From our people!-Can we ever meet with any thing from our dear people to give us a moment's ⚫ uneasiness? Impossible!-Why, never was there a more affectionate people in the world. In the little time that we have been among them, we ⚫ have received a thousand civilities; and their kindness is daily increasing. Our labours seem agree able to them, and their behaviour highly so to us: and surely nothing can interrupt the present har. mony. We are determined, one and all, to go hand in hand, mutually striving together in our prayers, and with one mind and one voice to glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus 'Christ.'

I hope you will; and it would look invidious to you and them so much as to mention, what the great Apostle experienced, and declared-Gal. iv. 15. No, no; it is not from that quarter the discouragements I now mean, originate. They continue your warm and hearty friends; are ready upon every occasion to show you all the respect and kindness in their power; they like your preaching, and attend constantly at church ;-but-but, what are they the better for it? You are to them "a lovely song, as one that plays well upon an instrument:" they hear your words; but they do them not. You see some of them lying in wickedness, dead in trespasses and sins: your bowels yearn to wards them; and you would fain pluck them as brands out of the burning. You pray earnestly, Sabbath after Sabbath, that the Lord would choose out acceptable words for you; and you come forth, sometimes with such terrors of the Lord as you fancy must make them tremble, and at other times

with such arguments of love as you think they ne ver can resist. You think with yourselves, Now surely they must feel: this sermon will have glorious success!'. But no such thing: not a single soul is affected by it; or if they are, it is but as the morning cloud or the early dew, which soon passes away. They are all love and zeal for a little while :

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Oh, they would not but be Christians for the world!, They will follow. Christ, whithersoever. he goeth. And for a week or two it may be for a year or two (if it hold sunshine and fair weather so long), they may keep up a tolerable decent appearance: but at length, when the novelty of reli gion is a little over, you see them drop off, like leaves in autumn. They take offence at some trifle or another, and away they go into the world again and "walk no more with Jesus."

Again What! more discouragements yet? • When will you have done? Our hearts are ready 'to break at the prospect of those you have already ' mentioned, and have we more to expect? Yes indeed, there are more behind; but they are such as, perhaps, after what you have heard already, you will not think worth heeding. I say then, you will meet with discouragement from the world.

There have been times when a minister, dikeras soldier, carried his life in his hand; when his love and loyalty to his divine Master were put to the severest trial; and when it was no unfrequent thing for a minister to go from the pulpit to a prison, and from the prison to a stake. That was ą trying time indeed,, What a poor figure should we make, if such times were to come over again! Through the good providence of God, I have

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no need to fortify you against such discouragements as these.

But, since those days of fire and faggot, there have been times when faithful ministers have been reduced to say, with the Apostle, "Lo, we have left all, and followed thee" They were not permitted to continue their ministry among their beloved people, 'nor enjoy the emoluments belonging thereto, without such compliances as their consciences would not allow of. That, too, was an awful period in British history, when above two thousand learned, laborious, and useful ministers, were separated from their flocks; deprived of their! estates; plundered of their goods; driven from their families; and many of them forced to fly into foreign countries, to avoid a jail at home. I hope I need not insist upon this neither. We have long enjoyed the benefit of a toleration: and it was a saying of his late Majesty, and hath been heard and adopted by our present Sovereign, That no person should be molested for his religion while he sat upon the throne.'-I will not suppose that you are likely to meet with any such discouragements.

But there are others, which perhaps you may not entirely escape. There is, for example, the trial of cruel mockings; which, in many cases, is almost as hard to be borne as bonds and imprisonment. When your hearts have been warmed with zeal for Christ, and compassion to precious, perishing souls; and you have exerted yourselves with unusual vehemence in beseeching sinners to be reconciled to God; for one and another to turn off with a sneer, and endeavour to draw off others too, with a "What will this babbler say? He hath a devil, and is mad:

why hear ye him?"-Is there nothing, discouraging in this?

But I will not dwell any longer on the gloomy side. If I had not good reason to hope and believe, that, as good soldiers of Jesus Christ, you are prepared to endure hardness, I should be sorry I had said so much. But if I had mentioned never so many discouragements more, so long as God is with you, and for you, what signifies it who, or how many, are against you?" Fear not," says he, "for I am with thee. Be not dismayed; for I am thy God. I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness."

I therefore gladly change my tone from condolence to congratulation. Yes, Sirs; most sincerely do I congratulate you, that God hath "counted you faithful, putting you into the ministry" for a more honourable, a more delightful, a more advantageous office, you could not have been called to.

I said, it was an honourable calling; and so it is, whether we consider the Person who employs, you, or the business you are employed about. An Ambassador is looked upon as a character of high rank and his employment as one of great trust, which it requires no little ability and integrity properly to fill. It is an office that is eagerly sought after by ambitious minds; and the person that holds it is respected in foreign courts, according to the dignity of the Prince whose representative he is. Now, "we are Ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you, in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." You

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have the honour to be God's mouth to his people! the word of the Lord comes to you time after time, saying, "Son of man, go and tell this people" such and such things from me. Accordingly, you address them with a" thus

or thus saith the

Lord:" and they receive it, not as the word o man, but as it is in truth, the word of God.And then, again, you are their mouth to God. You go about among them, and inform yourselves of their particular wants and burthens; and then, collecting them together, you present them in public prayer to the King of saints.

Now, to be thus going forward and backward between God and your people: one Sabbath proposing terms of reconciliation to rebellious sinners, and the next carrying back their dutiful submission; and then executing a covenant of mutual and everlasting peace:--what an honour is hereby conferred on the minister who is thus employed! Would you exchange with the greatest ambassador, or the greatest potentate upon earth?By the way, let this teach you to reverence yourselves; to magnify your office; to preserve a dignity of character; and avoid descending to those levities in speech or behaviour, which, however allowable in persons in an inferior station, are highly unbecoming an Ambassador of God.

But, to return.-I said also, that the office you are now entering upon was most pleasant and delightful. And what can be more so, than to be assisting your fellow-creatures in flying from the wrath to come: to be showing them the path of life and being helpers of their faith, holiness, and joy; and especially when the pleasure of the Lord