thou also be tempted." "Charity suffereth long, and is kind;" love is not hindered in its work by opposition, injury, ingratitude; "charity envieth not," but rejoices in the prosperity of others, though less favoured itself; "love seeketh not her own,"-what an absolute negation of selfishness! "is not easily provoked;" but instead of hastily charging a fault, or harbouring a suspicion, puts the most favourable construction upon the conduct of others; and "thinketh no evil;" "charity rejoiceth not in iniquity," is never pleased that even an enemy has fallen into sin; never delights to publish a fault; "beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things."

This spirit of love should be viewed in its application to the necessities of our fellow-men. This is the more com-j mon use of the term charity; and surely this form of the grace is most abundantly emphasized in the gospel. To the Pharisees, who sought to purify themselves by ceremonies, Jesus said, "Rather give alms of such things as ye have; and, behold, all things are clean unto you." And to his own disciples in their poverty he said, "Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not."

The apostle John makes this form of charity a test of love to God. "Whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?" The actual necessity of another brought to our notice, and our present ability to relieve that necessity-these two facts concurring, create an obligation to charity which is a test of our love to God. Love to God abiding in us would cause us to imitate the perfection of his love, which is that "he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.” But there is a charity in sympathy as well as in almsgiving. When James, with his strong practical mode of speech, would present the whole gospel before us in a living activity, he says, "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this: To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." Many a one who has little to bestow in the way of alms, has a wealth of affection sufficient to enrich the world. Many a tract visitor with little earthly comfort to bestow, carries to the hearts of the poor the rare joy of sympathy. Jesus had no money to give; but how he

blessed men with his words! And when he wrought miracles of healing, he enriched them with the sympathies of his heart. He had compassion on the suffering. He wept at the grave of Lazarus, and the Jews said, "Behold how he loved him!"

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Sir Philip Sidney, the Christian gentleman, secretary of Queen Elizabeth and a knight champion of the Protestant cause, was a model of every form of this heavenly charity. But its crowning beauty was evinced in his death. Wounded in battle, as he was borne from the field of action, faint, pallid, and parched with the thirst that attends excessive loss of blood, Sidney asked for water. It was obtained with difficulty and in scant supply. With trembling hand he raised the cup to his lips, when his eye was arrested by the gaze of a dying soldier, longingly fixed upon the precious draught. Without tasting, he instantly handed it to the sufferer, saying, Thy necessity is greater than mine." We do not wonder that when, soon after, he found himself dying, this man of faith and prayer and charity lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, “All things in my life have been vain, vain, vain; but I would not give the joy I have in Christ for the empire of the world!" This spirit of love will prompt also to all wise and beneficent measures of philanthropy and reform. It is of purpose that I use these qualifying words; for even when a reform itself is needed, and promises most beneficent results to man, not all the measures used for that reform are wise and beneficent. But the spirit of love does not oppose itself to the reform, because certain measures of reform are evil. If a Socialist, or a disciple of Robert Owen, insists that the poor ought to have better homes, an enlightened charity may not approve of their plan of association, but it will not content itself with crying fidelity," "Socialism," and leaving the poor to die in crowded garrets and noisome cellars. If the infidel declares that men ought not to be held as chattels in a Christian land, charity does not lift up her hands in holy horror and cry Infidelity," ," "Treason," and leave the evil untouched; but while disapproving and disavowing a fiery and denunciatory fanaticism, love " remembers them that are in bonds, as bound with them." Charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly." The spirit of charity in society is an infusion of the leaven of Christianity. What led Howard to visit

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prisons and hospitals, braving their filth and infection? What led Brainerd to exhale his rare intellect and piety among the Indians? This heavenly charity will live in every clime, where it can do good to man. The ice of the Arctic cannot freeze it, the heat of the desert cannot whither it.

Let us note some of the hindrances to its expression.

1. These hindrances lie in the want of consideration. We judge harshly of the motives of others because we do not well consider all the reasons of their actions; we speak unkindly, because we do not consider what is due to the sensibilities of others; we are censorious in our judgment of faults, because we do not consider well the circumstances of our neighbours; we are severe upon opinions, because we do not inquire into their origin and grounds. A candid allowance for the circumstances of others would almost always mitigate that severity of judgment which fastens upon the outward act, or makes a man an offender for a word.

2. In the want of intercourse. If travel enlarges the mind, it expands the heart also to a kindlier judgment of men, and sympathy toward them. The monk in his convent seems to you but a lazy hireling of the church; the Arab in his tent seems but a roving plunderer, an Ishmaelite with his hand against every man; but when you partake of their humble lot, you find them men of a common nature. There is a key to every man's heart-though some have intricate and difficult locks, which require both skill and patience to open them. Yet in every man's heart—as in that tiny mechanism of Swiss invention-there sleeps a little bird of song, which, can you but learn how to wind it aright, will start up at your call and imitate the notes of love that you have been taught of God. It is worth years of toil to teach that bird the song of heavenly love.

3. In some, lurking selfishness, which invents excuses for not loving others. "All the little mean work of our nature," says Mrs. Stowe, applying to the heart a figure from housekeeping, "all the little mean work of our nature is generally done in a small dark closet just a little back' of the subject in which we profess to be interested. We do not suffer our meanness to come to the light even of our own consciousness-if we can help it. But when we find ourselves parrying off some appeal for kindness, giving way to some prejudice against others, inventing excuses for disregarding them-however plausible all this may seem to

us-it is a most unhappy frame of mind: this is not love at work, but some lurking selfishness, in the dark closet, is pulling the wires confounding moral distinctions and preventing all good and generous affections.

THE EVERY DAY BOOK.

"He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous."-PROV. ii. 7. "IT seems to me that it's of no use to read it and not mind what it says, Miles," remarked an anxious-looking wife to her husband, as she received back from his hasty glance a Bible, in which she had just ventured to point out a particular paragraph to his notice. "We may be sure if the wise and holy God saw fit to put such a subject into his word, it is because He knows the mischief we may make by going contrary to the advice."

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Well, I think I am minding what it says in another place, doing to another as I would he should do unto me, if I needed it," returned Miles; “what more would you

have?"

"If I could think it was so- "hesitated she, "but it is not, for we ought not to ask it from another under the same circumstances; and you know, Miles, you are not commanded to love your neighbour more than yourself and your own family.'

"But I am not commanded to be suspicious and mistrustful either," retorted Mr. Farren, "which it seems you are; and for a few foolish fears you would have me refuse a helping hand to a deserving fellow, who needs nothing but the opportunity to get on. Why, half the successful people in the world have been indebted to friends for some such act of kindness to set them going at first."

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But, Miles," once more ventured his wife, "how can we ask God's blessing on a step clearly contrary to the caution he has given? And if the thing were done ninety-nine times without any evil consequence from the imprudence, what would that be to us who may suffer in the hundredth? Let trouble come if it please God while we try to obey his will; but don't let us provoke it by doing what may, and really I fear will, bring it upon ourselves."

"Pooh! nonsense; let me hear no more of this, but mind some other hints in the book that I think as highly of as you can do, and don't concern yourself about what you

have nothing to do with after all. I think it's about the first time I ever saw you try to turn me from doing good to my neighbour."

Mrs. Farren was silenced, for she did constantly take “hints" from that book, which, while it reveals the only name under heaven whereby sinners may be saved, is also a code of "laws from heaven for life on earth," and contains sound wisdom for the exchange and the workshop, as well as spiritual truth for peace of conscience and elevating hope. But what indeed is the use of reading the Bible if we don't mind what it says? It was a very simple remark, but there is a great deal in it-just all the difference between true faith and real unbelief-between "him that serves God and him that serveth him not"-between the servant who traded with his lord's money and him who hid it in the earth. And yet it is a difference which may never be fully appreciated until its consequences for good or evil are unalterably felt.

Circumstances arise every day in life requiring the guidance of sound wisdom to judge and act discreetly, as well as unselfish love to serve others kindly; and the Lord, who knows human infirmity well, has given advice for every day, as well as commands and promises for eternity, which "he who runs may read, and the wayfaring man shall not err therein."

It happened however that Mr. Farren had acted in a very important matter from the impulses of feeling, without examining principles; and his wife, not aware how far he stood committed to his word, had placed before him in the language of Divine wisdom, a clear direction concerning the very point at issue between them; it was this—

"Be not thou one of them that strike hands, or of them that are sureties for debts. If thou hast nothing to pay, why should he take away thy bed from under thee?" Prov. xxii. 26, 27.

Miles Farren, misled by the sanguine statements of a person of whose character he had not very intimate knowledge, proud to place his name by the side of that of a wealthy burgess who was proposed as the other bondsman, and fancying it praiseworthy to do a seeming kindness, became surety for a sum which if ever it were unhappily claimed, would not only take "the bed from under him," but sweep away all he possessed in the world, leaving his family in utter destitution. But there was "no likelihood of such a mischance;"