sages, and the forms of their living disciples, were all presented to the Apostle's eye.

What mind, possessing the slightest pretensions to classic taste, can think of his situation amidst such sublime and captivating scenery, without a momentary rapture. Yet there, even there did this accomplished scholar stand as insensible to all this grandeur, as if nothing was before him but the treeless, turfless desert. Absorbed in the holy abstractions of his own mind, he saw no charms, felt no fascinations, but on the contrary was pierced with the most poignant distress and what was the cause? "He saw the city wholly given to idolatry." To him it presented nothing but a magnificent mausoleum, decorated, it is true, with the richest productions of the sculptor and the architect, but still where the souls of men lay dead in trespasses and sins; while the dim light of philosophy that still glimmered in the schools, appeared but as the lamp of the sepulchre, shedding its pale and sickly ray around these gorgeous chambers of death.

What must have been his indignant grief at the dishonour done by idolatry to God, what his amazement at the weakness and folly of the human mind, what his abhorrence of human impiety, and what his compassion for human wretchedness, when such stately monuments of pagan pomp and superstition, had not the smallest possible effect in turning away his view from the guilt that raised them, or the misery which succeeded them.

Ah! how many professedly Christian travellers and divines, whilst occupying the same spot, though they saw not a thousandth part of what he saw, have had their whole minds so engrossed by scenes of earthly magnificence, as not to feel one sentiment of pity for the Pagans who formerly dwelt there, or the Mahometans who are the present proprietors of those venerable ruins. But we profess to be of one mind with St. Paul, and looking upon the souls of mankind in that light, which his inspired writings have thrown upon their destiny, we have imbibed his temper, and feel our spirits grieved within us, over the multitudes

* See Mr. Wardlaw's admirable sermon on this subject, preached before the Missionary Society in Surrey Chapel, May 13, 1818.

that are given to idolatry. We cannot help thinking that men without Christ are in the very depths of misery, though they may stand, in other respects, upon the very summits of civilization, literature, and science; and for such an opinion we can plead the authority of the great Apostle of the Gentiles, who bewailed a city of philosophers with more intense and piercing grief, than any of us ever did a horde of idolatrous savages.

Here then is the object of our zeal, to bring to Christ those who are afar off. "To turn men from dumb idols to serve the living and the true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven." To induce them by the power of persuasion, in humble dependance upon the blessing of God, to renounce all their systems of error for the revelation of Christ as our divine Prophet; to abandon their rites, sacrifices, and penances, for his one oblation as our great High Priest; and to forsake their vicious customs and immoral habits, for obedience to his laws as King in Zion. In fact, to accomplish in the happy experience of the heathen, the descriptions which the pen of prophecy has given of the Messiah and his kingdom. To achieve the victory announced in the mystic terms of the first promise, and by trampling upon the head of the serpent, to let the miserable captives go free; to circulate the blessing of Abraham's seed through all the families of the earth; to bring the gatherings of the people unto Shiloh, as the way, the truth, and the life; to cause that bright star to rise upon the benighted parts of the world, the beam of which so confounded the eye of the hireling prophet, that his tongue forgot to curse the host; to scatter the fruits of Isaiah's rod, and diffuse the fragrance of Jeremiah's branch over all the famishing and fainting children of the fall; to open new channels through which the cleansing streams of Zechariah's fountain, and the vivifying waters of Ezekiel's river may flow; to extend the fascination of Haggai's desire of all nations, and to bring forth the people that sit in darkness and in the valley of the shadow of death, to feel the enlivening beams of that moral sun which Malachi so beautifully describes, and to catch the healing virtues which he shakes from the golden plumage of his wings.

Now such an object associates our cause,

First, With the design of the Son of God in redemption.

The object of the Redeemer's visit to our world, was not to teach men the arts and the sciences, not to instruct them in letters, not to introduce the reign of philosophy, not to break the yoke of civil tyranny, nor to promulgate the best theory of human government; valuable as are these objects to the present interests of mankind, they are infinitely too low to be the highest end of the incarnation and death of the Son of God. For such purposes he would not have deigned to approach even the horizon of our globe. No, my brethren, there is but one object in the universe, which, according to all the ideas we can entertain, is sufficiently dignified to justify the humiliation of the Son of God, and that is, the salvation of the human soul; and what an impressive idea of the value of that salvation does it convey, to be assured that this WILL justify it. When Jesus Christ rose from the throne of his glory, it was to avert the curse which threatened to sink a guilty world to perdition, to roll back the torrent of damnation, and pour through its deserted channel the streams of salvation; in short, to rescue innumerable millions of immortal spirits from the consequences of the fall, and lift them by the power of his grace, from the borders of the flaming pit, to the heavens of the great God. This was the favourite object on which his mind reposed from eternity, which he seemed in haste to disclose, as soon as the apostacy of man presented an opportunity; which he loved to talk of to the world by the messages of the prophets, and to exhibit in shadow, by the sacrifices of the priests, for four thousand years before its accomplishment.

In seeking to save the souls of the heathen by bringing them to Christ, we raise ourselves into the dignity of a partnership with the Son of God in his mighty designs, we enter into the fellowship of that cross which is destined to occupy eternity with the developement of its wonders, and to replenish immensity with the brightness of its glory.

Secondly. Such an object associates our cause with the ultimate end of all providential arrangements.

Providence is the direction of all human events, with immediate reference to the kingdom of Christ. The government of the world is an imperium in imperio, the administration of which, from the very moment of the fall, became subject to the accomplishment of a mediatorial scheme. Providence has lent itself to redemption, and surrendered all its energies and resources at the foot of the cross. Separate from this, it has no interests to establish, and apart from it, no distinct sphere of operation in which to move. Hence the language. of our Lord," As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he might give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him" and hence the echo of the same truth, from the writings of the Apostle, "He hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to his church." All human events-the revolutions of empires-the change of dynasties—the succession of monarchies-the results of war -the councils of cabinets-the debates of senates-the progress of discovery-the course of invention-with all their immediate influence, and remote effects, are all under the subjugating control of that great plan, which has for its object to bring men to Christ. This is the centre where all these lines converge. The world is given to Jesus, and he is incessantly employed in bringing it to himself. The Babylonish, the Persian, the Macedonian, the Roman conqueror, each at his own proper period, and in his own proper place, entered upon the stage, and though "he did not think so, neither did his heart mean it," ministered to the designs of God in redemption. Little did Julius Cæsar imagine, when the white cliffs of Britain, glittering in the sun, excited his ambition and drew him across the Channel, for what purpose he disembarked his legions on our coast; but we know that it was to open a door through which the Gospel might enter our beloved country. Little did the spirit of commercial enterprise imagine, when urged only by its thirst for gold, it fixed its establishments at the mouth of the Hoogley or on the banks of the Ganges, that it was sent thither as the forerunner of Christian Missionaries. Little does the genius of war imagine, when impelling its mad votaries to new contests, that Christianity is following at a distance, in

the rear of victorious armies, to plant her stations on the fields of their encampment, to bear away the best of the spoils, and assume the dominion which other potentates have lost. Little did Columbus imagine, when with a heart big with mighty projects, he walked in silence on the shores of Andalusia, and watched the star of evening down the western sky, who it was that dictated the purpose to explore the region which she went nightly to visit on the other side of the Atlantic. We, however, live at a time when all all these events are clearly seen to connect themselves with the grand purpose of Jehovah, "to bring all men to Christ." And the people of future generations will as clearly discern the same relation in the circumstances of our day.

Behold then the position occupied by a cause, which is labouring to extend the blessings of the Gospel. We are following in the rear Providence, pursuing the very line of its march, moving when and where it moves, like the children of Israel in obedience to the cloudy pillar, availing ourselves of all the advantages it throws in our way, and concentrating in our plans, so far as we perceive it, every favourable occurrence in the universal history of the globe.

Thirdly. Such an object associates our cause with the best interests of the human race.

If by the blessing of God upon our labours, we succeed in drawing men away from their idolatry to Christ, we save their immortal souls from death, and provide them with a blissful and glorious eternity. There are not wanting those who would restrict our benevolence to the temporal interests of mankind. Civilize the savage, say they, cultivate his intellect, teach him to till the ground, and deliver him from the galling fetters of slavery, but leave alone his religion. Yes, such an admonition is in character from the man who, having no religion of his own, would gladly find himself countenanced in the dreadful deficiency, by the universal suffrages of a world of atheists or idolaters. Such a scantling philanthropy, if that, indeed, may be called philanthropy, which proposes to leave men without God, and Christ, and hope, may satisfy the abject creeping spirit of infidelity which,