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THE MINISTRY EVERY CHRISTIAN'S BUSINESS,

A SERMON

PREACHED BEFORE THE

society for % fnrmse of % HJiuistrji,

IN GBACE CHTIKCH, PBOVIDENOE, E. I.

EVENING OP TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6th, 1863.

A. CLEVELAND COXJV
Rector of Calvary Church, New-York.

SMd-S ork :
WILLIAM H. KELLEY & BROTHER, No. 627 BROADWAY.
1864.

N OTIC E.

The Seventh Annual Meeting of the Society for
the Increase of the Ministiy, will be held in Trinity
Church, Cleveland, Ohio, on Monday, October 3d,
and Tuesday, October 4th, 1864. The Sermon will
be preached by the Rev. ' F. D. Huntington, D.D.,
on Monday Evening, at half-past Seven o'clock.
The Annual Meeting of the Society to hear Ad
dresses, elect Officers, and transact other business,
will be held on Tuesday, October 4th, at Three
o'clock P.M.
Due nptice will be given of the 'Annual Meeting
of the Board of Directors.
Per order of .the
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.
New-York, June 11, 1864.

THE MINISTRY EVERY CHRISTIAN'S BUSINESS.

A SERMON

PREACHED BEFORE THE

mutg for \\t Jtttrw of % Iftraistrg,

UT GRACE CHURCH, PROVIDENCE. K. I.

EVENING OF TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6th, 1863.

A. CLBVBLAND COXK,
Rector of Calvary Church, New- York.

WILLIAM H. KELLEY & BROTHER, No. 627 BROADWAY.
1864.

SERMON.

As the host of heaven can not be numbered, neither the sand of
the sea measured ; so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and
the Levites that minister unto me. — Jeremiah xxxiii. 22.
A thousand well-armed men once passed beneath
my windows, bearing the flag of our country, and
hastening to the defence of the capital. The sight
was an unusual one at that time. I was dwelling in
tbe good old State of Maryland, and its soil was soon
afterward made the highway of heroes, who passed on
by thousands and by hundreds of thousands. But the
regiment to which I now specially refer was made up
of the sons of Rhode Island — sons and brothers per
haps of many whom I now address. No one would
be unwilling to own such men for kindred. They were
men of muscle and of bone ; but I saw in them also
the clear eye and the intelligent brow — tokens of a
condition and breeding not ordinarily associated with
the common soldier. I saw at a glance that Rhode
Island had sent her best blood to the war, and the old
Roman fable occurred to me with new force and
meaning. It would seem that a yawning gulf in a
great republic can never be closed, till the flower of
its youth throws itself, in complete armour, a willing
sacrifice, into the chasm.

4 SERMON.
That band of beroes was but a small part of the
devoted men wbom tbe least of our States bas sent
into the field to sustain tbe laws and tbe integrity of
the nation. So, in old times, little Benjamin was
made a ruler ; so Bethlebem-Ephrata, though small
among the thousands of Israel, gave its David to meet
Goliath ; and so it is written by the wisest of men :
" There be things which are little upon the earth, but
they are exceeding wise."
As a diocese, Rhode Island has been noted of late
for its rapid development ; hut it reported, at our last
General Convention, only six candidates for Orders.
How many of the soldiers of Rhode Island, who were
also members of our Church, have gone to the war?
No doubt they are counted by hundreds ; and they
went, devoted by weeping mothers, and blest for the
sacrifice by fathers, and sisters, and brothers. See
what sacrifices Christians are ready to make for their
country ! Yet here we have no continuing city, and
we profess to seek a better country, even an heavenly.
Can any man explain why it is that so few of our
noble youth are encouraged to live for Christ and for
his kingdom, when they are so freely given up to die
for a cause which, after all, is part of the perishing
interests of time ? How very strange ! The Moloch
of war is fed by thousands of your children, and no
man wonders ; but" how the world would stare should
even one in every twelve of the families of our com
munion undertake to furnish a recruit for the benevo
lent warfare of the Prince of Peace !
Still I maintain that nothing less is what Christ

SERMON. O
demands. And why not, when the heathen, to be
evangelized, are counted by hundreds of millions?
Men talk of the increase of the ministry, as if it were
a matter to be estimated by the number of vacant
parishes in our own American Church ! Why, the
Saviour bids you look over a world of perishing souls
as one mighty harvest-field, and to pray the Lord of
the harvest to send forth labourers into his harvest. I
will take it for granted you obey this command, and
that you do pray for this blessed result. Who, then,
are to be sent of the Lord, if he answers your prayers ?
Who but your own children ? And is it not mockery
to ask for this blessing with your lips, if at the same
moment you withhold it with both hands ?
The whole Mosaic economy was designed to teach
us many practical lessons in Gospel days. The text
is Mosaic in language, but its principle is evangelical.
We live in bad days, when a Christian bishop has
pronounced the Pentateuch a fable ; but our blessed
Lord declared that it is full of himself, and I sup
pose, so long as we are Christians, we shall prefer to
be disciples of Christ. The New Testament asserts
that " whatsoever was written aforetime was written
for our learning ;" and St. Paul declares that a pre
cept designed for the Christian Church was delivered
by Moses in the words : " Thou shalt not muzzle the
ox that treadeth out the corn." The school of inter
preters, of whom the Bishop of Natal is an example,
would pronounce this a mere maxim for farmers ; but
what says the great disciple of Gamaliel ? " Doth
God care for oxen," says St.' Paul, " or saith he it

6 SERMON.
altogether for our sakes ?" He asserts that the law
was never designed to bear on agriculture at all, but
was put there ages beforehand, altogether for the sake
of the Apostles ! So long beforehand did the Holy
Spirit take care for the ministers of Christ, that they
should have a proper support when they should labour
in his harvest. But if such an obscure precept was
designed to provide for their maintenance, can I pos
sibly be mistaken in supposing that the law of then-
supply and call into the ministry is to be found illus
trated in the principle which regulated the supply of
the Levitical priesthood ? If the very oxen of the
Hebrews were pressed into this service, can it be pos
sible that we are taught nothing by the very remark
able provisions which laid on every Hebrew family a
sense of responsibility for the supply of the sacred
ministry ? The text is a prediction of the Christian
ages, and of the vast increase of ministers which the
new dispensation has a right to expect, for the carry
ing on of its great work. I maintain that its very
phraseology turns us back to inquire as to the num
bers of the Levitical priests, and as to the principle of
their call to the ministry. If the Christian priesthood
is to be supplied by a great multiplication of the num
bers of those who were required for the law, then let
us learn in what proportion the ministers of the law
were supplied, and on what principle they were
called. In the text, David means the son of David,
and the Levites are the tribe of Levi, in its spiritual
form, the Christian ministry. Elsewhere it is said of
the Gentiles : " I will take of them for priests and for

SERMON. 7
Levites." On the last Sunday in the Christian year
a somewhat similar prophecy is used, because the
Church understands it to contain the promise of
Christ, although the language is Mosaic. And on the
same principle I expound the text, which may, it is
true, include the idea of the conversion of the Jews
and the reception of many Levites after the flesh, such
as was St. Barnabas, into the Christian ministry. But
the promise clearly teaches us that, as the great work
of converting the world can only be accomplished by
a vast augmentation of means and instruments, so
God has taken care and forethought to provide them.
The Hebrew priesthood ministered only to a single
people, but the apostolic priests are to go into all
lands and preach the Gospel, and serve as stewards of
the divine mysteries. Do we not see, then, a proof of
the divine forecast in the somewhat startling promise
of the text ? Obviously the work of the Church must
require a much greater number of ministers than ever
the law required, if all the world is to be evangelized.
Now the text says that so it shall be. God is pledged
to multiply his servants in the Christian ministry, as
the sand and as the stars.
We shall do well, then, to see what principles are
common to both dispensations, as bearing on this
promise. The foundation principle is the same ; we
are a nation of priests, and so were they. Every
Christian is a king and a priest, and so was every
Hebrew. But, as all these could not exercise their
priesthood in the same way, so there was a division
among the Hebrews, as with us, and some were called

8 SERMON.
laity and others the priesthood ; for " if the whole
body were an eye, where were the hearing ? " Yet it
is an important point, that they who did the clergy
duty were so chosen as to represent the whole body.
Every lay Israelite was made to feel that the priest
that ministered was a substitute for all that did not
minister. For we must remember the tribe of Levi
were not simply chosen to this office of ministration
by a single edict. The Lord chose, by a very elabor
ate and circuitous process, to reach this result, so
that the whole of Israel might clearly understand that
the ministry was not simply the concern of a single
tribe, but had a claim on every tribe and on every
man. For observe : He first claimed the first-born
son out of every family, to be his minister, and thus
brought home the principle to every household.
Afterward, he consented to take the whole tribe of
Levi as substitutes for these first-born sons, so making
the priesthood a representative system in some degree,
and rooting the principle of their own service-duty in
all the families of Israel.
Nor was Israel permitted to forget, in process of
time, that the original principle was such as I have
shown. Every Hebrew mother was bound to bring
her first-born son to the temple, to offer him to the
Lord, and then to redeem him from the service of the
priesthood by the turtle-doves or pigeons. So our
dear Lord was redeemed from being a Levitical, priest
by his blessed mother ; and so he was reserved to
establish his own more glorious priesthood, after the
order of Melchizedek, and to exercise it by the Christ-

SERMON. 9
ian ministers, whom he should multiply as the sand
and as the stars.
In the carrying out of this substitution, another re
markable fact is to be noted. The number of the
Levites fell short of the number of the first-born by
about three hundred. But the Lord would not relax
his claim. For the number that fell short he exacted
a commutation in money. He made perfect the sys
tem by which every family should feel itself repre
sented in the priesthood. It is written : " Moses took
the redemption-money of them that were over and
above them that were redeemed by the Levites."
Thus, by a process complex and elaborate, every
Israelite was made to feel his personal duty, if the
father of sons, to furnish a recruit to the Mosaic min
istry ; and that this might be the more closely brought
home to the consciences of the young, the Hebrew
mother was obliged to recognize the Lord's claim on
her first-born — that is, for the heir, the pride and the
strength of the family. Now, if the Christian Church
be, in a nobler sense, a nation of priests, I argue that
the substitution of a particular tribe being done away,
the original claim revives, and every Christian family
that has sons is bound to send a son or a substitute to
the service of the ministry. Can any one suggest any
other principle on which the promise of the text can
be accomplished ? By all analogy we are led to the
conclusion that the son, or the substitute, or the com
mutation in money, should still be offered by every
household that calls itself Christian and is able to
perform this service.
1*

10 SERMON.
Why not ? Such ideas are not obsolete ; the Gov
ernment is even now enforcing a draft on a similar
principle, and nobody imagines that its work can go
on without it. I ask, has the Lord, who made us and
redeemed us with his blood, a less absolute claim on
our services than our native land ? Yet thousands are
given to the National army to be slain, where one is
offered to Christ, to live for his glory. In money, too,
we pay tribute to Csesar in millions, and offer to God
our hundreds or our tens. How many Christian
fathers have brought up families without a single
thought that they were bound, if possible, to give one
son to the great work of saving souls and regenerating
mankind through the Gospel ! The same sad evi
dence of want of- faith and of zeal for Christ is seen
in every thing that is designed for God's glory, as
contrasted with whatever is of the earth, earthy.
Look at our educational institutions. All that aim to
be distinctly Christian are suffered to languish ; but col
leges and schools, and every kind of public foundation
that throws off the Christian likeness, and impresses
the young with no fear of God — these flourish and
receive large endowments. I ask now, and I shall
ask the question again, is it any wonder that God
brings war upon us, and draws off, to perish by the
sword, multitudes of our young men, whom we have
utterly failed, in any way, to devote and educate for
his service and glory ?
But in order to provide for the conversion of the
world, God has promised to multiply the Christian
Levites. What, then, was the proportion under the

SERMON. H
law which is to be multiplied under the Gospel ? It
seems that one tribe in twelve of the Hebrews was re
quired for the Lord's immediate service, or a son out
of every family. By this rule they had twenty-five
thousand men to begin with, though for three hun
dred of these the Lord accepted the commutation
money. Such was the proportion for the little Church
and nation of Israel ; what must be the requisite num
ber for the Church that is to illuminate all parts of
the earth and the isles of the sea ?
The seed left on the Mount of Olives was only a
handful, it is true ; but the fruit thereof was to " shake
like Lebanon." So the Lord gave the Word, on the
day of Pentecost, to eleven Galileans ; but the pro
mise was, that " great should be the company of the
preachers." The little stone cut out of the mountain
without hands was to " become a great mountain and
to fill the whole earth." These promises should en
large our thoughts, and lead us to anxious inquiries
as to the principle on which the Lord is going to sup
ply the means and instruments of fulfilling his prom
ises. Look at the black moral chart of the world !
As yet only a little part illuminated ; only here and
there a bright spot ; only here and there a little temp
ering of the dark shadows ; the world still lies, for
the most part, in darkness and the shadow of death.
Or take our own country only. How many are its moral
wildernesses ! The whole land cries out for the Gos
pel ; and if it did not, that would be even stronger
evidence of the immensity of its moral poverty. Yet,
when we speak of the necessity of an increase of the

12 SERMON.
ministry, it is not uncommon to hear the reply, that
we have about as many ministers as can get parishes
already. The text certainly proceeds on a very dif
ferent basis in estimating for the preaching of the Gos
pel to every creature.
And this leads me to remark on the narrowness of
all our ideas on this subject. When we think of de
voting young men to the ministry, the one only
thought seems to be to supply the pulpits of well-
established churches, in pleasant towns and villages.
The Jewish Church had divers ministries for its
Levites. Some were priests, and others deacons for
life. Some were prophets or preachers, and others
taught in the synagogues, or offered the prayers of
their service. Some were singers and some almoners.
Some were scribes and custodians of the law, and
others appear to have presided in " schools of the
prophets." Now, the world-wide work of the Gospel
calls for a similar variety of gifts and ministries. The
gifts and qualities which make a complete and well-
furnished parish-priest and preacher, are compara
tively rare ; but many who might not answer for such
a work may be greatly useful as preachers from house
to house, as criers in the wilderness, as seekers for the
lost in highways and among the hedges. Sadly
do we need a reenforcement of our ordinary parochial
ministry. Yery soon the voices of your present pas
tors must be heard no more; and. who shall take our
places and carry on our work, unless your sons are
more freely offered ? But do not imagine that the
whole work of the ministry is to be done by priests in

SERMON. 13
the fine linen of our city churches. The Gospel seed
has never been scattered exclusively from cushioned
pulpits. We need itinerants ; we need more men of
heroic enterprise — yes, hundreds of them — like those
who founded Nashotah. We ought to choose strong
centres, and there build up and fortify our schools and
colleges, centralizing and radiating. We may learn wis
dom from " a people not strong" — the excellent Moravi
ans — who " go forth in bands." Feeble as they may
be, they are even now prosecuting the work of missions
on a scale which puts us, with our great resources, to
the blush. Let us be emulous of their holy enter
prise, and so let us fight fire with fire ; for the missions
of the papists are as active and as efficient as those of
the Pharisees of old, who compassed sea and land to
make one proselyte ; and unless we can meet them in
their own way, the world will be filled with their su
perstition, instead of the Gospel.
And how is it in our own land, I ask again ? Be
hold the activity and misehief-making of political
Romanism. The Jesuits are upon us, like wolves,
hungry and ravenous, driven out of Europe, and
greedy of the prey that we offer in America. Look
at Mexico and the South- American nations ! They
whose teachings have been the leprosy of Christianity,
burning to the bone, and eating out the moral fife of
every people that has given them a dominant influ
ence — these have come hither also. Do we mean to
give up to them this fair- heritage of our fathers ? Are
their colleges to receive our youth ? Are our daugh
ters to be poisoned in their schools ? Unless we can

14 SERMON.
raise up man for man to neutralize them, and to
spread light where they are making darkness, the cer
tainty of triumph is theirs. I ask, is this to be per
mitted ? Are we pouring out blood and treasure for
our dear country, only to turn it over to the tender
mercies of Jesuits and Liguorians ? If this is to be
the result, let us know it, and let every wise man emi
grate without delay. Who would breathe the air of
a country polluted by predominant Popery, like Spain
or Mexico, or call it his home ? Yet, what reason
have we to doubt that the restless efforts of the papists
to become our masters will succeed, if things go on as
they have done for the last five and twenty years?
Give us your sons for a moral warfare with this
enemy, and the land may be saved. " Like priest,
like people." If intelligent, well-educated, and thor
oughly pious and devoted men, are not supplied in
numbers equal to the task of evangelizing our immi
grant hordes, and enlightening the length and breadth
of the land, it is idle to fight for the republic.
There is no other provision for giving us an intelli
gent and virtuous democracy ; and with a vicious and
degraded population the nation must perish. We
have civil war already ; and social wars are a very
possible consequence of the popular irreligion, which
even now is so portentous and so justly alarming.
Now, if among the Jews every family was required
to furnish one minister of God, when the wants of a
single people only were respected, I ask, can we hope
to supply our own country, and the whole world be
sides, by a smaller proportion of youth devoted to the

SERMON. 15
Christian ministry ? And if not, how long ought we
to tolerate the apathy which provides six candidates
for Orders in Rhode Island, and no greater num
ber, proportion ably, elsewhere ? Do we not see that,
unless this drowsy indifference can be overcome, our
country is ruined, and the conversion of the world, so
far as we are concerned, indefinitely postponed ?
The text cheers us, however, with hopes of a better
day. " I will multiply the seed of David, my servant,
and the Levites that minister unto me." Now this
promise, I suppose, is to be fulfilled by means and in
strumentalities. The Society in whose service I am
making this appeal is endeavouring to wake up the
consciences of our people, with respect to the duties
they owe to the Lord of the harvest, if indeed they
would have him send forth labourers into his harvest.
Who, then, are called into the sacred ministry?
Observe, we are all priests unto God — a peculiar peo
ple, called to show forth his praise. Every baptized
person is sworn to fight manfully under Christ's ban
ner, and to love him and serve him with all his mind
and heart, and soul. If this be so, let me ask how
any Christian man dares to turn to farm, or merchan
dise, or any such pursuit, until he is sure that it is
none of his business to " go and preach the Gospel " ?
We may be sure there will always be enough left
to carry on the work of this world ; but every Christ
ian youth, who has no decided evidence of the con
trary, should begin by solemnly suspecting that God
made him for the ministry. Not till he is satisfied,
after prayer and the taking of pastoral and parental

16 SERMON.
advice, that he can serve God better as a layman than
as a Levite, ought he to give himself to some other
way of life. If he has the gifts to offer to the Lord,
the presumption is, that God, who created them for
his own glory, has use for them in the noblest work to
which he has ever called any man, and to which he
gave up his own only-begotten Son. And let us be
sure that it is no young man's interest to be any thing
else than that for which the Lord made him. A
blight and a curse follows sacrilege ; and it is nothing
short of sacrilege when a young Christian, who has
all the natural gifts and the means for acquiring
knowledge, and whom pastors and teachers claim for
the sacred ministry, resolutely refuses to observe the
indications of Providence, and steals himself from the
altar. Such a man may receive the curse of God,
which he has tempted, in the form of a fatal worldly
prosperity. The young man in the Gospel, who
turned away from following Christ because he had
"great possessions," made a terrible mistake. Had
he done otherwise he might have been a Timothy, a
Barnabas, or a Paul. But he made his choice, and
where is he now ? Where are those " great posses
sions " ? One hopes the young man may have been
saved ,even " so as by fire ;" but, in eternity, how has
he looked back for eighteen centuries upon his fatal
mistake ! O my dear young brother ! if there be any
such that hear me, do not imitate his wretched ex
ample. Ask God often, on your knees, as did the
young man Saul of Tarsus : " Lord, what wilt thou
have me to do ? " Consult your parents, your pastor,

SERMON. 17
your bishop, and, still more carefully, your own con
science, in the. light of God's Word. Be afraid to
choose any pursuit in life till you are sure it is the
one God has chosen for you. Ask yourself very often :
" What shall it profit a man if he- gain the whole
world and lose his own soul ? "
But the subject as I have expounded it comes home
to every father and to every mother in the Church.
There is an awful sin somewhere, as I have endeav
oured to show, when Christian parents are so much •
more ready to recognize a duty to their country than
to their God. Every family sends a son to the war —
only here and there a family gives a son to Christ's
warfare. Moloch is suffered to put in his horrid claim,
perhaps, because the call of the Holy Ghost was not
heeded. Thousands of our youth are mouldering
under the thinly covered graves of the battle-field,
who would never have been called for, had even hun
dreds been devoted, heretofore, to make our country
men a better people. What has made this rebellion ?
What but our national degradation ? Even rulers have
had no fear of God before their eyes. They have had no
regard for the sanctity of an oath. Thousands of our
countrymen have become semi-civilized. They have
no reverence for human life. For want of the Gospel
the land has brought forth " a generation of vipers :"
and these are the men who have poisoned our legisla
tion and filled the country with a moral pestilence of
which peculation and corruption and rebellion are the
natural results. Surely, if we had raised ministers of
the Gospel, even by hundreds, we should not have

18 SERMON.
been called to send forth soldiers by millions. Surely,
if we had spent our thousands for the evangelizing
of our country, we should not have been forced to
raise millions to save ourselves from national ex
tinction ! Who «an doubt that the Lord has a con
troversy with us, as a people ? He taught us that " it
is better to save men's lives than to destroy," but
we have chosen to believe the reverse, and he has
given us destruction enough. Let no man misunder
stand me. Now that our folly has borne its fruits, it
is too late to choose, and we must take what is forced
upon us. It is right, but oh ! it is dreadful, that our
goodliest young men should go forth to the defence of
all that is most sacred and most dear ! No man hon
ours more than I do those noble youth who fell before
Yicksburg and Port Hudson, or those who hurled back
the hordes that threatened us with every horrour,
at Antietam and Gettysburgh. Only I wish their
lives had been spared and devoted to other purposes ;
and I cannot but think that if Christian parents,
Northern and Southern, had done their duty to
Christ and to their children, this common curse
would never have come. Ah ! why have our youth
been nurtured to admire epaulettes and swords, and
to think so little of the white ephod and the vessels of
the altar ? Why have they learned so little of soldier
ship for Christ, of missionary conquests, and of moral
heroes ? Why does the young man's heart beat with
emotion when he thinks of Napoleon's career, and
give no quicker pulsation when he is reminded of St.
Paul ? Why do we never see our young men fired

SERMON.

19

with holy ambition to pierce the darkness of heathen
ism, to scale the Chinese wall, or to throw down the
pagodas of Japan, not indeed by shot and shell, but by
the power of the Spirit? Sure I am the lives of
Henry Martyn and of Bishop Heber ought to kindle
a young man's enthusiasm and breed in him a holy
emulation to "go and do likewise." But even when,
here and there, a young man is found to respond to
such exalted motives and to give up all for Christ, it
is painful to see how little is made of his example.
Such a young man was one whom I rejoice to call my
kinsman, Cleveland Keith. Millions have heard the
name of a volunteer who was shot on the staircase of
a hotel at Alexandria, and it is right it should be so ;
but of this young hero of the cross who went forth
from Alexandria, to teach and toil for Christ among
the heathen, how little has been told ! After devot
ing his patrimony and his life to his work in China,
death met him on a blazing deck, amid the waves of
the Pacific ; and there, preaching the Gospel to his
perishing fellow-sufferers, struggling to save them, and
soothing their frantic terrors, he exhibited the power
of the Gospel to make a soldier indeed ; yea, a conquer
or, and more than a conqueror through Christ. Now,
I ask, why has there been nobody to take his place in
the China mission ? Is there nothing glorious in such
a life and death ? Christian parents, what have you
taught your sons, if there is nothing in them that re
sponds to a call like this ? Marvel not, if in God's
providence, you are made to ask yourselves this quest
ion with sighs and tears. You are not Spartans ; you

20 SERMON.
have a right to weep, and when the young man comes
home, not with his shield, but borne upon it, God may
be reminding you that he was made for even a nobler
warfare than that in which " his sun went down while
it was yet day."
But I have shown how the Hebrew mother was
made specially to feel her part and duty in this matter
of supplying the Church with its soldiers. I argue
that Christian mothers are not less called upon to
think of the significance of the " turtle-doves and the
two young pigeons." Of the clergy who have done
most for Christ and for the world, a vast proportion,
like St. Augustine, have owed themselves to pious
mothers, and have been given to a mother's prayers.
But where now are the Monicas who persevere in
their supplications till their sons are given to them of
God ? The mother of Augustine would not give him
up. He was a man of the world ; he filled a profess
or's chair at Milan ; he had chosen his place and post.
But even there she pursued him ; she still claimed him
for God, and the Lord granted her request. He be
came the star of Western Europe ; the shining fight
of Africa. Alas ! why are there no Timothys in our
days, if not because there are so few like Lois and Eu
nice ? If the world has no Samuels, is it not because
the Church has no Hannahs ? Christian mothers, this
is a question which ought to be full of import and of
interest for you.
There remains the matter of the redemption money.
If you do not send your sons, if you have kept back
your own selves, then " how much owest thou to my

SERMON. 21
Lord ?" Send your substitute or give your redemp
tion money, and the Lord will find the substitute,
plucking it, perhaps, out of the hedge or the thicket,
like the ram caught by his horns, that was taken for
Isaac. Our Society comes in, just here, and goes out
to find your substitute, in just such places. The Gos
pel can not recruit its ministry, like Jeroboam's, from
among the vilest of the people, but yet it is independ
ent of the rich and of their fashions and caprices. He
who was the carpenter's son, and whose apostles were
fishermen and publicans, can take His choicest serv
ants out of your humblest Sunday-schools, and choose
the sons of poor mechanics and labourers to be princes
of the Church, and to shine as lights in their genera
tion. "Hearken, my beloved brethren," says St.
James ; " hath not God chosen the poor of this world
rich in faith ?" Your riches may be of another kind,
but not exclusively so, I trust. Then show your faith
by your works, and help our Society to find your re
presentative among the poor, and to send him in your
stead. Ah ! if you are a rich man, why not choose
such a portion for your own son ? You who can en
rich him with such advantages, and adorn him with
such means of usefulness, why not make your son, by
God's help, all that a man can be, and then give him
to the Lord ? We want the sons of the wealthy — men
of culture, men of travel, men of taste. No gifts are
too precious for the sacred ministry. In no walk or
pursuit in life is there a call for such varied accom
plishments, such splendid" endowments, such varied
talents and graces. Give your sons, and rejoice to

22 SERMON.
make them all that your care and love can make them,
before you offer them to the Lord ; but if you can not
do this, be sure you find their substitutes, and send
these in their stead. " Supply their lack of service "
by the redemption money. Perhaps you feel, as life
advances, that it was a great mistake that you did
not give yourself to the ministry. Perhaps you now
regret that your best days were given to hoarding
this world's wealth, instead of gathering jewels for
Christ's crown, raking diamonds for him out of the
earth's rubbish, and saving priceless souls from the
pollutions of sin. If so, let others do, in your stead,
what you should have done yourself. Let others
preach because you forbore to do so ; make them
your feet, your hands, your voice, when you shall
lie silent in the grave. This is one way of " redeem
ing the time " and of " covering a multitude of sins."
Perhaps, in this way, it is not too late for you to
have a constructive share in the prophet's reward.
Perhaps yours, too, will be the blessed realization of
the promise which so beautifully corresponds with the
text, " They that be wise shall shine as the firmament,
and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars
forever and ever !"

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