of God's children who are needy; and Jesus takes what is given to them as given to himself. Can you let them want, while you lay up? Why, perhaps what you thus put by may have the Lord's curse rest upon it; and then it may only be fuel for your children's lusts, or temptations to lead them into sin. There is God's cause; chapels have to be built, ministers supported, missionaries sent to the heathen, Bibles and tracts distributed, and a number of other things to be attended to, all of which call for money. And the money called for, the Lord's people ought to furnish. It is given them for the purpose, and they are now put upon their trial. They are stewards; and it always looks suspicious when stewards die rich. Who, then, refuses to give,—to give up to the full amount of his means? What is he? An honest man? A faithful man? A gracious man? A Christian, or a Christ-like man? How can it be? Is it honest to lay up what he ought to lay out? Is it faithful to appropriate another's property to our own purposes? Is it gracious to withhold from God, to gratify self? Is it Christ-like, to hoard or spend in flesh-pleasing what we are entrusted with to further the Lord's cause? Surely, no! Then, if we have any regard for God's command-if we wish to please our Saviour-if we would rejoice the hearts of the poor saints-if we would encourage the Lord's ministers—if we would send the Gospel to the perishing heathenif we would secure our Master's approbation, or prepare for the plaudit of "Well done, thou good and faithful servant," let us attend to the injunction of Immanuel, "Freely ye have received, freely give." Let us lay our gold and silver by our coffin, let us weigh them at the grave's mouth, let us estimate their value in the light of eternity, and then go forth and act under the impression produced. May the Holy Spirit give us all the mind that was in Christ Jesus, and so fill us with love to him, zeal for his glory, and sympathy with perishing souls, that we may give freely, frequently, cheerfully, and up to the highest point of our ability! "The sun gives ever; so the earth- The more we live. "God's love hath in us wealth upheap'd, The body withers, and the mind, Give love, give tears, and give thyself. Give, give, be always giving; The more we give, The more we live." AFFLICTION IN YOUTH. "It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth." BY bearing the yoke is meant, the enduring of hardships of whatever sort-poverty, affliction, disappointment, persecution, all adverse providences. These adverse providences in early life, bode a man good, not evil. Like the storms that purify the air, they are healthful to the spirit. Harsh schoolmasters are they, teaching grand lessons of wisdom and fortitude. You have thought God partial, perhaps, in the bestowment of his favours, because he brought not you into the world like some others, the born-heirs of station and riches. Under your burdens you have sighed for the freedom of a more prosperous condition, and coveted the walks of ease and plenty, which are not for you; they would hurt you more than they would help you. Your burdens are your blessings. Your yoke, if you bear it, is good for you. This, I think, can be made to appear. Because such a lot in early life creates a sense of dependence upon God. The heart that has few earthly hopes to kindle it, looks away more naturally and earnestly to the charm of immortal hopes. For such an one to sell all that he hath and follow the cross-bearing Son of God is not like forsaking houses and lands. He who has no human helper, who is called to struggle alone, who takes his first painful steps with few of all who look upon him to bid him "God speed;" whose sensitive nature is wounded by coldness or taunting; and on whose neck the pressure of an unprovided condition bears gallingly, what shall he do but resort to God and make him his friend, and seek a sympathy from his heart of love, and ask his hand to bind up his bruised spirit, and, having no other reliance to tempt him, rely upon strength and grace divine? And such a choice in life's morning, how it lights up all the gloomy day! In youth choosing God as the portion, all is well for manhood and age. Happy, happy lot! blessed hardships that lead to such a choice! Such a lot in early life preserves from temptation and vice.-How it does this is seen at once if it lead the heart to God, for then divine grace enters in and becomes the keeper of the soul. And if it does not do this, it has yet an influence of its own to hedge up the way of youth from the onset of temptation. Idleness is the parent of vice. Ease and luxury are the high priests of the shrine of pleasure. Riches and leisure, are, more than martyr flames, a fiery trial for virtue. It is in the sunshine that the serpent brood of the passions is warmed and roused to eager life. What the impetuous desire calls for, the unoccupied hand is free to seize upon, the ample resources able to command. A double guard of moral principles is needed for the heights of prosperity, especially in the ardent days of youth. But let this early way be beset with hardships, let the chill blasts of adversity blow upon the face of passion, let hand and thought be bond-slaves to daily necessity, and the heart be overshadowed continually by the lowering clouds of trouble and want, and the excesses of crime and wantonness are excluded as by an iron barrier. Here, if anywhere, on this flinty path, may the feet of young men tread safely, though sorely. Such a lot in early life developes, dis ciplines, and strengthens character.Childhood is quickly passed amid hardships. It is not a long summer of careless mirth, it is but a summer's day. The lines of thoughtlessness are early traced on cheek and brow. An acquaintance is made with life's experiences while the years are yet few. Necessity, a rigid teacher, ripens her scholars fast in knowledge, bitter but salutary. The pupils of want gradu. ate, into a quick maturity. Young in number of days, old in lessons of what the world is, they are men with the stature of children. having endured. They who have known in youth sorrow, and poverty, and hardship, will not blanch before them; let them come again. You may lay care upon such now; it is no new experience. You may weigh them down with burdens; their shoulders have felt such weight before. You may let loose the storms-there is no terror in them; they were the nurses of their youth. Such men are earth fast rocks. They are no holiday maskers. They have bone and muscle immoveable when they stand, irresistible when they advance. The great and strong rise not up from silken couches. The earnest workers for human advancement go not forth to their labour in frills and stays. It is the early discipline of trial and suffer A habit of self-reliance is one fruit of such training. Out of itself, having no refuge but God, the soul begins to summon whatever of energy it has within. With no helping hand to leading that makes men. up the difficult steeps, it braces its own limbs to the ascent. With none to help bear burdens, it hardens its own neck to the yoke. The mothers of the South Pacific Isles push their offspring, scarce out of infancy, into the sea, and they must swim or drown. Trained by such rude nurture, they are as much at home as dolphins amid the waves. Those pushed early upon life's sea of troubles, compelled to struggle or sink, learn to trust their own arms; the exchange of buffetings with the billows, becomes but pastime; they are never again afraid to commit them selves to rough waters. The lesson is laid up to fall back upon themselves, as upon energies tried and proved, in each exigency of life. The issue of such varied discipline must be strength of character. Fortitude is the attribute only of souls that have passed through fiery ordeals. Strength to endure is purchased by Such a lot in early life heightens the joy of success.-Pleasant is it when our ends are attained, our good won, to sit down and look back upon our path of advance. Struggles past, perils over, hardships ended, are ever sweet to recall. If one gains success, it is worth more to him that he has conquered it out of difficulties. If his pursuits at first were environed with barrier beyond barrier of obstacles which, by stout and manful assault, he has surmounted and overthrown, the crowning of it is truly grateful, because it is a victory. He will love to contrast the early prospect so much against him, with the greatness and felicity of the result. Old men who began with nothing, in their homes of ease and honour, or, on their high stations of usefulness, recur with no mean delight to their struggles of long ago. Their pinched and straightened boyhood; their resolution to outbrave their circumstances, and get the mastery, is to them now their heroic age. Again and again they tell the story of early hardship to their more favoured offspring. To part with that history would rob them of half the value of what was so hardly won. A FEW QUESTIONS FOR YOU TO ANSWER. ARE YOU A CHRISTIAN? If not, then, where are you, what is your condition, what are your prospects? Have you, or had you religious parents? What was your early training? How have you lived? What objects have you pursued? How have you treated the Bible? How have your Sabbaths been employed? How much have you prayed? Have you not occasionally had convictions of sin, and felt that you ought to be a Christian? How did you get relieved of such impressions? Did you not resist the Spirit of God? Why are you to-day an impenitent, unpardoned sinner? How many blessings from the hand of God have you received? Have you been truly grateful for one of them? Have they not supported you while living in rebellion against God? Have you not turned them into instruments of that rebellion? What good reason can you give why you should not now seek the salvation of your soul? Is it right, is it safe to neglect the matter another hour? Will you longer reject the Saviour, and abuse his kindness, and presume on his forbearance, and press your way farther towards the margin of perdition? "What will you do in the end thereof?" "For all these things God will bring thee into judg ment." "I profess to be one,' let me inquire if that is all you can say? Are you a child of God, redeemed by the blood of Christ, renewed by the Holy Spirit, and adopted into the Divine family? Do those who see you most and know you best, regard you as truly a follower of Christ? What says your own consciousness as to the objects and the bias of your affections? What is the testimony of your daily life? If all the members of the church were just like you, how much of spiritual life would there be in the body? Looking back, how much have you done for Christ? How far have you resembled him in character, in aim, in spirit, in practice? What kind of prayers have you offered? In what respect have you co-operated with your pastor in efforts for the salvation of souls? What sinner have you led, or endeavoured to lead, into the way of life? What proportion of your income have you given for the world's evangelization ? What have been the direction and bearing of your influence? If your associates were all to follow you, would they be Christians? Were they to specify one who gives decisive evidence of piety, would that one be you? Do yon really think that your name is in "the Book of Life?" THE INFANT IN HEAVEN. DR. CHALMERS furnishes the following touching expression of his opinion on the subject of infant salvation. It is expressed in strong and beautiful language. "This affords, we think, something more than a dubious glimpse into the question that is often put by a distracted mother when her babe is taken Are you a Christian? If you say, away from her; when all the converse it ever had with the world amounted to the gaze upon it a few months, or a few opening smiles, which marked the dawn of self-enjoyment; and ere it had reached, perhaps, the lisp of infancy, it, all unconscious of death, had to wrestle through a period of sickness with its power, and at length to be overcome by it. "Oh, it little knew what an interest it had created in that home where it was so passing a visitant, nor, when carried to its early grave, what a tide of emotions it would raise among the few acquaintances it left behind! There was no positive unbelief in its bosom; no love at all for the darkness rather than the light; nor had it yet fallen into that great condemnation which will attach itself to all that perish, because of unbelief, that their deeds are evil. "When we couple with this the known disposition of our great Forerunner-the love that he manifested for children on earth; how he suffered them to approach his person, and lavished endearments and kindness upon them in Jerusalem; told the disciples that the presence and company of such as these in heaven formed one ingredient of the joy that was set before him-tell us if Christianity does not throw a pleasing radiance around an infant's tomb? And should any parent who hears us feel softened by the touching remembrance of a light that twinkled a few short months under his roof, and at the end of his little period expired, we cannot think we venture too far when we say that he is only to persevere in the faith and in the following of the Gospel, and that very light will again shine upon him in heaven. "The blossom which withered here upon its stalk has been transplanted there to a place of endurance; and it will then gladden the eye which now weeps out the agony of affection that has been sorely wounded. And in the name of Him who, if on earth, would have wept with them, do we bid all believers present to sorrow not even as others which have no hope, but to take comfort in the thought of that country where there is no sorrow and no separation." A DIFFERENCE. THERE is a religion which is general, and a religion which is personal. The first embracing all that concerns the state of the church at large, and the last which concerns our own spiritual relations with God. In contemplating the first, the head, much more than the heart, may be exercised; in regarding the last, head and heart must be united. Men may speak volubly of the first, while of the last they have not a word to say; they may display great activity and zeal about the extension of the former, while inactive and uninterested in reference to the latter. Let it be noted, that a man may talk much about the generalities of religion, and yet be ignorant of its special influences on his own soul. Both should engage the attention; and yet it will be a serious mistake, if our interest in the general subject does not arise from that conscious sense of its value which no one can have whose heart is not right in the sight of the Lord. We must begin with ourselves, and when we are enabled to hope and rejoice as partakers of the grace of Christ, then, as a necessary result, we 1 |