We made note, recently, of the fact that $3,000 had been lavished upon the wardrobe of an infant in New York. Now, an outlay like that, nineteen-twentieths of which the child no more needs than “Peter’s fish needed the tribute money found in its mouth”—an outlay that compels the babe to monopolize the means of relieving the wants of two hundred other babes that came with it into the world—is defended by the average reader on the ground that the parents could afford it! Which is practical atheism. For it assumes that a man is responsible to no God whatever—that his money is his own, and he his own master. In the Scriptural view this is embezzlement of another’s goods. Wm. M. Tweed, after subtracting some $11,000,000 from the city treasury of New York, proceeded to build a magnificent villa. And why not? He “could afford it.” But the obstinate public insisted that his plea was an insult, and himself a knave. There was a prompt and keen perception of the quality of that operation. For it was men who were defrauded. But the Almighty, in the plain-spoken old Book (Mal. 3 : 3), describes the like treatment of himself as robbery. And so it might seem, if he had any rights that we are bound to respect. “But if Christian men of wealth are not free to indulge their tastes, how are the arts to be encouraged?” Which is equivalent to asking, “If Christians do not dress in the height of the mode, what will become of the fashionable tailors?” This world is not the place in which to raise such questions. It will be time for them when men at large deny themselves so sternly in their taste for splendid architecture and furniture, and jewelry and the arts of design, that we shall need to cultivate the neglected duty of self-indulgence. The pretense of any such danger to-day is too absurd for a respectable jest. All the world knows that the decorative arts appeal to self-indulgent elements in human nature. These elements are permanent. They are always reliable. Wherever there is wealth, in a civilized community, they are sure of support. Heathen Athens and Corinth, with hardly a trace of an asylum or hospital for the poor, magnificently maintained them. But Christian institutions of every sort appeal to a principle of self-renunciation, which is rare and meager and fickle in this fallen nature of ours. Notoriously, therefore, they are feebly upheld, and always in want. Signal examples that look toward the maintenance of these interests are imperatively needed. And when a Christian woman, like one already mentioned in these columns, who lives contentedly upon $1,500 a year, and regrets the purchase of a Brussels carpet, as a cheaper one would have left the difference in cost for beneficent uses, consecrates about $1,750,000 to go, first or last, to the service of God and the welfare of men, it is an example that ought to rouse every luxurious liver like the blast of a trumpet. A man who gives of his superfluity only, after spending all he cares to lavish on himself—a man who drops his donations as a tree in October drops over-mellow fruit of which it has more than it can hold, and for which it has no earthly use—let him not hope to pass before God as a liberal giver. For aught we know, Dives gave Lazarus the crumbs from his table, and they proved to be nothing but crumbs in the way of his coming doom. It is not for the poor to be liberal with other men’s wealth, or to repent of other men’s sins. But our divine Master has said some things regarding this matter, that will, first or last, make themselves heard. It is an unpopular doctrine, we know, among the rich, that a man may not live in luxurious splendor, and win, with gifts from his superfluity, the reward of a Christian philanthropist. But many a doctrine, as unpopular as Joseph among his brethren, now, will reign, like Joseph, by and by.