PART III.

ENCOURAGEMENT OF CHRISTIANS TO PROSECUTE THE MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE.

As far as human agency is concerned in the eventual triumph of the gospel, he who despairs of that triumph is doing all he can to prevent it; and he who confidently and consistently expects it is materially contributing to promote it. While it is admitted, therefore, as an axiom in Christian morals, that encouragements to duty do not form the ground of our obedience, yet when such encouragements are graciously afforded, not to regard them would be sullen ingratitude against God, and not to feel them is to remain insensible to some of the most cheering and powerful inducements to increased activity. Encouragements to missionary labor, and to anticipate the final success of that labor, lie around us on every side. In collecting and presenting some of the more obvious among them to Christian attention, it may contribute to clearness, and sufficiently answer our present object, if we consider them in succession, as historical, political, moral, ecclesiastical, and evangelical; after which we shall mark their relation to the preceding parts, and their practical application.

SECTION I.

ENCOURAGEMENT FROM HISTORY.

The first encouragement to missionary labor to which we invite attention, is that which is derivable from the history of the propagation of Christianity. In attempting the diffusion

of the gospel, we are not engaged in a novel experiment; nor is the gospel itself a system of truth hitherto untried. It has a long and an eventful history. In order to estimate its prospects for the future, then, let us question that history concerning the past; for if it shall appear that Christianity, regarded merely as one form of religion among many, has vanquished every foe which it has encountered, passed through every ordeal to which it is ever likely to be subjected, and is still vigorous and aggressive, even the skeptic must admit that, whether its success be owing to supernatural aid, to intrinsic excellence, or to both, its friends have strong encourment to hope for its continued progress.

Now, the first question naturally arising in the mind of an inquirer on this subject would be" Has the religion of the Bible triumphed already?" Open the first pages of its history, we reply, and you will find that its early history is a history of its triumphs. It matters not whether that history be written by an Origen or a Pliny, a Eusebius or a Tacitus, a Tertullian or a Gibbon-friends and foes alike bear testimony to the fact that during its early ages the gospel not merely maintained its ground, but extended its conquests on every hand with a rapidity and a vigor which left numbers of its enemies no alternative but to ascribe it to the finger of

"Perhaps, however, the advent of Christianity took place at a time when the prevailing systems of religion were of a kind less hostile to innovation than those which exist at present; or perhaps the character of the gospel had a tendency to coalesce with them, and accept of their support." So far from this, the gospel was utterly unlike every system which the mind of man had imagined; nor would it accept the remotest alliance with any, but proclaimed a war of extermination against them all; and yet it triumphed. It found every human heart a temple filled with the worship of some idol god, and the world a Pantheon, crowded with the long-accumulated images and services of an ancient idolatry; and yet it triumphed. Never, perhaps, had the prevailing systems presented a more threatening front to the pretensions of any new and rival religion than at that period; this the ages of persecution which followed sufficiently testified; but not only did the gospel denounce them, — it went even deeper, and proclaimed eternal war against the very propensities and principles of human nature which had given them birth; and yet it triumphed. "But the gospel may have owed its early

successes to an instrumentality of a kind so efficient as it may never possess again." As far as that agency was miraculous, it was doubtless demonstrative of the truth of the gospel; but the means employed for its diffusion were simply "the foolishness of preaching." No. purple clothed it, no orators pleaded its cause, no secret bribes procured it access to the ear of the great, no army hewed for it a path; and yet it triumphed. The apparent impotence and meanness of its agents formed one of the great objections of the day against he divinity of its origin, and the possibility of its success; and yet it triumphed. And one of the reasons why such an instrumentality was employed doubtless was, that the church might never, on this ground, have cause to despond; that it might feel that as long as it can furnish but "twelve fishermen," it possesses an instrumentality equal, under God, to repeat the triumphs of its primitive days.

"But it may be that Christianity triumphed only in one direction, and vanquished only a single kind of opposition." It evaded no difficulty, turned aside from no foe. It went in search of "Satan's seat." Not a people here and there merely, but many nations, and these in every stage of civilization, and exhibiting almost every variety of political and moral condition, abandoned their idolatries, and embraced the Christian name.

"But many a system which has prospered in its early days, and which has even gained energy by conflict, has no sooner been seated in the place of ease and power, than it has fallen before the first vigorous assault which it was called to sustain. One would like to see, therefore, whether or not Christendom could survive such an encounter." The irruption of the Gothic and Slavic nations into the Roman empire furnished the means of the experiment; and what was the effect? The conversion of these northern barbarians had been before but imperfectly attempted; yet now, when they came to vanquish the civilized world, the second increase of Christianity took place by their nominal adoption of the faith. And thus the very event which had threatened Christendom with irreparable ruin proved the second era of its enlargement.

"In this instance, however, the encounter of Christianity was only with barbarian force. What if the antagonist had been armed with knowledge, with elastic mind, and intellectual might?" The supposition has been realized; realized under circumstances the most unfavorable for Christianity,

and yet it triumphed. At the time when ancient literature arose from the sleep of ages like a giant refreshed; when the newly-created press gave wings to thought; when philosophy rose like a sun on the old world, and science discovered a new world; and when mind, in consequence, received an impulse which threatened with extinction whatever was not true and good, Christianity was found overlaid and oppressed with centuries of corruption. But with an energy of self-renovating power which could have only come from God, it arose with the occasion, and, so far from avoiding, actually called to its side, and employed in its service, all those elements of greatness which had just come into existence. Ancient literature held its rekindled torch to the translation of the Bible; the press propagated it in all directions; an inductive philosophy has ever since been illustrating its truths, and augmenting its evidence; and from parts of that new world which Christianity was the first to colonize, it is now meditating the conversion of mankind.

"Still the test might have been more severe. Christianity might have remained unreformed, or the slumber of security might have come over it after the reformation, while its enemies were secretly forging their weapons, and gradually preparing for its sudden destruction; what would have been the issue of such an onset?" The question is answered; the onset was made, and yet the cause of the gospel triumphed. The Neological Pantheism of Spinoza; the Casuistic Doubts of Bayle; the Phenomenonism of Hume; Kant and Transcendental Skepticism; the Ridicule of Voltaire; the Sentimental Deism of Rousseau; the Historical Infidelity of Gibbon; all the agents and hosts of evil fell on the cause of Truth in quick succession, and in the hour of its faintness, and felt secure of its utter extinction. Political convulsions, too, at the same time, seemed to conspire and make way for the most fearful changes. The revolutionized aspect of the social system, at this moment, testifies to the violence of that moral deluge by which mountains were brought down, and valleys raised, and the organic structure of Christendom changed. Yet not only did Christianity survive the conflict, the hour of its crisis was the season of its greatest triumph. While maintaining its ground with apparent difficulty at home, it At the mowas actually acquiring new territories abroad. ment when its enemies supposed that its doom was sealed, it was seen as a mighty angel flying through the midst of heav

en, and preaching the everlasting gospel to all nations. The day of its fiercest trial is the day from which it dates its modern missionary enterprise.

Now, are we not encouraged from this review of the past to augur hopefully of the future? Shall not the weapon which has never failed be regarded by us with greater confidence than one which has never been tried? Is it too much to expect that the gospel which has triumphed so long and so gloriously will continue to triumph still? We pass to the field of missionary effort over the wrecks of former systems of idolatry, and through scenes of early gospel triumph, and shall we not feel the inspiration of the scene? Where now is Diana of the Ephesians? Where now are Jupiter and the gods of Greece? and where the whole Pantheon of Rome? The first Christians testified against them, and they vanished. Missionaries of Christ came to Britain; and where now are Woden and all the Saxon gods? Hessus, and all the more ancient and sanguinary rites of the Druids? The idols which we now assail in other lands have been long since routed, and the sword we wield routed them. The gods of India are the same, under different names, which Italy and Greece adored; the sword of the Lord chased them from the west, and shall it do less in the east? Remembering "the years of the right hand of the Most High," let us "thank God and take courage.'

SECTION II.

MISSIONARY ENCOURAGEMENT ARISING FROM THE POLITICAL ASPECT OF THE WORLD.

A second ground of missionary encouragement, and one deserving peculiar attention, may be denominated political, for it respects the external relations of Christendom, and especially of reformed Christendom, to the rest of the world. If the social condition of states, and their aspects towards each other, are to possess any weight in our estimate of the missionary cause, we may venture to affirm that it would be difficult to conceive of their occupying any position, relative to that cause, more encouraging than that which they now present.