THE Pastor's Office is of a very difficult and delicate character. In hardly any particular of his manifold duties is it more necessary to exercise true wisdom, combined with perfect faithfulness, than when a minister has to deal with wealth,-its duties and responsibilities as a gift; its danger as an abused and squaudered possession, or an equally abused and hoarded treasure. It is not for ministers to enter into the private affairs of their people, and to extract either from the living or the dying, unwilling gifts for the service of God: in their private dealings with the wealthy of their flocks, the utmost caution and scriptural circumspection must ever be observed, that exhortations to alms-giving and good works, present not the shadow of a resemblance to the fraud and pillage so often practised by priests of the Roman communion.

The pulpit is the place for open attack upon the love of money—the sin of covetousness, which is idolatry. There the preacher is bound to declain against that "lading with thick clay," which not only is a perversion of the gifts of God, and curses those who do so, but which also prevents a large amount of good from being done to the souls and bodies of men.

Some instances of large and "munificent bequests," which the organs of our religious and charitable institutions have from time to time recorded, have led us to a consideration of the subject. In some cases we have been behind the curtain, and as we read the records of the posthumous gifts of wealth, we have wondered what blessings could rest either upon the givers or the gifts.

The one passage, "God loveth a cheerful giver," applied to the bequests of many who leave their thousands, and sometimes their tens of thousands, to religious or other societies-would for ever brand the gift as a comparatively worthless appropriation of that which they can enjoy themselves no longer, and which they care not to divide amongst those who may have long hoped to share in their wealth.

In far too many instances they leave of what they have never given; and in too many an instance also, they open the flood-gates of a hoarded treasure, penuriously shielded from diminution either by that proper liberality to their fellow-men, or that kind and generous aid to those whose claims were strong and natural, which would have saved some from many a pang, and perhaps have saved some from ruin. We speak not here without the warrant of facts. Entirely unconnected ourselves with such cases in the remotest degree, we yet know of instances where we could hear only with pain of the large amounts left as bequests for the service of God. It is not for us to judge the state of those who have thus, after death, allowed their wealth to circulate, and to be spent in doing that good which they themselves cared but in a small measure to aid in accomplishing while living. Did these circunstances occur in the case of those who were professed worldlings during life, we might perhaps imagine that the compunctions of a newly awakened conscience upon a dying bed might have demanded from the rich man or the rich woman, that they gave to God what they had withheld while living, or perhaps that some vague idea of a heaven to be

O that we could penetrate into the chambers of those whose heaps of gold are daily accumulating; whose funds, and lands, and houses, are bringing them in a rich revenue for earth, but are weighing down their souls with a weight of riches which vanishes at the magic touch of death, and leaves them poor indeed. These may think, while they in secret hug their bankers' books or their rent-rolls, that they will one day astonish the world, and gratify many a religious society by large bequests: the world may long have regarded them as rich Christians, spending little, and that perhaps grudgingly and penuriously, even in a world which gave them their wealth; the societies and the Churches with which they have been connected may have for a long series of years been crippled in their means, while they have received but scanty aid, or perhaps no aid whatever, from these hoarders of God's gold and silver.

-

Let, then, "GIVE WHILE YOU LIVE," be the words which drop from the preacher's tongue, as he pleads for the varied sources through which God allows His creatures to act as His almoners in providence, and instruments in His purposes of grace. There ought to be no keeping back of this plain duty for fear of man, but the pastor must ring in the ears of all

who are rich in this world's good, the solemn charge "that they be ready to distribute," and the solemn warning, that they who keep locked up till death their golden stores, are guilty of the sin of covetousness, which is idolatry and separates from God. "GIVE WHILE YOU LIVE" must be the motto for the speeches and addresses of our missionary and other agents; through the length and breadth of the land they should let their voices be heard, plainly telling rich Christians that present help is not only most valuable to their purposes and objects, but is also most acceptable to that God who gives power to get wealth, and who expects His people to give as freely as they have received.

"Riches take to themselves wings and fly away;" a short time, and a very slight combination of circumstances may deprive the possessor of his ability to leave a shilling where he had anticipated to bestow thousands; and if the wealth remains, it has happened, and may happen again, that the will may be wanting to give to God a fraction of what they once intended to set apart for His service. The pulpit, the platform, and the press, must speak loudly and plainly as to the use and abuse of riches. These media must not fear to tell whose is the silver and the gold, and for what purpose God gives to every man what He will.

Again, it is not the will of God that His service should be promoted by money screwed together and hoarded by hands niggardly regarding every outlay in the necessary expences of life. God will have His people liberal to man as well as to Himself; He has given us the history of the transaction between David and Araunah as a lesson that we are to

emulate the large heartedness of David in refusing to give to God that which costs him nothing.

It is a sad detraction from the value of many an offering to God, to hear it said with truth that the givers are, or have been, mean and penurious in their dealings with their fellow-men, and have given or left behind them, what they ought to have been first liberal with in their proper spheres of life. God looks not at the amount only of an offering, but estimates it according to the motive and the circumstances under which it is given; He refuses many a customary guinea" and accepts the humble and hard-earned shilling; He rejects, as

not done for Him, or under proper circumstances, many a "munificent bequest," and accepts and treasures up the little mite, accompanied by the uplifted prayer that a blessing may rest upon efforts to rescue man from distress and suffering, or souls from eternal ruin.

During the coming year let this be the motto of Christians who may in various degrees be rich,―We will give while living, cheerfully, what we can, and leave after death what we ought; and all our giving shall be from love to Him who gave Himself for us, and hath with Himself freely given us all things richly to enjoy.

H.

WHAT ought a christian minister's study to be, but a sanctuary for intercourse with the "Father of Lights?" -holy ground, consecrated by prayer, and other pious exercises, to the service of the Redeemer? What, but a dispensary of light, and life, and happiness? What, but the storehouse of an almoner of God's bounty-of "the bread of life which cometh down from heaven?" Should not its sacredness inspire feelings of veneration; saying to the multitude,

"Stand off, ye vulgar, nor profane With bold, unhallow'd sounds, this holy scene?"

Ought not its walls to reflect the images of virtue within, and echo the voices of truth without?

Thoughts like these, and reflections, the writer was led to entertain, by reading a sentence or two in a funral sermon, preached sometime ago by the Rev. Hugh Stowell, of Salford, on occasion of the death of his most excellent father, formerly rector

of Ballaugh, in the Isle of Man. At page 19 of that sermon, Mr. Stowell says, "There was no passage of Scripture which more frequently dwelt upon his mind and glowed upon his tongue, than 'GOD IS LOVE!" This most touching sentence, printed in large characters, and surrounded with rays of light, was hung up in his private study, that retreat which had so often proved to him 'the House of God and the gate of Heaven,'— whilst you could not enter, but it met your eye; scarcely was it less visible in the life of him who so delighted in the sentiment; it lightened his every load, endeared his every duty, made self-denial pleasant, and infused a sweetness into the bitterest cup allotted him to drink,—constraining him, even amid gushing tears and thrilling agony, to say, Father, 'Thy will be done!""

The same emphatic words, if constantly imprinted on the memory of "the man of God," or blazoned on his study wall, so as continually to

meet his stedfast look, would help to keep alive a spirit of piety in his heart, and furnish words that burn. There is true inspiration in such an apothegm, and motive which alone is sufficiently powerful to carry him successfully through all his duties, and support him under every trial. It will render him equal to surmount all the difficulties which lie in his way, and constrain him to attempt and accomplish great things, as it is indispensable to the formation of the truly great man. There is light in it to illuminate every book of Holy Scripture; and light strong enough to reach every path along which the missionary and the minister have to toil. The eye which rests upon that will kindle into brightness, and beholding it, will receive fresh accessions of spiritual fervour, to convey warmth and stimulus to "the inner man." Let this then be the motto, and the all-absorbing maxim of the New Year, to guide and direct all our

efforts for the public weal,-“ GOD IS LOVE!" Let it be

The principal theme of our meditations:

The chief subject of our minis

trations:

The foundation of our scheme of doctrine :

The font of our ethics in respect to God and man:

The pattern and rule of our conduct to one another :

The great fact to be realized in our personal experience:

The pervading spirit of all our endeavours to reform disorders in Church and State, and of our aims to reconcile differences, and attain that perfection, which we may humbly and prayerfully hope to arrive at, even amidst the jarring elements of human minds, and the prejudices of education and of system.

PRESBYTER R.

Advent, Dec. 8th, 1851.

This

Invitation he has now repeated every year, for fifteen years. It must be nearly twice as long since he first began to call the special attention of Christians of all denominations, both at home and abroad, to the necessity of such prayer. And there can be no doubt that, about the time when these remarks will reach them, many will be either engaged in, or preparing for, those special exercises of devotion to which our dear brother has invited

us.

It may not, therefore, be an unsuitable time to direct attention to the enquiry, How far these long continued and repeated prayers have been answered in a manifest and abundant outpouring of the blessing which we have been seeking?

There is, doubtless, an important sense in which the outpouring of the Spirit has been already vouchsafed. The Spirit was poured out, from the full and blessed Fountain of Divine and Sovereign grace and mercy, on the Day of Pentecost,-as the commencement of a new Dispensation,— the Dispensation of the Spirit,which continues till this day. The Spirit has never been withdrawn altogether; but, in different measure at different times, has manifested His power and grace in quickening, sanctifying and comforting the members of the Mystical Body of Christ. Sometimes (as at the blessed period of the Reformation) this outpouring has been more evident and abundant: at others, it has been, in a measure, restrained. So that, properly speaking, what we should ask and seek is, a more evident and abundant outpouring of the Spirit-something that partakes of the character of a pente