country is largely what the Church under God will make it. Let the minister, the missionary, magnify his office. Let no man take his crown. In this utilitarian day some man may say that the minister is producing nothing tangible, and therefore has no place in our social system. But if under the blessing of the Spirit he produces character he is making the most tremendous contribution to the country's welfare and influence. John Knox never made a plough or built a railway, but by the grace of God he made a nation, and that nation has done its good share in the making of a better world. So may it be with every missionary in Canada.

CHAPTER XI.

MISSIONARY SUPPORT.

IF missions and missionaries are to do their work aright, they must be adequately supported. If they make a country safe to live in and do business in, then even the business world, on that ground, ought to support them. But the obligation resting on all professing Christians to support mission work is infinitely greater than that merely utilitarian view indicates. Christians are not their own; they are bought with a price, even the precious blood of Christ. They own what they have in a sense as against men, but they own nothing as against God. God owns them and all they have if they are Christians. Christians are not really owners; they are stewards and trustees of what they possess, and as such it is their bounden duty to expend it in the way that, in their enlightened and prayerful judgment, will conduce most to the glory of God and the extension of His Kingdom. They are entitled to what is necessary for themselves and their families, that they may have enough to enable them to do their work in

reasonable comfort and efficiency, but they are not to go beyond that into the extravagances of self-indulgence. It is not what people give, but what they keep for themselves, which decides whether they are really giving in the Scriptural sense or not; all true giving involves sacrifice, as Christ's giving Himself for our sakes did. He has left us an example that we should follow in His steps.

There can be no safer and saner expenditure than that of money given to missionary causes at home and abroad through the regular channels of the Church. No money in any business enterprise is so carefully and inexpensively administered.

Missionaries are not air-plants. They require some solid sustenance for their bodies like other human beings. And they have more. appeals made to them constantly than others have to hear. They must practise hospitality. In many of our frontier fields the minister's house is the only place which is supposed to be open all the year round to counteract the yawning door of the saloon and the other resorts of evil. And the contest is very unequal, because the minister has scarcely enough for himself and his household. It is no shame to him that he is poor even in a land of plenty. He has given up for the ministry all the worldly ways

to wealth. He has not entangled himself with the affairs of this world, because he is a soldier on active service for the King. And as the country maintains the soldier for its defence, so ought the missionary, who is its higher defence, to be maintained. Elijah was the real chariotry of Israel and the horsemen thereof, and many a humble missionary may be worth more to a nation than an army. Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh in vain. No number of hired watchmen could have kept Sodom and Gomorrah alive, but a few righteous men would have seen it spared for their sake. Give the missionary, who is your executive hand for carrying out the commission of Christ, a chance to live and work. And support the colleges that are training men for the fields.

Our Church Budget is growing. So is our country. And so is our country's revenue. The trade expansion of Canada in the last ten years has been so enormous that we are forced to think in terms of tens of millions to keep up acquaintance with its dimensions. Our Church Budget is a mere bagatelle compared to what we spend for peanuts and chewing gum annually, and compared with what we spend for liquor it sinks into utter insignificance. We say with the Psalmist, "The earth is the Lord's, and the ful

ness thereof," but His ownership is not duly recognized.

Let us do our share, however small or large, for Him whose are the silver and the gold and the cattle on a thousand hills. And let us give directly, systematically and cheerfully. The Lord, who stands over against the treasury, seeing what men give and knowing what they keep, will multiply our offerings in the splendor of the arithmetic of Heaven. He will astonish us with the tremendous work they will accomplish and the joy that will roll back upon us. surely is the word of God to a rich people in a goodly land," Make to yourselves friends with the mammon of unrighteousness, so that when it fails they may receive you into everlasting habitations."

This

Paul, who had sacrificed everything for Christ and counted it a privilege and a joy, illumines the whole subject of giving over and over again in the light of the Cross. And lest any one might fail to understand he uses many figures to illustrate his meaning. In that fine chapter, 2 Cor. ix., he says in the sixth verse," He that soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly, and he that soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully." A man cannot expect much harvest if he scatters a bushel of wheat over ten acres of land. Nor can any