nation of a distempered brain;-it is sober, though melancholy truth. But, let me ask you, Will you persist in a state so full of Alarms?—in a proceedure terminating in so tremendous a doom? And why? God himself asks you why? "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn ye, turn ye, from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel!" God waits to be gracious to you. He gave his Son to redeem you. He invites you guilty and unworthy as you are, to turn unto him, and live." Let the wicked, then, forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." I am most anxious, my dear hearers! that this solemn occasion be not lost; but that it may prove, in the hands of the Holy Spirit, the happy means of rousing some, and quickening others. O say not, while I thus appeal to your consciences and hearts, on a matter of the last importance to yourselves, "Go thy way, for this time." Why, this may be the only time-the only opportunity allowed you ; for none of us knoweth, as we have been reminded by the event which has occasioned this discourse,- -none of us knoweth what a day may bring forth. To-day, therefore, to-night, this hour, 'if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts." 'Seek the Lord, while he may be found; call ye upon him, while he is near. Behold now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation!" ye G. Palmer, Printer, 4, Robert Street, Bedford Row. AFRICA: OR, GOSPEL LIGHT SHINING IN THE MIDST OF A SERMON PREACHED IN THE TABERNACLE, MOORFIELDS, BEFORE THE DIRECTORS OF THE LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY, MAY 13TH, 1840. BY ROBERT MOFFAT, TWENTY-THREE YEARS A MISSIONARY IN THE INTERIOR LONDON: JOHN SNOW, 35, PATERNOSTER ROW. 4. BIBLIC A SERMON, ISAIAH IX. 2. The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death: hath the light shined. upon them "BLESSED are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear," was the language of our Redeemer to his apostles, when they heard him speak as never man spake, and beheld in him the demonstrations of Divine power, and the infallible evidence that he was the Messiah, the Saviour of the world. It surely becomes us, adopting the same language, to say, Blessed are our eyes for they see, and our ears for they hear, those things which are unprecedented in the history of modern Missions, and which far exceed in magnitude and extent the most sanguine expectations of the Fathers and Founders of the Missionary Society. We are now constrained to say, that their love for the perishing heathen, and their faith in the promises of God, and their zeal for the Lord of hosts, during the infancy of Missionary enterprise, must have been of the most exalted description; and their names will, to the end of time, be embalmed in the delightful recollections of friends of Missions both at home and abroad. They laboured, and we have entered into their labours. They often sowed in tears, but we now reap in joy. The period in which we live is distinguished by the wide-spread conquests of the Redeemer's kingdom. If the subject of Christian Missions ever was a matter of doubtful speculation in some minds, not deeply versed in the records of the Divine will, it is surely no longer such, for the Christian church, and in particular the Directors of Missionary societies, can now take their stand on Moriah's mount, and, surveying the world at large, gaze on ocean and isle and continent, while with overflowing gratitude they exclaim, What hath God wrought! To the man of business it is a pleasing task to count his gains, and ascertain the rapid accumulation of his capital, and to the philosopher to compare his matured attainments in science with his puerile efforts; and to the philanthropist to witness the success which crowns his efforts to alleviate the woes of man; but how much more delightful to the contemplative mind of the Christian to draw the contrast between by-gone ages, when darkness covered nearly the whole habitable globe, and the present period, in which we can look to the east, the west, the north, and the south, and behold the banner of the cross rising triumphant over every obstacle, and the rays of heavenly light piercing the deepest recesses of heathenish gloom. Surrounded with demonstra |