot-bed process of forcing unnaturally the benev- 
olent sympathies. Nothing is done that, in seasons 
of serenest reflection, could occasion a moment's 
regret. All is calm, quiet, Christian deliberation. 
Reason approves it, conscience approves it, and the 
word of God approves it. 

But alas, for want of this, how comparatively lean 
is the charity of the church. She grazes in barren 
fields. Caprice, accident, self-indulgence, or apathy, 
often determines the objects and time and amount of 
charitable contributions. Multitudes of the poor re- 
main still unrelieved, of the ignorant unenlightened, 
and of the vicious unreclaimed. The field ripens 
faster than the reapers are ready to gather in the 
harvest. To millions who need the gospel, and to 
many who ask for it, the church does not give it. 
The demand vastly outruns the supply. And so it 



SYSTEM IN BENEFICENCE. 139 

will be, until 'the church comes to act, in her benefi- 
cence, upon principle and by system. Till then, in 
her means of fulfilling her high mission, and execut- 
ing the last charge of her Lord and Master, she will 
be poor, while her individual members, for all other 
purposes, may be rich. 

4. System in beneficence tends to give to charita- 
ble contributions the more scriptural form oi free-will 
offerings, and thus to render them more acceptable 
to the Lord, and a means of greater good to men. 
The scriptural idea of charity is love, good-will ; and 
when donations to the poor are called charity, it is 
by metaphor, wherein the action or the gift receives 
the name of the feeling supposed to have prompted 
it. But it is often a misnomer to apply such a word 
to the donations of those esteemed charitable. It is 
true, that funds which are relinquished to the cause 
of beneficence may be attended with good to the 
recipients. God may employ them for such a result 
on the ground of his own right in them. But his 
ordinary mode of procedure leads to the conviction, 
that less good can be expected from such donations 
than from the free-will offerings of affection, while 
to such reluctant releasers of their property we find 
no promised reward. And although, in respect to 
the condition of the poor and the wants of the world, 
this is a better disposition of their wealth than to 
hoard or squander it, still they lose the blessing which 
follows the free-will offering, because, in what they 



[40 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

do, " they sacrifice to their own net, and burn in- 
cense to their own drag." 

There are others who have principle and feel- 
ing, which are called into action in other depart- 
ments of duty, but not here. They pray from prin 
ciple, but give grudgingly or of necessity; or they 
contribute to sustain the gospel at home from love 
to that gospel, but have made its diffusion a subject 
of so little inquiry and prayer, that the same feeling 
hardly prompts them to do any thing for extending 
its blessings. So that often what they are con- 
strained to yield to this object approaches, in their 
mind, to a kind of religious extortion. Such a man 
gives as little as he can, consistently with the gener- 
ally received opinion that all professing Christians 
should give something. "When he can plead inabil- 
ity without incurring the odium of penuriousness, he 
does it ; and when he gives, it is reluctantly, and 
without faith or charity. 

Now, what such a man needs, in order to change 
his views and his habits of giving, is, together with 
a larger measure of the divine Spirit, system, instruc- 
tion respecting his duty, and a plan for doing it. Let 
him be taught whose is the silver and the gold, and 
why it is intrusted to him ; that the great business 
of a disciple, so far as his property is concerned, is to 
give as freely as he has received. Let his thoughts 
dwell on the import of that petition which he so often 
repeats, "Thy kingdom come," until he feels that by 



SYSTEM IN BENEFICENCE. 141 

his agency its advent may be hastened. Let him go 
to the cross and view his possessions there, arid he 
will attain a moral elevation unreached before ; his 
eye will catch visions new and strange to him, and 
he will begin to feel that wealth is power, and that 
it is a blessed thing to wield that power for the good 
of his fellow- men. He is now predisposed to look 
with favor on some plan for beneficence which may 
be submitted to his inspection. He has a new object 
to live for. New enlargement is given to his mind. 
New thoughts take possession of him. A new spirit 
inspires him. His donations, now prompted by love, 
are set apart as sacred to charity, and this gives to 
them the form and spirit of free-will offerings. And 
what is thus offered is accepted ; for, 

"Where love is, the offering evermore is blest."' 

This is the spirit of true beneficence, which leads to 
the voluntary consecration of one's entire self, body, 
soul, and spirit, "a living sacrifice, holy and accept- 
able unto the Lord." It puts charitable donations 
into the most acceptable and pleasing form. It 
writes " holiness to the Lord " upon every thing, and 
converts human instrumentality into divine applian- 
ces for tjic recovery of lost man. How great would 
be the addition of moral power to the beneficent 
agencies of the church, if all her bounty came reg- 
ularly and systematically as free-icill offerings to 
(he Lord. 



142 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

5. System in beneficence tends to make free-will 
offerings the fruit of a more cheerful spirit, and ren- 
ders beneficence a delight, as it is a duty. " The 
Lord loveth a cheerful giver," and he who gives 
cheerfully finds delight in giving. But seldom does 
one experience much pleasure in beneficence, who has 
left it to the contingencies of accident or circum- 
stance. The call may come when he is " unpre- 
pared," because his bounty has not been -'made up 
beforehand ;" or he may have some sense of duty, but 
not be sufficiently influenced by the motives for doing 
good to make it a pleasure. 

In order that doing good may be a cheerful and 
happy work, it should be, in principle at least, a 
business. And in this, as in other things, practice 
leads to perfection. Exercise gives strength to the 
benevolent as well as to the social affections. Giv- 
ing once is seed sown, of which the fruit is a dispo- 
sition to give still more. Scattering to the poor in- 
creases both the desire and joy of scattering. And 
these will be still more increased by the adoption of 
a regular, systematic plan for doing it. 

By system, preliminaries are arranged, resources 
provided, and the proportion adjusted and consecrat- 
ed to the Lord. Nothing remains but to make the 
appropriation. Such a man has no conflict with 
covetousness. The battle has been fought, and the 
victory won. He is impeded by no doubts respect- 
ing the worthiness and importance of the object. 



SYSTEM IN BENEFICENCE. 143 

He is hindered by no pleas of human imperfection 
in the workings of accredited disbursing agencies. 

Nothing causes hesitancy or misgiving. He lays 
his offering upon the altar with a cheerfulness and 
delight which he has experienced in no other mode 
of employing his property, and his only regret is, that 
it is no larger. This is the pleasure of beneficence, 
the luxury of doing good — to see joy lighted up in 
the abodes of poverty and distress, to hear of bless- 
ings conferred through Bibles and books distributed, 
and the gospel proclaimed. It is a pure and per- 
manent delight. When it has passed away as a 
present consciousness, it continues as a joyful reflec- 
tion, and a sweetly impelling force to still more 
enlarged plans of beneficence. 

One who thus regulates his charities by plan, is 
always ready to give when he is called upon, and 
always cheerful in giving, because he is ready. Far 
from looking upon the solicitors for benevolent objects 
as religious mendicants, whom he sends from his 
door with only a covetous " Be ye warmed and filled,'' 
yet " giveth not those things which are needful," he 
deals to them liberally of what he has "laid by him 
in store," and to this adds his grateful God-speed 
to them in so noble a mission. Yea, his benevolence 
waits not to be asked, but impelling him by a spirit 
which "seeketh not her own," lie goes tort !i unurged, 
unsolicited, to minister to the objects of want and oi 
woe. He cannot keep his Lord's money long hid in 



L44 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

a napkin. He puts it speedily to the exchangers, 
that it may gain more for his Master's use. To do 
good with his property has become his habit. It is 
his business, his pleasure, his life. He has experi- 
enced the blessedness of doing good, and now nothing 
can prevent him from continuing his enjoyment of 
it. He has discovered the true value of wealth in 
discovering the right way of using it. He is hap- 
piest himself when he does most to make others 
happy. 

Here is the great secret of happiness, the panacea 
for half of earth's afflictive ills — "to do good, and to 
communicate." It is the intenseness of desires con- 
centrated upon self which makes the soul a prey to 
itself, and multiplies its artificial wants and its cor- 
roding cares, and deprives it of the joys of life. Let 
men do good, and they will find happiness. To 
many of a constitutionally morbid temperament, who 
are almost strangers to the sweet sunlight of life, or 
to those over whose spirits the blight of hope has cast 
a cloud, let it be said, 

" Whoso would sun himself in peace, may be seen of her in 
deeds of mercy, 
When the pale, lean cheek of the destitute is wet with 
grateful tears." 

"Where can the afflicted find consolation so readily 
as in assuaging the griefs of others? In their mis- 
sions of mercy, they shall find a blessed ministration 
made to themselves by the great Comforter. 



S Y S T E M IN E E N E P I C R N C E . \ 4 5 

" Wouldst thou from sorrow find a sweet relief? 
Or is thy heart oppressed with woes untold ? 
Balm wouldst thou gather for corroding grief? 
Pour blessings round thee like a shower of gold. 

The seed that in these few and fleeting hours 
Thy hands unsparing and unwearied sow, 
Shall deck thy grave with amaranthine flowers, 
And yield thee fruits divine in heaven's immortal bowers." 

6- System in beneficence tends to give consistency 
xnd efficiency to the character of Christians, by bring- 
ing their life into harmony ivith their doctrines and 
'professions. The piety of the church needs consist- 
ency and symmetry. And this because it needs sys- 
tem to bring its practice into harmony with its doc- 
trines and professions. There is a glaring contrariety 
between the standards of the church and its benefi- 
cent action. This is observed by the infidel, and is 
used as a reproach. It is perceived by the pagan as 
soon as he understands our professed belief and our 
practical disbelief. " If you Christians have known 
all these things," said an inquisitive heathen to the 
first missionary at Bombay, " and really thought that 
we heathens must perish unless we believe in your 
Jesus Christ, how could you leave so great a pan of 
the world for so many generations to go down to per- 
dition, without coming sooner to tell us of this only 
way in which we can be saved?" How can such 
most natural questions be answered, except by the 
admission of great inconsistency? 

Mi*, of Church. I 



146 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

We recognize the justness of the comparison in orn 
Saviour's declaration, that it shall profit a man noth- 
ing to " gain the whole world and lose his own soul," 
and yet we seem almost to have reversed the com- 
parison in our systematic exertions, seeking the world 
as the infinite good, and passing by the soul as of 
little worth. We admit that " the cares of the 
world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, 
and render it unfruitful, " and yet we cultivate these 
cares and riches, as if they would make our hearts a 
more fertile soil for the good seed. We profess to give 
up all for Christ, and yet live much as if we ad- 
mitted his claim to nothing. We admire the spirit 
of the martyrs, hut have little idea of witnessing for 
the cause in which they died by the surrender of any 
considerable amount of our property for its advance- 
ment. We profess to have laid up our treasure in 
heaven, but from all visible appearances, far the 
greater portion of it is still on the earth. In our 
creeds, we renounce "the world, the flesh, and the 
devil;" and in our lives practically renounce our 
creeds, which contain such a renunciation. We 
pledge ourselves, in our profession, to entire conse- 
cration, and seal our vows in "the cup of blessing/' 
and yet evince by our practical reservations that we 
do not feel obligated by these vows. Doctrmally, 
the church admits self-denial as the condition of dis- 
cipleship ; practically, as a body, she construes the 
condition as consistent with the denial of almost 



SYSTEM IN BENEFICENCE. M7 

every thing rather than self. The practical signifi- 
cance of the golden rule with many, is the surfeit- 
ing of self from the tahle of ahundance, and the 
bestowment upon our poor neighbor of the crumbs 
that fall therefrom. Our great Exemplar was self- 
denying, and we admit ourselves bound to be like 
him, yet our course of life is eminently self-indulgent. 
The church is organized for aggressive movement, 
but as a body remains stationary. As she strives 
for more extended empire, she strengthens, and yet 
she strives not. Inaction enfeebles her, and yet she 
is comparatively inactive. It is by scattering that 
she increases, and yet she scatters little. Exporting 
her treasures enriches her, and yet, for the greater 
part, she consumes them at home. Keeping her 
goods is her bane, and yet she keeps them. Hi 
her Lord's money, it shall be taken away, and yet 
she hides it. 

Is this consistency ? Is there not a sea of apathy 
lying between our creeds and our conduct, between 
our doctrines and our deeds? The Saviour and the 
perishing world are on one side; the body of the 
church, with its wealth, is on the other. The voire 
says, " Come over and help us ;" but there is no an- 
swering movement. There is indeed some stir io 
the camp of the Lord's hosts, some feeble attempts 
at crossing — a few bold leaders have seized the ark, 
and borne it over. But what are these from bo 
many? And these are left to light almost alone. 



148 the mission or THE CHURCH. 

What are two or three thousand missionaries for six 
hundred millions of benighted souls ? 

What, now, is needed ? We answer, consistency . 
Nothing but consistency in the life of the church. 
The fault is not in her creeds. Her organization is 
in harmony with the letter and spirit of her commis- 
sion. Her professions and admissions are explicit 
and full. The fault is in her practice— the life of 
her members. In this, she virtually disowns her 
creeds, repudiates her organization, and contradicts 
her admissions and professions. Without plan in 
beneficence, this contrariety is reduced to system. 
Men pursue their various schemes for self-indulgence 
or self-aggrandizement most systematically. Vfhen 
we contemplate the grandeur of the objects proposed 
to her, and the comparative pittance which she 
relinquishes for their accomplishment, we are con- 
strained to say, that she is systematic in the diver- 
sion of her energies and her possessions from the 
great end to which her doctrines and her professions 
direct them — systematic in self-contradiction. 

Now, let this order of things be reversed — let the 
system be extended from schemes of selfishness to 
those of benevolence — let plans be formed for har- 
monizing the practice of the church with its doctrines 
and professions — let her charitable contributions be 
made from an elevated Christian devotion, and be 
proportionate to the legitimate objects of beneficence, 
and regularly applied ; and how changed will be the 



SYSTEM IN BENEFICENCE. 14Q 

whole aspect and condition of the church. As she 
joins with Christ in his great work, he will join with 
her in a visible success, that will animate her hopes 
and strengthen her courage for renewed effort and 
fresh victories. What symmetry and heauty would 
such a change impart to her — to cease planning for 
self-indulgence, and to begin to plan for the glory of 
God. How would she put on her beautiful garments, 
the fragrance whereof is like the smell of "myrrh 
and of cassia." " No weapon that is formed against 
her shall prosper, and every tongue that shall rise 
against her in judgment, she shall condemn." " She 
shall break forth on the right hand, and on the left ; 
and her seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make 
the desolate cities to be inhabited." 

7. System in beneficence tends to raise the church, 
in her charitable contributions, to a more elevated 
Christian devotiofi. Whatever shall lead the church 
to a greater simplicity of purpose, and give her a more 
single eye to the glory of Christ — wdiatever shall kin- 
dle in her the spirit of entire consecration — whatever 
shall train her to a higher standard of faith and a 
more ardent love, and a purer and more constant 
zeal — whatever shall give an elevated Christian basis 
to her benevolent eflbrts, and excite a more intense 
longing after the coming of Christ's kingdom, will 
directly augment her moral power, and give increas- 
ed efficiency even to the present rate of charitable 
contributions. God requires the pecuniary resources 



150 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

of the church, not "because he cannot accomplish his 
plans of redemption without them, but because lie 
sees that it will be for her advantage to do it by 
means of those resources. His object is to perfect in 
his people their estrangement from the world and 
their devotion to him, while he employs this devotion 
as the means of accomplishing his scheme of redeem 
ing love towards the race. 

And in proportion as this spirit of obedience and 
self-denial and love is increased, however small the 
amount of charitable donations which it yields, the 
work of beneficence will be found advancing. If the 
resources of the church are only as a " handful of 
meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruise," with 
the devotement of these in the spirit of entire conse- 
cration, " the barrel of meal shall not waste, neither 
shall the cruise of oil fail," until the whole work be 
accomplished. He who could feed five thousand 
with "five loaves and two fishes," can convert the 
w T orld through the generous, self-denying sacrifices of 
his people, be they ever so small. On the other hand, 
the absence of this spirit leaves the church to declen- 
sion, and the world to perish, although the richest 
mines in the bosom of the earth be dug up and cast 
into her treasury. Though we "bestow all our 
goods to feed the poor, and have not love, it prohteth 
nothing." Who have accomplished so much for mod- 
ern missions, in proportion to their means, as the 
Moravians ? When their whole number did not' ex- 



BYSTEM iN BENEFICENCE. 151 

ceed six hundred persons, a large part of whom were 
exiles, they began the beneficent work of Christian 
missions. At the expiration of ten years, they had 
carried the light of truth to Lapland, Greenland, St. 
Croix, Surinam, and to the Indians of North Amer- 
ica ; to Algiers, the cape of Good Hope, Ceylon, and 
Tartary. Whatsoever they possessed which could 
subserve so sublime an end, they laid upon the altar 
with a noble and self-denying devotion to Christ ; 
and their success was according to their faith and 
love. So it was in the first propagation of Chris- 
tianity. It was not their numbers, nor was it their 
wealth which gave such signal triumphs to the prim- 
itive followers of Christ, but it was their invincible 
moral courage, their ardent love, their untiring zeal, 
their pure Christian devotion. 

It is the spirit of entire consecration which makes 
the soul rich in all the elements of liberality. It is 
a simple, confiding trust in Providence, a warm and 
glowing love to Christ, which, withholding all sacri- 
fices to pride and fashion, and pervading the whole 
business and arrangements of life with the spirit of 
supreme devotion to God, produces a degree of benefi- 
cence which men who live unto themselves deem 
extravagant and ruinous. This entire subjection of 
the soul to Christ forms a style of philanthro] 
who, in the esteem of many even in the church, 
so far beyond the requirements of reason and Scrip- 
ture, that their influence is lost as examples, and 



152 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

they are considered as fit only for ridicule or admira- 
tion. And this, because the spirit of the world has 
crept into and corrupted the church. Her benefi- 
cence is meagre, and upon low and earthly principles. 
Her light is dim. Her strength is weakness. Her 
enemies exult over her. Feebly does she fulfil her 
mission to the poor, the ignorant, and the vicious at 
home. Still more feebly does she execute her com- 
mission to the Pagan, the Mohammedan, and the 
Jew abroad. Nothing but supreme devotion to Christ 
will restore her beneficent power, and open fountains 
of benevolence, and send forth streams, " to satisfy 
the desolate and waste ground, and cause the bud of 
the tender herb to spring forth." 

Urgent as are the calls for funds from the waste- 
places of our own country and from heathen lands, 
there is a greater urgency that the whole subject 
of beneficence be canvassed and systematized, and 
placed on a higher and broader ground of Christian 
jninciple and Christian devotion. This done, the 
requisite amount of contributions will be made sure, 
and the condition of their greatest efficacy will be 
complied with. 

The very attempt to form a system will give a 
new impulse and elevation to all the beneficent move- 
ments of the church. And the incorporating in a 
'plan, of such influences as led to its formation, will 
give them permanency as causes, of which still other 
advantages will be the legitimate effects. The plan 



SYSTEM IN BENEFICENCE. 153 

has given these influences prominence, as elements 
of a man's daily life. They interweave themselves 
in all his thoughts and business. "What was low in 
the church would thus he raised up ; what was weak, 
would be made strong; what was wavering, would 
be confirmed, and her beneficent career become like 
the rising light, " shining more and more unto the 
perfect day." 

' ; Oh, then, let her scatter broadcast of her seed, 
Rich in prayer, and in alms, and in every good deed, 
Till her seed-grain is garnered in ripe golden sheaves. 
And her guerdon of glory from Christ she receives." 

8. System in beneficence tends to promote union 
among Christians of different denominations, and 
thus to increase the moral power of the whole church 
for the good of the world. The ground of hope that 
the adoption of system in beneficence would increase 
the spirit of union among the several denominations 
is, that it presents a common object to be accom- 
plished, and a common 'plan for accomplishing it. 
How might all distinctions of name and sect bo 
blended in the great work of blessing the world, like 
the primary colors in the beams of light, that glad- 
den the earth and make it fruitful. Or, at least, 
how might they be so harmonized, like these same 
colors set in the resplendent arch of glory which 
spans the darkened heaven, as to betoken that, the 
wrathful storms are past, and to give promise 
perpetual peace. And this hope is the greater, in- 



154 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

asmuch as the main object is, not to unite the church, 
hut by new conquests to enlarge it — not to form a 
new association, but to perpetuate and make univer- 
sal an old one. It is not so much to harmonize 
creeds, as to give system and consistency and effi- 
ciency to 'practice. However much may be gained 
in the work of uniting the church by discussions and 
conferences and alliances, it will readily be admitted 
that much more may be done by leading the follow- 
ers of Christ to a self-denying, systematic effort for 
the conversion of the world. 

It is to action, rather than discussion, that we 
look with most sanguine expectations for the union 
of the church. By the former, good men will work 
themselves, in a common cause, into greater doctri- 
nal or ecclesiastical proximity, while, by the latter, 
they may reason and resolve themselves into a wider 
separation. The one places them upon their points 
of difference. Passion and self-interest, always irrel- 
evant in the search after truth, creep in and blind 
the eye, and inflame the zeal for fortifying and de- 
fending those points. The other sets them upon their 
points of agreement, and all their ardor of engage- 
ment deepens their sense of the absolute and relative 
importance of these points. Each will rejoice in 
the fruits of the labor of all, as ripened by the same 
divine influence, and gathered from the same com- 
mon field. " Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and 
Judah shall not vex Ephraim. But they shall fly 



SYSTEM IN BENEFICENCE 155 

upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the 
west; they shall spoil them of the east together." 
A common cause gives them common sympathies 
and bonds of attachment. By engaging in earnest, 

and upon system, in the great work of doing good, 
the whole church is pervaded by one spirit, the 
spirit of Christian beneficence, influenced by one mo- 
tive, elevated by one sentiment, the tendency of all 
which is to overpower sectarian peculiarities, and 
melt the whole company of disciples into one mass, 
and mould them after one divine likeness. Instead 
of repelling the world by her frowning battlements 
reared for intestine warfare, the church, united in her 
separate sections, like the several tribes of Israel in 
one common phalanx, and moving at the son rid of 
the same " silver trumpet," towards the same land of 
promise, would attract and subdue the world. 

By what name soever you may call yourself, if you 
are a child of God, the points on which you differ from 
your brethren are probably fewer, and certainly Less 
important, than those in which you agree with th 
The views and feelings which characterize both yon 
and them, as the friends of God and of man, are the 
catholic views and feelings. — the only bond oi' a com- 
mon fellowship among all the regenerate and I 
on earth and in heaven. These c< 
that character which qualifies all Christians to en- 
gage in (la* work of beneficence with the highesi de- 
gree of success, and which, the move earnestly 



156 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

systematically that work be prosecuted, assumes more 
and more the ascendency over all dividing lines and 
enfeebling agencies. This would give to the church 
a union, and a power and stability from union, to 
which she is now a stranger. The preponderating 
force would be a centripetal force. The attraction 
would be to a common centre, by a common law 
of affinity. With what deep grief did the devoted 
Martyn, an attached member of the church of Eng- 
land, hear, while at Aldeen, of an order of the 
British government, to prevent his Baptist brethren 
from preaching and distributing tracts. " So per- 
plexed and excited was he by the intelligence," says 
his biographer, "that it even deprived him of sleep. 
And he spoke afterwards with so much vehemence 
against the measures of government, as upon reflec- 
tion, to afford him matter of self-condemnation." 
" How small and unimportant," exclaims tins heroic 
servant of God, in view of the combined powers oi 
evil that oppose the progress of the church in hea- 
then lands — " hoiv small and unimportant are the 
hair -splitting disputes of the blessed people at home, 
compared with the formidable agents of the devil, 
icith whom ice have to combat here." 

We would not affirm, that all differences of opin- 
ion and denominational distinctions would neces- 
sarily disappear, even in the most systematic and 
successful prosecution of the work of beneficence. 
We only say, that the elements of system are the ele- 



SYSTEM IN BENEFICENCE. 1.57 

mcnts of success, and that these, combining a rule 
that is safe with motives that are sufficient are 
common to all the followers of Christ. We say, 
"the field is the world," the harvest is already ripe, 
the command is, " Go, work in my vineyard." The 
world is to be saved by the inculcation of those 
essential doctrines on which the disciples of Christ 
are agreed. Christianity is, therefore, incomparably 
better than the peculiarities of any sect of Christians. 
Let it be remembered, that our Saviour's last com- 
mand to the church is, " Go ye into all the world, 
and preach the gospel to every creature," and let 
her begin this work in earnest and upon system, 
and strifes will cease. Discordant tempers and con- 
flicting interests will be harmonized in hearts fused 
into one common constraining love, by the ardor of 
their zeal in the accomplishment of one common, 
sublime end. Let the church task herself to minis- 
ter to the poor and distressed, to give the word of 
God free course in every language and dialect under 
heaven, to place Bunyan's Dream in the hand of 
every pilgrim to the " celestial city," and to make 
Doddridge and Baxter as living preachers in the 
tent of the Arab, the hovel of the Hindoo, the hut of 
the Hottentot, the wigwam of the Indian — in every 
human habitation setting forth the simple power of 
the cross — grace, in its beginning and continuance 
in the soul, the same in every age and every clime, 
*nd its consummation in " the saints 1 everlasting 



158 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

rest " Let the church, begin and continue this work 
systematically till it is completed, and in the sym- 
metry and consistency and beauty and power ac- 
quired in such a work, let those who together have 
achieved such victories, return and strive and 
dispute with and malign each other, if they can. 
Their differences would all disappear in their love 
and labor for the common cause, or, by general con- 
sent, would be allowed to cause no unhallowed 
division among brethren on earth, and would be 
left to be lost in the harmonies of heaven. 

Yv r e have now contemplated beneficence in its most 
prominent aspects, as Christian, proportionate, and 
systematic. "We have analyzed it in relation to its 
distinguishing spirit, in the elements or motives 
which give to it its moral character. 'We have con- 
sidered it in the degree of effort which each one is 
called upon to make, as indicated by the wants of 
the world, the instrumentality for supplying those 
wants, and the ability of each one to aid in applying 
that instrumentality. We have surveyed it in respect 
to the presentation of its appropriate motives, and 
the plan for carrying its principles into most effective 
operation. We have seen the tendency of system in 
beneficence to diminish the expenditures of benevo- 
lent societies, and enable them to prosecute their 
work on more effective plans; to enlarge the number 
of contributors to benevolent objects ; to give to their 



SYSTEM IN BENEPICBNCE. 15Q 

contributions greater regularity ; to make thenl i 
proportionate to each man's ability; to impart to 
them the more acceptable form oifree-tvill offerings^ 

thus increasing their moral value ; to render benefi- 
cence a delight, by causing it to flow from a more 
cheerful spirit.; to give increased consistency to 
Christian character ; to raise the benevolent action 
of the church to a more elevated Christian devo- 
tion; and to promote union among Christian de- 
nominations, thus bringing the whole united church 
into active cooperation with Jehovah in the redemp- 
tion of the world. 



CONCLUSION. 

We hardly need say, that in the work of reducing 
beneficence to system in the church, and prosecuting 
it vigorously, more, under God, depends upon pas- 
tors, than upon any other class. They are the reg- 
ularly constituted leaders of the flock. Their ordi- 
nation is to this end. Their calling is to explain 
and enforce the doctrines of the gospel, and to de- 
velope and illustrate the spirit of that gospel, in its 
beneficent bearings upon the church and the world 
Christianity is a mine of the richest ore. Who shall 
enter it as explorers, bring out its precious treasures, 
and apply them for the enriching of the church, Cot 
the good of the world, and for the glory of God, it 



1G0 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

they do not ? "It depends upon us," says a distin- 
guished pastor to his brethren, with respect to the 
great work of beneficence — "it depends upon us 
mainly, under God, whether the blessing shall ooze 
and trickle upon the world in scanty or occasional 
drops, or whether it shall flow in mighty streams. 
We are icebergs to the cause, or central fires in the 
midst of our population." 

All things conspire at the present period to call 
out the beneficent power of the gospel, and to awaken 
its benevolent spirit in the hearts of God's people, 
for the salvation of the world. The prophecies and 
promises and providence of God bear directly and 
powerfully on the church, to arouse it to its appro- 
priate work of doing good. Who shall inter pret 
these to her, if her ministers do not ? Who stand on 
such vantage ground as they, for bringing her to 
feel her obligations, and discern her privileges ? The 
benevolent habits of her members need to be formed 
upon higher principles, and their beneficent action 
to be called forth by purer and more elevated mo- 
tives. Who can be instrumental in accomplishing 
this, if they cannot ? Who will lead the disciples to 
walk in the garden with their divine Master, and 
teach them to view their possessions there ; or take 
them to the sacred mount, where all selfish consid- 
erations are lost in the love of the cross : who will 
lo this, if they do not ? 

And if it is the duty of the shepherd to lead, is it 



CONCLUSION 101 

not the duty of the jloclc to follow ? If he must in- 
culcate the doctrine of beneficence, should they not 
cherish and exemplify its spirit ? It is the spirit of 
Christ, and it flows out from him to the hearts of all 
his followers. And from them it should go forth, 
in ministries of love to the ignorant and suffering 
and guilty of earth's teeming population. For the 
diffusion of this spirit, the extension of Christ's king- 
dom, the church was constituted, and in this it is 
"the light of the world," "the salt of the earth." 
But it is only as ye Christians who compose this 
church, are like your divine Exemplar — only as the 
mind that was in him is also in you — only as ye com- 
mune with him in the garden, and have sympathy 
with him on the cross, that these his declarations 
can be verified. " Let your light so shine before men, 
that they may see your good works, and glorify your 
Father which is in heaven." " Remember the words 
of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to 
give than to receive." " Freely ye have received, 
freely give." "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto 
them, ye have done it unto me!' 

" A poor wayfaring man of grief 
Hath often met me on my way, 
Who sued so humbly for relief, 

That I could never say him nay : 
I had not power to ask his name, 
Whither he went, or whence he came; 
Yet there was something in his eye 
That won my love — 1 know not why. 

Miss, of Church. 1 1 



162 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH. 

u Once, when my scanty meal was spread, 
He entered — not a word he spake — 
Just perishing for want of bread. 

I gave him all ; he blessed it, brake. 
And ate, but gave me part again . 
Mine was an angel's portion then, 
And w r hile I fed with eager haste, 
The crust w r as manna to my taste. 

u I spied him where a fountain burst 

Clear from the rock; his strength was gone: 
The heedless water mocked his thirst ; 

He heard it, saw it hurrying on. 
I ran and raised the sufferer up — 
Thrice from the stream he drained my cup^ 
Dipt and returned it running o'er ; 
I drank, and never thirsted more. 

" ? Twas night, the floods were out, it blew 

A winter hurricane aloof; 
I heard his voice abroad, and flew 

To bid him welcome to my roof : 
I warmed, I clothed, I cheered my guest, 
I laid him on my couch to rest, 
Then made the earth my bed, and seemed 
In Eden's garden, w T hile I dreamed, 

u Stript, w r ounded, beaten nigh to death, 
I found him by the highway side j 
I roused his pulse, brought back his breath, 

Revived his spirit, and supplied 
Wine, oil, refreshment : he was healed. 
I had myself a wound concealed, 
But from that hour forgot the smart, 
And peace bound up my broken heart 



CONCLUSION. 1G3 

u In prison I saw him next ; condemned 
To meet a traitor's doom at morn : 

The tide of lying tongues I stemmed, 

And honored him 'midst shame and scorn. 

My friendship's utmost zeal to try, 

He asked if I for him would die ; 

The flesh was weak, my blood ran chill, 

But the free spirit cried, 6 1 will ' — 

u Then in a moment to my view, 

The stranger darted from disguise, 
The tokens in his hands I knew — 

My Saviour stood before mine eyes. 
He spoke, and my poor name he named . 
f Of me thou hast not been ashamed, 
These deeds shall thy memorial be ; 
Fear not, thou didst them unto me? ' J 

MoNTGOMEHY. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



SYSTEMATIC BENEVOLENCE; 



THE ADVANTAGES OF STATEDLY "LAYING- BY IN 
STORE AS GOD HATH PROSPERED US." 



Able treatises on this subject, and discussions from the 
pulpit and the press,* show that the great principles in- 
culcated throughout the Scriptures are taught with divine 
wisdom in the apostolic injunction, "Upon the first day 
of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as 
God hath prospered him." Here is recognized the prin- 
ciple of giving, not merely to relieve present suffering or 
meet the call of importunity, but as an essential part of 
true religion, an act of joyful homage to God which he 
graciously accepts and returns in spiritual blessings into 
our own souls; of giving as a free-will offering, giving 
statedly, giving in proportion to what we receive, and 
connecting our gifts with acts of religious worship. Trace 
the teachings of the Scriptures and the example of scrip- 
ture worthies : the religious offerings of Abel, Noah, Abra- 
ham, and Jacob ; the gifts for the tabernacle and the 
temple ) the whole system of benevolence inculcated by 
God upon his ancient people; the example and instruc- 
tions of our blessed Saviour, of his disciples in pentecostal 
days, and of his inspired apostles, and this text comprises 
a practical summary of the whole. Ho who knew what 

* See especially "the Divine Law of Beneficence," price in paper 
five cents, and Tract No. 535, "Religion and Beneficence," loss than 
two cents, both by Rev. Parsons Cooke; "Zaocheus, 01 the Scriptu- 
ral Plan of Benevolence," by Rev. Samuel Harris, live oents; and 
"the Mission of the Church/' by Rev. Edward A. La\vreuc.\ wi\ 
cents; all to be had o( the American Tract Society. 



2 ILLUSTRATIONS OF 

was in man. has adapted this scripture system to his spir- 
itual condition, his growth in grace, and his fruitfulness 
in giving : and were it universally adopted, it would ren- 
ovate the church of God, identify the followers of Christ 
with their Lord in the great objects for which he died, 
make our benevolence an important part of the care and 
business of life, and give an impulse to the cause of evan- 
gelizing which has hitherto been unknown. Every man 
who faithfully adopts this divine system of giving, lives 
a new Christian life, and enters on a course in which he 
will wax stronger and stronger both in personal piety and 
in benevolence* The system has been briefly expressed 
in the form of a pledge or covenant, hereto annexed, in 
the adoption of which substantially, great numbers have 
found a rich blessing. 

# The biography of eminently pious and useful men since the Ref- 
ormation shows that great numbers of them have recognized the 
obligation statedly to devote a portion of their income to charitable 
uses. Lord Chief-justice Hale, Rev. Dr. Hammond, Baxter, Dodd- 
ridge, and others regularly gave a tenth ; Dr. Watts a fifth ; Mrs. 
R,owe one half. Rev. John \Yesley, when his income was thirty 
pounds, lived on twenty-eight and gave two; and when his income 
rose to sixty pounds, and afterwards to one hundred and twenty, he 
still lived on twenty-eight, and gave all the remainder. Mr. Nathan- 
iel R. Cobb, a merchant connected with the Baptist church in Boston, 
in 1821, at the age of twenty-three, drew up and subscribed the fol- 
lowing covenant, to which he faithfully adhered till on his deathbed 
he praised Grod that by acting according to it he had given in charity 
more than $40,000. 

" By the grace of Grod, I will never be worth more than $50,000. 

' ; By the grace of Grod, I will give one-fourth of the net profits of 
my business to charitable and religious uses. 

" If I am ever worth $20,000, I will give one-half of my net prof- 
its; and if I am ever worth $30.000, 1 will give three-fourths; and the 
whole, after $50,000. So help me Grod, or give to a more faithful 
steward, and set me aside. 

"N.R COBB." 



SYSTEMATIC BENEVOLENCE. 3 

A Shoemaker being asked how he eontrived to give so 
much, replied, that it was easily done by obeying St. Paul's 
precept in 1 Cor. 16:2: " Upon the first day of the week let 
every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered 
him. 7 ' "I earn," said he, "one day with another, about a 
dollar a day, and I can without inconvenience to myself or 
family lay by five cents of this sum for charitable purposes ; 
the amount is thirty cents a week. My wife takes in sewing 
and washing, and earns something like two dollars a week, 
and she lays by ten cents of that. My children each of them 
earn a shilling or two, and are glad to contribute their penny ; 
so that altogether we lay by us in store forty cents a week. 
And if we have been unusually prospered, we contribute some- 
thing more. The weekly amount is deposited every Sunday 
morning in a box kept for that purpose, and reserved for future 
use. Thus, by these small earnings, we have learned, that it 
is more blessed to give than to receive. The yearly amount 
saved in this way is about twenty-five dollars • and I distribute 
this among the various benevolent societies, according to the 
best of my judgment.'" 

A Clergyman every Sabbath evening sets apart a portion 
for his charity-fund. If at any time he has not the money, 
he credits the sum on a benevolent account. As calls are 
presented, he draws from this fund ; and if an urgent call at 
any time requires more than he has thus set apart, he charges 
the balance on his benevolent account, to be replaced from 
future incomes. Thus his contributions are identified with 
his own enjoyment of religion and growth in grace ; he gives 
"not grudgingly," but of " a willing mind;" applications for 
charity are met with pleasure; and he feels that in all he re- 
ceives and expends, he is acting as a steward of God. He 
has also secured the adoption of the system by his congrega- 
tion with very encouraging success. 

Some, who have little money at command, who keep 
few accounts, and who live mainly on the yearly products 



4 ILLUSTRATIONS OF 

of the ground they cultivate or other fruits of their indus- 
try, judge that they conform to the spirit of the divine 
rule by giving at longer stated periods of such things as 
they have. One statedly consecrates a certain proportion 
of the products of his farm ; another of mechanical labor j 
another of the needle, or other domestic industry — every 
one using his Christian liberty in giving statedly as he 
sees best in his own circumstances, according " as God 
prospers him." 

Others, engaged in merchandise and extensive business 
transactions, accustomed to taking a stated inventory of 
what they possess, familiar with accounts and percent- 
ages of profit and loss, not knowing every Sabbath what 
has been the income of the week, have found great satis- 
faction and a blessing in determining beforehand what 
portion of all the proceeds of their business, they will 
monthly, or quarterly, or yearly devote to benevolence • 
and some have resolved on a percentage to be statedly 
given, and diminished, or increased, in proportion as God 
shall prosper them. 

A Merchant, in answer to inquiries, refers back to a 
period, when, he says, " In consecrating my life anew to God, 
aware of the ensnaring influence of riches and the necessity of 
deciding on a plan of charity before wealth should bias my 
judgment, I adopted the following system. 

"I decided to balance my accounts, as nearly as I could, 
every month ; and reserving such portion of profits as might 
appear adequate to cover probable losses, to lay aside, by en- 
try on a benevolent account, one-tenth of the remaining profits, 
great or small, as a fund for benevolent expenditure, support- 
ing myself and family on the remaining nine-tenths. I fur- 
ther determined, that if at any time my net profits, that is, 
profits from which clerk-hire and store expenses had been de- 
ducted, should exceed $500 in a month, I would give twelve 



SYSTEMATIC BENEVOLENCE. 

and a half per cent. ; if over $700, fifteen per cent. ; if over 
$900, seventeen and a half per cent. ; if over $1,100, twenty 
per cent. ; if over $1,300, twenty-two and a half per cent. ; 
thus increasing the proportion of the whole, as God should 
prosper, until, at $1,500, I should give twenty-five per cent., 
or $375 a month. As capital was of the utmost importance 
to my success in business, I decided not to increase the fore- 
going scale until I had acquired a certain capital, after which 
I would give one-quarter of all net profits, great or small ; and 
on the acquisition of another certain amount of capital, I de- 
cided to give half \ and on acquiring what I determined would 
be a full sufficiency of capital, then to give the whole of my 
net profits. 

" It is now several years since I adopted this plan, and 
under it I have acquired a handsome capital, and have been 
prospered beyond my most sanguine expectations. Although 
constantly giving, I have never yet touched the bottom of my 
fund, and have repeatedly been surprised to find what large 
drafts it would bear. True, during some months I have en- 
countered a salutary trial of faith, when this rule has led me 
to lay by the tenth while the remainder proved inadequate to 
my support ; but the tide has soon turned, and with gratitude 
I have recognized a heavenly hand more than making good all 
past deficiencies. 

" This system has been of great advantage to me, enabling 
me to feel that my life is directly employed for God. H 
afforded me happiness in enabling me to portion out the Lord's 
money, and has enlisted my mind more in the progress of 
Christ's cause. Happy privilege, which the humblest may 
enjoy, of thus associating the common labors oH life with the 
grateful service of the Saviour, and of making that which 
naturally leads tho heart from God, subserve the highest 
spiritual good. 

"This system has saved me from commercial dangers, by 
leading me to simplify business and avoid extensive credits. 
It has made me a better merchant ; for the monthly pecuniary 



6 ILLUSTRATIONS, ETC. 

observations which I have been wont to take, though often 
quite laborious, have brought me to a better knowledge of the 
state of my affairs, and led me to be more cautious and pru- 
dent than I otherwise should have been. I believe this sys- 
tem tends to enlarge the Christian's views, increase his disin- 
terestedness, and lead him to shun the tricks of trade. My 
own observation also confirms the belief, that even warm- 
hearted Christians must determine beforehand on the system 
they will adopt, if they would secure the benefits of the gos- 
pel plan to themselves, under the grace and providence of 
God, or its happy results to the cause of Christ. 5 ' 

God has appointed no means of extensive usefulness 
which does not involve the self-denying and persevering 
exertions of his people j and if this divine system is to be 
generally adopted, it is essential that pastors of churches 
and public men, to whom others look for example and 
counsel, should first themselves put it in practice, and 
then commend it to others, and help them to form wise 
plans to render it practically efficient. Especially should 
all do this who are engaged in any way in raising funds, 
or collecting for benevolent objects. Every one who is 
brought to understand the power and efficiency of this 
system, is bound to spread it among all within the reach 
of his influence. The circulation of the treatises named 
above will be an effective means to this result. 

PLEDGE OR COVENANT. 

Believing that the scripture system of benevolence requires 
every one statedly to " lay by him in store as God hath pros- 
pered him," I engage, on every Sabbath or at other stated 
periods, to set apart such a portion of what God shall give 
me as my judgment and conscience shall dictate : to be sa- 
credly applied to charitable objects according to my sense of 
then respective claims. 

subscribers' names. 



TESTIMONIES. 7 

TESTIMONIES FROM CLERGYMEN 
AND CIVILIANS. 

An esteemed and devoted pastor says, u For many 
years it has "been my delight to 'lay by in store as Cod 
has prospered me.' I am sure it is good to do so, and I 
not only put my name to the pledge, but shall endeavor 
to encourage others to do the same." 

A distinguished civilian says, "I have for many years 
adopted the rule of setting apart a portion of income l as 
the Lord has prospered me.' I have felt that more than 
a tenth was my duty* and I can testify to the blessed 
influence of the system. It enables us the better to dis- 
criminate between the various objects ; to discover how 
far we have denied ourselves for Christ and a perishing 
world ) and benevolence thus becomes interwoven with 
our Christian principles, our high and sacred duties." 

A distinguished citizen says of the system of " laying 
by in store on the first day of the week, as God has 
blessed us," " I have practised it for several years, and 
found a blessing in it. It is God's own plan, and there- 
fore better than any other. So every one will find it, 
who will but try. It increases our charity fund many- 
fold, without our perceiving any diminution of capital 
or income j and the fund thus set apart being consecrated 
to the Lord, we are able to distribute it without grudg- 
ing, and with a more unbiassed judgment, as occasion 
arises. I am one of the witnesses for God, that in this 
matter, as in all others, he is good." 

An eminent clergyman says, "I have for many years 
had a fixed system of devoting from one fifth to a quarter 
of my income to religious and charitable uses. 1 have 
laid out my plan at the beginning of each year, keeping 
a private account of all donations, and leaving nothing 



O TESTIMONIES. 

to mere accident or excited feeling at the moment. At 
the end of about thirty years, during which I have carried 
on this system, I find my property materially increased ; 
and I am surprised to find, on looking over my accounts, 
how many hundreds of dollars I have thus been permitted 
to contribute to the cause of benevolence. " 

A prosperous merchant says, " I have myself acted on 
this principle for many years j and have some faith to 
believe that spreading before the people the great princi- 
ple of systematic giving is to be a mighty instrument in 
the hands of God for the conversion of the world." 

An eminent jurist says, "Impressed as I am with the 
correctness, and great practical importance, of the three 
simple principles — l the scripture plan of benevolence 7 — 
that every one should give, and at stated periods, and as 
God hath prospered him, I cheerfully record my name 
as one who wishes to adopt the system and pledge pro- 
posed." 

An officer of one of our benevolent societies says, "I 
give my deliberate and cordial adhesion to the plan of 
each one's c laying by in store,' ' upon the first day of the 
week' or at other stated periods, ' as God has prospered,' 
for the purpose of creating a private fund for religious 
charities. It is the scripture plan in its perfectly simple 
form that I assent to, as ably set forth in the prize es- 
says, especially by Rev. Dr. Cooke, and more concisely 
in the Tract ' Religion and Beneficence.' " 

An officer of another benevolent society says, "I have 
acted substantially on this plan for nearly thirty years. 
On the first of January last I adopted the pledge proposed, 
privately consecrating to charity for the present, a tenth 
of what I may receive, believing it will assist me and 
may encourage others in the better performance of duty." 



PUBLICATIONS OP THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY 



D'Aubigne's History of the Reforma- 
tion. A now translation, revised 
by the author, in four volumes 
12mo, with portraits. Price $1 75, 
extra cloth. 

Baxter's Saints' Everlasting Rest. 
12mo, in large type ; also ltimo. 

Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, 12mo, 
in large type,, and 18mo. Both edi- 
tions neatly illustrated. 

Memoir of Jas. Milnor, D. D. 

Mason's Spiritual Treasury, for every 
day in the year. Terse, pithy, and 
evangelical. 

Havel's Fountain of Life, or Re- 
demption provided. 

Flavel's Method of Grace, or Re- 
demption applied to the Souls of 
Men. 

Flavel's Knocking at the Door; 
tender, practical appeal. 

Bishop Hall's Scripture History, 
Contemplations on the Historical 
Passages of the Old and New Testa- 
ments. 

Bishop Hopkins on the Ten Com- 
mandments. Two standard works 
of the times of Baxter. 

President Edwards' Thoughts on Re- 
vivals. 

Venn's Complete Duty of Man. 

Owen on Forgiveness, or Psalm 130. 



Dr. Spring's Bible not of Man, or the 
Argument for the Divine Origin of 
the Scriptures drawn from the 
Scriptures themselves. 

Nelson's Cause and Cure of Infi- 
delity. 

Memoir of Mrs. Isabella Graham. A 
new and standard edition. 

Memoir of Mrs. Sarah L. Huntington 
Smith. 

Sacred Songs for Family and Social 
Worship. Hymns and Tunes — ■ 
with a separate edition in patent 
notes. Also, the Hymns separately. 

Elegant Narratives, Select Tracts, 
illustrated. 

Willison's Afflicted Man's Com- 
panion. 

Doddridge's Rise and Progress of Re- 
ligion in the Soul. 

Edwards' History of Redemption. 

Volume on Infidelity, comprising five 
standard treatises : Soame Jenyns 
on the Internal Evidence; Leslie's 
Method with Deists ; Littleton's 
Conversion of Paul ; Watson's Re- 
ply to Gibbon and Paine. 

Pike's Persuasives to Early Piety. 

Pike's Guide to Young Disciples. 

Anecdotes for the Family and the 
Social Circle. 

Universalism not of God. 

Dibble's Thoughts on Missions. 

The Bible True. 



Gregory's (Olinthus, LL.D.) Evi- 
dences of Christianity. 
Paley's Natural Theology. 

ELEGANT PRACTICAL WORKS 



Wilberforce's Practical View. 
Hannah More's Practical Piety. 
James' Anxious Inquirer. 
Elijah the Tishbite. 
Nevins' Practical Thoughts. 
Me Will's Bible Thoughts, selected by 
the late Rev. Dr. Milnor. 



Harris' Mammon. 
Gurney's Love to God. 
Foster's Appeal to the Young. 
Abbott's Young Christian. 
Abbott's Mother at Home. 
Abbott's Child at Home. 
James' Young Man from Home. 



CHRISTIAN MEMOIRS. 



Rev. C. Buchanan, LL.D., including 
his Christian Researches in Asia. 

Rev. John Newton. 

Rev. Henry Martyn. 

Rev. David Brainerd. 

R.ov. Edward Pay son, D. D. 

Harriet L. Winslow, Missionary in 
India. 

lames Brainerd Taylor. 



Harlan Page. 
Norman d Smith. 
Richard Baxter. 
Archbishop Leighton. 
Mai thew Henry. 
Rev. Samuel Pearoe. 
Rev. Samuel Kilpin. 
Madam Rumpil" and 
Broghe. 



Duchess da 



2 OTHER SPIRITUAL WORKS. 

Edwards on the Affections. 
Baxter's Call to the Unconverted. 
Alleine's Alarm to the Unconverted. 
Flavel's Touchstone. 
Flavel on Keeping the Heart. 
HelfFenstein's Self-Deception. 



Guide to Acquaintance with God. 
Pike's Religion and Eternal Life. 
Baxters Dying Thoughts. 
Andrew Fuller's Backslider. 
Redeemers Last Command. 
Burner s Sermons to the Aged. 



Bcgue's Evidences of Christianity. 
Keith's Evidence of Prophecy. 
Morison's Counsels to Young Men. 
Spirit of Popery, [12 engravings.] 
The Colporteur and Roman Catholic. 



MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

Mason on Self-Knowledge. 
Divine Law of Beneficence 
Zaccheus, or Scriptural Plan of Be- 
nevolence. 
Hymns for Social Worship 



POCKET MANUALS. 



Clarke's Scripture Promises. 

The Book of Psalms. 

The Book of Proverbs. 

Daily Scripture Expositor. 

Ten Commandments Explained. 

Advice to a Married Couple. 

Hymns for Infant Minds. 



Daily Food for Christians. 

Chaplet of Flowers. 

Heavenly Manna. 

Cecil and Flavel's Gift for Mourner* 

Crumbs from the Master's Table 

Milk for Babes. 

Dew-Drops. 



BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG. 

MAVT OF THEM BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED WITH ENGRAVINGS 



Gallaudet's Scripture Biography. 

Youth's Book of Natural Theology. 

Peep of Day. 

Line upon Line. 

Precept upon Precept. 

Anzonetta R. Peters. 

The Night of Toil. 

Richmond's Letters and Counsels. 

Advice to a Young Christian. 

Charles H. Porter. 

Missionary's Daughter. 

Scudder's Tales about the Heathen. 

Trees, Fruits, and Flowers of the 

Bible, [9 cuts.] 
Elizabeth Bales. By J. A. James. 
Nathaa W. Dickerman. 
Grace Harriet. 
Children Invited to Christ. 

Also, Dr. Edwards' Sabbath Manual and Temperance Manual, and 
more than 60 vols, in German, French, Spanish, Welsh, and Danish. 

Also, upwards of 1,000 Tracts and Children's Tracts, separate, bound, oe 
t*i packets, adapted for convenient sale by merchants and traders, many ol 
them with beautiful engravings — in English, German, French, Spanish, 
Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, and Welsh. 

[Cr* It is the design of the Society to issue all its publications in good 
type, for the poor as well as the rich ; and to -sell them, as nearly as may be, 
at cost, that the Society may neither sustain loss nor make a profit by all 
its sales. 



Narratives of Pious Children. 

The Dairyman's Daughter, etc 

Charles L. Winslow. 

Withered Branch Revived. 

Peet's Scripture Lessons. 

Child's Book of Bible Stories. 

Children of the Bible. 

Amos Armfield. 

The Child's Hymn-Book. 

Scripture Animals, [16 cuts.] 

Letters to Little Children, [13 cuts.] 

Great Truths in Simple Words 

Clementine Cuvier. 

Rolls Plumbe. 

Pictorial Tract Primer. 

Watts' Divine and Moral Songs. 

With numerous similar works. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

027 293 355 8 

JJS12CA1 HL1CT SWUKrf 



ISSUE 

A LARGE SELECTION 

OF 

THE MOST CHOICE PRACTICAL WORKS 

IN THE 

ENGLISH LANGUAGE; 

EMBODIED IN THE 

EVANGELICAL FAMILY LIBRARY 

OF 15 VOLUMES, 

AND 

MS (DffllRltStflUMJ MIB1BMY 

OF ABOUT 50 VOLUMES 
BESIDES 

MORE THAN ONE THOUSAND 

BOOKS AND TRACTS FOR OLD AND YOUSG, 

MANY OF TUEM 

BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED.