instances of fraud practised every moment and everywhere, would fill volumes of description. These are the germs of all the rest; God is robbed of the heart, of the will, of the time, of the influence; in a word, of everything. And in these cases it is unqualified, unceasing robbery, disguised as it may be.

But there are also instances of it on a more limited scale within the church. There is a general and sincere surrender to Christ. But when it comes to particular instances of subordinating personal will, and feelings, and interests, to the will of Christ, and the interests of his kingdom, there is a drawback, a refusal to meet the employer's draft, and honor it by acceptance. The steward has so many private interests to promote, so many worldly interests of his family to promote, so much worldly business to occupy his time, that he can do very little for Christ, and must make his service and glory very subordinate objects.

If any one acquainted with the rights of property, and the principles of business among honorable men, will carry those principles into the church, and examine the state of the affairs of all these stewards of the most high God, he will find a vast laxness of principle, and still more of practice. The highest attainment of a large number is. to secure a comfortable degree of hope that they shall not fail of heaven in the end. The strong sense of responsibility seems to be wanting. Time, property, speech, influence over other minds, appear to be regarded as instruments of personal gratification, rather than property sacredly entrusted for infinitely higher ends than a momentary gratification, or the exaltation of ourselves and those connected with us. There is reason to fear that few bring themselves to a strict account, reviewing at suitable intervals their course of action, their motives and principles. We fear that few prepare their accounts for the great day of inspection, when the Lord shall return, and require his own with usury. We see some improvement in the use of money. But still there are other clear indications that a large part of the King's property is buried in napkins," or squandered in self-indulgence. There are heads, hearts, and hands in the church, as well as out of it, that seem not to belong to the Lord, but to the steward.

But we may go no farther in these specifications. There can be no question that the charge lies as justly against us as against the Jews three hundred years before the Christian era. But, if these principles be true, then

INFERENCES.

1. There is much occasion for this day and its peculiar services.

Many see no occasion for fasting and humiliation, at any time. Some think it out of season now, in a season of great prosperity. But they misapprehend the design of this exercise, supposing it to

have reference to sufferings, and not to sins; to be designed for times of distress, and not for times of wickedness; for getting rid of trouble, and not for forsaking rebellion. Perhaps the times of great outward prosperity are more suitable even than times of affliction, for such services and exercises as occupy us this day. God is patiently bearing with us, and richly blessing us; but we may be turning our mercies into judgments. We have abundant occasion to repent, all of us, in view of our great dishonesty and dishonorable treatment of God. And we had better fast and humble ourselves, and plead for mercy, before the day of darkness and terror is brought upon us. No nation, at this day, is more favored of God than this. No people are under so great obligations to serve and glorify him. But though we make our nest in Carmel, his hand can find us out, We, favored as we now are, may come under the curse. Nations do come under it, even in this day. No more striking proof of it need be given, than is found in the condition of the Jews for eighteen centuries. They seem to exist in their indestructible distinctness, just to show an example of a nation punished for disobedience to God. But a greater evil than all is the withdrawment of God's Holy Spirit. This may be our curse. And can we bear it? What is the life of our souls? Is it the sunshine of worldly prosperity and human favor? Is it the increase of corn and wine? Is it health and success? Is it the vast progress of science, and the wonderful advance of human society in intelligence and comfort? None of all these. It is the indwelling of God's Holy Spirit. We want it for ourselves, supremely want it. What progress we may make in the divine life, by his gracious aid; how certainly we shall falter and fail, if he in anger leaves us! What a public and social blessing lies yet enfolded in the hand of that blessed Being! He has light for benighted souls; clear vision for the doubting; relief for the tempted; power for the weak; pardon and peace for the penitent; yea, penitence for the impenitent; aid for the praying; salvation for the soul. Our robberies have provoked God to withdraw that Spirit to some extent from us. And he may go still farther. We have then abundant occasion for observing this day; and to make it a day of the deepest humiliation, and penitence, and prayer. For God has said, he will return and bless us. Our work to-day is repentance; a solemn review of our dishonest and dishonorable treatment of God; an earnest purpose of being in all future time more faithful to our trust. Let each one take up this indictment before the bar of his own conscience, and there suffer the King's witnesses to testify, as in his presence. Let each ask himself what has been entrusted to him; what instructions the Lord has given as to the employment of it; and whether he has so employed it; and how all this will appear when the case is tried in open court, at the great assizes of the universe-the great day of oyer and terminer, hearing and settling the matter forever. But, at the same time, it

Shall it be

must not be forgotten, that day has not yet come. The trial is now at the private bar of conscience. Remember the design of that trial. If God can cast you there, then mercy triumphs. It seems to many a formidable process, which is to terminate in their destruction, if the charge of robbing God is sustained. No; it is a prosecution instigated at the suggestion of our Redeemer; to be tried at this tribunal, that we may there be brought to self-condemnation. If he succeed, and can bring us to cast ourselves on the mercy of God, we may be pardoned and saved. What is then your plea in view of the evidence your Judge-Advocate has brought? Is your plea, "Not guilty?" Wherein have we robbed God?" If you persevere in that, there is but one course left for him. He will transfer the cause to the King's Bench. Before that august tribunal you will be put upon your defence for your life. And "who may abide the day of his coming!" Shall it be a contest of force? Man is weak, and God is strong. a contest of argument? God is wise, and man is a fool in his wisdom. Shall it be an appeal to right and the public conscience? God is just, and who can contend with him and prosper? Now, a door of hope is open. Then, only that of destruction will be seen by each guilty wretch that has dared to meet the issues of that trial on the merits of the case. Let each one then plead "Guilty." We cannot contest the principle with God. His ownership is a fact incontestable, a right inalienable, a jewel of his crown with which he will not part. The agreement of robbers to think their nefarious course a justifiable, a respectable, and honorable mode of promoting their own interests, does not make it such. None of us can offer an apology for our defaulting, even as plausible as that of these Jews. There is not the semblance of a reason why we should not personally and thoroughly consecrate ourselves to the service of God; why we should not daily be bringing him the tribute of obedience, of praise, of service; why we should not actively and efficiently be engaged in building up the kingdom of Christ in the world. To say that it did not belong to us to do it, is to vindicate the principle of covering a fraud by denying the obligation to do with an employer's property that for which he entrusted us with it. Let us rather plead "guilty." There is then a personal necessity for this day, as well as a public necessity; a need of it for men in the church, and men out of the church. It should be a season of earnest heart-searching inquiry into our condition and prospects as individuals; a time of personal humiliation, confession to God, and sincere repentance.

2. We see too, if there be such a general ground for this charge, that each one has a personal interest in the moral and religious condition of the community and the nation.

There are personal considerations, as well as more exalted and disinterested motives, for our considering the public guilt of robbing God as a personal burden to our consciences.

We have participated in the general guilt. Our example as unfaithful stewards, as purloiners of the King's revenue, has had its influence. We are a part of a community of robbers-not robbers of men, but infinitely worse!-of God. By our selfish appropriation of time, property and influence, others have been emboldened. We have encouraged the young to sacrifice the precious fragrance of their youthful affection at the shrines of fashion and of folly. It seems to us a horrid spectacle, to witness a heathen or a Catholic mother carrying her little child to mutter a Latin charm before a wooden statue. But has there been no such desecration among us? Has not our example taught them to give their best time and their best affections to the world, whose "friendship," God has declared to be "enmity with" him! Just so far as we have been carrying out the selfish principle of appropriating God's property to our own uses, we have been encouraging others to do the same. No one can tell what a restraining influence his example would have exerted, had he been faithful to God and to his own sacred trust. Our spirit has silently spread itself like leaven, affecting other minds, where we have not suspected it. We have withheld from the world a mighty restraining influence of prayer; which withholding has contributed to increase the general wickedness. been thoughtless, when we should have been mourning over the prevalent dishonesty. And this day the community in which we live, the nation of which we form a part, is just so much the more guilty for our having done wrong, and neglected our duty.

We have

And moreover it meets us personally at another point. We shall share in the judgments which God may send upon the guilty community. The day of national retribution has not ceased with the Jewish polity. It is showing itself in the reeling and staggering of those communities into whose hands God is now putting the cup of his indignation. Our turn may soon come. There are more instruments of punishment reserved for the ungodly. Neither the deluge, nor the fiery storm on Sodom have exhausted them. Babylon and Tyre, Jerusalem and Laodicea, may not stand alone in their terrible history. Men seem to think that, because civilization and art are advanced to such high degrees of perfection and power, we are getting out of God's reach. He used to shoot with a bow and arrow. But we are now arrow-proof, and can laugh, like Leviathan, "at the shaking of a spear." Hear the language of a modern lecturer: "Pain is the unhappy lot of animal vitality. It has borne down the strongest intellect and sapped and withered the affections. The metaphysician finds in it the secret springs of one half of human action; the moralist proclaims it as the impending retribution of terrestrial sin; the strongest figure of the Bible condemns man to eternal flames; and yet this dreaded misery, the worst of evils,' now lies prostrate at the feet of science." Would you have conceived of it, that science has deprived God of the power of punishing sin! And what is the wonderful discovery? It is another

Babel. They were wonderful men that discovered masonry, and built a mighty tower, to keep the next deluge God might send, " prostrate at the feet of science," and the scientific builders. Now, it is chloroform. So that, in the language of the lecturer, "physical suffering is not the mundane retribution of transgression." The meaning of which is, we have gone so fast and so far, that those old instruments of God's justice cannot overtake us. I should not here have introduced the remarks of one man, if I had not regarded them as embodying the spirit of the age; as one of the symptoms of that pride which goeth before destruction, that haughtiness which precedes and procures a fall. God can punish in numberless ways-in our bodies, our families, our estates, our minds, our country. Oceans of chloroform cannot extinguish the pains of his dreadful judgments. And they who make such boasts, may have some fearful proofs of this in their own experience.

Zeal for God, and for our country too, urge us to look into this subject, and repent and confess for the church and the nation, as well as for ourselves. We need hardly turn our thoughts to the wrongs of the slave. We need scarcely think of the wandering, weeping, broken-hearted red man. We need not recall scenes enacted on Sunday morning in the closing of the session of our great national legislature. Our police records, the condition of our juvenile population, the robbery of holy time, a thousand signs infallibly indicate that we are provoking God at least to withdraw his blessings. But I think the most alarming of all symptoms is that which has been already mentioned-the diminished dread of God's anger. To save the world from moral ruin, he must break up that atheism. And if material suffering be needed, he will send it.

But why dwell on that? There is a still higher motive to repentance, personal and national. It is suggested in the context: "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in my house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." Can this nation rise to the height of believing that its glory is, to be faithful stewards of God's property? The doctrine of God's exclusive ownership is very unwelcome to selfishness. It would break up all worldliness, if fully believed. But it leaves a perfect and ample sphere for human ownership. It gives dignity and sacredness to that ownership. It takes away the danger and meanness of being rich; the temptation to an excessive desire of wealth. It constitutes the true value of time, talents, wealth, accomplishments, attainments and influence.

Could we contribute to produce this conviction in the public mind; to produce a change in men's estimate of themselves, their time, their possessions, their influence, their responsibility, what a blessed result would certainly follow. Until it does take place, God must have a controversy with men ; it cannot be otherwise. Hear it, ye