Heathen, and who shall go for us?" And these young men rise up and say, "Lord here are we; Send us." Here lies the duty of the Church of America. She alone is able to furnish in the requisite numbers the Missionaries of the Cross. The call of God on this

It bids her train up, and

subject is distinct and loud. send forth, these heralds of salvation to the nations sitting in darkness and the shadow of death. The Church of America has begun to listen to the call, and is waking up to life and action. And she will listen to it with deeper and yet deeper attention, until the Gospel is preached in the synagogue, the mosque, and the heathen temple; until there is neither Mohammedan nor Heathen, neither Jew nor Gentile, but all are one in Christ Jesus.

The subject naturally suggests the following Remarks..

1. We may here learn to place a just estimate on the character and employment of the Christian Missionary.

Let us

Many respectable men express a decided opposition to Missions. Let us inquire whether this opposition is just. That it is desirable that the Heathen should be converted to Christianity, will be denied by no man who offers the prayer, "Thy Kingdom come!" That to this end the Bible and the Heathen must in some way be brought together, and they made to understand it, will also be admitted. If the Heathen are to receive the Bible; it must first be translated into their own language. Who will learn their language for this purpose, and then translate the Scriptures into it? Are any persons willing to do this except Missionaries.

If we suppose the Bible translated; how, then, shall the Bible and the Heathen be brought together. The great body of the Heathen cannot read. Who shall instruct them. Can we find any instructors except Missionaries and the schoolmasters who accompany them.

If we suppose them taught to read; how then shall the Bible and the Heathen be brought together? Will your captains and supercargoes undertake this office? Will they consent not only to carry out cargoes of Bibles to the ports of Asia; but will they also penetrate into the interior of Hindoostan, and Birmah, and China, and Tartary, to distribute them from house to house? Can any persons be procured to do this part of the work except Missionaries.

If we suppose a Bible in each Heathen family; how shall they be persuaded to read it, and to believe in the religion of Christ. In Christendom, the constant and laborious efforts of ministers of the Gospel do not persuade the body of the people to search the Scriptures, nor cordially to embrace the christian religion. Are the Heathen so much better than the inhabitants of christian countries, and so destitute of prejudices in favour of their own idolatry, that without the preaching of the Gospel they will receive the truth as it is in Jesus? If not; the Gospel must be preached to the Heathen, if they are to receive it. "How can they hear without a preacher?"

How then shall the Gospel be preached to the Heathen. Will you import Heathen youths from the various Heathen nations, and educate them? If you do: will they certainly become christians? If they do not; will they be desirable preachers of the Gospel? If they do, and become preachers, and you send them

home; will they not then be Missionaries, and liable. to all the objections which you now make against men of this character?

But it is said, "We are not all converted ourselves. Let us first make Christians of our own countrymen, and then of the Heathen."-Has there ever then been a country, the majority of whose inhabitants were real christians; and is this to be hoped of our own, before the arrival of a better day? If the Apostles and their successors had remained at Jerusalem, until the whole population of that city had become christians; when would christianity have begun to be preached to the nations of the earth? Would Buchanan and Marsden, would Carey and Marshman and Ward, have done as much for the Church, and been the means of conversion to as many souls by remaining in England, as by going to the East. How vast the difference in the course of the present generation; how amazing in the progress of a century. Can you not then, in contemplating the subject of SALVATION; have sufficient magnanimity to overlook geographical boundaries?

May not the Missionary plead high authority to sanction his enterprize. Was not JESUS CHRIST a Missionary; employed most laboriously in preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom in the cities and villages of Judea? Were not the Apostles and Evangelists, and all the early preachers, Missionaries? Did not Missionaries convert our ancestors to the christian faith; and are not we thus indebted for our Bibles and our religion to the labours of Missionaries?

you

Is there any thing in the life of a Missionary to induce to doubt his sincerity. Does he not give up friends, country, influence, and social enjoyments, to pass his life in a savage land preaching CHRIST CRUCIFIED

to the Heathen. What is there in such a life for an insincere or wicked man to covet.

But is there nothing in his enterprize to command your admiration. When you behold him a voluntary exile, cut off from the comforts of civilized life, crossing oceans and continents, braving the dangers of an unhealthy climate, and roaming through wilds and deserts, not for himself, but to save his fellow-man; cannot your heart enter into his feelings, and say that they are generous and brave? And when you see him regarding Man in every climate as his brother, and spending a life of toil in endeavouring to raise him to glory and honour and immortality; where can you point me to a benevolence so pure, so expansive, so noble as this?

2. We learn that the Church does not keep pace with the providence of God in bringing forward the kingdom of Christ.

How many fields are now white for the harvest! Thousands of young men of the requisite talents, within a few years past, have in our own country been converted to God. Every one of them ought to be educating for the ministry. Christ says to the Church, "Take these children and nurse them for me; and I will pay thee thy wages." The waste places of our ancient settlements have none to build them up. And the vast population of the West are scattered like sheep without a shepherd.

The poor blacks in the South are famishing for the bread of life. Africa is open to every christian invader. Even now she is stretching out her hands unto God. We have many Africans in our own territories who are christians. We too are more implicated, than most other nations, in the guilt of the slave-trade, and

the miseries which have been brought on Africa. To send her the Book of life, and her own children as the messengers of salvation; is the very atonement which God is calling on us to make

Look at "the seven churches of Asia;" the candlestick of none of them yet removed out of its place; but no candle burning in them for centuries. How should the American Church rejoice to supply them with pastors. Look at one million of Armenian christians, two editions of the Bible just printed for them; and they just beginning to welcome it to their hearts. Could we send but ten missionaries into Armenia; in the lapse of ten years might we not hope for hundreds of Armenian evangelists, to publish salvation not only to their countrymen but to all the followers of Mohammed. The Armenians are the merchants of Asia. Their caravans pass from Smyrna to the borders of China. A mission established at Erivan might act with ease and with effect on all the regions of Central Asia,

Look at that numerous body of men in western Persia, who without the Bible have renounced the faith of the Impostor. With what moving eloquence do those eighty thousand cry out to the friends of Jesus, "Come over into Persia, and help us!"-Who that has the spirit of an Evangelist, is not melted to compassion. Whose heart does not burn within him to carry them good tidings of good, to publish salvation, and to say unto Persia, "Thy God reigneth. Already has the Shah of Persia publicly thanked the Church, for the gift of the Gospel of Jesus in his own language. Already a sacred Divan, convened by order of the Prince, and composed of the principal doctors of the law, with the Shek al Sellaum or Mufti at their