If possible, let us make our lay parochial friends our secretaries, and above all our treasurers. But if it must be otherwise, and often it must be, let us take heed, at any cost of pains. To do so may be overruled to win a positive influence for the Clergyman. I well remember a dear friend of mine telling me, with loyal pleasure, of his holy and devoted Vicar's care in this direction, and its power over the keen-sighted and not always friendly members of the school-committee in his great parish. Every item of the books was accurate; every halfpenny of receipts accounted for. Men could find no fault in that Clergyman save concerning the Law—and the Gospel—of his God.
INVESTMENT-CIRCULARS.
Perhaps I need only allude in passing to that crude sort of temptation put so freely before us Clergy, the circular advertisement of the mine which is to pay twenty per cent., or of the company just formed (I have such a circular in my possession, and keep it sacredly,) to promote the construction of a new projectile which shall make war more horrible than ever; one condition to the success of the Clergyman's investment being, of course, that war, thus made more horrible than ever, shall also be as frequent and continuous as possible. But the schemes announced in these circulars are very various in character; good, indifferent, and bad. Need I say that, as a very safe rule, they must all be viewed as bad from the point of view of the young Clergyman's (or indeed of the Clergyman's) purse? It is a truism to remark that high interest means low security; but even a truism can bear occasional repetition when it has to do with a good man's whole life and work, and when the oblivion may mean acute or chronic misery. Such investments are for us a form of gambling, almost as much so as the shameless circulars which we sometimes receive from foreign cities, announcing the possibility of clearing a fortune at one stroke by a turn of the lottery machine. Does the sending of such missives to the English Clergy mean that English Clergymen sometimes answer them? If so, I say that it is strictly impossible that the man who so answers, whether he loses or wins, can also be walking with God, and so working that the Lord works with him. So far as such acts go, he is acting an awfully untrue part, and his Master knows it. Let us take heed unto ourselves.
OTHER MONEY-PERILS.
In conclusion, I turn another way. The whole question of the increase and investment of money is a very solemn and searching one for the Christian, clerical or lay. There are holy men who say that we ought in no degree to "lay up." While I reverence their meaning, I do not agree with them. Yet I do most deeply feel that their warnings raise a danger-signal in a direction opposite to that which we have been viewing, but equally important. Some of my younger Brethren have already a private competency; others may be expecting one.
*"WHEN RICHES INCREASE."
To others, gifted in one way or another for marked acceptance in the Church, posts are, or will be, offered which even in these days bring a good income, perhaps a growing one. Take heed unto thyself. It is with deep significance that the Word of God bids us not set our heart upon riches when they increase [Ps. lxii. 10.]. It is often observed, I fear, that a man's readiness to give diminishes in proportion to his power for giving. There is a subtle fascination for many minds, and among them for minds generous at first, in an access of possessions; the thirst for more sets in, however imperceptibly, and perhaps the Christian, perhaps the Pastor, has become—before he knows it—covetous; caring a good deal for money. Let us take heed unto ourselves.[13]
[13] I cannot help relating a pathetically amusing remark I once heard in a Dorsetshire cottage. I had looked in on the good housewife in the course of a long walk, and she was telling me about the needs and straits of a recent time of illness. The aged Vicar of the large and thinly-peopled parish was a well-to-do man, and not at all unkind in meaning and manner. But he never gave alms, or indeed material help of any kind. "Poor Mr——," said the cottager, with the kindliest naïveté, "he never do give away anything. There, I suppose it be his affliction."
"LAY NOT UP FOR YOURSELVES."
I am sure that the Gospel has no censure for modest comforts and for simple refinements. I am sure that it bids the Christian, whether Pastor or not, "provide," look beforehand, with a view to save needless anxiety and disadvantage both for himself and yet more "for them of his own house." [1 Tim. v. 8.] But I am equally sure that it commands us even more emphatically not to lay up treasure upon earth; not to make the sad mistake of thinking that the work of life is to get. Rather may ours be the spirit of a noble-hearted friend of mine, now at rest for ever, early called away from heroic Missionary work. He had found himself rapidly getting richer in a successful school-enterprize; and recognized in this a summons to give it up, and volunteer for the foreign field.