But I cannot stop to reason. I make my appeal to your generosity. Those who go to teach your brethren in pagan lands, must be maintained. But at present they cannot receive maintenance there. The heathen must be converted, and formed into christian societies, before adequate provision for the ministers of Christ can be expected from them. Will you then see your missionaries, who have left all to preach the gospel of peace among the poor heathen, reduced to the necessity of abandoning their sacred office, and engaging in servile labor for their daily bread? Will you see your apostles, the ambassadors of peace from America, clothed in rags, and compelled to beg or starve? And must they tell the heathen that they are thus forsaken of their christian brethren, who have enough and to spare?

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It is too obvious to need any farther illustration, that the christian community at large has a deep concern in the command of Christ, "to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." I urge this command of our risen Savior, as absolutely obliging you to seek the conversion of the world. The universal spread of the gospel, and the salvation of the ends of the earth is a business in which every christian ought to take a part. This gracious injunction was given by our Lord just before he ascended into heaven. It was a most memorable occasion. He had finished his work on earth, and was about to return to his Father and our Father, to his God and our God. He knew the superabounding grace which flowed from Calvary; the ruined state of man, and the saving power of his cross. All nations and ages were before him. Then, with the love and authority of the King of Zion, he gave the command, to evan

gelize all nations. And can any one who has the heart of a christian, or of a man, refuse obedience?

My fourth motive is derived from THE CONDUCT

OF THOSE WHO RECEIVED THIS COMMAND, AND OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES IN SUCCEEDING TIMES. The apostles "went forth, and preached every where." They travelled into various parts of the idolatrous world, preaching the gospel to the poor;-planting and watering churches; and encountering fierce and cruel persecutions. In all their journeyings, labors, and sufferings, their invariable object was, that God's way might be known upon earth, and his salvation to all nations.

The same spirit appeared in the primitive churches. Under the first sermon which was preached after the ascension of Christ, three thousand were converted. What was the fruit of their conversion? We are immediately told that "they who believed were together, and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all as every one had need." From time to time the churches and individual christians assisted the apostles in their journies, and contributed in various ways to the propagation of the christian religion.

How excellent the spirit of the apostles, and of those early converts to the christian faith! Can you help feeling the attraction of such examples? Will you not imitate those who beheld the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, and received of his fulness? Shall the first apostles and martyrs of christianity be forgotten? Read the history of their self-denying labors, their deprivations and sacrifices, their patience under reproach and torture, and their inextinguishable zeal for the salvation of sinners.

Read too the history of what has in later times been done by the missionaries of Christ in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. And consider that it was owing to Missionary labors, that your distant ancestors were delivered from their idols, and entrusted with those sacred oracles which they have transmitted to you. While you revolve these things, do not your hearts burn within you? Do you not look with admiration upon the faithful messengers of grace? and do you not long to be partakers of their labors and sufferings, their success, and their crowns of glory?

My fifth motive is derived from the PECULIAR DE

то

SIGN OF CHRISTIANITY IN CONTRADISTINCTION JUDAISM, AND ITS ADAPTEDNESS TO BE A UNIVERSAL RELIGION, Brethren, we are not disciples of Judaism. But have we not had too much of its limited and exclusive spirit? Have we not thought it enough to enjoy the scriptures and the ministers of religion among ourselves, without any care to send them to other nations? But why should we indulge feelings so adverse to the Christian dispensation, and limit that, which its divine author has left unlimited? Why should we engross a religion to which all nations have an equal right, and which is adapted to universal use? As well might we think of engrossing the common light and air.

The doctrines of Christianity are applicable to all men; because all have the same nature, and stand in the same relation to God and to one another. The laws of Christianity are suited to govern mankind of every nation and climate. These laws rest on general principles, and extend equally to the whole human race. The corruptions which they require us to subdue, are found in every child of Adam. The repent

ance, faith, and holiness, which they demand, are equally the duties of all nations. All the promises, ordinances, and blessings of the gospel, would be as precious to renovated pagans, as they are to us.-Why should we withhold such a religion from the unnumbered millions who people the eastern world? We will not, brethren. We, who profess to believe and love christianity, will not adopt principles and measures so contrary to its celestial nature, and its diffusive, benign tendency.

My sixth motive is derived from PROPHECY. My brethren, has not the notion often insinuated itself into our minds, that all has been done which can be done for the conversion of the world, and that things are likely to remain much as they are? Or if we have not admitted this in theory, has it not been our practical sentiment? When we have looked upon the millions of men who are uncivilized, degraded, without God and without hope, are we not prone to give up their conversion as hopeless? And if it is not the language of our lips, is it not of our feelings, that the kingdom of Christ will stop where it is; that the obstacles in the way of christianizing the nations of the earth are too great to be surmounted; and that the most we can expect is to maintain the ground already secured, To raise you above this sinking discouragement and indolence, I will open to you THE PROPHETIC page, "He shall see the travail of his soul and be satisfied." "It is a light thing that thou shouldst be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel;-I will also give thee for A LIGHT TO THE GENTILES, that thou mayest be my salvation to THE ENDS OF THE EARTH. ASK OF ME, AND I WILL GIVE THEE THE HEATHEN FOR THINE INHERITANCE, AND THE UTTERMOST PARTS OF THE EARTH FOR THY

POSSESSION. Thus saith the Lord God; behold I will lift up my hand to THE GENTILES, and set up my standard to the people.-ALL THE ENDS OF THE EARTH SHALL SEE THE SALVATION OF GOD." Shall these glorious predictions fail of accomplishment? Shall these unchangeable decrees of the Almighty be frustrated? Heaven and earth shall pass away, but not one jot or tittle of these promises shall fail. The. mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

When we survey the idolatrous, blind, barbarous nations of the world, our courage flags; and we ask, with desponding hearts, can these dry bones live?-We forget the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, who fainteth not, neither is weary. We forget that all nations are in his hands; that he fashioneth them as he pleaseth.-Because the conversion of the world is beyond our power, we think it beyond the power of GoD. Well might Christ say to us, "Oh ye of little faith!"-Did Paul indulge such despondency when he conferred not with flesh and blood; but with the ardor of a young convert, and the fearless fidelity of an apostle, preached the word of God in Greece, in Asia, and in Rome? Did Wickliffe indulge such feelings? Did Luther? Did Swartz, Eliott, Brainerd?-Away with every hesitating, unbelieving thought!. Is the Lord's arm shortened that it cannot save? Is his grace exhausted? The great design of God is not yet accomplished. He who died and lives again, is not yet satisfied. Eighteen hundred years ago he said, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." And he said, more than two thousand years ago; Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else."-This word has not returned unto him void. The whole Christian world