ample, a precious part of our inheritance. By the perusal of your tale shall many a youthful bosom swell with the sacred ambition of living to Christ in heathen lands; and, as he hears your name pronounced with benedictions, or touches the soil which contains your hallowed dust, or opens the sacred page which you first laboriously unlocked to wandering eyes your memory shall fire his zeal, and in his labors shall you live again. What is lost? The blood of the martyrs? True, they fell. The car of the demon to which they were sacrificed, rolled over them and on; "their ashes flew, no marble tells us whither;" the voices which bewailed them sank into silence; the tyranny which crushed them waxed stronger and stronger; and age followed age apparently only to blacken their names, or to proclaim that they had lived and died in vain. But did they? Let the history of truth struggling with error ever since testify. Never have their sufferings ceased to thrill the general heart. Long have some of their softest whispers at the stake been oracles to support the suffering, and watchwords to animate the valiant for the truth.

And such shall be your honored destiny, martyrs of Madagascar! Precious were your deaths in the eyes of your Lord. Precious in our eyes is every drop of your blood. And the time shall come when precious shall be the spot where you were speared in the eyes of your own people. At present they deem you vanquished. But they never fail who die for Christ. That land belongs to him. And, when he assumes his right, your wounds shall plead for him; the spear that pierced you shall blossom and bud; your martyrdom, subservient to a higher influence, shall give a resistless impulse to the cause of truth.

That time will come; the time when Christ will have taken, not that island only, but the earth for his possession. The price has been paid - the transfer made-the time for actual possession appointed the approach of that time divinely indicated. Let us imagine that future period to have come. There is Christendom purged of its corruptions; India without its caste; China without its wall of selfishness; Africa without its chains; earth without its curse. All its kingdoms, consolidated into one vast spiritual empire, are happy in the reign of Christ, and prostrate at his feet. And will it form no part of the employment of that blessed time, to trace back that grand consummation to all the trains of instrumentality which led to it? It will, doubtless, form a part

of the occupation of heaven itself. And in the prosecution of that inquiry, will there be one period whose annals shall be referred to with surpassing interest? One, from which that great ocean of results will be found to have derived many of its most important springs and streams of Christian influence? That period will doubtless prove our own. And will not he be among the happiest Christians then who perceives that, by embarking his all in the cause of Christ, he has an ample revenue of glory to lay at his Savior's feet?

Young men, remember this. The morning of your life, and the morning of a glorious day, are dawning together. Would you inscribe your names on a page which shall be read with interest by a renovated world? In the great audit, would you stand for more than a unit? Then must you spring to action at once. Delay awhile and, go where you will, no country will be left for you to be the first to claim for Christ; no language remain for you to consecrate by first pronouncing in it the name of Christ; no single tribe to whom you can present the first Bible! Happy deprivation! and is nothing left- no lofty mark for Christian ambition to aim at? Yes, the church has left you one, at least and that the loftiest of all. There is yet left to you the high distinction of not living to yourselves. Aim at, and exhibit that distinction; and, at the period of retrospection of which we speak, it shall be found that if others began an era of activity, it was yours to eclipse them by commencing an era of devotedness.

IX. But we ascend to higher reasons still. All things belong to Christ by original, mediatorial right, and were constructed by him expressly with a view to subserve his mediatorial plan. "All things were created by him, and for him." "He is both the First and the Last," the efficient and the final cause of all things. The creation of the universe is not to be regarded as an act terminating in itself; or as performed merely for the purpose of exhibiting as much of the divine glory as, taken by itself, it was calculated to display. Nor is the mediatorial office of Christ to be regarded as an afterthought a supplementary appointment in consequence of the unexpected derangement and failure of a previous design. The constitution of a Mediator is to be viewed as having been the primary step toward the creation of the universe. Nor is the introduction of sin to be regarded as having been originated or necessitated by this original

arrangement. On the contrary, it implies that the evil having been infallibly foreseen, the entire plan of the divine procedure was laid with a view to an adequate remedy. Creation itself, therefore, was a mediatorial act; and every thing made was expressly intended to answer to the great remedial design, and was so made as to be best adapted for the purpose.

It follows, then, that no part of creation answers its highest end until it becomes subservient to the designs of Christ. Numerous other ends it may answer; many of them may be important ends; and all of them may be allowable; but failing of subserviency to the mediatorial government of Christ, it fails of the chief end for which it was brought into existence. It was not till the earth echoed the first promise, and became a theatre for unfolding the scheme of mercy which that promise enclosed, that it was promoted to the grand office of its creation. It was not till the objects and elements of nature became recognized images and emblems of that great scheme, that the true reason of their existence and particular construction was made known. The offices of prophet, priest, and king, of father, husband, and friend, found not their true distinction till they became known types of the mediatorial relations of Christ. Till Christ assumed our nature, the great reason for the existence of humanity itself remained undeveloped; and until he died, the temple of the universe may be said to have been destitute, except in the divine intention, of altar, sacrifice, and priest. The cross was the true centre of the world made visible. And hereafter it will be clearly seen that all nations, objects, and events, answered their real design only as they revolved in subordination around it; that it never moved, but all things were meant to fall into its train; never stood, but all things were called to bow down before it; never spoke, but they were all expected to echo its voice. It will, as we have shown, be distinctly seen, that wealth attained its true destination only when it fell into the treasury of Christ; that speech realized its grand design only when it became " means of grace;" that all the relationships of life, and all the mutual influences with which those relationships invest us, found their proper end only when they harmonized with the central influence streaming from the cross.

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But what powerful motives does this view of the mediatorial lordship of Christ supply to our entire consecration to

his service! For until the great design of the office be fulfilled in the spiritual recovery of the world, the unnecessary diversion of a single particle of influence from his cause is an act of rebellion against his authority. Had such a diversion been the first and solitary instance of the kind ever known, it could not have occurred without exciting a burst of loyal indignation from every part of the divine dominions. How much greater the guilt, then, of such an alienation now, when the rebellion is so general that nearly "all things" on earth, "created by him and for him," are turned and pointed against him! Had an angel been sent down to stand between us and every such act, it should not have deterred us so powerfully as this consideration. Wherever we look, we may

rest assured that his eye is resting at the same moment on all within the circle, with a look of sovereign and jealous appropriation. On whatever we may lay our hand, his hand has been there before us, and left a sign which marks it entirely for his own. Wherever we may gointo the bosom of the family, the place of business, the seat of power and national government - he is there before us to assert his original claim, and to impress on every thing the solemn sentence, "by me, and for me."

Little, indeed, do the rulers of the earth think of any higher end than that of national prosperity and aggrandizement; and matter of high scorn would it be to them, to be told that, in the true system of things, they come after the Christian missionary, and are appointed to minister in his train. Little do the men of science, commerce, and power, concern themselves to inquire why "the sea and the dry land" were originally distributed into their present geographical form; why an insignificant island should hold distant and populous nations in dependency; and why tides and oceans roll between. They need to be reminded, however, that in the government of Christ there is a reason for all this, and that that reason is worthy of him for whom the whole exists; that it is something higher and greater than that of merely supplying their tables with luxuries, or even their coffers with funds. They are to be told that, could they be taken to the summit of that lofty reason, they would be able to command a view of both eternities; that on looking down upon the movements of time, in vain would they look for the signs of their own existence, unless they are living for Christ; that, from that height, the light of heaven falls on nothing which

is not directly or indirectly advancing his great design; that it is reflected from the path of the Christian preacher with a strength which throws the track of an army into the shade, and from the vessel conveying a herald of salvation to some heathen shore with a lustre which leaves a warlike navy involved in midnight darkness.

But if all things are for him, why are they not with him? Why will they not find the perfection of their nature, and the reason of their existence, in his service? It is not that they are not needed. So vast and full of grace is the design of the mediatorial economy, that it wants them all — has work for them all. It cannot do without them—consistently, that is, with existing appointments - it cannot do without them. They are the only instruments which it chooses to work with. It seeks to enlist into its service all the relations which bind us together, and all the natural means by which we influence each other. It claims the infant heart, by looking at it through the eyes, and caressing it in the tones of maternal love. The father's authority - the sister's entreaty - the brother's warning-the servant's fidelity - the tradesman's integrity and weight of character- the persuasions of friendship the active attention of neighborly kindness - the disinterested benevolence of public life the powerful influence of righteous government it wants them all, has work for them all. And even if it had them, the kindest tones cannot equal the tenderness of its entreaties; the hottest tears cannot express its anguish over human misery; the most throbbing heart cannot beat quick enough to satisfy its eager longing for human salvation; all the influence which collective man could wield in its behalf, could not do justice to its free, and full, and gushing benevolence · could not furnish channels wide and deep enough to pour forth the ocean fulness of its grace.

X. But the great gospel argument for such consecration is one superinduced on that of the original right of Christ, and is known and felt by the Christian alone the claim of redemption. "What! know ye not that ye are not your own? for ye are bought with a price!" The fact that Christ is our Creator and Proprietor, gives him, as we have seen, a right in us which nothing can ever alienate; but on this right, original and unalienable as it is, he does not often insist. 'The fact that we 'ave ever been cared for by his providence,