If you regard your Redeemer's honour you must cherish love. "By this," said he, "shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." So exemplary was the love of the early Christians to each other, that even their enemies bore testimony to its power, when they said, "See how these Christians love one another." This love recommended their divine religion so much, that the apostate emperor Julian represented their love to each other as contributing not a little to spread Christianity.

If you regard the peace of your own mind, you must cherish brotherly love. The word of God declares the possession of this to be one of the clearest evidences of conversion, and its absence to be as clear an evidence of a state of sin and death. "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren: he that loveth not his brother abideth in death."z In short, of such immense importance is this heavenly grace, that all the knowledge, gifts, and talents in the world, are nothing without love."

§ 12. The religion of the gospel demands from its votaries the active exertion of their different powers, in promoting the glory of God and the welfare of man. The Lord Jesus represents his disciples as servants, whose Master intrusts them with a portion of his property, which during his absence they are to improve. All have something intrusted to them to improve. While some have five talents, others have two; but they who have the least have one. Yet these talents are not their own. He delivered to them his goods. The Lord Jesus has intrusted at least one talent, perhaps many, to your care. Your time, your sabbaths, your means of grace, your property, your opportunities for usefulness in any way, your health, your strength, whatever you possess that can benefit man, or glorify God, is a talent intrusted to you by the eternal Master. They all belong to him. They are but lent to you. O reckon all you have the Lord's. Important motive for faithfulness! Impressively important, when it is considered how rich a reward heavenly love will bestow, where even one talent has been sedulously improved; and how the mere neglect of improving even one, renders him to whom it was lent a wicked and a slothful servant.

§ 13. Many are the modes by which Christians may pro

(3) John xiii. 35.

(z) 1 John iii. 14, 19.

(a) 1 Cor. xiii.

mote the glory of their God and Saviour, and the eterna interests of their fellow-mortals. Among these are the following:

Conversing seriously and prudently on vital religion with those who are destitute of its blessings. An old writer mentions the case of a pious man, who by his zeal in conversing with his neighbours and acquaintance, in their shops, of their fields, had been the instrument of converting thirty or forty persons. A Christian of small abilities, in an obscure village in Leicestershire, has pursued the same course, and a number of persons are said to have been converted by his

means.

Seconding the exertions of Christian ministers, by inducing friends or neighbours to hear the word of life; and by encouraging, and directing, such as appear the subjects of serious impressions. Incalculable good has thus, under the divine blessing, been effected. It is recorded of a General Baptist church in Yorkshire, that soon after its origin, each member, with this view, "made it a point of duty to en deavour to bring one careless sinner under the sound of the gospel, and to use every Scriptural method to engage him to embrace it. And when the object of his cares had enrolled himself among the followers of Christ, he looked about for another wandering sheep, that he might endeavour to bring also into the fold of the church. Were such a and such conduct general among the friends of Christ, what immense good would result from it."

spirit

Some years ago the writer visited a young man, who left this world in peace and hope. He belonged to a family, of which most or all were strangers to religion, and he, till within a few years of his happy departure, had been so too. A Christian friend frequently invited him to the house of prayer. These invitations were often slighted, but he at length attended, and listened to the word of life. In short, he became a disciple of the Saviour, and after a short course in the church below, was moved, there was full reason to believe, to the church triumphant. I know an instance in which a young woman sought, in the same way, to promote the everlasting benefit of a female acquaintance. Her efforts long seemed in

vain.

She who was the object of them promised to comply with her invitations, but still delayed. At length, when per

CHRISTIAN USEFULNESS.

287

haps a year had rolled away without success, she went once more to invite her acquaintance, and was so affected by frequent disappointment, that she burst into tears. The other now yielded she went to the house of prayer; she felt the power of divine truth, and became a monument of saving mercy. The writer could mention other instances: they are many, and were all the disciples of Jesus active, would doubtless be many more.

Another mode of usefulness open to all the disciples of the Saviour, is that of kindly noticing and encouraging persons who become hearers of the gospel. It is a frequent case, that persons who have lived without God in the world, begin to frequent the house of prayer. They need instruction. They are perhaps impressed, and need encouragement; but they are acquainted with no Christian friend. If the congregation is numerous, the minister may know nothing of them. Hence they perhaps pine in despondency, or the little spark of holy desire dies for want of some one to fan it to a flame; but where the members of a church are active, and eager to seize opportunities for doing good, such persons will soon be noticed, directed, and encouraged.

The Christian who watches for opportunities of doing good, will find many; and some that seem insignificant may effect good beyond the most sanguine calculations. A considerable Baptist church exists in a village in Leicestershire, which owed its origin, in a great degree, to a pious remark introduced in a letter on business. This impressed the mind of the thoughtless youth to whom it was addressed. He embraced religion, and opened his house for preaching. Many who had never heard the gospel attended. A comfortable house of prayer was erected in this then dark village. Many who have worshipped in that house, there is reason to believe now worship in the better house above, and others are pursuing the path that leads to eternal peace. What cannot God effect, by apparently feeble means, when Christian zeal directs the conduct of his children!

By lending or giving away religious books incalculable good may be effected. The same effect may be produced by lending or gratuitously distributing religious tracts. These apparently feeble instruments have been the means of producing most important benefits. A tract given away on the road,

288

MODES OF CHRISTIAN USEFULNESS.

or dropped by the highway side, has awakened a profligate to reflection, and led a child of wrath to the Lamb of God for salvation. Few are there among the followers of the Saviour, who might not pursue many of these modes of usefulness.

Sabbath schools open a wide field for the labours of Christian philanthropy.*

An immense field for usefulness is now offered by Bible and Missionary associations. The active collectors in those institutions, are a most important part of the grand moral machine, by which God is diffusing the gospel of his Son.

§ 14. The physician who would snatch a dying patient from the grave, must form a correct estimate of the malignity of his disease; nor would his benevolence be admired, if he pronounced the plague a harmless disorder. So in all your schemes for usefulness, bear in mind that the objects of your kindness are not beings slightly tainted with corruption, but wholly corrupt and depraved. Are you a parent? you will see many charms in your children. Yet remember they are as depraved as you feel yourself, and as others naturally are. A mere moral education may save them from grosser sins, but will never save them from eternal death. Teach them that they are sinners, and lead them to the fountain of salvation. Are you employed in teaching the children of others? or is it friends or neighbours whose salvation you are anxious to promote? still consider they are sinners. You have to warm a heart that is quite cold; to enlighten a mind that is quite dark. Within that heart there are principles of depravity opposed to all you wish to inculcate. Need you be surprised at discouragement? You may say of every object of your care, Here is an immortal creature, passing a few moments on the stage of time, and thence going to heaven, or hell; already lost; a stranger to God, to the Saviour, to happiness; blind in mind; corrupt in affections. This view should regulate your exertions, and should lead you to God for his Spirit to bless those exertions; but should not discourage, since similar

It has been made a question, how far it is advisable to give rewards to children in sabbath schools. There is one view in which it has appeared to the writer highly important. If religious books or tracts judiciously selected are given, these, while they stimulate the industry of children, may do them immense good in after-years, and in many cases may supply those with religious instruction who would otherwise probably never possess a single religi ous book.

MOTIVES FOR PIOUS EXERTIONS.

289

exertions have been the means of leading many to eternal life.

§ 15. All the obligations you lie under to the God of love, should stimulate your zeal to promote his glory in the salvation of your fallen fellow-creatures. Snatched yourself from the burning pit, should you not strive to snatch others from the flame? Redeeming love has displayed to us a salvation precious as the blood poured out by Jesus upon Calvary— costly as the wealth of heaven which he resigned-free as the air we breathe-and lasting as the eternity of God. Redeeming love has blessed us for both worlds-given us wealth for poverty-comfort for misery-hope for despair-forgiveness instead of condemnation-the love of God instead of eternal separation from him-and heaven instead of hell. But the Giver of these mercies bids us communicate the tidings of them to others. "Let him that heareth say, Come." Can we be truly influenced by the love displayed in that gospel, if we do not labour and strive to benefit those who are perishing around us.

§ 16. Can pity move? pity must move you here. You live in a ruined world-described by God as a world dead in trespasses and sins, even ALL DEAD. Could you spend an hour in a prison filled with malefactors doomed to die? would not the mournful spectacle melt your heart into compassion, and your eyes into tears? A more mournful spectacle surrounds you-a dead world. Millions of rational and immortal beings, all lost, all dead. All hastening to the grave with a sure and steady step, and unless taught of God, all hastening to the death that never dies. All dead, all doomed to die, and all as sinners doomed to hell. It is true, heavenly mercy discloses a path to life from these regions of spiritual death; but, ah! how few regard those saving dictates. Excepting only that happy few of the high and low, the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bond man and every free man, and the bridegroom and the bride, and the ancient and the young, are dead to God, and dead to sin. Can you be a Christian yourself, if you strive not to snatch some of the firebrands from the flame? Can you look at a parent or a child, a brother or a sister, a husband or a wife, and think this beloved relative is sinking to eternal