n 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.

How much would the judgment of the Christian World be modified with
regard to the Leadings of Providence, if the eye had always the glory
of God as the single object on which it rested! If that glory were
our only aim, we should be all led to press forward, in the path to
affluence and honours, with a more fluttering step and chastened
energy. How slowly would a servant of Christ, who profitably labours
among many thousand souls with a bare subsistence, be led to
interpret the possibility of obtaining a more abundant provision (if
with a less extensive sphere of usefulness) into a leading of
providence which encourages and demands his removal. He might, on the
other hand, be led sometimes even to suspect the possibility of its
being only a temptation of Satan, laid in his way, with a view of
limiting the held of his usefulness. That malicious and powerful
Spirit doubtless now tempts the servant, as he once did his Lord, by
saying,--"All this power will I give thee and this glory: for that is
delivered unto me: and to whomsoever I will, I give it. If thou,
therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine" (Luke 4. 6). We
should never forget that this power of Satan over the world and the
things of the world, is acknowledged by our Saviour himself, when he
calls him "the prince of this world" (John 14. 30). With the
solicitations of this "Prince of Darkness" coming, as he often does,
in the form of "an angel of light" there concur affections of our
nature, called tender and amiable. The whole heart is misled; the
judgment is biassed; and the understanding darkened. He, on the
contrary, who considers and uses an increase of means only as a
sacred deposit, committed to him for the extension of Christ's
Kingdom, and not for individual aggrandizement, is liable to no such
deception with respect to the Leadings of Providence. He has no
personal interest in the pecuniary advantages attendant on any
situation; and his only question is--whether it be one in which he
may best serve and glorify his Master. When his heavenly Father sends
him prosperi