Page:The Parochial System (Wilberforce, 1838).djvu/92

 given, not to them, but to Himself. Let the love of Christ then constrain us to deny ourselves for the benefit of our brethren. "If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." Let us measure our charity by this rule, and then, by His grace, we shall never be weary in well doing. He who, for our salvation, came down from heaven to earth, from the throne of the universe to the cross and the sepulchre—He it is who now demands that we should give up something, to be fellow workers with Him in the salvation of our brethren. And can we hesitate;—when we see in the ignorant and thoughtless ones around us; in those who have never even been told how they ought to walk and to please God, and so cannot so much as desire or endeavour "to walk worthy of the Lord," "worthy of their high calling in Him;" when we see in them the purchase of Christ's blood, and when He calls us as we love Him, and as we remember His bitter cross and passion, which are our only hope against the great and dreadful day, to give up something for their sake—can we hesitate to obey the call?

Such is the great and overwhelming motive to Christian beneficence. It is summed up in the words of the beloved Apostle, "We love Him because He first loved us." And because we love Him, therefore we would not, if we could, make an offering to Him of that which