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would not live now, and what it must be to live and prosper ten years hence is no easy question to solve.

We mention these things, not to excuse shortcomings, if there be any, but to show the claim which we think it is not out of place to urge upon the sympathy and co-operation of our friends. We feel that we have endeavoured faithfully to do the duty imposed upon us and we are not aware that there remains anything more to be done substantially but to ask for that sympathy and co-operation to make success attainable.

With these views and feelings, we gird on our armour for the next year's campaign, hoping it will be as successful as we all desire.

THE EDITOR.

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THE METHODIST

NEW CONNEXION MAGAZINE.

JANUARY, 1872.

WHAT DOES YOUR LEDGER SAY?

BY THE EDITOR.

THIS is the season for reckoning up; for striking balances; for estimating profits and losses; for taking stock, arranging business relations for the coming year, and generally bracing up the mind and energies for a renewed start in business enterprise, so soon as the new year shall open.

"Business is splendid," said a friend to us, the other day. Orders cannot be executed as fast as they come in. A general tone of independence marks the conduct of commercial travellers towards those on whom they "call ;" and the buyer, rather than the seller or producer, has to go, hat in hand, to request the favour of a supply from the producer of such articles as he needs, but finds it somewhat difficult to obtain. There will be brightness and gladness in many counting-houses and bank-parlours in England, this Christmas-time that is just on us. There will be mutual congratulations among partners and "firms." Even "sleeping" partners will open their eyes to take in the bright sunbeams of joyousness, on account of successes achieved and profits realised. The workman himself is sharing the general prosperity; is demanding, almost everywhere, his "nine hours" a day; and, on the whole, receiving an advance of remuneration.

All this is matter for sincere thankfulness, even to a Methodist Preacher, who can only look on and admire, and be thankful, while his own income gets no larger in the general prosperity, or his own larder more plenteous amidst the general fulness. No doubt he does a little, at times, feel the emotions of the "carnal mind," in the slight form of the merest shadow of envy; and no doubt, were it not for the severest spiritual discipline, he might express that envy in a way that might be hardly consistent with the general temper of his placid and thankful mind, and his quiet relations to Deacons and Stewards in general. But let this pass; it is only just one little

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speck of discontent amidst the general happiness, and will give way in time to proper discipline and diet.

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There may be a few amidst the general mass who have not prospered this year. There may be some who have made mistakes; who have to put down in the ledger of "profit and loss" more of loss than of gain, and who will draw a long and weary breath as they glance over a balance-sheet that shows a bad and wasted year. not given to every one, even in the most prosperous times, to advance with the general current. There seems an "election of grace" in these matters, which one cannot explain. Failures of plans and hopes cannot always be traced to visible causes-to want of industry, want of economy, or want of energy. The poor, the unfortunate, the unsuccessful, we always "have with us," and perhaps always shall have. To these their "ledger" can furnish little encouragement or joy. They will be apt to look on the well-lighted, well-furnished, and every way comfortable homes of their more fortunate neighbours, this Christmas-time, when feast and music and social glee combine to render those homes so cheerful, with sadness or envy; and will be disposed to write bitter things against that Providence which seems, but seems only, to administer things so unequally in this world. Still, even these have a "ledger." The account is written up of us all, and for us all. The year is gone; the moral estimate must be summed up, for the Lord of those servants has come to "reckon " with them, and to ask us all, in effect, "What does your ledger say?"

Have we any ledger at all?-any moral gauge which we are accustomed to apply to our spiritual concerus? Or is it all accident and unconcern with us on these subjects? Many shrewd business men will read the words we are now writing who would think it a violation of their business order to let a single item go astray in their books, or a single letter go without a prompt answer, or a single business calculation be neglected; who read with the most careful attention the "city" articles in their daily papers, and the movements and utterances of their political "party," who have never given themselves any concern during the past year to estimate themselves, to "take stock" of their own principles, attainments, and conduct in the spiritual business of life. Some tremendous knockings at the door of the heart there may have been under sermons, under personal afflictions, under waves of spiritual power which have come to them and to their neighbours from the infinite source of all light and love; but it has all passed "like a dream when one awaketh,” and has left no permanent impress on the mind. No stock has been taken, no examination has been instituted; the whole page of the moral account is a blank or a blurred and blotted record, which, if it shows anything at all, exhibits a mind ill at ease, hesitating, confused,

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