creature." Such is the command of Him who is King in Zion, and Head over all things to the church. It is an expression of infinite love to the children of men, accompanied with all the authority of Heaven. The command was addressed by Christ, after his resurrection, to his eleven disciples, and it " contains an express commission to preach his salvation and kingdom to all the nations of the earth, and to men of every description and character, as far as they were able; "and it implies a command to the same effect to all their successors in the sacred ministry, as far as it is in their power; and to all Christians to aid them according to their several abilities and situations." This command, therefore, is obligatory upon Christians in every age, so long as there is a single heathen on earth to be evangelized; and it obliges them to seek, in all possible ways, the conversion of the world. The import of it is, "Go, scatter abroad the blessings of salvation. Penetrate every desert; cross every sea; scale every mountain, and see that ́no dark corner of the earth be left uncheered by the glory of the gospel." How can the heathen ever hear that Jesus Christ tasted death for every man, and that through him salvation is offered to the whole world, but by the preachers of righteousness? and how can they preach except they be sent? The heralds of the gospel must go forth to evangelize the nations, and Christians must send and support them. In obedience to the command of Christ, the glad tidings of mercy. must be proclaimed from Cape Horn to Nova Zembla, and from California to Japan, till hymns of salvation shall be sung by every tongue, and vibrate on every ear.

Let none pur

chased by the blood of Immanuel, question this duty. When the King of Zion commands, let his subjects yield implicit obedience. Let the command of Christ then be announced as with trumpet-tongue, that the whole earth

may hear "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature."

3. The last motive to a compliance with the command of Christ, is the certainty of the ultimate and complete success of the cause of missions.

As an earnest of this, we recur a moment to the success which has attended missionary efforts. See the trophies of divine grace, gathered, under God, by those Missiona- · ries, who have labored among the Hottentots, the Caffrees, the inhabitants of the Sandwich and Society Islands, the Cherokees and Choctaws. See the converts to righteousness, under the preaching of Christ crucified, by the Moravian Brethren. In their zeal, and patience, and perseverance-in efforts for the salvation of men, they have set an example worthy to be foliowed by all Protestant people, and the results of their labors have been great and glorious.. The success, too, which has attended the efforts of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, not to speak of the success attending the eff rts of any other Foreign Missionary Society, is demonstration, that the cause is the Lord's, and will ultimately prevail. This Society was formed in 1810, and what has it accomplished! It has twelve distinct missions under its care. Those missions, embrace fifty-five stations, having seventy-nine preachers, and two hundred and eight assistants, male and female; making in the whole, two hundred and eighty-seven. The number of schools established by it, is twelve hundred and seventy-five, taught by as many native schoolmasters, and containing about sixty thousand scholars. It has organized among the heathen, nearly forty churches, containing eighteen hundred hopeful converts. These efforts made in the three quarters of the globe, Europe, Asia and America, God has succeeded beyond the most sanguine expectations.

These smiles of Heaven betoken good to those who are sitting in the region and shadow of death.

But we have greater evidence of God's favor to the benighted heathen, than the success of missions. The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it, and it is recorded on the prophetic page, "Aşk of me and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession." "It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel;-1 will also give thee for a Light to the Geutiles, that thou mayest be my salvation to the ends of the earth." "All the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of God!" Such are the predictions of the word of truth; and shall they fail of accomplishment? Shall the unchangeable purposes of the Holy Omnipotent be frustrated? No. There shall not fail aught of any good thing which the Lord hath spoken. All shall come to pass. The command of Christ will be obeyed. The gospel will be preached to all that dwell upon the face of the earth, and the harvest of the world will be gathered in. The pagoda of the Hindoo, the mosque of the Mohammedan, and the cathedral of the Catholic, will totter to ruins, while the temple of the Christian shall arise, filled with holy incense, a pure offering to the one living and true God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. How glorious and complete the ultimate success of the cause of missions! How animating the thought, that the world, which is given to Christ, shall one day become his, by entire subjection to his authority, and he shall reign from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth. But all this is to be accomplished by God, through the instrumentality of human agency. Means are as necessary in the moral, as in the natural world. The pure gospel must be preached.

6

Nothing but this will effectually move the hearts of men, and make them willing subjects of the Prince of Peace. This, and this only, will bring sinners to God. A case il- · lustrative of this, we have, in a converted North American Indian. The account of his conversion is as follows: "I," said he, "have been a heathen, and have grown old among the heathen; therefore I know how the heathen think. Once a preacher came and began to tell us that there was a God. We answered him, 'Dost thou think us so ignorant as not to know that? Go back to the place from whence thou camest.' Then another preacher came to us and began to say, 'You must not steal, nor lie, nor get drunk. To him we answered, Thou focl; dost thou think that we do not know that? Learn first thyself, and then teach thy own people to leave off these practices; for who steal, or lie, or are more drunken than the white men.' Thus we dismissed him. After some time brother Rauch came into my hut, and sat down by me. He then spoke to me as follows: I am conie to you in the name of the Lord of heaven and earth. He sends to let you know that he will make you happy, and deliver you from that misery in which you at present lie. For this purpose he became a man, gave his life a ransom, and shed his blood for you.' When he had finished his discourse, he lay down upon a board fatigued by his journey, and feil into a sound sleep. I then thought, ' What kind of a man is this? There he sleeps. I might kill him, and throw him into the wood, and who would regard it? But this gives him no care, nor concern.' At the same time, I could not forget his words. They constantly recurred to my mind. Even when I slept I dreamed of that blood, which Christ shed for us. I found this to be something different from what I ever heard before; and I interpreted brother Rauch's words to other Indians. Thus through

thegrace of God, an awakening began among us.

Breth

ren, preach Christ our Saviour, and his sufferings and death,* if you would have your words to gain entrance among the heathen."

Infinitely greater efforts than ever have been, must be made before the conversion of the world will take place. As yet, little, comparatively, has been done. All the Missiona⚫ries now in the unevangelized parts of the earth, would be no more than one Minister to two millions of souls. Plant one Missionary at Portsmouth, N. H., and strike a radius from that point which shall embrace the whole of New England, and you have the population and territory for one Missionary only. What! Have eighteen centuries passed away, since the command was given to evangelize the world, and no more heralds of the gospel been sent forth to proclaim. the tidings of mercy.!. Let Christians blush, and be ashamed! This work must be done and done soon. Christendom has ability to send the gospel to the ends of the earth,— I had almost said—and not feel the expense. The single campaign in Russia, cost more than all that Christians have expended in charities for centuries, and more than enough to supply half the whole world with ambassadors of the cross.* "An English lady in Paris, after entreating her American correspondent to send her a few copies of the Tract, entitled "The conversion of the world," exclaims, "Only 30,000 Missionaries demanded to preach to the whole world! Why, any petty prince in Germany can furnish a greater army; and shall the great Captain of Salvation hold up his standard in vain?" No; multitudes will flock to it. The King of Zion shall have an army who will go forth for the conquest of the world, possessing the fearlessness and perseverance of Paul, and Wickliffe and Lu