66 Could the Negociator people with sportive with flippant smile and jest? address himself to a revolted look and tone? Could the High Priest, as he drew aside the awful hangings of the inner shrine, strike the harp and dance before the ark? Should not our accents tremble and our countenances fall? We follow the long processions of eternal death, and should we not as "mourners go about the streets"? Ought not great fear to come upon the Church and upon as many as hear of these things"? If "the same mind be in us which was also in Christ Jesus," how solemn and tender will our spirits prove, solemn as when He upbraided Capernaum, and tender as when he wept over Jerusalem! We shall be schooled to sobriety. We shall be stricken with seriousness. We shall dwell in love. The evils around us will be seen of more tremendous magnitude. The means of counteraction will rise in interest and grandeur. Our position will stand out with a more profound responsibility. We shall regard ourselves as set to stay the plague. From this moment we shall pass the time of our sojourning here in fear." We shall reverence our "high calling." 66 All will grow "Sor solemn around us, inviting meditation and demanding exertion. The temper of our minds will be embued with more earnest sentiment, but that sentiment will be found to deepen the channel of our peace. row is better than laughter; for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning." If we learn to feel more agonisingly for the salvation of the world, if new images of dread throng our mind, if "the troubles of our heart be enlarged,”—it will be our consolation to know that, in believing the misery of the world to be most extreme, we bear with us a remedy most perfectly adequate; and that such is the compensative genius of our religion, that we can form no conception painful because of its truth, without finding in that truth a delight which more than counterbalances whatever is painful. Our piety will take a firmer root. Our joy will be like His "who rejoiced in spirit." "The joy of the Lord will be our strength." If the truest use of life can give us self-respect, if the noblest philanthropy can warm our hearts to a genial glow,—if going in and out in noblest offices of kindness, can redeem our course from littleness and vanity, -if the hope of "saving some," can wake any feeling like itself within us,if our conjoint march with Providence and Prophecy can excite any sense of dignity, then shall we not only "remember," but verify "the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive"! - MISSIONS, VINDICATED AGAINST SOME POPULAR MISREPRESENTATIONS AND OBJECTIONS. THE question of Christian attempts to make known the gospel in all the earth, occupies a very different place in the public mind and in our passing history, from that which it formerly held. Some it has conciliated, others it has overawed. Statesmen do not, as at the first, invariably denounce our Missions, nor philosophers deride them, nor travellers deprecate them they may, now and then, be mentioned without mercantile clamour and political alarm. Caricature is rarely tried upon them. Banter is not frequently indulged. Contempt has become more guarded, and calumny has learnt to impose a restraint upon itself. The invective and menace which once filled our Legislatures, our Tribunals, our Schools, our Marts,—which resounded in high debate, and were reverberated in public outcry, which breathed through our organs of science and literature, now are seldom heard. secular reputation is even accorded to them. Though no sympathy is felt with their high authority and primary purport, yet their accidents recommend themselves. Their subserviency to philosophy and letters,— in arranging languages, whose names until of late had not been known; in obtaining information touching A mythologies which had been screened from every curious eye, and fenced from every intrusive footstep; in marking with a more accurate geography the chart of rivers and oceans, cities and countries; in furnishing specimens of the organic and inorganic kingdoms of nature; in collating facts which support the most stupendous systems and deductions;- Their favourable influence on commerce, offering security to person, and infusing integrity into barter; besides unfolding new fields and establishing fresh interchanges, by awakening the barbarian to his proper wants, and binding him into social institutions; - Their singular sublimity of conception and design, seizing upon the imagination and romance of the human mind, embodying what had been visionary as an ideal and baseless as a dream; -Their proofs and credentials of success, signalised in sumless peaceful trophies of civilization, in upright principles and softened manners:-These explicit results have raised the cause of Missions very high, and have adjudged to it a large share of general favour. But we cannot closely examine the question before us, or the public mind in reference to it, without discovering the perpetual repetition of cavils, which it is only difficult to refute from their intangibleness. They work, however, a mischief. They should be disabused. A slight allusion to some of these may have been remarked already: but it was in other connections, and for other ends. It seems the opinion of not a few, that Christianity is a matter of climate. It is, in their thought, the best of religions for ourselves. For its safety, and even its extension, in these latitudes, their wishes are loud and perhaps sincere. But they doubt whether a feeble, long oppressed, race could ever understand it. They question whether it has sufficient legend for a people who have been cradled in wild and powerful fancies. They suspect that it has not such a variety of ceremonies as can captivate those who feel the importance and charm of nothing else. Withal, its morals may be too rigid, and its restraints too irksome. They even rise in their objection. To them it does not seem incredible that the religions of the Pagan world should have somewhat of a divine sanction, and of a salutary tendency. The Gentoo has some power of judgment, and he believes his Shastre true. The Musselmaun might justify his faith, and claim honour to it, as the barrier and outguard between Christendom and Idolatry. The controversy which such objections raise is simple. Is Christianity what it professes to be? Then it is exclusive. The language of Jehovah concerning any other God, may be adopted by it concerning any other religion: "I know not any." What must be their ideas of "the glorious gospel of the blessed God," who can bring it into comparison with the basest mixtures of falsehood, debauchery, and superstition! We can deign but one refutation: "What concord hath Christ with Belial ?" "Will ye plead for Baal? will ye save him ?" The difficulty entertained by many in respect to Missions, is, the right of our procedure. It is not |