tremendous aggregate will amount to 550 millions of heathen, who, being "without God" in the world, are "without hope." The Mohammedans, Magians, and Jews, according to a mean estimate, number about 120 millions; and the various denominations of Christendom, to about 260 millions; the total population of the globe being supposed to be about 950 millions. But how large a portion of Christendom is overspread with a moral darkness approaching to the utter night of heathenism itself! The pale of evangelical Protestantism does not include fifty millions of souls.

If, viewed in this light, the survey is most appalling, there are not wanting considerations, on the other hand, to alleviate the darkness of the prospect. Considering the distribution of political power as designed to be subservient to the final triumph of the Christian faith, it is a remarkable fact, that the Protestant States of Europe and America, which, a hundred years ago, could not number altogether 35 millions of subjects, including their colonies, now extend their rule, in both hemispheres, over six times that number. Within less than a hundred years, the population under the sceptre of Britain has, by the expansion of her Indian empire, risen from thirteen millions to upwards of a hundred and fifty millions, or more than a sixth portion of the human race. A hundred years ago, the Mohammedan powers of Turkey, Persia, and India, still ranked among the most potent arbiters of the destinies of mankind. The Mogul empire is now extinct; the Persian is smit with incurable weakness; and the Ottoman is trembling on its basis. The Mohammedan sword is broken; and the Christian Governments to whom have been consigned almost the whole of what the Mussulman and Pagan powers have lost, are either Protestant or Greek.

But the immense political facility thus afforded for the extension of Christianity, is incalculably increased by the spirit of commercial enterprise which forms so distinguishing a feature of the times, and which gives an ascendancy to Britain far beyond the confines of her actual dominion. There is no nation under heaven with which we are not now in actual or indirect contact. For every moral purpose, the

maritime empire of Great Britain is universal;* and by this means it has become, for the first time since the decline of the Roman empire, actually possible to make the knowledge of the true faith universal. The essentially pacific character of a commercial empire wonderfully harmonizes with this purpose, and adapts it to become the medium of the bloodless triumphs of Truth. And since the temple of Janus was closed in the reign of Augustus, there has been no period in history of so general and long continued peace.

Not less remarkable is the extraordinary progress which has been made in overcoming the physical obstacles to the diffusion of Christianity created by difference of language. The achievements of Protestant Missionaries in Oriental philology have commanded the astonishment and admiration of European literati; and the Bible is now for the first time rendered accessible and intelligible in almost all the dialects of the world. The discovery of the art of printing produced the Reformation, and gave its death-blow to the supremacy of Rome. The simple apparatus of the Bible Society, in connexion with the philological labours of our Missionaries, has had all the effect of a new mechanical discovery; and it will form the era of the downfall of Pagan superstition.

Other propitious signs of the times might be adverted to, which warrant the most sanguine expectations of success in an aggressive conflict with the decrepit and tottering hierarchies of idolatry and atheism. To advert to only one consideration more; the experiment has hitherto been made under every possible disadvantage, yet everywhere it has succeeded, at least to a limited extent. But the history of the Polynesian Mission exhibits a very extraordinary instance of national conversion. The sudden and spontaneous abandonment of idolatry by the chiefs and people of Tahiti, at a time when no European teacher was on the island, is in itself a most impressive event. Still more striking is the superior success which has subsequently crowned the artless efforts of the native converts, in islands where no European teachers had set their

• Even in territorial extent, the British empire, inferior only to that of Russia, almost three times as vast as that of Imperial Rome.

foot.* The Missionary who comes as a foreigner, is happy in seeing the labours of years crowned with the conversion of a few individuals as "first-fruits unto God." From the greater aptitude of native converts for the work of evangelizing their countrymen, it may be anticipated that it will be chiefly by their instrumentality that the leaven will spread itself till the whole mass be leavened. When the native mind begins to wake and to act, it will act in masses. The law of human sympathy will become subservient to the operation of the power of truth and the concurrence of Divine Influence. India, China, Central Africa, must be evangelized by native teachers. The preparatory labour only devolves upon the Church. It is impossible then to calculate from the past, the rapidity with which the conversion of the nations will hereafter take place, when the requisite instrumentality shall have been put in operation. The event will probably take the Christian world by surprise, yet without having a more miraculous character than the occurrences which have recently taken place in the Polynesian archipelago, and which, interesting as they are in themselves, acquire an almost infinite interest, if regarded as a specimen and earnest of what may rationally be looked for on a far larger scale among the millions of "the Outer East."

See "A Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands; by John Williams, of the London Missionary Society." 8vo. 1837. One of the most interesting biographical narratives in the language.

INDEX.