Hosea 4:6. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge

" Hononr the Lord with thy substance, and with the first fraits of all thine 

increase."— iii. 9. 

The two terms, substance and increase, exist, and are 
understood in all nations and all times. They correspond 
to capital and profit in a commercial community, or land 
and crop in an agricultural district Although the direct 
and chief lesson of this verse be another thing, we take 
occasion, from the occurrence of these terms, first of aU, 
to indicate and estimate a grievous malady that infests 
mercantile life in the present day. It manifests itself in 
in these two kindred features : (1), A morbid forwardness 
to commence business without capital ; that is an eflEbrt 
to reap an increase while you have no substance to reap 
it from; and (2), A morbid forwardness to prosecute 
business to an enormous extent, upon a very limited 
capital ; that is an effort to reap more increase than your 
substance can fairly bear. 

In former, and, commercially speaking, healthier times, 
those who had no money were content to work for wages 
until they had saved some, and then they laid out to the 
best advantage the money which they had. This practice 
is honourable to the individual, and safe to society. An 
unfair and imsafe standard of estimating men has been 
surreptitiously foisted upon this community. Practically  

by all classes, the chief honour should be given, not to 
the great merchant, but to the honest man. A man who 
has only five pounds in the world, and carries^ all his 
merchandise in a pack on his shoulder, is more worthy of 
honour than the man who, having as little money of his 
own, drives his carriage, and drinks champagne at the 
risk of other people. A full discussion of mercantile 
morality under this text would be imsuitable, and there- 
fore we now refrain ; but a note of warning was demanded 
here on the one point which has been brought up. We 
must have truth and righteousness at the bottom as a 
foundation, if we would have a permanently successful 
commerce. Let men exert all their ingenuity in extracting 
the largest possible increase from their substance ; but let 
them beware of galvanic efforts to extract annual returns 
at other people's risk, from shadows which have no body 
of substance behind. This is the epidemic disease of 
commerce. This is the chief cause of its disastrous fluctua- 
tions. This is the foul humour in its veins that bursts 
out periodically in wide spread bankruptcy. If all 
merchants would conscientiously, as in God's sight, confine 
their gains to a legitimate increase of their realized sub- 
stance, the commerce of the nation would circulate in 
perennial health. 

When the increase is honestly obtained, honour the 
Lord with its first fruits. To devote a portion of our 
substance directly to the worship of God, and the good of 
men, is a duty strictly binding, and plainly enjoined in 
the Scriptures. It is not a thing that a man may do or 
not do as he pleases there is this difference, however,

between it and the common relative duties of life, that 
whereas for these we are under law to man, for that we 
are accountable to God only. For the neglect of it no 
infliction comes from a human hand. God will not have 
the dregs that are squeezed out by pressure poured into 
his treasury. He depends not, like earthly rulers, on the 
magnitude of the tribute. He loveth a cheerful giver. 
He can work without our wealth, but He does not work 
without our willing service. The silver and the gold are 
His already ; what He claims and cares for is the cheer- 
fulness of the giver's heart