opposition. "Ours are the plans of policy and peace." Our agents are men of prudence and observation, busied with all the details of life, "instructors of the foolish and teachers of babes." Their settlements are schools for every useful craft and civilising pupilage. Nothing is pursued but in subordination to their work. Yet natural history owes them much. Recondite philology is a memorial of their industry. And they have at least frequently sheltered with their hospitality, and assisted with their experience, the scientific traveller, who otherwise could never have perilled himself on those defenceless wastes.

Whatever reasons, therefore, may be offered to explain the origin of Christian Missions, none really derogatory can be proved. We may try the most foolish suggestions, but, after all, even on their showing, this cause stands in co-ordinate rank with the highest inventions and deeds of men.

Was it Chance? To this, as ordinarily understood, we may link the most glorious discoveries. A boy holds a tube to his eye: from this incident Galileo seizes the idea, and constructs the powers, of the telescope. A tree floats from the west along the sea : from this drift Columbus infers the existence, and realises the history, of America. An undigested experiment is made: Van Kleist is directed by it to form the Leyden jar. An apple drops from the bough: from this trivial occurrence Newton presses to the tendency of all bodies, and thrids the chain which binds the universe. In any of these exploits, can the chance do more than glorify the conclusion? Is not the discerner

of such a clue the greater because of its insignificance?

Was it Enthusiasm? We may have learned to smile at the imputation, and the rather, because when attached to any cause, except that of a consistent zeal in religion, it raises no idea of blame. Does enthusiasm blight the creations of the poet, does it fetter the experiment of the philosopher, does it chill the taste of the artist, does it wither the laurels of the brave? Little are we in danger of this ardour: "if we be beside ourselves, it is to God." "If we should hold our peace, the stones would cry out." We hear the command, "Be zealous;" but we find no caution against a too inflammable excess.

Was it not Inspiration? A divine government must be supposed, in order to furnish History its key and solution. Impetus and illapse can alone explain countless thoughts and dictates of the human mind. Was it a purpose unworthy of the great Ruler to raise a simultaneous sympathy in so many with the miseries of this world? Was it a purpose unworthy of Him to consolidate a combination of benevolent energies, indissoluble in its bond, resistless in its advance, imperishable in its principle? Was it a purpose unworthy of Him to summon men who seem to have received an anointing for their office? Can any supposition be so just, so credible, so philosophical, as to attribute these effects to Him "from whom all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed" ?*

*The Second Collect in the Evening Service of the Church of England.

We have scarcely approached the question. We have but supposed certain relations in which it may be placed. We have only pressed the manner in which, when most nakedly and unworthily regarded, its interests might be pleaded, and its reproaches redeemed. It has been with a constraint of negation and neutrality that we have prepared our way. But even this reserve shuts us up to the important truth,-Missions are the identification of Christianity!

A beneficence,-it may be further deduced,—is thus obtained, which shall do more to wind itself into the human heart, more to penetrate the seats of human wretchedness, than was ever, before its too recent manifestation, imagined. There are no extremes or diversities of woe, but it prepares to meet and mitigate. It is such an expression of kindness, it is so unaccountable on any general law of sympathy, that it must, after the first doubt of its sincerity, open and melt every heart. Lovely and sacramental as the rainbow, it finds access and bears hope to each like as that arch of promise spans the most difficult steep, and dives into the profoundest chasm, connecting, embracing, and adorning all.

Missions and kindred objects have, moreover, discovered a new element, which promises to them a perpetuity. Time was when the idea obtained almost universally, that whatever was great and good could alone be achieved by the power of governments and the machinery of laws. The union of private individuals was not proposed, and perhaps had never been considered. Liberty was imperfectly understood. Opi

nion exerted but little ascendancy. Every popular movement was jealously disfavoured. Man knew not his strength. But now this amazing power becomes his right arm. He is invincible by it. In the philosophy of the theme we would discuss, it cannot be overlooked. What might it have wrought had it been more early known? What can be ever wrought again without it? What can stay the power of Voluntary Association?

Had Wickliffe attracted the warm and mighty spirits then awaking around him, and could he have consorted with them, in plan and well-directed agency, —that morning star of the Reformation had not dwelt apart, but might have, like the lodestar, represented a universal influence, and shone the centre of a mighty constellation. Had Luther drawn to him all the believers of his doctrine hidden in cell and choir, in hall and cottage, an authority would have strengthened him beyond all that his princely protectors could bestow. The Cause of Missions lives, though we speak only after the manner of men, in the combined many, in popular support and suffrage, in the "multitude of them that believe."

MISSIONS,

THE SPIRIT AND EXERCISE OF ALL REVEALED DISPENSATION.

SINCE the Religion of Innocence ceased by the fall of man, there has been constituted for him but one other, the Religion of Salvation. The Almighty Ruler has never treated with us since but on the ground of this. To impress our apostacy upon us, to make manifest its consequences, He has sometimes remitted us to the Original law, which, though unchangeable in its principles and obligations, is no more "ordained to life." It was Mercy, not mocking us, but bidding us to the proof of our "desperate wickedness," and constraining us to convince ourselves. It raised to demonstration the serious fact, that we were "without strength;" that there was no curative virtue in that moral system against which we had transgressed. There is much error here. The Holy Spirit cannot bear his witness to any method of recovering the sinner save that which was taught to our "first father who sinned." It is ancient as the earliest promise, and is co-existent with human need. We must not confound the Dispensation with its essential lesson. The one is the form and vehicle, the other the possession and life. The primæval intimation of deliverance,-the covenant