Luther and Calvin, or Peter and Paul. These are the men, who, with their compeers in labor, and under the direction of the Holy One, bring light out of darkness and order out of confusion,-who supplant barbarism by civilization, superstition by simple faith, servitude by rational liberty, and extinguish the fires of licentiousness by the waters of the river of life, and silence the shrill clarion of war, by the deep-toned harp of heaven!

2. Christendom reaps a still greater reward, in the success of her labors abroad.

Of this success we have the strongest assurance in the promises of God. These promises are not only "Yea and Amen, in Christ Jesus," but intelligible in their announcement, and unmistakable in their appropriation.

"In the last days, the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it."

"All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn unto the Lord, and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before him."

"They shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know him, from the least of them to the greatest."

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Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together."

"According to his promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness;""the Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world, for a witness unto all nations;" and "in that day, there shall be one Lord, and his name one."

Such are the assurances of "the Lord of heaven and earth." Idolatry, the abominable thing that he hates, shall perish from under these heavens, and the temples of Jehovah shall rise on the ruins of effete superstitions; the divinely established relationships of life shall be every where recognized, and the face of society changed; every yoke shall be broken, and whatsoever men would that others should do to them, that they shall do to others;

"All crimes shall cease, and ancient frauds shall fail;"

the trial of bonds and imprisonments, of cruel mockings and scourgings, shall be known no more; the spear and the rack, the dungeons of the inquisition and the flames of the auto-da-fe, the morais of the Pagan, and the scimetar of the Mohammedan, shall be remembered but as the fitful dreams of a maddened world, slumbering through a long and dismal night. Pride and envy, with their kindred passions, shall die out of human hearts, and devotion to the interests of humanity and the glory of God shall succeed them. The rulers of the world shall fear God and work righteousness; the kings of Tarshish and of the isles, the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts; yea, all kings shall fall down before him,

and sacrifice their wisdom and power, their wealth and honors on his altars; and then the blood-thirsty Dyak and the wary Siamese, the haughty Turk and deceitful Greek, the polished European and the groveling African, the diminutive child of the Arctic, and the stalwart Patagonian, shall assimilate and love as brethren,

"Nor sigh nor murmur, the wide world shall hear."

Such are the results certain to flow in upon the church when " abounding in the work of the Lord." Other demonstration of "the exceeding greatness of power" is not demanded for the completion of the great work in progress, than that which shall turn the undivided attention of the Christian world, to the single object for which the material universe stands. Let the church emulate the fortitude and zeal of Christ and his Apostles, and pour her prayers and tears, her alms and labors into the treasury of the Lord, with the freeness and fullness of primitive ages, and her confidence in the promises of God will gather fresh strength with each revolving year; but she needs more than the resolution of the monarch who said, "I'll have it known that my flag can protect a paroquet;" even the nobler heroism of the man who in view of bonds and afflictions, exclaimed, "None of these things move me; I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake; when I am weak, then am I strong."

Though the world shall be converted to God, as certainly as "he is not a man that he should lie, nor

the son of man that he should repent," yet it is a progressive work, requiring not only firmness and heroism, but practical wisdom for its completion. The most promising fields of labor are to be first selected, as well as the fittest means for their cultivation. The soul of where equally man, if every precious, is not every where equally accessible. Though we honor the spirit that lavished sixty years of unavailing toil on the wandering Calmucs of Tartary, and sought to penetrate the interior of Persia in quest of a few doubtful descendants of the Magi, and hazarded life to recover the Mohammedanoppressed Copts and Abyssinians from their degrading superstitions, and dared the frozen regions of Labrador, and defied the arrows of death, flying thickly among the Sunderbunds of Hindoostan; yet the policy is more than questionable, that overlooks at the same time, the equally urgent claims of more salubrious portions of the earth, less burdened with ignorance and superstition. If some fields are more white to the harvest than others, they demand the first attention of the husbandman; nor are they the fields where cockle and darnel most luxuriantly grow, nor where the fiercest beasts of prey make their haunts; but a wise economy of compassion and toil forbid the waste of energy and life where unpropitious circumstances crowd out the hope of early success, when localities are open which promise quick and large returns for every expenditure of pious labor.

Missionary enterprises are liable to temporary failure, too, not only through deficiency of wisdom in their conductors, but through the inadequacy of

support derived from the sympathies, prayers, and pecuniary contributions of the churches. So the health of the missionary may fail, and his heart be overborne by discouragement; or the calamities of war, pestilence, and famine may overflow his field of labor; and after years of alternating hope and fear, he may retire from his post with the lamentation of the Prophet on his lips," I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for naught and in vain." Still,

"Though seed lie buried long in dust,
It sha'nt deceive our hope."

Egede may mourn over the disappointed hopes of fifteen years' arduous toil, though seven years of superadded labor, by other men, brings to light the germinating principle of the seed sown, and results in a glorious harvest. Schmidt may abandon Africa after seven years of apostolic effort, believing that he has accomplished nothing; but fifty years afterwards, he is remembered there, by one, whom he led to Jesus in her childhood, and who loves the shade of the pear-tree planted by her teacher's hand, and whose faith and love stay up the hands of a new and more successful missionary band. No! the Gospel cannot be preached in its simplicity in vain, whether among the hills of Palestine, the ruins of Nineveh, the fastnesses of Koordistan, the jungles of Burmah, the mosques of Arabia, or the temples of China. As certainly as the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, they will hear it, and sooner or later exult

in hope, and glorify God.

Busy as earth's millions

are to-day, in their pursuits of gain and self-indul