AN ILLUSTRATION.—SOMETHING TO BE CONSIDERED.
By D. T. BOURDEAU
You receive a certain sum of money of a man. For the use of this money, and as a token of gratitude to the one from whom you receive it, you are to pay a certain interest, yearly. But if, instead of doing this, you wait a number of years, and then pay only the interest on the money for the last year, would you be regarded as doing justice to your creditor? You justly answer, No; there are previous claims upon me which are as sacred as those of the last year. Well, in this respect, what is just with man is just with God, who has for years claimed something for the use of means he has lent us. Many, in the past—some, for want of knowledge, others, for want of opportunity, and others, through a lack of gratitude—have not given God his due, and yet have been prospered. Such can now redeem the past, not simply by giving as God is now prospering them. They actually have means which belongs to the Lord, in a special sense, and which should have had, years ago. Will simply giving to the Lord a part of the present income from this portion of property in their possession, meet the claims he has upon them for the past? Nay, verily. These claims, in the cases before us, can be, at least, partly met by aiding to supply the financial wants of the cause, in different branches, besides paying Systematic Benevolence. Though this is not a matter of compulsion, yet the principles of justice remain the same, and how shall189they be met in the Judgment? What would professors, violating these principles, say, to see miraculously inscribed in bold and blazing characters on pieces of property over which they glory, “Stolen from God! Robbery in the first degree!” Although this may not be literally the case, yet it is as really so, in principle, as it was for Belshazzar to see the handwriting on the wall. D. T. BOURDEAU.