eemed us for himself, we ought at
once to acknowledge his claim and devote ourselves to his service. This
self-surrender is the true foundation of all giving to the Lord. Any
system of beneficence not built on this must crumble. Giving one's
self is an earnest and pledge that everything else will be given; on
the contrary, while self is withheld, there is no warrant that our
possessions will be yielded, much less that God will accept the offering.
But self being surrendered, all is virtually conveyed over to the Lord
and sealed forever his.

2. That all right feeling is feeling as God does in the same
circumstances, and in respect to the same objects. There must be a holy
sympathy of soul with him,--a oneness of affection, of desire, of will,
of purpose. We must feel concerning ourselves as God does, who desires
to see our hearts burning with the same hallowed love that fills his
own. We must feel concerning sinners as the Father does, "who so loved
the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth
in him should not perish, but have everlasting life;"--as the Son, who
exchanged the abodes of peace for the abasement of flesh and the agonies
of the cross;--as the Holy Ghost, who is willing to dwell in our
polluted hearts, consuming the dross with his own vital energies. We
must imitate the angels, who, sympathizing with the Triune Jehovah,
strike their lyres with new and more rapturous hallelujahs at the
repentance of the returning sinner. No other feelings in kind or
strength, in proportion to our capacities, are right feelings. The
sacrifices of Christ were, indeed, stupendous; but we must be willing to
make as disinterested sacrifices for a perishing world; else we are not
in sympathy with our crucified Lord. Let us often visit the scenes of
his sufferings, hear the groans of Gethsemane, and witness the blood and
agony of the cross, and there learn what it means to have the same mind
"which was also in Christ Jesus." Let us make this love the great
standard of feeling and action, and cultivate the habit of trying
ourselves by this, and this alone; inquiring daily, "Oh, am I benevolent
as Christ?" "Do I sympathize with him over a ruined world?"

3. That God created us to occupy a position near himself. As all our
springs are in him, communion with him was to be our life and joy. We
were to be full of God; to see him everywhere and in everything, and to
value nothing only as the work