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Minor--the temples of the gods, as though smitten by 50 an invisible hand, are deserted--the citizens of Ephesus cry out in despair, Great is Diana of the Ephesians-licentious Corinth is purified by the preaching of Christ crucified. Persecution puts forth her arm to arrest the spreading superstition, but the progress of the faith can55 not be stayed. The church of God advances unhurt amidst rocks and dungeons, persecutions and deathshe has entered Italy, and appears before the walls of the Eternal City-idolatry falls prostrate at her approach -her ensign floats in triumph over the capitol-she has 60 placed upon her brow the diadem of the Cæsars.

Wayland.

90. The events of Providence promotive of the end of Missions.

Little did Julius Cæsar imagine, when the white cliffs of Britain, glittering in the sun, excited his ambition and drew him across the Channel, for what purpose he disembarked his legions on our coast; but we know that it 5 was to open a door through which the Gospel might enter our beloved country. Little did the spirit of commercial enterprise imagine, when urged only by its thirst for gold, it fixed its establishments at the mouth of the Hoogley or on the banks of the Ganges, that it 10 was sent thither as the forerunner of Christian Missionaries. Little does the genius of war imagine, when impelling its mad votaries to new contests, that Christianity is following at a distance, in the rear of victorious armies, to plant her stations on the fields of their en15 campment, to bear away the best of the spoils, and assume the dominion which other potentates have lost. Little did Columbus imagine, when with a heart big with mighty projects, he walked in silence on the shores of Andalusia, and watched the star of evening down the 20 western sky, who it was that dictated the purpose to explore the region which she went nightly to visit on the other side of the Atlantic. We, however, live at a time when all these events are clearly seen to connect themselves with the grand purpose of Jehovah, "to bring

25 all men to Christ." And the people of future generations will as clearly discern the same relation in the circumstances of our day.

I am about to urge a crusade to the heathen world; far different, however, from that dreadful superstition, 30 which in the midnight of the dark ages, disturbed the deep slumbers of the globe, and bursting forth like a volcano, precipitated all Europe in a state of fusion, upon the lovely valleys of Judea. Our object is not to recover the holy sepulchre from the possession of here35 tics, but to make known the death of Him that descended to it, to wrest the keys of empire from the king of terrors:―the weapons of our warfare, are not carnal, as the sword, the spear, and the battle axe; but spiritual as the doctrines of the Gospel exhibited in the ser40 mons of our Missionaries :-the line of our march will not be marked by ensanguined fields, and the reign of desolation, but by the comforts of civilization and the blessings of Christianity. We shall not be followed in our career by the groans of dying warriors, and the 45 shrieks of bereaved widows, but by the songs of redeem. ed sinners, and the shouts of enraptured angels; our laurels will be stained with no blood but that of the Lamb of God, and drip with no tears, but those of penitence and joy-while our trophies will consist, not of 50 bits of the true cross, or shreds of the Virgin's robe, but in the rejected idols of Pomare, with the regenerated souls of those who once adored them.

5

91. The hatefulness of war.

James.

Apart altogether from the evil of war, let us just take a direct look of it, and see whether we can find its character engraven on the aspect it bears to the eye of an attentive observer. The stoutest heart of this assembly would recoil, were he who owns it to behold the destruction of a single individual by some deed of violence. Were the man who at this moment stands before you in the full play and energy of health, to be in another moment laid by some deadly aim a lifeless corpse at your

10 feet, there is not one of you who would not prove how strong are the relentings of nature at a spectacle so hideous as death. There are some of you who would be haunted for whole days by the image of horror you had witnessed,-who would feel the weight of a most oppres15 sive sensation upon your heart, which nothing but time could wear away,-who would be so pursued by it as to be unfit for business or for enjoyment,-who would think of it through the day, and it would spread a gloomy disquietude over your waking moments,--who would 20 dream of it at night, and it would turn that bed which you courted as a retreat from the torments of an evermeddling memory, into a scene of restlessness.

But generally the death of violence is not instantaneous, and there is often a sad and dreary interval between 25 its final consummation, and the infliction of the blow which causes it. The winged messenger of destruction has not found its direct avenue to that spot, where the principle of life is situated; and the soul, finding obstacles to its immediate egress, has to struggle for hours 30 ere it can make its dreary way through the winding avenues of that tenement, which has been torn open by a brother's hand. O! if there be something appalling in the suddenness of death, think not that, when gradual in its advances, you will alleviate the horrors of this 35 sickening contemplation by viewing it in a milder form. O! tell me, if there be any relentings of pity in your bosom, how could you endure it, to behold the agonies of the dying man,--as goaded by pain he grasps the cold ground in convulsive energy, or faint with the loss of 40 blood, his pulse ebbs low, and the gathering paleness spreads itself over his countenance, or wrapping himself round in despair, he can only mark, by a few feeble quiverings, that life still lurks and lingers in his lacerated body,--or lifting up a faded eye, he casts on you a 45 look of imploring helplessness, for that succour which no sympathy can yield him?

It may be painful to dwell on such a representation, -but this is the way in which the cause of humanity is served. The eye of the sentimentalist turns away from

50 its sufferings, and he passes by on the other side, lest he hear that pleading voice, which is armed with a tone of remonstrance so vigorous as to disturb him. He cannot bear thus to pause, in imagination, on the distressing picture of one individual; but multiply it ten thousand 55 times, say, how much of all this distress has been heaped together on a single field,--give us the arithmetic of this accumulated wretchedness, and lay it before us with all the accuracy of an official computation,—and, strange to tell, not one sigh is lifted up among the crowd 60 of eager listeners, as they stand on tiptoe, and catch every syllable of utterance which is read to them out of the registers of death. O! say, what mystic spell is that which so blinds us to the suffering of our brethren, --which deafens to our ear the voice of bleeding hu65 manity, when it is aggravated by the shriek of dying thousands,--which makes the very magnitude of the slaughter, throw a softening disguise over its cruelties, and its horrors,-which causes us to eye with indifference the field that is crowded with the most revolting 70 abominations, and arrests that sigh, which each individual would singly have drawn from us, by the report of the many who have fallen, and breathed their last in agony, along with him?

Chalmers.

92. The Preservation of the Church.

rate enemy.

The long existence of the Christian church would be pronounced, upon common principles of reasoning, impossible. She finds in every man a natural and inveteTo encounter and overcome the unani5 mous hostility of the world, she boasts no political stratagem, no disciplined legions, no outward coercion of any kind. Yet her expectation is that she live forever. To mock this hope, and to blot out her memorial from under heaven, the most furious efforts of fanaticism, the 10 most ingenious arts of statesmen, the concentrated strength of empires, have been frequently and perseveringly applied. The blood of her sons and her daughters has streamed like water; the smoke of the scaffold

and the stake, where they wore the crown of martyrdom 15 in the cause of Jesus, has ascended in thick volumes to the skies. The tribes of persecution have sported over her woes, and erected monuments, as they imagined, of her perpetual ruin. But where are her tyrants, and where their empires? the tyrants have long since gone 20 to their own place; their names have descended upon the roll of infamy; their empires have passed, like shadows over the rock--they have successively disappeared, and left not a trace behind!

But what became of the church? She rose from 25 her ashes fresh in beauty and might. Celestial glory beamed around her; she dashed down the monumental marble of her foes, and they who hated her fled before her. She has celebrated the funeral of kings and kingdoms that plotted her destruction; and, with the in30 scriptions of their pride, has transmitted to posterity the records of their shame. How shall this phenomenon be explained? We are at the present moment, witnesses of the fact; but who can unfold the mystery. The book of truth and life, has made our wonder to 35 cease. ' THE LORD HER GOD IN the midst oF HER IS MIGHTY.' His presence is a fountain of health, and his protection a 'wall of fire.' He has betrothed her, in eternal covenant to himself. Her living head, in whom she lives, is above, and his quickening spirit 40 shall never depart from her. Armed with divine virtue, his gospel, secret, silent, unobserved, enters the hearts of men and sets up an everlasting kingdom. It eludes all the vigilance, and baffles all the power of the adversary. Bars, and bolts, and dungeons are no ob45 stacle to its approach: Bonds, and tortures, and death cannot extinguish its influence. Let no man's heart

tremble, then, because of fear. Let no man despair (in these days of rebuke and blasphemy,) of the Christian cause. The ark is launched, indeed, upon the 50 floods; the tempest sweeps along the deep; the billows break over her on every side. But Jehovah-Jesus has promised to conduct her in safety to the haven of peace. She cannot be lost unless the pilot perish. Mason.

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