mistaken, and to affright our industry; He commands us to mark His footsteps, to tread where His feet have stood; and not only invites us forward by the argument of His example, but He hath trodden down much of the difficulty, and made the way easier and fit for our feet. For He knows our infirmities, and Himself hath felt their experience in all things but in the neighbourhoods of sin. And therefore He hath proportioned a way and a path to our strengths and capacities'.' "He hath left us a pattern that we should tread in His steps," for "he that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk even as He walked." The path wherein we must walk has been pressed by His sacred feet; we are called thither for our own sake; "that we may be partakers of his holiness:" that we may hereafter reign with Him in glory but He trod it not for Himself, but for us; because He loved us, and had compassion on us in our low estate, and chose rather to leave His Father's throne, and live, and suffer, and die for us, than that we should perish in our sins. And now He bids us follow for the sake of His love who has thus loved us. He sends to us our poor brethren in His own name, and engages that whatever we lay out on them He will repay, "to whom we owe even our ownselves also:" that He will account it to be

1 J. Taylor." Exhortation to the Imitation of the Life of Christ." Great Exemplar. Part I. sec. i.

given, not to them, but to Himself. Let the love of Christ then constrain us to deny ourselves for the benefit of our brethren. "If GOD so loved us, we ought also to love one another." Let us measure our charity by this rule, and then, by His grace, we shall never be weary in well doing. He who, for our salvation, came down from heaven to earth, from the throne of the universe to the cross and the sepulchre-He it is who now demands that we should give up something, to be fellow workers with Him in the salvation of our brethren. And can we hesitate;-when we see in the ignorant and thoughtless ones around us; in those who have never even been told how they ought to walk and to please GOD, and so cannot so much as desire or endeavour "to walk worthy of the Lord," "worthy of their high calling in Him;" when we see in them the purchase of Christ's blood, and when He calls us as we love Him, and as we remember His bitter cross and passion, which are our only hope against the great and dreadful day, to give up something for their sake-can we hesitate to obey the call?

Such is the great and overwhelming motive to Christian beneficence. It is summed up in the words of the beloved Apostle, "We love Him because He first loved us." And because we love Him, therefore we would not, if we could, make an offering to Him of that which

cost us nothing. When He, whose are all things, condescends to demand an offering at our hands-not that He needs anything, (for in a moment, by a word of His mouth, He could raise houses of prayer from the dust, as He called this world out of nothing to be the theatre of His glory) but because He loves us and desires for us the blessed opportunity of giving up something to Him: and when He makes our bounty to our brethren the measure of our love towards Himself: and when He says to us "freely ye have received, freely give❞— "For I have set you an example that ye should do as I have done unto you"-what answer shall we make to Him? Shall we say, we must first take care of ourselves and our families, our comforts, and luxuries, and pleasures, our appearance before the world, our settled tastes and passing fancies; provision must first be made for all these, and then from the remainder, if any thing is left, I will spare something to my Saviour? Is it thus that we deal with those whom we do really and earnestly love? A father, whose son requires a costly education-how does he make his calculations? Does he thus shift off the burden, and provide first for every thing else, and give to the education of his child only that which he does not want? Rather does he enquire in the first place how much is requisite for the object; and then sets himself, with an affectionate severity, 1

to contrive what he can by any means retrench from his superfluities, his pleasures, his comforts, in order to effect it. And he judges well. These are the wholesome fruits of parental love. And now He who died for us, and who tells us, "He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he that doth not take up his cross and come after Me is not worthy of Me:" He requires like proofs of our love. Shall we do less for Him? And if we are ready to say that we do these things for our children because they are our own, our immediate concern; but that the service of our Lord belongs to all of us alike: let us consider how great joy it will be one day to have Him for our own Saviour, and that He should acknowledge us before His Father and the holy angels as His own people and His own friends; and then let us act as if we are His and He ours now.

And whatever be our means and whatever our opportunities of giving, if we are filled with an holy desire of kindling in our hearts, and putting in action true love towards Him, we cannot be without the opportunity. For we have seen that He estimates offerings, not as they appear in man's sight, but according to the principle from which they spring, and the love towards Him, of which self denial that we may have to give is the fruit and sign. The small gifts

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of the poor are great in His eyes, if they spring from love; the great gifts of the rich too are multiplied in like manner, when they flow from that fountain. "If thou doest what thou art able, be it little or great, corporeal or spiritual, the charity of alms or the charity of prayers, a cup of wine or a cup of water; if it be but love to the brethren, and a desire to help all or any of Christ's poor, it shall be accepted according to what a man hath, not according to what he hath not. For love is all this and all other commandments, and it will express itself where it can; and where it cannot, yet it is love still, and is also sorry that it cannot 1."

Lastly, whether we can give little or much, giving from the love of Christ our Lord, we shall give joyfully and with overflowing hearts. For love delights to offer something of her own; knowing that for love's sake it will be accepted. A dutiful child will carefully and joyfully watch the opening of the earliest flower, for the pleasure of offering it to a beloved parent; not for the value of the gift, but because where love is it cannot but show itself. Such will be our delight in ministering to our Lord. And here again we see how unchristian are our schemes when we would provide for the service of GoD now by overthrowing that which our fathers have built up for His glory-we deprive ourselves of the opportunity of showing love to Christ. One

1 Jeremy Taylor," Holy Living," chap. iv. sec. 8.