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which, with the teaching of the Holy Spirit, might qualify us for preaching to the heathen the unsearchable riches of God.

It is altogether vain to assert, as some do, that great mental powers cannot be profitably employed in preaching to the heathen. It is true there may be some exceptions; but, in the general, we know no office in the church of God where the very highest mental attainments can be more beneficially employed, than in the office, all despised as it is, of the christian missionary.

Mental endowments are gifts which, more than any other, perhaps, have been alienated from the service of him that gave them. And it will not be the greatest condemnation of by far the greater part of those who have received them,—that they have wrapt them in a napkin or buried them in the ground. Not only have they been withdrawn from the service of God; but far too frequently have they been employed in the service of his

enemies.

This is the kind of assistance which is most wanted at present in the missionary cause. It is not work that is wanting;-it is not wealth to carry on the work ;-it is labourers.

It was not the hope of rendering any considerable pecuniary assistance to missions which induced some of our number to attempt the formation of this society; it was the desire of cultivating a missionary spirit among ourselves. We remembered that from the halls of Cambridge there had gone forth the zealous and

devoted Martyn; and that a sister university had sent forth a Brown and a Buchanan; and we were not without hope that even from this remote and hitherto lukewarm corner of our land, there might be found some to imitate their honourable, though despised example.

This may serve to explain to you why we have already laid out so great a portion of our funds in procuring the lives and the writings of some of the most distinguished of our missionaries. And we are sure that there are few who can peruse the diary of a Brainerd, or a Martyn, without being animated with something of that devoted spirit which animated these illustrious servants of our God.

But we fear lest it may be thought by some, that these remarks savour too much of selfishness; that we have held up as an incitement to exertion, the hope of glory and the fear of condemnation.

Well do we know that if the love of Christ constrain us not, to live not unto ourselves, but to him that died for us,-then all other inducements will be utterly powerless. But in this age of antinomian delusion, when religion has, among one class of our community, been transformed into a thing of definitions and cold speculation; and when, among another, it has dwindled into a thing of mere feeling and poetic sentiment; —we deem it right to bring forward those passages of the Bible which bear most directly upon our conduct.

For how often in these days of cold and heartless profession, do we meet with those who have the most perfect knowledge of all that is orthodox, and all that is Calvinistic; who can argue most ingeniously about all the dark and doubtful parts of theology; whose heads have been stuffed with the dogmas and the disputations of a speculative divinity;-but whose hearts have never been reached by the melting declarations of the gospel.

never came.

These are willing to talk and debate about religion; and they are willing, perhaps, to speculate about the possibility or impossibility of their salvation to whom the glad tidings of the gospel But if, on the ground of the uncertainty of the question, you urge home upon them the duty of sending instruction to the heathen; and if you but mention Bible or missionary societies, immediately are they ready to silence your every argument by their usual cant charges of fanaticism and enthusiasm.

How often, on the other hand, do we meet with those whose religion is not indeed so cold, but altogether as lifeless;-with those who are loud in the praise of benevolence, and who are ever saying to the poor, Be ye warmed, and be ye fed; whose tenderest emotions are excited by the recital of some tale of imaginary woe;-but who would think the lofty dreams of their sentimentalism degraded by being brought in contact with what they reckon the grossness of real life. And how lamentable is it to think, that in this class of

individuals we can sometimes meet with those who can talk, and who can write the most pathetically, about the misery and the degradation of the heathen; and who can yet demonstrate, by their own deeds, that the religion of the Bible has even less influence upon themselves than the mock. morality of the Koran on the followers of Mahomet, or the fables of the Shaster on the deluded votary of Brahma.

I have inserted this admirable essay, not only for the important sentiments which it contains, but because with another, which will afterwards come in, it illustrates more powerfully than any description of mine, the character and talents of the writer. His knowledge of the Scriptures, and the ease with which he reasons upon them, are extraordinary in a boy of his years. Human teaching could not have produced such excellence as is here displayed. The subject is a difficult, and, in some respects, an original one; yet he discusses it like a person familiar with it, and who had devoted to it, the leisure and the application of

years.

It affords the most decisive proof that his zeal was not the sudden excitement of passion, or that temporary and often violent heat which is put forth by a young convert: which is sometimes in

the inverse ratio of the light which is possessed; and, therefore, as ephemeral in its duration as it is unproductive of solid benefit to the individual himself and to others. It is good to be zealously affected in a good thing. But it is always desirable that zeal should be according to knowledge; and that the flame should be clear as well as ardent. Such was the case of my young friend. His warmth arose from those doctrines which he so well understood, and the influence of which must ever be powerful on those who really believe them. The love of Christ to himself, brought along with it, the most devoted gratitude in return. And perceiving that the manifestations of Christ's love, in devoting himself for the salvation of the world, are recorded, not only to be the foundation of our faith towards God, but to be the example and the excitement of the same principle in us, he felt called upon to give his talents and his life to the same cause. Is this fanaticism? Then was it fanaticism which led the Son of God to give his life a ransom for many. It was fanaticism which sent the apostles round the world on a mission of benevolence. It was fanaticism which influenced the confessors and martyrs of primitive times to sacrifice all things for their Master's sake, and "for the elect's sake, that they might obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory."

It is far easier on christian principles to defend the utmost degree of self-devotion in the work of disseminating the gospel, than it is to defend the

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