not.' The latter alone fits the New Testament, of which the animating
principle is love and the voice: 'Though I have all boldness in Christ
to enjoin thee ... yet for love's sake I rather beseech.' What
disasters and what stifling of the spirit of Christian liberality have
marred the Church for many centuries, and in many lands, because the
great anachronism has prevailed of binding its growing limbs in Jewish
swaddling bands, and degrading Christian giving into an assessment!
And how shrunken the stream that is squeezed out by such a process,
compared with the abundant gush of the fountain of love opened in a
grateful, trusting heart!

Next, we have the negligent, if not dishonest, officials. We do not
know how long Joash tried the experiment of letting the priests
receive the money and superintend the repairs; but probably the
restoration project was begun early in his reign, and if so, he gave
the experiment of trusting all to the officials, a fair, patient
trial, till the twenty-third year of his reign. Years gone and nothing
done, or at least nothing completed! We do not need to accuse them of
intentional embezzlement, but certainly they were guilty of carelessly
letting the money slip through their fingers, and a good deal of it
stick to their hands. It is always the temptation of the clergy to
think of their own support as a first charge on the church, nor is it
quite unheard of that the ministry should be less enthusiastic in
religious objects than the 'laity,' and should work the enthusiasm of
the latter for their own advantage. Human nature is the same in
Jerusalem in Joash's time, and to-day in Manchester, or New York, or
Philadelphia, and all men who live by the gifts of Christian people
have need to watch themselves, lest they, like Ezekiel's false
shepherds, feed themselves and not the flock, and seek the wool and
the fat and not the good of the sheep.