deemer, call you a thousand-fold more emphatically to labour for the meat which endureth unto eternal life? You may be misinterpreting the voice of his providence, the voice of his gospel you cannot misunderstand; it is distinct, imperative, and incessant; urging you daily to "seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness."

Another individual is a slave to parsimony ; but he is quite insensible to it, for the temptation solicits him under the disguise of frugality. Waste is his abhorrence; and he knows no refuge from it but in the opposite extreme. Every new instance of impoverished prodigality is received by him as a warning from Providence to be careful. His creed is made up of all the accredited maxims and world-honoured proverbs in favour of covetousness, the authority of which he never questions, and the dexterous application of which fortifies his mind like an antidote against all the contagious attacks of charity. And thus, though he lives in a world supported by bounty, and hopes, perhaps, to be saved at last by grace, he gives only when shame will not allow him to refuse, and grudges the little which he gives.

The aim of another is evidently the accumu

lation of wealth; but the explanation which he gives to himself of his conduct, is, that he desires simply to provide for the future. Want is his dread. And though, in his aim to avoid this evil, he may not distinctly propose to himself to become rich, yet what else can result from his constantly amassing? His interpretation of competence, if candidly avowed, is affluence; a dispensation from labour for himself and family to the end of time, a discharge from future dependence on Providence, a perpetuity of ease and sloth. Till he has succeeded in reaching that enviable state, his mind is full of foreboding: he can take no thought except for the morrow. if Providence had vacated its throne, and deserted its charge, he takes on himself all the cares and burdens belonging to his state. And laden with these, he is totally disqualified for every holy duty and Christian enterprise which would take him a single step out of his way to competence. And often is he to be seen providing for the infirmities of age long after these infirmities have overtaken him, and labouring to acquire a competence up to the moment when a competence for him means only the expenses of his funeral.

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In the instance of a person who has attained to competence, covetousness often seeks to escape detection under the name of contentment. He fancies that he is completely vindicated from the charge of cupidity, by saying, "I am quite content with what I have." But so also was that minion of wealth whom our Lord introduces with the solemn warning, "Take heed, and beware of covetousness." His contentment is only covetousness reposing self-complacently from its toils, resting on its well-filled bags, and saying, "Soul, take thine ease." Let an agent of charity approach him with outstretched and imploring hand, and, as if touched by Ithuriel's spear, he will forthwith start into his proper character, and demonstrate that his contentment depends on his keeping his property entire; at least, that he is not content to give.

And another, not only most confidently acquits himself of all suspicion of selfishness, but even appropriates the credit of being benevolent, on the ground of his natural sensibility. A spectacle of suffering harrows up his soul; and therefore he passes by on the other side." An object of destitution afflicts his too delicate sympathies ;

and, therefore, he closes his door against it, saying, "Depart in peace, be thou warmed and filled;" and leaves it in its destitution to perish. And thus, by belonging to the school of Rousseau or of Sterne, he gives himself the credit of belonging to the school of Christ; by paying the tax of a sigh to wretchedness, he escapes the levy of a heavier tribute, and even purchases a character for the tenderest susceptibility. But sensibility is not benevolence; by wasting itself on trifles, it may render us slaves to selfishness, and unfit us for every thing but self-commiseration.

Covetousness will sometimes indulge itself under the pretence of preparing to retire from the cares and turmoil of active life. The propriety of an early retirement from business must depend, of course, on circumstances. But how often does the covetousness which wears this mask, retain her slave in her service even to hoary hairs, putting him off from time to time with delusive promises of approaching emancipation. Or else, he retires to spend in slothful and selfish privacy, that which he had accumulated by years of parsimony. Or else, by mingling readily in scenes of gaiety and amusement, he shows that his

worldly aversions related, not to the world of pleasure, but only to the world of business. Instead of fixing his abode where his pecuniary resources and Christian activity might have rendered him an extensive blessing, he consults only his own gratification, establishes himself at a distance, it may be, from "the place of the altar," and, in a regular round of habitual indulgence, lives and dies an unfaithful steward, a sober sensualist, a curse rather than a blessing.

Sometimes covetousness is heard enlarging complacently on the necessity, and even piety, of providing for children. And here, be it remembered, we are not considering what parental duty may dictate on this subject, but only what covetousness often does under its borrowed name. Many a parent gratifies his love for money, while pretending a love for his children. The facility, too, with which he quotes certain passages of Scripture to defend the course he is pursuing, shows how acceptable to his numerous class an argument would be in favour of hoarding, since these few perverted sentences, which only seem to sanction it, are his favourite and most familiar texts. Of these, his chosen stronghold, perhaps,