Chap. VII.] DUTY OF MUTUAL ASSISTANCE.

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permit me to cite but one. “ About forty years since,” saysthe present assistant Bishop of Virginia, “ there died in thiscountry, a pious man, who had spent his life in the instructionof youth, and thereby accumulated a handsome fortune. Havingno family, he left the greater part of his property, viz. fifteenthousand dollars, to one of our colleges, directing that the interestof the same should be used in the education of poor and piousyouths for the ministry of the Gospel. The will has been re-ligiously observed, and some years since it was stated, that, byits means, one hundred and fifty pious youths had been admittedinto the service of the sanctuary. And who shall estimate,”continues the author, “ the good which those preachers havedone, and shall do, the thousands and hundreds of thousands,they have been, or will be, the instruments of converting, thehundreds and thousands of other pious youths, whom they maybring into the service of God, and all the good they also maydo ; and who shall say how much of the happiness of this exaltedsaint may come from the knowledge of all this good, how re-joiced his angelic spirit may be in the society of those who havebeen converted under the ministry of his own raising, and whoare now among the redeemed above r ” *

SECTION IV.

ASSISTANCE IN THE WAY OF ALMSGIVING.

That it is a duty to relieve the suffering poor, can admit ofno question in the mind of a Christian. No duty is more fre-quently or more earnestly insisted on in the New Testamentthan almsgiving. “ Give alms of such things as ye have ; andbehold, all things are clean unto you.”f “ Charge them,” saysSt. Paul, “ that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God,who giveth us richly all things to enjoy ; that they do good,

* Rt. Rev. William Meade’s Sermon before the Convention of Virginia, 15thMay, 1828.t Matt. xi. 41,

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