Note 12 — CHRISTIAN DEVOTEDNESS, ETC.

As to laying up for children,[12] believing it to be contrary to the letter and spirit of the Gospel, and therefore to the best interests of the children themselves, I have no hesitation in saying that, on these grounds, I am persuaded it ought to be relinquished--as much so, as spending our means on the selfish indulgence of our own inclinations. The reason indeed of the commands, exhortations, and encouragements to abstain from all such provision, appears as obvious, from every day's experience, as that of any single command in the Scripture; so that it manifestly would be the happiness of a child of God to pursue the conduct thus enjoined by his Lord, even if revelation was far less explicit on the subject, than it clearly and undeniably is. A "single eye" can alone secure our fidelity in the discharge of a stewardship so peculiarly trying as that with which the wealthy[13] among us are entrusted. The circumstances of such a stewardship have a remarkable power in directing and drawing our affections toward improper objects; in fixing them upon others in an inordinate degree; in leading us to misapprehend the nature of true happiness, and to estimate things by a standard entirely at variance with the plainest, and most frequently reiterated declarations of the Gospel. If, therefore, under such circumstances, personal conveniences and indulgences, the elevation of self in the world, under the thousand alluring masks which Satan provides for those who wish to wear them, as means, he tells them, of influence, be allowed any weight in the argument, we may easily determine the judgment which will go forth; you will see every man looking on his own things, not on the things of others. Nay, is not this now the aspect, even of the professing Church of Christ? Should any one rise, and say, However this may be with others, it does not apply to me. I give a guinea to this, and a guinea to that, and a guinea to another; I might say, Yes, and as many hundreds, it may be thousands to Self, whose desires were to be mortified and solicitations curtailed.