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THE OBJECTS OF

gains; they would not refuse to pay his just and equitable debts, even when they are not legally responsible for them. Here is a debt of the most urgent nature, by paying which they may perhaps make happy for ever many of the instruments of their own prosperity. Surely it is their bounden duty, even if they have no longer any share in the business by which their fathers were enriched, to repair, so far as they are able, some of the evil which it has produced.

In such works the large offerings of the rich will be even better spent than in swelling the funds of our societies. Happy that man, who shall set the example (so much needed) of providing a church and a pastor wherever he erects a factory, a street, or a village: happy two or three or more, who shall combine to do so! besides discharging themselves of a plain moral obligation, such men will be, by the influence of their example, among the greatest benefactors of their country.

And blessed be God for His grace given unto us, we are not wholly without such examples already. Of our new churches, some have been the fruit of individual exertion and self-denial. How should it be otherwise? God's word shall never return unto Him void; and that word has of late been more and more spoken among us. Still we must not yet be content: we must look for greater things. Such examples, although now less rare, have never been wanting, and the