palaces. And again: labor is the condition of man since the fall. "Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;" "for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.' And this most righteous penalty, like sin itself, has penetrated every state of life. It is not the tiller of the earth only, but the princes of this world likewise, who feel its power. The ground that was cursed is the whole sphere of man's mortal life and labor; all his employments, business, studies, callings, undertakings, the whole range of his toil in his personal and social state. Care and weariness, disappointment and the sweat of his face, are the conditions of all the works of man, both in body and in mind, whether he be learned or unlearned, whether he be lord or serf, ruled or ruler, buyer or seller, merchant or craftsman, teacher or learner, bishop or doctor, pastor or penitent, husband or wife, master or sérvant. To labor and to be lowly, to eat his bread in weariness and by measure, is his portion; but in lowliness and in labor shall be his rest. God will provide. "His bread shall be given him, and his water shall be sure." "I have been young, and now am old; and yet saw I never the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread." To those, then, who faithfully do the work which God has appointed them, and keep within the sphere and range where He has cast their lot, this great law of God's kingdom is pledged and sure. They shall never want whatsoever is needful, safe, and expedient for their support, and for the maintenance of all that legitimately falls within the condition assigned to them by the will of God.

(2.) The other great law I referred to is this, that the most truly expedient course is often one which is most inexpedient according to the measures of the world. What

* Genesis iii. 19.

† Psalm xxxvii. 25.

but this does the example of our Lord teach us, Who in His hunger refused to relieve His wants and faintness by the speaking of a word? How does the world oppress a man with its exhortations to "spare himself," to take advantage of natural powers, to seize on opportunities, to reap the benefit of great offers, to show himself to the world, to let himself be made popular, to get on in life, and to make himself a name, a house, or a fortune! And how does it lament, or expostulate, or reproach him, if he refuse to turn these stones into bread! "So long as thou doest well unto thyself, men will speak well of thee."* But if a man turn away from money, ease, comfort, or competency, and the like, he is straightway improvident, reckless, eccentric, or ostentatious, fanciful, or proud. Nothing the world resents more than scrupulousness in money-getting. It is a very searching and wide-spread rebuke. One such man, by one such act, before he is aware, pricks the conscience of half the neighborhood. The world cannot endure to be slighted, to be held cheap, to be valued at its own true price. Therefore, in self-defence, it keeps up a loud and plausible worship of expediency; and because what is right is always expedient, by a cunning sleight it sets forward what is expedient as the index of what is right. Now, nothing can be more contrary to this philosophy than to decline great stations, rich offers, large trusts, profitable employments; or again, to make costly offerings, to give great alms, to lay by little, to aim at extensive works. But what says Holy Writ, that true and only philosophy of human life? “There is that scattereth and yet increaseth; there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty." There are two kinds of lenders, two kinds of usury, two great debtors who take up the gold and silver of men-the world and God.

The more men invest in the world, the more they lose; the more they lay up, the more they waste; the more they hoard the more they squander. It "tendeth to poverty." Greal figures, vast credit, thousands by the year, and the man is none the richer; he is not wiser, better, happier, healthier, safer from ruin, poverty, destitution. His great barks founder in a calm; or the mountain of his wealth is driven away in an hour, "as a rolling thing before the wirlwind.” Or, let all these prosper to the full; let all his rich cargoes come into the haven, and all his ventures turn in the marɩ to gold, he can neither eat nor drink, nor in any way enjoy more than the poor man at his gate. "He that lovett silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase: this is also vanity. When goods increase, they are increased that eat them: and what good is there to the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes? The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep. There is a sore evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt."* The world is a false

hearted debtor, paying not only no usury on its loans, but restoring nothing again. All that it borrows, it consumes "upon its lusts ;" and all that it gives to its creditors is tinsel, and noise, and flatteries.

Not so with God. The only sure investment for our worldly goods is in works of mercy to the poor of Christ. "He that hath pity upon the poor, lendeth unto the Lord; and look, what he layeth out, it shall be paid him again." "Whosoever shall give to drink a cup of cold water in My name shall in no wise lose his reward." The whole history of the Church is witness. Who made such gains

Eccles. v. 10-13.

t St. Mark ix. 41.

as they that sold all they had, and gave to the poor, that they might bear their cross in following the Lord? Who found houses and lands an hundred fold, but they that forsook all to follow Him? What was it that brought in the gold and silver, and lands and goods of the earth, without measure, to the use and service of the Church, but the first great venture of faith, the first full and confiding investment which they made in the beginning who "sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need ;"* or being "possessed of lands or houses, sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles' feet; and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need?"† It was the voluntary poverty of the first Christians that endowed the Church. We live of their usury, and on the profits of their investment. The land of Barnabas has borne the tithe of Christendom. I am not now speaking of the lasting returns which are laid up in heaven "in bags that wax not old ;" I am speaking strictly of this world. And it is most true to say, that they will find at last the best return of all their ventures who go 'counter to the false expediency of this scheming, calculating world, and lay out their incomes with a thankful and trustful heart for the service of God and the consolation of His poor. When the prophet came to Sarepta, he asked food, in a time of famine, of a lone widow, who had a son depending on her; both were ready to perish. In her barrel was a handful of meal, in her cruse a little oil. Yet the prophet said, "Make me a little cake first, and after that make for thee and for thy son." What request could be more untimely, exacting, unreasonable? Was she not a widow, and her son an orphan, and both destitute? Must she not first care

* Acts ii. 45.

t Acts iv. 34.

1 Kings xvii. 13.

for her own child, especially in a time of famine? So the world would argue; and for its reward receive an empty barrel and a dry cruse.

To conclude, then; let us ever bear in mind that the probation of many men lies, for the greatest part, in the matter of their temporal affairs; in the way in which they seek gain, and use the goods and possessions of the world. Their chief dangers arise from the largeness of their personal wants, and the scale they have pitched for their appearance in the sight of the world. When once men have committed themselves too far in this point, it becomes every day more difficult to withdraw; and then they are put to all manner of expedients, shifts, and schemes, to maintain themselves in their position. This drives them into ambiguous lines of business, and into acts of an equivocal meaning; slight, it may be, at first, but by degrees enlarging into a wide surface of dangerous practice, and into concealed embarrassment. Money is the poison of thousands, whose character, in other respects, is high and admirable. It is strange over what minds money keeps its hold; and how near a man may go to moral greatness, and yet be crippled and stunted by this one passion. Money is his measure; and with all his gifts and enlarged views of mind, and his almost great points of character in other respects, money ascertains the real standard of his moral being. Beware, then, of money, and the desire for it, of carefulness and mistrust of God. Give alms of all that ye possess. Labor in your lot, be content with such things as ye have, and be careful for nothing. He who fasted in the wilderness. and for the five thousand made five loaves to be enough, is with you. He will feed you with the bread that came down from heaven, even that meat "which the Son of man shall give unto you; for Him hath God the Father sealed."*

* St. John vi. 27.