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shewn them there, filled them with an holy amazement, delightful indeed, yet often overwhelming, leaving them oftentimes, after the vision had passed away, as men in whom there was no strength.

But it was otherwise with the Prophet-King of the New Covenant. That spiritual world is no strange world into which He is borne by a Spirit other and mightier than His own. There is no door open in heaven for Him, that He may catch a glimpse of the glories within; He has come from among those glories; He dwelleth among them even now. When He speaks of these things, He speaks of His own, and with the simplicity and calmness of one to whom they have ever been familiar. How signally does that majestic plainness which marks the words of our Lord, that perfect calmness and simplicity even while He is uttering the vastest truths and claiming for Himself the loftiest prerogatives, appear in the words of our text. They are so plain, so few, so simply spoken, that it is only when we begin to meditate upon them, that we at all perceive how much they contain, the vastness of their reach and compass, or what Christ is here challenging for Himself, or for that Word of the Gospel, which He, the great Sower of the Seed, is scattering on the world's furrows. He is claiming the world for His own, the world for His Gospel. To no little nook or corner of the field will He confine His sowing or His reaping: everywhere there shall be the "children of the kingdom" springing up. God's field is "the world;" the field and the world shall be one day commensurate with one another.

And I have taken these words, these wondrous words of Christ our Master, for my text this evening, because I feel that only in the strength and confi

dence which such words supply can we go forward, "faint" indeed oftentimes, yet still "pursuing," in this work of ours. He who saw the end from the beginning, had no misgiving about the issue. Why then should we? He who knew the obstacles which man's evil and sinful heart would oppose to the spread of His kingdom, doubted not that there was indwelling might and power in the Word of that kingdom, which should make it strong to overcome them all. Why then should we doubt it, as oftentimes we do?

And it seems to me that we especially want such a word as this, such a word of encouragement and strength, when our regards are directed, as to-night they especially are, to that vast continent of Africa. "This, too, is part of "the field." However small for more than a thousand years its harvest may have been, (though the time was when the sheaves were neither scanty nor few, when "this man" and "that" were "born there," a Cyprian, an Athanasius, an Augustine, with ten thousand more, whose names, unknown on earth, are yet written in heaven,) how ever stubbornly this wilderness of the world may for long have refused to become a part of the garden of God yet such it is; for He included it in His all-including word: "the field"-my field-God's field"is the world" and heaven and earth may pass away, but that word of His shall not pass away, till all things which it has promised shall be fulfilled.

Now in seeking, as best I may, to execute the task which has been laid upon me, of tracing the progress of the Gospel in Africa, two courses lie open to my choice; and whichever I embraced, I helieve that I should equally fulfil their intentions

who desired me to speak to you this word this evening. I might either bid you to contemplate the past providences of God in the founding of Churches, in gathering to Himself an elect people out of that land, and follow up those gracious providences to the present moment, with an hitherto hath God helped us or I might ask you rather to look on to the future, and reverently to trace with me what we may of the purposes, as yet but partially developed, of our God with the children of Ham-"with the land of the Ethiopians and the Morians," and what prospects there are that it too will stretch out its hands unto God. Time and space would fail me, if I attempted both. As the former of these subjects has already in our meetings been largely dwelt on, I have chosen the latter. The time of looking back, this time of counting up our past mercies, may also be very fitly a time of looking forward' in the trustful expectation of new.

Supposing, then, we are in earnest in the matter, what are the circumstances of the present and coming time, favourable and unfavourable to the spread of the Gospel in Africa? Of course, in considerations such as these, in taking such an estimate as this, we desire ever to speak as under correction. The things which seem our loss may prove our gain; what appears to be strength may turn out weakness; great doors and effectual may be closed against us through our sin; mountains of opposition, through God's grace, may become plains. But still there are clear leadings of God's providence, if we can trace them. When He has any thing to do in this world, He oftentimes lays His lines for it very long before. In this spirit of seeking reverently

to read from the past and the present His purposes for the future, let us a little consider this evening what are, or seem to us, the great hindrances, and what (under God) the chief helps, for the evangelization of Africa. I am not speaking now of the spiritual helps, of the might of faith and prayer; nor of the spiritual hindrances, the great power and opposition of the devil; but of those which lie as upon the surface of things, patent to all men.

And first, in regard of hindrances. It must be owned, I think-a glance at the map would teach us-that Africa has singular disadvantages in regard of outward shape and configuration-opposes remarkable difficulties to the bringing the culture, either spiritual or intellectual, of Christendom in contact with it. Compare that dense mass of land, that solid triangle, with no gulfs and inlets affording easy access into its centre, with no peninsulas girdled round with civilizing waters, with commodious havens so rare, with navigable rivers so fewa vast desert cutting off the only strip of coast which is in actual contact with Europe from all the interior-compare this with Europe; her three peninsulas of the south, her vast peninsula of the north, her noble groups of islands, her vast inland seas, all parts accessible, all parts in easy relation with one another: and then you will not wonder that for more than two thousand years Europe has been the chosen seat of civilization and culture; while Africa, with brief and partial exceptions, has opposed the most stubborn resistance to it, has lagged behind not merely our own more favoured continent, but has ever remained the hindmost of all.

We must add to this, and as fearfully enhancing: all difficulties which Africa merely by her geographical configuration presents, the deadly influence of so much of her climate to all European life. How fatally did that mar and disappoint, a few years since, all the fair prospects of an opening into the very heart of the land, which we cherished so fondly here. We heard indeed yesterday with thankfulness, of the long-continued health of our Missionaries on the western coast. But yet how often before had they been as men baptized for the dead; how often had those in the second rank to step into the first, their comrades having fallenthemselves presently to make way for others who should step with the same undaunted resolution into theirs. The spirit of Disease is indeed the invisible evil genius guarding the coasts of that land, and causing so much of its interior to be, even to this day, an unknown and an untrodden world. This obstacle is so great that probably we shall never have efficient African Missions, until Africa's own sons have been trained and prepared to bear the Word of Life to their brethren; and therefore I saw, and I doubt not you saw, with pleasure, in the latest report of our Society, that even now there are no weak beginnings of such a school of the prophets-Africans training in theMissionary College in England; while others in Sierra Leone have made such advance in European culture that they are able to read in the original tongue the New Testament Word of Life.

Would that there were no deadlier genius of evil hovering over that ill-fated land. But there is-thegenius of accursed gain. All other of the woes of

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