"That may be done—it had better be done—quite honestly, Jane; and the believer will not allow his present conscience to be blotted with any known sin, to secure a future object. If God's Spirit is in him, and God's word guides him, he will have patience, he will live frugally, and he will give cheerfully, nor refuse to do good with his dime now, because he hopes to have his dollar to give away by and by. The looking forward to a time to spend in self-indulgence that which has been laid up in years of industry, is one of the devil's snares to check benevolence and foster covetousness; and he persuades men that it is lawful from the highest to the lowest branch of earthly business. It is not for the true Christian to stoop from his high calling to this; it is of the world, it is like the world, it is meddling with forbidden things, and yet it may be made to seem so plausible, that it needs a careful exercise of Christian judgment and the strict watchfulness of an enlightened conscience to discern motives for earning and saving, as well as for giving and spending." "Then," said Jane, "you see no inconsistency in helping to make vain and extravagant people more vain and extravagant still." "I see that Mary and you are engaged in obeying the orders of people of very opposite dispositions, without being aware in many cases of what they are, and without being influenced for the better or the worse by them. Our consistency, my dear girl, does not lie in the power of those around us; it must have its deep living root in the love of Christ in our own hearts." "Well, then, Mrs. Davis, I am sure you will agree with me in the next thing I am going to say. I mean to alter the style of my own dress at once, and no longer look like a show-block for the exhibition of the fashions." "I confess there is something about it occasionally that may be improved, my dear; but it will be right to consider that in future, and not cast aside what you have already bought, unless you can afford to do so." "Ah! Then you think me wrong again I see?"