the skies pour down righteousness. I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground. It shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh. And then shall that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth and with the brightness of his coming.

The judgments which are to shake down antichristian empires and cast down high imaginations, and lay open the world to the entrance of truth and the power of the Spirit, are to be closely associated with a new and unparalleled vigor of Christian enterprise. Until now, the church will have been the assailed party, and stood upon the defensive: but henceforth the word of command will not be, Stand, but MARCH. The gates of the holy city will be thrown open; the tide of war will be rolled upon the enemy; and one shall chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight.

The means and efforts for evangelizing the world must correspond, however, with the magnitude of the result. The idea that God will convert the heathen in his own good time, and that Christians have nothing to do but to pray and devoutly wait, is found in no canonical book. It is the maxim of covetousness, and sloth, and uncaring infidelity. We have no authority for saying, what some, without due consideration, have said, that God, if he pleased, could doubtless in a moment convert the whole heathen world without the Gospel. It might as well be said, that he can, if he please, burn without fire, or drown without water, or give breath without atmosphere, as that he can instruct intellectual beings without the means of

knowledge, and influence moral beings without law and motive, and thus reclaim an alienated world without the knowledge and moral power of the Gospel. It is no derogation from the power of God, that, to produce results, it must be exerted by means adapted to the constitution of things which Himself has established. God has no set time to favor the husbandman, but when he is diligent in business; and no set time to favor Zion, but when her servants favor her stones and take pleasure in the dust thereof. From the beginning, the cause of God on earth has been maintained and carried forward only by the most heroic exertion. Christianity, even in the age of miracles, was not propagated but by stupendous efforts. And it is only by a revival of primitive zeal and enterprise, that the glorious things spoken of the city of our God can be accomplished.

Nor need we be disheartened. We possess a thousand fold the advantage of apostles and primitive Christians for the spread of the Gospel. And shall the whole church on earth-shall the thousand thousands who now profess the pure religion-be dismayed and paralyzed at an enterprise, which had once been well nigh accomplished by the energies of twelve men?

But what can be done? It would require ten discourses to answer this question in detail. We can only sketch the outlines of that moral array, by which Jesus Christ is preparing to come upon the strong man, and overcome him, and take from him all his armor.

1. There must be more faith in the church of God. All the uncertainties and waverings of unbelief must be swept away by the power of that faith, which

is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. Those "scenes surpassing fable," when Satan shall be bound, and an emancipated world shall sing hosanna to the Son of David, must rise up before us in all the freshness and inspiration of a glorious reality. Such faith, and only such, will achieve again the wonders it wrought in other days. It has lost none of its power. Again, it will subdue kingdoms, work righteousness, obtain promises, stop the mouths of lions, quench the violence of fire, escape the edge of the sword, out of weakness become strong, wax valiant in fight, and put to flight the armies of the aliens. For this is the victory over the world, even your faith.

2. There must be a more intense love for Christ in his church.

Such love as now burns dimly in the hearts of Christians; a low, and languid, and wavering affection; halting between the opposing attractions of earth and heaven; may answer for standing upon the defensive, but never for making that vigorous onset which shall subdue the world to Christ. Effort will never surpass desire. And as yet our hearts are not equal to those efforts needed for the achievement of victory. They linger and look back upon the world. They hesitate, and slowly, and with a sigh, part with substance in penurious measure. Weight hangs as yet on the wheels of the Victor's chariot: and never, on earth, as in heaven, will it move,

"Instinct with spirit,

Flashing thick flames,....unless

Attended by ten thousand thousand saints.”

3. There must come an era of more decided action, before the earth can be subdued to Christ.

Compared with the exigency, we have not, as yet, the semblance of an army in the field; and our munitions are yet to be collected. Two hundred souls constitute the entire force, which twelve millions of freemen, cheered and blessed with the light of the Gospel, have sent forth to bring the world out of bondage. And yet one half the nation is panic-struck at the drafts thus made upon her resources! What has been done, however, is but mere skirmishing before the shock of battle. Half the subjects of Satan's dark empire on earth have not heard, as yet, that we have a being. And were none but such feeble efforts to be put forth, he, instead of coming down in great wrath, would keep his temper, and leave the war to his subalterns.

Nothing great on earth, good or bad, was ever accomplished without decisive action. The cause, in the moral world, as really as in the natural, must ever be proportioned to the effect to be produced. And what have we done, as yet, to justify the expectation, that God, by such means, is about to make all things new? Could our Independence have been achieved by such indecisive actions as we put forth for the emancipation of the world? Dear brethren, we must fix our eye earnestly on a world lying in wickedness: our hearts must be fully set upon its deliverance: our hands must be opened wide for its relief. Not only the ministers of religion must give themselves wholly to this work; but all who prize civil and religious freedom-all who exult in these blessings must come

forth to the help of the Lord against the mighty. And when, to all who are now cheered by the light of revelation, the deliverance of a world in bondage shall become the all-absorbing object, and the concentrating point of holy enterprise, then speedily will the angel descend from heaven, with a great chain, to bind and cast into the bottomless pit him who through so many ages has deceived the nations. But,

4. For this glorious achievement, there is demanded more courage than has, in modern days, been manifested by the church of God.

Wherever circumstances have precluded the application of force for the defence of his cause, there the god of this world has attempted to fortify it by a perverted public sentiment. This, while it predominates, is as terrific as the inquisition; and if not as bloody, it is unquestionably as virulent, overbearing, and severe. Multitudes shrink before it, who would not hesitate to storm the deadly breach; and one half the power of the Christian church is doubtless this very moment paralyzed by it, if not even arrayed by its influence against the cause of Christ. Fashion is the Juggernaut of Christian lands; around whose car pilgrims of all conditions gather, and do homage.

Here, then, in communities civilized and nominally Christian, is to be fought one of the keenest battles: for after every strong hold is demolished, if Satan can but frame the laws of honor and of fashion, he will not fail to govern by maxims which will shut out the Gospel, and perpetuate the dominion of sin. And Christians are the first to be emancipated. While they are in captivity, the world will be in chains.