6. _Personal sacrifices will be certainly required_, _and must be made_.—He who will tread in the Saviour’s steps, and in those of apostles and primitive Christians, must learn to “deny himself.” This rule is necessary to enable us to judge of our actual power of liberality. We should carefully examine what indulgences we can resign, and what superfluities we can retrench, for the advantage of others, without an unreasonable sacrifice of our own comforts. To yield something personal for general good, imparts a zest to liberality which rewards the generous surrender. This is a rule which we should connect with the earliest instructions of our children. Let that which their hearts prompt them to give be really their own—they will then learn to spare in order to gratify the kindly impulses of their nature—and this submission to a partial privation, will impart to them the consciousness of acting from principle. It will further teach them early to estimate property aright, for it’s use, and not for it’s own sake—and shew them (for they are most correct reasoners, from the simplicity of their ideas, and the undivided attention which they pay to the single object which at any one time occupies their reflections) that the way to be truly blessed in themselves, is by becoming blessings to others. This is a lesson needed all through life—we cannot begin to learn it too soon, nor put it in practice too early. “There is that withholdeth more than is meet, and it tendeth to poverty.” The curse of God is upon unsanctified wealth—it is unsanctified when it is unemployed—and the selfish can never be liberal. Lastly. _The general rule_ which should be honestly applied, is this—“If there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not.” And the spirit which should sanctify all your distributions, is drawn by St. Paul with a masterly hand.