minated avaricious, he may yet be parsimonious. He may not be a Dead Sea, ever receiving, and never imparting; but yet he may be as unlike the Nile when, overflowing its banks, it leaves a rich deposit on the neighbouring lands. His domestic economy is a system of penuriousness, hateful to servants, visiters, and friends; from which every thing generous has fled; and in which even every thing necessary comes with the air of being begrudged, of existing only by sufferance. In his dealings with others, he seems to act under the impression that mankind have conspired to defraud him, and the consequence is that his conduct often amounts to a constructive fraud on mankind. is delighted at the idea of saving; and exults at the acquisition of a little pelf with a joy strikingly disproportionate to its worth. He looks on every thing given to charity, as so much lost, thrown away, and for which there will never be any return. If a benevolent appeal surprise him into an act of unusual liberality, he takes ample revenge by keen self-reproaches, and a determination to steel himself against all such assaults in future. Or else, in his relenting moments, and happier moods, he plumes himself, and looks as compla

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cently on himself for having bestowed a benevolent mite, as if he had performed an act of piety for which nothing less than heaven would be an adequate reward. His soul not only never expands to the warmth of benevolence, but contracts at the bare proposal, the most distant prospect, of sacrifice. His presence in any society met for a charitable purpose would be felt like the vicinity of an iceberg, freezing the atmosphere, and repressing the warm and flowing current of benevolence. The eloquent think it a triumph to have pleaded the cause of mercy before him unabashed; and the benevolent are satisfied if they can only bring away their sacred fire undamped from his presence. He scowls at every benevolent project as romantic, as suited to the meridian of Utopia, to a very different state of things from what is known in this world. He hears of the time when the church will make, and will be necessitated to make, far greater sacrifices than at present, with conscious uneasiness, or resolved incredulity. His life is an economy of petty avarice, constructed on the principle of parting with as little as possible, and getting as much,—a constant warfare against benevolence.

But a person may be free from the charge of parsimony, and yet open to the accusation of worldliness. His covetousness may not be so determined as to distinguish him from the multitude, but yet sufficiently marked to show that his treasure is not in heaven. He was born with the world in his heart, and nothing has yet expelled it. He may regularly receive the seed of the gospel, but the soil is pre-occupied; "the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and render it unfruitful." He will listen to an ordinary exposition of the vanity of wealth as a matter of course, and will appear to give it his entire assent; and yet, immediately after, he resumes his pursuit of that vanity with an avidity which seems increased by the temporary interruption. But let the exposition be more than usually vivid, let it aim at awakening his conviction of the dangers attending wealth, let it set forth the general preferableness of competence to affluence, and it will be found to be disturbing the settled order of his sentiments. A representation of the snares of wealth, is regarded by him as the empty declamation of a man who has been made splenetic by disappointments, or who has

been soured by losses; who has never known the sweets of wealth, or, having known, has lost them, and would gladly recover them again if he could. He never listens to such representations as-that unsanctified riches are only the means of purchasing disappointment; that the possessor suffers rather than enjoys them; that his wants multiply faster than his means-without an inward smile of scepticism, a conscious feeling of incredulity; a feeling which, if put into words, would express itself thus, "O, if I might be but made rich, I would make myself happy. Tell me not of dangers: cheerfully would I risk them all, only bless me with wealth." And his life is arranged, and spent, in strict accordance with this confession. In his vocabulary, wealth, means, happiness-the chief good. And in his reading of the holy Scripture, the declaration of our Lord is reversed, as if he had said-A man's life consisteth in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.

And this representation, be it observed, applies to the man whose ideas of wealth are limited to a few hundreds, as much as to him whose wishes aspire to hundreds of thousands. The poor man is apt to imagine that covetousness is a subject in

which he has no interest-that it is a sin peculiar to the rich. It is true, indeed, that he may not plan for riches, because he may not be able to plan much for any thing; calculation is out of his sphere; it requires too much thought for him. And it is true, also, that the prosperous are more liable to indulge cupidity than the poor; for if it cannot be said with confidence that poverty starves the propensity, it may certainly be affirmed that prosperity feeds it; often, awakening it at first from its dormant state, and turning every subsequent instance of gain into a meal to gratify its voracious appetite.

But there is no sphere so humble and contracted as to secure a man against its intrusion. Like a certain class of plants, it seems only to ask for room, though it should be on a rock, and for the common air, in order to thrive. The man who flatters himself that he has "retired from the world," may still be carrying this abridgement of the world's influences about with him in his heart. And, by artfully soliciting the poor man under the disguise of industry, of frugality, or of providing for his family, it may have yoked him as a captive to its car, though he may appear to be only keep