DISCOURSE XLV. ALEXANDER DUFF, D.D. THIS distinguished missionary to India was born at Kirkmichael, in Perthshire, Scotland, in the year 1806. After concluding a full academic course at the University of St. Andrews, under the instructions of Dr. Chalmers, with whom he was a favorite student, and others of less note, he was licensed to preach the gospel, and immediately ordained and sent forth as the first missionary of the Church of Scotland to the heathen. He reached Calcutta in the fall of 1830, and set about the work committed to his charge. From the first, the instruction of youth has occupied much of his attention; and he may be considered as having reached a point of perfection in this line of effort which has never been surpassed. In the year 1850 there were over one thousand pupils attending the various classes in the Institution which he founded. Dr. Duff has twice, at least, revisited Scotland; first in 1835-spending there, to regain his health, some four years—and again a year or two ago, for a like purpose, at which time he made a visit to the United States. Wherever he went, here or abroad, he received the most marked respect, as a man of God, and a self-forgetful and successful missionary. His many powerful appeals on behalf of the heathen will not soon be forgotten. Previous to his departure from his native land, a public meeting was held in the Free High Church in Edinburg, where a multitude of his friends crowded to hear his farewell address. Dr. Tweedie, Convener of the Foreign Mission Committee of the Free Church, presided; Dr. Candlish opened the proceedings with prayer; after which Dr. Duff delivered, for the space of two hours, one of his overwhelming appeals on behalf of the missionary enterprise. The conclusion of his speech was a farewell to Scotland and a welcome to India, which, being uttered in his peculiarly powerful and winning style, drew tears from the eyes of almost every person in the great throng of those who listened. He said: "And now this, my home-work, being for the present finished, while exigences of a peculiar kind appear to call me back again to the Indian field, I cheerfully obey the summons; and despite its manifold ties and attractions, I now feel as if, in fullness of heart, I can say, Farewell to Scotland-to Scotland! honored by ancient memories and associations of undying glory and renown! Scotland, on whose soil were fought some of the mightiest battles for civil and religious liberty! Scotland, thou country and home of the bravest among undaunted Reformers! Scotland, thou chosen abode and last resting-places of the ashes of most heroic and daring martyrs ?—yet, farewell, Scotland! Farewell to all that is in thee, and welcome, India! Welcome, India, with thy benighted, perishing millions! because, in the vision of faith, I see the renovating process that is to elevate them from the lowest depths of debasement and shame to the noblest heights of celestial glory. Welcome, ye majestic hills, the loftiest on this our globe; for though cold be your summits, and clothed with the drapery of eternal winter, in the vision of faith I can go beyond and behold the mountain of the Lord's house established on the top of the mountains, with the innumerable multitudes of India's adoring worshipers joyously thronging toward it. Welcome, too, ye mighty, stupendous fabrics of a dark lowering idolatry; because, in the vision of faith, I can see in your certain downfall, and in the beauteous temples of Christianity reared over your ruins, one of the mightiest monuments to the triumph and glory of our adored Immanuel. Welcome, too, thou majestic Ganges, in whose waters, through every age, such countless multitudes have been engulfed in the vain hope of obtaining thereby a sure passport to immortality, because, in the vision of faith, I behold the myriads of thy deluded votaries forsaking thy turbid though sacred waters, and learning to wash their robes and make them white in the blood of the Lamb. Welcome-if the Lord so wills it-welcome, sooner or later, a quiet resting-place on thy sunny banks, amid the Hindoo people, for whose deliverance from the tyrannic sway of the foulest and cruelest idolatries on earth, I have groaned and travailed in soul agony. "Fare ye well, then! And in view of that bright and glorious eternity, welcome, thrice welcome, thou resurrection morn; when the graves of every clime and every age, from the time of righteous Abel down to the period of the last trumpet sound, will give up their dead; and the ransomed myriads of the Lord ascending on high, shall enter the mansions of glory-the palaces of light-in Immanuel's land; and there, together, in indissoluble and blissful harmony, celebrate the jubilee of a once-groaning, but, then, renovated universe! Farewell! Farewell!" Dr. Duff is a man of commanding talents, and a large and catholic spirit; and is possessed of remarkable oratorical powers, for either the pulpit or the platform. He is about six feet high, but of slight structure; his face and accent are thoroughly Scotch; his complexion habitually flushed, even to redness, with what appears a determination of blood to the head. His hair is combed back, and when he is excited in a speech, it seems to stand erect; while, trembling like a paralytic, he pours out a torrent of impassioned eloquence such as it is impossible to resist. His gestures at such a time become exceedingly awkward; he distorts his shoulders and his countenance, and "fists his forehead and twitches his pantaloons," and approaches an almost terrible vividness of feeling. Doubtless it is to his earnestness, his evident piety and sincerity, and his excitable temperament, that something of his power over an audience is due; but, aside from all this, there is thought and argument; and it is generally uttered in a manner combining the various qualities of true eloquence. The following is his most celebrated discourse, and altogether worthy of his reputation. It is copied from an Edinburg edition. and has never before been printed in this country. MISSIONS THE CHIEF END OF THE CHURCH. "God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us. "That thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations."— PSALM lxvii. 1, 2. THE royal Psalmist, in the spirit of inspiration, personating the Church of the redeemed in every age, and more especially under its last and most perfect dispensation, here offers up a sublime prayer for its inward prosperity and outward universal extension. All is in the order of nature and of grace. Knowing full well that he who has not obtained mercy from the Lord, can not be a fit bearer of it to others; that he who has obtained no blessings himself, can dispense none; that he who enjoys no light, can communicate none; he, first of all, with marked and beautiful propriety, begins with the supplication of personal and individual blessings "God be merciful unto us," forgiving and pardoning all our sin: "and bless us," conferring every gift and every grace really needful for time and eternity: "and lift up the light of thy countenance upon us," cheering us with the smile of reconciliation and love, and causing the Sun of Righteousness to arise on our darkened souls with healing in his beams. But does the Psalmist stop here? Does he for a moment intend that he and his fellow-worshipers, as representatives of the visible Church of the living God, should absorb all the mercy, all the blessing, and all the light of Jehovah's countenance? Oh, no! Having thus fervently prayed for angelical blessings to descend upon himself, and every member of the Church, he immediately superadds, in the true evangelistic or missionary spirit, "That thy way," or, as it is given in our metrical version, "That so thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations." How significant the connection here established, the obtainment and the distribution of evangelical favors-"God be merciful to us, and bless us!" Why? Only that we ourselves may be pardoned and sanctified, and thereby attain to true happiness? No. There is another grand end in view, to the accomplishment of which, our being blessed is but a means. "God be merciful unto us, and bless us, that so thy way may be known on earth"-that thus-that in this way-that by our instrumentality-that by our being blessed, and having the light of thy countenance shining upon us-"thy way"-thy way of justification through the atoning righteousness of the Redeemer-thy way of sanctification by his Holy Spirit-"may be made known on earth, and thy saving health among all nations." And then, seized with true prophetic fire, at the grandeur of the divine design in reference to "all nations," and hurried away by the magnificence of the vision of the latter-day glory, does "the sweet singer of Israel" break forth into heroic measures, sublimer far than any ever strung on Grecian or Roman lyre: "Let people praise thee, Lord; Let people all thee praise; O let the nations be glad, And sing for joy always. Then shall the earth yield her increase, God shall us bless, and of the earth Here the two grand characteristics of the true Church of God-the evangelical, and the evangelistic or missionary—are written as in a sunbeam: the evangelical, in the possession of all needful gifts and graces out of the plenitude of the Spirit's fullness; the evangelistic, in the instant and perpetual propension which that possession ought to generate and feed, instrumentally to dispense these blessings among all nations. As if to confound lukewarm and misjudging professors throughout all generations, these characteristics are represented by the Spirit of inspiration itself as essential to the very existence and well-being of the Church, and in their very nature inseparable. The prayer of the Church, as dictated by the divine Spirit, is directed to the obtainment of blessings, not as an end, merely terminating in herself, but as a means toward the promotion and attainment of an ulterior end of the sublimest description-the enlightenment and conversion of all nations! Hence it follows, that when a Church ceases to be evangelistic, it must cease to be evangelical; and when it ceases to be evangelical, it must cease to exist as a true Church of God, however primitive or apostolic it may be in its outward form and constitution! There is no mystery here. If, in the common affairs of life, a servant besought and obtained an increased portion of goods, that he might proceed to a distant city or foreign nation, and lay out the whole for the advancement of his master's interest; and if, instead of acting in the terms of his own requisition, and agreeably to the express design of his kind and munificent employer, he chose to remain at home, and appropriate all for his own private ends—what judgment would the world pronounce on such a man? Would he not be condemned as an unprofitable servant, who dishonestly attempted to embezzle the property of another? And would not the master be more than justified in taking away from him even all that he had? Precisely similar is the position and attitude of the petitioning Church, and, consequently, of all petitioning believers, as portrayed by the pencil of the divine Spirit in the words of our text. Believers are there taught to pray, and all who have ever read or sung this precious Psalm in a believing frame of mind, have actually prayed for the richest spiritual blessings. For what purpose? That they themselves may enjoy the comforts and consolations of piety in this life, and a meetness for the heavenly inheritance hereafter? Doubtless this is the first end, and must be implied and included in the object of the petition. But, so little does this appear in the eye of the Spirit, to be the only, or even the chief end, that it is actually left altogether unexpressed! There is another end present to his omniscient view, of a nature so transcendently exalted, that the former is, as it were, wholly overlooked, because eclipsed by the surpassing glory of that which excelleth. And that other end of all-absorbing excellence is, the impartation of God's saving health to all nations. So pre-eminent in importance does this end appear to the mind of the Spirit, that believers are taught to implore spiritual blessings expressly, and even briefly, that they may thereby have it in their power the more effectually to promote it throughout the world. If, then, in answer to such prayers, spiritual blessings should be conferred from on high; and if, instead of employing them for the promotion of their divine Master's interest, by causing his saving health to be made known to all nations, believers should sit down in ease, and appropriate all to themselves and their own friends immediately around them -what judgment must be pronounced upon them in the court of heaven? Must they not be condemned as guilty of a breach of faith— guilty of a dereliction of duty to their Lord and Master-guilty of a dishonest attempt to embezzle the treasures of his grace? And if so, must not their sin, if unrepented of, bring down its deserved punishment? And what can the first drop from the vial of divine wrath do less than expunge from the spiritual inventory of such worthless stewards all that they have already so gratuitously and undeservedly ob tained? What a resistless argument docs the Spirit of God here supply in favor of the missionary enterprise! Who can peruse the words of his own inspiration without being overwhelmed with the conviction, that, in his unerring estimate, the chief end for which the Church ought to exist the chief end for which individual church-members ought to live, is the evangelization or conversion of the world! But, lest any shade of dubiety should exist as to the incontrovertible legitimacy of this conclusion, the same momentous truth may be estab lished by other and independent evidence. The Spirit of prophecy, speaking through Isaiah, had long announced the Messiah himself, not only as King and Priest, but as the great Prophet and Evangelist of the world. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me," says the divine oracle, "because the Lord hath appointed me to preach good tidings to the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year |