YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

THE LIBRARY OF THE
DIVINITY SCHOOL

THE GREAT MAGNET.
A
SERMON,
PREACHED AT ST. BRIDE'S CHURCH,
FLEET STREET,
ON MONDAY EVENING, MAY 2, 1853,
BEFORE THE
Cljut-rt) HUssiionflri? g>orirty,
BY
WILLIAM WELDON CHAMPNEYS, M.A.
CANON RESIDENTIARY OF ST. PAUL'S,
AND RECTOR OF ST. irfARY's, WBITECHAPEL.

NEF

THE GREAT MAGNET.

A
SERMON,

JOHN XII. 32.
" I, IF I BE LIFTED UP FROM THE EARTH, WILL DRAW ALL
MEN UNTO ME."
" 1 his day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears."
These words were spoken in far- distant Palestine. England
was at that time a proverb in the mouth of the courtly Roman
for the furthest outpost of the earth — the Patagonia of the
world. Some blessed hands brought into this then barbarous
land the great magnet of human souls. Tt has long been held
up among us ; and the hundreds here met J;o-night, and the
thousands who shall assemble to-morrow, and the myriads in
almost every quarter of the earth who will be with us in spirit,
are witnesses of His truth who spake these words,, and His
power who has given us the great instalment, which assures
us. that the whole vast treasure of covenanted blessing will, in
His own good time, be poured out upon the world. "The
Lord hasten it in His time !"
Our text gives us three subjects for meditation —
I. The Speaker.
II. The thing to be done.
III. The result to follow.
We will consider each of these ; and may the Spirit of
Truth guide us into all the truth of this text, and the Spirit of
Love and Power apply that truth to all our hearts, drawing
those who may not yet have been drawn, and drawing those
nearer and closer who have known already the power of this
great and only magnet of the soul !
I. Let us see who is the Speaker of these words.
In outward appearance, He was a Jew of the better class of
the lower orders. Of his character of countenance we have

* SERMON, BY THE
no record : if we had seen Him, there would have been " no
beauty that we should desire Him." Yet was He the lineal
descendant of the royal David, though His supposed father was
but a carpenter, and He Himself, probably, had worked at that
trade. Circumstances of strange and mysterious character
had attended His birth. An angel had appeared to His mother
— a young maiden engaged to be married to a good man, also
of the family of David — and had told her that "the Holy
Ghost should come upon her, and the power of the Highest
should overshadow her ;" that she should conceive and bring
forth a son ; and that " that Holy Thing which should be
born of her should be called the Son of God." The prophets
of Israel had said the same, a thousand years before. One, that
"the Lord had created a new thing in the earth, A woman
should compass a man ;" another, that " a virgin should con
ceive, and bear a son, and should call his name Immanuel" —
God with us. And God Himself had said the same, four
thousand years before, when, as the first man and woman stood
before Him as trembling criminals, He said that " the seed
of the woman should bruise the serpent's head."
The night on which He was born, when His mother and her
good and gentle husband were with the new-born babe in the
stable of the inn of Bethlehem, some shepherds came to see
the child and worship Him. They said, that, while watching
their flocks in the dark and silent night, a sudden blaze of glory
had burst upon them. As their hearts almost died within
them, they saw a form of glory and beauty in the air above
them, who, in gentle tones, told them not to be afraid, for that
he brought them good news — that that very day their long-
expected Saviour was born ; and that if they went to Beth
lehem they would see Him — a little babe, wrapped in His
swathing bands and " lying in a manger." They said that the
glorious messenger of God had no sooner told them this, than
in an instant the air and heaven were alive with forms of glory,
flashing out like sparkles high above and far, far around, who
made the midnight air ring with this song — " Glory to God in
the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."
At another time, some noble strangers from the far-distant
East came with a train of servants, with camels laden with
golden jewels and precious spices, to see this child. When
they were in their own country, beyond the sunrise, they had
seen a strange star in the western sky, and were led to know
that that star indicated the birth of that " King of the Jews "
— that great Person, whom not only the Jews, but many in
other nations, expected to arise. That star had moved before
them in their journey. They reached Jerusalem, and it

REV. W. W. CHAMPNEYS. 5
vanished. They asked in the streets and lanes of the city
where the new-born King of the Jews was, but none knew.
At last the jealous Herod, determined to find out where this
strange child was, and to destroy Him, called together the
great scholars of the nation, and asked where their ancient in
spired writings said that the anointed of God, whom they
expected, should be born. Without any hesitation they said,
" In Beth-lehem Ephratah." These strangers, as soon as they
heard this, set off for Bethlehem ; and had scarcely left the city
when the star appeared again, and, moving on before them,
stood directly pointing down upon the house where this young
child was.
Of His early life we know next to nothing. One single fact
has been told us, which showed that the Child claimed God's
House, the Temple, as His Father's house : he wondered that,
when His friends missed Him, they should even think of asking
where He was, and should not at once know that He would be
found in His Father's house, and about His Father's work.
Of His early education we know nothing, except that He
had " never learned ;" and yet, when, at thirty years of age, He
left the retirement and the privacy of His supposed father's
house, He came forth such a teacher as the world never saw,
drawing vast crowds of all ranks to hear Him — His language
so plain and simple, that the common people could all under
stand Him ; His illustrative stories so deeply interesting, that
men " hung upon His lips ;" so deep in meaning, that the
greatest scholars of the nation could not sound them; so apt,
that they fitted the case He meant to touch as clay fits the
seal ; spoken with such mild authority, that men felt an in
fluence which they were unwilling to confess; and accom
panied with such a power as made the very officers, sent to
bring Him as a prisoner, rapt and rivetted listeners, and
caused them to return to those who sent them without a word
to say but this, " Never man spake like this man." A bold,
fearless, and unsparing exposer of the hollow-hearted hypo
crite, so that human language never exceeded the intense
severity of His awful denunciations ; yet so gentle and tender
hearted, so full of compassion for the worst and most degraded,
that the despised publican and the fallen female crowded
round Him, to be won away from sin, and cheered by the hope
of pardon. So meek in temper, that never in all His life was
He once provoked to speak unadvisedly. No flattery ever
threw Him off His guard, nor any " contradiction of sinners "
irritated Him — whether it was the open or dissembled malice of
His many enemies, or the constant mistakes, disputes, and pre
judice of His friends. No angry, hasty, or unkind word ever

6 SERMON, BY THE
fell from Him. He lived for others. He " pleased not Him
self." Day and night there was but one object before Him —
to "go about doing good" to the bodies and souls of men.
Such a character the world never saw : it was altogether un
like any thing which had ever existed before. No man
could have imagined such a character : they who have left
us sketches of it — so like each other, though taken from such
different positions — must have drawn from the original.
But the things He did were as wonderful as the things He
said. Wherever He went His presence turned streets and
lanes — yes, and the very fields — into hospitals and infirmaries.
Men might be seen carrying out their sick and afflicted friends
and neighbours, and laying them along where He was to pass.
The pale, wasted, helpless paralytic, stretched utterly power
less upon his couch, as he lifted his languid eye, and heard
Him say, " Take up thy bed, and walk," felt those unstrung
limbs recover power, and rose a hale and strong man. The
poor blind beggar by the roadside, as they led him by the hand
near Him, stood with his eyeless sockets turned towards His
face, whose gentle voice he could hear asking, " What do you
wish me to do ?" And as He spoke the words, " Receive thy
sight," that marvellous apparatus of nerves, and lenses, and
fluids, and muscles, and blood-vessels, was formed in an
instant, the sweet light broke in upon the new-born eye, and
he looked upon his Benefactor. There lies on the bed the
honoured and cherished mother of one of His disciples' wives.
A violent fever has prostrated her. They ask Him to go and
see her. He approaches the bed, takes the hot, dry hand of the
patient in His own — the violent, jerking pulse sinks into
the calmness of health ; the giddy, whirling brain is quiet in a
moment ; the weak, relaxed limbs recover strength ; and she
who could not lift her hand to her own head an hour ago, is
now waiting on her Physician.
See this group of mourners. These women are sisters, who
have lost their much-loved and only brother. We can feel
why they should weep. And these are friends who have come
to comfort, because they feel for them, and this makes their
tears flow. And He, too, is weeping, as all are weeping round
Him. In that cave is the corpse: it has been dead four
days : putrefaction must have begun. He orders some to
take the stone away — looks up to heaven — " Father, I thank
Thee that Thou hast heard me. And I knew that Thouhearest
me always : but because of the people which stand by I said
it, that they may believe that Thou hast sent me." Then, in a
loud, clear voice, He calls, "Lazarus, come forth." And that
body, which a moment before was mouldering within that

REV. W. W. CHAMPNEYS. 7
cave, lives ; that heart, which was still, is beating ; that blood,
which was dried up, is flowing through the veins ; those eyes,
which were sunk and glazed, are now beaming with life ; and
that soul, which had fled to its far distant resting-place, has
returned, at His bidding, quicker than the lightning, quick as
the twinkling of an eye, into her body again.
Here is a fishing-boat in a storm; a sudden squall has
rushed down the hills and burst on the sea of Galilee ; the
waves are breaking into the boat. He is fast asleep, wearied
with preaching in the open air, resting on a hard fisherman's
pillow in the stern. The hardy fishermen see their boat
filling— they fear it will sink, yet He sleeps on. They wake
Him. He rises ; speaks to the gusty winds and the foaming
waves, as a man would speak to his dog — " Peace, be still."
And the'winds drop, the waves sink, the storm is over. It is a
deep calm.
Such things as these did that Man do in every quarter of
Palestine — not in a corner, but before many witnesses. A
few only of these wonders have come down to us, chosen out
of such a mass, that if all were written "the world itself"
would scarcely hold the books.
Who was this Being, whose birth was so wonderful, whose
words were so passing wise, whose works were so astounding ?
Was He man ? He was born, swathed, nourished, grew,
learned, spoke, hungered, thirsted, was weary, wept, rejoiced,
was grieved, angry.
Was He no more than man ? Can man, by his own mere
word, make deafness hear, blindness see, fever flee, palsy
walk, leprosy be clean, death live, and multiply a lad's meal
into a feast for thousands ? Can man know the thoughts,
see what passes at a distance, " know all that is coming upon
him," command the elements, and make diseases and devils do
his bidding as readily as the officer commands his soldiers
or his servants ? These things belong only to God. And He
who spake the words of our text is God — the Word, "by
whom all things were made" — the eternal Son of God; who
was born as a man, lived as a man, walked this earth as a
man — the God-Man — Christ Jesus.
This is " the Speaker."
II. He spoke of a thing to be done. " I, if I be
LIFTED UP."
1. He knew what death He should die. When human malice
and fiendish subtlety invented that mode of death by which
the greatest possible amount of agony and pain should be
inflicted on the sufferer, and yet the vitals not be touched, so

8 sermon, by the
that life should ebb away, drop by drop, in protracted suffer
ing— He knew that'by that death He should die, who, though
above all angels, worshipped by all angels, yet would make
Himself " a little lower than the angels for the suffering of
death." Before His advent, wlren the last of His martyred prophets
was stoned to death— when stone upon stone was rained upon
Iris bruised body till the spirit, violently driven out, fled — He
'knew that no Jewish hands should thus put Him to death,
though Jewish malice should murder Him ; He knew that the
sceptre should have departed from Judah ; that "the heathen
should rule over them ;" and that by the same death by which
they destroyed their own slaves would the Romans destroyHim.
And by that death has He died, and changed that instrument of
death, by which He died, from the -very synonyme'for disgrace
and degradation into the symbol of honour, and the topmost
jewel of the crowns of "the kings of the earth." On that tree
of the curse has He been "'lifted up" between heaven and
earth, wearing for His crown the thorns of the curse, for His
garments the nakedness of the curse, and on his sinless soUl
and body the whole weight of sin, the whole curse of sin, the
whole wrath for sin.
On His guiltless and holy head did God "lay the iniquity
of us all." On Him, "the Lamb of God," who should " take
away the sin of the world," was the world's sin placed. He
is " the Lamb " which "God provided Himself for a burnt-
offering." Created by the direct power of God Himself, having
"a body prepared for Him," and, "by the eternal Spirit," who
created that body, "offered without spot to God," He was
yet " made sin," because all sin was put to His account. He
had written with His own hand in the eternal covenant of
grace, " Whatever man owes, put to my account. I will pay it."
Man's iniquities were therefore imputed to Him, who had
undertaken man's debt. He hung upon the cross with that
which He hates, made so entirely His own that He called
them " His iniquities." " The storm and tempest " of Divine
wrath, that must and would have broken on our guilty heads,
was drawn off on Him, and by Him, who was "lifted up" —
the great Conductor — to save the whole house ; and the light
nings, that would have burnt up the world, played round rHis
cross, and would have destroyed the Man, if the indwelling
Godhead had not sustained the manhood. The plates of metal
saved the altar of Woodfrom being consumed. " The cup of
trembling," which we must have wrung out to the very dregs,
He emptied. By His death He *'made an end of sin,"
because He exhausted the punishment of sin. Penal suffering'

REV. W. W. CHAMPNEYS. 9
for sin is at an end to the believer. -Eternal justice re
quires no further (Satisfaction. When Christ said,, " It is
finished," God said, " It is enough." All that man deserved
to suffer was suffered by man. Law is honoured ; its demands
have been fully met ; and there is no sin for which atonement,
"full, perfect, and sufficient," has not been made.
Thus was He "lifted up."
2. And it is the great object of all preaching still to " lift
Him up." The 'Christian preacher's one chief subject is " Christ
crucified." Like Paul, he would " evidently set forth Jesus
Christ crucified " before the mind's eye of his hearers.
(Gal. iii. 1.) As in a lively picture {vrpoeypa<pn), so would
he, by vivid realization, place his hearers on Calvary, show
them the cross, and Him who died thereon. He "deter
mines not to know any thing save Jesus Christ, and Him
crucified." He glories in nothing but the cross of Christ.
He knows, indeed, that " the preaching of the cross is to them
that perish foolishness ; but unto them which are saved
it is Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God."
He knows, and is sure, that he is as much commissioned to
lift up Christ to a world of sin-stung rebels, as Moses
was to lift up the serpent to those who were dying of the
fiery -serpent's bite. And he does so, surely relying on the
promise, that whoever looks shall live.
And this leads us to the third point suggested in our text,
viz. The Result.
III. "I OT'IlDKAW AIL MEN UNTO Me."
What ! the story of one crucified as a malefactor draw all
men ! What power can there be in this ?" says the modern in
fidel — "the scoffer walking after his own lusts" (for sin often
makes and keeps men infidels). "What! a piece of brass
cure ! Will it heal a living serpent's bite to look at a brazen
serpent's image ?" might the Jewish infidel have also said. And
yet, as many as were bitten, when they looked at the serpent
of brass, lived ; and every one that has ever looked, with
the opened eye of simple trust in God's promises, on the cruci
fied Saviour, has lived too. " The story of the cross "
(6 \oyos 6 tov aravpov, 1 Cor. ii.) has " a power " which no
thing else has ever exercised upon the mind and heart. Men,
whose hearts were as a block of ice, cold, hard, dead, have
felt that ice begin to melt by a strange influence as they gazed
on the cross, till they dissolved in tenderness of sorrow and
love. "As wax melteth before the fire," so has many an
ungodly heart at the story of the cross.

10 SEEMON, BY THE
r The mighty globe that " draws " the waters of this earth-
that makes the obedient ocean still turn towards it as this
earth wheels round — does not more surely draw those
waters, than Christ crucified does the soul of man. The
mighty sun does not more surely draw those worlds that
circle round it, than does Christ every believing soul. And as
even the wandering comet in its eccentric orbit feels, at its
furthest distance, the power of its great attraction, so does
that soul, whose path seems quite its own, feel the attraction of
the great central power. Eighteen hundred years have tested
this mighty Magnet, and proved its force, but not weakened
it. It has been " lifted up " before the eyes of almost every
nation under heaven; and men of every nation under heaven
have felt its mysterious might. It was raised in meretricious
Corinth, and it " drew much people in that city." Souls,
blotted by every darkest stain that ever blackened our poor
fallen nature, were drawn out of their pit of corruption by it.
It was raised in superstitious, newsmongering, philosophic
Athens, and it drew some of the great and noble from their
idol altars, their false philosophy, and their " hearing and
telling" perpetual novelties, to God. It was raised in Macedo
nian Philippi, and it drew as well the gentle woman as the
hard Roman jailor, whose heart was hard as his own prison
walls, barred as his own massive iron doors, and cold as his own
inner dungeon.
It was " lifted up '' in imperial Rome, and there it drew,
not only the poor despised sand-digger of the catacombs, but
the cup-bearer, as he stood by the imperial monster's side ;
the concubine, who shared such love as Nero could give ; and
the nobles of " Caesar's household," the exalted servants of the
master of the world.
It was lifted up in swarthy Nubia, and dark Egypt, and
along the northern shores of Africa, and it drew the hearts
that beat under those dark skins, filling them with new and
heavenly affections. The Jew felt his deep-rooted prejudices
and national expectation drop away, as he gazed on Him who
died for him. The heathen "turned from his dumb idols" as
that Power drew him "to serve the living and true God."
The eyes of millions, whose dust now strews the earth, but
whose spirits are safely housed, have been fixed on that cross ;
and He who drew them to Himself gave them grace to trust
Him — grace to copy Him — grace to glorify Him in life and
death. The imprisoned confessor has felt his soul filled with
overflowing joy, that could find no vent but hymns of praise
as he looked to Him. The dying martyr, as the stones rained
thick and fast upon his bruised and bleeding body, has risen
above his pains as he saw Him ready to receive his spirit.

REV. W. W. CHAMPNEYS. if
The fire has lost its terrors, the axe its edge, the array of
death and torture its horrors, as the soul was drawn to
Him. And as He changes not who said these words — as He is
" the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever"— so does every
day bear witness to the truth of this assurance in our text ;
and the records of Missions are a running commentary.
The Red Indian— that hard, iron man, trained from his
earliest youth to bear pain without even one quivering muscle
betraying the intenseness of the agony — that stern warrior, who
left tears for babes and women— as he heard "the story of the
cross," as he sat on the ground, his head resting on his hand,
his eyes fixed on the face of the meek apostle of his race, as he
heard of God's unutterable love, felt his heart swelling with
strange emotion, and, unable any longer to control the rising
flood of feeling, buried his face in his hands, and sobbed and
wept as if his heart would break. The Greenlander, cold as
his own icebergs, and immoveable as his own icebound coast,
into whose heart the terrors of the law could no more drive an
entrance than the iron weapon could into his own deeply-
frozen ground, yet, when Christ was at last " lifted up,"
began to thaw, as the iceberg in the sun, till the cold stillness
of wintry death was changed into the warm summer of the
living soul by that Sun that then rose, never to set again. The
dark savage, who could tread, without one thrill of feeling, on
the earth that covered the palpitating body of his own little
one — who could steal, with serpent-like stillness, behind the
unsuspecting victim, and, at one crushing blow, lay his fellow-
man a bleeding corpse upon the ground — who could feast
upon the horrid food of human flesh-^even that fierce man
of blood, that unnatural parent, that fiend in human shape (as
he would have seemed), heard the story of the cross ; and, as
he heard it, strange thoughts of guilt, of murdered children,
and slaughtered enemies, and unnatural feasts — a strange
melting sense of heavenly pity — new thoughts of God; — broke
in, like straggling crossing rays of light, upon his darkened
soul : the savage dropped his weapons, and wept as a little
child. The poor Palmyra-climbers of Tinnevelly, whose nar
row intellect seemed incapable of taking in more than one
idea ; the Brahmin, whose quick and ready subtlety might
match even Jesuit craftiness; have alike felt the drawing
power of the Saviour ; and, while the narrow and straitened
mind of the one has been gently opened by the expansive
power that then entered it, the other dropped his subtlety,
while he held his acuteness, and learnt the simplicity of
divine truth.

12 SERMON, BY THE
And if we could look into any one heart which has thus
been " drawn," we should there see that work in epitome
Which the history of the Christian Church, and the records of
this Society, place before us in something of its width and ful
ness. Every Christian heart is a little Calvary. Christ's cross
is erected there. The body of sin is dying on one side — dying
hard, with pain, with resistance, with its native hatred of
truth and holiness — while the other, a better nature, the
happy recipient of the gift of faith, the blessed possessor of
" repentance unto life," and the joyful proprietor of a hope
that maketh not ashamed, is waiting for the hour of its release,
to walk at large and free with Christ in paradise. That
heart looks on the world as the crucified man would from his
cross. The world is " crucified to him." What can its plea
sures, its honours, its ruling objects, do for him who is a
dying man ? And the world in its turn looks on him as a
dead man already. On that cross are nailed and dying the
angry passions, the selfish dispositions, the corrupt affections,
of the man. They may writhe there, struggle, wish to be
released ; but He who fastened them there will drive the nails
home by fresh strokes ; and sin shall not come down till it
is dead : it shall only quit the cross for the grave. Yet is
that heart also the place " where Christ liveth." There Christ
walks, and " meets those who work righteousness, and remem
ber Him in their ways." There He " opens to them the Scrip
tures." There, in the inner chamber, He " reveals Himself as
He does not unto the world." There His features are seen,
and marked, and studied, till the very soul of the Christian
is filled with His image, and catches, by His transform
ing spirit, the faint reflection and impressive lineaments of
His glorious likeness.
Thus does He, who was lifted up on the cross, and is
lifted up still in " the preaching of the cross," draw and draw
the man from self and sin, till He shall draw both body and
soul to heaven.
This great Society has one object, and only one — to draw
souls to Christ. It employs the only instrument than can thus
draw them — the lifting up of Christ. It aims not to add numbers
to its own lists, but " names that are written in heaven." It aims
at extending that branch of the Church to which its members
rejoice to belong, by gathering in those who shall be found in
"the Church of the first-born." It would choose as its agents,
not so much the eloquent orator, not the subtle disputant,
not the profound scholar, but " the man of God," who has
" tasted that the Lord is gracious ;" who, having himself
" received mercy," will not faint in his efforts to proclaim the

REV. W. W. CHAMPNEYS. 13
glad tidings of that mercy, and whose one, reigning, absorbing
wish is, that " Christ may be magnified in him, whether by life
or death ;" the man who, though he may partake (as many of its
Missionaries have) of the eloquence of Paul, of his logical
accuracy of argument, of his powers of close analysis, of his
deep knowledge of God's word, and his mighty grasp of mind,
yet has laid it all down, before the Cross, and received it back
WITH THE CROSS MARKED FULL, AND CLEAR, AND BROAD
upon it, determined that, as all comes from Christ, all shall
lead back to Him. It chooses the man, not whose aim is
merely to oppose error, but to spread that truth before which
error cannot stand; the man who> because he loves Christ,
lives Christ as well as preaches Christ, and who desires to be
" an ensample of the believers," who may safely follow him
because he surely follows Christ.
Such is the aim of this Society, such the agents it seeks to
have. Its outposts are in the wide earth ; but many a nation lies
beyond who might be gained, many a tribe of perishing
fellow-men who might be drawn.
Lt wants the men for the work, for God. has made ready the
work for the men.
The faithful, God has heard the prayers which He encou
raged His people to offer, and taught them, by His Spirit
within them, to pray. Not in vain have so many companies of
believers, at our blessed Missionary meetings, lifted up their
hearts together as one man ; not in vain have so many, in
their own individual approaches to the throne of grace, pleaded
for the perishing heathen. Have the seed of praying, wres
tling Jacob ever sought His face in vain ? The wide fields are
white unto harvest. It is not a solitary man, the pleader for
his own people, that we see standing before us : it is mighty
nations, and the vast tribes and races of earth, whose voice we
hear across the waters, "^Come over, and help us." God has
given to the heathen, almost as a man, a longing desire to
hear the good! news which we have to tell them. It would
seem as if the day were near when "the eyes oiman (of the
whole race) shall be towards the Lord." And the same God,
who has given the heathen this desire to hear, and has
brought such vast masses of them into the closest political
connexion with our own nation, has given to the church of
this nation the glorious privilege of leading the van in that
march of mercy, in which all our Christian brethren,, with holy
zeal and strife of love, are pressing onwards. Shall we, as a
church, be wanting in this hour ? When Wellington asked
a few volunteers for a storming party, the whole detachment

14 SERMON, BY THE
moved forward as one man. Shall the Captain of our salvation
in vain ask our church, with its 15,000 clergy perhaps, for
forty men — not to push on as the forlorn hope to storm the
towers, nor even to break the dangerous ground within reach
of the enemy's shot, but to occupy posts which veteran
soldiers of the cross have carried, and held, and secured, and
so enable them, with their experience and knowledge, and
command of languages and resources, and climatised constitu
tions, to push forward and onward, and to win the land beyond ?
The Son of God asks you — each soldier of this detachment
of His great army — " Cannot you go ?" Has God given you
" knowledge of salvation by the remission of your sins ?" Has
He made you to "know and believe the love He hath towards
you ?" Has He given you grace "not to hide His righteous
ness within your heart, but to talk of His truth and His sal
vation?" Has He bestowed on you strong health, fair powers
of mind, determination of character ? Then you are the man
He wants for this work. May He make you hear the call,
and step out, and say, "Here am I, Lord, send me !"
But if we cannot go, can we do nothing ?
Have we, as ministers or members of a church which puts
into her children's lips so many missionary prayers, thrown
our whole heart into those prayers ? Does our whole soul go
forth in those words of our Divine Lord — the true Missionary
— " Thy kingdom come : Thy will be done on earth as it is in
heaven ?" Have we pleaded with our whole heart with God,
" the Creator and Preserver of all mankind, that He would
make His ways known upon earth : His saving health among
all nations ?" Have we, with yearning pity over those who
are living without God and dying without hope, prayed, "That
it may please Thee to have mercy upon all men ?" Have we
on that day, when, standing safe upon the rock ourselves,
which lifts its head above the raging waterfloods, we look at
our brethren who are still clinging to the wreck — have we fer
vently prayed God to " have mercy upon all Jews, Turks, In
fidels, and Heretics ;" and added in our own thoughts, " the
poor heathen ?" And when kneeling with our households, have
we each led "our church in the house" to remember the
perishing heathen and the outcast Jew? What does our
closet testify ? If the prayers of our chamber were all daguerre-
otyped upon the walls, how many Missionary prayers would
men read there ? God pardon the past, and pour on us all
" the spirit of grace and supplication " in the time to come
that our churches, and homes, and closets, may all tell of the
incense of " effectual, fervent prayer!"
And if we cannot give ourselves to this work, is there nothing

rev. w. w. champneys. 15
which we can give ? O that the richer Christian were only as
liberal and self-denying as the poor ! They do " give out of
their penury :" " their deep poverty abounds to the riches of
their liberality." " According to their power, and beyond their
power," they give to the work of Him whom they love, and
who has made them so rich in all their poverty. I have
known the ragged child go days without a meal that she
might purchase the Book of God. Would our self-denial for
the furtherance of God's work keep pace with this ? Do our
burnt-offerings cost us any thing ? What proportion do our
gifts bear to our means ? The poor Christian's Missionary
pence are often a tithe or half a tithe of her living. What
are our Missionary guineas to ours ? Is there no tangible
record kept by us of mercies received ? — p. child's recovery
from sickness — an escape from danger — preservation and com
fort in a journey — special prayers heard and granted — success
in business — guidance in perplexity — storms that threatened
blown over or broken in a few heavy drops of rain — have these
been noted in our book, and recorded in gold or silver marks
upon the score of mercies ?
Might they not have been ? Should they not have been ?
And if each member of our Society had so marked His mercies
in the past year, would not far larger means have been placed
under the faithful stewardship of its Committee ?
May He who has drawn so many Christian hearts, by the
great magnet of His cross and the attraction of His love, draw
us all nearer and nearer, that in His light we may see more
and more light ; and in His love get more and more warmth
of love, till heart, and soul, and mind, and strength, and time,
and influence, and money, and talents, and life itself, are
wholly given up to His work — His service — His glory.
" God be merciful to us, and bless us, and lift up the light of
His countenance upon us," His favoured people, that through
us " His way may be known upon earth, His saving health
among all nations ! "