propagate among others we do not receive | under foot the Son of God, while you and experience ourselves. hold him up to the notice and the allegiance of the world. Create any great system of efforts, and many are blindly carried away by it. All facilities will be given to it; these will be the weight and sanction of example; the very symptoms of proselytism and party will command its influence; the machinery is thrown into play; the eddy is seen sweeping round within the vortex; and how many are there who are blindly and insensibly hurried onward by the stroke of the one, or drawn in by the suction of the other! Apply these considerations to the missionary apparatus. This is a scheme of labours most expansive, most complicated, and most penetrating. These labours embrace each sex, each condition, each class. They stand like the cherub with outstretched wings and with human hand, showing how far they can extend their power, and with what particularity it can be applied by them. It To whom can we compare this generation? There were builders of the ark whose floating corpses were sunk beneath it when it rose upon the bosom of the floods. There were donors of the tabernacle who were as lepers thrust beyond the camp, or as blasphemers, stoned without relief. There were artificers of the temple who never there left their offerings, and never there worshipped their God. Have you thought of that meeting which awaits you? For it is possible that you have been at work, and that your good, liable to be evil spoken of, is nevertheless good. The heathen, perhaps, shall acknowledge you in a future age-they shall acknowledge you, at the judgmentseat, as the instruments of bringing them to the knowledge of the Saviour, to that knowledge which is life eternal. Methinks that with the strong instincts of gratitude they know even as ye are known. Methinks that they now approach you, and that they call upon you to receive their grateful acknowledgments. What is their language? "We owe to you that we are in Christ-you who were in Christ before us. You heard our cry, and fled to our relief; you saw our misery, and sent for its alleviation. Take these harps, and tune the songs; take these crowns, and pay the tribute." Why are you rooted to the spot? Why are your eyes cast down upon the ground? Why does your tongue cleave to the roof of your mouth? Why do you refuse their advances, and decline their solicitations? Why gathers on that face that paleness? Why scares your ear that shriek? The heathens whom you have saved-see, they fly to their heaven as the doves to their windows. Mark their ecstacy-listen to their song. The door is shut, and you stand without; the guest-chamber is filled, and you are not within ; blage is complete, and you are not comprehended; the harvest is passed, the summer is ended, and you are not saved! is impossible that any now can allege the excuse, "No man hath hired me." We have a chain by which to transmit the faintest spark; we have a channel by which to pour the smallest drop; we have a distributive power by which our efforts are so stimulated that they may tell upon the world. Therefore, there are thousands who enter into this scheme with pleasure and with fervour. We do not denounce their sincerity. "Come, see my zeal," said Jehu, "for the Lord;" but it is subjoined, "Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel; for he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, who made Israel to sin." And yet, what is more audacious in folly, more impious in irreligion, than to build that which you continue to undermine?to heal that which you continue to inflame?-to reconcile that which you continue to agitate?-to cleanse that which you continue to defile?-to enforce that which you continue to supersede? You make a mock of sin, and warn men against it; you desire, professedly, that "the ends of the earth may see the salvation of our God," and neglect the great salvation; We are inconsistent, secondly, when we you tear down that which you avow your-violate the solemnity due to missionary selves intent upon building up; you tread | transactions. the assem They who have suitably pondered There is a confusion and an indefinitethem, who have taken their place and ness when we speak of the pagan world. part in them, have always confessed that It is not a light cure of souls-it is not a they were very auspicious to a growth in small plantation reclaimed from the wilgrace, and very confirmatory to the esta- derness: we are to make the little and blishment of the heart in grace. They the scantling disappear, and the untold have confessed that they were profitable, and the incalculable numbers burst into in every respect, and to all-" profitable sight-continuous, successive as the for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, waves of the sea, all rolling on, and ali for instruction in righteousness." He dying away upon an unseen shore. And who bears the aromatic plant will surely what is our feeling? Is it that of pity? betray its fragrance; and he who has There is nothing of lightness in the ingrewrought upon the gem and the gold will dients that form that emotion: there may carry away with him some of the brilliant be placidity, but that is its strongest form: filings, some of the precious dust. pity is thoughtful, and pensive, and sad. Oh, let not our "good be evil spoken of" by our betrayal into any thing that is light or trivial, or unworthy of the theme. Let us be solemn as Jesus when he upbraided Capernaum, and tender as when he wept over Jerusalem. Let us be overwhelmed with the thought of human guilt, and the sense of human misery, as when the man of sorrows fell upon his face in Gethsemane, with strong cries and tears. But it may be asked, Have we not allowed, too frequently and too largely, a spirit of flippancy, and almost of levity, to encroach upon this sacred theme? We have not been mollified with all its circumstances, and have not been stricken with all its horrors. A world in misery is a painful spectacle-a world in rebellion is an appalling sight. Could the traveller, as he explores the vestiges of an ancient city, its fallen theatres, its broken aqueducts, its crumbling temples could he explore these in a listless spirit? Could the philanthropist traverse the wards of a lazaretto, and the cells of a prison, in a careless and sportive vein ? Could the negotiator address the disaffected and the insurgent in jocular tones and terms? Could the high-priest, when, on the great day of atonement, he went, and not without blood, into the holiest of all, strike the dulcimer, or rejoice in the dance? Should not our spirits be better disciplined? Should not our accents tremble, and the very fashion of our countenance change? We follow the long procession of eternal death; and should we not be as the mourners going about the streets? We watch the commencing symptoms of the second death; and should we not shudder while the worm which never dies begins to uncoil and to gnaw? We observe the earliest kindlings of the pit, and almost, like them who approach its mouth, are scathed with the blast; and while the numberless victims are sinking into it, should not great fear come upon the church, and as many as hear of these things? 3dly. Our good may be evil spoken of when we form a partial and an unequal estimate of what is near and what is distant in the condition of the human family. Prejudice governs us all. As the human mind rejects two classes of emotions equally strong, so the human conduct rejects two courses of equally intense activities. We may not, perhaps, regard the one object too strongly; but, in consequence of not regarding aright, either may receive from us the most unmerited treatment. Hence, therefore, there springs a necessity, in all our Christian labours, of a well-regulated consistency, of a nicely-proportioned zeal. Let our judgment be warmed by our feelings, but let our feelings be regulated by our judgment. Fix your eye, my brethren, on your native land. There are thousands, there are millions, besotted, embruted, surrounded by a light which never enters them, addressed by a power which has no ascendancy over them. In many respects their condition is most wretched, because they have an accountability: they are within the light, and the hope is set before them; and yet these die within our sight-they perish at our door. They less valuable spirits which throng the are our brethren, our kinsmen according to the flesh; are we to spurn them in the magnificence of our project, in the comprehensiveness of our scheme? Should we not remember that disciple, of whom it is recorded, "He first findeth his own brother?" Should we not think of that counsel given to him that was restored, "Go home, and tell thy kindred what great things the Lord hath done for thee, and how he hath had mercy upon thee?" Ought we not to dwell upon the memorable instruction-" Beginning at Jerusalem ?" Cast your eye, my brethren-or rather your mind-upon the vast tracts of pagan superstition. You cannot tell what is the darkness which broods over them, for there is no contrasting light; you cannot judge the dimensions of their misery, for there is no standard of relief or consolation. Christ has not been named among them; they know not that there is a Holy Ghost; they are without hope in the world. What misery is their lot! What a precipice is their eternity! And, in many respects, how must we think of them, when they have not so many missionaries in the united phalanx among them all as we have, perhaps, in some favoured district of our beloved land! All souls are equal. It may be that there is a diversity in original faculty, as well as in acquirements and in endowments; but there is little difference in the capacity to suffer, and there is no difference in the capacity to exist. Some spirits may present a broader surface for evil, but none a stronger texture for being:-in these they are alike, whether the drudging slave in the mine, or the monarch flaming with the jewel it may supply; whether the outcast who has not a burial-place, or the possessor of many estates; whether him whom all spurn and avoid, or the favourite of fortune and of fame. But our "good will be evil spoken of," if we do not regard men as men; if we allow the alien to dispel all thoughts of the naked, or the naked to dispel all thoughts of the alien. There cannot be more valuable spirits than those which throng the shores of the Ganges, the Indus, and the Nile; but they are not majestic strands of the Severn, or lie on the banks of the Avon and the Ex. Let not the near engross the distant; and let not the distant out-dazzle the near. 4thly. Our good may be evil spoken of when the due relation between effort ana devotion is forgotten. There is a devotion that becomes selfish: it is indulgent and indolent; it is a passionless quietism; it is a contemplative dream. It will hear of no sacrifice; on no pretence will it be disturbed; it wraps itself in luxuriant ease, and it is cloistered from all strife and danger; like the bird which seeks the crystal fountain, sits in its solitary calm, and desires nothing but to muse the shadow of its unruffled beauty. There is an exertion which becomes arrogant and profane. It is an ostentatious bustle; it is an impious usurpation, it is an artificial and mechanical frame. Its axe and its hammer send their jarring notes through the most secret and retired recesses of the sacred shrine; and it may be compared to the eagle-bird, rising into the firmament, and gazing upon the sun, with unshrinking eye and with untiring fire. Now, devotion and exertion must be blended. "Stand still," said the legislator," and behold the salvation of God!" But what said the answer of God unto him?"Why cryest thou unto me? Speak to the people that they go forward." They were to see that salvation; but that salvation was to be realized in connexion with human agency-not by standing still, but by going forward: and they sang the praises of their God. And so the apostle teaches us that we should labour always-"not slothful in business, fervent in spirit." Our devotion must not be fitful and intermittent; our exertions must not be casual and accidental; we must endeavour to unite the two. Think of the apostles: they gave themselves to the word of God and to prayer, and they ministered unto the Lord; but, having received the gift of Pentecost, what were the acts they performed, and what were the achievements they consummated? Look at angels: high is their contemplation; profound is their study; wrapt in and a worldly aggrandizement, and a worldly policy, and a worldly precaution? It becomes us, my brethren, to disengage ourselves from such a snare, by maintaining the consistency of our character in the beauty of holiness-the firmness of our principle, as we are not our ownand the strictness of our motive, with our spirit serving God in the gospel of his Son. Oh, let us not throw round so hallowed a cause, so sacred a work, any silence is their awe; and they veil their faces with their wings; but they have their errands and commissions, and "he makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a flaming fire:" they are swift to do his will and to hearken to his voice. Look at the Son of God and the Son of man: the temple trumpet ever called him to the house of prayer; each festive season witnessed him among the pilgrims; he spent of whole nights in devotion;-but he "went about doing good." Let us, therefore, this meretricious spirit: let us not seek determine to pray, in order to sanctify to please, any more than we seek to our exertions; and to exert ourselves, in offend. Let order to authenticate our prayers. us take heaven by force, by the means of the one; and earth by force, through the means of the other. Let us, by the twofold instrumentality, prove that we are Let sincere for God, and sincere to men. us lift up our hands, and let us stretch forth our hands. Let us have hearts filled with bravery, and let us carry heroically to the victory the standard which we have loved, deposited on the altar, and hallowed by the sacrifice. 5thly. Our good may be evil spoken of when we encourage worldly excitement. 6thly. Our good may be evil spoken of when we entertain light impressions of the eternal future of the heathen. We have been told that many travellers and discoverers have been sometimes discredited, when they inform savage tribes that the reason for incurring all their toils and dangers was to trace a river's source, or to ascertain a planet's transmission. And we have also been told that, while our missionaries have obtained credit for their enterprise and their motives, they also have been upbraided because their errand took not a firmer hold, and are asked how it is that their announcements receive a more speedy reception. Our institution can alone stand upon this admission-the certain as well as the tremendous danger of the heathen world. There is a hostile principle in particular maxims, views, opinions, sensibilities, usages, institutions, which the world is made to present. This is the comprehensive term employed by Scripture; and epithet after epithet of disgust is poured We shall be told of their natural religion, out upon that principle. We are told that its incitements are most subtle and of their roamings in the forest, and their intoxicating: and He, who came travel-burrowings in the wood. We shall be told ling in the greatness of his strength, did not grapple with a shadow; and when he overcame the world, it was not a phantom that he conquered. Happy are we, when, in imitation of our Master and Founder, we can make such a declaration as this, "We have not received the spirit of the world: this is the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith." of their simple and their artless lives, of their kind and hospitable hearts; and so, for a time, we may have been deceived by, but we have now learnt to understand, the but let fictions of a Le Bos and a Choo Loo. We shall be told of their conscious law; it be also told, that that law which they are unto themselves they have broken; and they have the dread consciousness runBut are none of our religious institu- ning through their spirits that they who tions tinctured with such a spirit? Are do these things are worthy of death. We none of them conformed to such a model? shall be told of their consistent worship, Is there nothing of fashionable excite- and of their classical systems of religion; ment, nothing of sentimental feeling, for it is not, in the estimate of men, a nothing of evasion of truth, no suppres-point of any moment, whether homage sion of evidence, no endeavour at effect? rises from this earth to the adulterer and Is there nothing like a worldly calculation, to the murderer, or to Jehovah, the Holy One. We shall be told of their ignorance attire of Christianity, which she will put of Christianity; and we know that they are not condemned for its rejection. But what does Christianity suppose concerning any heathen? That that heathen is in a fallen state, and in a perishing dilemma; and that, unless he believes, he must perish, and not have everlasting life; and that if he does perish, he perishes under the sanctions of an immutable justice-justice bound up with all the obligations of the primeval law. Perhaps it may be said that no other motive could ever enter into our missionary operations and perhaps for a time none other did; but then, this is the very motive given to our modern philosophy and theology. Charity is said to be the perverted errand; and we are asked whether we can conceive, or whether it is credible, that that should be the only errand. Alas, my brethren, that we should be made judges one of another! then are we judges of the law, and not doers of it. God is judge-he will respect his character; and we affect not that morbid piety and jealousy concerning his character, which would represent him as more censorious than we are ourselves. We therefore say, Make missionary operations any question of civilizationmake them any question of comparative advantage, or of ameliorated state-giving an increase of light already sufficient, and a confirmation of hope already well founded-make them the mere instruments for smoothing and turning the path, although it winds to safety and to blissand immediately the business will come to nought, and they will reject it as a needless waste, and as a meaningless superfluity. 7thly. Our good is liable to be traduced and to be evil spoken of, when we obtrude party singularities into our missionary scheme. The names of denominations and of sects are convenient; they are seifdefining and intelligible; they save very much time, and prevent considerable circumlocution. But let us remember that that which distinguishes those who alike hold the Head, and love the Lord Jesus in sincerity, is but the earthly guise and away when she passes the celestial threshold; that it is only the scaffolding and the platform, quite distinct from the building: and that, when it is complete, the scaffold and the platform will be done away. We wonder not that in our colonies party denominations are found; and even in flags over which our flag does not wave, not annexed to our crown, it is no less probable that the stranger there, the exile from his beloved home, should cleave to some fondly cherished scheme, and to some dearly-remembered distinctions. But all this is inferior to Christianity itself; all this is very likely to embarrass the opening mind and the developing judgment of the heathen convert. As far as possible, let the river, in its most distant and ample streams, lose the particular impregnation of its source; let the banners of the universal host, while they retain their particular devices, most prominently exhibit the royal emblazonments common to them all. We must remember that, if we would gain upon the opinions, if we would obtain the suffrages, of the heathen world, it is quite necessary that we give them pure religion and undefiled. In the mean time let us make the best of it. Jarrings there are abroad; and sometimes, though very faintly, they may be heard abroad. There is diversity, but there need not be difference; there is diversity, but there need not be collision. If we may not possess the colourless ray of the virgin light, let us rejoice in the prismatic hue; if we cannot possess the transparent diamond, let us be content to build up our foundation with precious stones of divers colours. You remember the inter-community of the heathen world; they did not quarrel over their religion: "They helped every one his neighbour, and each said to his brother, Be of good courage. So the carpenter encouraged the goldsmith, and he that smootheth with the hammer him that smote the anvil, saying, It is ready for the soldering; and he fastened it with nails that it should not be moved." Let us no more contemn nor blame each other, though blamed enough elsewhere; but strive, in |