This is a book of principles, and a book of persuasion; the eloquent fragmentary effusions of Dr. Duff on the subject of Missions are here gathered up into a pocket volume cheap and handsome. The first Address deals with the subject of native agency and kindred points. The fact that ten thousand copies of the first edition were exhausted in one short year, says something for its merits and the public appreciation of them. Among the many gems, there is a passage on Conversions as they take place in the East, which is the following:

CONVERSION.

The Word of God is the alone direct and efficacious instrument in awakening and regenerating a guilty and polluted world; and the Holy Spirit of God, the alone Almighty agent in crowning this instrumentality with triumph3 that shall issue in the glories of eternity. Accordingly, it was when unfolding, in simple and absolute dependence on Divine grace, the Scripture doctrine of the sinfulness, depravity, and helplessness of human nature, that the heart of the first convert became seriously affected under a sense of the guilt and vileness of sin; and, when unfolding the inexpressible love of the divine Redeemer to our apostate world, that another heart was touched, yes, melted under the display of such infinite tenderness. Thus it was that the Gospel triumphed; and the doctrine of the cross, brought home to the heart and conscience, and sealed by the divine Spirit, maintained its high pre-eminence, as the only antecedent to the conversion of a soul towards God.

And I must here add, that in the case of some of the individuals thus brought to a knowledge of the truth, there was exhibited a demonstration of the power of Christianity, such as I have seldom, if ever, witnessed at home. The case of the third one that was baptized, and who now conducts an institution in one of the upper provinces, was somewhat peculiar, from the trying circumstances attending his separation from his friends. Ah! could any member of this assembly have been present on that memorable night, he would have seen what Christianity could do, even for a poor brutish idolater. It was about nine in the evening; and if any one here has been in that far distant land, he will know what the external scene was, when I say it was on the banks of the Ganges, and under the full effulgence of an Indian moon, whose brightness almost rivals the noonday glory of the sun in these northern climes. Two or three had resolved, as friends, to go along with this individual, and witness a spectacle never before seen by us, and perhaps not soon again to be seen by Europeans. It was heart-rending

throughout. Having reached the outer door of the house, the elder brother of this young man advanced towards him, and looking at him wistfully in the face, began first to implore him by the most endearing terms as a brother, that he would not bring this shame and disgrace upon himself and his family-which was a most respectable one. Again and again did he earnestly appeal to him by the sympathies, and the tenderness, and the affection of a brother. The young man listened, and with intense emotion simply in substance replied, "That he had now found out what error was, that he had now found out what truth was, and that he was resolved to cling unto the truth." Finding that this argument had failed, he began to assert the authority of the elder brother, an authority sanctioned by the usages of the people. He endeavoured to show what power he had over him, if he cruelly brought this disgrace upon his family. The young man still firmly replied, "I have found out what error is, I have found out what truth is, and I have resolved to cling unto the truth." The brother next held out bribes and allurements. There was nothing which he was not prepared to grant. was no indulgence whatever which he would not allow him in the very bosom of the family— indulgences absolutely prohibited, and regarded as abhorrent in the Hindu system-if he would only stop short of the last and awful step of baptism, the public sealing of his foul and fatal apostasy. The young man still resolutely adhered to his simple but emphatic declaration !

There

The

It was now, when every argument had finally failed, that his aged mother, who had all the while been present within reach of hearing, though we knew it not, raised a howl of agony, a yell of horror, which it is impossible for imagination to conceive. It pierced into the heart, and made the very flesh creep and shiver. young man could hold out no longer. He was powerfully affected, and shed tears. With uplifted arms, and eyes raised to heaven, he forcibly exclaimed, "No; I cannot stay!" And this was the last time he ever expected to hold converse with his brethren or his mother!

I could not help feeling then, and have often thought since, how wonderful is the power of truth-how sovereign the grace of God! If it be said that the Hindu character is griping and avaricious, Divine grace is stronger still, and is able to conquer it. If it is yielding and fickle, -ay, fickle as the shifting quicksands,-Divine grace can give it consistency and strength. If it is feeble and cowardly, Divine grace can make the feeble powerful, and convert the coward into a moral hero. What signal testimony do such triumphs bear to the power of the everlasting Gospel!

Dr. Duff has made an important contribution on the subject of Education without religion, which is specially op

portune at the present time. His testimony acquires an additional value from the fact that the oration was delivered so far back as 1835, before any controversy had arisen on the subject of education, and it must not, therefore, be supposed, as at all the result of feeling exaggerated by the heat of party contest. The testimony of such a man possesses a special value at the present time; and as given by a man from afar, it may, perhaps, obtain a hearing where the views of a home advocate, upon which ever side, amid the din of disputation, would be unheard. The question to be raised, is, whether it does not contain principles equally applicable to education without religion in Eugland, and in other parts of the world? We shall be truly grateful to the man who will ease our hearts on this point by proving, that the Upas of Hindostan will be a Tree of Life in Great Britain. we shall join with the men of Manchester in their Secular Education.

Then

Address II. is largely taken up with answering various objections-some of them plausible, but all of them unsound -made against Indian Missions, but more especially those of the Church of Scotland. These objections, with the answers, it is hardly needful to specify; indeed we have doubts as to the benefit of dealing largely in the article of meeting objections in anything which appertains to the work of evangelization.

Address III. opens with some excellent observations on the claims of Missions to more notice; in public journalism and the periodical press generally. These observations are such as have been frequently made in our own columns, and we are glad to find Dr. Duff entertaining views so enlightened. He complains with bitterness that the general press passes the great work of Missions over, frequently giving a hundred times the space to cases of criminality, that is given to accounts of an enterprize embracing the welfare of whole nations with hundreds of millions of immortal beings! Here again Dr. Duff returns to the subject of general education without religion:

EDUCATION WITHOUT RELIGION.

To one striking proof and illustration of this assertion I have repeatedly adverted, on account of its inseparable connection with the national responsibilities of Britain. Again and again has it been announced, not as the result of theory, but as the irrefragable testimony of facts, that in India a large infusion of European literature and science tends to demolish ancient superstition-leaving the natives no form of religion

instead. Hence must an infidelizing process be systematically carried on, to the extent in which a superior literary and scientific education is imparted. Two years ago it was my privilege to announce to this House, that, in Gangetic India alone, nearly thirty Government institutions were already in active and effective operation-all constituted on the principle of communicating secular knowledge without religion. And to confirm the unfavourable impression of their tendency in a religious point of view, it was then announced that libraries had been provided for the different institutions, containing many works whose only effect would be to excite and envenom the vicious propensities of depraved hearts, and insinuate into the minds of youth the fermenting leaven of a virulent anti-Christianism. Now, on representing this case to the Committee of the London Religious Tract and Book Society-a society eminently worthy of the confidence and support of all sound-headed and sound-hearted Christians in the land, they at once proposed and agreed, with their wonted generosity, to send, free of all expense, a select library of their choicest publications to each of the Government Institutions, that these might stand, like bane and antidote, side by side with the volumes of Hume and Byron. And was not this a fair and honest proposal? Was it not a liberal and an excellent scheme? If the great National Educationists abroad were true to their profession, ought they not to hail it as delivering them from the charge of favouritism-the charge of one-sided partiality? If it were really true, that on the subject of religion they wished to maintain a strict neutrality, a rigid non-interference, why supply irreligious books? But if, after supplying these, they still expected credit for even-handed justice, could they hesitate about receiving such works as embodied the remedial and counteractive truths? In consistency, they could not. And yet, with only two exceptions, they not only did hesitate, but actually rejected the munificent gift! Now, however satisfactory the reasons might prove to their own mind, was not such an overt act naturally calculated to raise suspicions relative to the pretensions of those who clamour most vociferously about their exclusive right to the designation Liberal? Was it not enough to occasion doubts, whether liberality now-a-days did not really denote something very different from the former and true designation of that once venerable term? Did it not seem to say, that (in as far as practice is the interpreter of theory) to be liberal simply means, resolutely to adopt-and often the more blindly and unthinkingly the better-one side of a question, and determine to put down and coerce into silence all else as illiberal? The fact is undeniable. I hold in my hands the official reply of the Secretary of the Central Controlling Committee of Public Instruction, Calcutta, composed of some of the highest Government functionaries in the land. In it the gratuitous offer of the London Society is declined on the express ground, that "from the designation of the books, it was inferred that their primary object was the dissemination of the Christian faith,"-and that to admit such works would be "an infringement of the rules which the General Committee, acting under appointment of the Supreme Government, is bound to observe." Thus is Christianity, the only

seminal principle of "life and immortality," even in the form of a free donation of religious books for a public library, systematically and authoritatively excluded from the institutions of a professedly Christian Government! while the anti-Christian writings of Hume and others are not only readily admitted, but officially ordered from British booksellers, for the instruction of the educated youth of India.

THE RELATION OF INTELLECT TO MORALS.

Still, however much we may deplore the short-sighted policy, the erroneous judgment, or the supposed necessity of originating and supporting such educational measures, we are bound, in courtesy at least, to concede that the prime agents are influenced by conscientious motives. If they set their veto on Christianity, it is because they believe, however groundlessly, that its introduction would defeat the grand design of emancipating the native mind; for they expressly assure us, through their official organ, that their endeavour is "to improve the education and morals of the natives by the only available means-the diffusion amongst them of the secular literature and science of Europe." The only available means! How does this tally with the notorious fact, that at this moment thousands are engaged in a course of study which intimately combines Christianity with the literature and science of the west? Improve the education and the morals by the diffusion of secular literature and science! If by "education" be meant mere intellectual culture, so far may the voice of this oracle be listened to and reverenced; but as to secular literature and science materially, essentially, extensively, or permanently improving the morals of a people, the cumulative testimonies of experience would drown the voice of a thousand oracles. ignorant head and a depraved heart are like the gloom of night mantling over a stagnant marsh. The light of the rising sun will disperse the gloom; but will it alike annihilate the foul and noxious putrescence of the marsh? No: the solar ray will only expose it more distinctly to view, and exasperate its venom into a tenfold deadlier virulence. So, from the present constitution of the human mind, the light of secular knowledge will dispel the darkness of ignorance from the natural understanding; but will it eradicate the corruption of a depraved heart? No: its only effect may be to render that corruption more manifest; and, by applying new and unwonted stimuli, exulcerate the diseased part into the pestilential vapours of a moral quagmire. Who can, without a rush of painful emotion, realize the contrast so affectingly portrayed by the noble bard, when he represents himself as standing on a

"Bridge of sighs

An

A palace and a prison on each hand?" And yet, methinks, the contrast is more painful far, that is presented by a richly-garnished intellect in the immediate neighbourhood of a foul polluted heart!-the contrast of a palace, replenished with reason and taste and high intelligence, actually surmounting a heart which may be the prison, the grave, the charnel-house of morality and religion!

Ought not such a state of things to arouse this House, and every other Christian assembly, to eminently greater exertions in the time to

come,-that every infidelizing current may be arrested and turned back, by the mightier opposing tide of Christian feeling and Christian principle?

Missionaries, who have spent most of their lives in foreign climes, on revisiting their native land, have a remarkable advantage over the men of the mother country in forming a correct estimate of given methods and measures for the advancement of Missions. The following is Dr. Duff's estimate of a favourite measure for promoting the great cause:

DELUSIVE EFFECTS OF PUBLIC MEETINGS.

In the present age, the characteristic mode of promoting every object is by calling public meetings. Now, to such meetings, properly conducted, there can be no reasonable objection. In one sense, indeed, they are indispensable. But, however they are conducted, I cannot help having a strong and growing impression that a grand delusion very widely prevails as to their pervasive influence on the mass of society at large. It is easy to congregate a multitude of people. The exhibition of a polar bear is quite enough to do this at any time. Only announce the expected presence of one or more who can make the walls of a public edifice to ring with the strains of an exciting eloquence, and thousands will be sure to assemble for the sake or the excitement, that may not care one jot or tittle about the specific objects of the meeting. Still, being present, they cannot but catch the circling fire of enthusiasm. And, being enraptured themselves, they somehow or other vaguely conclude that all others are enraptured toothat the intense interest within is communicated, as by an electric train, to those abroad;—and that the entranced emotions by which they themselves are tumultuated, are in very deed transmigrating through the length and breadth of the land. I confess I am never present at any of our "great meetings," without being painfully conscious of something of this sort. Now all this may be sheer delusion. In a city like Edinburgh, for instance, there may be thousands in the immediate vicinity that know little, and care less, concerning a "great meeting." The overwhelming majority beyond the walls may never hear of its existence; and the remainder may manifest little or no congenializing sympathy with its spirit and design.

It were all well, if, while we were wrapt up in ecstasies of praise and wonder within, the whole multitude of the people were praying without; as in the case of him who entered to burn incense according to custom, in the temple of the Lord, on the holy hill of Zion. Then if not favoured, as he was, with a vision of the archangel Gabriel, we might feel as if choirs of the celestial hosts hovered over us in admiring complacency; and, in such way as spirit can communicate with spirit, were filling our souls with joy and gladness. We might feel, from the burnings of our own zeal, as if the very scene we occupied might become the birthplace of some faithful witness, who, great in the sight of the Lord, and endowed with the gifts and graces of the Holy Ghost, would go forth before us in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn

the hearts of the fathers unto the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just-to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

It were all well, if, while attending any of these great meetings, we conceived ourselves as standing aloft on one of the pinnacles of the mighty fabric that swells and shoots upwards from the basis of general society; and if, while we fancied ourselves sparkling and blazing in flames on the summit, the heat actually descended along the sides, and diffused itself into the circumambient air, and overspread the subjacent plains with the glow of genial warmth, and the fragrance of a budding righteousness. But what a strange, what an unnatural spectacle! To find ourselves kindling on high, as in a furnace of spiritual heat; while all around us, -from the busy, bustling, grasping citizen of the metropolis, down to the toilworn swain in the remote rural district,-all, all are found labouring on, buried in earthliness and carnality -utterly unconcerned and unmoved by the exhibition of those fires of enthusiasm that blaze afar,-fires that seem to play lambent but innocuous over a frozen surface, where they are speedily extinguished, without ever extending outward and onward to the bulky mass! Is it not a spectacle that must forcibly remind us of the description of a celebrated volcanic mountain by one of the Roman poets-when he represents the lofty summits as displaying bright flames amid the ice and cold-and the rocks above, glowing with fervid heat, though far below bound in icy fetters-and the peaks, that might be claimed by winter as its throne, throwing out burning ashes over the wastes of unmelted snow?

Dr. Duff is a great master in the science of sound and healthful stimulation: no one volume of the same size on Missions, since the appearance of Melville Horne, has presented so much to correct, instruct, and animate in relation to the great enterprize. lowing is a specimen :

The fol

TEST OF SINCERE AND TRUE LIBERALITY. If we so humble ourselves, and so resolve, we must be prepared to give full proof of the depth of our humiliation for the past, and of the sincerity and strength of our resolutions for the future. How can this be done? Only by our readiness to submit to sacrifices in advancing the cause of the Redeemer. The original condition of the fellowship was, "If ye follow me, take up your cross and deny yourselves." And is this condition now altered? or is it confined solely to poor despised foreign missionaries? No; it is an irrevocable condition, and universally applicable to all that profess the name of Jesus. All, all, without exception, are called on, in some form or other, to give this proof of honest attachment to the Saviour-That, for his sake, they deny themselves.

Now, in our day, when profession is respectable, and the fires of persecution are extinguished, and money has become the equivalent and substitute of the necessaries, the comforts, and the luxuries of life-the only way in which many have it in their power substantially to practise self-denial, is the systematic frequency and fulness of their pecuniary contributions.

For

this, too, there is both divine precept and divine encouragement. "Honour the Lord with thy substance, and with the first-fruits of thine increase," is an unrepealed precept. "There is that scattereth and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty,"-is a pregnant encouragement of undecaying vigour. And yet what frivolous pretexts, what plausible subterfuges, are alternately resorted to, in order to evade the obligation of the command, and evacuate the ordinance of the substance of the promised blessing? But the Lord will not be mocked. Even under His ordinary government in time, He often makes this to be felt. Do you, for instance, withhold from His cause more than is meet, on the score of failures and losses and stagnation in trade?-How know you but the God of Providence may commission His lightning to burn up your dwellings, or speed forth the tempest to engulf the remainder of your property in the channels of the great deep? Do you withhold more than is meet, on the allegation of unfavourable seasons, and unproductiveness in the field or fold ?--How know you but the God of Providence may shut up the windows of heaven, that there be no rain; or may open them so wide as to deluge the field, and cause the cattle to perish from the fold? Do you withhold more than is meet, on the ground of providing for friends and growing families?-How know you but the God of Providence may, in sore displeasure, be provoked to smite one with helpless fatuity, another with lingering disease, and lay another prostrate in the prison of the grave? so that, what ye will not cheerfully expend of that which is meet on His most blessed cause, ye may be compelled to lavish on asylums, and sick-chambers, and funerals!

At present it would seem as if the grand object of all classes of Christians were, to demonstrate how far they can, without an absolute forfeiture of the name they bear, frustrate the indispensable requisition of their Lord and Saviour,-how far they can nullify the inseparability of the connection which he hath established between real profession of faith in Him, and real self-denial. It would seem as if the very business of their lives were to exhaust their ingenuity in devising expedients by which they may earn the praise of being charitable and liberal, without denying themselves-by which they may maintain the credit and reputation of being zealous in the promotion of every scheme of Christian philanthropy, without denying themselves. And this unhallowed temper and disposition is but too often pampered and pandered to by the very advocates of Christian benevolence. For, what is the appeal that is most frequently and most loudly sounded in our ears? Is it not to this effect?-Oh, you surely cannot refuse our request: we only ask you to bestow your mite-not the mite that constitutes your all, like that of the widow in the gospel, but such a mite as forms an infinitely small fraction of what you possess. We only ask you to give what you will never miss; we only ask you to give what you can well spare, without curtailing any one of the real comforts, far less any of the necessaries, of life;-in a word, we only ask you to give what will cost you no sacrifice. Now, how can we help denouncing all this as in direct contradiction to the spirit

and letter of our Saviour's requisition? He peremptorily demands this proof and pledge of love to himself, and devotedness to his causeThat his followers do deny themselves. And how can there be self-denial, where that only is bestowed which will never be missed-that only effected which will cost nothing? With the Bible before me I must-though subjecting myself thereby to all the agony of self-condemnation-I must fearlessly declare that this is not charity, or benevolence, or liberality at all, in the only noble and genuine evangelical sense of these terms-that this is no really acceptable offering in the sight of God at all, which costs nothing, and calls for no sacrifice. In order to

entitle any offering in the service of our God to any one of these honoured appellations, it must cost something-it must be done at the expense of self-sacrifice of some kind. Was not this the sentiment which actuated Royal David, when commanded to build an altar unto the Lord in the threshing-floor of Araunah, and offer thereon burnt-offerings and peace-offerings? Nobly and generously did Araunah propose to grant to David, as a free gift, not only the threshingfloor, but oxen for burnt-sacrifice, and threshing instruments and other instruments of the oxen for wood. But how did David treat the munificent proposal? "Nay," said he, "but I will surely buy it of thee at a price; neither will I offer burnt-offerings unto the Lord of that which doth cost me nothing." Is it not high time that we should cease faintly and feebly to articulate the timid supplication of carnal self-indulgence -softly whispering in the ears of the luxurious: -Oh! you surely cannot withhold your mite from us; compliance with our request is the easiest thing imaginable, since we only ask you to give us of that which will cost you nothing? Is it not high time to be ashamed of such cowardly, beggarly pleading? Is it not high time to peal forth from every pulpit and platform in the land the loud Bible challenge,-In presenting your offerings to the Lord we do demand the exercise of self-denial; we do most resolutely demand the habitual manifestation of self-sacrifice;-for, will you, can you, dare you any longer offer unto the Lord only of that which doth cost you nothing?

In the way of sounding forth this lofty Bibleappeal, the lets and hindrances are manifold. And not the fewest or least difficult are those which exist on the part of the men who are, or ought to be, the appellants. When we beseech ministers to give an opportunity to their people to contribute to the cause of Christ, how often are we repelled by the reply, "We do not like to ask, because our people are so poor that they have nothing to give." Now this, in peculiar exigencies, may be true; but is it generally true? Watch the doings of these same poor people of yours on market-days, in taverns, on occasions of domestic feasts and public revelries,-and tell me if you can, that they are so poor that they have nothing to give. Nothing to give! Why, they have abundance to lavish on idle frivolities; abundance to lavish on rude, and vulgar, and fashionable gaieties; abundance to lavish on deleterious drugs that paralyse the corporeal energies stupefy and besot the intellectual faculties; abundance to lavish on what, if unrestrained in its influence, can only have the effect of bringing their bodies prematurely to the grave, and their souls most miserably to

perdition. And will the ministers of the everlasting gospel refuse to ask their people to devote to the cause of Jesus, what they know they are ever ready so profusely to expend on the service of the devil, the world, and the flesh? If they do, it must be from some cause wholly different from that alleged. And is it not so? Is it not altogether a mere farce-an empty pretence to assert that, in ordinary times and in ordinary circumstances, the poorest peasantry or the humblest artizans in our land have nothing to give? What, then, is the real import -the true force and meaning of the alleged excuse? If, for a moment, ye bear with honest dealing with plain downright outspeaking-I shall not hesitate to unmask the pretence. Not as a plausible surmise, but as the result of no small experience, I do most fearlessly aver that, in the great majority of cases, it is not that the people are too poor and have nothing to give. No; but it is, either that the ministers are too careless and indifferent, and will not put themselves to the trouble of explaining the duty and enforcing the claims of Christian benevolence; or that they are too carnal and worldly-minded; and, not having the heart or the inclination to part with any of their own substance, they are afraid to ask any from others. For is it not the dictate of reason-is it not a simple matter of fact, that-if any are resolved to give little or nothing themselves; and, by so resolving, are determined against setting an example to their flocks-they cannot, without the most glaring inconsistency, presume to prefer either a petition or a demand? They cannot ask others to do what they will not do themselves! It is this, rest assured, that steels the heart, and ties up the tongue, and silences the voice of many a pastor in the pulpit. It is this that converts the gospel demand for self-sacrifice into the soft and silken petition, so friendly to self-indulgence, on the part of many a flaming orator on the platform.

In this, as in all parallel cases, is verified the saying of the prophet-"Like pastor, like people." Show me the parish, point to me the congregation, where the pastor is undeniably setting an example of self-sacrificing benevolence, and where the people are not found ultimately to imitate. No; it is not possible. Scores and hundreds of instances might be cited, where the noble devotedness of the shepherd has led to a holy emulation and readiness on the part of the flock. Scores and hundreds of instances might be named, where the notorious want of devotedness on the part of the shepherd manifests itself in the cold, and selfish, and anti-charitable disposition of the flock. What a frightful responsibility! Are there any here present ready to incur it? Would to God there were none ! Then in every parish would be realized the preciousness of the declaration, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." Then would it be universally felt, that it is impossible to participate in the real luxury of bene. volence till the exercise of it is made to cost some sacrifice; and that no enjoyment is equal to that of consciously possessing the divinely imparted will and ability to make it. And thus would every shepherd at the head of his flock, when gazing at the unwonted fulness of their free-will offerings, be ready, like David, to exclaim in holy wonder, "Who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after