slumber.  The latter must be as spirited and persevering as the former.  Hence, benevolence must be systematic in its operations, or it will be overborne by the ever-stirring energies of its opponent.  Its series of acts must be as continuous and energetic as that of selfishness, in order simply to arrest the course of the latter; and to make advances against its headlong current, a strong additional force is requisite.  A system, therefore, one founded in the depths of the soul, and bringing to its aid all the resources of reason and conscience, is indispensable to efficiency in the angelic work of doing good.  System must be emblazoned on the banner of every benevolent society; and inscribed on the brow of every man by nature selfish, would he bless the world by his munificence.

Especially is system necessary to encounter emergencies.  Men of business not unfrequently meet with crises when their affairs are in a critical state.  Numerous calls for money may come thronging in upon them almost simultaneously.  Their nerves may become depressed, and things may appear darker than they really are.  Besides, Christians even may become worldly-minded, and their religious affections low.  At such times benevolence will almost surely be submerged by the whelming tide of selfishness, unless buoyed up by well-established system.

V. From experience, which shows the inefficiency of impulsive benevolence.  That liberality is sometimes the offspring of the kindly tendencies of our natures, is readily admitted.  God, in making us social beings and helpers of each other’s joy, gave us susceptibilities to sympathetic emotions.  When objects of suffering are presented before us, our sensibilities are moved, tears flow, and the hand is extended in relief.  But these emotions are short-lived.  The exciting object being removed, they soon expire.  And though thousands have flowed into the treasuries of charity from this source, when an accomplished agent, with a soul heated to a glow with his theme, has stirred the sensibilities of his hearers as the trees of the forest are rocked by the tempest, or some other influence has violently swept the chords of the heart; yet it is a source of too little depth and durability to give vitality to the persevering work of beneficence, in a world cankered to its center with corruption.  Selfishness soon leads off the mind to other subjects; so that contributions can be drawn from the natural sympathies only by the repeated and almost continued presentation of the suffering object.  But this course will ultimately defeat its own end; tending, as it does, to harden the heart, and thereby to seal up the very fountains intended to be opened.  Accordingly, we find that those who have no plan of munificent effort, but give merely as their sensibilities are moved, usually contribute less and less as they advance in age; their susceptibilities to sympathetic emotion becoming hardened like the road over which the crushing wheel has rolled for years.  Hence, though the product of impulsive benevolence may sometimes be bountiful, yet when we contemplate its workings for any lengthened period, its fruits are found neither uniform nor abundant.  The soil is too thin for enduring fertility.