not. I will therefore
merely make one or two inquiries.

Is not the practice in many cases an _unwise investment_ of God's funds?
Is there not a reasonable prospect that one dollar used now, in doing
good, will turn to more account than twenty dollars ten years hence? A
Bible given now may be the means of a soul's conversion; and this
convert may be instrumental in converting other souls, and may
consecrate all his powers and property to God; so that when years shall
have passed away, the one dollar given to buy the Bible may have become
hundreds of dollars, and, with God's blessing, saved many precious
souls. One pious young man trained for the ministry _now_, may be
instrumental, before ten years shall expire, in bringing into the Lord's
kingdom many immortal souls, with all their wealth and influence; and so
the small sum expended now, become ten years hence entirely inestimable.
The same may be said of a minister sent now to the heathen, instead of
ten years hence; and the same, too, may be said of every department of
doing good. It would appear then, that, in all ordinary cases, to make
an immediate use of funds in doing good is to lay them out to the
greatest possible interest; that by such a course we can be the means of
peopling heaven faster than in any other way. We can hardly appreciate
how much we save by saving _time_, and how much we lose by losing it.
Worldly men, in their railroad and steam-packet spirit of the present
day, seem to have caught some just sense of the importance of time, and
we, in our enterprises to do good, must not be unmindful of it.

Again, is not the expenditure of property in the work of doing good, not
only the most advantageous, but also the _safest_ possible investment of
God's funds? Whilst kept in capital, it is always exposed to greater or
less risk. Fire may consume it. Floods may sweep it away. Dishonest men
may purloin it. A gale at sea may bury it. A reverse of times may ingulf
it. But when used in doing good, it is sent up to the safe-keeping of
the bank of God; it is commuted into the precious currency of heaven; it
is exchanged for souls made happy, and harps and crowns of gold.

Again, A. keeps a large property in capital, and therefore B. resolves
to _accumulate_ a large property, and then give the income. But whilst
accumulating it, he not only leaves the world to perish, but also runs
the risk of ruining his own soul--the awful hazard which always attends
the pro