BENEVOLENCE A PART OF RELIGION.
RELIGION begins with a change of heart. The greater part of life is generally occupied with the acquisition and use of property. A change of heart, if real, cannot leave this principal part of life unaffected. The subject of it must be expected to show that he has found a more valued treasure in heaven, by his new aims in getting, and his new principles in using the treasures of this world. If, in that chief part of life occupied with gaining and using property, the professed subject of a change consisting in placing the affections on things above, continues to show the same estimate of property as the great end to be sought, the same eagerness in getting, the same tenacity in holding, the same self-seeking or exclusively selfish gratification in using it, need it be surprising that his worldly competitors doubt the reality of the change? Must not Christ repel such professors with his own searching question, 'What do ye more than others?' There is nothing less than absurdity in the idea of a change, in which the man becomes a new creature in Christ, in which old things are passed away, and all things are become new, which yet does not carry a new spirit through the business, and consecrate the property as well as the heart to God—in which the theory is all for the glory of God, the practice all for making money. Religion is love. Now, love is an active principle. It is as natural for love to act beneficently as for a fountain to flow, or a star to shine; and its action is ungrudging, unstinted, delighting in toil for the loved object. Witness, for instance, the toils of parental love. Can love to God and man be the very essence of the character, while beneficent efforts are left to hazard, crowded into the by-corners of life, supplied by chippings and remnants? Can love control the heart, when at the same time it obviously does not control the actions of the life? Christians are laborers together with God, God is always giving, always employed in the work of beneficence; if we labor with him, then we must labor in the work of love, of beneficence. God designs to form us into his likeness; and to this end, we are no sooner brought into his kingdom than we are put to doing his work. Can any one, then, be a laborer together with God, and make that secondary which He regards as primary—pursue without plan, energy, or steadfastness, the object which he seeks, with a steadfastness which knows no abatement, a zeal which spares no sacrifice, and an outpouring of treasure which arithmetic cannot calculate? A laborer together with God, is it possible that you, now reading these lines, can be, and yet that object to which, with him, the destiny of nations and the movements of heavenly hosts are subordinate, be with you secondary to money-getting, to furniture, to equipage—a mere accidental appendage to business? Let the great fact possess your soul with the fullness which its reality demands, that you are privileged to be a laborer with God, and that God is unceasingly engaged in the work of beneficence, and you will cease to make selfish gratifications the exclusive object of your pursuit; and instead of beneficence being an occasional accident or an appendage to business, it will become a steady aim, and business itself be pursued mainly as a means of beneficence—of being like God and engaged in the same work. The benevolent man is the truly happy man. He that seeks to get good from men—to make them subservient to his happiness, is miserable, in comparison with him who aims to do good to others. God loves and blesses those whose disposition and conduct resemble his own. And as the mind becomes more beneficent, more pure, more active in doing good, all the sources of felicity will multiply around it; it will have peace and dignity within, and the smiles of infinite complacency will beam upon it with inexpressible glory.—S. S. Times.