ess becomes, the more essential is precision in its management.
This is a universal maxim. Now, as beneficence, in its comprehensive
import, rises superior to all other employments, so, if it ever reaches
its highest possible results, it must be carried on systematically. How
often does benevolence to the poor fail of accomplishing all that it
otherwise might, were it not exerted irregularly; whereas, when
proceeding in equable flow, by encouraging frugality and economy, it
fills even the dwellings of poverty with comfort. How much more
efficient would our great benevolent societies become, were the
contributions of the churches uniform, or uniformly rising like the
waters from the sanctuary in Ezekiel's vision; so that those who conduct
them might have sufficient data on which to erect their schemes for the
future. It would infuse new life into all their operations; elevate
them to a loftier position, from which they might stretch their arms
around the world, and kindle joys reaching to heaven. Besides, is it
not matter of personal experience, that when order enters into, and
pervades our worldly business, we accomplish far more than when it is
left to the driftings of fortune, or to the mere suggestions of the
mind? And can any reason be assigned why the same practice should not
be equally productive in carrying out the noblest work of our being?

Thus personal experience in other matters observation, and theory, alike
teach us that the work of benevolence may not be left to the impulses of
natural feeling--to the influence of lectures and appeals, or casual
stimulants. It must be planted in principle, and issue in regular
contributions, like the tree of life yielding her fruit every month, if
we would have the blessing of many ready to perish come upon us. Those
who depend on intermittent springs are liable to suffer thirst.

IV. _From the deep-seated depravity of the human heart_. Depravity is
supreme selfishness. This, in unregenerate men, is the governing
principle. Quick-sighted, ever on the alert, and lying, as it does, at
the foundation of the active powers, it becomes the propeller of the
mind. It leads to a series, and thus substantially to a system, of
actions. They may not always be rational; yet, as they spring from a
fixed principle, and proceed in an uninterrupted current, they may
properly be termed systematic. Hence the natural man feels a constant
pressure of motives to conduct pleasing