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Cause in Vermont
577
them. Money is their god. They decide that it will not pay to sacrifice
their means to save souls.
The one to whom is entrusted one talent is not responsible for
five, or for two, but for the one. Many neglect to lay up for them-
selves a treasure in heaven by doing good with the means that God
has lent them. They distrust God and have a thousand fears in regard
to the future. Like the children of Israel they have evil hearts of
unbelief. God provided this people with abundance, as their needs
required; but they borrowed trouble for the future. They complained
and murmured in their travels that Moses had led them out to kill
them and their children with hunger. Imaginary want closed their
eyes and hearts from seeing the goodness and mercies of God in
their journeyings, and they were ungrateful for all His bounties. So
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also are the distrustful, professed people of God in this age of unbe-
lief and degeneracy. They fear that they may come to want, or that
their children may become needy, or that their grandchildren will be
destitute. They dare not trust God. They have no genuine faith in
Him who has entrusted them with the blessings and bounties of life,
and who has given them talents to use to His glory in advancing His
cause.
Many have such a constant care for themselves that they give
God no opportunity to care for them. If they should be a little short
at times, and be brought into strait places, it would be the best thing
for their faith. If they would calmly trust in God, and wait for Him to
work for them, their necessity would be God’s opportunity; and His
blessing in their emergency would increase their love for Him and
lead them to prize their temporal blessings in a higher sense than
they have ever done before. Their faith would increase, their hope
would brighten, and cheerfulness would take the place of gloom and
doubts and murmuring. The faith of very many does not grow for
want of exercise.
That which is eating out the vitals of God’s people is the love
of money and friendship with the world. It is the privilege of God’s
people to be bright and shining lights in the world, to increase in the
knowledge of God, and to have a clear understanding of His will.
But the cares of this life and the deceitfulness of riches choke the
seed sown in their hearts, and they bear no fruit to His glory. They
profess faith, but it is not a living faith because it is not sustained