THE church of Christ suffers an almost incalculable loss of consecration of power because her members fail to practice systematic beneficence. The treasuries of our various boards would be filled to overflowing if every Christian were only trained to give the Lord one-tenth of his income. What a tremendous and happy change such a law of giving, enforced by voluntary love and intelligent prayer, would work in every branch of the Redeemer's kingdom. There would be no lack of funds to aid young men into the ministry, no unanswered cry from poor churches in the West, no struggling pastor seeking a higher salary in order to get enough without begging to educate his children, no prospective missionaries refused a hearing on account of exhausted means, no spot in all heathendom unvisited by the gospel herald and the offer of eternal life. The results of small but systematic expenditures are mightier far than most persons imagine. For example, in the city of London there are plenty of men who use tobacco systematically; that is, they smoke or chew, or both, every day, and the consequence is that thirteen times as much money is spent for the "vile weed" in that opulent and splendid metropolis as is given by all the churches put together for the cause of evangelizing the world. What a commentary this on the sluggishness of Christian life on the one side, and on the imperious and habitual demands of a factitious appetite on the other! If the boy could only be educated to the habit of setting apart to divine uses a certain portion of each day's receipts, whether bestowed upon him by indulgent parents, or earned by his own hand, all mankind would at no distant day feel the thrill of divine truth that would be proclaimed through the globe. Nor is the abundant means of doing good the only benefit which would spring from regular giving. The reflex influence upon the giver himself is always ennobling, as it is also a source of happiness. To give spasmodically under a sudden impulse aroused by a piteous and eloquent appeal, involves no great virtue. To coldly neglect our duty until some church debt-lifter comes along to assail our pocket-book with a perfect storm of inflammable oratory, or until some returned missionary flings a few fire-balls of zeal across our darkening horizon, is not exactly the highest method of developing Christian character, nor of obtaining help. The disciple above all others should be a man of principle, of thoughtful, deliberate, persistent, habitual energy in right-doing. His charities should be a subject of constant forethought and prayerful solicitude. He ought to be looking out with conscientious wisdom as intelligent as his love is ardent, for channels through which to bestow a certain amount of his income where it will do the most good. Instead of shirking his responsibilities as a steward of his wealth, nay, of his daily earnings, he ought, on the contrary, to hail every prospect which promises the most fruit from systematic and carefully considered beneficence. In this way, his character would be disciplined, his desires would become broad and unselfish, his spirit catholic and magnanimous, his sympathies wide as the sufferings of his fellow-men, and his purposes akin to those of his self-denying and all-loving Saviour. To give with as much regularity as we partake of God's bounties from every morning's breakfast-table, and to give from motives of lofty principle, is to become even more and more educated in the purest experiences of Christian manhood. Many of our pastors, no doubt, are endeavoring to train their people to this admirable grace of systematic benevolence, but they need encouragement and aid from all parents. The children are to be taught in the household to practice daily self-denial and daily liberality in the cause of the Master, before the millennium dawns. "Many a mickle makes a muckle," says the Scotch proverb. Our Catholic friends understand this. Not long since one of their archbishops said that he would rather have a church of Catholic poor people from whom to draw money, than a church of Protestant rich people. Why? Because, in the Catholic church all give, and give systematically; while in the Protestant Church the gifts, though sometimes large, are too irregular and spasmodic to be very great in the aggregate. Let us awake to the educative influences and splendid results of systematic benevolence.—Christian at Work.