We have learned this on the ocean, that a ship in a storm or heavy head-beat sea, must have sail enough on to steady her and steer by, and to run away from the waves or surmount them. Otherwise she will be liable to fall into the trough of the sea, or broach to and be boarded by a disastrous wave. So with the religious mind in the great waves of affliction: when the waters of calamity roar and are troubled, and a man's heart is failing him for fear and for looking after those things which are coming, it is often not so well and safe to lie to and wait for a lull, brooding meanwhile upon one's trouble, and anxiously casting eyes over what seems to be a great heaving waste of impending adversity, as to keep busy, if possible, with carrying some sail, and trying to scud before the gale.

At such times of trial, there is great need of faith to stand at the helm and keep the soul steady; and this is the very benefit of adversity, of affliction by ill health, or trial in any way, that it demands and gives exercise to faith. Whatever increases and confirms that excellent grace, whatever tries and fixes that crowning virtue in a man, is a great blessing. Is there an afflicted person here, now pining under God's trying discipline by ill health, let me say to such in the words of the text, Why criest thou for thine affliction; for I will restore health unto thee, and will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord. Never let that heart feel, or those lips utter querulous things of the blessed God your Father; but only cry to Him earnestly for spiritual health and healing, and for the strength of Christ to be made perfect in your weakness, and who knows but He will restore health unto thee, and heal thee in more senses than one! Spiritual health, we know He will give, when you sincerely and in faith ask for it; and health of body, too, will be sure to come, or a happy remove from a house that is falling to pieces, when you shall have secured all the spiritual uses of your trial. Give all diligence, then, and be earnest to have it sanctified to your spiritual and everlasting good, which may God, only wise, of His mercy grant.

And to the children of God, exercised in whatever way by affliction, we have it to say, in the words of our Saviour, "as many as I love I rebuke and chasten." "I know, O Lord, that Thy judgments are right, and that Thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me." The furnace of affliction is meant only to refine us from our earthly dross, and from the oxydes that form on us in the fire-damps of a sinful world, and to keep us soft for the impression of God's own stamp and image. It is best, then, that we should remain there till our impurities are all burned away,

"Till formed in our obedient souls

The image of God's love."

How much better that we should be beaten often with the rod of

God, than left to grow hard and worldly, as most do, under continued prosperity. Let us kiss the rod that smites, take submissively whatever God sends, and rob calamities and misfortunes, so called, of their power to sting, by eyeing in them all, the paternal hand and wisdom and love of God. So shall we find it good to be afflicted, that we may learn God's statutes, and we shall have that effect wrought upon our characters, which, ordinarily, the discipline of suffering and trial, in some shape or other, can alone accomplish, with creatures fallen and perverse like us, and which it must therefore be the lot of all, sooner or later, to meet, in one form or another.

Let not those who live along for years comparatively exempt from trials, think it will be so always, or deem it certainly an evidence of the Divine favor and of God's satisfaction in them. It may be, it often is, far otherwise. Remember it was of rebellious Judah and Ephraim that God said, "Why should ye be stricken any more? Ye will revolt more and more. For the people turneth not unto him that smiteth them, neither do they seek the Lord of hosts. Ephraim is joined to his idols: let him alone." It is fearful to be let alone of God, in unsanctified prosperity; for then the man is likely to be hardened in sin, and he dies in stupidity, without hope, to have the waves of sorrow beat upon him in the next world with eternal storm.

There is a certain calm at sea, which sailors call breedingweather; and I once knew an awful tempest to burst as it were at once upon the lap of such a calm. O, what a typhoon I seem to see now breeding in this great moral calm, to break upon the heads of the unconverted! The moment they sail out of time, into the broad ocean of eternity, what a storm will fall upon many a now gallant bark, rich in its freight of immortality! Stop them, ye that love their souls, and beseech them with tears to take in Christ for their pilot, that they may avert the gathering vengeance, and outride the impending storm. And may we all be living in such a state of preparedness for life's trials, that when they come we can calmly say,

"My lifted eye, without a tear,

The gathering storm shall see;

My steadfast heart shall know no fear;
That heart shall trust in Thee."

And now to that Great Being, who doeth all things well, and dispenses all life's allotments in perfect rectitude, to God only wise, be honor and glory, both now and evermore. Amen.

SERMON CCCCLXXVII.

HOME EVANGELIZATION THE FIRST DUTY OF AMERICAN CHRISTIANS.

BY REV. M. J. HICKOK,

PASTOR OF THE WASHINGTON-STREET CHURCH, ROCHESTER, NEW YORK.

"Behold the Lord thy God hath set the land before thee, go up and possess it, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath said unto thee; fear not, neither be discouraged."— DEUT. i, 21.

THIS was the order given to the children of Israel, on their first approach to the land of promise, after their deliverance from the bondage of Egypt. They had witnessed the unparalleled wonders of the Exode, the Red Sea, and of Horeb. They had received their law and ratified their national covenant at Sinai. But they were wanting in the elements of a spiritual piety, essential to such an emergency; but little of Abraham's faith lingered amongst them; and, born and educated in an atmosphere of gross idolatry, they were fearfully degenerate and perverse, and needed a severe discipline to fit them for the service enjoined, and for the reward promised, and were condemned, therefore, to long years of wandering and conflict, till of the grown-up generation which left Egypt, Joshua and Caleb only passed the wilderness and entered Canaan.

Such crises of duty and destiny often overtake the Church when her fidelity in a single emergency is decisive. Through such a period, it is believed, the Church in these United States is now passing. She has to meet the amazing responsibility of evangelizing this land, or prove treacherous to the greatest and weightiest interests that have devolved upon any church since the apostolic

age.

I have selected the order given to the marshaled tribes of Israel, as an appropriate Home Missionary motto for us.* It is the urgent imperative duty of the American Church, to evangelize our own country. Our policy is strikingly a home policy. I * Preached before the Board of Home Missionaries of the Presbytery of Rochester.

assume the existence of a missionary spirit in the great body of believers. It is the glory of the American Church, that the missionary fire of modern times was early kindled in the hearts of her sons, and that up to this hour we have been among the foremost to publish the gospel to the nations. It can no longer be doubted that the spirit of missions is the vital spirit of the gospel. The gospel is obviously and eminently missionary, in all its principles and precepts and inspired examples. If we have read it aright, and felt its transforming power, we must all of us breathe a missionary spirit. We must feel ourselves committed to the missionary work. What I insist upon is, that our home operations are a vital part of this great enterprise. The modern efforts for the evangelization of this country, originated in the purest spirit of missions. Our own land is a vast field of itself, richer and riper than any heathen community known to us. Its decisive influence on the spread of the gospel abroad, should lead us to seek its spiritual renovation as the most hopeful means for the conversion of the world. We seek the salvation of our countrymen, not only for their own sakes, but for the sake of mankind! This is our first and most sacred duty.

I. It is so because it is in accordance with the Divine plan for spreading the gospel. Christ's theory of instrumentality is, to arrest the individual heart, and lay the mighty motives of Redemption upon it, till it shall be subdued and transformed, when that redeemed soul is to operate upon the character of its neighbor, and thrill and mould it instrumentally to the same heavenly pattern. This circle of influence, as it widens, becomes a church and secures the peculiar presence of the Holy Spirit. It is then prepared to bring its concentrated energies to bear upon the surrounding world. This is its missionary stage. And the same principle is to govern all our outward aggressive movements. The first offer of life is to be made to our neighbors and associates. When they have savingly accepted, or hopelessly rejected, the offer, we may pass on to the more distant destitutions. This order of effort is very distinctly prescribed in the Scriptures. The first preachers were to go to the "lost sheep of the house of Israel." The way of the Gentiles, or even a Samaritan city, they might not enter. The Saviour, after his resurrection, reminded the eleven that they were now to preach repentance and remission of sins in His name among all nations; yet, true to this fundamental arrangement, "beginning at Jerusalem." This order they strictly followed. They opened their commission in that guilty city, and not till it had rejected the gospel, and driven them out by persecution, did they turn to the Gentiles. This is the Divine method of procedure in every age. This is the simple plan which our great Home Missionary movement contemplates.

Our Pilgrim fathers floated their religious establishments across the Atlantic, and moored them to Plymouth Rock. As soon as their own immediate wants were supplied, they looked out after the tribes that were beyond them. Especially as their own numbers pushed out into the wilderness, they faithfnlly carried to them the gospel. The true policy has ever been, to help the needy until they can help themselves, and then expect them to pay the debt, by helping those more needy beyond them. This is the simple theory of Home Missions. It is the Apostolic theory-the Divine theory. Here, in this land, it has such a breadth of application, and involves such stupendous results, that we have become skeptical about the whole matter. Our field has enlarged so rapidly, and grown suddenly into such vast dimensions, and our population is increasing in such a fearful ratio, that all past notions of colonization utterly fail. We are overwhelmed with the magnitude of our work, and with the pressure of the necessity that is laid upon us, and shrink back trembling at our own destiny, and almost doubt, at times, the ordination of God, and the sufficiency of the gospel to accomplish the work. But neither the Divine will nor the Divine economy has changed. The great Head of the Church has not relinquished His claim upon us, or modified His plan of saving the world. He has furnished us a theatre for action, and for a grand comprehensive enduring work of faith, such as has been given to no other people; and if we are faithful to our principles, to our mission, our Master, we shall see results unparalleled in the past history of the Church. But we must understand the gospel theory and plant ourselves firmly upon it. We must learn and keep in view the condition of our missionary field, and cherish and act on the conviction, that the evangelization of our own rapidly rising and influential nation is the first urgent solemn concern of the American Church.

II. It is so, because we have a prospect of success here which we have nowhere else. We feel bound to expend our missionary means everywhere, on this principle. Upon the foreign field our Boards select those points where most good, present or prospective, can be rationally hoped for. If for any cause, this result is defeated, they feel bound to remove to another field. Not only are we committed to the work of evangelizing our own country on the Divine principle of proximity as to place and relation, but also on the economical principle that we can do more good with our means here than elsewhere. There is a marked wisdom in the rule that binds us to care first of all for the souls of our immediate locality and sphere of personal influences, and to seek above all their salvation. We shall be far more likely to influence them, than any others, and the same measure of effort will generally produce greater results. The Gospel to achieve its blessed tri