Note 7 — CHRISTIAN DEVOTEDNESS, ETC.

Again, consider the important command, "Love thy neighbour as thyself" (Leviticus 19. 18). Can we, with any truth, be said to love that neighbour as ourselves, whom we suffer to starve, whilst we have enough and to spare? May I not appeal to any, who have experienced the Joy of knowing the unspeakable gift of God, and ask--Would you exchange this knowledge, with all the comforts and blessings it has been the means of imparting, for a hundred worlds, were they offered? Let us not then withhold the means by which others may obtain this sanctifying knowledge and heavenly consolation. Is it a profitable employment of our wealth, to raise it as a bulwark against those difficulties, which, if they meet even the children's children of the servants of God, are sent as especial proofs of their Father's love--for what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not?--and are designed to work out for them a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory? Are not these very difficulties, dangers, and afflictions, against which we so anxiously desire to provide, the very marks by which Jesus Christ himself, his Apostles and Prophets, and all the chosen servants of God, have ever been distinguished, and the means by which they have been perfected.[7] Can then our wealth be so beneficially employed, either with reference to our own advantage or that of others, in removing from our Christian course these means of advancement, and characteristics of our profession, as in helping on the Kingdom of Christ with all that energy which a single eye can impart to the most limited powers, when directed and sustained by the Spirit of God?