HEfTHEI WORLD 
 
 
%, 2 
 
 $rom fl}e feifirare of 
 
 profe00or TTtffiam (Wtffer (patfon, ©.©., £fe.<2 
 
 ^resenfeo 6j> (Jtlre. (paxion 
 
 to f0e feifirarg of 
 
 (princefon £fco%tcdf ^emtnarg 
 
 Robb, Alexander. 
 The heathen world and the 
 duty of the church 
 
THE HEATHEN WOEED 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE CHUKCH. 
 
Ajcnr^'i 
 
 i 
 
 THE HEATHEN WORLD 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 BY THE S 
 
 REV. ALEXANDER KOBB, A.M., 
 
 MISSIONARY, OLD CALABAR, 
 AUTHOR OF " THE LIFE OF REV. W. JAMESON." 
 
 " Go ye into all the world, and 
 
 EDINBURGH : 
 ANDREW ELLIOT, 15 PRINCES STREET. 
 
 1863. 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 The following thoughts and appeals are meant for 
 the consciences and hearts of christians. If any 
 of them be led to pray, to work, and to give more,, 
 that the gospel of the kingdom of heaven may soon 
 be preached to every man, the Author's end will 
 be gained. He deems it unnecessary to apologize for 
 thus urging his fellow-christians to attempt vastly 
 greater things, that Jesus may possess all the king- 
 doms of the world, and the glory of them. Were 
 excuse needful, he would offer only this one, that, 
 being on the eve of returning to the Coast of 
 Guinea — spiritually one of the darkest, and to 
 health one of the most unkindly, regions in the 
 world — to labour with others in preaching Christ, 
 he does not urge fellow-believers to make greater 
 sacrifices for the glory of our Lord, than he himself 
 is willing to make. 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 This little book has no pretension to literary 
 excellence. And were it far better than it is, both 
 in matter and execution, it would not make up for 
 the want of earnest and faithful missionary teach- 
 ing, on the part of the ministers of the churches. 
 If it is as much the duty of a christian to publish, 
 as it was, to receive, and as it is, to stand in, the 
 gospel, — if it is as unchristian to be non-missionary 
 as to be immoral, — if a church-member who does 
 not all he can to evangelize the world, disobeys 
 Christ, as much as one who breaks any other of 
 His commands, then, the pulpit dare not overlook 
 missions without keeping back part of the counsel 
 of God, and a part, too, that is very profitable 
 to believers in Jesus. Against some ministers 
 there is brought a charge of keeping back vital 
 doctrine. Are others not as guilty of keeping 
 back paramount and pressing duty ? The Author 
 judges no man : He that judgeth us all is the 
 Lord. 
 
 Such as it is, he commends his little volume to 
 the friends of Christ, and seeks for it the approba- 
 tion and blessing of the Great Master. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 PAGE 
 THE CONDITION OF THE HEATHEN, ... 1 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 NO SALVATION FOR THE HEATHEN WITHOUT THE 
 
 GOSPEL, ...... 23 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 " CAN THESE BONES LIVE ? " . . . . 56 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 THE WORK WITH WHICH THE LORD HAS CHARGED 
 
 HIS PEOPLE ON EARTH, .... 70 
 
 SECTION V. 
 
 OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED, .... 127 
 
SECTION I. 
 
 THE CONDITION OF THE HEATHEN. 
 
 In estimating the vile, sunk, and wretched moral 
 condition of the heathen, it matters not whether 
 we look to China, Japan, Burmah, or Hindostan, 
 lands in which a barbaric civilization has existed 
 alongside of the most childish superstition, or to 
 Africa, whose negro tribes have, since the days of 
 their father Ham, kept on sinking, from age to 
 age, unaided, until now a dreary and bloody feti- 
 chism has swallowed up all, and made them the 
 lowest of beings that are called men. Look where 
 we will in heathen lands, we behold the same 
 ghastly scene of death — the same vision of dry 
 bones — and infidelity, in a tone of mockery, and 
 piet}', in a tone of sadness, together exclaim, "Can 
 these bones live 1 " Those who have seen what 
 heathens are, do not wonder either that the un- 
 believer mocks, or that the christian, now and 
 then, loses hope of their conversion from sin to 
 A 
 
2 SECTION I. 
 
 God. We must take God's lamp in our bands, 
 and go down into the pit in which they lie in 
 death and darkness, and there see with our own 
 eyes, and hear with our own ears, before we can 
 know the length, and breadth, and height, and 
 depth of heathen wickedness and misery. 
 
 One element in the misery of the heathen is 
 their ignorance of all that is needful for well- 
 being and well-doing. 
 
 A creature of God is necessarily unhappy, if he 
 do not know his father who made, who owns, who 
 upholds him, and with whom he has so much to 
 do. The very soul and body, the very ground and 
 top of man's happiness, in this world and in the 
 world to come, yea, all that is folded up in the 
 words ' eternal life,' is to " know the only true God 
 and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent." The want 
 of this knowledge is to man what the want of 
 sunlight would be to the earth — darkness and 
 death. 
 
 Look, then, at a heathen tribe on the coast of 
 Africa, They have a native name for the Supreme, 
 by which they swear, not so much in solemn, for- 
 mal oath, as in common talk or sport, just as bad 
 men in christian lands take the holy name in vain. 
 Now and then, they pray to this name for some 
 
THE CONDITION OF THE HEATHEN. 5 
 
 earthly good on which their hearts are set. But 
 they know nothing aright of what God is in him- 
 self, or of what they have to do with him, or of any 
 of his laws. In their fables they ignorantly speak 
 of him who is great, holy, just, and good, as if he 
 were like themselves, as married and having chil- 
 d re n, as engaged in trade, as being j ealous, rev engef ul, 
 lustful, and unjust. The closest search discovers 
 not a trace of trust in, or love to, or fear of, our 
 heavenly Father, who is light, and love, and truth. 
 In these fables they speak of one God w r ho sur- 
 passes all, and of others who are less mighty, less 
 wealthy, and, therefore, of less importance, bear- 
 ing to the former the same relation that a poor 
 and powerless man bears to a man of rank and 
 influence. Their fancy peoples the 
 
 "Forest, and slow stream, and pebbly spring, 
 And chasms, and watery depths," 
 
 the creek, the palm-shaded dell, and spreading 
 tree, with beings whom they more dread, and from 
 whom they look for greater good, than the Su- 
 preme. 
 
 The heathen do not know, and they are very 
 unwilling to believe, that God takes anything to 
 do with what befalls them. They put the fetich 
 in his place, to it look for help, from it dread evil, 
 
4 SECTION I. 
 
 to it pay homage: and thus fetichism is one of 
 the lowest kinds of idolatry. They do not know 
 the providence of our Father, who " givcth to the 
 beast his food, and to the young ravens that cry," 
 who " opens his hand, and satisfies the desire of 
 every living tiling." The malady, which threatens 
 them with death, and has arisen from their own 
 sensuality, or from old age, they trace not to the 
 hand of God, who has bound all effects to their 
 own causes, and leaves man, made in his own 
 image, a free choice to do or not to do; but to 
 the charm, or to some secret power, as witchcraft, 
 derived from an evil source, and used for evil 
 ends. Error and ignorance thus lead to crime and 
 cruelty, which could not exist under the light of 
 truth. 
 
 Need we add that the heathen know nothing 
 of the truth about the future world 1 They ex- 
 pect to live in a disembodied state, but very much 
 as they live here. In the town of the dead they 
 will marry, eat, drink, trade, and play ; perhaps they 
 will be born again, and come back new men. None 
 more firmly believe in the life after death ; but of 
 the Bible hell with its woe, and pain, and dark 
 despair, and of the Bible heaven with its holiness, 
 and joy, and endless safety, they have no knowledge. 
 
THE CONDITION OF THE HEATHEN. 5 
 
 The people of that part of Africa of which we 
 speak, have no trace of a thought that their future 
 destiny is shaped by their character and life. And 
 hence their ideas of the unseen world, so far from 
 checking vice and fostering virtue, lead to some of 
 their bloody and inhuman customs. 
 
 And how can it be otherwise? How can it be 
 better with men in such circumstances ? Dark, 
 indeed, must a people be who inherit the gathered 
 darkness of all the generations before them. The 
 very light that is in them being darkness, cannot 
 give forth one ray to guide them aright. Unless 
 light dawn upon them from without, by the ris- 
 sing of the Sun of Righteousness, their night 
 must deepen into thicker gloom. Left to them- 
 selves, heathens can only lose, but never gain any 
 religious ideas that are true. Their death-sleep 
 can but wax deeper and deeper, from age to age, 
 unless Jehovah's voice arouse them, and the Spirit 
 of life enter into their souls. 
 
 The character of men thus ignorant of God and 
 of all truth is just what we must look for in such 
 a case. 
 
 Heathenism is a school in which man's heart, 
 a quick scholar, learns 
 
 " Sly circumvention, unrelenting hate, 
 
 Mean self-attachment, and scarce aught besides." 
 
6 SECTION I. 
 
 What wonder, then, that the children of Ham, in 
 their wanderings from the first abodes of the hu- 
 man family, soon became wholly idolatrous, and, 
 as they spread westward and southward across 
 the continent, waxed more ignorant and more 
 wicked, until now it is vain to search for anything 
 but the faintest lines of the law written on their 
 hearts ! 
 
 God's own picture of the heathen is at once 
 deeply humbling and true to the life : — " The fool 
 hath said in his heart, There is no God. They 
 are corrupt : they have done abominable works : 
 there is none that doeth good. The Lord looked 
 down from heaven upon the children of nun, 
 to see if there were any that did understand, and 
 seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all 
 together become filthy : there is none that doeth 
 good, no, not one."* 
 
 And, again, see in the first chapter of the 
 Epistle to the Romans a picture of heathenism 
 from the pencil of inspiration, and as life-like to- 
 day, as it was when first drawn. The heathen 
 heart, with all its affections, and passions, and ap- 
 petites — with all its active powers — is evil, wholly 
 and for ever evil. It is, and cannot but be, a habi- 
 * Psalm xiv. 1—3. 
 
THE CONDITION OF THE HEATHEN. 7 
 
 tation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, 
 swayed by evil lusts, given up to vile affections. 
 
 " Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornica- 
 tion, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness : full 
 of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity : whis- 
 perers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, 
 proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobe- 
 dient to parents, without understanding, cove- 
 nant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, 
 unmerciful."* 
 
 And the same is the tenor of the following: — 
 " This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, 
 that ye henceforth walk not as other Gen- 
 tiles walk, in the vanity of their mind: having 
 the understanding darkened, being alienated from 
 the life of God through the ignorance that is in 
 them, because of the blindness of their heart: 
 who, being past feeling, have given themselves 
 over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness 
 with greediness." t 
 
 The testimony of the Lord is true, that the only 
 things which the heathen care about are, " What 
 shall we eat? What shall we drink? What 
 shall we put on ? " It is truly so. Meat, drink, 
 
 * Horn. i. 29—31. f Eph. iv. 17-19. 
 
8 SECTION I. 
 
 and covering — the things that affect only the 
 body — are the objects of their chief concern. 
 
 In the heathen waste we search in vain for 
 one flower of heaven, one tree of God's planting, 
 one fruit of holiness. There is little that wears 
 even the likeness of virtue. When theft and 
 lying are condemned, it is not because they are 
 evil in the sight of God, but rather because they 
 are hurtful to those who suffer by thein. Among 
 heathens "all men are liars." Selfishness is the 
 soul of the little that looks like virtue. Lust and 
 blood, lies and selfishness thus mark heathen 
 society beyond what can be conceived or told. 
 'Hie purity and truthfulness, the love of fellowmen, 
 and the regard for human life, which always be- 
 long to a godly character, are unknown, and the 
 richest graces would not be admired unless they 
 were the sources of earthly advantage. True god- 
 liness we should no more expect to find in the 
 heathen heart, than we should expect to find corn 
 and wine in a salt and desert land. This arises 
 not from ignorance alone, but from depravity, 
 from hatred to the purest and the best of beings. 
 They do not like to keep him in their knowledge. 
 When the missionary tells them of the love and 
 holiness of the true God, they do not welcome 
 
THE CONDITION OF THE HEATHEN. ( J 
 
 the discovery. If their thoughts can be drawn, 
 for a little, from the earthly and the sensual to 
 tlic word of God, the truth about him sounds in 
 their ears as a worthless fable. A trinket or a toy 
 charms them infinitely more than the doctrine of 
 the great I AM, with whom they have evermore to 
 do. 
 
 It is true that ungodliness is not peculiar to 
 heathens, but is common to men in all ages and in 
 every clime. It is the distinguishing feature of 
 unrenewed man, whether civilized or barbarous. 
 Mere outward polish, or good breeding, or mental 
 training, makes no unregenerate man less ungodly. 
 But yet the ungodliness of the heathen is peculi- 
 arly striking : for in them it is not mitigated by 
 the presence of truth as taught and exemplified by 
 any who are truly godly. 
 
 While we are thus forced to use the darkest 
 colours in drawing a true picture of the ignorance 
 and depravity of the heathen, yet must we remark 
 that there are among them some traces of better 
 things. There are everywhere the notion of justice 
 and injustice, the feeling of pity, parental affec- 
 tion, the love of approbation, the sentiment of 
 friendship, and sorrow for the dead. yes, the 
 worst of these ignorant and depraved beings are 
 
10 SECTION I. 
 
 men. They have all the appetites, passions, and 
 affections that belong to the essence of man. But 
 these their active powers are under the sway of 
 the flesh and the devil, and bring forth only the 
 fruits of the flesh. 
 
 Look now at the every-day life of these heath- 
 ens. This is the outcoming of what is in them — 
 the united effect of their ignorance and depravity. 
 So far are they from being ruled by God's will, 
 holy, just, and good, that .sin is their obedience ; 
 wickedness, their religion ; the vices, their virtues ; 
 the devil, their god. Crimes of the deepest dye 
 have lost the hue of crime in their eyes ; and cus- 
 toms intensely inhuman and wicked, are not only 
 not disallowed, but are even practices of their daily 
 life. We must not weary the reader with a long 
 tale of heathen horrors gathered from all the dark 
 places of the earth, as these have been told by 
 faithful eye-witnesses. A few specimens from the 
 land of Ham will suffice for our present purpose. 
 
 The belief in witchcraft is universal throughout 
 Africa. Every person believes that by an evil 
 power, which one may have without knowing it, 
 health, prosperity, or life may be destroyed. And 
 so thoroughly lias Satan blinded their minds, that 
 calamity, disease, and death are generally ascribed 
 
THE CONDITION OF THE HEATHEN. 11 
 
 to the malice of enemies working through this 
 evil power, or through charms, in the might of 
 which the utmost confidence is placed. 
 
 An African chief died in May, 1861, the victim 
 of intemperance and impurity. His brother had 
 become hopelessly idiotic. When the former died, 
 one of his sisters accused another sister of the 
 double crime of destroying the life of the one bro- 
 ther, and the reason of the other, by a secret evil 
 power akin to that which was believed to belong 
 to witches in the dark days of now enlightened 
 Britain. The accused was forced to clear herself 
 by an ordeal. The substance used for this pur- 
 pose is a deadly poison. And it is believed that, 
 if the accused has the evil thing within, this sub- 
 stance will destroy both him and it, but if he has 
 it not, he will certainly escape unhurt. Those who 
 are thus tried generally perish, as did the poor 
 woman above-mentioned, who was, therefore, ac- 
 counted guilty. 
 
 A heathen father, child of dark superstition, is 
 sick. His disease is old age, or, perhaps, his own 
 debaucheries are breaking him up. He clings to 
 life : for although there is little in a heathen's 
 present life that is desirable, there is yet less in 
 his future, and no wonder that he shrinks from 
 
12 SECTION I. 
 
 the dread leap into the Mack abyss. He tries the 
 
 native doctor, and after spending much, finds him- 
 self no better. Dark thoughts enter his mind. 
 Who is it that is draining the life out of him ? 
 Perhaps suspicion arises that his own son has set 
 greedy eyes on his father's property. He must, 
 therefore, face the ordeal, and that heathen father 
 will cause it to be administered. O, what a devil's 
 engine is this ! How ready a handle does it afford 
 to revenge, and jealousy, and other evil passions! 
 A barbarian, bent on being the first man in his 
 native town, has been known, by means of this 
 ordeal, to rid himself of those whose rivalry he 
 feared. He charged them with having caused the 
 death of his predecessor, they had to undergo the 
 ordeal, and care was taken to make it fetal. A 
 town has been almost unpeopled on the death of 
 its chief, so many were thus accused and tried. 
 While they profess to believe that the poison or- 
 deal is an impartial inquisitor, judge, and execu- 
 tioner, and that it certainly leaves the innocent 
 unharmed, yet they well know its death-dealing 
 power, and the darker spirits among them do not 
 scruple to use it for the purpose of wilful murder. 
 A chief does not get that respect which lie claims 
 from a fellow-townsman. The latter is summoned 
 
THE CONDITION OF TIIE HEATHEN. 13 
 
 before his peers. The poison is given him as a 
 quiff us, and if he vomit it, he is otherwise put to 
 death. 
 
 Among Africans there is also a firm belief 
 in the power of charms. Charms may be seen 
 everywhere, on the person, in the yard, in the 
 market-square, at the places where paths meet, in 
 the provision field, about the canoe, hanging on 
 the fruit tree, at the river's bank, and at the foun- 
 tain. They have various forms, according to the 
 purpose in view, whether to cure or to kill, to 
 shield from harm or cause injury, to secure profit 
 in trade, or plenty in the farm, or success in hunt- 
 ing and fishing, or victory in war, or protection 
 to a house while its owners are absent, or to a 
 fruit tree from plunderers. All Africans believe 
 in the power of charms, and all trust and fear 
 them. This is a puerile and pestilent supersti- 
 tion. It is idolatry, for it puts what the Bible 
 calls a nothing in the place of the great I AM, and 
 gives to that nothing His glory and His praise. 
 We find even the more intelligent Africans, who 
 are, to some extent, freed from other superstitions, 
 firmly possessed with the fear of the charm. They 
 fancy that they have seen instances of its deadly 
 power. This arises, we think, from the fact that 
 
14 SECTION I. 
 
 poison is, sometimes, given to persons against 
 whom charms are made ; and the fatal issue, which 
 is really due to the poison, is put to the credit of 
 the charm. It is not to be wondered at, there- 
 fore, that all are afraid of the charm doctor, see- 
 ing that he is also a poisoner. 
 
 Those who procure charms against the life or 
 health of others, are frequently put to death. The 
 victims of this superstition must be myriad in 
 dark Ethiopia. In some places, even children are 
 killed. In the year 1860, the writer visited the 
 island of Corisco. Accompanying an American 
 Missionary brother to his station, we saw a little 
 African girl greet him very affectionately on our 
 arrival. He told us her history. She had been 
 accused of witchcraft, and doomed, child as she 
 was, to die by violence. Our brother, hearing of 
 this, went and ransomed her life by a payment in 
 goods, and but for his timely interference, she 
 would certainly have been another victim of this 
 African Moloch. How unspeakably mournful is 
 the condition into which men sink when left with- 
 out the lamp of life ! 
 
 There are those, in our day, who for these and 
 kindred barbarities, would root uncivilized tribes 
 out of the earth. How awfully like one another 
 
THE CONDITION OF THE HEATHEN. 15 
 
 all men are ! There are civilized men who would 
 surpass even barbarians in barbarity ! What if all 
 nations that have ever been under the sway of 
 bloody superstition, had been swept away by their 
 superiors in knowledge and power ! Is it in our 
 day, when humanity and religion are favoured to 
 gain wider and nobler triumphs than ever before, 
 heralding Christ's world-wide reign, and showing 
 us the path of progress, that, in this Christian 
 Britain, men are found harbouring and uttering 
 hate like this, men who would let slip the hell- 
 hounds of extermination on any, even the lowest 
 of our fellow-men ? Let those who are of such a 
 mind tell us their names, and they will be the ab- 
 horrence of every human heart. Such sentiments 
 as these we not unfrequently find in our current 
 literature ; but we are willing to believe that those 
 who hold them are few, and we are sure the 
 day is coming when they will be looked upon as 
 monsters of inhumanity. 
 
 Are we to forget the dark and even bloody 
 superstitions of our own forefathers ? How easy 
 would it be to match not a few African barbarities 
 from the history of Great Britain, as, for instance, 
 the treatment of persons accused of witchcraft. 
 In 1708, a poor woman, Elspet Eule, was tried for 
 
16 SECTION T. 
 
 witchcraft before the Court of Justiciary, at Dum- 
 fries, found guilty by a majority of the jury, sen- 
 tenced to be branded on the cheek, and banished 
 Scotland for life. Is it to be forgotten that the 
 last witch-burning in England took place in 1716, 
 and the last in Scotland, in 1722 ; and that it was 
 not till 1735 that the penal statutes against witch- 
 craft were repealed'?* It is thus only 140 years 
 since in the foremost nation in the world human 
 life ceased to be sacrificed to a cruel and childish 
 superstition. While we see a once degraded peo- 
 ple, and these our own forefathers, rising out of 
 dark and heathenish superstition, lighted onwards 
 to humanity, justice, intelligence, and peace, by 
 the glorious gospel of the blessed God ; let us 
 magnify the grace that makes us to differ ; let us 
 prize more highly the priceless benefits which God 
 has bestowed on us through the gospel ; and let us 
 be sure that the same grace can, by the same gospel, 
 raise and save the whole of mankind. The super- 
 stitions of Africans, at this day, are the growth of 
 four thousand years, during which, we may say, no 
 voice from heaven has fallen on their ears, although 
 God may have kept them from being worse than 
 they are. The superstitions of Britain and the 
 * Pictorial History of Scotland, ii. 340, 958—966. 
 
THE CONDITION OF THE HEATHEN. 1 < 
 
 cruelties to which tliey led, existed among a peo- 
 ple that had for many centuries been nominally 
 christian and civilized. 
 
 Of some other heathen practices let us take a 
 short notice ; and let the reader observe that these 
 are the fruits of ignorance and error, which the 
 word of God alone can remove. 
 
 In September, 1858, the Mission family in an 
 African town were alarmed near the hour of mid- 
 night, by the arrival of several native women in 
 breathless terror. For a time, they could not tell 
 the cause of their terror, although their very faces 
 shewed that some appalling event had taken place. 
 At length, one of them faltered out that the chief 
 was dead. The chief who had just expired was 
 the master of several thousand slaves. The news 
 of his death spread like wild-lire ; and all these 
 slaves banded themselves together, as one man, 
 for their own protection. Of all whom the chief 
 had tailed his own, only a few remained to dig 
 his grave, and these few. were, all but one, new 
 converts to Christianity, whose conversion had, at 
 first, been far from pleasing to him. 
 
 What was the cause of that turmoil and terror? 
 Why were the slaves of an African chief dismayed 
 at his death, when the decease of a European ruler 
 B 
 
18 SECTION I. 
 
 causes not the shadow of a fear? They feared 
 lest an old and well-known custom should be 
 followed in this case ; lest hundreds of themselves 
 should be butchered in cold blood to go with their 
 dead master to the world of spirits, and serve him 
 there as they served him here. JSot knowing the 
 unseen world, which the Bible alone reveals, the 
 heathen think that it resembles this world, and 
 that they shall live there as they live here. Their 
 valuables are put into the coffin; friends bring 
 presents of cloth and ornaments to bury in the 
 grave ; several slaves are picked out to be killed ; 
 and thus the dead man takes with him, or has 
 sent after him, the best of his possessions. It is 
 hardly correct to call the persons thus slaughtered 
 human sacrifices. In this practice there is nothing 
 of the nature of a sacrifice, beyond the killing. 
 The idea is that the dead man, still alive, has the 
 best right to what he owned while here, and should 
 get at least a good share thereof, that he may have 
 plenty and honour among the separated spirits. 
 Ignorance and error about the future state lie at 
 the root of this custom, and it has become fixed 
 by the lapse of time. It is a usage that came 
 down from the dim and distant past, all follow it, 
 and fashion and custom are less powerful in civil- 
 
THE CONDITION OF THE HEATHEN. 19 
 
 ized countries than among the tribes of jSTegroland. 
 Pride and dislike of change make them cling to 
 the ways of their forefathers, even after they hear 
 the truth. But the Spirit of the God of love, who 
 has promised these tribes to the kingdom of his 
 Son, can renew their hearts, and lead them into 
 the light and love of heaven. 
 
 Again : * We are entering an African river that 
 Stretches wide between its low, tree-fringed banks. 
 As we ascend, we may see canoes sailing along, 
 with flags flying, and we hear the song of the 
 paddlemen, and the beat of the African drum. 
 In one of these canoes sits a woman, dressed and 
 adorned in barbaric style. By and by, she is 
 tossed into the stream, and the canoes pull off, 
 leaving her a prey to the sharks. Why is this ? 
 Is this woman a criminal, that she suffers a fate 
 so horrible 1 ISTay : superstition claims another 
 victim. The African values the white man's trade. 
 He thinks that his river god can bring the white 
 man's ship, with its stores of wealth, to his 
 country. And this is a gift to please the deity of 
 the stream, that he may use his power on behalf 
 
 * This is not an every-day occurrence ; but that this custom 
 is followed in most, if not in all, the trading rivers, we have 
 convincing evidence. 
 
20 SECTION I. 
 
 of the givers. The poor woman herself is taught 
 to look upon her fate as a matchless honour. 
 She believes that she is to be the wife of the 
 idem or juju* and, as his partner, have store of 
 wealth. It is said, that, under this belief, and 
 intoxicated with rum, some cheerfully submit to 
 this horrible fate. 
 
 Again : What unusual noise is this that 
 greets the ear, in the softening glare of the evening 
 sun, as we look from the Mission House on the 
 native village below 1 The telescope shews men 
 in disguise running about, each with a sharp 
 weapon in his hand. What means this ? A man 
 is about to be killed. What has he done 1 No- 
 thing whatever ; he is guilty of no crime for 
 which he ought to die. A freeman of the country 
 lias broken a law, and the penalty is death. But 
 a freeman's blood must not flow, unless for another 
 freeman's blood that has been shed. And this is 
 the substitute of the offender The victim is a 
 slave ; white men have taught the African that a 
 slave is nothing, or, at best, only like any other 
 property which a man buys with his money ; and 
 
 * Ju-ju and I-dem (Dem-on ?) ai-e different names for the 
 tutelary gods in whose existence Africans believe. 
 
TITE CONDITION OF THE HEATHEN. 21 
 
 heathen custom allows him to give a fellow-man 
 to die in his room. 
 
 Or we are sailing along a creek, and hear a wail- 
 ing in the bush, a cry of human anguish. Turn- 
 ing aside to see the cause, we behold a woman 
 and two infants bound to a tree. This is a 
 mother, and these are her twin babes. Supersti- 
 tion teaches them that the birth of twins is a 
 calamity, and among some tribes, requires the 
 death of both mother and infants, while among 
 others, the infants only are exjiosed, and the 
 mothers are banished from town and market, and 
 made to live by themselves. This inhuman cus- 
 tom prevails among the tribes in the Delta of the 
 Niger, from the Old Calabar river on the east, to 
 Lagos on the w r est. The birth of twins among 
 them, and the dread of twins, lead to untold crimes 
 of the darkest hue. 
 
 We need not dwell on the subject of this 
 section, and speak of the almost utter absence of 
 the charities that sweeten life, of the treatment of 
 woman, of social pollutions, of slavery, of wrongs 
 done by the strong to the Aveak, of the hard lot of 
 many orphans and sick persons. Some of these 
 crimes and evils, being as they are the fruits of 
 human selfishness, are too common among the 
 
22 SECTION I. 
 
 civilized ; but if they are so bad where heavenly 
 wisdom lifts her voice to rebuke them, what 
 misery do they cause where Satan has his seat ! 
 Deeply sunk, in themselves helpless, the heathen 
 find no light and no aid in their heathen state, 
 and they seek none; yet eloquent should their very 
 silence be in the ears of christian love. Their 
 condition itself is reason enough why the people 
 of God should go and help them. 
 
SECTION II. 
 
 NO SALVATION FOR THE HEATHEN WITHOUT THE 
 GOSPEL. 
 
 There are conscientious men who shrink from 
 this view ; there are others who denounce it. 
 Though we believe that the "Word of God favours 
 it, and not the opposite, we may fail in convincing 
 those who think otherwise. But if, however 
 some good men are unwilling to take it into their 
 creed, all good men would make it the rule and 
 motive of their practice ; would they act as if it 
 were true, and give, and work, and pray for the 
 spread of the gospel, as if it were certain that no 
 heathen can be saved without it, we should not 
 be very much disappointed even at failing in our 
 argument. We do not purpose to enter into a 
 full discussion of this subject, but only to present 
 a few thoughts, with the desire to urge upon 
 christian readers the practical conclusion just 
 mentioned, that they should seek to spread the 
 
24 SECTION II. 
 
 gospel with the same zeal as if the very words at 
 the head of this section were to he found in the 
 Bible. 
 
 This passage in the tenth chapter of Romans, 
 seems to take the peril of the heathen for granted : 
 — " For the Scripture saith, Whosoever believeth 
 on him shall not be ashamed. For there is no 
 difference between the Jew and the Greek ; for 
 the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call 
 upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the 
 name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall 
 they call on him in whom they have not believed 1 
 and how shall they believe in him of whom they 
 have not heard? and how shall they hear without 
 a preacher ] And how shall they preach except 
 they be sent % as it is written, How beautiful are 
 the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, 
 and bring glad tidings of good things !" * Who- 
 ever, be he Jew or Greek, believes in, and applies 
 to, God, " shall be saved." To restore men to a 
 willing obedience to God is the aim and end of 
 the Saviour's great enterprise. Men must yield 
 to God's way of saving, and of their own free 
 choice apply to him. It does not seem to be 
 
 ♦ Rom. x. 11-15. 
 
NO SALVATION WITHOUT THE GOSPEL. 25 
 
 God's plan to save creatures who have chosen evil, 
 except by bringing them, through " the working 
 of the might of his power,"* to make an equally 
 hearty choice of that which is good. This passage 
 is plain ; no calling on God, no salvation ; no 
 faith in the gospel, no calling on God ; no hear- 
 ing of the gospel, no faith in it ; no preaching of 
 the gospel, no hearing of it. And, therefore, un- 
 less the gospel be preached, millions must be shut 
 out from the only way of salvation. " And how 
 shall they preach except they be sent 1 ?" Does 
 not this take for granted that the state of men 
 without the gospel is perilous 1 And does it not 
 bring the responsibility to the door of every chris- 
 tian, who, having the gospel, can send it to every 
 creature % Says Richard Hooker : " Life and sal- 
 vation God will have offered unto all ; his will is 
 that Gentiles should be saved as well as Jews. 
 Salvation belongeth unto none but such 'as call 
 upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,' which 
 nations as yet unconverted neither do, nor possibly 
 can do, till they believe. What they are to be- 
 lieve, impossible it is they should know till they 
 hear it. Their hearing requireth our preaching 
 
 * Eph. i. 19. 
 
26 SECTION II. 
 
 unto them. Sith there is no likelihood that ever 
 voluntarily they will seek instruction at our hands, 
 it remaineth that, unless we will suffer them to 
 perish, salvation itself must seek them, it behov- 
 eth God to send them preachers, as he did his 
 elect Apostles throughout the world." * 
 
 The Saviour's account of salvation runs thus : 
 " And this is life eternal, that they might know thee 
 the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou 
 hast sent." t Must we not gather from this that 
 ignorance of God and of Christ is death eternal, 
 unless there are two ways to eternal life, one for 
 those who have revelation, and another for those 
 who have it not, because the Church has not yet 
 bestowed it on them? These words teach that 
 salvation is applied to sinners by a process in 
 which they are brought to know God. If this do 
 not convince believers that heathens cannot be 
 saved without the gospel, it will weigh much with 
 them ; it will be considered a strong reason why 
 they should seek to multiply the agencies for 
 spreading the gospel, with as much zeal as if the 
 peril of the heathen were more distinctly stated in 
 the Bible. 
 
 * Ecclesiastical Polity, Book v., chap. xxii. 9- 
 f John xvii. 3. 
 
NO SALVATION WITHOUT THE GOSPEL. 27 
 
 Again : " Where there is no vision, the people 
 perish : but he that keepeth the law, happy is he."* 
 Vision means divine revelation. The word, which 
 is translated "perish," maybe otherwise rendered ; 
 but still the great fact lies on the face of the 
 passage, that there is a gulph fixed between the 
 condition of those who have the Word of God, 
 and those who have it not. Says Hooker : " The 
 people which have no way to come to the know- 
 ledge of God, no prophesying, no teaching, perish."t 
 Dr. Wardlaw, commenting on this verse, says that 
 the spirit of the passage "demonstrates and im- 
 presses the necessity of divine revelation ; the 
 need in which men universally stand of it ; seeing 
 ev°n with it — even where it exerts all its restrain- 
 ing power — men continue in their state of apos- 
 tacy and rebellion." J 
 
 Again : § " For as many as have sinned with- 
 out law, shall also perish without law." The law 
 here is the written law, the will of God as re- 
 vealed in the Scriptures, and, in that age, revealed 
 to the Jews only, and those who learned it from 
 them. This says that the sinner shall perish, 
 whether he have the Bible or not, whether he 
 
 * Prov. xxix. 18. f Eccles. Pol. v. xxii. 11. 
 
 X Lectures on Proverbs in loco. § Roin. ii. 12. 
 
28 bection ii. 
 
 live amid the christian homes and churches of 
 Britain, or the heathen hovels and temples <A' 
 
 ]mlia, or the juju sheds of Africa. But it also de- 
 clares thai the punishment shal] be as the privi- 
 lege. The heathen sinner is not so great a sinner, 
 and he shall not be so great a sufferer, as those 
 who have the Bible, and love the darkness rather 
 than the light, and neglect so great salvation. 
 But, nevertheless, to "perish" is the late of the 
 heathen sinner. J Lis want of revelation dots ma 
 render him meritorious, does not cancel his guilt, 
 does not make him pleasing to God. His doom 
 shall not be measured out by the written law ; 
 he shall not be punished for refusing to obey the 
 gospel which the lnkewarnmess or slothfulness of 
 the church permitted him not to hear. He shall 
 perish " without law," — " shall bo tried, con- 
 demned, and punished, not according to a law 
 which he has never possessed, but according to the 
 general principles illustrated in the latter part of 
 the first chapter, and repeated, in the substance 
 and spirit of them, in the fourteenth and fifteenth 
 verses of the second chapter."'* The doom of the 
 heathen shall be perfectly, unimpeachably right- 
 
 * Dr. Wardlaw, Lectures on Kouians, in loco. 
 
NO • WITHOUT IHE GOSPEL. 20 
 
 B t still perdition, and not salva;.' 
 tlj'rir lot, unless it can be 
 
 i station, idolatry, cruelty, and 
 inful in them ; or that tL^ir 
 want of the Bible makes their wi to be 
 
 no wicked] 
 
 n U hardly worth while to notice an assertion 
 
 frequently made in connection with this subject, 
 
 and with the view of shedding a ray of the light of 
 
 hope on the dark destiny of the heathen, it is 
 
 •aid that those of them who act up to the light 
 
 which they have, and do good according to the 
 
 re of their knowledge of what good is, must 
 
 be proper objects of divine mercy, and 
 
 believe that they perish. It is hardly worth 
 
 while to examine this assertion, we say, because 
 
 we have no proof, either in Scripture, or from ex- 
 
 oce, that any do good, in the estimate of 
 
 God, who are not previously made good by the 
 
 wing oft! Ghost" Nay, this matter 
 
 is for i led Ly the unerring and righteous 
 
 judgment of God : "There is none that doeth 
 
 good, no not one." In the words of L>r. Sibbes, 
 
 u This is an undoubted truth, no man ever liced 
 
 answerable to hi* rule; and, therefore, God hath 
 
 ground of damnation to any man, even for 
 
30 SECTION II. 
 
 this, that he hath not lived answerable to the rule 
 of his own conscience."* Dr. Owen also puts it 
 down as indisputable, that pagans never obeyed 
 or served God according to the measure of the 
 knowledge which they had or might have had, and, 
 therefore, they are without excuse, t 
 
 We add, further, that if the moral state of the 
 heathen be as we have feebly described it in the 
 first section, then they have not the holiness 
 which fits a man for heaven, and "without which 
 no man shall see the Lord ; " and they lack the 
 means by which alone God makes men holy, viz., 
 " the truth," by which the Holy Spirit purifies 
 the hearts of true believers, and prepares them for 
 the place which their Saviour has prepared for 
 them. Speaking of the salvation of heathens, 
 Peter said that " God put no difference between 
 us (Jewish Christians) and them (Gentiles), puri- 
 fying their hearts by the faith." J Read along 
 with this the 11th verse of the same chapter: 
 " But we believe that, through the grace of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved, even as 
 
 * Sibbes' Works, Vol. i. 380. Nichol's Series. 
 
 f Theologoumena, p. 62. Johnstone and Hunter's edition. 
 
 j Acts xv. 9. 
 
NO SALVATION WITHOUT THE GOSPEL, 31 
 
 they,"* wliero " even as they" means not merely 
 as well as, but in the same manner as\ they. 
 Peter, doubtless, meant to say that God did not 
 prefer Jews to Gentiles in the matter of salvation, 
 but his words imply that God's mode of saving, of 
 purifying the heart, of making the sinner meet for 
 heaven, is the same for all, and that, if we except 
 infants and innocents, no one is sanctified, unless 
 the truth, which is called the faith, is received and 
 held by faith. 
 
 Another and weighty reason in support of the 
 proposition, " No salvation for the heathen with- 
 out the gospel," is furnished by the manner in 
 which the Epistles speak of the early Christians. 
 Before they were made Christians they were inex- 
 pressibly degraded and utterly unfit for true hap- 
 piness, whether they were born Jews or Heathens. 
 They had been serving the devil and the flesh ; 
 they had made a narrow escape from everlasting 
 destruction ; they had been on the road to hell ; 
 and the gospel had brought them into light and 
 life. In that most humbling account of man in 
 the second chapter of Paul's epistle to the Ephe- 
 8ians,J the peril of the heathen is taken for granted. 
 
 * Acts XV. 11. f K<xd' tv TpblTOV KOLKelvOL. 
 
 J Eph. ii. 1 — 3. 
 
32 SECTION II. 
 
 Speaking of Jewish believers, he says, "We were 
 by nature the children of wrath even as others." 
 " It is every man's case," saith he. He had parted 
 it before ; some things he had said of the Gentiles : 
 'You' — you Gentiles — ' hath he quickened, who 
 were dead in sins and trespasses, wherein in time 
 past ye walked.' Some things likewise he had said 
 of Jews : 'Amongst whom we' — we Jews — 'also 
 had our conversation.' Eut now, in the close of 
 all, he puts them both, Jews and Gentiles, toge- 
 ther : 'and were by nature the children of wrath, 
 even as others.'" Again: "Others are children 
 of wrath, so are we, we Jews, even as the profanest 
 men in the world."* In the letter to another 
 church in which there were Gentile converts — the 
 church at Colosse — the following words occur: — 
 "Mortify therefore your members which are upon 
 the earth ; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate 
 affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, 
 which is idolatry : For which things' sake the 
 wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedi- 
 ence. In the which ye also walked sometimes, 
 when ye lived in them."t The " children of dis- 
 
 * Works of Thomas Goodwin, D.D., vol. ii. 114. Nichols 
 Standard Divines. 
 
 f Col. iii. 5—7. The following also boar on this point : 
 1 Cor. vi. 9—11 ; 1 Pet. iv- 3 ; Col. i. 21 ; 1 Thos. iv. 5. 
 
NO SALVATION WITHOUT THE GOSPEL. 33 
 
 obedience" include all sinners, heathens, as well 
 as wicked men in a land like ours ; the former as 
 well as the latter are exposed to the "wrath of 
 God •" and we must conclude that, inasmuch as 
 the heathens of those days were saved by means 
 of the gospel alone, those of our days are not saved 
 without it. If the polished Heathens of Athens, 
 Corinth, and Rome, as well as the barbarous Scyth- 
 ians, nineteen centuries ago, were perishing before 
 they heard and obeyed the gospel, how can any 
 dream that the tribes of Xegroland, and the peo- 
 ple of India and China, who are as wicked, at 
 least, and as destitute of "the lamp of life," are not 
 in peril of the same perdition 1 
 
 Further, even the heathen love their darkness. 
 They are not merely the children of misfortune. 
 When the missionary tells them the story of a 
 living Saviour, and preaches to them in his name, 
 salvation and eternal life, without money and 
 without price, they scorn the message, and in- 
 finitely prefer the veriest trifle which the messen- 
 ger can give them. One Lord's day, the author 
 had gone to an African village, where he was not 
 a stranger. After he had spoken to the people, 
 one stood up and said: — "You always come to 
 speak words to us, words, words, nothing but 
 C 
 
34 SECTION II. 
 
 words. We do not care for your words. If you 
 wi Mild bring something to sell to us, that we should 
 like." The same desperate wickedness and su- 
 preme deceitfulness of heart, the same enmity to 
 God, the same dislike of his authority, the same 
 unbelief of the record which he gave of his Son, 
 the same callousness to his love, the same fixed 
 ungodliness, which hinder men of all ranks and 
 classes in Britain from obeying the gospel, also 
 mark the heathen everywhere, and, if possible, in 
 a greater degree. An African — a sharp, decided 
 man — who had learned enough to be able to speak 
 about the matter, once said to the author: — "I 
 know the laws of God (going over the ten com- 
 mandments), and think some of them good. 'Thou 
 shalt not steal. Thou shalt not covet.' These I 
 like : they are good laws. But others I do not 
 like. They may do for white men, but we cannot 
 obey them." In a thousand ways, by actual con- 
 tact with the heathen mind, and by experience 
 of its earthliness and ungodliness, the missionary 
 knows that heathens are, like unconverted hearers 
 of the gospel, unwilling to have their hearts broken 
 for sin and from sin, and to yield themselves up 
 unto God in holy obedience to his blessed will. 
 And as no hearer of the gospel can escape perdi- 
 
NO SALVATION WITHOUT THE GOSPEL. 35 
 
 tion but by a real and entire submission to Jesus 
 Christ as bis Saviour, so that his whole body, 
 mind, and spirit may be made perfectly holy, no 
 more can a heathen who also, and 'not less, hates 
 God and his law be regarded as a child of mercy, 
 unless he become one in the ordinary way. 
 
 In the Bible we have the feeling with which 
 God looks on the wickedness of those who are 
 "without the law," "The wicked shall be turned 
 into hell, even all the nations that forget God."* 
 Heathen idolatry incurs the heaviest guilt. It is 
 absurd and wholly inexcusable. Heathens allow 
 that God is their Maker ; "Even some of your own 
 poets have said, For we are also his offspring. "t 
 If we, men, are his offspring, what folly, yea, what 
 wickedness is it to think that our Father God "is 
 like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art 
 and man's device!" J "They that make them are 
 like unto them ; so is every one that trusteth in 
 them."§ The attentive reader of that satire on 
 idolatry — that always and everywhere true picture 
 of heathen wickedness, in the 44th chapter of 
 Isaiah, — must admit that such utter perversion of 
 reason and high-handed insult to Jehovah's God- 
 head, are worthy of his wrath, and that such of- 
 
 * Ps. ix. 17. f Acts xvii. 28. $ Ibid § Ps. cxv. 8. 
 
86 ribs n. 
 
 fenders mu I lie under heavy guilt. They have 
 mind, I hey know i hat every effect has a can ie, and, 
 therefore, from the creation of the world God's 
 eternal power and Godhead ought to have been 
 clearly seen, and Idolatry ought to have been im- 
 po Ible. They have been, and are without ex- 
 cuse, Edolatry caricatures Jehovah in I he most 
 revolting manner ; and no Length of time can soften 
 or remove one of its hideous features, or make it 
 other than an abomination in his sight. For ever 
 must the idolater be an outcast and a WTetch until 
 he is turned from these vanities or nothings to 
 the only living God. It is harder for us to believe 
 that one who lives and dies an idolater shall be 
 admitted into heaven, than thai Divine righteous- 
 ness and goodness require him to be placed in an 
 abode more Buited to his character and history. 
 
 We are, indeed, handling an awful subject. It 
 Las depths we cannot fathom, and heights we can- 
 not scale, and a darkness we cannot pierce. All 
 that the author aims at is to gel christian men to 
 see I hat I he teaching "I I he Bcripl ures I'm). 
 ;it lea t, favours, rather than gainsays the conclu- 
 sion : "No salvation for li<;itli<'ns withoul the 
 gospel." We see uo ground for the opposite view 
 in tin' Word of God. We fearnol the difficulties 
 
NO'SALVATION WITHOUT THE GOSPEL. 37 
 
 with which it brings us face to face, or the charge 
 ili.il it -'■'■in to impeach the justice and goodness 
 of God. All these will at length be cleared up; 
 and, hereafter, we shall know that which we know 
 not now. It is our duty, Chri humbly 
 
 to receive our Father's word, to obey our Father's 
 command ; and if we cannot fully meet every 
 charge that is thoughtlessly or wickedly brought 
 against his character and government, lie himself 
 will answer it in his own time and way. 
 
 The uecessity of personal holiness, in order to 
 our seeing God — a holiness which God himself 
 produces by hie Word and Spirit — the chosen and 
 cherished ignorance, depravity, and wickedness of 
 all heathens, without exception, and the fact that 
 one must know Christ, and apply to him, in order 
 to be saved, force us to this conclusion, at least, as 
 a ground of christian action in spreading the gos- 
 pel, that those sinners in China, Kindostan, Africa, 
 and how many other places! who are at this day 
 unblessed with the gospel, are being destroyed for 
 lack of knowledge. 
 
 This can be met only by supposing that God 
 somehow reveals the way of life to the heathen, 
 and saves them, without their knowing it. We 
 limit not his power and wisdom. Far be it from 
 
38 SECTION II. 
 
 us to speak oracularly upon this subject, and to 
 pronounce authoritatively that God does not save 
 heathens in some way unknown to us. We only 
 hold that the people of Christ ought to spread the 
 gospel with the same earnestness and enthusiasm 
 as if they were perfectly sure that no person aide 
 to know good and evil can escape without it. 
 Yonder is the stranded ship, and the shivering 
 crew are gathered on its deck, helpless and des- 
 pairing. Here, Christians, are you with the life- 
 boat which can live in any sea, if you have but 
 the faith to man it. Other life-boat there is none; 
 other means of escape earth knows not of, and 
 heaven has not revealed. To what conclusion are 
 you shut up? Either to man your boat — Heaven's 
 own — and push off to save them, or belie your 
 profession. Woe to you, if your earthly, slothful, 
 selfish, craven spirit permit you either to look with 
 unconcern on the scene of death before you, or put 
 your hands into your gloves, and with easy con- 
 science march away to the comfort of your own 
 firesides. A wretch, and not a christian, must he 
 be, who, called to such a rescue, and having the 
 heaven-prepared means of achieving it in his hands, 
 can think of his indifference, and not feel a sting 
 in his conscience, and not, as it were, for ever hear 
 
NO SALVATION WITHOUT THE GOSPEL. 39 
 
 ringing in his ears the dying curses of those whom 
 he allowed to perish. Can he really comfort him- 
 self with the thought that God may save them 
 otherwise 1 Woe is unto us if we fail to preach 
 the gospel, on the bare possibility that God will 
 save the heathen without it — a possibility for 
 which we find not the shadow of a warrant in His 
 Word. We see them following their dark course 
 to their latest breath, debauched, debased, idolat- 
 rous, shedding the blood of brother men with as 
 little concern as the blood of a dog, enslaving one 
 another, and without a shade of moral purity. 
 We see them thus on the brink of eternity. We 
 behold them thus die. And shall we cling to that 
 dream — without one atom of Bible evidence — that, 
 just in the article of death, God pardons them, and 
 makes them, although tenfold children of hell, and 
 all unconscious of a ray from heaven, meet to be 
 partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light ; 
 saves them just on the confines of the invisible 
 world, or rather within its confines, and never 
 gives one of them a moment to say, " Come, my 
 son, or brother, and I will tell you what the true 
 God has done for my soul !" Christians ! beware 
 lest you soothe your consciences with this delusion, 
 while you supinely sit at ease, neglecting, or but 
 
40 SECTION II. 
 
 coldly executing, the great commission of the 
 Lord : " Preach the gospel to every creature." 
 
 The chief objection to the view held in this 
 section, " No salvation for the heathen without 
 the gospel," is, that it clashes with our so-called 
 native ideas of the justice and goodness of God. 
 By some, who hold their own instincts to be more 
 trustworthy than the word of Him who can neither 
 err nor lie, this view, and our advocacy of it, will 
 be unsparingly denounced. We are not careful to 
 answer them, as our anxiety is to deal with the 
 conscience of the true people of God, to whose 
 charge the spreading of the gospel has been 
 divinely committed.^ We wish that at least they 
 should all think thus : " It may be so ; there is 
 reason to fear that the heathen are in peril of per- 
 dition; the balance of Scripture testimony leans 
 in that direction; if they are safe, well ; but if they 
 are not (and we are far from sure that they are), 
 what shall we say to our Lord, and what shall we 
 say to ourselves, when the light of eternity bursts 
 in upon us, and the only time when we can work 
 for the salvation of the heathen has for ever 
 passed, if we leave millions of our fellow-men to 
 the mercy of a baseless perad venture V Let us 
 spread the gospel of the kingdom with as much 
 
NO SALVATION WITHOUT THE GOSPEL. 41 
 
 zeal and as much self-denial as if we saw it written 
 with a sunbeam on the sky, ' iSTo soul in heathen- 
 dom can escape but by the gospel door ! Chris- 
 tians, to the rescue ! ' 
 
 The objection to which we refer may be variously 
 answered. But we content ourselves with the 
 following. If to allow the heathen to perish in 
 their darkness, and to drive them away in their 
 wickedness, to learn of hell by awaking amid its 
 horrors, and of heaven hy seeing it afar off, beyond 
 the fixed and impassable gulf — if this clash with 
 the goodness and justice of Jehovah — if you, 
 Reader, make a difficulty of it, bethink yourself. 
 Is it not still more shocking to you that our 
 righteous and loving Parent has allowed so many 
 generations, each counted by hundreds of millions 
 of souls, to sink into, and remain in, a state so 
 wretched 1 If there be uncertainty about their 
 future, there is none about their present condition. 
 The fables about the innocence of heathen tribes 
 may very fairly be classed with the tales of the 
 Arabian Nights. There is no doubt now that 
 heathen lands are Satan's seat; that all there is 
 vile, and fitter for hell than heaven ■ and that great 
 transformations — work for Jehovah's hand — are as 
 necessary there as here to rescue and to bless. If, 
 
42 SECTION II. 
 
 then, it is " horrible, most horrible," to cast away 
 such men and women, what is it to have allowed 
 them to follow this dark and downward road 
 without a check ? If it be so inconsistent with 
 Divine justice and goodness to throw them into 
 the fire, what is it to have let them wither and dry 
 up into fuel only fit for it 1 It is, in our view, 
 more difficult to reconcile the existence of so many 
 heathens, and the depth to which they have sunk, 
 with that justice and goodness, than the eternal 
 death of those of them who are not saved by a 
 preached, believed, obeyed gospel, and by the ex- 
 ceeding greatness of Jehovah's power, which uses 
 that gospel as the means of saving. To allow a 
 creature, made in His own image, to become so 
 defaced and so wicked, should be considered more 
 unlike God than the leaving him to perish in his 
 sins. Sin, the cause of all suffering, must be a 
 more hideous thing than any possible suffering. 
 For any to wonder that God should make ven- 
 geance to dog the sinner's steps, and at last slay 
 him, when He let him be a sinner, is just as rea- 
 sonable as to wonder that a parent who had the 
 heart to see his child leap into the fire, and try its 
 temper, when he could easily hinder it, should also 
 stand by and see him burn. Surely the permission 
 
NO SALVATION WITHOUT THE GOSPEL. 43 
 
 of evil is a greater wonder than the punishment of 
 it. But neither the one nor the other is either 
 cruel or unjust. Why should a wicked man com- 
 plain, a man for the punishment of his sins ? God, 
 having revealed his wrath from heaven against 
 all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, hav- 
 ing fixed death as the wages of sin, and given man, 
 made in his own likeness, the power to stand and 
 the freedom to fall, must, forsooth, be unjust and 
 unkind, because his will bends not to the will of 
 the worm that scorns his goodness and defies his 
 power ! The conscience of every demon and lost 
 man in hell, and of every angel and saint in heaven, 
 no doubt revolts at the charge which the flippancy 
 and self-conceit of some men on earth insinuate 
 against the Judge of all. " the depth of the 
 riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! 
 how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways 
 past finding out !"* 
 
 ^Nay more, Reader, what think you of this in- 
 spired account of the matter? Read it carefully, 
 for it triumphantly vindicates the ways of God to 
 man. " For the wrath of God is revealed from 
 heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteous- 
 
 * Rom. xi. 33. 
 
44 SECTION II. 
 
 ness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteous- 
 ness : because that which may be known of God 
 is manifest in them : for God hath shewed it unto 
 them. For the invisible things of him from the 
 creation of the world are clearly seen, being under- 
 stood by the things that are made, even his eter- 
 nal power and Godhead ; so that they are without 
 excuse ; because that, when they knew God, they 
 glorified him not as God, neither were thankful ; 
 but became vain in their imaginations, and their 
 foolish heart was darkened. Professing them- 
 selves to be wise, they became fools, and changed 
 the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image 
 made like to corruptible men, and to birds, and 
 fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Where- 
 fore God also gave them up to uncleanness, through 
 the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their 
 own bodies between themselves : who changed 
 the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and 
 served the creature more than the Creator, who is 
 blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God 
 gave them up unto vile affections. And even as 
 they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, 
 God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do 
 those things which are not convenient."* Let 
 
 * Rom. i. 18-28. 
 
NO SALVATION WITHOUT THE GOSPEL. 45 
 
 none of us, in our little-mindedness, charge God 
 foolishly. The present distance of the heathen 
 from Him is not the journey of one day. They 
 have not, in one age, fallen thus far from God and 
 the light of heaven. It has been a gradual descent, 
 chosen and followed, in spite of God's witness for 
 himself, of the testimony of their own consciences, 
 and of the work of the law written on their hearts.* 
 Did Noah know nothing of Jehovah? If that 
 knowledge was lost by the children of Ham, for 
 instance, who was to blame ? Jehovah's Spirit 
 would not always strive with man, would not for 
 ever be humbled, grieved, and vexed, by man's 
 chosen and cherished wickedness. Man would 
 quench him. And so the "Holy Dove" flew 
 away to its native heaven, leaving men to walk in 
 their own ways. Each generation served itself 
 heir of all that was bad in its predecessors, as the 
 Jews of Christ's time served themselves heirs of 
 the blood-guiltiness of their fathers who had slain 
 the prophets, inasmuch as they showed that they 
 thought well of their fathers' deeds by doing like- 
 wise, t 
 
 * "Work of the law," — the work which the law requires. 
 Eom. ii. 15. 
 | Luke xi. 48. 
 
46 SECTION II. 
 
 But besides the early revelations thus lost, by 
 being willfully thrown away, there has been, and 
 there is, a continual revelation of God in his works. 
 This is asserted in the 19th and 20th verses 
 of the first chapter of Romans, which we have 
 already quoted. "In the works of creation there 
 have always been exhibited such proofs of the 
 divine being and perfections, as were enough to 
 keep intelligent creatures in mind of these import- 
 ant truths (the existence, and the eternal power 
 and God head of God)."* The same truth is thus em- 
 phatically declared : " The living God which made 
 heaven and earth, and the sea, and all things that 
 are therein, in times past suffered all nations to walk 
 in their own ways. Nevertheless he left not him- 
 self without witness, in that he did good, and gave 
 us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling 
 our hearts with food and gladness."t 
 
 In addition to this revelation, the heathen "are 
 a law unto themselves," and have "the law written 
 on their hearts." "Their consciences also bear 
 witness ; and their thoughts accuse or excuse one 
 another." J "They are without a written law : — 
 
 * Dr. Wardlaw's Lectures on Romans, vol. i. 104. 
 f Acts xiv. 15 17. 
 
 \ Dr. Wardhvw renders the latter clause thus: "Their rea- 
 sonings among themselves accuse or vindicate." 
 
NO SALVATION WITHOUT THE GOSPEL. 47 
 
 but they are not without a law altogether : — they 
 have certain principles of natural law; they have 
 these in themselves, written in their hearts. There 
 the law of the Most High was originally written : 
 — engraved, ' not on tables of stone, but on the 
 fleshly tables of the heart.' And although by the 
 fall the impression has been mournfully defaced 
 and corrupted, yet it has not been entirely obliter- 
 ated. By the voluntary erasement of the law of 
 God from their hearts, deep guilt has been con - 
 tracted. Still, however, the impression is not 
 obliterated ; and they continue to * treasure up to 
 themselves wrath against the day of wrath,' when 
 they wilfully act in opposition to the remaining 
 sense of right and wrong which is yet in their 
 minds."* Disliking their Maker, they let the 
 knowledge of him slip, yea, as it were, sought to 
 blot it out of their minds ; and, therefore, are they 
 given up to their own choice, and wander ever- 
 more farther from God, and become more wicked 
 and unhappy. Yea, the heathen " know the judg- 
 ment of God, that they which commit such things 
 are worthy of death." Even they cannot be but 
 " sure that the judgment of God is according to 
 
 * Wardlaw, i. 163. 
 
48 SECTION II. 
 
 truth against theni which commit such things ; " 
 and yet they " not only do the same, but have plea- 
 sure in them that do them." The conclusion of 
 the whole matter, Paul says, is that we have proved 
 both Jews and Gentiles that they are all under 
 sin. Gentiles, without the written revelation, are 
 " under sin," guilty, exposed to wrath, as well as 
 Jews who were " in the law," — the former as truly 
 as, and not less than, the latter, although their 
 punishment will be measured by a different rule. 
 God condemns the heathen, and his wrath is re- 
 vealed from heaven against their ungodliness and 
 wickedness, as withstanding the truth taught them 
 by their reason and conscience, and by the Crea- 
 tor's works around them. And, therefore, he is 
 just, and good too — good to all his works, in 
 " rendering to every man according to his deeds," 
 — good and kind to his "elect angels" and his 
 " redeemed from among men," in separating the 
 wicked from their company, and shutting them up 
 by themselves in the one prison-house of the uni- 
 verse, — truly good and just in rendering "unto 
 them that are contentious, and do not obey the 
 truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and 
 wrath, tribulation and anguish upon every soul 
 of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also 
 
NO SALVATION WITHOUT THE GOSPEL. 4 
 
 of the Gentile," whether favoured with the Bible 
 or not, in measure according to their mercies, those 
 without the law with few stripes, those in the law, 
 with many. 
 
 It may be said that there are tribes whose ig- 
 norance has reached such a pitch, that they are 
 almost below the power of using their reason. 
 But does this, were it true, make it unrighteous in 
 God to view them with displeasure 1 Ought His 
 loathing to be lessened by the growth of their 
 vileness? Then the more ungodly, inhuman, 
 brute-like they become, the better, if, therefore, 
 God dislike them the less. The fitter for hell, 
 then, the fitter for heaven. The more like devils 
 or brutes they become, the more likely are they to 
 share the lot of saints and angels ! This would be 
 a new meeting of extremes, and show, were it all 
 right, that light and darkness have communion, 
 and that Christ hath concord with Belial. 
 
 If we needed any proof that the reasoning here 
 opposed is at once foolish and insincere, we have 
 that proof in the fact, that such reasoning would 
 not be tolerated, were it a question between man 
 and man, and about matters of earthly concern. 
 Children who surpass wicked parents in wicked- 
 ness, are not really held to be less amenable to the 
 
 D 
 
50 SECTION II. 
 
 laws of society the worse they grow. It is just 
 the very reverse. Previous good character is con- 
 sidered a palliation of crime. Practised wicked- 
 ness is counted the more dangerous, and needs the 
 more punishment. " Habit and repute" is always 
 an aggravation. Nay, with a strange capricious- 
 ness, easy to be understood, when the heathen 
 plunders or annoys the civilised trader or traveller, 
 those who scoff at the idea of his being an object 
 of loathing to a holy God, often doom him to 
 destruction. He may be fit for heaven, but not 
 for earth. And the ungodly world, that makes 
 light of this enterprise of mercy, which seeks to 
 save him from darkness and from death, hounds 
 on its dogs of war to punish the outbreaks of his 
 savagery, which the so-called christian aggressor 
 too often provokes. 
 
 Now these things being so, how dare we hope 
 that the heathen are saved without the gospel. If 
 it be unjust to leave them to eat the fruit of their 
 own doings in the eternal world, is it just to let 
 them sow such deathful seed in this 1 If we see 
 no change, up to the moment of death, on what 
 grounds of reason or scripture can we look to find 
 them in heaven? The Church's only safe ground 
 of action is, "No salvation for the heathen without 
 
NO SALVATION WITHOUT THE GOSPEL. 51 
 
 the gospel." We repeat, that we argue tins ques- 
 tion from an intensely practical point of view, 
 being anxious that true believers should act on a 
 safe principle in a matter so inexpressibly momen- 
 tous to the bulk of our fellow-men. Acting as if 
 there were no manner of doubt about our conclu- 
 sion, if christians err, they will err on the safe 
 side. The appalling nature of the conclusion must 
 move every mind that realises it. We reckon 
 those who have been left without the gospel at 
 600 or 700 millions. Africa is supposed to have 
 80 millions, and 200 missionaries. India has 200 
 millions, and 400 missionaries. China 400 mil- 
 lions, and less than 100 missionaries, Since the 
 soul of one pagan child is of more value than the 
 whole world, the number of souls thus exposed to 
 misery is fitted to appal. Would to God that 
 christians were stirred to adequate efforts for the 
 purpose of sowing this whole field with gospel 
 seed! 
 
 There is too much reason to fear that the belief 
 or dream that the heathen are safe without the 
 gospel, is often the excuse of those who do nothing, 
 or little, or less than they both can and ought, for 
 their salvation. They lack the love to Christ 
 which would lead them to give even out of their 
 
52 SECTION II. 
 
 poverty, and to pray with the fervency of enthu- 
 siasm that Jesus might be exalted among the 
 nations. For anything that they do, every heathen 
 may go down to the grave and to hell unpitied and 
 untaught. And the uneasiness of a conscience 
 which testifies of neglect of duty, indifference to 
 the honour of God, and unconcern about perishing 
 souls, makes them catch at the unreasonable and 
 unscriptural notion, that blinded, superstitious, 
 idolatrous heathens are saved without the only 
 means of salvation of which God's Word makes 
 mention. Jesus commands his people, "Haste 
 ye! go tell every soul of them the good news 
 about me, and bid them turn, believe, and live." 
 Many who profess to be the servants of Christ, sit 
 down, occupied each with his own affairs. This 
 man to his farm, that to his merchandise; and the 
 Lord's great commission is all but forgotten. And 
 that cause which is so dear to Him, and should be 
 the chief concern of his people, is put after every- 
 thing else. And instead of trying how much each 
 can do to spread the gospel, many, many who pro- 
 fess to prize it above all worlds, seem to try how 
 little they can do. And being uneasy about it, 
 they grasp at the delusion, that notwithstanding 
 they neglect the duty which Christ gives them to 
 
NO SALVATION WITHOUT THE GOSPEL. 53 
 
 do, He himself will, or perhaps will, or perhaps 
 may, in some other way, save those perishing 
 fellow-men to whom they ought to have sent the 
 word of life. That professing christian who keeps 
 his mind easy over his lukewarmness in, or neglect 
 of, the cause of God in its world-wide aspect, by a 
 groundless perhaps, is trilling with his talent, and 
 had better think of his reckoning with the Master. 
 Yes, God could save the heathen without us. He 
 could set up his kingdom by other hands than 
 ours. But He has put the work into our hands. 
 And if any one fail to see this in the Bible, or 
 refuse to come to the help of the Lord, who so 
 honours us by commanding our service, how can 
 he think favourably of his own spiritual state? 
 Is his own soul safe who can look on millions lost, 
 and soothe his conscience with only the poorest 
 perhaps that they may, after all, be saved, while 
 he does nothing, although commanded by Christ, 
 to give them the means of salvation, or merely 
 casts a penny into the treasury of the kingdom, as 
 he would throw a penny to a beggar to silence his 
 importunity ? 
 
 We cannot better conclude this section than in 
 the words of Dr. Wardlaw : — " We are taught 'by 
 the sure word of prophecy' to expect a period 
 
54 SECTION II. 
 
 when 'the kingdoms of this world shall become 
 the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ.' Yet 
 if the heathen may be saved without the know- 
 ledge and faith of the gospel, we may well in- 
 quire, whence the rapturous delight which accom- 
 panies the prophetic visions of its universal d illu- 
 sion ? Whence the Divine injunction, 'Go ye 
 into all the world, and preach the gospel to every 
 creature V The supposition of the safety of the 
 Heathen without the gospel annihilates the most 
 powerful of all incitements to christian zeal. Why 
 should we expose our fellow-creatures to increased 
 peril, by putting it into their power to reject what 
 is, after all, unnecessary to their salvation? If a 
 Gentile can be pointed out that is not a sinner, — 
 that has acted fully up to the light and law of na- 
 ture, — there were good reason on this ground to 
 plead for his safety. But such a character is no- 
 where to be found. All are guilty ; all condemned. 
 The ground of their condemnation is just; and 
 the proportions of their punishment will be just. 
 They shall be judged, not 'by flu- law,* but 'with- 
 out the law;* and even amongst themselves, when 
 tried according to their own light, some shall be 
 beaten with more and others with fewer stripes. 
 Eut a Saviour they all require. And besides the 
 
NO SALVATION WITHOUT THE GOSPEL. 55 
 
 name of Jesus, * there is no other name under 
 heaven, given among men, whereby either we or 
 they can be saved.' 'This is eternal life, that they 
 might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus 
 Christ whom thou hast sent.'" 
 
SECTION III. 
 
 "can these bones live?" 
 
 Can we expect the Negro race, for instance, to 
 arise out of their present low estate and become 
 civilized and Christian ? "Irreclaimable barbari- 
 ans !" "Destined to extirpation, like the tiger 
 and the kangaroo!" "Monkeys!" "A pack of 
 lazy, good-for-nothing savages!" "What have 
 your missions done among them ?" " How many 
 have you converted 1 " "What results have you 
 to show for the money which has been expended?" 
 "Do you not see that your undertaking is Utopian, 
 foolish, fruitless, — that it is and must, to the end, 
 be a miserable failure?" Such are some of the 
 exclamations, execrations, assertions, and interro- 
 gations of persons ill qualified and ill disposed 
 either to judge correctly or to decide impartially 
 upon a matter of this kind. Yea, even in evan- 
 gelical churches there are members who share in 
 the spirit which runs through these expressions 
 
" CAN THESE BONES LIVE ? " 57 
 
 and queries. We would fain hope that church 
 members of this kind are becoming rare and will 
 soon be unknown. Whether ignorance, or want 
 of thought, or covetousness, on their own part, or 
 the lukewarmness, or little-mindedness of their 
 religious guides, be the cause of such & phenomenon, 
 it is not the less humbling or less disgraceful, in 
 any who profess to love Christ to shew indiffer- 
 ence, not to say hostility, to the enterprise of 
 mercy with which the honour of the Lord is most 
 closely connected. 
 
 The question at the head of this section can be 
 shortly and satisfactorily answered to the genuine 
 christian ; and it is to him, we repeat, that we 
 desire to speak. The question, when rightly put, 
 is simply this : — Can God regenerate the African? 
 And will He regenerate the African? No preacher 
 ever yet converted a single soul. When a man 
 speaks of his converts, or when another speaks of 
 any man's converts, with a conceit of the eloquence, 
 or earnestness, or power of the man that has done 
 such great things, surely it must be "as a smoke 
 in God's nostrils," offensive and worthy of his re- 
 buke. Converting power is of God, not of man. 
 God gives the increase. The preaching of the holi- 
 est, most earnest, and most eloquent of men, can 
 
58 SECTION III. 
 
 go no farther than the ear. It is the Holy Ghost 
 who takes the things of Christ and shews them to 
 the soul. 
 
 Seeing, then, that it is God who begins the good 
 work in true saints, and who also finishes it, can 
 He make a poor degraded African a true saint? 
 No one will say that J le run not, at least none with 
 whom we care to reason. We shall not take time 
 to prove that God who commanded the light to 
 shine out of darkness, can shine in the darkest 
 heart on earth, and change the most sunken savage 
 into a citizen of the kingdom of heaven. This is 
 already the blessed faith of those whom we ear- 
 nestly seek to stir up to new zeal in spreading the 
 gospel. 
 
 The following case has happened. A section of 
 the church begin a mission, and send out their 
 agents to some unhealthy coast. Disease disables, 
 death destroys. Others are sent ; but the zeal and 
 hope of the first movement are greatly cooled. 
 Ten, fifteen, twenty years pass by ; and the ap- 
 parent converts are counted only by tens. There 
 has been no Pentecostal effusion of the Spirit. 
 The converts are very im perfect christians. Tlii lik- 
 ing that they were living stones, the missionary 
 took and built them into Christ's house. But tho 
 
" CAN THESE BONES LIVE ? " 59 
 
 fire tried his work ; and the seeming jewels were 
 seen to be wood, hay, stubble, not gold, silver, 
 precious stones. The seed of the word never 
 seems to grow or yield a single sheaf in that salt 
 and barren wild of heathenism. It appears to be 
 all love's labour lost. And the good people away 
 in the christian land, who little know what hea- 
 thens are, aud to whom mission work is tinged 
 with the hue of romance, become discouraged at 
 the poor result of their efforts. The tide now 
 turns to ebb. Another mission is begun in what 
 is considered a more promising field, the first love 
 is accounted a sort of drag, and, if it could be 
 done without disgrace, it would be cast off. I 
 firmly believe that a spirit like this will not see 
 success in any mission whatsoever. Such craven 
 souls are the cowards and the traitors in the Lord's 
 army. Far better for themselves and for the 
 church's work that they had no connection with 
 her ; they are the cause of disaster and defeat ; 
 they, and they alone, are her weakness. IS T o mis- 
 sion will be crowned with success, unless its friends 
 are determined that Jehovah shall make it succeed. 
 They must give Him no rest, but pray without 
 fainting or ceasing, and never bate one jot of heart 
 or hope* till He cause our enterprises to yield to 
 * Isa. Lrii. 6. 7. 
 
60 SECTION IN. 
 
 himself their harvests of glory in the salvation of 
 souls. 
 
 Indeed the true light in which to put this mat- 
 ter is the following. The people of God say, 
 "Lord, what wilt thou have us to do for Thee?" 
 The Lord answers, "Send the gospel to Patagonia, 
 to Old Calabar, to Madagascar. Send a mission 
 to Rajpootana, the Punjaiib, Ceylon. Send 
 preachers of the Word to Bonny, to Benin, to 
 Japan, to Kamtschatka." The Church has then 
 nothing to do but to obey, and at once separate 
 the best men for the work, and send them to it. 
 She ought to be sure that the Lord himself, having 
 commanded her strength, will use her willing, 
 earnest service, and accomplish that which He 
 pleases by her means. If He does not convert 
 the numbers which the Church marks out as her 
 desire, that is his matter. The Church dare not 
 say, " Because the Lord has not honoured our 
 mission, because it has not a great show of fruit, 
 therefore we shall abandon it." Depend upon it, 
 there is a reason for this want, or seeming want of 
 success. Let the preacher do his duty, and he is 
 unto God a sweet savour both in the lost and in 
 the saved. God is well pleased with him if he is 
 faithful: his work is done, his reward is sure, 
 
" CAN THESE BONES LIVE?" 61 
 
 whatever may be the number of sheaves which 
 the Lord gives him to bring with him as the har- 
 vest of his toils. 
 
 God will surely save his flock, but He may 
 keep some of the sheep in his hiding, lest the 
 Church should boast of them. When God's people 
 honour Him more in their mission work, and make 
 it more their own, and when they are better pre- 
 pared to see the work of his hand in every atom 
 of saving result, He will doubtless show them 
 more. But is there not among us still too much 
 of that spirit which would boast of success, and 
 say, Behold the success of our efforts, instead of, 
 Behold what God hath wrought? And He with- 
 holds the occasion. He does not show us many 
 mighty works, because of our unbelief, and because 
 we are not high enough in our spirituality to give 
 Him all the glory. May He prepare his Church, 
 in order that He may prosper his cause among 
 the heathen. 
 
 But there are right-minded Christians, who do 
 look to God for success, and who give Him all the 
 praise for what is done by their means. It is well 
 that they should remember the laws of the king- 
 dom's progress, and study its history, in order that 
 they may know what to expect, and be able to see 
 
62 SECTION ITT. 
 
 what the Lord has done, lest they either vex Him 
 hy their impatience, or neglect to praise Him for 
 the great things which. He has wrought. The 
 two laws most distinctly taught are these: First, 
 That there must be a seed-sowing before there can 
 be a sheaf-bringing ; and second, That the king- 
 dom begins small, and grows by degrees. 
 
 The seed-sowing includes all that is needed to 
 bring the truth to the ears of men. This pre- 
 paratory work is often difficult and tedious. In 
 many cases the unwritten tongues of barbarous 
 tribes have to be learned. In all cases, Divine 
 truth has to be taught in tongues which cannot 
 adequately express some important parts of it. A 
 footing has to be gained, by which men who cannot 
 be expected to know what disinterested kindness 
 is, and who perhaps have never seen it, but the 
 opposite, in those white men with whom they 
 have come into contact, may place confidence in 
 strangers who have neither the means to bribe nor 
 the power to awe. We should think that the 
 cases are extremely rare in which the heathen 
 mind is made to grasp eternal things at once. 
 The story of the cross sounds at first like a fable, 
 if it even engages the attention, and really gets a 
 hearing. The history of all missions bears out 
 
" CAN THESE BONES LIVE?" 63 
 
 the opinion we thus express. The rapid conquests 
 of the gospel in the apostolic age confirm it; for 
 the Jews, who were always first addressed, were a 
 people prepared for hearing. The book of the 
 Acts gives no account of missionary life among 
 such tribes as the Africans or Polynesians of the 
 present day. Neither does our opinion favour 
 that of those who hold the necessity of a civiliza- 
 tion preparatory to the gospel among modern bar- 
 barians. The gospel itself is its own best pioneer. 
 This seed-sowing is a difficult work, but it must 
 be done, and it requires time, and faith, and pa- 
 tience, and courage. 
 
 Glance now at some of the results. We point 
 to negro churches in America and the West Indies, 
 where, amid much that is imperfect, we see not a 
 little genuine Christianity. There are gold, silver, 
 and precious stones which have stood, and will 
 stand, the fire ; and " They shall be mine, saith 
 the Lord, in the day that I make up my jewels." 
 We point to South Africa, where we find no less 
 convincing proofs that men of Ethiopia have 
 indeed been converted to Christ. We find the 
 Hottentots substantially a christian race; that is, 
 with a large proportion of professing christians, 
 and a fair amount of social morality. We also 
 
64 SECTION III. 
 
 see Kafirs at the feet of the Saviour. But even 
 od the ill-famed coast of Guinea, every christian 
 mission from the Gambia to the Gaboon has some 
 genuine fruit to show. The Wesleyan mission at 
 Bathurst, on the Gambia, which has existed forty 
 years, had in 18G1 six hundred communicants, 
 consisting of liberated Africans from all parts of 
 the coast, and of those who are natives of that 
 district. At Sierra Leone,* in Liberia, at Lagos, 
 in Yoruba, at Cape Coast Castle, Old Calabar, the 
 river Cameroons, the island of Corisco, and the 
 Gaboon, there are some who seem to be converted 
 to God. We have seen some die in the faith of 
 Jesus Christ, after they had confessed Him before 
 their fellow-countrymen. We see mind after mind 
 breaking loose from the customs and superstitions 
 of their ancestors, and, with some evidence of 
 sincerity, uniting themselves to the followers of 
 Christ. We see fixed attention to the preaching 
 of the Word of God, and emotion speaking from 
 the faces of the hearers, as that Word goes home 
 to their hearts, and arouses their fears and their 
 hopes. 
 
 * Some account of missionary labour in Sierra Leone will 
 be found in a Memoir of the Rev. W. A. B. Johnson, pub- 
 lished by Seeleya. 1852. 
 
" CAN THESE BONES LIVE ?" 05 
 
 Your bird of passage, or your resident on the 
 Coast, who has not kept himself pure from the 
 vices of the heathen, may say that there is no truth 
 in all this. Your trader is not always a godly man. 
 He is not always even a moral man. He has been 
 known to make light of the Word of God. He has 
 been known, of set purpose, to use his influence 
 to make the heathen reject that Word. And yet, 
 forsooth, he is an authority on the subject of mis- 
 sionary success ! When did the devil bear true 
 witness about the brethren? These persons are 
 unfit to judge what spiritual fruit is. They are 
 not spiritual men. And, more than this, these 
 false witnesses do not take any pains to know the 
 facts. They do not attend mission -churches. 
 They do not know the language of the tribes. 
 They do not talk with them about Christianity, 
 except in blasphemy and mockery. How should 
 such witnesses be for a moment heard ? 
 
 It is true that those who come to the faith of 
 Christ are few in comparison with those who do 
 not ; but we think that they are enough to silence 
 objectors, and to uphold the faith and courage of 
 the Church of God. It will not do to say that 
 they are mere exceptions, and prove the rule that 
 the African race is hopelessly sunk, and unfit to be 
 
 1-: 
 
66 EJECTION III. 
 
 raised. Nay, but rather arc they the first fruits, 
 giving promise sure of the full harvest. To what 
 do we owe these ? Is it not to the Spirit of God 
 working by the gospel? And has not God the 
 residue of the Spirit 1 If you see a stalk of wheat 
 growing on a piece of untilled or fallow ground, 
 you gather that thousands can grow there ; and 
 that, if only that soil be ploughed and sown, its 
 fruit shall shake like Lebanon. If God has con- 
 verted one negro, can he not convert a thousand % 
 If he has converted a thousand, can he not con- 
 vert ten thousand, yea, the whole of the Ethiopian 
 race? 
 
 And will He not do so % Have we not a very 
 sure word of prophecy, to which we should take 
 heed, until the gospel day dawn in the earth's 
 dark regions % Of Ethiopia — the black -faced 
 family — it shall be said, this man was born there. 
 Nothing better, nothing greater, nothing more 
 comforting is said of Zion herself. The despised, 
 degraded, peeled, and scattered Ethiopia, is written 
 down in the list of Jehovah's favoured nations, 
 from among whom he shall gather bis children. 
 This man shall be born there. From beyond the 
 rivers of Ethiopia shall Jehovah's suppliants, the 
 daughters of his dispersed, bring his offering. Yea, 
 
"CAN THESE BONES LIVE V 67 
 
 like a little child to its mother, shall Ethiopia 
 soon stretch out her hands unto God. Bead the 
 precious oracles that abound in the Word of God, 
 from the one which foretells that in Abraham's 
 promised seed all the families of the earth shall be 
 blessed, down to the great voices that shall be 
 heard in heaven, saying, "The kingdoms of this 
 world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and 
 of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever." And 
 in these enough will be seen to make us sure of 
 harvest, even before the seed be sown ; sure of 
 victory, even before the battle be begun. We feel 
 persuaded that Africa shall be made christian, be- 
 cause it forms one of the great divisions of the 
 human family. As surely as Japheth shall be 
 beautiful with salvation, and Jehovah shall be the 
 God of Shem, so surely shall the curse be rolled 
 off from Ham, and God's black child be made 
 comely. We are sure of this, because, without it, 
 the kingdom of Christ will not be complete. If 
 what is, in an important sense, a third part of the 
 race — the descendants of one of the three post- 
 diluvian fathers — be left to Satan, how shall that 
 which is written be fulfilled ? 
 
 The ten millions of the Ethiopian race in the 
 western hemisphere have, to a wonderful extent, 
 
68 SECTION III. 
 
 submitted to the Christian religion. Many of 
 them have found it a comfort under their wrongs. 
 Oh, how encouraging to the Church of God is it to 
 see that a race sinned against by civilized, but not 
 christian men, instead of vowing eternal hate to 
 their oppressors, and counting the Christian reli- 
 gion an abomination because it is theirs, have so 
 extensively yielded to its peaceful and loving sway, 
 and learned from it to forgive their enemies ! Surely 
 such a race is not irreclaimably barbarous. Onr 
 own colonial history gives the lie to those who so 
 flippantly assert this offensive lie. The love of 
 Christ shall yet reach, and melt, and change, and 
 rule the heart of Ethiopia. The Church must not 
 be conformed to the inhumanity of the world. She 
 must stamp on that commission which, in her 
 Lord's name, and at the Spirit's command, she 
 gives to all her missionaries, this motto; — "The 
 lowest heathen is a man and brother," in spite of 
 the world's scoff at the humility of her love. Let 
 us remember the meeting of Jesus with the naked 
 demoniac. He did not loathe the poor wretch. 
 The more miserable the victim was, the greater 
 glory did He get by curing him. And when Ethi- 
 opia, throughout her wide borders, shall have cast 
 away her fetiches and all her childish and bloody 
 
" CAN THESE BONES LIVE ?" 69 
 
 superstitions, and shall be seated at the feet of 
 Jesus, beauteous with holiness, 0, will not our 
 King Messiah receive as much glory as when it 
 shall be said, "Lo these from the land of Sinim !" 
 Methinks He will rejoice more in Ethiopia than in 
 those races which have higher pretensions. Could 
 we conceive a christian heartless and thoughtless 
 enough to scorn Africa on account of her degrada- 
 tion, we would tell him to go to his closet, and not 
 leave it till he had obtained a spirit more like that 
 of his Master. 
 
 The question, "Can these bones live?" really be- 
 comes this: — Has God appointed to his Son a 
 kingdom ? Is this kingdom to be world-wide ? In 
 the following section we shall have to deal with 
 these points, and shall not here enter upon them. 
 The Bible is full of the doctrine of the kingdom. 
 The muse of prophecy opens her mouth with the 
 key-note of a song the burden of which is "the 
 kingdom;" the anthem rises and swells, till, at the 
 close, we see that kingdom triumphant, the prince 
 of this world trodden clown into hell, to dwell 
 there in eternal chains, and the Prince of Peace 
 enthroned in glory, on the right hand of the Ma- 
 jesty of Heaven, the beloved King and Saviour of 
 redeemed men, " out of every kindred, and tongue, 
 and people, and nation." 
 
SECTION IV. 
 
 THE WORK WITH WHICH THE LORD HAS CHARGED 
 HIS PEOPLE ON EARTH. 
 
 In the third section, we have seen that the Lord 
 both can and will add the heathen nations to his 
 kingdom. We shall now consider the commis- 
 sion which he gave to his Church, the work 
 which that commission pnts into her hands, and 
 the obligation which it lays on every believer to 
 spread the gospel in the world. 
 
 In saving men from their sins Christ removes 
 guilt, produces moral purity, and begets willing, 
 yea, joyful obedience to all the Divine will. 
 That believers, being justified, may be careful to 
 maintain good works, that they may be holy and 
 without blame before him in love, that they may 
 be purified unto him a people of his own, thus 
 being saved, at once, from the guilt, the defile- 
 ment, and the rule of sin, is the great end of re- 
 demption, as it respects them personally. God's 
 
TIIE.WOIIK OF THE LORD'S PEOPLE. 71 
 
 end is not gained, but by making his people a 
 Milling people, willing to obey, willing to fight, 
 willing to work. Jesus himself is, in this respect, 
 a model for his followers ; and, like the refiner of 
 silver, he sits over them, while they are in the 
 crucible on the fire of trial, until he sees his own 
 image clearly reflected from them. The manner in 
 which he has chosen to bring his people to him- 
 self is wisely fitted for the end. As his kingdom 
 in this world consists of subjects who are "a 
 chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy 
 nation, a peculiar people ; that they should show 
 forth the praises of him who hath called them 
 out of darkness into his marvellous light," so he 
 gives them a share in the work of extending the 
 kingdom. In this they are required to work 
 together with God. Now the part with which 
 they are charged is vastly important : yea, if the 
 assertion of the second section is true, viz., 'No 
 salvation for the heathen without the gospel/ this 
 part is unspeakably momentous, and the responsi- 
 bility with which it clothes christians is appalling. 
 Oh, Christians of every name and section, consider 
 this matter. In a case of this kind, were it 
 merely a cpiestion of health or of money, every 
 man would act on the maxim that it is best to 
 
i '1 i !<>>: jv. 
 
 err on the safe side, and to steer well clear of any 
 risk of mistake or neglect. Is there in the world 
 a christian that does not need to open his eyes 
 far more widely to the question of the service 
 which God's plan for setting up the kingdom of 
 heaven in all the earth, and which Christ's com- 
 mand to spread the gospel of that kingdom, re- 
 quire at his hands % 
 
 1. The work to which Christ commands the 
 strength of his people, could not be more simply 
 stated than it is in his own words : " Go ye into 
 all the world, and preach the gospel to every 
 creature." " Teach, or disciple all nations." 
 Baptize unto the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
 Ghost, those who through grace believe. 
 
 At present, many friends of missions, unthink- 
 ingly mix up other ends which are inferior with 
 that which should he the one end of our enter- 
 prise. As if the dignity and advantage of that 
 cause could he increased by putting among its 
 aims something which our blessed Lord did not 
 put there ! In other words, the interests of time 
 and self are apt to claim that which is due to the 
 kingdom of God and the spiritual interests of 
 men. Some would have it that the science and 
 commerce of maritime and manufacturing nations, 
 
THE WORK OF THE LORD'S PEOPLE. 73 
 
 such as Britain, are objects at whose furtherance 
 our missions ought to aim. The missionary should 
 foster trade, and that, as is speciously argued, for 
 the benefit of the people among whom he labours. 
 He should aid in cultivating cotton. He should 
 lead in the introduction of agriculture, and all 
 useful trades. Science also puts in its claims. 
 The missionary should turn his hand to the 
 gathering and preserving of beasts, and birds, and 
 fishes, and snakes, and beetles. And, withal, he 
 must explore, and add to the domain of geography. 
 Now, the missionary of Christianity ought not to 
 go to heathen lands for these purposes. The 
 commission which his Lord gives him includes 
 none of them. No one will, for a moment, 
 imagine that we undervalue them. They are 
 good of themselves, and the success of our enter- 
 prise will further them. Every naked barbarian 
 who is led to cover his skin becomes a new cus- 
 tomer of Liverpool and New York. In this way, 
 missions will tell more and more in favour of our 
 manufactures and commerce. At present, one 
 yard of calico makes a dress for many an African 
 female, and, perhaps, half a dozen for many boys 
 and girls, while younger children of both sexes go 
 stark naked. Two and a half yards form the full 
 
74 SECTION IV. 
 
 dress of grown men over vide regions. Chris- 
 tianity requires its children to cover themselves 
 decently; and, therefore, by promoting this de- 
 cency, it will greatly and surely benefit trade. On 
 this we need not enlarge. The gospel is the 
 great, yea, the only instrument of a true civiliza- 
 tion. When the beat lien man becomes a chris- 
 tian, he ceases to be the selfish, brutish, earthly 
 being that he was before. He follows new ways, 
 and feels new wants. The 'gospel of the king- 
 dom' furthers the interests of earth and time, 
 when the Giver of the increase makes it fruitful : 
 for the Divine bounty, which provides eternal 
 salvation, cannot be niggard of that fulness of the 
 earth which is the Lord's, and which is given to 
 Christ for his Church's sake. Our own heaven- 
 favoured country affords a fine instance of a gos- 
 pel-prospered bind. Missionaries, as educated, 
 philanthropic, and public -spirited persons, cannot 
 fail to take a deep interest in the elevation and 
 prosperity of the people among whom they labour. 
 He is a poor christian who does not wish to do 
 good, to the bodies as well as the souls of men. 
 " So soon as grace entereth into the heart, it 
 frameth the heart to be in some measure public." 
 But in so far as they make ends of these secondary 
 
THE WORK OF THE LORD'S PEOPLE. 75 
 
 things, they fall below the top of their commis- 
 sion, and are not worthy to cany it. 
 
 In some places missionaries need to be explorers. 
 But exploration by itself, or merely for the pur- 
 pose of filling up a map, can never be their end 
 or duty. The aim and motive of the Martyr of 
 Erromanga, for instance, commend themselves to 
 the christian conscience. He longed, with all the 
 earnestness of an ardent piety, to pass the boun- 
 dary of the reef of Baiatea, that he might carry 
 the gospel to the island groups around. Mr. 
 Moffat's visits to Mosilikatse, the chief of the 
 Metabili, in order to introduce the Saviour's name 
 to a new tribe, was just the kind of explora- 
 tion that is expected of christian bishops among 
 the heathen. Suppose a few of these sent to a 
 tribe on the coast of Africa. It is plainly both 
 their duty and wisdom, and the way to permanent 
 success, to bend all their energies to the establish- 
 ing of a church of Christ there. Their work 
 among that tribe is not done, unless a church is 
 gathered, fit to maintain the gospel among them- 
 selves, and to spread it around them. While 
 they are working for this end, training for service 
 those who believe, they should visit neighbouring 
 tribes, and make known their own existence, 
 
7G BEOTION IV. 
 
 work, and aims. They should preach the gospel, 
 and give out some notes of that pure language 
 which God has promised to turn to all the tribes of 
 the earth. They should repeat their visits, and 
 widen their circle. Thus, the Lord may show 
 them new centres, which, being occupied, would 
 give access to other tribes ; and they point out 
 new spheres to the homo churches, or introduce 
 into them native workers, or some of them sur- 
 render their present stations into other hands, and 
 take the advanced post. But in whatever man- 
 ner, or at whatever rate of speed, this work is 
 done, the tendency of a missionary agency, that is 
 worthy of its name and trust, is ever inward, 
 upward, forward. Now, this is the true mis- 
 sionary exploration. It may not make much 
 noise in the world, but it sows seed unto eternal 
 life. God may call a missionary to exploration of 
 a more extensive kind. And far rather would 
 we see one like Dr. Livingstone engaged in this 
 work, than those whose chief end and aim are 
 self, who have no moral earnestness, who are flip- 
 pant and contemptuous in the pictures, or rather 
 caricatures, which they give of the barbarians, 
 their travels among whom become their capital 
 for fame and place, and who have no feeling for 
 
THE WORK OF THE LOHO S PEOPLE. 77 
 
 the moral and spiritual darkness of the tribes 
 whom they visit. They may add to botany and 
 some of the ologies, and help to fill up a map, 
 but this is nearly all the good they do to any but 
 themselves. 
 
 The interests of commerce may safely be left to 
 the merchants. In many places, commerce lias 
 gone before missions. It has given the means of 
 sustaining missionaries in regions which otherwise 
 could not be so easily reached. Thus, in Divine 
 providence, the commerce of a christian land is 
 made to help the kingdom of Him to w r hom the 
 earth and its fulness belong. And has not Tie 
 made Britain and America great in ships for this 
 end ? Let our rich merchants beware of boasting 
 that the arms of their own skill and enterprise 
 have done all this. God has assuredly done it, in 
 order, among other things, to provide means and 
 afford facilities for the setting up of his kingdom. 
 But it does not follow from this that the mis- 
 sionary is to be, in any sense, an auxiliary to the 
 trader. The less the former meddles with trade, 
 directly or indirectly, the better is the latter 
 pleased. We, indeed, do pray that the day may 
 come when our trading posts in heathen places 
 shall be held by good men. Christians may w^ell 
 
78 SECTION IV. 
 
 pray that God would send out pious men to buy 
 and sell, as well as to preach the gospel. Pioufl 
 men, bred to commerce, willing to go abroad, were 
 it only to keep the lewd and wicked from hinder- 
 ing the Saviour's cause in our mission spheres, 
 would do what would make them happy in the 
 eternal retrospect. The impurity, the violence, the 
 selfishness, the dishonesty of traders from a christian 
 country, and their active opposition to the work of 
 the Most High God, are not more disgraceful to 
 themselves, and do not more surely treasure up to 
 themselves a fearful store of wrath, than they help 
 to steel the heathen against the gospel. 
 
 There is a great amount of unconfessed unbelief 
 as to the use and advantage of preaching the gospel 
 to barbarous heathens. Many consider it to be a 
 waste of toil, and energy, and wealth. They say 
 that such heathens cannot understand gospel truth 
 until they make some mental progress. Even 
 among professors of religion, yea, among the true 
 people of God, there are some who have little hope 
 of the success of our enterprise ; and, truly, it does 
 seem to be the foolishness of preaching. "Pro- 
 phesy upon these bones, and say unto thern, ye 
 dry bones, hear the word of the Lord." What is 
 more foolish or fruitless than to preach the word 
 
THE WORK OF THE LORD'S PEOPLE. 79 
 
 of God, or any word whatever, to dry bones ? Of 
 what use is it to bid them hear 1 But this is just 
 that foolishness of God that is wiser than men, and 
 that weakness of God that is stronger than men. 
 The wisdom of men says, Let commerce and the 
 arts go before to break up the soil and prepare the 
 heathen for receiving the gospel. The wisdom of 
 God says, " Son of man, prophesy upon these 
 bones." The Divine Word reveals the unseen and 
 the spiritual — things of such surpassing interest 
 and importance as make it a most fitting instru- 
 ment for moving men. These unseen and eternal 
 realities, when fully apprehended, as, by God's 
 teaching, they may by the poorest human intellect, 
 cannot fail to melt and change. Poor, half-witted 
 Joseph, who heard Dr. Calamy preach that there 
 is salvation for the chief of sinners, apprehended 
 the very heart and soul of the gospel, when he 
 reasoned thus with himself, as he trudged along : 
 — " Christ Jesus, the God who made all things, 
 came into the world to save sinners like Joseph ; 
 and this is true, for it is a faithful saying. And 
 why may not poor Joseph be saved ?" The Word 
 of God is a lamp — a fire — a hammer — a sword 
 fashioned and handled by the Holy Spirit. It is 
 the seed by which God's children are born into his 
 
80 BECTION IV. 
 
 family. All these are Scripture figures, and they 
 teach us that this Word is fitted as an instrument, 
 in the hand of the Spirit, to turn men " from 
 darkness to light, and from the power of Satan 
 unto God," to destroy man's enmity to God, and 
 to bring him into a new world and a new life. 
 ( )n this it is not necessary to enlarge. "We assure 
 the people of God who have not had personal 
 knowledge of heathens, that the gospel of Christ 
 is as suited to men abroad as to men at home. 
 There is no argument against its fitness as preached 
 to barbarians, that may not be brought against it 
 as preached to the civilized. At the same time, to 
 obey the command and prophesy upon these bones, 
 saying, " ye dry bones, hear the word of 
 Jehovah," requires the highest style of faith, that, 
 namely, which asks no questions but this one — 
 What docs our Divine Master order us, his ser- 
 vants, to do 1 and then runs to do it, leaving the 
 results in his hand, knowing that, as he is perfect 
 wisdom and perfect prudence, he can send us on 
 no bootless or vain emprise. 
 
 But the rock of our missionary strength lies in 
 this, that the power of the Word of God is the 
 power of God's own Spirit. When the gospel 
 comes in the demonstration of the Spirit, it comes 
 
THE WORK OF THE LORD'S PEOPLE. 81 
 
 With power, and the darkest become light, and the 
 most stubborn become willingness itself. Even 
 enlightened men fail to receive the gospel, or to 
 realize and receive the Saviour and the life eternal 
 that is in him, unless the Holy Ghost take the 
 word into his hand, and come into the heart, and, 
 by means of it, fill the soul with light. Is it not 
 in this way that the polished and the learned are 
 Saved ? Is it not thus also that the poor, the 
 ignorant, and the vicious are converted? Who 
 that considers himself a christian indeed, became 
 one otherwise ? That power which called cosmos 
 out of chaos, and raised Jesus Christ from the dead, 
 and set him at God's right hand, can also make 
 any number of heathens living believers in Jesus. 
 There can, indeed, be no spiritual breath in a 
 human soul, unless God's breath breathe in it, 
 but that breath can come with all the fulness and 
 force of the winds of heaven, and put life into as 
 many as he pleases. He that commanded the pro- 
 phet to " say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God, 
 Come from the four winds, breath, and breathe 
 upon] these slain, that they may live," — he also 
 promises to put his Spirit into his people, and to 
 give him to those that ask. Here, then, is our 
 only encouragement while we carry the gospel into 
 
82 SECTION IV. 
 
 the heathen wild. While we preach it to the 
 bones, Ave expect the coming of the breath. If 
 that come not, our preaching will be vain; when it 
 comes, these slain shall live. 
 
 The great end of missions to the heathen is the 
 setting up of the kingdom of God in the earth. 
 In other words, it is the fulfilling of the condi- 
 tions necessary for an answer to the prayer, " Thy 
 kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it 
 is in heaven." The glory of God and of the Lamb 
 is the end of our enterprise. That the Lord may 
 see of the travail of his soul, do some of his people, 
 at his command, go forth with the lamp of life 
 into the dark places of the earth. This kingdom 
 is set up by the renewing of souls. Every one 
 who is born of the Spirit, who is saved by the 
 washing of regeneration, becomes a subject of that 
 kingdom, enjoys its safety, and shares in its honours. 
 When the bulk of mankind shall become thus 
 truly christian, and "the dominion and the king- 
 dom under heaven shall be given to the people of 
 the saints of the Most High," when this true fifth 
 monarchy shall be established, then, and not till 
 then, shall the kingdoms of this world become the 
 kingdoms of our Lord and of his ( Jhrist. God has 
 appointed this result to be secured by the Holy 
 
THE WORK OF THE LORIES PEOPLE. 83 
 
 Spirit ; and the sword which the Spirit uses is the 
 "word of the truth of the gospel." And the 
 agency by which God has appointed that gospel 
 to be preached is that of saved sinners, who, them- 
 selves knowing it, speak because they believe. 
 Jesus Christ did not commission angels to this 
 work, as he might have done, but to his genuine 
 friends, he says : " Go ye." It is, therefore, a 
 settled point with us, first, That the kingdom for 
 whose coming Christ has taught us to pray, is to 
 be established through the preaching of the gospel 
 of it. And, second, That it will not be set up 
 otherwise. Depend upon it, since the King him- 
 self has made this arrangement, it is perfectly 
 fitted to secure the end. The weapons of our war- 
 fare, although so different from those by which the 
 kingdoms of this world are set up, are, neverthe- 
 less, mighty, because they are "mighty through 
 God." 
 
 The work to which our Divine Master thus 
 commands the strength of his Church, is as definite 
 and comprehensible, yea, as rational and hopeful, 
 •as it is noble and godlike. To exalt Jesus to his 
 rightful throne over all the tribes of men, to over- 
 .urn all the idolatries and superstitions in the 
 •vorld, and to establish the kingdom of peace on 
 
84 SECTION IV. 
 
 their ruins; in other words, to lead all the fami- 
 lies of the earth to the obedience of the gospel, 
 thus, at once, and by the same means, bringing 
 glory to God in the highest, and doing the best 
 good to men, is, surely, of all objects most worthy 
 of the strength and riches of the Church of God. 
 This enterprise is the cream of all benevolent 
 enterprises ; and those who do most to further it 
 are the best friends of their fellow-men. What 
 enterprise is to be named along with that in which 
 incarnate God is the leader ? It is an enterprise 
 of conquest, and the victory is sure ! Our warfare 
 is with the devil and his works, to destroy him 
 and them. Our weapons are not those of earth's 
 bloody warfare. Our captain forbids even a staff; 
 and the only arm he gives us is the salutation of 
 peace the gospel of his love. And we are to go 
 forth, whether into the irreligious homes of our 
 own land, or into the wilds of Africa, with this 
 one thing : "Hear ye this word of God !" And 
 he who gives us this commission, gives us also the 
 promise : " Lo, I am with you always, even unto 
 the end of the world." He also promises that 
 " He shall come down like rain upon the mown 
 grass ; as showers that water the earth." Thus 
 beautifully are both the promise and its effects 
 
THE WORK OF THE LORD S PEOPLE. 85 
 
 expressed : " For I will pour water upon hirn that 
 is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground : I will 
 pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing 
 upon thine offspring: and they shall spring up as 
 among the grass, as willows by the water-courses. 
 One shall say, I am the Lord's ; and another shall 
 call himself by the name of Jacob ; and another 
 shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord, and 
 surname himself by the name of Israel." It is 
 said that water is the only thing needed to turn 
 the great African Sahara into fruitfnlness. Wher- 
 ever it wells up through the soil, we see the green 
 oasis amid surrounding wastes. And we know 
 also that it needs only the Divine Spirit, to make 
 the moral deserts of our world possess not merely 
 their little islands of beauty, but, throughout their 
 wide extent, to blossom abundantly and rejoice 
 with joy and singing. Believers in the Word of 
 God ! Believe ye the truth of our great commis- 
 sion ! Believe in the almightiness of the Divine 
 Spirit ! Believe in the existence of the Divine 
 love ! Believe in the suitableness of the gospel 
 of Christ, as the instrument for setting up his 
 kingdom. 
 
 Some christians read the prophecies of his com- 
 ing as if they assured us of a premillennial advent. 
 
8G SECTION VI. 
 
 And looking on the power of Satan's kingdom, 
 and the slow progress of Christ's, they scarcely 
 hope this shall be set up, and that overthrown, 
 everywhere, by the present means. As our object 
 is to call out the strength of the Lord's people to 
 missions (at which the various denominations are 
 still but playing), we shun dispute. We presume 
 all agree that, before the expected and desired 
 coming, the gospel has to be preached among all 
 the nations. We dare not trifle with work plainly 
 marked out, and commanded with all the authority 
 of Him who is our Master. We are not required 
 to convert the nations, but to " teach" them. Con- 
 version is God's work. Ours is the sowing and 
 watering of the seed. His is the giving of the 
 increase. With our practical and most urgent 
 object in view — that of summoning, in our blessed 
 Master's name, far more of the sons and daughters 
 of the Church to the help of the Lord against the 
 mighty, and demanding far more of her silver and 
 her gold, and of her fervent and effectual prayers — 
 we feel that to discuss the question between pre- 
 millennarians and others would be arrant trilling. 
 God's purpose is not our rule of action. We must 
 obey his command. Is there not vastly too much 
 controversy, and vastly too little work? Ho\^ 
 
THE WORK OF THE LORD'S PEOPLE. 87 
 
 slowly would masons build a house, if they dis- 
 puted as much about it as do the builders of God's 
 house ! Alas, that the dust and the din should be 
 those of strife as to who knows best, rather than 
 of earnest labour and generous sacrifice in order to 
 have the temple soon and firmly built ! 
 
 Were our missionary agencies to profess that 
 one of their prime objects is the material develop- 
 ment of uncivilized regions, they might thereby, 
 to a greater extent, enlist the aid of some who do 
 not feel the higher motives of the christian. But 
 distant be the day when these agencies shall set 
 before themselves such an object. The enterprise 
 would likely end in disaster and defeat. The 
 church, in doing her gospel work, must, as the 
 individual with reference to himself, "seek first 
 the kingdom of God." Depend upon it, that 
 material advantages, such as the increase of com- 
 merce, the growth of industry, and all else that is 
 good for time, will follow. In this, too, will it 
 be seen that " godliness is profitable unto all 
 things, having promise of the life that now is, and 
 of that which is to come." Into the commission 
 we must not put anything that the Lord himself 
 has not put. The more spiritually-minded the 
 missionary is the better. The necessary secular 
 
88 SECTION IV. 
 
 work about a mission among heathens is always 
 more than is desirable. More than is nee 
 should not be asked, and more should not be ex* 
 pected. While the Church confines herself to the 
 preaching of the gospel, if philanthropists see that 
 they can advance the temporal welfare of the 
 heathen, and thus benefit trade, and are willing to 
 face the necessary toil and sacrifice, under the 
 impulse of their lower motive, their co-operation 
 will be hailed, and they will get their reward. 
 But the missionary must not be burdened, and he 
 is foolish if he burden himself, with responsibilities 
 which do not naturally arise out of his marching 
 orders. 
 
 "We are not afraid that these remarks will be 
 either misread or misrepresented. A zealous mis- 
 sionary is ever ready to help the objects referred 
 to. But we notice a tendency in some friends of 
 missions in these days, to dwell upon secondary 
 aims, and to attach undue importance to merely 
 philanthropic influences, as having a great power 
 to lead the heathen to receive the truth. Against 
 this we warn christians, who know that the king- 
 dom of Christ can be set up only in his own way. 
 Let them guard against the secularization of mis- 
 sions. The messenger of the churches should be 
 
THE WORK OF THE LORD'S PEOPLE. 80 
 
 Bent out charged with nothing but to preach the 
 Cross. He should receive no charge whatsoever 
 beyond the ministry of the gospel. At the ordi- 
 nation of one of the earliest mission bands that 
 went from this country, the venerable Dr. Waugh 
 of London presented each of them with a Bible, 
 and counselled them in these terms : — " If ever 
 your arms weary, let it be in knocking at the doors 
 of sinners for admission to the Lord ; and if ever 
 your tongues cleave to the roof of your mouths, 
 let it be in telling the story of his love." 
 
 It is worthy of notice that the commission 
 requires nothing beyond what man can do. 
 "Preach!" "Teach!" " Be witnesses !" "Declare 
 the tidings !" " Tell the news !" Jesus did not bid 
 them, he bids not us, renew or convert, for that, 
 as already said, is God's work. Men's converts 
 can be only "wood, hay, stubble." God's converts 
 are the " gold, silver, and jewels," whom he shall 
 own as his, who shall stand the fire, and be purified, 
 not destroyed by it. This is, no doubt, the creed 
 of all evangelical churches, but it is not always the 
 working faith of their members. The preacher 
 must preach the gospel well, giving a full, correct, 
 and orderly statement of its facts. For this, too, 
 he needs help from above. Let him "preach the 
 
90 SECTION TV. 
 
 word ; be instant in season, out of season ; reprove^ 
 rebuke, extort, with all long-suffering and doc- 
 trine." But lie can do nothing more, beyond 
 showing by a holy life that he himself believes 
 what lie speaks. Let there be as little as possible 
 of what is wrong about him, as insincerity, impru- 
 dence, or want of earnestness. But with all this, 
 and all this in the highest degree, the power must 
 come from above, or no good results will follow. 
 Sowing, watering, and reaping sum up the agent's 
 work. All the intermediate unseen processes, 
 which end in growth, fruitfulness, and maturity, 
 are due to direct Divine power. 
 
 II. Such being the work, viz., to establish that 
 kingdom which is not of, although in, this world, 
 by preaching the good news respecting it, let each 
 christian reader distinctly notice that this work is 
 not finished, until every creature shall have heard 
 the gospel. This could not be made clearer than 
 it is in the simple words of the command itself. 
 The doctrine of the second section being true, viz., 
 'No salvation for the heathen without the gospel,' 
 how reasonable, how urgent is this view! If every 
 creature is perishing for lack of the knowledge of 
 God, what more natural than that the Lord should 
 
THE WORK OF THE LORD'S PEOPLE. 91 
 
 have said, should still say, to his people, "Haste ye ! 
 preach the gospel to every soul of them." 
 
 We thus summon the reader's attention to the 
 world-wide character of the Church's work. The 
 scriptures teach that the kingdom of Christ 
 shall have no limits but the world's ends ; and as 
 the preaching of the " glad tidings of that king- 
 dom " is the w r ay in which it is to be established 
 everywhere, it is plain, from the nature of the case, 
 not less than from the Lord's express command, 
 that the gospel should be preached to every crea- 
 ture. that by the perusal of these pages, and 
 by his own God-directed meditations on the matters 
 thus brought before him, the reader may be made 
 to feel deeply that he is bound to go out of him- 
 self in self-denying efforts to scatter the seed of 
 the gospel abroad on the face of the earth. 
 
 We shall endeavour briefly to set forth the 
 scriptural grounds on which the kingdom of Christ, 
 and the preaching of the gospel by the Church, are 
 to be regarded as having a world-wide aspect. 
 
 1. The "Great Commission" first suggests itself 
 to our thoughts. It came from the Lord's own 
 lips. Every child knows and understands it. 
 " Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel 
 to every creature." " Go ye and teach all nations, 
 
92 SECTION IV. 
 
 baptizing tliem in the name of the Father, and 
 of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching 
 them to observe all things whatsoever I have 
 commanded yon." " Ye shall be witnesses unto 
 me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and 
 in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the 
 earth." "Repentance and remission of sins should 
 be preached in his name among all nations, begin- 
 ning at Jerusalem." Do not these words mark 
 out the whole earth as the field 1 And do they 
 not make it the duty of the Church of Jesus Christ 
 to lay the map of the world on her table, to study 
 the details of her campaign, to view the vast ex- 
 tent of work to be done, and of conquest to be 
 achieved, and to confess that while there remains 
 one creature to whom she has not preached the 
 word of life, her work is unfinished 1 There is no 
 kind of limit or exception to this commission, 
 which warrants the Church to pass by any of the 
 tribes of men, or allows her to put off the effort to 
 evangelize them. Every creature needing the 
 Saviour should be told about Him without delay. 
 None of those distinctions which some make be- 
 tween one race and another, is even hinted at in the 
 most distant manner. The despised negro is not 
 excepted, nor the cannibal Fijian, nor even the 
 
THE WORK OF THE LORD'S PEOPLE. 93 
 
 lowest Esquimaux. God "hath made of one blood 
 all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of 
 the earth." It would indeed be a shame were the 
 followers of Christ to be conformed to the world's 
 inhumanity. The sentiments cherished by many 
 towards those who are called barbarians and 
 savages, are most barbarous and savage, and show 
 how fearfully alike all men are in their passions 
 and affections. We do not say that the worst 
 charges brought against heathens are untrue. 
 We, who live among them, know how bad they 
 are, and how barren of goodness ; and w T e do not 
 wonder that the tender mercies of the selfish world 
 are cruel to those who have so little to attract and 
 so much to repel, and who have neither the skill, 
 the courage, nor the power to hold their own against 
 our aggressions. But, surely, we may appeal to 
 those who profess to be like Jesus, and beseech 
 them by his tenderness to put on bowels and 
 mercies towards those whom the selfishness of 
 civilized, but not christian, men dooms to extirpa- 
 tion, like the tiger and the wolf. Be ye like Jesus, 
 who was the companion rather of publicans and 
 sinners, than of proud pharisees, who despised, 
 and hated, and doomed, and cursed those whom 
 he took to his heart, and melted by his love ! Those 
 
94 SECTION IV. 
 
 who think that God has as little regard, and as 
 much dislike, to barbarians, as they have, do 
 greatly err. His thoughts, in this respect, are 
 vastly unlike theirs. They forget that the grace, 
 wisdom, and power of God our Saviour are all the 
 more magnified, the more sunken and worthless 
 the objects of tliem are. When Ethiopia's children 
 arc brought into the kingdom, and become a chris- 
 tian race, and are freed from all that now renders 
 them the world's scorn, what glory will it bring 
 to Ghrist ! Look at the saved and weeping Mag- 
 dalene ! Having been forgiven much, she loves 
 much, and much she glorifies and gratifies her 
 Saviour. It was she out of whom he cast the 
 seven devils, whose name he first uttered at his 
 grave's mouth, on that ever memorable first-day 
 morning. Is it not to meet the world's contempt 
 of Ham, that God has put him down on the list 
 of His favoured nations % Shem and Japheth got 
 their blessing through Noah's lips ; Ham, his 
 curse. But Ham's time comes, and his curse shall 
 be rolled off: "Behold Philistia, and Tyre, with 
 Ethiopia: this man was born there." "Ethiopia 
 shall soon stretch out her hands to ( rod." Let us, 
 we repeat, keep before us the map of the world, 
 and so divide our forces as the best and soonesl to 
 
THE WORK OF THE LORD'S PEOPLE. 95 
 
 "bring "the gospel of the kingdom" to the ears of 
 every creature. This is manifestly our duty as 
 commanded by our Lord himself. 
 
 2. While the Lord commands his people to 
 preach the gospel of the kingdom, he also teaches 
 us to pray that the kingdom may come. And see 
 how the petitions run. "Thy will be done on 
 earth, as it is done in heaven." How is it done 
 in heaven 1 ISTeed we answer the question 1 Ye 
 holy angels, and ye redeemed sinners, washed in 
 the Lamb's blood, how T do ye the will of the Father ? 
 When Jesus makes heaven the model for earth, 
 need we say that the Holy Father, as he searches 
 every heart in that holy place, sees nothing wrong 1 
 On earth none does good ; in heaven none does 
 wrong. 
 
 Seeing that Jesus bids his people pray for the 
 setting up of his kingdom in the earth, in the con- 
 version of men from sin to God, does it not follow^ 
 that he intends to do all this 1 Should we have 
 been taught thus to pray, were it for an object not 
 embraced in the Divine purpose ? In these simple 
 petitions we have abundant foundation for our 
 faith in the success of our foreign missionary en- 
 terprise. By putting these petitions at the begin- 
 ning of this prayer, our Lord shewed what lay 
 
96 SECTION IV. 
 
 nearest to his heart. Ah, Christians, does it lie 
 nearest to ours ? The farther it is from our hearts, 
 the less like are we to him. We may learn from 
 this prayer that the spreading of the gospel is the 
 first duty of christians. Being in the kingdom 
 ourselves, no object should so engage us as the 
 bringing of others iuto it. Thus run the command 
 and the prayer. 
 
 3. Look at this matter in the light of prophecy. 
 This also shows that our blessed Lord intends no 
 limit to his kingdom but the ends of the earth. 
 It would be a delightful task to gather these pre- 
 dictions together : for the christian should dwell 
 on them as the miser gloats over his gold. They 
 should delight the believer more than a mass of 
 jewels and pearls delights the vain heart. When 
 we are speaking of unfulfilled prophecy, we 
 should speak modestly, remembering that, in order 
 to explain it all, and tell the exact how and 
 when, we must be inspired prophets ourselves. 
 Humbly studying these oracles, however, we shall 
 find in them enough that is intelligible, and fitted 
 to strengthen our faith, enliven our hope, elevate 
 our motives, and quicken our desires for the fulfil- 
 ment of the prayer, " Thy kingdom come." 
 
 We cannot be sure that when the knowledge of 
 
THE WORK OF THE LORD'S PEOrLE. 97 
 
 the Lord is most widely extended, every human 
 being will be a christian. But yet the Saviour's 
 kingdom shall displace that of Satan. There may 
 remain unbelievers at the time when the know- 
 ledge of Jehovah's glory shall fill the earth. But 
 yet Jesus shall be owned in every land as King of 
 hearts and Saviour of souls, and his dominion shall 
 be acknowledged by every nation, if not by every 
 individual. Blessed be God for this more sure 
 word of prophecy, in which he tells us that these 
 dry bones shall live, because he shall make them 
 to live. Christians should often read and ponder 
 the many and precious oracles that abound in the 
 Word of God, from the time when it w T as foretold 
 that in Abraham's promised seed, all the families 
 of the earth should be blessed, down to the great 
 voices in heaven, saying: "The kingdoms of this 
 world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and 
 of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever." For 
 in these we shall see enough to make us sure of 
 harvest, even before we sow the seed, and of victory 
 even before the battle is begun. In these we find 
 a true rock of missionary strength : for if God will 
 indeed put life into souls by his Word, then his 
 people may labour along with him hopefully doing 
 
 G 
 
98 SECTION IV. 
 
 their Work, and leaving it to him to give the 
 increase. 
 
 Look now at some of these oracles. The whole 
 of the 2d Psalm foretells the vanity of the attempts 
 made by earth and hell to hinder .Messiah from 
 becoming king of all the earth. " Ask of me, and 
 I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, 
 and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy posses- 
 sion." Dominion over all men could not be more 
 plainly promised to the Prince of Peace than in 
 these words. This is promised to Him of whom 
 Jehovah said : " Yet have I set my king upon my 
 holy hill of Zion." Jehovah also said to David's 
 Lord and Son : — " Sit thou at my right hand, until 
 I make thine enemies thy footstool." And the 
 same Spirit (1 Cor. xv. 25) repeats the promise : 
 " For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies 
 under his feet." The 22d Psalm pictures Jesus in 
 the midst of his sufferings on the cross. There 
 does he scan the glorious future. " I will declare 
 thy name unto my brethren. The kingdom is 
 Jehovah's. A seed shall serve him. All the ends 
 of the world shall remember and turn unto Jeho- 
 vah: and all the kindreds of the nations shall 
 worship before thee." This oracle is as plain to be 
 understood as it is sublime and godlike. The 
 
THE WORK OF THE LORD'S PEOPLE. 99 
 
 whole race shall, at last, submit to Jesus as their 
 king. 
 
 When we want a hymn in which to give words 
 to our missionary aspirations, do we not almost 
 instinctively turn to the 67th Psalm ? " God be 
 merciful unto us, and bless us, and cause his face 
 to shine upon us. That thy way may be known, 
 upon earth, thy saving health among all nations. 
 God shall bless us; and all the ends of the earth 
 shall fear him." 
 
 In the 72d Psalm, it is the greater than Solo- 
 mon, of whose righteous reign we read. Who 
 can fail to see the Lord our Saviour in that inspired 
 burst of prophetic poetry and music 1 How could 
 universal empire be more plainly foretold ? " He 
 shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from 
 the river unto the ends of the earth. They that 
 dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him. 
 The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring 
 presents : the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer 
 gifts. Yea, all kings shall fall down before him : 
 all nations shall serve him. All nations shall call 
 him blessed. And the whole earth shall be filled 
 with his glory." The Saviour's kingdom is here 
 universal ; its limits are the ends of the earth; its 
 blessings righteousness and peace. 
 
100 SECTION IV. 
 
 Says Messiah (Psalm xviii. 43): "Thou hast 
 made me the head of the heathen : a people whom 
 I have not known shall serve me." "The Lord 
 will famish all the gods of the earth ; and men 
 shall worship him, every one from Lis place, even 
 all the isles of the heathen." (Zcph. ii. 11). 
 
 The latter part of the book of Isaiah is full of 
 oracles concerning the future glory of the Saviour's 
 church. That these oracles refer to the New Tes- 
 tament kingdom of God is unquestionable. The 
 devout mind conies to this conclusion almost in- 
 stinctively. The sufferings of Messiah open the 
 way for the Spirit's forthcoming to set up that 
 kingdom. "Behold my servant; he shall briug 
 forth judgment to the Gentiles. I, Jehovah, will 
 give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light 
 of the Gentiles." " I will bring thy seed from the 
 east, and gather thee from the west ; I will say to 
 the north, Give up ; and to the south, Keep not 
 back : bring my sons from far, and my daughters 
 from the ends of the earth."* " For thou shalt 
 break forth on the right hand and on the left ; and 
 thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the 
 desolate cities to be inhabited." t "So shall they 
 fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his 
 * Is. xlii., xliii. 6. f Is. liv.3. 
 
THE WORK OF THE LORD'S PEOPLE. 101 
 
 glory from the rising of the sun."* "And the 
 Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the 
 brightness of thy rising. Lift up thine eyes round 
 about, and see; all they gather themselves together 
 they come to thee : thy sons shall come from far, 
 and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side. 
 Then thou shalt see, and flow together, and thine 
 heart shall fear, and be enlarged; because the 
 abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, 
 the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee. 
 "Who are these 1 As a cloud they fly, and as the doves 
 to their windows ? Surely the isles shall wait for 
 me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy 
 sons from far." t " For thus saith the Lord, Be- 
 hold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and 
 the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream. 
 It shall come that I will gather all nations and 
 tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory. 
 And it shall come to pass, that from one new-moon 
 to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall 
 all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord. "J 
 In the 7th chapter of Daniel we have one of 
 the wondrous visions with wdiich that prophet was 
 favoured — "I saw in the night-visions, and, behold, 
 one like the Son of man came with the clouds of 
 • Is. lix. 19. f Is. lx. 3-5, 8, 9. J Is. lxvi. 12, 18, 23. 
 
102 SECTION IV. 
 
 heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they 
 brought him near before him. And there was 
 given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, 
 that all people, nations, and languages, should 
 serve him : his dominion is an everlasting dominion, 
 which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that 
 which shall not be destroyed." The scene is the 
 ascension of the Lord Jesus, after finishing his 
 work. We behold this King of Glory coming in, 
 this victor from a fight on which the salvation of 
 millions was staked, approaching the Father to 
 receive the glory which his pain had purchased. 
 Heaven's arches ring with his honoured name. 
 Holy angels join their songs with those of sinners 
 who had been saved in the centuries before his 
 coming, through God's forbearance. " Ought not 
 Christ to have suffered these things, and to 
 enter into his glory?" In the 2d chapter of the 
 epistle to the Philippians, we have an inspired 
 comment on Daniel : — " Wherefore God also hath 
 highly exalted him, and given him a name which 
 is above every name : that at the name of Jesus 
 every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and 
 things in earth, and things under the earth ; and 
 that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ 
 is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." 
 
THE WORK OF TIIE LORD'S PEOPLE. 103 
 
 But it is by means of his people that Jesus 
 shall reign on the earth. "The saints of the 
 most High shall take the kingdom, and possess 
 the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever. 
 And the kingdom and dominion, and the great- 
 ness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, 
 shall be given to the people of the saints of the 
 most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting 
 kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey 
 him." Dan. vii. 18, 27. 
 
 These are a few of the Divine oracles which 
 respect the kingdom of God, shewing it to be his 
 intention to make that kingdom commensurate 
 with the race of man on earth. Satan's kingdom 
 has been universal, and is so still, with the excep- 
 tion of those who have been translated out of it 
 into the kingdom of God's dear Son. And shall 
 the kingdom of Christ be less extensive than that 
 of his fallen foe 1 less than the one He came to 
 overthrow 1 The devil offered all to him, if he 
 would only take it as a gift from a lord superior. 
 Nay, Satan, that was not the way. By dying he 
 was to destroy thee and thy kingdom of death. 
 He was not to receive the kingdoms of this world 
 from thee as an over-lord, and on bended knee to 
 pay thee homage for the gift. He came to bruise 
 
10 i SECTION IV. 
 
 thy head, and break thy arm, and deliver those 
 whom his Father gave him, out of thy hands j 
 and, in spite of thee, give to them eternal life. 
 Thy throne he was to hurl, and shall yet hurl, 
 with thee into the blaekness of darkness, and in 
 this apostate world, ruined by thee, saved by him, 
 shall he yet possess a throne of universal empire. 
 Thus shall King Jesus triumph gloriously. 
 But his conquests shall widely differ from those 
 of a Cassar. He overcomes by changing the 
 hearts of Satan's subjects. He shows them his 
 hands and his feet, and they cry out, " My Lord 
 and my God." His love melts them into friends ; 
 and the more he shows it to them, the more 
 power he gets over them, till, for his sake, they 
 become willing to embrace the stake, and pant to 
 be baptized with blood. What a triumph is this ! 
 The annals of earthly wars show nothing like it. 
 It is only like God ! The world subdued, from 
 embittered and settled hate, by love, and grace, 
 and light ! Who would not desire to see this 
 kingdom spreading far and wide, its banners 
 planted on every shore, and its armies penetrating 
 into every land 1 We cling to the hope, we live 
 in the faith, that it shall be so : and our warrant 
 is the sure promise of him who calls things that 
 
TI7E WORK OF THE LORD'S PEOPLE. 105 
 
 are not as though they were, and speaks of his 
 purposes as accomplished facts. We commend 
 these oracles to the believing reader who rever- 
 ences the word of the Lord, and we ask for them 
 a frequent and devout perusal and study. 
 
 4. Further proofs of the fact that God means 
 to make the Saviour's kingdom universal, are 
 found in the actings of the apostles. These 
 "Acts " show the sense in which they understood 
 their Lord's commission. " Begin at Jerusalem," 
 was the command — "Begin at Jerusalem, and 
 preach the gospel to every creature." When the 
 Holy Ghost wa>: poured out, and both made the 
 ajjostles understand their work, and fitted them 
 for doirig it, how did they act ? They literally 
 bewail at Jerusalem, and in defiance of deadly 
 threats, in spite of magisterial prohibitions, at the 
 peril of life, they testified of Jesus. In many cities 
 of the Eoman Empire there were Jewish commu- 
 nities, who were allowed by special decrees to 
 worship the true God according to the Scriptures. 
 They used to meet, on the Sabbath day, to pray, 
 and to read and expound the law and the pro- 
 phets. And thus, wherever the preachers of the 
 gospel went, they found some to whom it could 
 at once be preached, who were in a manner pre- 
 
10G SECTION IV. 
 
 pared to understand it, and to see the force of 
 the evidence for its truth. But to the most of 
 these Jews the preaching of the cross was a 
 stumbling-block. 
 
 The Lord forewarned the Jews that the king- 
 dom of God should be taken from them, and 
 given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. 
 And in the narrative of the first missionary tour 
 (Acts xiii.) we see this carried into effect. 
 
 First of all the apostles, Peter was taught that 
 God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation 
 the man who fears God, and works righteousness, 
 is accepted of him. And his Jewish dislike of 
 the Gentiles being thus removed, he, at the 
 Spirit's command, opened to them the door of 
 faith, in the house of Cornelius. But it is in the 
 history of Paul that the w r orld-wide aspect of the 
 ancient oracles and of the great commission is 
 most manifest. To Ananias the Lord said : "Go 
 thy way : for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to 
 bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and 
 the children of Israel." And Paul himself de- 
 clared before Agrippa that the Lord Jesus had 
 sent him to the Gentiles. How then did lie act 1 
 He began where the Lord had found him, and 
 " shewed first unto them of Damascus, and at 
 
THE WORK OP THE LORD'S PEOPLE. 107 
 
 Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judea, 
 and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent 
 and turn to God." The Holy Ghost sent Paul 
 and Barnabas from Antioch in Syria on a mis- 
 sionary tour, in which they first addressed the 
 Jews in foreign parts. But when these rejected 
 the gospel, the apostles turned to the Gentiles, 
 taking as their warrant the ancient oracle : "For 
 so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have 
 set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou 
 shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the 
 earth." 
 
 The words of the apostle James, on an occasion 
 which arose out of the prejudices of Jewish con- 
 verts, also show how the world-wide aspect of the 
 kingdom of heaven had been apprehended by his 
 divinely enlightened mind : " Simeon hath de- 
 clared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, 
 to take out of them a people for his name. And 
 to this agree the words of the prophets ; as it is 
 written, After this I will return, and will build 
 again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen 
 down ; and I will build again the ruins thereof, 
 and I will set it up, that the residue of men 
 might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, 
 
108 SECTION IV. 
 
 upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, 
 who doeth all these things." (Acts xv. 14-17.) 
 
 And still, as the enterprise goes on, the mind 
 of God becomes more clearly manifest. Paul and 
 his fellow missionaries were forbidden of the 
 Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia. They 
 were not suffered to go into Bithynia. And, at 
 length, " a vision appeared unto Paul in the night : 
 there stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed 
 him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help 
 us." In the principal cities of Asia Minor the 
 gospel had been preached already, and churches 
 Lad been formed, which were able both to edify 
 themselves, and to sound out the gospel to those 
 around. But beyond that narrow strait lay 
 Europe all dark and dead, a portion of Satin's 
 kingdom which Paul must go and claim for 
 Christ. With eager steps this noble proto-mis- 
 sionary set out on his errand of mercy, lie 
 strove to preach the gospel, not where Christ was 
 named, so that it was fully heard from Jerusalem 
 and round about unto Illyricum. Moved by 
 gratitude, and constrained by love, glorying in 
 the cross of Jesus Christ, and pitying his fellow 
 sinners who are perishing, he counts himself a 
 debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians ; 
 
TIIE WORK OF TITE LORD'S PEOPLE. 109 
 
 both to the wise and to the unwise. As the circle 
 of light widens, a wider circumference of darkness 
 lies around him. He longs to reach Rome, but 
 only that, having comforted the saints there, and 
 been refreshed, he may pass westward to Spain. 
 His ambition to preach Christ is as high as his 
 mission is extensive. 
 
 Thus did love to Jesus — love rendered intelli- 
 gent by the Holy Ghost — interpret and obey the 
 great commission. It saw how natural and how 
 rational were that commission, and the order 
 which it laid down. Begin at Jerusalem, at the 
 foot of the cross, at the door of the tomb. Preach 
 the gospel to Jerusalem sinners. But stop at no 
 point short of the ends of the world. If we do 
 as these first missionaries did, we shall be right. 
 They left the Jew to hate, and the Greek to scoff. 
 " Hinder us not. We have a great work to do. 
 The king's business requireth haste." And the 
 chief answer they gave to either scoffers or perse- 
 cutors, was to go back from their prison to their 
 preaching. These, Christians, are our exemplars, 
 in whom w r e see a bright image of our Lord. 
 They, Spirit-led, walked in the true path of gospel 
 obedience ; and only when we follow them, as 
 they followed Christ, can we regard ourselves as 
 
110 SECTION IV. 
 
 partakers of their precious faith, and heirs of 
 their immortal crown. Is there a true christian, 
 who, after an honest examination of this great 
 question, can say that he does not believe this ex- 
 position of the Church's work and of the field of 
 operation to be the true one 1 
 
 The cause we thus plead, therefore, is not 
 merely a thing of philanthropy. A strong case 
 might be made out on that ground alone. Chris- 
 tians ought to pity miserable men in the dark places 
 of the earth. But it is not so much beside the 
 wretched heathen, the rude and wicked creature, 
 whom the devil, and long ages of the reign of 
 darkness, have embruted and debased — it is not 
 beside his dark death-bed, amid his beastly revels, 
 or in his wretched hut, that we take our stand. 
 But higher up, yea, beside the throne of our Lord 
 and Master, and bid christians look at our enter- 
 prise as for his glory, as the carrying out of the 
 very work which his death began, and which, 
 steadily advancing in its path of light through 
 the centuries of time, at length shall reach its 
 consummation, when the multitude which no man 
 can number shall stand around the tlnxme and 
 the Lamb, and swell the song : " Blessing, and 
 honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that 
 
TIIE WORK OF THE LORD'S TEOrLE. Ill 
 
 sitteth upon the throne, and nnto the Lamb for 
 ever and ever." We do not undervalue the phi- 
 lanthropic side of missions. Good-will to man 
 was one of the motives that led God to give his 
 Son. But if missions are mainly pled in the 
 style of " Pity the poor heathen," their chief end 
 is so far hidden, which is " Glory to God in the 
 highest." And those who loathe the Saviour's 
 cause are ever ready to sneer at the philanthropy 
 which, weeping over distant misery, is unmoved 
 by what is near. Much power over the christian 
 conscience is also lost, by losing sight of this, that 
 Christ's kingdom is destined to be world- wide, 
 that he is worthy of it, and has a covenant right 
 to it, and that to us, his people, he has given 
 the blessed work of preaching the glad tidings of 
 that kingdom, in order that the Divine Spirit 
 may establish it everywhere. The Bosjesman 
 wandering over the desolate karroo, and living on 
 roots and carrion; the Erromangan, although his 
 isle has been twice stained with the blood of the 
 murdered missionary ; the Negro, although he is 
 black ; the Brahmin and the Chinaman in their 
 pride ; the Esquimaux amid his snows and ice ; 
 the Patagonian on his inhospitable shore ; the 
 Tartar in his tent — all, all are men and brothers. 
 
112 SECTION IV. 
 
 Each of tlicm has a claim on every christian man 
 and woman. For in all their ignorance, and sin, 
 and misery, and dark despair, they have a right 
 to hear the gospel. They are all now in the 
 devil's kingdom ; they shall yet he in Christ's. 
 The time must come when, instead of the scat- 
 tered tapers that now glimmer in the heathen 
 gloom, at our mission stations, the whole earth 
 shall be bathed in light from heaven. " For the 
 knowledge of the glory of the Lord shall fill the 
 earth as the waters cover the sea." " From the 
 rising of the sun, even unto the going down of 
 the same, my name shall be great among the 
 Gentiles ; and in every place incense shall be 
 o Hi red unto my name, and a pure offering: for 
 my name shall be great among the heathen, saith 
 the Lord of hosts." 
 
 The field of labour and conquest which is thus set 
 before the Church of Jesus Christ, is as well marked 
 out as it is extensive. That the whole human race 
 ought to hear the gospel, and that the world's end is 
 the limit of our labours in preaching it, is already 
 in our creed. But something more is necessary. 
 It must have its right place in our plans and 
 practice. It is well to confess the obligation, but 
 avc must fulfil it. Rome had to train and mus- 
 
THE WORK OF THE LORD'S PEOPLE. 113 
 
 ter her legions, and send them to the war, and 
 she had to sustain and reinforce them, if she 
 would either conquer the world, or her empire 
 stand. The Church is bound likewise to see to 
 it that she have an army of foreign service, and 
 that it be both efficient and sufficient. There 
 should be enough of men to do the work, and 
 these should be the right men. It has been, and 
 is still, too much the case, that the Lord's service 
 abroad is thought less respectable than the same 
 service amid the refinements, conveniences, com- 
 forts, and comparative ease of this christian land. 
 Those who are reckoned the best men, and the best 
 orators, the men with popular talents, the beau- 
 tiful preachers, would once have been considered as 
 thrown away upon barbarians. It is true that 
 talents which make a man useful in one place, 
 would not be so suitable in every other. But, 
 surely, work like that which the evangelist among 
 the heathen has to do, requires more than the 
 meanest gifts. The Holy Ghost selected Paul 
 and Barnabas for this work, and they were, per- 
 haps, the ablest men in the church at Antioch. 
 To preach saving truth in imperfect, scanty, and 
 unchristened tongues, is not so easy that it should 
 be given to the dregs of our preaching staff, and 
 H 
 
Ill SECTION IV. 
 
 to the weaker brethren whom the smallest village 
 churches consider beneath their means and merits. 
 The time when such ideas found acceptance has 
 surely passed forever. We trust that the Church 
 will never be content to serve God in her foreign 
 fields with that for which she has no other use, 
 choosing the best for home service, and doling 
 out the fag end for the distant work. This would 
 be as if, were our foreign empire threatened 
 with an imminent overthrow, we should keep our 
 finest troops for home parade, and send our 
 awkward squads to the post of glory and of 
 danger. Of all christian labourers in the world, 
 missionaries and their partners ought to be effi- 
 cient, both as respects their natural capacities and 
 their accomplishments. They should be genuinely 
 pious. They also need mental power. They 
 cannot dispense with mental culture. They 
 should be adepts in the christian courtesies. It 
 is of vast consequence that they should be, in a 
 word, well gifted, and well trained, christian 
 ladies and gentlemen. 
 
 And while looking to the efficiency of those 
 whom she sends forth to the heathen, the Church 
 should see to it that they are sufficient in number 
 for the work. It is neither possible nor neces- 
 
THE WORK OF THE LORD'S TEOPLE. 115 
 
 sary to plant all the world with European mission- 
 aries, as thickly as ministers are planted in this 
 country. But as the most free, the most favoured, 
 the most advanced, the most wealthy in men and 
 means, and possessing the greatest facilities in a 
 commerce which ploughs every sea, and visits 
 every shore, the churches of Christ in Britain and 
 America ought to hold themselves bound, with 
 the help of evangelical churches on the continent, 
 to plant the gospel in every land. Every centre 
 ought to be occupied in such a way as to put 
 things in train for speedily and efficiently filling 
 earth with the light of heaven. The land already 
 occupied should often be reviewed, and that to be 
 possessed, often examined. The Church should 
 keep the map of the world before her, and survey- 
 it as anxiously as a general studies the geography 
 of the seat of war. And she ought so to count her 
 forces, and so to divide and allocate them, as the 
 soonest to overtake her world-wide work. There 
 should be no partiality for particular regions and 
 races, no crowding to fields that appear grand and 
 imposing by their population or barbaric wealth, 
 while fields less inviting, and peoples more barbar- 
 ous, are comparatively neglected. India and China 
 are sometimes spoken of as if they were the whole 
 
116 BECTION IV. 
 
 heathen world, and should have the best men and 
 
 the bulk of the Church's resources; while Ethiopia, 
 although representing one-third of mankind, as 
 being descended of one of the three lathers of 
 the human race, is counted as less noble, and her 
 claims as less urgent. This arises from narrowness 
 of view. The great end of our enterprise, be it 
 remembered, is to set up the Lord's throne in every 
 land. There is no respect of persons with God. 
 He does not despise the Negro, and honour the 
 Brahmin. All men are in the same pit of ungod- 
 liness — all under sin, all exposed to wrath, all 
 equally needing salvation. And, therefore, preach 
 the gospel to every creature in all the world. 
 
 We sometimes hear a comparison of mission 
 fields which we protest against with the deepest 
 abhorrence and indignation. So many pounds 
 have been spent here, and so many persons con- 
 verted ; so many pounds there, and so many con- 
 verted. By simple division it is found that the 
 conversion of a soul costs so much less here than 
 there. This is the cheapest mission, therefore let 
 christians contribute for it. Anything more un- 
 like Christianity we never heard, or anything that 
 shows a poorer apprehension of the Church's re- 
 sponsibility ; or anything showing less of the 
 
THE WORK OP THE LORD'S PEOrLE. 117 
 
 magnanimity of Christ ; or anything more offensive 
 to our Divine Redeemer, who, though he was rich, 
 yet for our sokes became poor ; or anything more 
 likely to incur his holy frown ; or anything, in a 
 word, more exceedingly contemptible either in 
 spirit or in policy. The means expended by the 
 Church in furthering the Lord's work do not really 
 belong to the Church. They are not her absolute 
 property. The christian is not his own. His 
 money is not his own. His time and his talents 
 are not his own. All, all are Christ's, and he is 
 Christ's steward. And, therefore, should one 
 mission be more expensive than another, in the 
 proportion of a thousand to one, we are not, on 
 that account, at liberty to refuse, or even grudge 
 the expenditure. If there be but the clear sense 
 of obligation, and a noble and holy ambition to 
 meet it to its height and fulness, and to sacrifice 
 everything for the empire of our Lord, will he not 
 put into the Church's hands all that is necessary, 
 and, if he please, more than is necessary, for the 
 cost of the enterprise 1 
 
 The rule of numerical proportion in the alloca- 
 tion of missionaries — so many heathens, so many 
 labourers — is a very fallacious one, and must not 
 be followed. The nature of the field, the state of 
 
118 SECTION IV. 
 
 the people, and the facilities for bringing the truth 
 before their minds, must be taken into account. 
 For instance, one Dr. Judson can accomplish as 
 much among a reading people, like the Burmese, 
 as ten Judsons can overtake in Africa. He pre- 
 pares his treatise, he translates the Scriptures, and 
 having got them printed, he circulates them by- 
 thousands, and they are read far and wide. Thus 
 the gospel is made known to many who do not see 
 a teacher or hear his voice ; and seed is sown of 
 which God will give the increase. So it is in 
 China- But it is very different in Africa. There 
 is not one African dialect written, until the mis- 
 sionary write it, gathering it up, word by word, 
 and phrase by phrase, from the mouths of un- 
 tutored men. And then these Ethiopians have to 
 be taught to read their own language, before books 
 can be of use to them. Instruction by the liv- 
 ing lip is the only means of reaching the tribes 
 of Africa. The gospel does not sound far beyond 
 the reach of the preacher's voice. Who does not 
 see from this that Africa requires a far larger pro- 
 portion of missionaries, and of able missionaries, 
 too, of men who can learn unwritten tongues, or 
 tongues but recently, and, as yet, imperfectly 
 written, without the aid of moonshees and pundits, 
 
THE WORE OF THE LORD'S PEOPLE. 119 
 
 and native scholars, and native literature 1 It is 
 important that this should he kept in mind hy the 
 Church of Christ in the allocation of her labourers. 
 Moreover, an island should be more easily brought 
 under gospel instruction than a continent. The 
 island community is circumscribed. Perhaps it 
 has but one dialect — at least, it will have a common 
 tongue. But the Ethiopian race is scattered over a 
 large continent, and broken up into fragments, with 
 a vast variety of dialects. In Sierra Leone " the 
 late Bishop Vidal found upwards of one hundred 
 and fifty distinct languages, besides dialects;" and 
 " Mr. Koelle, in his ' Polyglotta Africana,' gives a 
 list of words in more than one hundred of these." * 
 On all accounts, therefore, it is obvious that Africa 
 should have a larger proportion of able missionaries 
 than any other division of heathendom. 
 
 In arranging for the occupation of the whole 
 world, there should be no sectarian jarring. Every 
 section of the church should be counted as a regi- 
 ment or division of the Lord's army. And, while 
 these divisions should provoke one another to love 
 and good works, woe be to those who are boasters 
 
 * Dictionary of the Ef ik Language, by the Kev. Hugh 
 Goldie, Missionary from the United Presbyterian Church, 
 Scotland, to Old Calabar, 1862. Introduction, p. iv. 
 
120 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 or sectarian bigots. How well does the Lord in- 
 struct us ! How well docs lie know the imperfec- 
 tion of our natures when he puts the humblest 
 first ! Verily, such are the likest, and no wonder 
 if they get nearest, to himself! He sees that this 
 spirit of humility, which takes the lowest room, 
 and prefers the brethren, is necessary to that one- 
 ness among his people for which he so earnestly 
 prayed, in order that the world might credit his 
 Divine character and mission. Xothing, therefore, 
 can be more unchristian than to carry sectarian 
 jealousy into^ our mission fiekls, and more desire 
 the glory of our denominations than the glory of 
 our Lord. Such a spirit is the weakness of the 
 Church. Nothing but confusion and disappoint- 
 ment can be its result and its reward. Judah 
 vexing Ephraim, and Ephraim envying Judah, 
 must be the easy prey of their common foe. The 
 Philistines devour them at pleasure; and, which is 
 worst, they grieve the Spirit of the Lord, in whose 
 demenstration the gospel must come, in order to 
 be believed by sinners. 
 
 III. Having a practical end in view, viz., to 
 stir up christians to do Christ's work with new 
 zeal, we assert that they, one and all, arc bound to 
 
TOE WORK OF TOE LORD'S PEOPLE. 121 
 
 do wliat each can. Those are the workers to whom 
 this world-wide work is committed. 
 
 Did the Lord's commission die with the eleven 
 to whom it was first addressed ? Have there been 
 no persons on whom its obligation has rested since 
 the last of the Apostles died ? As well may one 
 say that we are not bound to observe the Lord's 
 Supper, because it was first enjoined on the eleven. 
 Christ taught the Apostles all his will, that they 
 might instruct other believers, and commit ''the 
 form of sound words," and all the rules of his house, 
 into the hands of faithful men, who should be 
 able to teach others also. The very terms and 
 nature of the commission make it for ever binding ; 
 and the promise, " Lo ! I am with you alway, even 
 unto the end of the world," puts this beyond a 
 doubt. It is the will of Jesus, that his friends in 
 every age shall carry on this first of enterprises, 
 till it be fully accomplished, and the gospel preached 
 to every creature. It is not a thing of choice with 
 a believer whether he shall send or not send the 
 lamp of life to the dark places of the earth. Every 
 saved man and woman, by the very fact that he or 
 she owns Jesus as Lord, has to do with this matter, 
 as much as the missionary, who goes to grapple 
 with heathenism in its native wilds. The whole 
 
122 SECTION IV. 
 
 Church ought to be at once a missionary seminary 
 to train agents, and a missionary society to send 
 llicm forth. Christians are united in church fel- 
 lowship, not merely for their own edification, but 
 also that they may put forth the strength which 
 is in union, for the extension of the Lord's empire. 
 This was the very thing for which He prayed : 
 " That they all may be one, that the world may 
 believe that thou hast sent me." This is further 
 manifest from these words : " Ye are the light of 
 the world ; Let your light — my light reflected from 
 you — shine before men." And, surely, that con- 
 gregation which is liberal to itself, and niggardly 
 to the Lord's public cause, has little of the true 
 spirit of piety within it. 
 
 God could have established the kingdom without 
 the service of his people at all. He might have 
 saved men without the gospel, or the commission 
 to preach it might have been given to others than 
 believing men. As angels are interested students, 
 so they would have been earnest and delighted 
 preachers of the gospel, had they received the 
 charge. It is not needful to show that God could 
 have evangelized the world without the agency of 
 either angels or men. Neither would it be profit- 
 able to dwell on what Ave may call the philosophy 
 
THE WORK OF TIIE LORD'S TEOPLE. 123 
 
 of human instrumentality in the Divine plan. It 
 can be shown that God's method is, of course, the 
 very best for his purpose. The devout soul grants 
 this with the same readiness and complacency as 
 the intellect grasps an axiom of mathematics. 
 
 Let the reader, then, ponder the fact that every 
 christian is charged with the spreading of the 
 gospel. "We are apt to lose the sense of our indi- 
 vidual responsibility, by sinking ourselves in the 
 crowd. The united gifts of many, however little 
 each may give, make a large sum. We are flattered 
 with the sound of it, and comparing it with what 
 used to be given for the same purpose, we are 
 pleased with our collective liberality. This feeling 
 of satisfaction hides from us the true and solemn 
 view of the case. The thing which each christian 
 has to consider is, whether he is doing what he 
 can. The Lord himself distinctly teaches us that 
 our return in usury should be as the talents lie 
 intrusts to our stewardship. That we are mere 
 stewards, and not independent owners of all that 
 God has given us, is his too unwelcome doctrine 
 on this point. The widow's all — her two mites — 
 cast willingly and gratefully into God's treasury, 
 formed a richer donation than the united gifts of 
 the wealthy givers out of their abundance. If, 
 
124 SECTION IV. 
 
 then, a christian withholds his hand from the 
 cause of the kingdom, it matters little that his 
 section of the Church is, on the whole, liberal. 
 It is illiberal, nay dishonest, just up to the amount 
 that any are able to give but which they withhold. 
 We shall give an account of our stewardship, not 
 in sections, but as individuals. And the neglect 
 of duty in this momentous work, the filling of the 
 whole earth with the glory of Jehovah, is a flagrant 
 sin on the part of any professing christian. With 
 every one who does nothing for missions, or who 
 does it not from right motives, it should be an 
 immediate and serious inquiry, whether his indif- 
 ference and illiberality are not proof enough that 
 he is still an unbeliever. 
 
 "Why should our obligation lie counted less 
 weighty than that of the early christians] Why 
 should neglect on our part be thought less guilty 
 than on Paul's '? Why should we think the scanty 
 doings of the Church of to-day so great, when we 
 hear that apostle ? " Tor though I preach the 
 gospel, I have nothing to glory of; for necessity 
 is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach 
 not the gospel." Do you, reader, if a saved sinner, 
 owe less to God than Pan] owed ? If the love of 
 God so constrained this believer, can you be one, 
 
THE WORK OF THE LORD'S PEOPLE. 125 
 
 indeed, if you do not feel somewhat the constraint 
 of the same love ? The following statements de- 
 serve attention: — "Christians sustain to mankind 
 at large, moral and benevolent relations, in which 
 their faith must develop itself in efforts to save 
 them. It is just as much the duty of each disciple 
 to spread the gospel, as it was to embrace it. Our 
 very conversion is a means to an end, and that 
 end is the conversion of sinners at home and 
 abroad. It follows, then, that the missionary 
 enterprise is not a modern conception engrafted 
 on the religion of Christ, but is as much one of 
 the genuine forms and fruits of faith in Christ, as 
 baptism, prayer, and brotherly love. Christ was 
 the great model missionary; the apostles were mis- 
 sionaries ; all the members of the early church were 
 missionaries \ the gospel itself is as diffusive as the 
 light of heaven ; and this spirit we must possess, 
 or we are less than the least of all saints in more 
 senses than one. You cannot define New Testa- 
 ment religion, without including as one of its 
 essential elements the missionary spirit. Or look 
 at the matter in another light. The whole heathen 
 world is still unconverted. At home, tens of 
 thousands are in the deepest ignorance, and are 
 the slaves of the vilest sins. Christians have the 
 
126 SECTION IV. 
 
 gospel, the only remedy for this appalling evil. 
 The Church is the only agent in the universe for 
 conveying the gospel to the unsaved, and convert- 
 ing them to Christ. Her opportunities for doing 
 so are many and multiform. God has so arranged 
 matters that we may stay at home, and yet reach 
 and save these dark masses, as effectually as if they 
 were at our doors. Now, can one be a christian 
 without earnest cares, efforts, and self-denials, to 
 save those perishing amid such circumstances as 
 these 1 Is that man's religion more than a name, 
 who looks on composedly, and sees souls sink down 
 to perdition by thousands a day, without putting 
 forth his hand to arrest the mighty ruin ? No. It 
 is high time that Christianity was better under- 
 stood and acted out. The unbelief of men at home 
 will never be overcome, till christians, in addition 
 to their faith, abound in prayers and self-denying 
 efforts to spread the empire of Christ. The most 
 Christ-like man is he who, in addition to his per- 
 sonal holiness, goes out of himself in self-denying 
 exertions to save a lost world. Never will chris- 
 tians bear a true witness for Christ and his religion, 
 till they look like him on the dying world around 
 them, and abandon themselves in zeal and activity 
 for the diffusion of the gospel"* 
 
 * "Personal Piety," by C. T. 
 
SECTION V. 
 
 OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 
 
 We shall now notice some of the reasons which 
 men give, to justify a want of interest in, and a 
 refusal of efficient help to, the cause of the king- 
 dom of Christ in foreign lands. 
 
 1. Some plead that they have nothing to spare. 
 If this be true, they may keep their minds easy. 
 Having only what God bestows, if he indeed gives 
 them nothing for this work, they cannot be blamed 
 for doing nothing. " Who goeth a warfare at any 
 time at his own charges V* For if there be a will- 
 ing mind it is accepted according to that a man 
 hath, and not according to that he hath not. But 
 we believe that such a case must be extremely 
 rare. What child of God must that be to whom 
 he entrusts not even one talent ? whom he allows 
 not the privilege and honour of extending the 
 kingdom of his Son ? " It is more blessed to 
 
 sive 
 
 than to receive." And yet there are some chris- 
 
128 BECTION V. 
 
 tians who receive not two mites to honour the 
 Lord with ! Strange that He should withhold 
 from so many of his dear children this greater 
 blessedness of giving ! A kind and wise parent 
 will give his child a little pocket-money, to foster 
 his generosity and charity. But our Father in 
 heaven, so wise, so good, gives nothing to a certain 
 class of those who are called his people, except 
 what they must spend upon themselves ! In this 
 there is surely something very suspicious. Are 
 the consciences of such quite at ease ] Does their 
 heart not condemn them in the least 1 If they 
 really have nothing to spare for that cause which 
 God himself makes to depend for instrumentality 
 on the liberal hearts of his willing people, their 
 Father must see that, were he to intrust them with 
 his portion, they would make it their own. In 
 whatever way they look at this matter it wears a 
 serious and alarming aspect to. them. It cannot 
 be shaken off. It clings to them, and follows 
 them to the judgment-seat. 
 
 " I have nothing to spare," is too truly, as an 
 American writer says, " the plea of sordid reluct- 
 ance." It should make him who uses it, and all 
 who seek his salvation, more anxious about his 
 soul, than it need alarm us lest the Lord's work 
 
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 129 
 
 suller from want of his aid. If any indeed have 
 nothing to spare, if, in the providence of God, 
 they are entirely indigent, yet, if their hearts are 
 rightly alfected towards the Lord and his kingdom, 
 they will abound in prayer, and in personal service, 
 according to their opportunities. 
 
 Our conviction is, that in so far as the people 
 of God are truly willing to consecrate their service 
 to him, He will give them means enough for 
 building the spiritual temple, and for lengthening 
 the curds and strengthening the stakes of Zion, 
 till her seed shall possess the nations. Is it a 
 matter of indifference to Jesus Christ whether all 
 the kingdoms of the world become his or con- 
 tinue the devil's 1 Are not the silver and the gold 
 all his 2 Has He not received all power in heaven 
 and in earth, that He may bless the nations by 
 bringing them under his own sway? Has He 
 not taught us to pray, "Thy kingdom come?" 
 Has he not commanded us to preach the gospel 
 to every creature % Has he not directed us to pray 
 the Lord of the harvest to send forth labourers 
 into his plenteous harvest % Are these things true 1 
 And can it be that God, of whom all things come, 
 stints his Church of the means necessary for the 
 cause of his glory 1 If the Church be stinted, it 
 
130 SECTION V. 
 
 can only be because her heart is not yet suffi- 
 ciently enlarged and liberal, and because the Lord's 
 portion is devoured, instead of being willingly re- 
 turned into his treasury. Here is the withholding 
 that tends to poverty. Would to God that chris- 
 tians pondered these things, and aspired to the 
 blessing promised to the liberal soul ! 
 
 2. Some are dissatisfied with the results of our 
 missionary operations. They make it a thing of 
 arithmetic, and judge of it as they do of any 
 merely commercial speculation. So many pounds 
 expended, so many converts. And because they 
 consider the results insignificant, in their way of 
 counting, they become disgusted and dispirited, 
 and are disposed to give up the enterprise, or turn 
 to some new field. These forget that neither men 
 nor money can convert souls. That is God's w< »rk, 
 a work in which he is sovereign. The Lord tells 
 us that as in a field of grain some seeds produce 
 thirty, some sixty, and some an hundred fold, so 
 it is in the kingdom of God. The commission 
 runs thus : — " Teach, preach." Paul plants, 
 Apollos waters. But neither is the planter any- 
 thing, nor the waterer, but God is all. He gives 
 the increase. If the Lord has but one sheep in a 
 heathen region, and to bring that one to the fold 
 
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 131 
 
 costs the church many thousand pounds, who has 
 any right or reason to complain, if the Lord has 
 so ordered it ? The preacher of the gospel among 
 the heathen is the prophet speaking to the dry 
 bones, and saying : "Hear the word of Jehovah.'' 
 Motion, and form, and life, can come only with 
 the divine power and breath. The missionary is 
 bound to do his work faithfully. He must so bear 
 himself among the heathen as to make them see 
 that he himself believes. If, by ill-temper, or 
 worldliness, or want of a humble, loving, forbear- 
 ing, Christ-like spirit, he make himself repulsive 
 to them, he will not be used to draw them to the 
 Saviour, he will make them shut their ears to the 
 word he preaches, and their hearts against the 
 blessed religion which he so caricatures in his own 
 temper and behaviour. Alas, then, for him and 
 for them ! For although the most Christ-like 
 conduct on the p>art of missionaries, and the most 
 able, correct, full, convincing, and interesting state- 
 ments of the truth about Christ, will not bring 
 sinners to him, without the power from on high, 
 yet we have no reason to expect that an imperfect, 
 Unqualified, uninteresting, ill-tempered, or luke- 
 warm missionary ministry will be made very fruit- 
 ful. In this respect the Church of Christ as a 
 
132 SECTION V. 
 
 whole, each of her members, and her agents among 
 the heathen, lie under a heavy responsibility. 
 We are guilty of grievous sin, if our agency is not 
 earnest, not sincere, not living, not self-denied, 
 not equal to our ability, not the best that it can 
 be. Let the complaining missionary contributor 
 examine himself. Let those who stay at home 
 take heed lest they be as blameworthy as the mis- 
 sionary. Their work is not done when they put 
 the penny into the box, or give the shilling to the 
 collector. 
 
 The want of success in our foreign operations, 
 if that want be so great as some assert, which we 
 doubt, is mainly due to the Church herself. Her 
 unpreparedness hinders extensive, striking, and 
 rapid progress. There is nothing in heathenism 
 in any part of the world that the Great Spirit is 
 unable to remove or renovate. But while God's 
 people are so earthly, so little alive to their re- 
 sponsibilities, so destitute of genuine enthusiasm 
 in the enterprise, so ready to take credit for their 
 doings, and the results thereof, and so disposed 
 to glorify the instrument, God will not give us to 
 see great things. Men's unbelief often hindered 
 Christ from doing his mighty works. All his 
 great interpositions were made at such a time, and 
 
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 133 
 
 in such a way, as that the excellency of the power 
 was seen, and by every devout heart acknowledged, 
 to be of him. The Church needs to be educated 
 up to this. Let all her ministers open their eyes 
 to it, and do their duty, that the whole counsel of 
 God may be fully known by his people ; that 
 human impotence may be deeply felt, while human 
 agency is seen to be needful, and ought to be of a 
 high order; that there may be a humble, firm re- 
 liance on the Lord's arm, a readiness to see that 
 every atom of spiritual fruit is due to the grace of 
 the Holy Ghost, and a spirit of praise that will 
 ascribe to him all the wisdom, and power, and 
 honour, and glory, and blessing. When the 
 Church puts her whole strength into the cause of 
 her King, and proves his faithful witness to all 
 the nations, like Christ finds it her meat and drink 
 to do the will of her Father, and becomes so hum- 
 bled and poor in spirit as to see that every degree 
 of success is the work of Jehovah's hand, that he 
 may be glorified, then may we see the kingdom 
 coming with power in all the earth. 
 
 Instead, then, of any real or seeming barrenness 
 of results being a reason either for the fickleness 
 of churches in respect of their mission fields, or 
 for drooping and giving up, or for carping at the 
 
134 SECTION V. 
 
 distant labourer who cannot tell of pentecostal 
 effusions, it is a reason why churches, both pastors 
 and people, should humble themselves for want of 
 faith, zeal, liberality, and prayer. It is a reason 
 why they should examine themselves- as to the 
 amount and manner of their service in the King's 
 cause. It is a reason why they should be sure 
 that there is something wrong about themselves 
 and their doings ; and wdiy they should do some- 
 thing more than hold missionary meetings, and 
 gather missionary monies, and read missionary 
 publications, and blame missionary agents. Let 
 them even search out the Achan in the camp, who 
 or which hinders the God of Israel from going up 
 with their armies, and put it away. It may be 
 found that this Achan lives in the home camp, 
 rather than among the handful who fail to make 
 the desired impression on the enemies' stronghold. 
 Jehovah's instructions to Joshua contain truth for 
 all times, and show that His people must be in 
 good spiritual health, before lb' can be among them 
 and prosper their enterprises. " Only be thou 
 strong, and very courageous, that thou mayest ob- 
 serve to do according to all the law which Moses 
 my servant commanded thee : turn not from it to 
 the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest 
 
 i 
 
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 135 
 
 prosper whithersoever thou goest. This book of 
 the law shall not depart out of thy mouth ; but 
 thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that 
 thou mayest observe to do according to all that is 
 written therein : for then thou shalt make thy 
 way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good 
 success." 
 
 " Languid ministers, proud and prayerless mem- 
 bers, will care little for missions. These persons 
 have got nothing from heaven, and they cannot 
 impart to others what they themselves do not 
 possess. Such a church is like a mass of floating 
 ice, cold in itself, benumbing to all around it, and 
 melting and disappearing as it does so. But an 
 active and devoted ministry, an humble, desiring, 
 and praying people, must make a missionary 
 church."" With the following remarks of Dr. 
 Somerville we also most heartily concur : — 
 
 "He was forcibly impressed with the thought 
 that there was a most intimate connection between 
 missionary success, and the state of the home 
 church. Missionaries were messengers of the 
 churches : thev went to do the work of the home 
 
 * Rev. Dr. Somerville, Sermon at the Ordination of Eev. 
 John Campbell, Missionary to Goshen, Jamaica. Grant and 
 Taylor, 1846. 
 
136 SUCTION V. 
 
 church. Now ho was afraid that the homo church 
 had satisfied itself too much with the position of 
 merely sending forth men and giving them support. 
 He had "been looking into the Scriptures closely 
 of late, and he was prepared to make this state- 
 ment, that there is not, in the Word of God, an 
 intimation of very rapid success in the extension 
 of the gospel, that is not preceded by an account 
 of the revival of religion in the home church ; and 
 that, on the other hand, there is not, as far as he 
 had been able to ascertain, a statement of the 
 revival of the church of God, of the manifestation 
 of his gracious presence, and of the outpouring of 
 his Spirit, that is not succeeded by an account of 
 the rapid extension of the gospel .... There 
 were persons who said that the success of missions 
 had been very limited and very small. Let those 
 persons be told that they were themselves respon- 
 sible for such comparatively small results ; that 
 the fault was their own, and not that of the mis- 
 sionaries ; and that the missionaries were labour- 
 ing nobly, zealously, and with groat self-denial. 
 Let the home church be told that, if they wanted 
 to see a harvest, waving with holy grain, this 
 would only be the result of an increased spirit of 
 
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 137 
 
 prayer and vital godliness, manifested by the 
 whole church."* 
 
 We are not prepared, however, to admit that 
 the amount of sheaves gathered is small, in pro- 
 portion to the labour expended in tilling heathen 
 soils and sowing precious seed. It is not easy to 
 collect all the facts that need to be put together, 
 to show the substantial progress which the king- 
 dom of Christ has made within these seventy 
 years of modern missionary effort, in the properly 
 heathen parts of the world. Those who think 
 that progress insignificant, do not, we are persuaded, 
 take the pains to know these facts. Could 
 Haweis, and Waugh, and Bogue, and Fuller, and 
 other large-hearted men, who were honoured to 
 stir up the Church to this noblest of all crusades, 
 see where we now are, they would wonder and 
 praise, as we may believe they even now do in 
 heaven, not being ignorant of how the cause of the 
 Redeemer moves on earth. 
 
 (1.) Look at the advance of the missionary 
 spirit in all sections of the Church itself, as com- 
 pared with the beginning of the movement. 
 
 In the last century, so far was the duty to 
 evangelize the world from being acknowledged by 
 
 * Export of Liverpool Missionary Conference. 
 
138 
 
 8ECTI0N V 
 
 the whole church, that, in 1783, the Bishop of 
 St. Asaph declared in the House of Lords, that 
 "the obligation said to be incumbent on christians 
 
 •to promote their faith throughout the world, had 
 ceased with the supernatural gifts which attended 
 the commission of the apostles." And, in 1796, 
 a minister said, in the General Assembly of the 
 Church of Scotland :—" To spread abroad the 
 knowledge of the gospel among barbarous and 
 heathen nations, seems to be highly preposterous, 
 in as far as it anticipates, nay, it even reverses, 
 the order of nature." The aiding of missions by 
 collections was thus characterized: — "For such 
 improper conduct censure is too small a mark of 
 disapprobation ; it would, I doubt not, be a legal 
 subject of penal prosecution." Nay, Dr. Hill 
 himself said, "that missionary societies were 
 highly dangerous in their tendency to the good 
 order of society at large." Mr. Boyle, an elder, 
 afterwards Lord-president of the Court of Session, 
 thought that the Assembly should give the over- 
 tures recommending- such associations "their 
 most serious disapprobation, and their immediate 
 and most decisive opposition."* 
 
 But the avowal of such opinions by grave 
 * Pictorial History of Scotland, II., 907. 
 
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 139 
 
 church dignitaries and courts, does not prove the 
 ignorance and insensibility of those times to the 
 fact that the Church exists by her Lord's behest, 
 mainly, that she may be a lamp-stand for the 
 dark world, so much as the almost entire absence 
 of any endeavours to do the work. Even in our 
 day of active zeal, voices are sometimes lifted up 
 in unbelieving and unthinking scorn of this 
 enterprise, mainly, Ave believe, because such 
 scomers look only at its philanthropic aspect. 
 Did they remember that its aim is the establish- 
 ment of the kingdom of God, they dare neither 
 oppose, even by a jest or a scoff, nor withhold 
 their personal and earnest service, without prov- 
 ing themselves to be utterly godless. In the 
 17th century, the church of Jesus Christ in these 
 realms had to suffer her bloody baptism. It was 
 with her, at that time, a battle for dear life, for 
 very existence. Eichard Baxter felt and wrote 
 thus : — " There is nothing in the world that lieth 
 so heavily upon my heart, as the thought of the 
 miserable nations of the earth. 1 cannot bo 
 affected so much with the calamities of my own 
 relations, or the land of my nativity, as with the 
 case of the heathen, Mahometan, and ignorant 
 nations of the earth. No part of my prayer is so 
 
140 
 
 SECTION V. 
 
 deeply serious, as that for the conversion of the 
 infidel and ungodly world." The godly Puritans 
 of England, and Covenanters of Scotland, who 
 braved death for Christ's kingly power over his 
 own house, had they lived in these our times of 
 peace, would have been most zealous in the enter- 
 prise which aims to exalt him among the nations. 
 Those who held that "never one should think 
 himself in the right exercise of true religion, that 
 has not a zeal for God's public glory,"* would not 
 have been lukewarm or supine in a cause which 
 demands the Church's strength, and on which so 
 momentous interests do hang. After those dark 
 times had passed away, there followed a season 
 during which there was little spiritual life in tie- 
 churches of Scotland and England. It would be 
 in vain to expect zeal for the diffusing of a gos- 
 pel which was not valued by its own professors. 
 The foreign missionary enterprise arose after the 
 revival of the life and power of religion among 
 British Christians. Few of our exist ing m i ssionary 
 institutions date before 1800. But where, at 
 this day, is the evangelical church that is not en- 
 gaged in missionary labour? At first, the en- 
 
 * Last speech of the Rev. Donald Cargill, executed at Edin- 
 burgh, July 27, 1680. 
 
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 141 
 
 lightened and liberal-souled few in various sections, 
 banded themselves together into one small regi- 
 ment of foreign service. Now, each section of 
 the Church aims at having its own separate mis- 
 sion ; and the result is a vast increase of effort and 
 of work. "Now the Church is settling down 
 upon sound, substantial principles, and is acting 
 more from a calm sense of obligation. Duty to 
 the heathen is taking a deeper hold of the public 
 mind." We trust that duty to Jesus Christ is 
 also taking a firmer hold of the conscience of 
 every christian. Christians have much to learn, 
 and much to unlearn, as to their relations and 
 responsibilities to the cause of the Redeemer's 
 kingdom. We think that these are neither fully 
 known, nor fully looked at, nor fully acknow- 
 ledged ; perhaps, in many quarters, they are not 
 fully taught. But as compared with half a cen- 
 tury back, we ought gratefully to admit that pro- 
 gress has been made ; and may we not regard this 
 as a pledge that our blessed Father in heaven — 
 the Teacher of his children — will give us further 
 knowledge, by fixing our minds more earnestly 
 on the Bible doctrine of the kingdom, and making 
 us to see it in his own light clearly ? 
 
 Thankfully should we notice that the little 
 
142 SECTION V. 
 
 regiment has grown into an army, with its separate 
 divisions, all aiming at one object, and all embued 
 with one sentiment of loyalty to our Divine king. 
 Young colonial churches have recently entered 
 the field, as the Presbyterians of Nova Scotia, 
 one of whose agents, with his partner, was 
 murdered last year, in the island of Erromanga. 
 
 If we look at the department of missionary 
 literature — a literature which some despise, yet 
 which God has blessed to kindle, and to fan the 
 flame of zeal, liberality, and self-sacritice in many 
 christian hearts —"when the 'Evangelical Maga- 
 zine' was started, a promise was given that one 
 page monthly should be devoted to missionary 
 intelligence." At the present day, 300,000 copies 
 of purely missionary periodicals are circulated, 
 monthly or quarterly, in Great Britain alone, be- 
 sides that missionary intelligence and discussions 
 occur often in publications of a more general 
 character. 
 
 In the end of that most interesting volume, 
 containing the minutes of the Conference on Mis- 
 sions held at Liverpool, in 1860, there is given a 
 list of Missionary Literature, comprising no fewer 
 than 252 works in history, biography, &c, and 
 these do not exhaust the whole. 
 
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 143 
 
 And what pleasing evidence of progress have 
 Ave in the present scale of giving for the cause of 
 the Redeemer's kingdom, as compared with fifty 
 years ago. At least, one section of the Church, 
 has quadrupled its missionary gifts in fifteen years. 
 No section is already perfect in liberality; hut let 
 us be thankful at the progress which some have 
 made in this duty. We are far from seeing the 
 full tide of christian generosity and the highest 
 pitch of faithful stewardship. While there are 
 individuals who emulate the large-heartedness of 
 David in his preparations for the building of the 
 temple, that largeness of soul is far from being the 
 rule. Nay, that magnanimity itself is a Divine 
 gift. "But who am I, and what is my people, 
 that we should be able to oifer so willingly after 
 this sort 1 for all things come of thee, and of thine 
 own have we given thee." Most heartily do we 
 commend the following remarks : — " It appears 
 from an article in the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica,' 
 that the missionary contributions of all Christendom 
 amount to about L. 600,000 a-year, excluding con- 
 tributions made to Bible Societies. But even sup- 
 posing that the amount were L. 1,000,000, there 
 are a hundred men in Christendom who ought to 
 give every farthing of that amount, leaving the 
 
144 SECTION V. 
 
 missionary contributions of all the rest entirely 
 out of the account. We are only now at the lie- 
 ginning of the work. When God sees the Church 
 prepared for it, he will put more substance into 
 her hands ; and, when she lias more life, she will 
 obtain more means for carrying on this work. 
 The great want of the Church, indeed, is more life. 
 And when she has more life, she will pray more, 
 and make larger contributions." * 
 
 AVe also see progress in that now the Lord's 
 work in heathen parts is more generally admitted 
 to have a claim on the Church for the best men 
 that can be found. This is not yet admitted or 
 acted out as it should be, but it commands a wider 
 assent than it once did. Ear be it from us to un- 
 derrate the men who have been employed in foreign 
 missions during the past seventy years. We only 
 wish to protest against the erroneous and pernici- 
 ous notion, that men of inferior capacity, culture, 
 and attainments, are good enough for the work of 
 the kingdom in heathen regions ; against that 
 selfishness in churches which claims the highest 
 gifts for home service; and against those low views 
 of the public cause of God in preachers, which lead 
 
 * Report of Liverpool Conference, Rev. II. M. Macgill, 
 p. 82. 
 
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 145 
 
 them to fancy that it is a higher and more digni- 
 fied style of service, to minister to a congregation 
 in Britain, than to preach the gospel where Christ 
 was never named. 
 
 And do we not see delightful progress in the 
 number of accredited preachers of the gospel now 
 employed in foreign missionary work] It is almost 
 within the memory of some alive when the first 
 labourers went out to the South Seas, to India, 
 and to Africa. Many have died on the field, but 
 every blank has been filled up, and the number 
 has grown till, to-day, we count 1600 missionaries 
 from Europe and America, "accompanied by more 
 than 16,000 native ministers, religious catechists, 
 scripture-readers, and schoolmasters, who are evan- 
 gelizing their own fatherlands," and whose very 
 existence is itself a blessed success. 
 
 In all these respects we see pleasing evidence 
 that the missionary enterprise has advanced within 
 the Church. But there is room for further im- 
 provement. This enterprise is still too much re- 
 garded as a modern idea engrafted on Christianity 
 — a product of modern enlightenment — although 
 it ought to be regarded as the end for which the 
 Church exists in a visible and organised form in 
 the heart of Satan's kingdom. It is still too much 
 
 K 
 
140 
 
 SECTION V. 
 
 regarded as a kind of philanthropic scheme which 
 christians ought to further if they can, after having 
 met every other claim with liberality and profu- 
 sion, instead of being regarded as one of the very 
 highest forms of service to God, as the means of 
 realizing the thing which the Lord himself teaches 
 his people first to pray for, "Thy kingdom come" 
 — a service in which the most liberal soul will not 
 be able to surpass its obligations, and in which its 
 rewards will be sure and glorious. 
 
 The doctrine of the kingdom of Christ needs to 
 be more fully and carefully taught to, and better 
 apprehended by, christians, so that their mission- 
 ary services shall be seen to be for the establishing 
 of that kingdom everywhere. When to withhold 
 sympathy and money from this service shall be 
 accounted as indubitable a proof of gracelessness, 
 as to beprayerless or profligate; when the Church 
 generally shall feel, each christian feeling for him- 
 self, that unutterable guilt, and recreancy, and base- 
 ness are implied in a man's being indifferent to the 
 Saviour's honour and kingdom, and that woe is 
 unto us if we preach not the gospel, then will 
 christians have right views on this question, and 
 then shall we see greater sacrifices, enthusiasm, 
 faith, and triumphs. 
 
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 147 
 
 (2.) We also call attention to the amount of 
 preparatory work accomplished in various parts of 
 heathendom, as the results of the labours of half a 
 century. 
 
 This of itself is almost a sufficient answer to the 
 assertion that the fruits of our missionary opera- 
 tions are small. How many unwritten languages 
 have been gathered from the lips of untutored 
 men, and made the vehicles of Christ's evangel ! 
 Never has a negro tribe been found with a written 
 language. At this day, about twenty West African 
 dialects have been written by missionaries, and 
 the most of these within the last twenty years ; 
 and in all of them there are portions of the Scrip- 
 tures, as well as other works. Several South 
 African tribes have complete versions of the Scrip- 
 tures. The same is true of some Polynesian races. 
 If we turn to Asia, we find that its many tongues 
 have largely been baptized in the same manner. 
 Within these sixty years, the Scriptures, in whole 
 or in part, have been translated into more than 100 
 different languages. Only those who have per- 
 sonally engaged in this kind of service can know 
 the vast amount of patient, plodding, earnest toil 
 that has been expended in it. Unwritten tongues 
 are invariably those of the more uncultured races, 
 
148 SECTION V. 
 
 who, therefore, cannot give intelligent aid to the 
 missionary in his philological labours. They fur- 
 nish the materials, but cannot suggest the laws of 
 their languages, to facilitate the work. 
 
 In this accumulation of material the Church has 
 the means of a far more extensive and satisfactory 
 preaching of the gospel — the sword by which the 
 Holy Ghost works that blessed and bloodless re- 
 volution, which shall cast down Satan's throne and 
 set up the throne of Christ. And in the grace 
 given to men of God to persevere in this work, and 
 in their motive, and object, in achieving results so 
 extensive, surely we have a pledge of final success. 
 For only such a motive and such an aim could 
 induce men to undergo the toil, and nerve them to 
 face the difficulties, of the undertaking. Men ran 
 buy and sell without a knowledge of barbarian 
 tongues, but, except in the tongues in which the 
 hearers were born, the gospel cannot be preached 
 so as to gain their attention, enlighten their under- 
 standing, and bring them to the faith and obedi- 
 ence of Jesus Christ. 
 
 (3.) How much work has been done among the 
 young in schools ! These form a very important 
 and valuable part of the machinery of every evan- 
 gelical mission. Hundreds of thousands have been 
 
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 149 
 
 taught to read, and have had something good to 
 read prepared for them. Probably, correct sta- 
 tistics of the amount of work done and of good, 
 accomplished in this department of missionary 
 service, nowhere exist, but we consider both very 
 great ; and could the information be set before us, 
 objectors would be silent. 
 
 (4.) One of the most encouraging results of 
 modern missions is the number of native christian 
 teachers who have been raised up. Facts on this 
 point are both numerous, indubitable, and delight- 
 ful. The Eev. Isaac Stubbins. from India, speak- 
 ing of the Baptist Mission in Orissa, said : — 
 " Between twenty and thirty native preachers had 
 been raised up, and some of them had laboured 
 with a zeal and an ardour scarcely equalled by any 
 minister of our own land. Most of these had 
 grown up in heathenism, had been converted in 
 mature years, and had then become preachers of 
 the gospel." 
 
 Dr. Lockhart said of native Chinese preachers : 
 — " To the eloquent declarations of gospel truth, 
 made by some of them at Shanghai, he had list- 
 ened with the greatest pleasure. They would 
 carry on the work of the gospel throughout China, 
 
150 SECTION V. 
 
 much more extensively and efficiently than any 
 Europeans could." 
 
 The Iiev. Mr. Fairbrother said : — " In certain 
 places native agency had accomplished wonders. 
 By it a great number of the South Sea Islands had 
 been won to the Church of the Redeemer ; and 
 the same was true of Madagascar and the Karen 
 Church." 
 
 Samuel Kayarnak, the first convert to Chris- 
 tianity in Greenland, " proved a marvellous evan- 
 gelist among his countrymen." 
 
 The He v. Dr O'Meara, a missionary among the 
 North American Indians, spoke of a " cultivated 
 and earnest native brother, who was looked up to 
 by the people among whom he laboured, as much 
 as was the European himself." 
 
 In connection with the American mission in 
 Turkey there are about 300 native pastors and 
 other labourers. 
 
 In the Samoan Islands, at almost every village 
 there is a native agent; in some instances, a pas- 
 tor; and all these are supported by the natives 
 themselves. 
 
 The Liverpool Missionary Conference devoted a 
 sitting to the consideration of this important branch 
 of the subject; and in their minute they thus 
 
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 151 
 
 express the result: — "The Conference rejoice that 
 the native agents have already, under the blessing 
 of God, been made the instruments of great good. 
 They rejoice and give thanks to God, that in many 
 countries, in many spheres of missionary labour, 
 converts raised up from among the heathen, have 
 been found faithful pastors, eloquent preachers, 
 self-denying evangelists, and that, in some cases, 
 they have joyfully laid down their lives for Christ's 
 cause. They reckon this fact as one of the most 
 gratifying proofs of the success of the gospel in 
 modern days." 
 
 It is reckoned that there are about 16,000 
 agents of this class in the various mission-fields, 
 Polynesians, Negroes, Kafirs, Chinese, Hindoos, 
 <fec. They have been selected after trial and proof, 
 having given evidence of piety ; and many, if not 
 all of them have been carefully trained. They are 
 now teaching schools, preaching the gospel, and 
 ruling churches. What a delightful and encou- 
 raging fact is this ! How it should cheer the 
 hearts, and increase the confidence, of God's people, 
 and put to shame the ignorance, or the crooked- 
 ness, that charges the cause of Christ with failure 
 or small success ! 
 
 (o.) In that interesting Report, already referred to, 
 
152 SECTION V. 
 
 the candid inquirer will find many delightful testi- 
 monies from till parts of the world, from the lips 
 of missionaries of all sections of the Church, and of 
 pious and intelligent lay brethren. The Rev. 
 Joseph Mullens of Calcutta made the following 
 pertinent remarks: — "Our modern missions are 
 only sixty years old, and already Ave see the face 
 of the wide world rapidly changing. I doubt if a 
 single convert had been made before the year 1 800. 
 Dr. Carey had gone to India. A few of our 
 brethren had sailed for the South Sea Islands. 
 There were one or two in Africa, one or two in 
 the West Indies, and the rest of the world was a 
 blank. Our work began amidst the apathy of 
 friends, and the loudest obloquy on the part of 
 enemies." 
 
 And thus did Dr. Tidman speak of some of the 
 blessed instances of success : — " In the islands of 
 Polynesia more than a quarter of a million of 
 human beings, cannibals and murderers, have been 
 elevated not only to civilization, but, in some 
 instances, to the highest forms of christian excel- 
 lence. In India we have had specimens of Chris- 
 tianity among the natives, iat< ly, that may well 
 make us ashamed. I want to know what we ought 
 to have expected beyond the success which we 
 
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 153 
 
 have had. If we send more men, the harvest will 
 be greater." 
 
 The Conference in their minute say : — " In 
 looking at the results of the christian missions 
 carried on during the last sixty years, and at the 
 high position which they have now attained, they 
 record with adoring gratitude that, notwithstand- 
 ing their own imperfections and shortcomings, the 
 Lord has blessed them with great success." 
 
 Other brethren spoke in similar terms, and gave 
 details from all quarters of heathendom. But not 
 to be tedious, we give the following summary in 
 the words of the Eev. J. B. Whiting of the Church 
 of England Missionary Society: — "He did not 
 like the word failure. He had endeavoured to 
 acquire some information as to the amount of suc- 
 cess with which God had blessed missionary 
 efforts. He found that the Bible had been trans- 
 lated during the last sixty years into upwards of 
 100 languages. There were 100,000 professing 
 christians in New Zealand; 100,000 in Burniah 
 and Pegu; 112,000 protestant christians in India; 
 5000 or 6000 in Mesopotamia; 250,000 in Africa; 
 40,000 in Armenia; and 250,000 in the islands of 
 the Pacific. There were christians in China, 
 Madagascar^ Mauritius, and many other parts of 
 
154 
 
 a EOT! ON V. 
 
 the world. There were 200,000 or 300,000 Negroes 
 under the care of christian pastors in the West 
 Indies. There were more than a million and a 
 quarter of living christians, who, "but for the labours 
 of missionaries, would all have remained idolaters. 
 They must remember also the hundreds of thou- 
 sands who were now sleeping in their graves round 
 the mission churches; and how many had gone to 
 their heavenly homo from tho far distant recesses 
 of heathendom, who were never known to the 
 missionaries, but who had learned from tracts, 
 Bibles, and other means, of the salvation which is 
 in Christ. The 1600 missionaries from Europe 
 and America were now accompanied by more than 
 16,000 native ministers, religious catechists, scrip- 
 ture readers, and schoolmasters, who were evange- 
 lizing their own fatherlands." 
 
 When we with candour and care search out, and 
 put together the fruits of these sixty years' labour, 
 instead of murmuring, we ought to thank God and 
 take courage; and ill-conditioned must lie be who 
 does not see in these results at once a cause of 
 gratitude and self-abasement — gratitude that they 
 are so great; abasement, because, through our 
 means, they are not more — because by our little- 
 mindedness, our illiberality, our divisions, our 
 
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 155 
 
 want of high and worthy views of the enterprise, 
 of faith in God, whose cause it is, and of mutual 
 christian love, we have stood in the way of the 
 revelation of his arm, and hindered distant peoples 
 from seeing his salvation. 
 
 But although we had smaller results and fewer 
 promises to encourage us, would our duty be the 
 less imperative ? Were missionaries never able to 
 tell of converts, were they ever going out with the 
 seed, and never permitted to bring home a sheaf, 
 would that free us from the duty of preaching the 
 gospel to every creature ? Nay ! The Lord's 
 command lays upon his people an obligation that 
 cannot be cancelled. Only fancy church members 
 called to their account, saying to the Lord : — " The 
 missionaries could not tell of Pentecostal success ; 
 they did not convert many of the heathen. We 
 thought it was of no use to waste our money on 
 these barbarians, and, therefore, we gave up the 
 attempt to evangelize them." His reply would 
 shut their mouths. Would to God that it would 
 now stir all to zeal, as it may then strike some 
 with terror : — " Did I not command you to go into 
 all the world, and preach the gospel to every 
 creature 1 " 
 
 3. There are those who, as an offset to the 
 
^ SECTION V. 
 
 claimso Christ's cause abroad, plead thegreat num- 
 bers of heathenish persons in this christian land 
 
 Large sums of money, they say, are given for 
 the benefit of persons far off, while our country- 
 men, m equal or greater destitution, are passed by 
 The charity that goes abroad to earth's end for 
 objects, and overlooks those so near, of our own 
 loth and kin, must be spurious. It is often 
 sneered at by persons who care little or' nothing 
 ior the heathen either at home or abroad. Wil h 
 these we neither reason nor expostulate. But we 
 are surprised that any christian man should take 
 such narrow views of this great matter; and should 
 wish the Church to slacken her efforts in behalf of 
 the world at large, for a reason like this 
 
 Were we to look at this matter from the merely 
 philanthropic point of view, it would be easy to 
 show that, as compared with the darkness and 
 misery of hundreds of millions abroad, the con- 
 dition of our lapsed hundreds of thousands at 
 home is light and happiness. No one, not an 
 idiot, can live in Britain without knowing that 
 there is a thing called Christianity, which claims 
 the attention of all. A man with eyes and ears 
 sees and hears, on all sides, and from week to 
 week, enough to make him eternally inexcusable 
 
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 157 
 
 if lie live and die in ignorance. The gospel is so 
 widely preached, that men would need to stop 
 their ears, like the deaf adder, not to hear it. 
 V\ T e, of course, neither palliate nor deny the igno- 
 rance and ungodliness of many in Britain. But 
 such are wilfully ignorant. If they desired to 
 know about the Saviour, there are daily opportu- 
 nities, which can be multiplied to any extent. 
 Does any candid christian man doubt that the 
 condition of the worst at home is infinitely superior 
 to that of the children of Ham, who, from the days 
 of the flood, have been left to sink without a 
 check, and who never heard the name of Jesus % 
 Through their vast continent, except in the little 
 missionary spheres, reigns the silence of death. 
 No house of God stands, a silent preacher of his 
 religion. No living teacher breaks the stillness 
 with the joyful sound. No Bible exists, and no 
 knowledge of its contents. It is an insult to our 
 understandings to hint that the state of the lapsed 
 masses at home is not infinitely superior to that of 
 the heathen. The linos have fallen to the ungodly 
 here in pleasant places of opportunity and privilege ; 
 the heathen inherit a parched wilderness. In 
 this land there are thousands of gospel ministers, 
 and hundreds of thousands of intelligent and well- 
 
158 SECTION V. 
 
 to-do christian men and women. A great amount 
 of christian instruction among the home heathen 
 can be, and is, overtaken by their gratuitous 
 labours ; and more could be overtaken, if all who 
 are called christians were loyal to Christ. Wfl 
 send abroad our regular troops to foreign wars, 
 and the care of our homes and hearths is entrusted 
 to our volunteers. So should it be in the wars of 
 the Lord. The claims of the heathen abroad and 
 of those at home may seem, but they only seem, 
 to clash : they are not really antagonistic. 
 Christ's people are bound to seek the salvation of 
 both ; and they cannot neglect either, without 
 incurring the guilt of the blood of souls, and the 
 higher guilt of ingratitude and treachery to their 
 Redeemer and King. Christians, if ye have tho 
 slightest spark of love or loyalty, ye will send the 
 gospel to the heathen abroad, and carry it to those 
 at your own doors ! 
 
 But we are convinced that the very necessity of 
 home missions, at this time of the day, has arisen 
 partly from the neglect of Christ's public cause. 
 An un-Christ-liko Church has made thoughtless 
 masses scorn Christianity herself. The self-seek- 
 ing and the earthliness of the Church, her want 
 of a proper appreciation of the high and most 
 
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 159 
 
 honourable work put into her hands, and her 
 want of a generous enthusiasm in carrying it on, 
 is one great reason why she is not more powerful 
 as a witness for Christ at home. Were we more 
 Christ-like, we should be vastly more anxious to 
 spread the gospel. The Church's messengers 
 would be vastly more numerous, their feet on 
 every mountain, publishing peace, and preaching 
 the glad tidings of the kingdom. That same high 
 spirit of devotion which would make her lay her 
 sons and daughters, her silver and her gold, on 
 the Lord's altar, for His world-wide work, 
 would also be the means of awakening the lapsed 
 home masses to the conviction that, as she is in 
 earnest in her belief, so that which she believes is 
 true. Had christians borne a truer witness, and 
 shown a higher kind and style of piety, and done 
 more for the setting up of the kingdom every- 
 where, there would have been less irreligion and 
 infidelity in the cities and villages of Britain. 
 
 There is another way of answering this objec- 
 tion. If there is in a man the true spirit of 
 foreign missions, depend upon it, in that very 
 man lives the genuine spirit of home missions 
 too. The spirit of both is one and the same, and 
 that is love to Christ, zeal for Christ's glory, and 
 
100 BECTION v. 
 
 love, true love, to the souls of men. If a man is 
 indifferent to the salvation of his own family and 
 neighbourhood, his foreign mission zeal is not 
 genuine. And if a man is callous to the claims 
 of the cause of Christ in India, in Japan, in 
 Africa, in Greenland, in France, in Tartary, or in 
 Erromanga, who can give him credit for a sincere 
 christian concern about the lapsed masses in Man- 
 chester, London, or Glasgow ? 
 
 We hold it to be utterly impossible for an 
 enlarged and pious soul, with even a spark of 
 true love to Christ, to be otherwise than deeply 
 interested in His public cause. Nay, it is but a 
 poor type of piety that is liberal for congrega- 
 tional objects, the building of fine churches, and 
 the extinction of congregational debt, and which 
 is not eager to multiply in heathen lands the mes- 
 sengers of the blessed evangel of Jesus, that his 
 kingdom may quickly come. 
 
 This will be put beyond all question, if we re- 
 member that mission work is not primarily phi- 
 lanthropic. There never should be any weighing 
 of the comparative claims of the so-called home 
 heathen and of the foreign. Christ's command 
 settles this, and supplies a rule for all his people, 
 at every time, and in every place: "Beginning at 
 
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 161 
 
 Jerusalem, and unto the uttermost parts of the 
 earth." And it was not : " Stay at Jerusalem till 
 all the people there are converted." For Christ 
 had sheep at Damascus, at Antioch, at Ephesus, 
 at Athens, at Corinth, at Borne, in Spain, in 
 Africa, in Scythia, in India, and in parts of 
 Britain never reached by the Romans. And what 
 frightful unfaithfulness is it in the highest of 
 trusts, when christians keep to 'themselves that 
 blood-bought salvation, intended for all the world, 
 and commanded by Him w T ho gave it to us, to be 
 preached to every creature, or work but languidly 
 for its world-wide extension, on the plea that this 
 little angle of earth is not yet sufficiently good ! 
 
 We christians of this day, sometimes wonder 
 at the dulness and supineness of our forefathers, 
 and at their neglect of the heathen. Surely our 
 children will wonder no less at the smallness of our 
 liberality, as compared with our means and facili- 
 ties for spreading far and wide the Saviour's 
 name, and at our want of zeal in a cause which so 
 honours those to whose care and conduct it is 
 entrusted. 
 
 It is simply a question of obedience to an indu- 
 bitable command. We dare not say: "Lord, look 
 at these lapsed masses in our Scotch and English 
 
1 62 SECTION V. 
 
 cities and towns ; we need the most and best of 
 our men, and the most of our money for them. 
 India, Africa, and other foreign places must wait 
 till these our neighbours are instructed and con- 
 verted. Charity begins at home." The Lord 
 answers you, O narrow-minded, craven- spirited 
 brothers : " Yes, begin at home, but haste to the 
 uttermost ends of the earth. Carry the gospel to 
 your neighbours, and send your substitutes abroad. 
 Work one, work all. That AVord is mine ; and 
 you are mine, and my stewards. I want my gos- 
 pel preached in every tongue of man. And you 
 must do it wisely and well. Send forth enough 
 of your best sons and daughters to prophesy on 
 these bones ; and you, sitting here on your moun- 
 tain-tops of privilege and comfort, aid them by 
 your intense sympathy, your large liberality, and 
 your prevailing prayers." 
 
 There is great reason to fear that, in most 
 cases, those who use this and other objections, do 
 so rather from lukewarmness and illiberality of 
 spirit, than from any conviction of their cogency. 
 And the poor worthless professor who grudges 
 to the Lord a due portion of those talents which the 
 Lord has entrusted to his stewardship, who counts 
 his missionary gifts as lost monc}', and gives only 
 
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 163 
 
 for form's or fashion's sake, not from a generous 
 love to the cause of the kingdom, or a generous 
 enthusiasm for its progress and triumph, had 
 better remember that the Lord knows all about 
 him and his ways and thoughts ; and that, 
 whether saint or sinner, he shall be rewarded 
 according to his works.. He should remember 
 that God is not mocked ; and that this is a with- 
 holding that tendeth to fearful poverty. Let him 
 remember that God will find the means necessary 
 to build his temple, but that this niggardly and 
 un- Christ-like spirit is a peril and a curse to the 
 man who has it. And none will be sorrier, than 
 he himself at last will be, that he did not get it 
 thawed. 
 
 EDINBURGH; TUKNBULL AND SPEAKS, PUINTKKS. 
 
LIST OF BOOKS 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 ANDREW ELLIOT. 
 
 15 PRINCES STREET, EDINBURGH. 
 
 Second Thousand. 
 
 CHRISTIAN FAITH AND 
 PRACTICE. 
 
 By the Rev. JAMES W. ALEXANDER, D.D., New York. 
 Crown 8vo, cloth, price 3s. 6d. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Our Modern Unbelief. 
 
 Divine Perfections in Harmony. 
 
 Providence of God in Particulars. 
 
 The Incarnation. 
 
 The Character of the Worldling. 
 
 The Scorner. 
 
 Salvation Traced to God. 
 
 Dying for Friends. 
 
 The Blood of Sprinkling. 
 
 The Thirsty Invited. 
 
 The Inwardness of True Religion. 
 
 New Disciples Admonished. 
 
 Love Casting out Fear. 
 
 The Young Christian. 
 
 Daily Service of Christ. 
 
 Mirth. 
 
 Believers are Witnesses. 
 
 The Church a Temple. 
 
 Strength in Christ. 
 
 Youth Renewed in Age. 
 
 " It is not easy to speak of this volume without employing 
 the language of eulogy so strongly as to make it appear 
 extrerqe to those who have not read the book. Beai'ing an 
 honoured name, Dr J. W. Alexander thoroughly and fully 
 
 it pholds its honour in these sermons, whose very titles speak 
 
 f o us of their importance." — Wit7iess. 
 
List of Books 
 
 Third Thousand. 
 
 CONSOLATION. 
 
 By the Rev. JAMES W. ALEXANDER, D.D., New York. 
 
 Crown 8vo, cloth, price 3s. 6d. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 God's Everlasting Mercy. 
 The Providence of God. 
 The Omnipotence of God. 
 The Goodness of God a Refuge, 
 Hope Rising to Assurance. 
 Rest in God. 
 Christian joy. 
 The Uses of Chastisement. 
 Holy Submission to Christ's Will. 
 God's Promise never to Forsake. 
 Strength in Christ. 
 The Compassion of Christ. 
 The Judgments of Men. 
 A Review of Christian Martyrdom. 
 The Aged Believer Consoled. 
 The Sleep of the Dead. 
 
 All Consolation traced up to its Divine * 
 Source. 
 
 " A choice honeycomb. Sound doctrine is made the basis 
 of solid consolation. Dr Alexander has always written well, 
 but never better than in these precious pages." — Baptist 
 IfagaziTie. 
 
 " In a style that is clear, correct, and enlivened by chaste- 
 imagery, he gives expression to beautiful, appropriate, and 
 
 sometimes very profound thought The reader finds 
 
 no parade of learning ; but the impression is gradually pro- 
 duced as he proceeds that the author is a scholar, a philo- 
 sopher, a theologian, and a preacher of no mean rank." — 
 Horning Journal. 
 
Published h\j Andrew Elliot. 
 
 Fourth Thousand. 
 
 OUR COMPANIONS IN GLORY 
 
 OR, 
 
 SOCIETY IN HEAVEN CONTEMPLATED. 
 
 By the Rev. J. M. KILLEN, M.A., 
 
 Author of " Our Friends in Heaven." 
 
 Crown Svo, cloth, price 5s. 
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 Part I. The Vision of God. 
 
 II. Personal Intercourse with Christ for Ever. 
 III. The Society of the Redeemed in Heaven. 
 IV. Our Children who are in Heaven. 
 V. The Companionship of Angels. 
 VI. The Cherubim. 
 VII. The Ministry of Heaven. 
 
 " 'Our Companions in Glory' is a mature book; not con- 
 structed for the market with special adaptation to the talents 
 and tastes of superficial readers,, but is a masterly and ex- 
 haustive treatment of a subject deeply interesting to every 
 candidate for glory. And while its learned author has availed 
 him of every aid afforded by advanced philology and criti- 
 cism, the style is eminently popular." — Banner of Ulster. 
 
 . . . . " But this is a book of a different stamp, — coin that 
 has the true image and superscription, and that will stand 
 the most approved tests. The writer is obviously a well- 
 educated man, and, in his sober, scriptural reasonings, shews 
 the results of sound scholarship and careful investigation." — 
 Morning Journal. 
 
 " The work before us is one of the best developments of the 
 life and immortality of the blessed, in one of its special 
 phases, which has issued from the press." — Caledonian Mer- 
 co.rij. 
 
List of Boohs 
 
 Eleventh Thousand. 
 
 OUR FRIENDS IN HEAVEN 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE MUTUAL RECOGNITION OF THE 
 REDEEMED IN GLORY DEMONSTRATED. 
 
 By the Rev. J. M. KILLEN, M.A., Comber. 
 
 Crown Svo, price 4s. 6d. 
 
 " It is a scriptural argument for the mutual recognition of 
 the redeemed in glory, and the fullest popular statement of 
 the grounds and lessons of the doctrine with which we are 
 acquainted. It is written in a tender, affectionate spirit, and 
 has been already blessed to the comforting of many."— The 
 Family Treasury. 
 
 " The author has long been known to us as an able and 
 accomplished man, a ripe scholar, and a profound theologian. 
 The book is a real addition to our theological literature. It 
 abounds with an amount of Scripture testimony never fur- 
 nished by any previous writer."— Irish Presbyterian. 
 
 "The thinking of Mr Killen is strongly distinguished by 
 originality. There ia, moreover, a dash of poetry in him, 
 which enables him to depict objects so vividly as deeply to 
 impress. His book is by far the most comprehensive and 
 complete published on this Bubject."— The Christian Witness. 
 
Published by Andrew Elliot 5 
 
 NEW BIBLE CLASS-BOOK. 
 
 TEXT-BOOK FOR YOUTH : 
 
 CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 
 
 By the Rev. JAMES MACGREGOR, Paisley. 
 Fourth Thousand, price Is. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Introductory — The Scriptures — Their Divinity, Inspiration, 
 Place, and Use. 
 
 Part I. — The Doctrine of Nature. 
 Chap. I. The Being of God— The Divine Attributes— The 
 Trinity in Unity. 
 II. The Divine Foreknowledge, Foreordi nation, and 
 Works of Creation and Providence. 
 III. The Creation, Place, and Nature of Man— The Moral 
 
 Law. 
 rV. The First Estate of Man— The Covenant of Works— 
 The Fall. 
 
 Part II. — The Doctrine of Grace — The Gift of God. 
 Chap. I. The Destination of Redemption — " The Love of 
 God." 
 II. The Impetration of Redemption — "The Grace of 
 
 our Lord Jesus Christ." 
 III. The Application of Redemption — " The Communion 
 of the Holy Ghost." 
 
 Part III. — The Doctrine of Grace — The Duty of Man. 
 Chap. I. The Christian Life — Its Inward Nature, Faith, and 
 Repentance. 
 II. The Christian Life — Its Ordinances. 
 III. The Christian Life — Its Ordinances — (continued.) 
 Concluding Address — The Last Things. 
 
 "The first thing that strikes the most cursory reader of 
 this curious little book of some 164 small octavo pages, is the 
 extraordinary amount of matter which the writer has con- 
 trived to press into its pages. The style in which it is writ- 
 ten, besides, is condensed and yet free, close and yet open 
 and graceful." — News of the Churches. 
 
 " A most admirable manual for those who wish to be intro- 
 duced into a systematic view of divine truth in a condensed 
 form, and also for those who have occasion to instruct others 
 in the Christian system." — British and Foreign Review. 
 
List of Boohs 
 
 NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION. 
 
 OUTLINES OF DISCOURSES. 
 
 DOCTRINAL AND EXPOSITORY. 
 
 By the Late Rev. JAMES STEWART, Aberdeen. 
 Crown Svo, cloth, price 6s. 
 
 "Those of our readers who have already made their ac- 
 quaintance with these precious memorials of an eminently 
 rich and faithful ministry, will be right glad to welcome 
 them in a fresh edition. The book well deserves the large 
 and increasing acceptance which it has met with. Vigorous 
 in thought, terse in language, lucid in order, sound in the- 
 ology, rich in suggestive hint and illustration, and, above all, 
 instinct with a living fire which could be kindled only at the 
 altar of God, it is one of the best books of the kind we have 
 ever seen. In point, too, of length and fulness of treatment, 
 it is exactly what such a book of outlines should be. It 
 stimulates thought without superseding it ; it does not do 
 
 the work of other minds, but sets other minds on fire 
 
 We bid it God speed on its new and wider career of useful- 
 ness. " — Northern Warder. 
 
 "The utterances of a fresh and full mind, and are distin- 
 guished by massiveness of thought and sound Puritan the- 
 ology Dilating on a wide variety of subjects, these 
 
 Outlines discover a mind capable of addressing itself to any 
 theme in the wide range oi doctrinal and practical religion. 
 While the successive topics are taken up with a calm strength 
 and an inexhaustible copiousness, the reader always feels 
 that the author thought for himself, and spoke from the 
 inner chambers of his own personality." — Professor Smeaton, 
 New College, Edinburgh. 
 
 "A book full of profound views of truth, of vigorous think- 
 ing, and sound theology; it is characterised, in short, by a 
 manliness and ripeness rarely seen in our superficial day. No 
 specimens or extracts could adequately exemplify the mass- 
 iveness of Mr St wart's skeleton sermons; but we can fancy 
 few more profitable exercises for any one who is earnestly 
 studying the truth, than just to set himself carefully to fill 
 up one of these Outlines — to clothe these admirable sketches 
 of sermons in the fulness of the truths which they com- 
 pendise. "— Witness. 
 
Published by Andrew Elliot. 
 
 THE SABBATH 
 
 VIEWED IN THE LIGHT OE REASON, REVELATION, 
 
 AND HISTORY ; WITH SKETCHES OF ITS 
 
 LITERATURE. 
 
 By the Rev. JAMES GILFILLAN, Stirling. 
 
 Second Edition, crown 8vo, price 7s. 6d. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 1. Sketches of Sabbatic Controversies and Literature. 
 
 2. Proofs, from Reason and Experience, of the Excellence and 
 
 Divine Origin of the Sabbath. 
 
 3. Testimony of Revelation to a Sacred and Perpetual 
 
 Sabbath. 
 
 4. Evidence from History for a Weekly Day of Rest and 
 
 Worship. 
 
 5. The Sabbath Defended against Opposing Arguments, 
 
 Theories, and Schemes. 
 
 6. The Claims of the Sabbath Practically Enforced. 
 
 "In this volume the Sabbath Question is viewed in the 
 light of Reason, Revelation, and History. In fact, it is a 
 work that all but exhausts both the literature and argument 
 of the subject. Much has been written on this topic ; but 
 every work with which we are acquainted may be described 
 as superficial and incomplete if compared with the volume 
 before us."— British Quarterly Review. 
 
 " But he might say on that subject, in passing, that if it 
 were necessary to argue upon the subject formerly, it had 
 become totally unnecessary by the admirable publication of 
 Mr Gilfillan of Stirling, which really exhausted the question. 
 He had no hesitation in saying that it was the best book upon 
 the subject ever published, and contained more information 
 in a short compass than ever was previously collected to- 
 gether on this subject." — Dr Begg, in Free Church Presbytery of 
 Edinburgh. 
 
List of Books 
 
 MAN'S PART IN THE CHORUS OF 
 CREATION, 
 
 IN TWELVE ARGUMENTS. 
 
 Ey THOMAS BRUCE. 
 Foolscap 8vo, cloth, price 2s. 6d. 
 
 "It discovers a mind of high scientific and literary culture 
 and attainments, all, however, chastened 03- that humility 
 which is the soul of Science as well as of Religion, and all 
 consecrated by a fervent but enlightened piety." — Rev. George 
 Gilfillan. 
 
 " Its theme is a noble one, and the treatment is not un- 
 worthy of the theme. The theological excellence of the 
 treatise is equalled by its literary merits and beauties."— Rev. 
 John Eadie, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 HEART RELIGION; 
 
 OR, 
 
 LIVING BELIEF IN THE TRUTH. 
 By the Rev. ALEXANDER LEITCH, 
 
 Author of "Christian Errors Infidel Arguments," ' 
 "The Unity of the Faith," &c, &c. 
 
 Crown Svo, cloth, price 3s. 6d. 
 
 "In his ' Heart Religion,' or 'Living Belief in the Truth,' 
 he rises to the height of a 'greater argument ' than any of 
 those in which he has been hitherto engaged. As a moral 
 refutation of scepticism, we regard the book as unequalled in 
 the theological Literature of this country." — Macphuil's Maga- 
 
Published by Andrew Elliot. 9 
 
 Second Edition, price 3s. 6d., 
 
 THE GOSPEL TO THE 
 AFRICANS : 
 
 A NARRATIVE OF THE 
 
 LIFE AND LABOURS OF THE REV. WILLIAM JAMESON 
 
 IN JAMAICA AND OLD CALABAR. 
 
 By the Rev. ALEXANDER ROBB, M.A, 
 
 Missionary, Old Calabar. 
 
 "This -volume is an important and most interesting contri- 
 bution to our missionary literature. It contains many grati- 
 fying and suggestive illustrations and proofs of the capability 
 of the African race of great advancement in civilisation, and 
 of much intellectual and moral improvement." — Aberdeen 
 Herald. 
 
 Fifth Edition, price Is., 
 
 LETTERS TO AFFLICTED 
 FRIENDS. 
 
 ' By the late Rev. JOHN JAMESON, Methven. 
 
 " The late Mr Jameson's Letters are as full of cheering 
 words as they can well be. The sublimity, solemnity, and 
 variety of the author's spirit and style, render the book most 
 
 precious to bereaved and afflicted Christians A cheap 
 
 edition of a valuable book. It is full of gentle, wise, and 
 appropriate consolation. It is not a set of letters written to 
 imaginary persons, with their sorrows duly arranged ; but a 
 collection of actual letters, over which the recipients wept 
 with not bitter tears." — The Evangelical Witness. 
 
10 List of Books 
 
 LIFE FOE GOD; 
 
 EXEMPLIFIED IN THE CHARACTER AND 
 
 CAREER OF NEHEMIAH. 
 
 By the Rev. WILLIAM RITCHIE, Dunse. 
 
 Crown Svo, cloth, 4s. 6d. 
 
 " Mr Ritchie has shewn himself possessed of some of the 
 best qualities of an expositor of Scripture. . . . These are 
 presented to the reader with remarkable clearness, distinct- 
 ness, and vigour of conception, and the moral lessons that 
 are interwoven with the narrative are developed in a manner 
 at once natural and skilful." — Morning Journal. 
 
 Second Edition. 
 
 SACRED SONGS OF SCOTLAND. 
 
 OLD AND NEW. 
 Printed on Toned Paper, price 3s. 6d. 
 
 " Many of the hymns breathe an intensity of religious 
 emotion, and glow with a richness and tenderness of scrip- 
 tural imagery, unsurpassed by the devotional poetry of any 
 nation." — The Dial. 
 
 " This very elegant volume possesses intrinsic merit of no 
 common kind. It embodies much evangelical truth, and 
 much spiritual sentiment, with no small measure of genuine 
 poetry." — Christian Witness. 
 
Published by Andrew Elliot. 11 
 
 THE CLOSER WALK; 
 
 Ok, THE BELIEVER'S SANCTIFICATION". 
 
 By HENRY DARLING, D.D. 
 
 With Preface by the Rev. George Smeaton, Professor of 
 Theology, New College, Edinburgh. 
 
 ISmo, cloth limp, price Is. 6d. 
 
 " A second edition of this work has been called for and 
 issued, and it has now taken a permanent place in religious 
 literature. It is almost unnecessary to repeat eulogy of its 
 ability and practical force, for into so many hands has it gone, 
 and into so many hearts have its consoling words found their 
 way, that our testimony can hardly add weight to its acknow- 
 ledged value and usefulness. In the ' Patience of Hope,' 
 the unlearned reader might occasionally find passages re- 
 moved from the simplicity and directness which affect the 
 hearts of the mass of believers. In ' The Closer Walk,' such 
 abstruseness is avoided, while in tenderness, earnestness, 
 power, and practicality, we may fairly compai-e these noble 
 treatises. We are extremely happy thus to chronicle its po- 
 pularity, believing as we do that its usefulness will only be 
 limited by the circle — already very extended — of its readers." 
 — Presbyterian Quarterly Revieio — edited by Albert Barnes, and 
 others. 
 
 NEW EDITION. 
 
 THE FRIEND OF SINNERS; 
 
 Or, THE WAY OF SALVATION. 
 
 By the Rev. WILLIAM SWAN. 
 
 18mo, sewed, price 6d. 
 
 " A little volume of great merit, and singulary fitted to be 
 useful. The tone is devout, earnest, searching.' — News of 
 the Churches. 
 
12 List of Books Published by Andrew Elliot. 
 
 HO! EVERY ONE THAT 
 THIRSTETH! 
 
 OR, THE GOSPEL INVITATION. 
 
 By Rev. JAMES W. ALEXANDER, D.D., New York. 
 
 32mo, sewed, price 2d. 
 
 BEST IN GOD. 
 
 By Rev. JAMES W. ALEXANDER, D.D , New York. 
 32mo, sewed, price 2d. 
 
 COUNSELS TO YOUNG MEN 
 ON SELF-IMPROVEMENT. 
 
 By the Rev. WILLIAM SWAN, Author of " Letters on 
 
 Missions." 
 
 Crown 8vo, sewed, price 6d. 
 
 THE FELLOWSHIP-MEETING: 
 
 A DISCOURSE. 
 
 By Rev. A. THOMSON, D.D., 
 Broughton Place Church, Edinburgh. 
 
 ISmo, sewed, price 3d. 
 
 " A remarkably earnest and seasonable enforcement of the 
 advantages of the prayer-meeting." — Caledonian Mercury.