sometimes essential to the preservation and due expression of reliance
on God.

There is very little fear of any of us pushing that principle to
Quixotic lengths. The danger is all the other way. So it is worth
while to notice that we have here an instance of a man's being carried
by a certain lofty enthusiasm further than the mere law of duty would
take him. There would have been no harm in Ezra's asking an escort,
seeing that his whole enterprise was made possible by the king's
support. He would not have been 'leaning on an arm of flesh' by
availing himself of the royal troops, any more than when he used the
royal firman. But a true man often feels that he cannot do the things
which he might without sin do. 'All things are lawful for me, but all
things are not expedient,' said Paul. The same Apostle eagerly
contended that he had a perfect right to money support from the
Gentile Churches; and then, in the next breath, flamed up into, 'I
have used none of these things, for it were better for me to die, than
that any man should make my glorying void.' A sensitive spirit, or one
profoundly stirred by religious emotion, will, like the apostle whose
feet were moved by love, far outrun the slower soul, whose steps are
only impelled by the thought of duty. Better that the cup should run
over than that it should not be full. Where we delight to do His will,
there will often be more than a scrupulously regulated enough; and
where there is not sometimes that 'more,' there will never be enough.

'Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore
Of nicely calculated less or more.'

What shall we say of people who profess that God is their portion, and
are as eager in the scramble for money as anybody? What kind of a