We find this exemplified in our churches where no system of charity is adopted.  For want of stated times for contributions to the different objects, they are apt to be forgotten or neglected.  They whose duty it is to make the appointments, are engaged in other cares; time whirls on; the year passes away, and no collection is made.  Or if a few objects receive occasional attention, others are passed over for years altogether; proving to a moral demonstration, that what is done irregularly in the work of beneficence, is ill done.  To this, the agents of our benevolent societies passing through our churches, can bear sorrowful testimony.—­The same is true of the individual.  Every one knows that what falls not into his regular routine of duties, is apt to slide from the memory.  This is peculiarly true of benevolence, for selfishness helps us to forget; and it the contribution come to our recollection, we are not ready to give just then; some debt must be first paid, some convenience purchased, or some other urgent call attended to.  Thus he, who has no system in the bestowment of his bounties, is always finding excuses to turn off the edge of arguments and the force of appeals; though perhaps with the resolution of giving liberally at some future period.  Here lies his greatest danger.  The resolution satisfies his conscience; and while resting upon it, the opportunity to contribute passes away, and souls are lost; whereas, had he acted on principle, the donation, though inconvenient would have been made, and souls saved.

Such is not unfrequently the mournful termination of impulsive benevolence.  Tears may be shed over the anguish wrought; but tears cannot remedy the evil; this must flow on in wailing and woe forever.  But it may be prevented by the timely admonitions of experience.  For that selfishness can be suppressed, and benevolence sustained, only by the strong hand of principle and systematic effort, is the voice of ages.

VI. From Scripture.  All duties enjoined in the Scriptures, if contemplated in their principles, will be found subjected to the control of reason; and, if they lie under the control of reason, they must be conducted methodically.  All acts of worship, from the first requisition of Divine homage given in Eden, onward through the successive generations of the patriarchs, were to be performed with decency and in order.  The Mosaic economy was one of the most rigid exactness.  The ritual prescribed to the Jews required the utmost method.  The same law held in regard to the payment of tithes and their multiplied gifts to the Lord.  This precision, with which every one must be struck in reading the Old Testament, is doubtless designed for the instruction of all succeeding times.  But what is its peculiar lesson to us?  It, at least, shows us that God is pleased with regularity in the conduct of his people; and not less in their beneficent transactions than in the discharge of their other duties.  The