self-indulgence, without incurring enormous guilt."

Example, however, is by far the best teacher of admitted, but unpractised truths. Lucid statements and powerful arguments may be useful in extending the bounds of conviction, but if the conscience already admits the validity of any precept, then the most effectual method of extending its practical influence is to present it enshrined in some living form. Such a mode of winning attention has many advantages. It is unobtrusive; it does no violence to prejudice; instead of taking the garrison by storm, it invites an honourable capitulation. Sometimes a person will be withheld by a feeling of pride from acknowledging himself beaten in controversy, but even pride is disarmed by the voiceless force of example. Some persons are so constituted, that when others point out to them any error, they begin at once to disprove the charge, and will rather continue wrong than consent that another shall set them right. Such conduct is censurable. Surely he who faithfully points out our faults, and helps us to amend them, is our best friend. Even if our bitterest enemy choose to favour us with criticisms on our conduct, provided only he speak the truth, we shall have to thank him for his pains. But example effects its object by avoiding these dangers. Its rebukes are silent; it fights with Socratic weapons, and makes its antagonists their own conquerors.

Happily for the world, it is not yet devoid of great examples. Flattery is hateful, but it is

possible to be extravagant in deprecation as well as in praise. Our impression of human imperfection leads us sometimes to speak as if there were no Christian excellence left amongst us; as if the triumphs which Divine grace can win over the selfishness of man's heart were the exclusive trophy of apostolic times; and those heaven-born principles were extinct, which induced the fishermen and publicans of Galilee to " leave all" at the invitation of the Great Teacher, and induced the early converts to sell "their possessions," and count their temporal happiness and wealth but "loss for Christ." But such is not the case. Carping sceptics, who wish to reconcile their real hatred of Christianity with some measure of respect for its Founder, may denounce the religion of the present day as so much ill-disguised hypocrisy; but nevertheless it is impossible to deny the existence amongst us of characters which, though, like everything human, far from being perfect, exhibit a measure of excellence which nothing but religion received into the heart as a vital reality will satisfactorily explain. It is not a boast-of such things God forbid that we should glory!-it is an averment made in sheer self-defence, that Christian men, while falling, and in the estimation of no one more than themselves, far below the standard of holiness revealed in Christ, frequently make sacrifices for the welfare of mankind such as infidelity could never prompt. These sacrifices too are made, not under the

influence of any sentiment which could be branded as fanaticism, but by men whom the sceptic is bound to respect; who exhibit in their common life intelligence as extensive, a logic as severe, a shrewdness as all-observant, and a temperament as sober as his own.

Our object, however, is not to obviate the cavils of the sceptic, but to stimulate the Christian to greater excellence, and this we propose to do by bringing to his notice two or three instances of departed worth, which may be the means, perhaps, of keeping before his eye, and thus rendering familiar to him, a standard to which he has not yet attained. It is a salutary employment to muse upon the excellences of those now gone to their reward, till they expand before us into life-like reality. Such visions become our best companions; they accompany us into the crowded city, stand by us in the press of business, speak to us words of counsel audible to none besides, and continually admonish us to follow them even as they followed Christ.

One of the most decisive tests of a person's Christian liberality is afforded by the question. -How much (not in absolute amount, but as compared with what remains) does he give to God? To apply this test, however, it is necessary to recognise clearly the characteristics of Christian benevolence. It is easy to give away a great deal, and give it also to excellent objects, and yet to give nothing to God. Here the motive decides all. Christian benevolence

springs from a sense of God's ownership in ourselves and in everything we possess. It recognises this fact-God is the sovereign Master of all things; man is but the recipient and steward of his bounty. He whose hand joined cause and effect, endowed us with those faculties which enable us to amass wealth, and constituted that agreement between our organization and external objects which is the source of so much pleasure, can never relinquish his right to the proprietorship of the world. He lays his hand at once on every atom; his omnipotence ever rests in immediate contact with unsentient beings, and secures abstract admiration and entire subservience to his will. Man was intended to be no less under this control, but his subjection must be voluntary. What God enforces from material nature man must give. Bowing with all his possessions at the footstool of Infinite mercy, it is incumbent on him to say-"Lord, I am thine; these also are thine; I can call nothing my own; teach me the duties of my stewardship; let me know what thou wouldest have me do."

The chief motive, however, which induces the Christian to give his property to God is expressed by the apostle in one sentence"The love of Christ constraineth us." The life of Christ was one sweet, overpowering manifestation of Divine love. His sympathies extended themselves to every form of wretchedness; the poor, the hungry, the diseased, the disconsolate, were the objects on whom he

poured the treasures of his compassion; while in the last act of his self-sacrificing career he gave the noblest instance of disinterestedness which the world ever saw. Love to Christ makes us like Christ. There is a transmuting power in love; it is the soul's alchymy; it melts and fuses us into its own pure forms. Christ loved man; this is the chief element of bis surpassing beauty; we cannot, therefore, love him without loving man too. Hence love is the soul of Christianity, without which, however vast our knowledge or great our powers, we are but "as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal." Springing from such motives, Christian benevolence is necessarily distinguished by the manner in which it is exercised. Christ prescribed this in one simple rule:-"When thou doest thine alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth :" giving for the sake of giving, not for the sake of being seen to give; giving from duty, not expediency; a benevolence which would be satisfied if all its gifts were received in the dark, and no subscription list chronicled the name of the giver. But it is by the spirit, not the letter, of this precept that we are bound. True, there is a peculiar charm in the private exercise of charity. How rich a treasure, shut up in the silence of our bosom, is a benevolent action, which has caused, perhaps, the widow's heart to leap for joy, or assisted some one to grapple successfully with difficulties which would else have crushed him! But in many