"Let, then, the Bible be the rallying point of Protestant Christians. Let them dispute for truth, not victory; let the God of peace preside in every controversy; yet let all be conducted in the unity of the spirit and in the bond of peace. Let each go to his post of duty, and without interfering or quarreling with his neighbor, do his uttermost under his own particular standard; let there be no strife, for we are all brethren, and the world is large enough for us all. "The union, then, which I would propose would be a union in spirit, rather than a union in doctrine; let each party of Protestant Christians make its own distinctive effort in its own way, rather than in a promiscuous union of the general mass. For, sir, depend upon it, David will not fight in Saul's armor, and we can no more make men act precisely alike than we can force them to think precisely alike. Will you allow me, sir, another illustration in confirmation of these views of Christian union? When we look abroad upon the signs of the times, I think we shall see the religious as well as the political world on the eve of convulsion and conflict. Thank God, the Christian world have heard the trumpet of alarm: they are mustering for the battle, and by one simultaneous effort they are coming up to the help of the Lord against the mighty; and never, since the days of the apostles, was there so general a movement as at the present crisis. The energy of divine truth is powerfully operative through the varied enginery of Bible, missionary, tract, and Sabbath school societies. There is a shaking among the kingdoms, and the world feels the earthquake shock. Nor, sir, are the powers of darkness asleepthey have taken the alarm. "I believe, sir, we are on the eve of a general engagement. Now, sir, borrowing the allusion, will you permit me to marshal the Christian army on those principles of union I have endeavored to sustain? Let, then, our Bible societies, with their auxiliaries, be a line of forts established along the enemy's frontier as bulwarks of defense. Let them be military magazines, well stored with spiritual weapons and gospel ammunition, general rallying-points for the whole army, and strongholds from whence our missionary riflemen may sally forth on the enemy. Let our Sabbath schools be military academies, in | which cadets may be trained for the battles of the Lord. Let the tract societies be as so many shot-houses for the manufacture of that small but useful material. And "Having thus, sir, disposed of the outworks, let us endeavor to arrange the army. Suppose, sir, for example, we begin with the Methodists; and as they are said to be tolerable pioneers and excellent foragers in new countries, and active withal, I propose that we mount them on horseback, and employ them as cavalry, especially on the frontiers. as our Presbyterian brethren love an open field, and act in concert, and move in solid bodies, let them constitute our infantry; let them occupy the centre in solid columns, and fight according to Napoleon's tactics, in military squares, ever presenting a firm front to the enemy. Our Baptist brethren we will station along the rivers and lakes, which, we doubt not, they will gallantly defend, and win many laurels in the lake warfare. Our brethren of the Protestant Episcopal Church shall man the garrisons, inspect the magazines, and direct the batteries. But, sir, we want artillery men. Whom shall we employ? The light field-pieces and the heavy ordnance must be served. I propose, sir, that we commit this very important department to our brethren of the Dutch Reformed Church; and, sir, may they acquit themselves with a valor worthy their ancestors, when the proud flag of De Witt swept the sea, and the thunder of Van Tromp shook the ocean. And now, sir, the army is arranged. We have one great Captain, the Lord Jesus Christ, whose orders we are all bound to obey. Our standard is the cross, and onward is the watchword. Let us give no quarter; we fight for death or victory. "At the same time let us preserve our original order. United in spirit and design, let us be distinct in movement. Let not the cavalry, infantry, and artillery men mingle in one indiscriminate mass. Let each keep his proper position, adopt his peculiar uniform, act under his local colors, and fight in his own peculiar manner. Thus we shall act with consistency and vigor, without discomposing each other, or disordering the ranks. "Let a strict religious discipline prevail throughout the camp, for we must not suffer that shameful reproach that we recommend to others what we practice not ourselves. Accordingly, let us, like the soldiers of Oliver Cromwell, read our Bible and pray twice a day in each of the tents. "And now, sir, let us to the field of action. May the God of battles give the victory, and the trembling gates of hell shake to their center! 6 the infantry, and the infantry against the cavalry. And in so doing he makes no scruple to employ misrepresentation, slander, and falsehood-for, like his father, he is a liar from the beginning. Now, sir, I trust the army will be on the alert in detecting this old scoundrel, and making a public example of him. I hope if the Methodist cavalry catch him on the frontiers they will ride him down, and put him to the sword without delay; I trust the Presbyterian infantry will receive him on the point of the bayonet; and should the Baptists find him skulking along the banks of the rivers, I trust they will fairly drown him; and should he dare to approach any of our garrisons, I hope the Episcopalians will open upon him a doubleflanked battery; and the Dutch Reformed greet him with a whole round of artillery. Let him die the death of a spy, without military honors; and after he has been gibbeted for a convenient season, let his body be given to the Quakers, and let them bury him deep and in silence. May God grant his miserable ghost may never revisit this world of trouble! "And as allusion has been made to the Society of Friends, permit me, in conclusion, to relate an anecdote, connected with a highly-respectable member of that body of professing Christians, which illustrates all that I have endeavored to maintain. "Sir, it was at the close of one of the most sanguinary conflicts of modern times that a celebrated military chieftain, from his point of observation, saw with deepest anxiety the shattered remains of his noble army ready to sink under the protracted fatigue of a three days' fight. At this eventful crisis he summons around him his council of officers. 'Gentlemen,' says he, these brave fellows can hold out no longer.' Pulling out his watch, 'Gentlemen, it now wants fifteen minutes of six o'clock. If the Prussians do not arrive before six, I must sound a retreat. Gentlemen, to your positions.' He stood he looked at his watch-he looked to the field-he looked upward to heaven, and implored help from the great Arbiter of battles. It was an awful moment. Minute succeeded to minute. His hard-earned laurels, the honor of his country, the destinies of Europe, hung trembling in the balance. At length the cry bursts on his listening ear, The Prussians are coming!' He starts from his knees; he flings away his watch; he cries, 'All's well-the day is ours.' Sir, let us keep the field, maintain our position, do our duty, and all will be well-the day shall be ours. Before I sit down I have a duty to perform to that portion of the army here assembled. I have to forewarn them that there is lurk ing in different sections of our camp a dangerous and malignant spy. I will en-Friend, thee knows we cannot consistdeavor to describe this diabolical spy as well as I can. He is remarkably old, having grown gray in iniquity. He is toothless and crooked, and altogether of a very unsavory countenance. His name, sir, is BIGOTRY. He seldom travels in daytime, but in the evening shades he steals forth from his haunts of retirement, and creeps into the tents of the soldiers; and with a tongue as smooth and deceptious as the serpent who deceived our first mother, he endeavors to sow arrows, firebrands, and death' in the camp. His policy is to persuade the soldiers in garrison to despise those in open field; and again, those in open field to despise those in garrison; to incite the cavalry against 66 'A gentleman employed in raising funds toward the erection of a new Episcopal church, waited upon a member of the Society of Friends, of known philanthropy and liberality. Having stated his object and presented his subscription paper, the Friend, after a pause, very gravely said, ently with the sentiments of Friends help to build thy steeple houses.' The gentleman politely expressed his regret, and was about to withdraw, when the Quaker recalled him by saying, 'Friend, let me see thy paper again-doth it not state that there is an old steeple house to be pulled down?' The gentleman answered in the affirmative. 'Ah!' says our Friend, 'then I have it: here, I give thee twenty pounds; but observe-you carefully mark, I give this not to build the new steeple house up-no, no; but to pull the old steeple house down.'' In his New-York Sunday-School Union address he reassails the spy Bigotry in the person of his son Liberalism. "But, sir, before I close my observations, truth and candor compel me to state, that in the way of the accomplishment of this glorious consummation there exists a formidable impediment. I refer, sir, to the prevalence of that latitudinarian spirit now operating in the Protestant Churches; a spirit which too frequently compromises the integrity of Christian principle, and, consequently, neutralizes the decisive force of Christian action. "Permit me, sir, to illustrate my meaning. It was announced some years ago that old Bigotry was dead and fairly buried. I am sorry to be under the necessity of informing this audience that it has been discovered of late that he left behind him an only child-a prodigal son, who is arrived at man's estate. This son is known by the name of Liberalism. Young Liberalism is the very antipodes of his old father. He is handsome, polite, insinuating—and, although somewhat superficial, possesses that polish and tact which impose on general observers. He speaks all languages, subscribes to all creeds, holds a levee with all sects and parties, is friendly with everybody, but stands identified with nobody. He professes to abhor religious controversy, and disposes of all doctrinal questions by a motion of indefinite postponement. He can swallow the wafer with the Papist, receive the cup with the Protestant, and thrust the Westminster Confession and the Methodist Discipline into the same pocket. You can never find Liberalism at home, or, rather, he is never at home but when from home.' He sails all waters under all colors; he exhibits the papers of all nations, but he hails to no port, he charters to no country-and, therefore, we strongly suspect that he is, in reality, a pirate. "In a word, sir, to speak without a figure, we are fully of the judgment that this spurious liberalism is a grand obstacle in the way of the conversion of the world. Truth, sir, is unique, and, to be efficient, must stand forth in all its prominent peculiarities. If you soften down her features, you destroy her beauty and paralyze her usefulness. We believe that, in the present constitution of the Church, the arrangement of sects and parties is, upon the whole, for the best. It checks the growth of heresy, excites a spirited competition, and prevents the aggrandizement of eccle siastical domination. There was a time when we thought otherwise, particularly in its application to our Sabbath schools; when we supposed it to be unwise to introduce doctrinal peculiarities into the minds of children, and that a liberalizing system would be for the better. But, sir, we see our error and confess it. We dare not mitigate the matter; we must teach the whole truth. The infidel spirit of the times demands that we hold fast the form of sound words. Our children require this at our hands." His Mission Ship speech was not so happy a conception; but by his peculiar delivery had a thrilling effect on audiences in Baltimore and New-York. We give an extract: "We were saying, sir, that the age in which we live was distinguished by unprecedented improvements. One astonishing discovery has followed upon another, proving how amazingly the vast powers of nature may be made subservient to the purposes of art; and among these stands preeminent the steamboat, the bright production of the creative genius of the immortal Fulton. It is the eighth wonder of the world. "While, sir, I as an individual render up my meed of admiration, permit me to say, that there is a vessel now afloat which, though less celebrated on the pillar of this world's fame, has been productive of more real benefit to the best interests of mankind. "She was built at the Foundry, city of London, under the direction of Messrs. John and Charles Wesley. She is constructed on precisely the same model, and built of the same materials, as the old ship which was launched in the city of Jerusalem by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, immediately after his resurrection, and afterward sailed and navigated by the fishermen of Galilee. She is, sir, to all intents and purposes, a missionary vessel, calculated for spiritual discovery and Christian colonization. She carries letters of marque, a chosen crew of missionary adventurers, and steers by the bright and morning star of Bethlehem. It is true, indeed, for the first few years her voyagings were confined to the British seas. She alternately visited the islands of Ireland, Scotland, Man, Guernsey, Alderney, and Jersey; in all which, under the blessing of God, flourishing colonies were es tablished. But, sir, the God of heaven all things. In this spiritual adventure he never intended her for a mere coaster; she risked his life, his purse, his reputation, was destined to circumnavigate the globe. his all. He stopped at no difficulty, and Accordingly, sir, at this juncture, the great though on some occasions his vessel (as it Head of the Church raised up a body of respects money matters) was in the shalmen of high missionary feeling-spirits of lows, yet she never struck the ground. lofty enterprise, hearts of universal char- In the prosecution of duty he feared no ity. Need I name an Asbury, a Board- danger. His favorite motto was, 'I am man, a Pilmoor, a Whatcoat, and last, not immortal till my work is done.' Apleast, a Coke? These men, adventurous pointed by the father of Methodism to this as Columbus, and greedy of souls as ever missionary command, he entered upon his Spaniards were of gold, launched the mis- office with humble boldness and generous sionary vessel into the great and boundless enthusiasm. He hoisted the broad flag of deep of the Atlantic; and, favored by pro- free grace at his mast-head, and, spreadpitious gales and an approving God, reached ing his white canvas to the winds of the shores of this new and far-famed world. heaven, steered for America. And alHere, sir, they boldly planted the standard though tremendous storms drove his vessel of Methodism. Here they found the fields out of her intended course down to the white already to the harvest, nor had they West India Islands, yet here we have to long to complain that the laborers were acknowledge the finger of God bringing few. God gave the word, and great was real good out of seeming evil. For from the increase of able and effective men in that apparent accident sprung one of the this western vineyard of the Lord. The most extensive, productive, and benevoword of the Lord was like fire among dry lent of modern missions, which has evenstubble—it cleared the woods-it ran along | tuated in the salvation of thousands of the the banks of our vast rivers-it was irre-African race. It would be endless to folsistible—it crossed the northern lakes-it low the admiral through all the cruising penetrated the southern swamps-it defied activity of his missionary life. Suffice it the frosts of Canada-it scaled the sum- to say that he lived as he died, and died mits of Alleghany—and now, sir, let the as he lived-a man full of faith and the pious observer behold the great family of Holy Ghost. The ocean was his sepulMethodism, from New-Orleans in the cher, but he being dead yet speaketh. south to Labrador on the north, sitting Yet when he died the enemies of missions beneath their own vine and fig-tree-and began to triumph. truly may he exclaim, 'What hath God more of Methodist missions,' said they. wrought!' No doubt the enthusiastic old man and his mad schemes have failed together.' But, sir, these self-made prophets proved themselves false prophets, for when our Elijah ascended to glory there were many Elishas to catch the descending mantle of his charity. The admiral was dead; but, sir, the good missionary ship floated her triumphant course over the main, and waved her joyous banner to the nations. She doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and We shall hear no “But, sir, we are digressing. We must return to the missionary ship, and, if you please, embark for Europe. Mr. Wesley, finding that the Lord was opening up missionary ground in distant lands, and being himself detained at home, by the weight of his societies, appointed Dr. Thomas Coke admiral of the ship, with a commission for foreign service. And truly we may say the office was made for the man, and the man for the office. He was a Welch-landed a band of spiritual warriors on man by birth, and a cosmopolite in feeling. I saw the admiral when I was a boy, and hope never to forget him. He was, like Zaccheus, a man of small stature; but, sir, there was a great soul in a little body. O who can forget the honest enthusiasm which glowed in his animated countenance, or the kindling glance of his benevolent eye? He was the apostle—he was the martyr of Methodist missions. For them he was willing to suffer the loss of the East India shores. Thence standing for New South Wales and the Sandwich Islands, she stretched across to Madagascar, touching at South and Western Africa, in all which places she established Christian colonies. Nay, sir, she has sailed under the batteries of Copenhagen up the stormy Baltic, and established a Methodist mission in the very fastnesses of Sweden. She has passed under the guns of Gibraltar, landing her missionary warriors on that impregnable fortress; and, finally, she has traversed those seas, and planted colonies on the very ground once trod by the feet of the holy apostles. "But, sir, you are ready to think we are sailing out of all longitude and latitude. We shall, therefore, with your permission, bring our missionary vessel home to port, with one observation, namely, Is she to remain in port? Is she to be laid up as a dismantled hulk—a melancholy memorial of what our fathers were able to begin, and we are unwilling to finish? "Methinks I hear some cautious calculator hint, Charity begins at home.' Granted, my brother; but remember, charity must not remain at home. When the pressing wants of home are tolerably supplied, let her go forth, like Noah's dove, on an errand of mercy to the four quarters of the globe. Such is the spirit of the missionary commission, and such was the practice of the missionary apostles. We are ready to admit that these United States have presented and do present a vast and comprehensive field for the incessant labors of our active itinerancy. We are ready to admit that the Indian tribes make a loud and pressing appeal for renewed and increasing exertion, and may God prosper that noble mission! but, sir, we are not ready to admit that this missionary effort bears any adequate proportion to the resources and responsibility of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Granting, as we do, that much has been accomplished at home with very small means, is that any reason why something might not be accomplished abroad with greater? What, sir, surrounded as we are by the spirit-stirring activity of the age, are we to sit still at home and let other men take our missionary crown? Forever perish the thought! Sir, I this night propose that we forthwith put the missionary vessel to sea under the care of American pilots; and, sir, let her first voyage be eastward. "There is on the western coast of Africa an American, and, I thank God, we may add, a Christian colony, which, under the blessing of Heaven, promises to be a focus for the evangelization and civilization of that benighted continent. The freemen of Libéria are standing on those shores, and uttering the Macedonian cry, Come over and help us.' That colony is precious to the heart of the philanthropist—it stands the altar of a national atonement, and an imperishable monument of a nation's benevolence. And, sir, while the moral feeling of this republic is promoting its temporal interests, while the north is giving up and the south keeping not back, shall the Methodists of these United States be backward in answering the will of those gifted and qualified men who are crying, 'Here am I; send me?' Sir, nothing is wanting but the means, and I am persuaded the means will not be wanting. And, sir, are the South American republics to be forgotten? Do these present no claim upon our benevolence? Among the millions of this extensive continent is there no field for missionary labor? If these United States have given them the bright model of a civil constitution, shall they withhold the brighter boon of religious liberty and Christian knowledge? It is high time something should be done. Let our missionary vessel stretch along the coasts of South America. Let her touch at Havana, at Rio Janeiro, at Buenos Ayres, and leave her missionaries at all these places; let her double Cape Horn, and coast along the shores of the Pacific. Yea, sir, let her never drop her anchor until she complete the circumnavigation of this transatlantic world. 6 "But, sir, before we hoist our sails we are arrested by a very abrupt consideration-the means. Who shall pay the freight of the vessel? We have the men, but, sir, we want the money; for it is demonstrably certain that if the world is to be evangelized, it must be by means, not by miracles. And, sir, if we succeed in getting our missionary vessel under way, it will not be by fair speeches, or loud professions, but by fulfilling to the letter the laconic peroration of Dean Swift's celebrated sermon-we must, in one word, down with our dust.'" With such tact and humor, and illustrative aptitude, did he manage these anniversary occasions: but the reader, who never heard him, can hardly imagine the effectiveness of his manner-the strenuous tone of his ringing voice, the martial fire and energy of his gestures, the mixture of seriousness and semi-drollery (heightened by his Quaker costume and slight, straight figure, and long apelike arms ever in motion) with which he dramatized the whole scene before his wondering audience. |