MEN AND BRETHREN:--

      Missions are essential and rudimental elements of creation and of the universe. They are older than our earth. The angels of God are one and all messengers or ministers of God. The "chariots of God," said the sweet Psalmist of Israel, "are thousands of angels"--each of whom is a missionary acting under a Divine commission. By missionary agencies God intercommunicated with the primitive fathers of mankind. Through them, as his functionaries, he held converse with men and women in the primitive conditions of human society. Through these missionaries he communed with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Hagar, Lot and Moses, and others, down to the beloved John, the last amanuensis of the Holy Spirit.

      Besides these missionary spirits, he also employed and constituted men as his missionaries to the world and to his ancient servants and people.

      The first missionary in the Christian Scriptures was John the Baptist, who was sent by God to prepare a people to receive and welcome the Lord Jesus on his entrance upon his grand mission. Angels ministered to him during his whole life, and occasionally waited upon the apostles and evangelists in the execution of their respective missions.

      Missions and missionaries are comparatively of modern date in our nomenclature. But they are older than creation--certainly older than the creation of our earth.

      Jehovah said to Job, "Where wast thou when I founded the earth? [531]

      This antedates all the missions and missionary operations in the annals of nations--in the annals of time. It is the beau-ideal of the grandeur of the missionary institution of the Christian age and dispensation. John the Harbinger was the pioneer missionary to prepare a people to give an honorable reception to the Prince of missions and missionaries. His superlative oracle was, "Behold the Lamb of God, who bears away the sin of the world!"

      Jesus, after the manner of the Peripatetics, immediately opened his missionary school, and in person taught twelve missionaries during his public ministry. Thus commenced the Christian ministry and the Christian mission.

      It may be expedient emphatically to note, in the opening of this subject, that missions and missionaries are the natural, the necessary and the immediate results of the appreciation of the dignity, grandeur and eternal importance of the gospel of Christ, and its soul-engrossing and soul-captivating end and aim.

      A silent Christian is an anomaly in creation. The blessed are ever blessing. A full heart makes an eloquent tongue. A heaven-magnetized soul magnetizes all within its periphery. The Christian's gospel is a theme as lofty as the throne of God, and as deep as the mansions of the dead. It imparts true light to them that are in darkness--hope to the disconsolate, joy to those that mourn, and life eternal to those dead in trespasses and in sins. There is, in truth, no theme imprinted on the tables of time that compares with it, in its attractions, in its soul-reviving, soul-subduing, soul-transforming power and virtue. It is, indeed, incomparably worthy of universal acceptance.

      It is, too, as wisely as it is philanthropically adapted to the actualities of our condition. As light is to the eye, as music to the ear, as bread to the hungry, as water to the thirsty soul, so does the gospel adapt itself to all the native longings, cravings and aspirations of that inner man, awakened to an adequate conception of himself in the light of God's own book, as he was, as he is, and as he must forever be in Christ or out of him.

      One of the first impulses of the new-born soul is to desire the sincere milk of the word, that he may grow thereby; and, next to this, that he may have it in his power to bless others, as he himself is blessed of [532] God, in having them united with himself in the same Lord, in the same hope, in the same joy, in the same peace and in the same inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled and unfading, in the heavens. His soul is all alive to the gospel facts--the birth of Christ, the life of Christ, the character of Christ, his miracles, his sayings, his doings, his sufferings, his death, his burial, his resurrection, his ascension, his glorification in heaven, his exaltation, the honors paid him there. He joyfully anticipates his second coming, his descent to our horizon, his appearance on the throne of his glory arching the whole heavens, surrounded by all the hosts of heaven, with all the sons of men on his right and on his left, and the books of all human history opened before him, and in their midst THE BOOK OF LIFE. He distinctly hears him say, "Come, ye blessed," to those on his right; and, "Depart, ye cursed," to those on his left hand.

      Such is the faith, such is the hope and such is the joy of every true and faithful disciple and follower of the Lord Jesus--the Christ of God.

      Now, by these visions, realizations and hopes is every true missionary of the cross influenced, moved, excited, animated, strengthened and encouraged to go forth into the world, and to battle against all its lusts and passions; against its frivolities and trifles; against its errors, illusions and delusions; against its sordid and demoniacal passions, and every lust and temptation that wars against man's true interests, honor, usefulness and happiness in the present world, and in that which is to come.

      But let us trace out the footprints of the missionary spirit and character, as developed in the providence of God, from the fall of our father Adam to the consummation of the fulness of the times of the Jewish age.

      The ministry of angels was instituted immediately after the apostasy and fall of our father Adam. God drove him out of Paradise, and on the east of the garden he located cherubs with flame brandishing swords to guard the way to the tree of life. The first angel or missionary named in the Sacred History is he who appeared to Abraham, (Gen. xxii. 11,) in the year of the world two thousand one hundred and thirty-two--eighteen hundred and seventy-two years after the first FIAT, and on a most interesting occasion--that of the voluntary sacrifice of his dearly-beloved son Isaac, in whom was deposited the promise of the blessing of all nations. This, too, occurred on Mount Moriah, most probably on the identical spot on which David built his altar, the threshing-floor of Araunah, where the Temple was [533] afterwards built. Some, indeed, suppose it to have been on Mount Calvary. On one or the other of these, most probably, Isaac was voluntarily offered up by Abraham, in obedience to a Divine command. "Here the angel Jehovah" called to him from the heavens and said, "Abraham, Abraham! Stretch not forth thy hand against thy son, nor do him any harm." A ram was caught by his own horns in a thicket, and that was substituted for Isaac. Hence to the end of the Jewish history the place was called JEHOVAH-JIREH, (JEHOVAH WILL PROVIDE.)

      Two promises followed this splendid scene. God said to Abraham, "Thy seed shall possess the gates of their enemies." "And in thy SEED shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." In the Jewish Scriptures, after this, angels of God, or of the Lord, are frequently named in their missions and employments.

      The Jewish prophets were, in the full import of their calling and work, missionaries. Such, too, was John the Baptist, the immediate harbinger of Jesus the Son of Mary. Such were the seventy whom the Lord appointed and sent, two and two, "into every city and place whither he intended to come."

      This mission of the Seventy is replete with wisdom and instruction to the church in all ages down to this our day and generation. Let us state it more fully.

      "Afterwards, the Lord appointed seventy others, also, and sent them, two and two, before him, into every city and place whither he intended to go. And he said to them, The harvest is plentiful, but the reapers are few: pray, therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that he should send laborers to reap it. Go, then; behold, I send you forth as lambs amongst wolves. Carry no purse, nor bag, nor shoes; and salute no person by the way. Whatever house you enter, say first, Peace be to this house. And if a son of peace be there, your peace shall rest upon him; if not, it shall return upon yourselves. But remain in the same house, eating and drinking such things as it affords; for the workman is worthy of his wages: go not from house to house. And whatever city you enter, if they receive you, eat such things as are set before you; cure the sick, and say to them. The reign of God comes upon you. But whatever city you enter, if they do not receive you, go out into the streets, and say, The very dirt of your streets which cleaves to us, we wipe off against you; know, however, that the reign of God draws nigh to you. I assure you that the condition of Sodom shall be more tolerable on that day, than the condition of that city." Luke x. 1-2, (Campbell's Ver.) [534]

      These missionaries, the instructions given them, and their faithfulness in the discharge of the duties of their mission, are, in our opinion, most suggestive models to all missionaries how they should be instructed, how they should be initiated, how they should attend upon the work and duties assigned to them; how they should mind their own business, not naming politics--monarchy, aristocracy or democracy, pro-slavery or anti-slavery politics--whether monarchists or oligarchists, Whigs or Democrats, or of any other school, ancient or modern; and, with Paul, say, "God forbid that we should know, or make known, any thing amongst you, save Jesus the Christ, crucified in weakness, but raised in power;" and especially dwell upon the momentous fact that he is LORD OF ALL; that it is by him that all kings do reign and that all princes decree justice; that he is ordained by God the Father to be the judge, the final judge, of angels, men and demons, and that he will without partiality "reward every man according to his works."

      While the missionary spirit and the missionary work are essentially the same, the condition of the missionaries, and the condition of the field, or the area of their missions, are, or may be, greatly diversified. The mission of the Harbinger John, of the Messiah himself, as a prophet and as a preacher of his own mission and work, the mission of the seventy heralds, the mission of the twelve apostles, the mission of special churches, such as that of the seven churches in Asia Minor, were not identically the same. They were, indeed, in certain points the same. They were one and all to preach and teach Jesus as the Christ. His person, offices, mission and work were to be announced and developed in all their attitudes and bearings upon heaven and earth, upon time and eternity--the world that now is, and that which is to come. But not simultaneously; not in each and every address. In this, as in every other work, there is a time and a place, there are conditions and circumstances, which call for special attention, special development and special application. No two discourses in the four Gospels or in the Acts of the Apostles are identically the same. True it is that the person and mission, the character and work, of the Lord Jesus Christ, in all the inspired evangelists and proclaimers of the glad tidings of great joy unto all people reported to us in the Christian Scriptures, were, in their facts and documents, one and all, the same in sense and purport, though diversified in style and manner, in general and special details.

      There were, indeed, but a few facts, however diversified in style and manner of exhibition, continually pressed upon the attention and cordial reception of those to whom the glad tidings were announced. These were propounded not in identical terms and phrases, not in stereotyped [535] formulas of speech, but in all the varieties of terms and phrases best adapted to the diversified education and training, to the peculiar modes of thinking and speaking, of the persons addressed. Still, the materials that constitute the gospel, with their evidences and claims upon the understanding, the conscience and the affections, were fully presented in such forms and imagery as were most appreciated by the parties addressed.

      The difference between preaching and teaching Christ, so palpable in the apostolic age, though now confounded in the theoretic theologies of our day, must be well defined and clearly distinguished in the mind, in the style and utterances of an evangelist or missionary who would be a workman that needs not to blush, a workman covetous of the best gifts and of the richest rewards.

      Facts versus theories have revolutionized the scientific world. Facts versus human traditions have protestantized much of the Papal world. Facts versus natural religion ¹ have christianized many theists, deists and atheists; while between nature and theology, properly so called, there is not one discordant note, in heaven, earth or hades. Nature may create theists and annihilate atheists; but she cannot create a Christian nor bestow the hope of immortality. Christianity is, therefore, super-sensuous, supernatural, super-intellectual and superlatively Divine.

      Hence the indispensable necessity of spiritual regeneration in order to the appreciation of the reality, the beauty, the glory, the paramount excellency, of that life and immortality brought within our vision through the condescension and affiliation with us on the part of Him who hath brought life and immortality to light by his own triumph over death and the grave.

      The didachee, or the doctrine, that is, the teaching, of Christianity, is the exposition of its own peculiar developments--of its history, its facts, its precepts, its promises, its rewards or retributions. The missionary--the would-be-successful missionary--must be well versed, fully indoctrinated, in these. They are his directory or guide in successfully executing the great work of his mission. He must be able to contemplate the parts in the whole, and the whole in its parts. He must not only have a large and rich treasury well assorted, but he must have it at command. He must be able to bring out of it, on demand, things new and old. He must, therefore, have in his evangelical treasury a place for every thing, and every thing in its place. [536]

      Still, in the discharge of the duties of this work he must properly and fully understand the whole oracles of God, and clearly distinguish the difference between preaching and teaching Jesus Christ.

      This is no mere speculative distinction. It was appreciated, fully understood and acted upon, or carried out, in the apostolic ministry. Hence we read, in Acts v. 42; that, after thousands of Jews had been converted to Christ, the apostles "daily in the temple, and from house to house, ceased not to teach, and to preach (or to announce the glad tidings) that Jesus was the Christ." Keerux, the preacher, keerussoo, I preach, and keerugma, the speech, or the preaching--and also euanggelistees, the evangelist, euaggelion, the gospel, and euaggelizoo, I preach the gospel--frequently occur in the Greek Christian Scriptures, and are of nearly equal circulation, but are always distinguished from didaskoo, I teach, didaskalia and didachee, a doctrine, and didaskalos, a teacher. No two such families of words of so many branches and of so large a currency are more distinguishable or more frequently distinguished in the whole nomenclature of the Christian Scriptures. An evangelist or preacher, or missionary, in our present ecclesiastic currency, may have both these works committed to his hands. This, however, does not make them one and the same, any more than preaching and baptizing are one and the same act because performed by one and the same person or functionary. For the sake of accurate and intelligible language and a clear appreciation of the Christian Scriptures and the Lord's will concerning us, these words and works should be clearly understood and employed by every evangelist or missionary of the church sent out and patronized by the church; and more especially by our brotherhood, who unite on the apostolic platform of church union, communion and co-operation.

      A doctrine, a theory or a science is always in the eye and aim and effort of the teacher. A person his office, work and character are always in the heart and aim and effort of the evangelist, preacher or missionary. Indeed, these three words in ecclesiastic or religious currency are interchangeably used as indicative of one and the same functionary. We are aware that we find the word evangelist but three times in the apostolic writings--Acts xxi. 8, "Philip the evangelist," Ephesians iv. 11, "He gave some evangelists, and some prophets, and teachers," and 2 Timothy iv. 5, "The work of an evangelist." There being two Philips, one was called the evangelist, in contradistinction from Philip the Apostle. See Matthew x. 2; Mark iii. 18; Acts i. 13; but especially Acts xxi. 8.

      Every selected and ordained preacher of the gospel is, ex officio, an [537] evangelist. Every missionary selected, sent and ordained to act out the duties of a missionary, domestic or foreign, is, ex officio, an evangelist. And may we not ask, Why should any one be selected, ordained and sent to preach the gospel, beyond the precincts of any church--to convert pagans, infidels or sinners of any category--and not be invested with the requisite power to collect his converts into societies, called congregations, or churches, and not have the power to unite, set in order, or constitute such converts into communities, called churches, and leave them in the hands and under the supervision of such officers, usually called elders, or overseers, and deacons, or servants, as may be selected by such communities to be ordained to such services? This is not only the order, the suggestion, but the oracle, of reason, of prudence, of propriety, as well as consentaneous with apostolic order and precedent.

      But this is not our present theme. It is only an allusion to the great object and the grand subject before us as a missionary society. We have all, we trust, learned that Christianity is neither more nor less than Divine philanthropy.

      It is Divine philanthropy in harmony, too, with every other attribute of God; in harmony with his rectoral government of the whole universe; in harmony with all that is known of God in heaven, appreciated, loved and revered by all the principalities and powers and lordships in all the celestial realms of this grand and awful and glorious universe. Angels of all ranks and orders desire to contemplate it; because they delight to study, to admire and to adore the perfections, the grandeur, the glory and the majesty of Jehovah in the lofty and profound study and admiration of the infinite perfections and the adorable attributes of the Father of the whole family of natural, moral, worshipful, adoring spirits, whether known as angels or spirits, cherubim or seraphim.

      We are satisfactorily informed that all the spiritual and angelic hosts desire more and more profoundly to contemplate the mysterious, divine and wonderful revelation of God, exhibited, developed, aggrandized, in and by the incarnation, substitution, humiliation unto death, the resurrection, the ascension, and the coronation of humanity and Divinity in the union of the finite and the infinite, of the earthy and the heavenly, of the temporal and the eternal, in the person of the Son of man and the Son of God.

      The thought of securing an eternal weight of glory purposed, promised and guaranteed to every true, sincere, honest, enlightened and obedient Christian, man, woman or child, is, or ought to be, the [538] all-absorbing aim, object, desire, effort and endeavor of every disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. In open vision of the glory and grandeur of this great salvation--the inheritance of God himself and of all his creatures--what manner of persons ought we to be in zeal, in diligence, in effort, in self-government, self-sacrifice, liberality, generosity, beneficence, magnanimity! No mean, penurious, selfish, penny-wise and pound-foolish professor or nominal Christian can rise to such a conception of future glory and blessedness as that which warms, animates, enlarges, beatifies, the believing, confiding, hoping, longing soul that has tasted the rich grace of God in the delightful antepast and soul-cheering foretaste of the glory to be revealed when the Lord Jesus shall come in all his glory and majesty, with ten thousand times ten thousand, even thousands of thousands, of angels.

      No living man, no living tongue of man, can estimate or express that exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Pauls himself labors (2 Cor. iv. 17) with the aid of two hyperboles as prefixes to his aiwnion baruV doxhV, his exceeding and eternal burden of glory. No such phrase as this is found in any lexicon or dictionary, of any language living or dead, ever consulted by me; and we have the largest number of them that I have ever seen in any private library.

      Christianity--the gospel--cannot be fully appreciated by any living man, in any language living or dead. It is well said, and it is truthfully said, that "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered the heart of man to conceive, the things which God has prepared for them that love him." We know, too, that Dr. A. Clarke, Dr. MacKnight, and some others regard these words as applying to Greek and Roman philosophers not having been able to conceive of a Christian's birthrights. This may be conceded, though of doubtful propriety; and could we call them all by name--like the names and titles of God the Father and of the Lord Jesus--it were then true that we have no conception, no adequate conception, of the eternal glory of ransomed humanity in that inheritance which is imperishable, unpolluted, and everlasting as the throne of God. Still, we have in the Christian's charter an inheritance incorruptible, unpolluted and unfading, rich as the price paid for it by the second Adam, the Lord from heaven--an exceeding weight of glory. We know that we shall see our Lord in all his grandeur, and we know that he will be our elder brother, and that we shall be heirs in common with him of all the glories of God's own heaven.

      Now, I propound the question--and may I not put it with all earnestness and propriety on the premises submitted?--What are we doing for the Lord Jesus--his cause and people? What are we doing to [539] enlarge his dominion, to extend his empire, to bless the church, to convert the world? I put this question, not to a people enslaved to or by a dominant, avaricious, worldly, selfish, grasping priesthood. You, my Christian, my beloved brethren, greatly appreciate your political birthrights, your Christian birthrights, which in prospect present to us a crown of glory that fadeth not away. We are permitted, we are invited, we are most cordially pressed by the tender mercies of our God, by the importunities of Him who made himself poor, houseless, homeless, penniless, that he might inaugurate us citizens of heaven and make us joint heirs with himself--I say, he has permitted us to aspire to great honor, by leaving something for us to do, not engrossing to himself the exclusive honor and glory of the conversion and salvation of our families, our relations, our kinsmen according to the flesh, our fellow-citizens, our neighbors, our down-trodden and oppressed fellowmen, at home and abroad. We have always with us not the poor only in this world's goods and chattels, but the ignorant, priest-ridden, slaves of lying fables and fanatical imaginations. He has spread out before us a large area of ignorant, uneducated--almost uncivilized--heathen at home--in our cities, our villages, our hamlets--even living in our houses and on our farms.

      What humane and Christian interest take we in them, in approaching them, in addressing them, in preaching to them the words of eternal life? Do we go out to the lanes, the squalid huts, of cheerless poverty--the filthy cellars that germinate our epidemics and our endemics? Do we gather their children to our Sunday-schools? Do we send our evangelists, our young preachers, to them? Do we approach them ourselves? What do we for them? What do we for our fellow-citizens scattered over the West, the Southwest, the Northwest? What do we across the seas? What for Pagandom, abroad or at home? What for Jerusalem? We have done some good, probably much good, there. Why not carry on the work? The door is open--quite open. And what shall we do for Jerusalem?--the city of David and Solomon, in whose environs the work of redemption was consummated? "They shall prosper that love thee." Oh, Jerusalem! Jerusalem!" I can feel both wrath and pity when I think of thee!" "Unto that city the tribes of God went up--the tribes of God went thither." I am far from hopeless as to that field. Let us not abandon it. It is a great centre of attraction. It is also a city of radiation. Let our prayers and our means go hand in hand in behalf of Jerusalem and the venerated Mount Zion, and will not the Lord pour out a blessing upon them and upon us? Let us do our duty, and the Lord will not withhold his [540] blessing.We cannot sow and reap the same day, the same month, sometimes not even the same year. Have we no tears for Jerusalem? What said the songs of degrees--in the days of the captivity of ancient Israel? Hearken to these words:--

      So reads the seventh of the fifteen degrees, or of the psalms of degrees, sung, most probably, by the Jews on the event of their deliverance from the captivity of Babylon.

      My Christian brethren, my fellow-citizens of every ecclesiastic platform, can we not unite and harmonize and sympathize with old Jerusalem, and co-operate in behalf of the ancient city of the Great King--the city of David--the city of Solomon--the city of the Temple--the city over which the Lord Messiah wept in anticipation of her long, long years of moral and religious desolation? Oh, Jerusalem! Jerusalem! We have had for years a missionary there. And if of the inhabitants of that city few, very few, were benefited, so far as reported on earth, others have been, and the blessing of having labored there has redounded to our honor and beatified ourselves.

      We have still on the premises there a sister, ² of strong faith and large hope, toiling every day in her school of Jewish and Gentile children--a matter-of-fact, missionary-school. It appears from a late letter from her, received at Bethany, that Christian Jews are building a mission-house in Jerusalem, and that Mr. Cohen, a missionary Jew, with his son, are teaching over fifty Jewish children in his school. Mr. Coleman, also, a Russian Jew, late superintendent of the hospital there--now a Christian--addressed a congregation assembled at the laying of the foundation of their first dwelling-house, from the 127th Psalm:--

      The very interesting theme of Mr. Coleman's address was the dawning day of mercy to Israel. Mr. Graham, also, late Secretary of the Jewish Society in Jerusalem--greatly devoted to the promotion of their best efforts--in his prayer on the above occasion, while importuning the Divine blessing, commended them to His keeping who said, "As you have been a curse, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so will I bless you, and you shall be a blessing."

      There is, from these indications, much to encourage our efforts even in Jerusalem--not for the sake of the Jews only, but also for the sake of all kindreds and tongues and people, who from all nations meet there in their respect for that monumental city, hallowed in the memories of all who appreciate the great work of human redemption consummated there.

      But this is not the only cry in our ears. "Come over and help us," echoes from every point of the compass. Myriads are yearly perishing in ignorance and unbelief--living and dying without God, without Christ and without hope! If we cannot evangelize the whole world perishing in Pagan and Papal darkness, superstition and error, let us select our fields of labor, domestic and foreign, and send out our missionary evangelists to such fields as promise the most fruit, whether at home or abroad. Unless we do this, I ask, what evidence have we of the sincerity of our faith in that commission which was given to the apostles, and through them to the Christian church and ministry, till the curtain shall fall upon the stage of earth and time? Is not the whole unconverted world within the area of the missionary field, and within the commission given to the apostles and through them to the people?--"Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." Upon the church, the united church, founded on the apostles' doctrine and faith, rests this solemn and authoritative oracle.

      "Charity," it is said, "begins at home." True, very true, if there be objects at home. But it is no proverb in our Israel that charity tarries at home. Like nature's brightest type of God, our sun, it shines not upon our country and our homes alone, but also spreads its vivifying beams upon all the nations and tribes of our humanity. So shines the Sun of righteousness and of mercy. If the East witnesses his earliest dawn, the West rejoices in his last lingering ray. Indeed, he is rising and setting every moment of the four-and-twenty hours upon myriads of our race.

      Shall we not, then, as far as in us lies, as far as God has vouchsafed to us any instrumentality--shall we not send the light of life everlasting to all the world, if God vouchsafes to us the honorable opportunity [542] and instrumentality? At all events, shall we not avail ourselves of every opportunity, and create, as far as we can, opportunities to send the word--the gospel of life everlasting--to a perishing world--embracing in the arms of a common humanity, a common paternity, a common fraternity, the whole family of man? Christianity in another point resembles our sun. In its own system it is both radiating and attractive. Hence said our Lord, "If the Son of man be lifted up, he will draw all men to him." We are not straitened in God; we are straitened in ourselves. He commanded the gospel to be preached not only in, but to, the whole world. "The fields," as Jesus once said, "are already white to harvest." And why is not the harvest reaped? Because the reapers have fallen out by the way, and have thrust their sickles into one another. This is enrolled in heaven as the curse of God upon all the sectarists and sectarisms. "A house" or an army "divided against itself cannot stand." So said the highest authority in the world.

      For almost three centuries--at least two and a half centuries--Greek, Roman and Protestant Christendom have had their troops and commanders, captains, majors and generals, engaged in ecclesiastic wars, stratagems and spoils. Church politics, church philosophies, church doctrines, church ordinances, have been the apples of discord, the bitter fruits of an apostasy from primitive, original, apostolic Christianity. We charge the existing Mohammedanism, Patriarchism, Papalism, Protestantism and its four forms of church politics--Episcopacy, Presbyterianism, Independency and Methodism--I say we charge these, one and all, to the substitution of human prudence, human policy and human philosophy for the plain and truthful oracles of the Lord Messiah and for the teachings of his inspired apostles.

      Associated with these have been the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye and the pride of life. And to this last category we must assign much of all the strifes, discords and schisms which now superabound and constitute what is appropriately called "modern Christendom."

      We would not if we could, and we could not if we would, exaggerate the fearful paralysis superinduced upon the body of Christ, his mystical body--the church, of which he is the head, and of which the Holy Spirit, or Holy Guest, is the heart--by this fearful apostasy, now existing more or less in all communities, paralyzing every heart and every arm engaged in the great work of harmonizing Christians upon the seven pillars erected by the great Apostle to the Gentiles, viz. one Lord, one faith, one immersion, one God and Father of all, one body, one Spirit and one hope. And must we not fear that while this [543] paralysis continues the great field of the world, in its Jewish infidelity, its Mohammedan delusions, its Pagan idolatries and its Papal despotisms, will not be, cannot be, successfully approached by any ordinary missionary enterprise, however evangelically originated, constituted and conducted? Suppose this were more or less in any degree to be the case: would that, should that, could that, justify cessation from all endeavors? Certainly not. Has not the Lord commanded the gospel to be preached to all the world, and constantly preached, till he personally appear on the field himself and call the world to judgment? This is the identical mission of the church; this is her duty, her privilege, her honor, as it is now and will ever be her chief glory and her highest happiness.

      At this stand-point we most profoundly regret the jars and schisms, so rife, so antagonistic and so antagonizing, within the area of what we call Protestant Christendom. We spend more in keeping up these rival distinctions, differences and animosities than we spend in all our missionary fields and stations from the rising to the setting sun. Could we have the sum-total expended first in erecting, then in adorning, our splendid churches--our stone and lime churches--with their splendid pulpits, galleries, ornaments, organs, paintings, &c., our rival theological seminaries, professors, libraries, and all other contributions to the denominational pride and ambition consecrated to Christian missions, we might have Asia and Africa, with the outposts of America, more civilized, humanized and evangelized in one century than any State in our confederation. We can tax ourselves to hundreds and thousands to secure the pride of life--and cast our weekly dimes into the Lord's treasury, to bless our souls and to convert the world! I say we, not denominationally, but we, of the living fashionable world of hebdomadal Christians, and high-church and low-church conformists; we can adorn our persons, our churches and our pews, our horses and our carriages, if not our livery-servants, at the expense of thousands, and then give twenty, or fifty, or a hundred dollars a year to convert the Jews and the paganized Gentiles of the whole world! Is this a fancy sketch, a freak of imagination, or a positive, substantial reality? Is it an Indian pagoda, a Papal palace, a Mohammedan mosque? Such was not a Jewish synagogue. Such is not a Christian meeting-house. The Christian church is, indeed, a much more expensive institution. It cost the sacrifice of prophets and apostles, of saints and martyrs. It cost the blood of that precious Lamb of God foreordained and symbolized from the foundation of the world. It cost the confiscation of goods unpriced, the banishment, the imprisonment and the cruel [544] slaughter of myriads of the purest, the most just and generous and magnanimous men and women that ever adorned the annals of the world. And what does it propose? Ay! This is the question that places all our powers of reason and imagination under tribute to prophets and apostles, to saints and martyrs who sealed their testimony by the voluntary sacrifice of themselves. They loved not their lives as they loved their Lord. They joyfully imperilled their all on earth, their all in time. They took joyfully the plundering, the spoiling of all their earthly goods and chattels, that they might glorify their Lord and obtain for themselves a crown of martyrdom, "a crown of glory that fadeth not away." They, indeed, counted all things but loss that they might gain Christ. But the inventory given of some of their estates in reversion proves them to have been the most rational and far-seeing of human kind. They had a guarantee to the following effect:--"All things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's," and all this for an eternal future.

      I ask you, my fellow-citizens, in your cool, deliberate reason and foresight, were they not the most rational persons of whom you have ever read? There is no wild enthusiasm in all this. Who would not give a cent for a thousand millions? a day, a year, or a century, for all the millions, billions, trillions, quadrillions, or quintillions of ages of any number within the precincts of earth's largest figures?

      Who would not, of earth's richest bankers, give all the treasures of the natural universe for the riches, honors, glories and beatitudes of an heir of God and all his riches and glories guaranteed to him irrevocably, to the utmost capacities of creature enjoyment? And let me ask, emphatically ask, are not all these within the precincts of "ALL THINGS"? Assuredly, then, "eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor human mind conceived," the riches, the grandeur, the honor, of an heir of God through Christ Jesus our Lord and Redeemer.

      And here I must pause and pray, O Lord, increase our faith! Every cent you spend on earth for yourself, for things of earth and time, is lost to you forever!

      Jesus Christ our Lord made himself so poor that he might make many rich forever, that, he said, on earth he had not a spot whereon to repose his wearied head! And all this to enrich his friends forever! Was there ever love like this? We must, my Christian friends and brethren, stop and think, before we further go. All the gold of Ophir could not ease an aching heart, nor soothe a [545] disconsolate spirit. To give freely, cheerfully, liberally, as the Lord has blessed and prospered us, to every great work, is not only our duty, but our highest honor, our greatest happiness. It was long since decided in the highest court of law and equity in this universe that it is "more blessed to give than to receive."

      To lend is more felicitous than to borrow: for "the borrower is always servant to the lender." And to give to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, is not so felicitous, though even this is, in heaven's own grace, called "lending to the Lord," as it is to dispense "the bread and the water of life," to convert sinners from the error of their ways, to hide a multitude of sins, and to constitute them heirs of God through Jesus Christ our Lord! Hence, of all the causes most interesting to man the cause of missions is supreme. It is the cause of eternal redemption, of everlasting life, honor, glory and blessedness. It is, too, of all the sacrifices of man the most acceptable to God; because most in unison with his own philanthropy in expending more to redeem man than he gave to furnish and garnish the whole universe.

      We now reason, only reason, with you, my Christian brethren, on the missionary cause. There is no enthusiasm in this. It is a cool and deliberate act of the highest reason, as the most profound reasoner could demonstrate, to give freely, cheerfully, liberally, to the cause of human salvation, in the form of instituting, sustaining and conducting missionary enterprises. We need missionaries, well-educated missionaries, at home and abroad, in the centres of our highest civilization and on our most remote and savage frontiers. Let us, then, awaken from our speculations and day-dreams of earth's fantastic visions of political honor, of worldly affluence, of large fortunes and rich estates for our heirs to send them comfortably to eternal perdition, to everlasting bankruptcy and ruin.

      And let me not ask you what you would take for any earthly property or estate which the Lord has given you as a steward, but how much you would give to save one soul from everlasting perdition, bankruptcy and ruin? In order to this, I ask you the value of one soul! How much would you--speaking commercially--take or ask for your soul? You, doubtless, remember the unanswered and unanswerable question propounded by the wisest, the most intelligent and most benevolent personage that was ever clothed in humanity. It bankrupts all the powers of language, human or angelic, to express. "What is a man profited should he gain the whole world and lose his life, his soul or himself ?" Any one of these three words is of equal value as an exponent of psuchee in its one hundred and fifteen occurrences in the [546] Christian Scriptures. We may be peculiar in entertaining the opinion, but we cannot divest ourself of it, that this was a common saying, current in that day, "What advantage in gaining the whole world at the loss of one's life?" "What gain in gaining the whole world and losing one's life?"--or losing one's self. This, if we could conceive of such a thing, is a moral absurdity. No gain whatever; but an utter, an infinite and an eternal loss!

      To be the means of saving one soul, or one person, in the course of the longest life and by the most arduous struggles, is quite enough of honor and of happiness to satisfy any sensible, any rational man of Christian aspirations. This is a fact we do not argue. Its simple statement, to any one familiar with its terms, is sufficient to produce a cordial acquiescence. Even to correct and reclaim one erratic brother who has wandered out of the fold is a greater work than any work achieved by Cæsar, Napoleon or our own Washington. They fought and they conquered for themselves, their offspring and their country. They obtained for them an exemption from involuntary taxation and the despotic encroachments of a tyrannic and absolute monarchy.

      For this statement we have the sanction of the venerated Apostle James. He says, in plain English, "Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one turn him back to it, let him know that he who turns a sinner back from the error of his way will save a soul from death, and cover his multitude of sins." (James v. 20.) So thought and so wrote the venerated James to the twelve tribes dispersed through Mesopotamia, Media and Babylon, A. D. 61.

      Any one and every one of the converted Jews in that day, it seems, had an invitation to convert sinners in the church as well as sinners out of the church. And have not we still need to preach and teach Jesus Christ often out of the church and sometimes in the church? Missionaries and evangelists may in their journeyings occasionally find it expedient in some churches to declare the gospel, as Paul did to the Corinthians, and as James did to the brethren in the dispersion.

      What is every man's business is said, with much propriety, to be no man's business. Hence, home missions as well as foreign missions are still expedient. Paul and Barnabas found it expedient to visit and revisit the churches which they had planted and watered. (See Acts xv. 36.) Paul, who made this motion, said, Let us survey, supervise their condition--see how they do. In all this work of faith, in all this labor of love, they were building up and establishing the churches, as well as increasing their numbers and augmenting their strength in the Lord [547] and in his cause. This is, and ever should be, a prominent portion of the missionary operations of all those consecrated and devoted to this work.

      For this reason, they ought to be freed from all necessity of providing for themselves and families. It is quite as much the Christian duty of the churches to support, and comfortably sustain, their evangelists or missionaries, as it is the duty of those ordained to this office "to do the work of an evangelist" and to make "full proof" of their mission and ministry. So Paul commanded Timothy, (2 Tim. iv. 5) and so he commanded the churches in their fields of labor not to forget those who labored for them; and that, too, by their own request. "The soul of the liberal" Christian "waxeth fat," and "he that waters others shall be watered again." There is justice lying at the basis of every Divine institution. For "justice and judgment" are celebrated by the sweet bard of Israel as the basis or the "foundation of the throne of God." See Psalm lxxxix. 14.

      Have we not now, Christian brethren, sufficient premises before us as to our duties, privileges, honors and rewards in this great and glorious work? First, then, we ask, What Christian, worthy of the name, can be found who cherishes not in his heart a missionary spirit? Who does not pray that the Lord's work may progress in usefulness and in honor to all co-operants in it? Where shall we find a Christian, a genuine Christian, who is not willing, cheerful, joyful and happy in being thus a joint laborer with God and Christ and the Holy Spirit, with the angels of God, the ministering spirits of his loving kindness and of his tender mercies to the sons and daughters of men, who love, honor and adore Him who is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last of the most august drama, ever acted on the broad and splendid theatre of the material universe?

      There lives not the man, worthy of the name, who has ever seen himself mirrored in the unveiled face of Immanuel--who from Pisgah, Nebo's loftiest peak, has gazed upon the promised land on Jordan's farther side--who does not earnestly, ardently and joyfully anticipate the riches, the honors, the glories, the felicities, of that inheritance incorruptible, undefiled and that fadeth not away, secured and guaranteed to him through the immaculate life and the sacrificial death of the Lamb of God promised and adumbrated in all the sacrifices from the death of the righteous Abel to that of Immanuel on the accursed tree.

      Every such ransomed man feels himself constrained to vow eternal allegiance to his will and to consecrate himself, and all the talents he [548] possesses, to his honor and glory. He studies both Divinity and humanity in his person and character--in what he said, in what he did, in what he suffered in behalf of fallen man. He supremely desires to be like him in spirit, in temper, in word and in deed. His person, his office, his character, his works of love and of mercy, his obedience unto death to the will of his Father and for the ransom of man, seizes his heart, animates his soul, energizes his character, and prompts him to imitate his example--to consecrate his heart, his person, his life, his influence, his all, to his honor and glory.

      Now, as philanthropy--a word of heaven's own dialect and inspiration--supremely distinguished the Hero of our emancipation in his whole sojourn on earth, and was the efficient reason of his manifestation from the manger to the cross, every Christian participates more or less abundantly of that same self-sacrificing missionary spirit. As Jesus the Christ, the fruit of this philanthropy of God our Father, became a, prophet, a missionary, an evangelist, so every Christian, every one born from above, is, in his new heart and spirit, disposed to be a missionary in some field, in some circle of humanity, great or small, either in his own person or in that of some kindred spirit, better gifted, better qualified, better fitted for the work than himself. Hence every true Christian will unite and co-operate in and by such better-qualified herald, and hold up his hands, cheer his heart, spirit him on and sustain him in his work of faith, his labors of love and patience of hope, and thereby become a partaker with him in full copartnery in all the avails of his mission, in all the conquests and triumphs of the gospel dispensed by him. In the book of God's remembrance every such co-operant is unquestionably enrolled. For illustration, suppose that one hundred persons, all citizens of Christ's kingdom, all heirs and joint partners of the grace of eternal life, should select a man of God, possessed of a missionary spirit, possessed of all the essential endowments for such an office and calling, and send him out into a certain field and sustain him in the work, agreeing with him that he will and shall consecrate his whole time, every day of the year, and exclusively consecrate every hour and every opportunity, to the duties of his mission; and suppose in said field in one year he should be the instrument of bringing into Christ's kingdom any definite number of genuine converts--for illustration say any number, fifty if you please; then conceive of their annual influence for any definite number of years, in the same ratios, and add to these the influence of these new converts in their respective spheres during life, and the influence of all their converts for one generation, and here pause. What a revenue of [549] glory and honor and felicity! But this is a lame and imperfect view even in its brightest attitude before our minds. For, through the influence of these, in a century or two, what a multitude may enter the everlasting mansions! And these, too, all in a primary sense are the trophies of Him who gave birth to this institution.

      In this way the twelve apostles have credited to their labors and toils all the Christian family of God, past, present and future. But there is this never-to-be-forgotten fact, that while the glories of the apostles surround them forever, they interfere not with, they diminish not from, the glories and the honors of all who have, like them, in spirit, in labors, in toils and in sufferings, acted, suffered, toiled in their respective ages, generations and contemporaries. God can, in the riches of his grace, beautify, beatify and glorify them all, as if each and every one had been both the originator, the author and finisher of his own work! This, and this only, is the proper, the rational and the religious conception of that remedial institution, and of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. " He will give grace, and lie will give glory;" and he is rich enough, and kind enough, and generous enough to give both grace and glory on a scale transcendentally sublime, surpassing all that eye has ever seen, ear ever heard, or heart ever conceived.

      Who would not, then, that has ever in truth tasted that the Lord is gracious, that believes he will give grace to do his will and reward those that have done it, as though, without his aid or grace, they had done it--we ask who, with such a faith, would not, on such well-established premises, firm as the throne of God, enduring as the ages of eternity, give, devote and consecrate his whole personality--body, soul and spirit--to his service, honor and glory? Who would not bring his offerings into Christ's treasury? Who would not labor and toil for means to invest in such a cause, under such a leader, and for ends and consummations of glory, honor and immortality beyond all conception, and consequently beyond all expression.

      And now, brethren beloved in the Lord, I ask you, in his name and for his sake--I importune and beseech you--that you act worthily of your faith and hope in God, worthily of your relations to him, worthily of your indebtedness to him, and most worthily of that rich grace bestowed upon you, and of that high hope cherished in your hearts, that, when he comes in all his glory, he may not be ashamed of you, nor you ashamed of yourselves in his presence. And to Him who redeemed us by the voluntary sacrifice of himself, be all glory and honor, all blessing and praise, now, henceforth and forever. Amen! [550]

[PLA 531-550]