PROFIT AND LOSS.

relations subsisting between man and God are, to a certain extent, and in a certain sense, commercial relations. We instinctively revolt from the idea of a profit-and-loss account between the creature and the Creator; but this, after all, is what religion comes to; or rather, perhaps, we ought to say, this is the notion out of which personal religion springs. Our first advances towards God are advances towards the MERCY-SEAT, advances made in consequence of an appeal to our fears of the results of sin. We go, impelled by fear, to crave pardon, mercy, safety; pardon from guilt that brings us into danger, mercy to overshadow us in the hour of weakness, and safety from the pursuit and the assault of an awakened justice. The higher, purer, nobler motives are not awakened in a first advance, or in the incipient stages of our Christian course. Gratitude, confidence, obedience, love, these are the after blossoms and fruits of an habitual acquaintance with God. It is not till we feel the weight of His forgiving grace, and "see Him as He is," in the face of Jesus Christ, that we cease to tremble, and come boldly ઃઃ even to His seat." At first we come to God, because we believe that we shall profit by it, that we gain an advantage by doing so, and that we should be the losers by keeping aloof from Him. And this feeling continues, intermixed with other and diviner motives, all through the Christian race. The closer our intercourse becomes with Christ, the more deeply do we estimate the incalculable loss of those who do not know Him. And just as the merchant only finds the greed of gain inflamed the more, the greater the profits he acquires, so does the Christian, the more he sees, and knows, and feels of Christ, long the more deeply for a yet closer and profounder knowledge of Him. And this commercial aspect of our relationships with God has been

In

very plainly recognised by the Divine Being Himself. Look at the entire system of offerings and sacrifices, of fasts and feasts, of alternate humiliations and festivities, which were practised and enjoined under the typical ritual of Old Testament times. One offering set over against a certain class of transgressions, and a regular routine of outward services appointed, in order to preserve intact and uninterrupted the intercourse between God and man. The leper who was to be cleansed of his leprosy had to fulfil certain outward conditions, in order to his purification. The manna from heaven was only to be vouchsafed after the people had yielded compliance with the stipulation of Jehovah, that it should be gathered in before the rising of the sun. the New Testament, too, the inspired writers take pointed cognisance of this idea of commercial relationship. Our Saviour Himself frequently employs it in His parables, and His more direct instructions. Instances of this will at once occur to all without our pausing to remind you of the parable of the talents, of the foolish man who laid up treasure to himself and was not rich towards God, and of the labourers upon the vineyard who complained of the apportionment of their awards. In His own account of the final judgment He represents this idea of reward for service rendered-" thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." And in another place He very pointedly appeals to the commercial tendencies of man's disposition"What is a man profited, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"

If such an appeal as this was likely to strike any responsive chord in the hearts of men in those days, it is surely equally, if not more, adapted to appeal forcibly to them now. If there ever was an age in the history of mankind, in which one ruling passion was more universally and completely dominant than another, it is this-when the energies of the collective community are all concentred on one golden focus, when men are tripping each other up by force or fraud in the breathless and unceasing race for gain-and when the one grand Juggernaut, before whose rolling car the high and low with one consent bow down, is the golden calf of riches, What will not men do for money? For

money, the coward conspirator, who is too craven to carry out his own designing plots, can suborn the lying witness to perjure himself before God and man, and swear a lie upon the Gospel of eternal truth; or can bribe the hireling assassin to do the secret deed of blood, to satiate his foul revenge. For money, men in trust, and holding confidential posts, will cook and garble their accounts; and having scraped into their net the life-long earnings of the honest and industrious, will vanish to another scene, and leave the victims of their heartless plunder ruined and undone. For money, men will quit their native shores, and bid farewell to all the ties of home and kindred, and labour in a distant uncongenial soil for years. For money, men will plough the sea and brave the perils of the storm. There is no danger that they will not risk for money; there is no trick too cunning or too base to play for money; there is no labour too intense, or task too hard to try for money. And what will money do for us when gained? It will surround us with the comforts of this world; it will put into our hands the means of spreading those comforts wider, where the unfortunate stand in need of them. But this is not what men desire it for. They seek it as an instrument for their own selfish aggrandisement. They chase it as a fairy in whose bowers it is pleasant to repose. They seek it as a sort of food for their ambition, and a pavement for the steps by which they are to climb to posts of honour and distinction in the world. They seek it, in short, because they believe that they shall be profited by its acquirement. What do men mean by the word profit? Do not they invariably mean money? They enter on an undertaking because they hope it will be profitable; that is, because they hope it will put money in their purse. They buy because they believe that they can sell for more, and thereby realise money. Money is the "be all and the end all" in the world; and the one thing needful after which we run is profit. But we cannot transfer our cash accounts into another world. The only bank with which we shall have any concern will be the small green bank on which the grass shall wave, on which the wintry snows shall fall, and from which the sportive lambs shall crop the clover in the early spring; the bank that marks the spot where all our dust is laid

And that bank, too, shall be broken, and the firm dissolved, when the voice of the Eternal and the trump of God shall call for the casting up of our last account, and sound the note, 66 come forth!" It will not matter, then, whether we told our earthly gains by thousands or by tens. It will avail but little when the fingers stiffen and the hand is cold whether those fingers counted hundreds in a day, or whether that hand was stretched out to take the mite which charity extended at the door. 'Twill be of small avail that we were vested and bedecked in purple and fine linen, when the clammy shroud shall wrap our pale decaying clay, and the fat worm shall drop from beauty's countenance, cloyed with the rich cadaverous meal. Nay, feed on it as thou wilt, O worldling! batten in its sunshine and revel in its luxuries, thy wealth, with all its pleasures, still must fade away; the idols which thou shrinest in thy heart, and before which thou bowest down, shall crumble into dust; decay is written on the brow of all thy gods, and the joys thou chasest flee away, and "leave not a wreck behind." Yes, all that we see of what is charming and alluring in this fair world of ours shall moulder down to ashes under the hand of time; the stateliest monuments of wealth and fame shall not survive the general fires, when the elements shall melt with fervent heat. But although the mountains be dissolved, and the charred rocks that breasted the beating of the raging storm for many a changing century of time shall melt away; although the faces that now smile upon each other, and the hands that lock in friendship, and the eyes that look in love, shall all vanish and decay for ever, yet, amidst the general universal wreck and chaos of created things, there is still one invisible element in the keeping of us all that shall survive, invisible, yet palpable, an element that we see not, but which we all can feel stirring within the tabernacle of our mortal body, like a restless bird within its cage, bounding with changing aspirations-now high, and pure, and holy, near the presence of the Deity; now base, and low, and grovelling in the charnel-house of earth-an element whose full-fledged wings shall spread in the sunlight of that great day, and either soar right to the fountain-head of all the streaming light in yonder world of joy, or down to the cimmerian caves of

darkness in the nether gloom; an element deathless and immortal as the God who breathed it forth, and leaping phoenixlike from the ashes of corruption and decay, with its eternal sense quick to discern the sounds of welcome or repulse, and descry the signs of favour or disdain. Yes,

"Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

Was not spoken of the soul."

But IT WAS spoken of all things else. It was spoken of the gold we worship, of the fame we court, and of the pleasures we pursue. It was spoken of all our cherished good, and of the spectral phantoms that we chase so eagerly. It was spoken of those unstable altars upon which the incense of our carnal hearts so constantly ascends. It was spoken of everything that we remember; and the only thing of which it was not spoken, is the one important thing we constantly forget. O, let us, in our mortal chase after the things which are seen and temporal, bestow sometimes a passing thought on that subtle and immortal essence that shall throb with life throughout eternity; for "what shall we be profited, if we gain the whole world and lose our own souls? or what shall we give in exchange for our souls?"

We like to forget our immortality, and confine the circle of our thoughts and hopes within the range of visible and earthly things. We are aided in this by the natural bias of our hearts, as well as by the outward pressure of the world, the flesh, and the devil; and hence it is that we so successfully shut out from ourselves our nobler destinies beyond the grave, and centre our affections and our aims on the things that are below. But why -to press home the question to one another as men who profess to have an eye to ultimate profit-why should we make so ruinous a bargain as to take the fading joys of earth in lieu of the undying happiness of Heaven? For this is what it comes to after all; we are making an exchange for our souls if we suffer ourselves to forget them in our anxiety to grasp the evanescent things of time. Many present know, far better than I can tell them, what it is to be troubled with the care and the anxiety of a doubtful transaction, or a hazardous venture in business. With what eagerness will the man who has embarked a heavy stake upon some slender contingency of events, hasten down to