into actual requisition, will the full value of the Christian ministry be seen; for never till then will it fully answer the high object of its divine appointment in the conversion of mankind.

Why should not each church, or Christian community, take into sober consideration what is its proportion of the agency necessary to evangelize the world? Every church has its few active and its many indolent members; or, at least, those who are kept from indolence chiefly, to avoid the shame and the remonstrances to which it would lead; and well do the few know that if the many were as active as hemselves, their collective usefulness might be greatly increased. And well does each of our great missionary societies know that if all the unemployed resources of the community to which it belongs were but brought out from the napkin in which they are shrouded, and from under the bushel where they are hid, and placed at its disposal, soon might the sphere of its operations be enlarged to an almost indefinite extent. Now, this must be done. The Lord of the church has made it the duty of his people statedly to pray that more laborers may be sent forth into the moral harvest. But this supposes that we are all anxious to furnish the requisite number, and that as soon as any who are eligible for the work appear in the church, we regard it as an answer to our prayers, and take the necessary steps for sending them forth. Accordingly, instead of contenting itself with an annual contribution merely, each church must become, in a sense, a complete missionary society. If suitable agents, or those who may be made such, exist within its bosom, it must seek them out, and press them into the service. If the minister himself should express a desire to dedicate himself to the work, let the people generously sacrifice their own wishes for the good of the heathen. If the missionary preacher cannot be found among them, the missionary layman may. If the wealthy Christian has no higher reason for remaining at home than that which arises from his comfort and convenience, he must be affectionately admonished that the least he can do is to send and support a missionary in his stead. The churches severally must feel a distinct responsibility; each must perform a portion of duty; the whole work must be taken up more in detail; and each individual Christian must have the appeal carried home to his conscience as to the manner and the extent in which he will obey the last command of

Christ, till he feels that it is a question which he must personally, and in the presence of God, decide.

The church universal must unite. Not only must denominations of Christians verbally acknowledge the common guilt of their existing dissensions - they must be seen practically repenting, sympathizing, coöperating, and even emulating with each other in the sublime struggle of saving a world of souls from death. "The plague is begun." For ages the plague has prevailed. Countless myriads of immortal beings have, in consequence, perished. And still its desolating influence sweeps over the nations. The recovery or destruction of unknown multitudes depends on the instant application of the divine remedy. That remedy is in the hands of the church; and it is there that she may rush with it "between the dead and the living." And what she may do, she must do; nor must she expect to achieve “ any deliverance in the earth," any signal or final triumph, until she has laid herself out to the utmost with a view to it. "When Zion travailed, she brought forth," and not till then. "A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow; " and so has a church laboring, and in pangs for the regeneration of the world. The only question with such a church will be, and the only consideration for us, must be, Is it within the compass of our power to send the gospel through the world? Not whether we can send it with a small effort, or in a way which shall not materially interfere with our favorite plans of ease and habits of personal gratification. But can we, by "strong crying and tears," by the practical activity of a bold and vigorous faith, by the most strenuous and persevering exertions, furnish a dying world, the Savior's world, with the means of salvation? The question must be answered by the actual experiment of unreserved devotedness.

PART VI.

MOTIVES TO ENFORCE THE ENTIRE CONSECRATION OF CHRISTIANS TO THE GREAT OBJECTS OF THE MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE.

It now remains that we exhibit and enforce some of the motives which exist for entire consecration to the great objects of the missionary enterprise. And remembering how much may depend, under God, on their right selection and earnest inculcation, the writer cannot but humbly and earnestly implore the gracious aid of the Holy Spirit, that none of the precious and momentous interests involved may suffer in his hands. As if all the heathen world were present as his clients, and he were pleading for them in the audience of the entire church assembled on their behalf, and within hearing of the reproaches of the myriads whom the church has suffered to go down unwarned to perdition, and within sight of the great tribunal, and of Him who sits on it, he would faithfully, affectionately, solemnly urge the duty of unreserved devotedness as the only hope, from the church, for the heathen world. Let Christians, then, devoutly consider the grounds on which we urge this, and the reasons which bind them to comply reasons so affecting and weighty that although the wisest and the holiest men have in all ages united to enforce them with tears and entreaties, and though some of these men of God appeared to have been continued on earth chiefly to enforce them, devoting their whole lives to the work, yet they never have, never can have, full justice done to them; reasons so vast, that in order to comprehend them, we must compute the worth of all the souls perishing in ignorance of Christ, through the want of it, and of all the glory which through eternity would redound to God from their conversion; and reasons so deeply laid in the divine

purposes, that the great object of the advent itself—the salvation of the world - is suspended on their taking effect.

Some of those reasons we have enforced already; not waiting till we approached the close of the subject, but urging them as they arose successively out of the various Parts. Indeed, the whole of the First Part may be considered as an exposition of the scriptural obligations to the duty; while the Second Part, on the benefits of the missionary enterprise, afforded us an opportunity of showing that the nearer we have approached to entire devotedness, the greater have been the advantages to ourselves and others; the Third Part, on missionary encouragements, showed that nothing but such devotedness is requisite in order to give the gospel to all mankind; even the objections to the missionary object, enumerated in the Fourth Part, were shown to be either utterly unfounded, or easily convertible into motives to the most selfdenying zeal for its advancement; and the Fifth Part professed to show that such consecration forms the moral fitness which the church wants, and to specify the various respects in which, under God, it would tend to supply our missionary defects.

I. We would now entreat the reader to consider that this entire devotedness is called for, if only to retrieve, as far as possible, the evil effects of our past conduct, both as individual Christians, and as members of the visible and universal church. As converted men, we can probably look back to a period when we lived exclusively to ourselves. During the whole of that time, we are to remember, our life was planted in battery against Christ. Through that entire period, our character was full of influence-daily and hourly increasing the power of old trains of evil influence, or originating new ones. Each of these trains is still in existence; all of them are at this moment in operation somewhere; some of them doubtless in eternity, in hell. Tremendous reflection! they have entered into the character of some of the lost - become elements of damnation; and are now, while we are here at ease, imparting a darker shade of malignity to their thoughts, and deeper, hoarser accents to their blasphemies. And on they will go, extending and multiplying their fearful effects, till all of them have worked out and discharged their proper results in the same appalling issue. And is it for us to be now satisfied with the consecration of less than the whole of

our remaining influence to counteract the evil? Even if Christ did not expressly require it, — if he were even to give us a dispensation from it, would our sense of obligation, our agony of solicitude to retrieve the past, allow us to accept it? If tears could wash away the evil of the past, could we do less than wish that our head were a fountain of waters, that we might weep night and day? But tears cannot; to remove its guilt there must be blood of infinite value; and to counteract its depraving influence, a spirit of almighty power; while all that we can do — and surely we shall not plead for doing less is to be the devoted, unintermitting channel for the communication of both to the world.

Besides which, we now stand related to the Christian church; and this entire devotedness is called for to retrieve the effects, not only of our own conduct, but also of those who for ages have been the professed representatives of dishonored Christianity to the world. Let us think what that conduct, age after age, has been. From the moment the command went forth," Preach the gospel to every creature," the world was divided into two classes. Those who possessed the gospel were to view themselves as standing to the rest of mankind in the relation of guardians agents of mercyinstruments of salvation. What they ought to have been we have seen alas! how perfect the contrast to what they have been! It is fearful to think that, since then, forty thousand millions of human beings should have been allowed to pass through this world of guilt and woe on their way to a dark and dreadful eternity, without having heard from the church. a single accent of mercy and salvation. It is startling and alarming to reflect that there should be a greater number of heathen in the world at this moment, than at any previous period since the gospel dispensation commenced; greater even than about fifty years ago, when the modern missionary effort began; for while, owing to our languid measures, we are proselyting them only at the rate of some hundreds or thousands annually, they are yearly adding to their ranks, by mere increase of population, about three millions and a half.

But we speak not of mere neglect. Simply to have disregarded the command of Christ to evangelize them, would have been harmless, perfect innocence, compared with what men called Christians have done under the pretence of obeying it. Simply to have left the heathen to perish in igno