views of Scripture principles.  Charged with obligations inalienable as our very being, we are sent forth on the career of probationary existence, amenable alone to our own consciences and the bar of final awards.  God, so to speak, has reposed confidence in us, and it may not be abused.  This is true in relation to charity, as well as to other duties.  For the free discharge of this duty is one of our most solemn trusts.  Each one, enlightened by the great principles of disinterested benevolence, is left to the decisions of his own mind in shaping his conduct and alms to its requisitions.  To be permitted to judge for ourselves in matters of such high and solemn import is an exalted dignity.  But to every degree of dignity and privilege, there is attached an increase of responsibility.

Such is our present attitude in relation to the work of benevolence.  Now shall we abuse this confidence, despise our privileges, and show ourselves unworthy of our almost angelic exaltation?  Shall we make this liberation from the specific requisition of tithes “an occasion to the flesh,” an excuse for less pecuniary sacrifices than the Jews were subjected to?  What ingratitude!  How displeasing to our Heavenly Father who has raised us thus high!

Hence, exemption from tithes, instead of relaxing our obligations to beneficence, rather strengthens them.  As charity is purely a matter of voluntariness, the whole soul must be enlisted in it.  We must not only guard against a betrayal of our trust, but against dispositions in the least at variance with its duties.  We must keep our hearts in sympathy with Christ; lest, failing in sympathy with him, we fail to imitate him.

Let these responsibilities, together with the ingratitude and contempt of God’s favor implied in the non-fulfilment, be earnestly contemplated.  Let us tremble lest we make the privilege of a more spiritual beneficence, and excuse “for withholding more than is meet,” and turn the blessing into a curse.

13.  That benevolence is the measure of personal piety.  Personal piety is personal resemblance to Christ.  “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.”  Christ’s character is essentially love.  This induced him to die for lost man.  Now just so far as we resemble Christ we shall imitate him, and, therefore, feel for those on whom the wrath of God is still abiding.  And just so far as we feel for them, we shall be willing to do for them; and just so far as we are willing to do for them, we shall contribute of our substance in proportion to our means to relieve their spiritual necessities.  So that our beneficence or sacrifices for the extension of the Redeemer’s kingdom, will be the just measure of our love to him.  This truth we should wear in our hearts.  We should make it a principle to give that amount which we shall be satisfied to recognize as the exponent of our piety, and be content that others should thus regard it; such as we shall be willing to pen down