E all live under limitations. They are narrower with some than with others; but they are not very wide with the most favored. None of us has an infinite amount of money, talent, time, strength, or influence; and the amount that most of us have is very finite. If we put what we have into one kind of service we cannot put it into another. That fact imposès upon us the necessity of choosing what we will do with our resources. is made up mainly of choices. Every hour we stand at the parting of ways and are compelled to decide whether we will do anything and what we will do with our time, strength, money and talents. The choices of the Christian are governed by the will of Christ, our Savior and Lord. He would have us choose not simply the good, but the best. Of two evils, choose neither; of two or more good things choose the best.

Life

But

A Christian life is a good deal like packing a trunk when you are preparing to go away from home for a visit or a vacation. You bring together a great lot of things which seem necessary, or at least desirable, and pile them up around the trunk. when you begin to pack you find that they will not all go into that limited space. Then begins a process of judicious selection. You unpack all you have put in and throw aside what you can leave. Perhaps the process has to be repeated two or three times before your selections are satisfactory, but at last your trunk is full of things that are indispensable. You look ruefully at the things rejected, but the trunk cannot be stretched. It is a picture of the Chris

tian life. You cannot give money to support all the good institutions in the world. You cannot join in every form of Christian effort. You must pick and choose between the causes presented and select those which are best and which have the first claim upon you. This is a very important law of the Christian life, and for want of ob serving it many people fritter away their resources, and spread themselves out so thin that they become invisible as Christian forces.

I wish to make a special application of this law to our benevolent offerings. Of the objects presented to us for financial aid the name is legion. They come from all quarters, they are of every conceivable kind, and they are pressed by all sorts of appeals. Pastors are obliged to stand guard over their churches and protect their people from these appeals or our great missionary societies would not get any money at all. The agents of these causes turn their attention to our young people's soci eties and find in them fields from which they reap considerable harvests. Young people are not always discriminating, and if the "cause" has a tinge of romance and a touch of pathos about it, it appeals to them so strongly as to overcome their better judgment, and so they take a collection for some Armenian refugee who wants to send for his friends; or for the starving Hindus; or some converted foreigner who is trying to educate himself to be a missionary to his own people; or for some poor church that is going to lose its house of worship; or for some school among the colored people, whose dusky agent talks most pathetically of its needs; or for the "Christian Alliance," or for the China Inland Mission, because these missions are

supposed to be so much more Christian in spirit and fruitful in results than those of our own society; so that when the American Baptist Missionary Union, or the American Baptist Home Mission Society, or our own state convention asks for an offering, our beneficence is in the condition of a stream whose water has all been drawn off before it gets to the mill. That is what we mean by "Leakage in Beneficence."

Perhaps we ought not to shut off all these special objects, but more care and discrimination are needed; and I propose to show in this paper that most of the money which we consecrate to the Lord ought to go into the regular channels of denominational effort. Consider three reasons for that opinion.

1. THE PROSPERITY OF OUR MISSIONARY ENTERPRISES.

We should put our money where it will do the most good. If we would be loyal to Christ this must be the primary rule of expenditure. Waste is wicked in the Lord's work as well as in any other business. Men who are seeking financial investments, scrutinize the past history and the future prospects of different enterprises and go into that one which promises the largest returns.

God has signally and wonderfully blessed the missionary and educational enterprises of the Baptist denomination. He has given us wise, consecrated and judicious men to manage them and made them fruitful in results. The truth of this statement could be proved with regard to all of our great societies, but my limited time will allow only one illustration, the Missionary Union.

Among all the societies organized for the evangelization of the world, this society is accomplishing the most in proportion to the means at its disposal. You may take any basis of comparison you please and this assertion will still hold true. Let me give

you a few figures from the statistics of 1895, the latest available for such a comparison. A fair test would be the number of active workers in the fields of the Missionary Union compared with those of other societies in proportion to the money expended. Here the Union is at the head of the list. The average cost of their workers a year is $209.43. That of the Congregational Society is about the same, but that of the Methodist Episcopal Society (North) is $261.49, that of the Presbyterian (North) is $318.27, while that of the Christian Alliance, which boasts so much of its economy, is $499.10. But it may be said that our workers are not equal to those of the other societies in efficiency. The results show that they are more efficient, at least in gathering converts. Seven of the prominent foreign missionary societies of this country have altogether, no more communicants in their churches on foreign fields than the Missionary Union alone. But these societies have, in the aggregate, three and three-fourths times the income of the Union. That is, dollar for dollar, the Union has three and threefourths times as many converts as the other societies. The China Inland Mission is often spoken of as very successful, but in 1895 the Union expended only four times as much money as that mission and won fifteen times as many converts. Facts and figures are at hand for further comparisons equally favorable to the Union, but I desist. Enough has been stated to show that if anyone wants to give money for the evangelization of the world he can find no better place to put it than the treasury of the Missionary Union. All notions to the contrary are the results of simple ignorance. Proper constituents of the Union who have been led to give their foreign mission money to other societies have been hoodwinked by false reports or misled by a desire to do something a little

out of the ordinary. The unusual has its attractions, but the attractions of common sense ought to balance them. If one wants to help save North America for Christ he can find no better agency through which to do it than our Home Mission Society. If he wants to aid in scattering bibles and other good literature over the world, our Publication Society offers itself as his best medium. An American Baptist has absolutely no excuse for withholding support from our own societies and giving his money to other agencies for the same work. It would require conclusive evidence of God's disfavor to justify him in doing that, but God has signally blessed these societies and given us every encouragment to support them.

Furthermore, we ought not to scatter our gifts on all sorts of miscellaneous objects. If an unknown foreigner asks me to aid him in getting an education that he may go as a missionary to his own people, I should remember that the Missionary Union could send twice as many well-prepared and wellqualified young men and women to its fields every year, as it does, if it only had the money, and that if I give to this stranger I shall withhold from my own society. If some poor church in the west begs you to help save their meeting-house, consider that that is the very work which the Home Mission Society is doing, and that its managers are far better prepared than you are to judge of the merits of each case. Guerilla warfare against the devil has its charms, but organized effort is more effective. An army is always better than a mob. Particles of moisture in the form of mist have certain beauty, but they will do more to quench thirst when condensed into water. In the business world this is the age of combinations; let us combine our forces and concentrate our gifts for the Lord's work.

My second reason for that position is that:

II. OUR

DENOMINATIONAL SOCIETIES ARE SACRED TRUSTS descended to us as legacies from our Baptist forefathers and committed to our care by divine Providence. These societies have come to us from God through such men as Judson, Rice, Boardman, Colgate, Lincoln, Jeter, Manly, Taylor, Crawford and Crozer. The toils, the sacrifices, the gifts, the sufferings and the prayers of the men who founded and sustained these societies in the past, and especially of the men who have carried on their missionary work in home and foreign fields, make them sacred. The breath of their life was the breath of prayer, and they have been bathed in the blood and tears of Baptist saints and martyrs. They have cost too much to be lightly esteemed or carelessly neglected. The glorious work which these societies have done in the past is only a preface to the grander work which they can do in the future.

Now these societies are providentially on our hands. God has put the present generation of Baptists in charge of them. Our relation to them is somewhat like that of parents to their children. We are responsible for their care so long as they exist. If parents neglect their own children, they can hardly expect them to be fed and clothed and educated by their neighbors. If we fail to support our missionary societies, they will not be supported by Methodists or Presbyterians or Episcopalians. They are on our hands, and our action will determine their future success or failure. This responsibility rests on all Baptists alike. It does not meet it for one to say: "Oh yes, our societies are all right. I believe in supporting them, but this special object appeals more strongly to me; other people will take care of the missionary societies." That is dangerous reasoning. I know of no better rule for the government of the Christian in his relation to

others than this: What will become of that interest for which I am responsible with others if all should do as I do? What would become of the church? What would become of the prayer meeting? What would become of the Sunday School if all should follow my course? It is a test question to determine whether I am destroying or upbuilding. Now suppose all Baptists should claim the right to scatter their missionary offerings where they please? That would mean the practical destruction of our societies. Personal liberty is a great thing, but the recognition of personal responsibility is a greater. It is nonsense to say that if these societies are doing the Lord's work, he will provide them with the necessary means. It would be just as sensible for parents to neglect their children with the expectation that God will work a miracle to feed them. He has placed these societies in our hands and made us responsible for their support. a rule, God appoints people who pray his agents to answer their own prayers.

As

The question recurs, What shall we do with our missionary societies? Shall we leave them to perish? Their splendid history, their present successes and their grand opportunities forbid such neglect. For example, if we should allow our Missionary Union to go down, the whole Christian world would denounce it as an unpardonable crime and a lasting disgrace to the Baptist denomination. But who are to sustain these societies? All Baptists in the churches which they represent. It is freely admitted that they are our agents, our servants, and if they were not doing our work well we could reform them or discharge them, and form new societies for the same purposes; but that does not change the principle that we are bound to sustain our own. The fact is our societies are doing our work well, and we have no reason for abandoning them and scattering our offer

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ings upon all sorts of miscellaneous objects. This is not a question of preference. The call is one for faithfulness to a sacred trust. It comes from the voice of the imperative "ought." We must hear and heed that call or we shall weaken the springs of moral action. The only way to build up moral character, and to extend the kingdom of God, and to crown Jesus king of our lives is to be faithful to our obligations and to do the best that we know. these societies we have a sacred trust; the great question for us is, Are we trustworthy?

In

My third reason for believing that our gifts should go mainly to our own societies is that:

III. BAPTIST PRINCIPLES ARE IMPOR

TANT

and should be promulgated.

1. Two forms of Christianity have been in the world ever since Judaism and heathenism were mingled with the doctrines and practices of the early churches. These two forms differ so radically in their nature that both cannot be true. One must be false and spurious, and therefore calculated to hinder the salvation of souls and the extension of the kingdom. One teaches that the Christian religion is a matter of forms and ceremonies; that there is a kind of sacred magic in certain consecrated things by virtue of which they can impart life and holiness; that the church can give such power to baptism and the Lord's Supper and other rites, that the observance of them will make one a Christian and acceptable to God.

The other view is that one becomes a Christian through a work of God in the soul; that one fruit of that work is personal faith in a personal Savior who may be personally known; and that the new life is led by daily submission to his will, and is sustained by daily appropriation of his nature and power. Baptists stand for the