talent to improve, the way is now open to all the honours of the camp of Israel. The pious mother, who can only drop her two mites into the treasury of the Lord, but whose example and whose prayers have saved her son, may bring her Samuel to the altar, to be fed from its offerings, and reared to all the honours of the prophetic office. While I am yet speaking, hope springs up, and a joy, not felt in ages past, thrills through all the habitations of pious poverty.

The late revivals possess one peculiar characteristic. There have been among there fruits an unusual number of males. When there was little else that could be done for Zion, but pray and weep, and love her doctrines, and glow with heavenly affections, the feebler sex could furnish the christian world with soldiers. But now, when the kingdom of darkness must be stormed, Zion needs the aid of her sons, and God, it would seem, accommodates the operations of his Spirit to the interests of his church. Paul was not converted till his help was needed, and it was not needed till the gospel was to be carried to the Gentiles. Every revival of late contradicts that libel long legible on the records of infidelity, That religion evinces its emptiness by its exclusive operation upon the feebler part of our race. Recently the strong and muscular, the very champions of the host of hell, have fallen before the power of truth, and are harnessed for its defence. Moreover, men of science, and of strong mind, have in their own es

teem become fools, and have sat down to learn truth at a Saviour's feet. Our late revivals have penetrated schools and colleges. Satan's cause has been well pleaded, and God now intends to plead his own and palsied will be the tongue that is silent.

Does God without design raise up these instruments? Would one pass through a whole kingdom, and employ every skilful mechanic, unless he intended to erect some mighty edifice? If then we see God enlisting men in his service, men of strength and science, does he not intend to achieve some wondrous design? Assuredly the heavenly building will rise. These talents will be, and they are already employed in extending Emmanuel's empire. India, with other benighted lands, has already received our missionaries, and her Moloch, with all his cursed family of gods, sicken at their prospect. The dark places of his empire have been explored, and the sceptre begins to tremble in his palsied hand. And poor Africa, more debased still, has found a tongue to plead her cause. Conscience, long asleep, and deaf to her rights, has waked, and now, her sons, fed at the table of charity, are preparing to carry her the bread of life. My country, deeper in her debt than all other lands, has begun to pay its long arrears.

Who could have hoped, a few years since, that he should ever see a day like this? If twenty years since, one had told me that sixty years would so electrify the Christian world, I should have believed him visionary, and, like the unbelieving Samar

itan, should have pronounced it impossible, unless God should make windows in heaven, and rain Bible and Missionary Societies from above: but God has done it all without a miracle. And blessed be his name, will those present join me in the thank-offering ?-blessed be his name, that he cast us upon such an age as this. Blessed be his name, that we were not born a century sooner. Then we had never seen the dawn of this millennial morning, nor heard the glad tidings which now reach us by every mail, nor had an opportunity, as now, to purchase for our offspring an interest in the Lord's fund. Charity was then in a deep sleep. India bowed to her idols, and Africa wore her chains, unpitied and unrelieved. Buchanan and Wilberforce, angels of mercy, were then unborn. Infidelity then desolated the fairest provinces of Christendom, and wars were the applauded achievements of states and empires.

But the age of infidelity has gone by, and the bloody clarion has breathed out, I hope, its last accursed blast. Events are transpiring which bid fair to bind all nations in the bonds of love. I had read of such a period, but how could I hope to see it? The present repose of nations augurs well for the Church. Christendom can now unite her efforts to evangelize the world, while the sailor and the soldier have leisure and opportunity to read the precious Scriptures. And must not all this put our unbelief to the blush, and cover us with shame?

The past twenty years have so outdone our highest hopes, as to render it impossible to predict what twenty more may do. God has begun to work on a scale new and grand; and the inference is that he will go on. After what we have seen, we could hardly be surprised if twenty years to come should put the bible into every language under heaven, and should send missionaries, more or less, to every benighted district of earth. Let benevolent exertion increase in the ratio of the past seven years, and God add his blessing, and half a century will evangelize the world, tame the lion and the asp, and set every desert with temples, devoted to the God of heaven. When the bosom of charity shall beat a little stronger, if there should be the necessity, men will sell houses or farms to save the heathen from hell, and the child will sit down and weep, who may not say, that his father and mother were the friends of missions. And what parent would entail such a curse upon his children, and prevent them from lifting up their heads in the millennium. I had rather leave mine toiling in the ditch, there to enjoy the luxury of reflecting, that a father's charity made them poor. Poor! They are poor who cannot feel for the miseries of a perishing world; whom God has given abundance, but who grudge to use it for his honour. Teach your children charity, and they can never be poor. "The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth, shall be watered also himself." Can

F

ད

this promise fail? Then we can all leave our children rich, and the heirs too of a fortune they can never squander. We can purchase for them the privilege of drawing upon the exhaustless resources of heaven. What a privilege now to be a parent!

answer.

But I must return to the argument. God is doing so much for his church, as to warrant the inference that he will do still more. The hopes he raises, he will gratify. The prayer he indites, he will To see what God is doing, I find it impossible to doubt his intentions. The present is a prelude to brighter scenes. God would not have done so much for his people, had he intended to abandon them. The church will live and prosper. Instead of trembling for the ark, let us weep that we ever thought it in danger.

IV. We build the same expectations on the promises and prophecies. The building which we see rising God has promised to finish. He has all the materials; the silver and the gold are his. He has enlisted the builders, and prepared the necessary instruments. The decree has gone forth that Jerusalem must be built, and God will redeem his own gratuitous pledge: he will do as he has said.

Early in the reign of Emmanuel there will be universal peace. The nations are to "beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks." "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the