the concave of the firmament. And the Influence, which applies the principle, must equally agree with the intellectual laws and sympathies. It must be "the spirit of a sound mind."

means.

We contentedly waive the question, why Christianity has not spread more rapidly? It is a scheme of Means must remain dependent on human will and responsibility. Instrumental agency will frequently fluctuate. There is but one chain of secondary causes by which the final triumph of our religion can be secured. The method and nexus are strictly rational. To be saved, men must call on the name of the Lord,— thus to call, they must believe, thus to believe, they must hear, thus to hear, there must be a preacher,thus to possess the preacher, he must be sent.* In these ordinations there is no more than the foresight and course of common conduct. All is devolved as so much duty on the Church. If all men have not the knowledge of God, let it be spoken only to our shame.

"Let none henceforth seek needless causes to approve

The faith they owe; when earnestly they seek

Such proof, conclude, they then begin to fail.”+

*Rom. x. 13-15.

+ Milton's Paradise Lost, Book ix.

MISSIONS

SUBJECT TO NO DEMURS AND DIFFICULTIES

BUT THOSE TO WHICH

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY WAS EXPOSED.

THE enterprise which aims and strives to spread the gospel over all the earth, must find its warrant and its rule in that gospel. Thence must be drawn every shadow of its authority, and every line of its regulation. We are charged with a message which in no minutest point is to be modified, and the career set before us cannot suffer any latitude. "A dispensation of the gospel is committed unto us."

The right to interfere with the Ethnic idolatry, with all its train of frightful evils, may, perhaps, be established on earlier and independent grounds. Although we did not possess the perfect remedy which we can now substitute, and can scarcely suppose that, being thus destitute, we should feel even the disposition to make the attempt,-still might it be lawful to commit aggression upon it. Beneath theocratic

ordinance, it was "an iniquity to be punished by the judges." It partook of treason as much as impiety. The irruption of the Israelites upon Canaan receives its strongest justification as the vengeance of the Supreme upon a people in open rebellion against Him.

Christianity is armed with no carnal weapons: its most fearful array is its moral denouncements. Let the sword of the magistrate protect the missionary against idolatry, but it may not enforce him. And the present hypothesis, which excludes Christianity, only can allow of intellectual obtrusion. But is not the monstrous superstition of the nations so fallacious that it should be refuted? Are not those nations so wretched under its bondage, that they ought to be disabused?

A brief allusion to the argument, as it then would stand, may not be uninteresting.

If man does not, having lost the first revelation, deduce the Divine existence and its unity, that deduction is, at least, far more easy and simple than polytheism. There is so much proportion, resemblance, conformity of design and operation,-so much of the same pervading intelligence and characteristic greatness, that the conception of "gods many" is not only illogical, it is an insult to reason. The doctrine of the cons, of all subsidiary ministers and agents in the production and management of the universe, is the still more absurd apology for that which seemed to preclude any possible excess of absurdity. Is not this a fitting occasion to remonstrate? Would it not be a worthy scope for philanthropy, to assert the claims of Him in " whose hand our breath is, and whose are all our ways"? Who would not cry aloud to them that "serve graven images and boast themselves of idols:" "Fear God and give glory to him"? Could indignation find a theme so worthy of its most vehement rebuke: "Sirs, why do ye these things?"

Heathenism is irreconcileable with those principles which inhere in every idea of Natural Religion. The unity of the First Cause is not only the basis of any such idea, real or fancied, but the general order of things must furnish the impressions of moral obligation. To discover what is convenient and useful in conduct and relationship, what works most beneficially, what best secures individual due and preserves social harmony,—the mind should deeply muse on all that history and observation lay before it. It must bring out that which is more than half concealed, and collect the scattered members of truth and rectitude. It must be always capable of appeal to principles, not abstract but palpable. Now, did idolatry, in any case, presume to suggest a coincidence between itself and the instructions of the outward world? Did it suppose that its mysticism agreed with the simplicity of Nature? its misrule with her order? its violence with her gentleness? its impatience with her quiet? its waste with her providence? its revelry with her peace? It is the satyr polluting the greenwood! It is the refusal of flowers to the fountain that it may be stained with gore! It is the disturbance of the sylvan beauty and repose by the Corybantian cymbal and the Dithyrambic yell! The majestic lessons, the softening influences, the sweet solicitings, the deepstriking sympathies, of which our Creator's works are full, must all be stifled wherever idolatry paramountly reigns. To this overlaying of all these sensibilities, must be added the glaring contrariety of its morals to all that reason, meditating on the arrangements of

mundane œconomy, dictates. "Doth not even nature itself teach" us that polygamy contravenes its ratios, and that libidinousness is the destruction of its genial laws? Does it not inculcate the care of offspring, and the gratitude of children to parents? Is not modesty most true to it? Is not benevolence a source of delighted emotion? But are these the fruits of this baleful superstition? Does it not wither all as by an ice-blast? Does it not denaturalise man, and strike dumb the countless voices which address him from the constitutions which surround him? Therefore, even here, might the worshipper of the true God, who "triumphed in the works of His hands," find a field and warrant for his zeal. While vindicating the Supreme from the rabble of pretenders to His throne, the remonstrant might, at the same time, urge the designs and uses which those works promote and teach. He might show the wrong which is done to them by a base tradition overpowering all their native inferences, quenching all their finer yearnings, violating all their grandest laws.

But in speaking upon Natural religion, it is more necessary to look into the interior of human consciousness, "the hidden man of the heart." There are strong impulses, approved and directed by reason, which cannot, without the most crushing despotism, be repressed. Though a powerful objection exists to the conjecture of the proper law from the class and state of our feelings,-since we might frame one to sanction us in "walking after our own lusts,"-still, our feelings must not be overlooked. To understand them