raise it up to its present greatness, in order only that it might be the Depository of his blessed Gospel. Oh, no; he would not have us merely Depositories, but Depositaries-stewards, or Almoners rather--to whom he has entrusted this great boon, to impart it to others who have need.

God has done great things for us, "wherefore we are glad ;" and he expects great things of us. Let us beware, lest when he "looks" to this his "vineyard for fruit," it should "bring forth no fruit," and his displeasure be kindled against us.

Our position is remarkably favorable for doing great good in the world. Our relations with other nations have been, with very few exceptions, entirely friendly. We have opened our gates to the poor and oppressed of every land. We have admitted all, come from whatever country, and be their religious creed what it might, to an equal participation in our civil and religious privileges. If we should, therefore, attempt to send what we as Protestants believe to be the true Gospel, into papal or other nominally-Christian countries, where the "Truth as it is in Jesus" has fallen before the march of Superstition or Infidelity, we should stand on the vantage ground of endeavoring to do no more than we allow the foreign advocates of these great errors to do in our own country. We have granted equal liberty to all religionists who come to our shores. We may, with good grace, indulge the hope that we, too, may be allowed to do what we can to spread the Faith which we love in papal and other nominally-Christian lands. If Rome sends her missionaries, and vast sums of money, to spread her religion here, she has no good reason to complain if we endeavor to carry the Truth into her own domains. There is a propriety in our doing We should only be doing towards her, what she is doingthanks to our Protestant principles, of religious freedom, carried out to their legitimate extent-with our consent, towards us. She ought not, therefore, to complain; nor ought she to be surprised if we, too, abandoning the ground of defensive warfare only, should begin to act on that of offensive also.

so.

Our relations to the Heathen and Mohammedan portions of the world are as favorable as could be desired; and our extensive commerce gives us easy access to them both. Our attempts to carry the Gospel into them have certainly been crowned with an encouraging degree of success. We have nothing, on this score, to discourage us. On the contrary, we have much to excite. us to still nobler efforts. As we owe our existence, in some sense, to the spirit of missions-a spirit which led many of our ancestors to come to this land with the hope of extending and promoting Christ's kingdom by so doing-we owe it to ourselves, to the perishing millions, and, above all, to God, to do much to impart the Gospel to those nations which are destitute of it. We have, indeed, done something; but it is nothing, compared with our ability;

nothing compared with the wants of the world; nothing compared with what God expects at our hands.

On this point a great many people among us deceive themselves in the grossest manner. Never having taken the trouble to ascertain what we are doing for foreign nations, or even what we are doing for our own, they seem to think we are doing too much abroad and too little at home.

Now I am very far from saying that we have done enough at home; but I hazard nothing when I say that if we have neglected our own country, it has not been in consequence of what we have done abroad. Let us see, for a moment, how the case stands.

Last year the sum total of all that was contributed in this land, by all the Evangelical Churches, did not greatly exceed six hundred thousand dollars. This was a small sum to be raised by more than two millions and a half-indeed nearer three millions of members of said Churches-to say nothing of what was given by well-disposed persons who are not members of any Church. It was indeed a pitifully small amount for the people of this land to give, to diffuse in other lands that Gospel which is the source of all the blessings that crown their own.

And what was done for our own country? Just about twice as much was contributed by our Churches to the various Societies, whose object is, in one way or another, to promote the extension of Christ's kingdom amongst us. And if we add to this the probable amount of what was given in all other ways to promote and sustain Religion at home,--by building Churches, and supporting pastors, and other efforts-we shall find that little short of eight millions of dollars were raised for the benefit of our own country. I do not think it was too much; I wish it had been twice as great. But I must say that we ought to have done five times-if not ten times as much to send the Gospel to 600,000,000 of Heathen, 100,000,000 of Mohammedans, 140,000,000 of Papists, and 5,000,000 of Jews. It is probable that, including all that is done by those Denominations among us which are not Evangelical, the sum total that is contributed for the sustentation of Religion at home, is not a dollar short of ten or eleven millions-that is some sixteen or eighteen times as much, at the least, as we are giving to save all the rest of the world. This cannot be the fulfilling of that grand mission for which God, it seems to me, has raised us up as a nation. O, no! This is impossible. There must be great culpability attaching to our Churches concerning this subject. May God give us grace to see our sin, repent of it, and bring forth fruits meet for repentance-such as may be worthy of our position and our privileges as a people. And to his name be all the glory.

Amen.

BY REV. H. B. HOOKER,

FALMOUTH, MASS.

THE FUNERAL OF THE SOUL.

And these shall go away into everlasting punishment.—MATTH. 25: 46.

As we are all familiar with the event of death, so are we also with its usual accompaniment, a funeral. We associate these events together, as the one naturally and necessarily follows the other.

But, while we recognise the fact, and often think of the funeral of the body, is there not also what may be called the funeral of the soul? If natural death occasions a necessity for one of these events, why may we not believe spiritual death creates a like necessity for the other? If it be a fact, that natural death causes such a change in the state of the body, that funeral rites must be performed, and that the body must be removed from all connexion with the living, is it anything unreasonable to believe that spiritual death produces such a state of the soul that funeral solemnities should be performed over that, and that there should be a removal of it from the society of all the holy and the happy?

In proof of such a fact, the text and context are clear and decisive. Hence, my present topic is THE FUNERAL OF THE SOUL.

I. Various facts are implicated in such an event, important to be noticed.

1. That the kindest efforts had been made to prevent the necessity of such a funeral. Who does not strive to arrest the hand of temporal death? Had you ever a departed friend, whose funeral you would not have prevented had it been in your power?

And has there not been much done, in the kindest way, to prevent the funeral of the soul? Was there not an atoning sacrifice, of astonishing value, once offered for the very purpose of preventing this melancholy event? Has not the Holy Spirit, the Heavenly Dove, been spreading his wings in all directions to stay such a catastrophe? Has there not been sent the human race a whole volume of every variety of dissuasives from such courses as would lead to such an event? And has there been, anywhere in a Christian land, a human soul that has not been surrounded by kind friends who have been deeply interested in preventing its funeral? Was there not warning, and entreaty, and prayer?

And, could that benevolence have prevailed in leading the sinner from his sins, would there have been the funeral of the soul?

2. It is implied in the funeral of the soul, that all the efforts of kindness to prevent it have FAILED. So we judge when we attend the funeral of the body. As we look upon the wreck and ruin of death, we see that all the tenderness of love, and all the assiduity and self-denial of kindness have been baffled, and that disease and death have had their triumphant way.

So the idea of the funeral of the soul carries with it the idea that, whatever had been the offices of Christian kindness to prevent that dreadful event, they had all failed. The love of Christ, as a dissuasive from its sins, had been set before it in vain. The gracious Spirit had striven without success. All the rebukes of conscience availed not. And Christian admonitions were wasted on unyielding hardness of heart.

3. The funeral of the soul is most decisive of the fact, that it is actually DEAD! We do not bury the living body, but only the dead. The smallest degree of life stays us. The pulsations may be so feeble as to require the closest and most delicate scrutiny to detect them. But, if they exist at all, there will be no burial. The procedure of the burial is founded on the most perfect assurance of death.

So it is because the soul is dead, that there is the funeral of it. No such solemnity would occur if there were the least spark of spiritual life. The slightest pulsation of such life would save it from that awful solemnity. Never was there the burial of a soul that was not dead. No such event could possibly occur under the government of God.

4. With the funeral of a soul we cannot avoid associations of sorrow. It is always so in reference to the body. Its burial! How often it implies the burial of sweetest happiness and fondest hopes! That scene pours a tide of bitterness through bereaved bosoms. How many sighs! How many tears!

But before there can be the funeral of a soul, what sadness there has been over it! Over its spiritual death were there not the tears of a compassionate Savior? And have not the true people of God, in all ages, mourned over those around them whose sinful courses were hastening them to a burial in the bottomless pit? Every association of thought with the funeral of a soul is one of sadness. Tears, more bitter, have never been shed in this world, than those of pious friends over those dear to them, who, by persistence in sin, were wrapping themselves in the winding-sheet of moral death, and making the funeral solemnities at the Great Day a dreadful certainty!

5. The funeral of a soul suggests itself as an inevitable consequence of its spiritual death. It is so with the body. The rites we perform, in connexion with burial, are associated with the un

avoidable necessity of committing it to the grave. The state of natural death is at war with the health and life of survivors, and there must be a separation of the dead from us. We obey this law as imperious beyond question or resistance.

So of the funeral of the soul. The event of spiritual death having occurred, there is no alternative. The funeral of a soul implies its removal from the society of all the pure and the good in the universe. It must be removed. It has no more elements of harmony with the holy and happy servants of God, than dead bodies have with living ones. The burial of dead souls is an act of holy justice which the Infinite owes to his own character, and owes to the happiness of those holy beings whose bliss would be marred by the presence of those so utterly discordant in character.

II. I now pass to the various circumstances attending the funeral of the soul.

1. Vast numbers of souls will have the rites of burial performed for them at the same time. All that finally remain dead in trespasses and sins will be buried. All the fallen angels belong to that number, together with every member of the human family who had lived and died in sin. We have no means of knowing the number, but we have melancholy reason for believing it will be very great. What vast multitudes, in all generations past, have passed into the grave unreconciled to God! How many are now living in that growing blindness of mind and hardness of heart, which affords sad presage that they will perish! The great day will be the funeral day of innumerable millions!

2. There will be an immense assembly convened as witnesses of that great funeral. At the rites of burial in this world, in cases of distinguished persons, or when the mode of death has been extraordinary, great numbers of people are gathered. But the greatest scene, as respects numbers present, ever witnessed on earth, is as a drop to the ocean, compared with the one now in contemplation. How striking the language of one competent to inform us. "When the Son of Man shall come in his glory and all the holy angels with him." All the angels! What a congregation! An Apostle speaks of the angels as "an innumerable company. we read of different ranks as Archangels, Thrones, Dominions, Potentates, and Powers, and there are immense numbers, doubtless, in each rank. And we cannot but rationally suppose that, what would summon these orders of holy beings together, would summon all others, if indeed these orders do not include the whole intelligent universe. We cannot therefore doubt that so extraordinary an event as such a solemnity, will draw together the whole rational creation of God.

And

That, in addition to the holy angels, all the fallen angels will be present is evident from two facts: