not to be found, we must make restitution to their lawful heirs, executors, or kinsmen; and for want of such heirs, the right devolves upon GOD, as the Supreme LORD and Proprietor of all; and He under the law was pleased to give all such goods as were unjustly taken away, to the priest. "Let the trespass be recompensed unto the LORD, even unto the priest." And we are still bound under the Gospel to make restitution to the Church, which is authorized in GoD's Name, to receive His dues from our hands.

III. The next point to be treated is the method in which you are to proceed, in restoring to others what you have unjustly taken from them.

1st. If you have injured any man in his body, by beating or misusing him, the rule of your duty is, to make him satisfaction for the pain he endures, to recompense him for the time he loses in sickness, and to provide a sufficient maintenance for him till he shall recover his former strength, and be fit for his lawful employment.

2ndly. If you have injured any man in his reputation, by spreading abroad false reports or malicious stories, the rule is,-To recall what has been thus falsely reported, and beg pardon of the person who has been aspersed or injured. To confess yourself guilty of belying your neighbour, in propagating what was really false; or to accuse your tongue of rashness and indiscretion, for reporting what you had not sufficient grounds to believe was true. To take all possible care that the infamy and disgrace which you have thrown upon your neighbour be forgotten and buried. To seek for opportunities to do justice to his reputation, by speaking honourably of him on every occasion for the future. To give him a consideration in money for the damages he has received by the disgrace you have cast upon his reputation.

But, 3rdly. If you have injured any man in his goods or worldly concerns, by theft, rapine, knavery, or deceit, the rule is, to make him restitution in the same kind, if it lies in your power. To satisfy him for the time you have detained his goods, and to make reparation for the damages and inconveniences which he has sus

tained by the loss of them. "If a soul sin and commit a trespass against the LORD, and lie unto his neighbour, in that which was delivered to him to keep, or in fellowship, or in a thing taken away by violence, or hath deceived his neighbour, or hath found that which was lost, and lieth concerning it, or sweareth falsely; * * then it shall be, because he hath sinned, and is guilty, that he shall restore that which he took violently away, or the thing which he hath deceitfully gotten, or that which was delivered him to keep, or the lost thing which he found; he shall even restore it in the principal, and shall add the fifth part more thereto, and give it unto him to whom it appertaineth. * * Lev. vi. 2—5.

Archbishop Secker on this subject observes, "Injuries ought never to be done. When they are done, restitution, if it can, ought to be made immediately; and, till it is offered so far as our ability extends, we remain both debtors and sinners. If we defer it to the last, we may never make it at all; and though we do, whether GOD will then accept it, must be doubtful; but, if even then we refuse it, unless the cause be that we excusably mistake the nature of the cause, we preserve no ground for hope. It is unspeakably better, therefore, to think seriously at any time, than never, what wrongs, or what hardships, any of our fellow creatures have suffered from us and to what suitable compensation they are entitled, either in strict justice, or in equity and good conscience. The answer to this question may often be a very afflicting one; but if men will do amiss, they must take the consequences. It also must, in some cases, be difficult to fix upon the right answer, or to find proper methods of putting it in practice, if we know it: but we must not on account of difficulties lay aside the thought of doing our duty; but ask the best advice, where we are at a loss; leave directions to be executed by others, where we have not time ourselves; and at least make due acknowledgments, unless particular circumstances forbid, where we cannot make amends."

And not only are there rules to be observed in complying with the two first duties of charity, but also with the third, namely, almsgiving.

For first, you should remember, that in every instance of your charity to God's poor or His Church, you are but a steward dispensing those goods which have been committed to your management and control for a season. If this conviction has ever before forsaken you, be above all things determined to realize it to the fullest extent now. Your gifts may possibly be magnificent, but your feelings must be rather those of the servant than of the prince. You give in humility of heart and not with ostentation and display. You give as one anxious to make use of the power still left at your disposal to do good to your fellow creatures. You give in short that you may, while you may, "make friends of the unrighteous mammon." Moreover be on your guard. You pay no debt, you only show the desire you have to render any satisfaction that GOD ask of you. may You pay nothing, you only express the will and wish to pay; but, of course, the greater the sacrifice incurred the greater the desire to please GOD, and the greater, by consequence, the reward.

2ndly. Whatever the amount of the offering be, be persuaded to believe (for it surely is so) that your charities heretofore for the love of GOD, have been all too little, and that what you are doing now, might well have been done at an earlier period. Pray however, earnestly, that your offering may be accepted, coming as it does so late, and although rendered by its tardiness a more imperfect gift than otherwise it would have been.

may

But besides the alms bestowed by you in the season of health or in the period of sickness, you should most certainly, if capable of so doing, by the providence of GOD dispensing to your portion, property or possessions, so extend your charity at this season that men bless your name when you are gone, and that generations yet unborn may give GOD praise for your benefactions. If however any gift, or benefaction, can be made while you are living, see that it be made at once. "The dispensation of our alms should be as little entrusted to our executors as may be, excepting the lasting and successive portions: but with our own

present care let us exercise the charity and secure the stewardship." In short, let it be a matter of most serious consideration with you, to endeavour in every possible instance to be your own administrator. To part with our goods with our own hands is certainly, as the most self-denying and self-mortifying way of parting with them, so the most likely to benefit us spiritually; we secure the greater blessing from our friends who know the gift is made when we still have power to retain it in our own possession, and we moreover avoid the liability to misconstruction of our intentions or to mismanagement on the part of executors.

So important indeed is this duty of charity, and so safe a criterion does it afford of our state before GOD, that Bishop Taylor is led to recommend that "when we feel the weight of a sickness, and do not feel the refreshing visitations of God's loving kindness; when we have many things to trouble us, and looking round about us we see no comforter; then to call to mind what injuries you have forgiven, how you embraced peace when it was offered you, how you followed after peace when it ran from you; and when you are weary of one side then to turn upon the other, and remember the alms that by the grace of GoD and His assistances you have done: and look up to GOD and with the eye of faith behold Him coming in the cloud, and pronouncing the sentence of doomsday according to His mercies and thy charity."

And doubtless there must be a very high degree of comfort to the soul of the sick man in finding in himself those marks of his having spent a Christian course of life, which wanting, he would have sorrow unutterable, and great fear for his portion. Yet the humble penitent soul rests but a short time in such contemplations. It is but a passing glance with S. Paul at "the things which are behind." It is the making all sure; the ascertaining that the good fight has been fought, the "faith kept," and then a speedy recurrence to the habitual thoughts of one overwhelmed 1 Taylor's Holy Dying, chap. iv. sect. 9. 2 Heb. xii. 14; Rom. xiv. 19.

with a sense of a life of shortcomings and imperfections expressed in cries of utter self-abnegation.

Almsgiving, it would seem, is a duty of such great importance that even in the days of sickness and possible death, when all worldly goods are fast slipping away from our grasp, and when we give what we cannot well enjoy, the Church has not deemed it prudent to intermit her precepts to the exercise of it. And we may not doubt that it has some influence in procuring God's mercies, even in the day of visitation, since we are told to "make friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when we fail they may receive us into everlasting habitations." If we have been so happy as by diligent almsgiving during our days of health, to make ourselves friends thereby to receive us into eternal homes, our spirit of charity hath only need to be quickened into greater life and activity as the last day draws near and we begin indeed " to fail;" and even if we have been slack we must not despair in the use of this instrument, for it is certain that even at this late hour, it may, in more than one way, prove a spiritual benefit to us, since in whatever degree some measure of self-denial may be exercised for the love of CHRIST it will so far profit us. And it is a way by which the sick man may in act make the effort, no easy one often even at this time, of separating himself from his beloved riches, and so at length confess and fully realize to himself, that he is indeed, after all, only a steward and not a proprietor. And before leaving this subject I cannot but recommend to you, as a faithful adviser, that if GOD has blessed you with possessions and riches, you should at once bestow some portion of them towards the advancement of GOD's holy religion in some of the many noble undertakings which the piety of many worthy persons has set on foot and is still promoting for the great glory of the Church and kingdom of JESUS CHRIST; and should you be unable from want of knowledge to decide on those institutions which have the best claim upon your charity, that you should advise with some one of competent information and piety on the subject.