wrong. To determine the comparative claims of various religious and charitable institutions, so as to settle what amount should be given to each, is, doubtless, a matter of considerable importance; a matter which should receive careful and conscientious thought. But this is beside our present object, which is simply to inquire how much we owe to God, and what proportion of our means should be consecrated to Him.

Every reflecting man must see the importance and reasonableness of the Divine claim, when he considers how entirely dependent we are on a gracious Providence, not only for the power of acquiring and preserving wealth, but even for what is needful in order to the maintenance of life. The merchant cannot prosecute his business, nor the labourer or mechanic his daily avocations, without health. And how soon may sickness cut off the very means of subsistence! To whom, then, are we indebted for the inestimable blessing of health, "the queen of every earthly joy," but to the Giver of all good? To say nothing of our dependence on Him for "fruitful seasons," the want of which affects so deeply all classes of the community, does not every merchant feel that much of his prosperity depends on his being awake to favourable circumstances, so as to "redeem the opportunity," and on his association with the honest and upright? Alas, how often have a man's fairest prospects in life been suddenly blighted, by the disbonesty, or imprudence, or misfortune of those with whom he has traded! Now, can any man, who believes that there is a superintending Providence, fail to see that its guidance may enable him to escape losses in his business, and may in various ways conduce to his worldly prosperity? But, surely, the man who conscientiously "honours the Lord with his substance," by devoting a due proportion of it to Him, and giving cheerfully "as the Lord hath prospered him," may rationally expect the Divine guidance and blessing in his temporal affairs. The Jews were accustomed to call the tithes, which they gave back to God, "the hedge of their riches,"—something which gave protection and security to all that was left behind. On this principle, the man who withholds from the Supreme Benefactor a due proportion of bis increase stands in his own light. He may imagine that he is exercising a prudent care, but it is just the reverse; for he is leaving all that he has without a protecting hedge. "There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty.” Let us "have faith in God," and not be afraid of giving too much. There are few indeed who are in danger of erring in that direction; the danger is on the other side. It is wise to act promptly, in accordance with warm and generous impulses, and never to stifle a generous feeling by selfish calculations.

Besides, the giving away of a due proportion of the goods entrusted to us is the only safeguard against covetousness; one of the most insidious of all sins, and one which prevails, in various forms, and in different degrees, all but universally; and which acts as a withering blight on the interests of religion in the world. It has been said, that covetousness is perhaps the only gross sin in which a man can indulge, and yet maintain a creditable

profession of Christianity.* God's work cannot prosper without His bless ing, and that blessing will certainly be withheld where the members of the church are not "honouring" Him "with their substance." For, the principle on which He invariably acts is, "Them that honour me, I will honour; and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed." Surely the man who gives "grudgingly," and penuriously, must be dishonouring the Proprietor, who commands every one to give cheerfully, and to give “as the Lord hath prospered him." The "wedge of gold " is still the Achau in the camp, causing the church to be smitten and humbled before her foes, instead of having victory to crown all her banners. Show us a professing Christian whom the Lord has prospered, and who has not increased his givings in proportion to that prosperity; and we will show you a man whose heart is already smitten, and whose moral feelings are under a withering blight from the deadly touch of covetousness. Let such a man instantly wake up, alarmed by his fearful position, as if aroused by the sound of the last trumpet; let him repent of his wickedness, and make all haste to restore to God what he has been, perhaps for many years, unrighteously keeping back. Let him remember that God demands restitution at his hands. Let him earnestly crave the Divine forgiveness, and entreat the insulted Saviour to wash his heart from the taint of filthy lucre, as from every other taint, in the fountain of His "all-cleansing blood."

These observations are intended chiefly as preliminaries to the main inquiry; which aims to ascertain whether there are good reasons for believing that God does in fact lay claim to a definite proportion of every man's property as the minimum of his contributions; or whether He has left the question of proportion to be decided by every man for himself, as his own reason and conscience may dictate.

It will be observed, that our inquiry assumes that every man is under an obligation to give something,-that is to say, if he has anything. This will not be disputed by any one who admits the Divine authority of the Bible, and who has any competent knowledge of its contents. In all ages, and under all dispensations of religion, it has been the practice for men to devote some part of their property to sacred uses. In the patriarchal times, Cain and Abel brought their offerings to the Lord; the former, of the "fruit of the ground;" and the latter, of the "firstlings of his flock.” Giving was a prominent and essential feature of the Mosaic institute. Nor can it be imagined, that our obligations to give have been relaxedmuch less, abrogated-by the Gospel dispensation. This would be to us not a benefit, but a heavy calamity. The New Testament, however, is full of this subject, and the obligation to give "liberally" is enforced by every variety of argument and illustration. It is impossible to keep alive a proper sense of our duty to God, unless we render back to Him a right proportion of what He has bestowed. This is the interest we pay for the

* The celebrated Francis de Sales remarks, that in the course of his practice as Confessor he never heard any one accuse himself of avarice.-EDITORS,

use of His capital; the "tribute-money" we give in acknowledgment of His sovereignty; the rent which we bring to "the Lord of the vineyard," not as an equivalent, but as an acknowledgment that the "vineyard" belongs to Him, and not to us.

Assuming, then, that every one is under an obligation to give something, that giving ought to be proportioned to the means we possess, and that God has the right to demand any proportion of our property He pleases; we proceed to inquire, whether He has left every man to determine this proportion for himself, or whether He has interposed His authority, and said definitely what shall be the minimum.

Is there not, first, an antecedent probability in favour of the latter of these positions? In regard to the Sabbath, a case somewhat analogous, God not only commanded man to set apart some proportion of his time for worship, but prescribed that it should be one day in seven. If man had been left to fix his own proportion, would not his worldliness have led him, at least in many cases, to fix on a proportion far too small? And was there not a similar reason for fixing the proportion of his substance to be devoted to God, as there was for fixing the proportion of his time? True, indeed, that it would not be possible to lay down any definite rule in regard to the former of these, which would, of itself, be applicable in all cases. But, clearly, it might be determined what in all cases should be the minimum proportion; and to this might be added a general injunction, that the wealthier among the people should "give," over and above this minimum, "as the Lord hath prospered them." And this, we take it, is what has been actually done.

In a case like this, it seems that a Divine revelation was necessary; and therefore there is an antecedent probability that one would be given. Human reason, unaided, would not be likely to arrive at the conclusion that any portion whatever of a man's property should be given to God: for what can He need? Even supposing the conclusion to be gained, that something ought to be given, how could reason determine the question, “How much?" If this had been left entirely an open question, which every man was to solve for himself, without any Divine intimation to guide him to the right conclusion, those who were most thoroughly conscientious, most anxious to please God in the matter, would, surely, have been likely to be harassed by a fear that they were not giving enough; and, on the other hand, the "love of money "would have induced the great majority to give far too little. On these grounds, then, there appears an antecedent probability in favour of the position, that God requires a definite proportion of every man's property, as the minimum of his contributions. If so, however, there can be no doubt that it is a tenth, at the least: for we have no Divine warrant for any proportion below this.

The practice of devoting a tenth to the service of religion and of charity can be traced to a very remote antiquity. It prevailed, not only among the patriarchs, but also among heathen nations, many of whom had no intercourse with the Hebrews, and, therefore, could not have borrowed it VOL. XI. FIFTH SERIES.

L

from them. Xenophon gives an inscription which he found on a pillar near a celebrated temple of Diana, which warned the people to give one tenth of their revenues every year to that goddess. The Babylonians and Egyptians, according to Aristotle, were accustomed to give one tenth of their yearly revenues to their kings. The ancient Romans, too, were accustomed to devote to their gods one tenth of all the spoils they took in war; which, in a military nation like theirs, must have been a chief source of income. Now, how is this custom, which could easily be illustrated by very many quotations from ancient history, to be accounted for? The tenth, obviously, is a proportion quite arbitrary. Why, then, did they not happen to fix on a fourth, or an eighth, or a sixth? What principle of reason could guide them to fix on this divisor, rather than on any other? And how, especially, did it happen, that different nations did not fix on different proportions? hat nations widely separated from each other, and without the chance of consultation and agreement, nevertheless fixed on the same proportion, and that a perfectly arbitrary one? Grotius, indeed, tries to account for the fact on principles of reason; but what he says is so manifestly unsatisfactory, that it must produce the opposite effect to that which he intended. "The reason why the tenth was fixed upon was," he says, "because we have ten fingers!" But why did not some nations fix on the fifth, because we have five fingers on each hand? And why did not others, especially if inclined to be penurious, include the toes, and give a twentieth? The truth is, that, as the tenth is a proportion perfectly arbitrary, we can see no principle of reason which could guide the ancient nations to its uniform adoption. The one mode of accounting for it is that which assumes that the tenth was originally enjoined by Divine authority, and that the first revelation was circulated among the ancient nations by oral tradition. On this principle we account for those traces of the division of time into weeks which are found among widespread nations who had not the holy Scriptures; and also for the universal prevalence of animal sacrifices. Why, then, should we hesitate to adopt it, in order to account for the giving of a tenth? Can any man, fairly and consistently, employ this argument in favour of the Divine institution and perpetual obligation of the Sabbath, and in evidence of the Divine origin of animal sacrifices, and yet refuse to admit its validity when employed to show that there must have been a like warrant for the practice of devoting a tenth to their gods, which prevailed among the nations of antiquity? The cases appear parallel; and we must admit the validity of the argument in all or deny its validity in any.

(To be continued.)

147

MARY STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS.

THERE are few who visit Edinburgh without finding their way to Holyrood. Look on that old pile-the home of an ancient race of kings. There is one name above all others imperishably connected with it, that of Mary Stuart. There she held her court during the most interesting period of Scottish history. We can still trace the ruins of the chapel in which she knelt during the celebration of mass, and braved the indignation of the Reformers, loudly and sometimes even coarsely expressed. We pace corridors which were once thronged with the haughty and powerful nobles who attended her in her days of prosperity. We stand within rooms where the tapestry, in part her own needlework, now faded, hangs mournfully from the walls. From beneath these windows arose the discordant din of that rude serenade with which her subjects greeted her on her arrival from France. Through one of these doors Knox passed, with stera, hard-lined countenance, and lips compressed, after having, as he said, "knocked stoutly at the doors of her heart." Here Rizzio clung to her for protection, crying wildly and vainly for mercy on that awful night; and here his corpse lay, while the blood poured from many a gaping wound. The Stuarts were ever an unfortunate race; but Mary stands out from them all, distinguished by the sad pre-eminence of inheriting the most serious train of disasters. To quote : "Her early life shone with more unclouded splendour, and her later years were darkened by more unremitting adversity, than have fallen to the lot of any other royal lady whose fortunes have been the subject of authentic history." Queen of Scotland from infancy in her own right, Queen of France by marriage, claiming the crown of England, and, without controversy, the nearest of the heirs to that throne after Elizabeth; her honours, together with her surpassing beauty and wit, made her conspicuous throughout Europe. She was equally so by her sorrows and her reverses. Fatherless from infancy, an orphan at eighteen, thrice married, and thrice a widow, while as yet youthful loveliness mantled her cheek, and youthful blood coursed through her veins,— violently deprived of her crown and liberty, and threatened with death by her own subjects,-held in captivity eighteen years, by the command of her cousin and rival, Queen Elizabeth,—she was at last beheaded in the hall of Fotheringhay Castle, and so closed by a tragical end the sad chapter of her eventful history. Three hundred years have rolled on, and still the strange vicissitudes, misfortunes, and reverses of her life preserve in undying freshness the memory of the beautiful, the accomplished, and the hapless Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots.

We cannot impartially review any character of those times, without losing sight of the privileges, social, political, and religious, we inherit in

* The north wing only of the present building is ancient.

+ Mackintosh, vol. iii., p. 113.