senate of Utica nor the army of Carthage, — rich, generous, free, only curbing wrong, only decreeing justice, only conquering peace! Land of demoniacal inflictions ! On which every tyranny spends itself! Which, at this moment, to its Great Desert, is the Slave-chase to the world! Weep no more! The Blessed Jesus gave thee honour, and bade thee hope, when drawing near to the scene of death that He might be crucified in weakness! Sinking beneath the weight of the transverse of His cross, Thou wast summoned to bear the load! Thy sable, woolly-headed, man of Cyrene, Simon, who as thy first trophy is "called Niger," was for thee surety then! On him fell the dignity,-through him on Thyself!-for which confessors and martyrs would have borne a thousand tortures more, a thousand deaths again! And soon shall that Cross be carried by all thy peoples and nations, not compelled as was their ancestor, - Ye Peoples and Nations, ye shall take it of your own accord, the symbol of your salvation, the signal of your hope, the light yoke of your obedience, glorying in nothing save in it! Teneriffe, lift up thy voice

Gambia, Senegal, Congo, waft that strain upon your tides! And thou, O Zaira, through all thine awful solitudes, rejoice and blossom as the rose!

66

"O Earth, Earth, Earth! hear the word of the Lord!"

MISSIONS,

THEIR PECULIAR ENCOURAGEMENTS.

SCARCELY has a topic of these later discussions been advanced which does not bear upon the present section but such are rather collateral and indirect relations than immediate and obvious. We may well then enquire, What cheers our course,- beyond the proper Purpose and Means of the Gospel, the Influence which blesses it, the Prediction which heralds it, the actual posture of Circumstances which auspicate it? These sources of a varied encouragement may be affected by all the others, yet retain they enough of a distinct character to justify a separate notice.

There are many persons who are disposed to admit nothing as befriending our cause in the present times. With some of their dejection we sympathise. There seems a judgment hanging over a large number of professing Christians. The errors to which they yield appear to spring from an infatuation. "How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven to earth the beauty of Israel" ! What slavish principles, what apostate views, what obsolete avowals, are greedily adopted! Instead of thinking lightly of this state of things, we could join the most timid in their prayer:

"O our God! we know not what to do: but our eyes are upon thee"! Yet it may be that, in the commotions of public opinion, in even the revival of what we had thought was for ever disproved, there is hope. Quiet and uncheckered circumstances never draw forth important change or shining greatness. Eventful periods, like earthquake bursting open the hidden riches of the globe, show the strength of character and the stores of religious worth. Nothing is less satisfactory than a stagnant uniformity. Mind must be kept in action to be itself, as the water which moves only is living water. The disputes of the present day, its violent extremes, its tremendous struggles, may all usher in the most desirable results. It is a last conflict. It is an irrevocable adjudication. When did noble issues teem, but amidst frightful agitations? When did truth appear in its majesty, but as emerging from envious clouds? This is not an æra which suffers either a pause, or a mere oscillation, between opposite directions. It is ominous loss or glorious gain, broken discomfiture or starled victory. Can we, then, hesitate? Ought we to despair? Give us this collision of principles, and we know what must be the triumphant sequel. It is not disguised that, in the process, there is inconvenience and peril. We repeat, that we are now in a course of transition. It is a passage strange and fearful. But it is advance. That we are as much perplexed as heretofore, is no proof that we have not approached the latest stage of that perplexity. The surf-wave rolls fiercest upon the strand. The

darkest hour of the night is that which precedes the dawn.

If it should be observed, that the Fiscal Difficulties which beset our Missionary institutions are unfavourable signs of the public sympathy with them, and that a darkening seems to arise from that deficiency which settles upon our prospects, the answer

to the intended charge is concise and instantaneous. Defalcation no where exists. Embarrassment there is. But it is no consequent on disaster. It is the price of victory. We are exhausted by the pursuit. We are encumbered by the spoil. Our success has outgrown our calculations and beggared our means. There is not a difficulty which hampers us but may be viewed in the light of an encouragement. Did public support and countenance diminish, did a sullen resistance in distant countries turn back all our efforts, did our standard-bearers faint, then might our spirits droop, and our hands wax feeble. But, how to seize opportunity, how to improve advantage, how to use power,-these are the self-created straits with which exclusively we contend.

It is by no means an indifferent result, that Public Opinion has so greatly determined in favour of this cause. Within our recollection it was not thus caressed. It was called to defend itself against almost universal hostility. It was compelled, step by step, to make good its ground. The scurrilities of our master spirits, the invectives of our journals, we need not repeat. We would not keep alive the antithesis, the alliteration, the badinage, which were then

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the current encounter. From the chairs of criticism these were the missiles darted. It is past. They Iwould not be now endured. The hatred over-leaped itself. And at the present time, without any reconcilement to the real merits of the principle, there is a respect however cold and distant, an acknowledgment though often reluctant and constrained, an approbation notwithstanding it is reserved and hesitating. It is generally agreed, likewise, that this is a great duty. The differing opinions upon what ought to be the manner of it, the time, the direction, the zeal, only confirm the fact of that agreement. The young receive it as a moral intuition. The objector

is no longer allowed the covert of a Christian profession. Only the Infidel is held to be consistent in the opposition. He occupies by right the seat of the scorner. He may revile, but he must revile alone. -Now, in speaking of the power of God, we may forget the value of every other power. But this is not what He exacts. In His operations there is a class of subsidiary agencies, yet he truly wields them all. The force of general opinion must not, therefore, be slighted. By reflection and moral taste, only can the Missionary principle ever obtain an ascendancy among men. This is the only path-way and channel by which it can reach their minds and conciliate their affections. It is to be thought out and reasoned, and then on conviction to be embraced. The dissipation of any prejudice, the surrender of any doubt, the check of any jest, must be of value. And surely it may animate us greatly that the mind