:

III. The measure of your love to Christ will determine, in the third place, the extent and number of your labours. Consider, my dear friends, that we cannot give you fixed rules on the particular method to be pursued in the exercise of your ministry. Your commission is given you in the word of God, and you know it.-To convert the heathen to the true God, and to him whom the Father has given to be the Saviour of the world; and, with the knowledge and the life of Christianity to inspire a taste for civilization, and to furnish them with the means of attaining it-this is your task. The rest is left to your wisdom and your zeal; therefore we do not say to you, you will have so many times to preach, so many instructions to give, so many missionary journies to undertake, so many hours a day to consecrate to the work of your calling. No it is from the dawn of the morning until night that you must, in imitation of your Saviour, do the work of Him who hath sent you; you will have, in this, no guide or director but your faith, your love to God, your zeal for his glory. If your love is great, the circle of your labours will be great, and continually increasing; if your love languishes, your labours will languish with your zeal. And here, my dear brethren, cast a rapid glance with me over the career which opens before you, and see what devotedness will be requisite to pursue it. You will have to instruct pagans, and pagans who will not always come of their own accord to ask instruction, but whom you must often go and seek, at a great distance, through difficult ways, and at the cost of submitting to their mode of life, which to you, will be full of privations. It will not be sufficient to have conversations with them, to read and explain to them the word of life, doing your utmost to bring yourself to a level with their understandings; you will feel the necessity of uniting them in small communities; you will induce them to erect houses of prayer; you will have to teach their children: this will involve the necessity of founding schools, preparing the natives to take charge of them, and to assist you in your labours, composing elementary books for youth ;—you will, perhaps, become translators of the word of God into unknown languages. And this is yet only one part of your duty; you must watch as fathers over the flocks that your voice will have ga

thered under the crook of the good Shepherd; and as you will be at once their pastors, their teachers, their friends, it is to you they will have recourse in every important thing they undertake; you will be called to give them advice and direction in the affairs of life, in the labours of their calling, in the amelioration of their social condition. Alas! divided among all these labours, your days will henceforth pass with a prodigious rapidity; one employment will succeed another, which will, in turn, lead on and give birth to other labours; your success itself will become a source of activity, and multiply your means of usefulness. It is thus, that, dating from this moment to the hour of your death, your life will be a denial of every day, and a sacrifice of every instant. In prospect of such a vocation, do you not cry out, Who is sufficient for these things? and do you not feel that the christian missionary cannot find that strength of will, that energy of action, that fervour of soul, that spirit of devotedness, that absolute renunciation of self; in a word, that art of multiplying himself in order to meet all the exigencies of his sacred calling-but in his love to the Lord Jesus? And

IV. Can you derive patience and perseverance under your trials from any other than this fruitful source? By trials, I do not merely mean the need you may experience of the things of this life, the dangers you will incur from men, and from places, and the difficult circumstances in which you will be placed; these obstacles the soldier of Christ fears less than those of another kind. For you, my friends, who have experienced the love of Christ, and who, as the effect of this love, have been rendered capable of loving the souls of poor heathens, your real sorrows, your most acute sufferings, your sharpest trials, will arise from a view of their ignorance and hardness of heart, of the resistance they oppose to the invitations given them to believe on the Saviour, of the indifference with which they will listen to you, of the contempt they will manifest for that word which you know to be the very word of your God. You will not, it is true, have to combat the lamentable apathy of the Hindoo, and the hopeless mythology of his Brahmins: it is not the sophisms of the Persian, and the interested credulity of the voluptuous Mohammedan that you will have to destroy; but the ignorance of the Hottentot, the

dulness of his mind, the confusion of his conceptions, his marked repugnance to every employment that demands application and trouble, and more than this, his absolute want of the first notions of a Divinity, a peculiarity which would lead you to take him for a natural atheist. But are these difficulties less formidable, and have you less need to arm yourselves against them? Who knows? perhaps you will be called for a long time to water with your toil and your tears an ungrateful soil, ere you see it produce fruit; month will succeed to month, year to year, before your heart will be permitted to rejoice with the sweetest of all joys, that of having won a soul to Jesus Christ. God forbid that in this we should be pronouncing the words of an awful prediction! we speak of what has happened to more than one of your brethren, and what may happen to yourselves, and you ought to be fortified against this most severe of all the trials of a missionary. If the Lord, in his incomprehensible providence, judge it right' to expose you to it, what will preserve your soul from discouragement? what will give you the patience of the saints? That will inspire you with love and forbearance towards the unhappy creatures who trample under foot the gifts of Divine mercy? That which supported the missionaries in the South Seas during twenty years of fruitless toil; that which made your brethren persevere on the frozen shores of Greenland, notwithstanding the stupid and malignant opposition of their hearers-Love to the Lord Jesus.

V. In short, my dear friends, look for the secret of a blessed influence on your ministry,-look for the vigour of your apostolic career, nowhere else, but in this love to your Saviour. You have acquired some knowledge during the course of your studies, and this precious fund, we hope you will cultivate, and continually augment. But, you are convinced, this is the only means to arrive at the end, it is not the end itself. There is nothing, properly speaking, in all you may have learned, that can be, in itself, the means of salvation to the pagans. Neither clearness of intellect, nor strength of reasoning, nor eloquence in speech, nor scientific knowledge, nor even an understanding of the mystery of godliness can convert souls. All these, without the vitality which the Spirit of Christ and love to Christ impart, are nothing in the

kingdom of God. Christ in us the hope of glory, is the only power which can raise the spiritually dead and make them live. This is to the missionary, as to the minister of the gospel, the only source, but an unfailing one, of a spirit of prayer, of an unction in preaching; of an attractive charm in conversation, of power in the life. When Christ lives in the soul by faith and love, there is in that soul a hidden virtue, which, hidden as it is, penetrates, seizes, impels, subjugates all that breathes within its atmosphere. That life of faith and love, which no one can produce in himself, but which we all may receive, maintain it within you, as your most precious treasure, my dear friends; increase it incessantly by continual prayers, by meditation, by recollectedness; habitually seek communion with your God, grow in the knowledge and love of your Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; let his love possess and constrain you, and you will win the pagans.

Moreover, I have need to tell you, that love of Christ, which I have just represented as your consolation when isolated, your encouragement in your studies, the energetic spring of your labours, your support in trials, and the only secret of success in your ministry; that love cannot be alive in your hearts, but as it flows from the actings of Christ's love towards you. Far be from me the thought of persuading you to rest on yourselves. I have never wished to exalt so much the love you may have for him, as that which he has towards you, which he will still have, and which he will have to the end; for, alas, our love is vaccillating and languishing, his is immutable; ours is weak, his is powerful; ours has existed but a few years, his is eternal. From day to day then be more sensible of what he has done for your salvation; believe, with increasing firmness, that he first loved you; rejoice continually and more fully because he has redeemed you, and has reconciled you for ever to your God: penetrate still more and more into the depths of his love, and then you will love him, you will serve him. This love is the only foundation of your hopes; his promises are the only support of your faith; his Spirit is the only strength, the only life of your soul; his fidelity your only security; and as all things are blessed by him who is the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end of the creation, you will have no blessing but

inasmuch as he is your beginning and your ending in all things. He will not forsake you, I swear it by him, who liveth for ever. He has never yet forsaken any one; he is faithful, and his love will follow, protect, console, and prosper you. We know it, for we have experienced it; you know it, for you have experienced it with us.

In conclusion, my dear friends, I wish to tell you, and I wish to leave this thought as a spur on your soul: a great responsibility rests on you. This responsibility rests on you as missionaries, and especially as French missionaries. It rests on you as missionaries; this you already know, since God has confided to you the ministry of reconciliation, and you will be intrusted with the salvation of a great number of souls. But, perhaps, you have not sufficiently reflected on the engagements you have formed in face of the christian world. Consider, that on your life, on your labours, on your zeal, on your activity immense interests are suspended. The activity of a pastor is confined to his parish; the influence of his doctrines and his life scarcely ever extends beyond the three or four thousand souls that are confided to him; under God, he is accountable to them alone for his conduct. But you, my dear friends, you are placed on the most extensive of all theatres; you have not only one church, but a thousand churches as spectators of your labours; Protestant France and the whole of Europe have their eyes fixed on you. Your names will be pronounced by every tongue, your letters will circulate from hand to hand; nothing in your life will be uninteresting, your conduct, your proceedings, each will be examined, scanned, judged. You will not only be required to be honest and upright men ; even to be pious Christians will not be sufficient; you must be apostolic men, inflamed with the love of Christ and the love of souls; wholly given up to your work; enterprising, active; proceeding from faith to faith, from virtue to virtue, from devotedness to devotedness. It is only at this price that you will be called missionaries, And on this account, my brethren, what a responsibility!

But what a special responsibility, again, rests on you as French mission. aries! You are the first messengers of peace whom the protestant churches of this kingdom send among the heathen.

Glorious privilege! Appreciate it fully. But, besides, you have seen what an interest you have excited, and what sacrifices have been made for you. This is a proof that much is expected from you. If you run well, if you are what you ought to be, you will give a fresh impulse to the cause of gospel missions in France, you will provoke the church of Christ to jealousy, you will cause it to abound in prayer and in works of love, you will draw after you an army of the soldiers of Jesus Christ, who will burn to enrol themselves with you under the banner of the cross, that they may rescue souls from the dominion of death. If you run ill, or if you are but indifferent missionaries, you will arrest the progress of that awakening which has rejoiced and strengthened our hearts, you will dry up the springs of christian charity in our society, and you will run the danger of withering, with a deadly blast, that blossom of evangelical life, which the Spirit of the Lord has caused to bloom in the bosom of our churches, and which promises so rich a harvest of luxuriant fruits.

But we hope better things of you, and if we speak thus, it is not because we stand in doubt of you; how can we? Do we not know you as faithful servants of the Lord? Have we not proofs of your faith, of your love, of the desire which makes you take on you the office of christian ministers? Do we not know that you are ready to go and publish the rich grace of the Father who hath loved us, of the Son who has redeemed us, and of the Spirit who consoles and sanctifies us? No: we do not stand in doubt of you; but our conscience obliges us to speak thus, for we are persuaded that he alone is worthy of the office, and he alone will acquit himself worthily, who feels all its magnitude, and who has no confidence in himself.

Before receiving ordination by the imposition of hands, you will declare before God and this assembly, that you freely and joyfully accept the office of ministers of Jesus Christ; that you are acquainted with its spirit; that you will fulfil all its duties; that you have given yourselves, body, soul, and spirit, to the Saviour who has redeemed you with his precious blood, and that henceforward you will live for him alone, and for the souls to whom he may send you to proclaim the great salvation. I invite you in the

name of God, and by the desire of the ministers here present to declare your intentions.

On this invitation, Mr. Lemue, in the name of his brethren, spoke as follows:

A few years ago, I never thought of being present this day in this assembly, and that to be invested with the most honourable office that God can bestow on sinners. The feeling which I experience this moment, and in which I am persuaded my brethren participate, is that of humiliation; because we know how unworthy we are, in every respect, of being called to be ambassadors of Jesus Christ. This day we powerfully feel it; but we ought to confess that it is not the first time that a view of ourselves has humbled us before God; for, during the course of our preparation for the sacred ministry, every time we examined ourselves, we found so many imperfections, so much indifference for the salvation of souls, so little love for Jesus Christ, and for our brethren, that we said to ourselves: We, who are we, sinners, that we should exercise a ministry of holiness and love among the heathen?' And, I know, that, often cast down by such reflections, we have cast ourselves at the feet of the Lord, crying out with tears: Send by whom thou wilt send; for, as for us, we are unworthy!'

Another cause of sadness is the lively feeling we have of the responsibility which will henceforward rest on us. We cannot be ignorant, that one day we must give an account of our stewardship, and that the Lord will require at our hands, the blood of those souls he shall confide to us; and even the affecting vows which you are this moment making for us, the prayers which all the churches present to God in our behalf, the offerings which the poor have presented to us, and the marks of confidence and affection that you gave us a few days since, all these will rise up against us at the last day, if we are unfaithful dispensers of the mysteries of God. We have, then, many causes to throw ourselves on the mercy of God, and beseech him to perfect his strength in our weakness, and his power in our infirmities.

But in experiencing the necessity of humbling ourselves before God, and confessing our weakness before men, we feel that the miserable condition of the heathen calls us to their help, and

that to refuse carrying the gospel to them would be to decline bearing the cross of Jesus Christ. Here, in our country, the Lord opens the treasures of his grace; each is invited to partake; the light of the gospel shines everywhere, and those who will not rejoice in that light are inexcusable. But it is not so among the heathen. The gospel has been proclaimed for eighteen centuries, and they are ignorant of it still; the Lord has given himself for them, and they know him not. How was it possible, then, that we should not feel the necessity of going to teach them these things, and how could we avoid rejoicing in the thought that they might be converted to the Lord, and become our brethren in the faith? Yes; when we reflect that not only the inhabitants of some obscure islands are pagans, but that almost the whole human race is sunk in idolatry; and when we learn, by the account of missionaries, what ignorance, what corruption, and what misery reign among them, we forget our imperfections, and we say to ourselves, We are Christians, and, therefore, we ought to quit every thing, to go and teach these men who have been too long left to themselves, that our Saviour is also their Saviour. This is what our brethren from Asia did for us, when they came for the first time into these countries to bring us the gospel, at the peril of their lives. We received the gospel freely, let us, therefore, freely give it.

Our office would be less weighty, and our responsibility less great, if we had chosen, by living among you, to enjoy the society of our brethren. But could we experience the power of the gospel, without ardently desiring to make it known to others? No; the conviction that we should now be the most miserable of men, and that our very existence would be a burden, if deprived of the hope of the gospel, and compelled to renounce Jesus Christ for our master; this conviction, I say, impels us to go and publish the mercy of our Lord; and the most ardent desire of our hearts is to teach the heathen that the Lord became pour that they might be rich. We can say from experience to those that labour and are heavy laden, to come and taste that the Lord is good. What prevents you from uniting with us around the cross? This is the accepted time, this is the day of salvation; enter with us into that covenant of

grace which the Lord has formed with his people. We rejoice also in telling them in your name, that you are their brethren, that you desire their salvation, and that you invite them by our ministry, to come and sit down at the marriage supper of the Lamb slain for the sins of the world. It will be our happiness to conjure them, by the love you bear them, to flee from the wrath to come, to pass from darkness into the kingdom of light, in which alone peace, joy, and love are to be found. Oh, sublime message! who are we, O our God! that we should go and preach thy mercy! that we should go and carry to the heathen the desires and the sighs which thy love excites in in the hearts of thy people!

Again, a powerful encouragement to us, is the thought that the Lord has never abandoned the missionaries who have preceded us, and that not one of them have regretted having devoted his life to the Lord Jesus Christ. But even if God had not given us their example, to shew us how he chooses the foolish things of this world to confound the wise, and the weak things to confound the mighty, could we forget the promises of the Saviour? Has he not himself declared, that he will be with us to the end? It is in him alone we fix our hopes; it is from him alone we expect any success; full of confidence in such a Master, from this day we willingly sell all that we hold dearest in the world, to follow him. With joy we renounce our country, our relatives, our friends, and even our brethren in the faith. We henceforward cast ourselves on His care, assured that He will not leave us comfortless, although we be deprived of you all in a single day.

We hope to find our consolation and strength in his cross, to our latest breath. Moreover, the Lord knows we count not our lives dear unto us, as our brother told you the other day, provided we faithfully finish our course, and have the happiness of winning some souls to Jesus Christ; the salvation of a single soul already appears to us an ample recompense for our labours.

Very dear, and much honoured pastors -you who know we must sow in tears before we reap in joy, we hope-rather, we are persuaded-you will accompany with your prayers the three weak servants of the Lord Jesus Christ, whom you are about to consecrate to his service. May

we not feel assured, that the distance which will separate us, shall never weaken the affection you have displayed towards us? As for us, we are going to separate from you in body-not in spirit. Our hearts will often turn towards our country, and towards the ministers of Jesus Christ, who, this day, send us to preach salvation to the Gentiles. Never will this day be effaced from our recollection. From Africa we shall often transport ourselves in spirit beneath this roof, and we shall remember, I trust, the exhortations you have given us, and the engagements we are going to take on ourselves.

You know that trials and tribulations await us, and that in the hour of temptation and discouragement, all the best resolutions vanish, without the grace of the Lord. Pray to him, then, we intreat you, pray to him to give us strength to die to ourselves, that we may live only to Christ, and for the good of souls.

And you, especially, our dear and beloved tutor, who have spared no pains to prepare us for the work in which we are about to engage you who have so often strengthened us by your exhortations and encouragements, and who have shewn us by your example how we ought to conduct ourselves in the house of God; you know, better than any other, our infirmities and our sorrows; we, then, have a peculiar claim upon your prayers and advice. We quit you, but we shall ever preserve in our hearts a sincere affection for you, and desire to devote ourselves to him who gave his life for us, as you have just exhorted us to do.

Now we bow before the Lord, to receive, by the imposition of hands, the sacred office of ministers of the gospel.

After this reply, the officiating minister, who had descended from the pulpit, and had approached the three candidates, read to them the deed of consecration, making a pause after each article, and inviting them solemnly to swear that they would fulfil the engagements therein contained; which they did, by answering Yes, to each question proposed; and by laying their hand on the Bible that lay open before them. He addressed them as follows:

You, Prosper Lemue, Isaac Bisseux, and Samuel Rolland

1st. You promise, in the sight of God, and laying your hand on the Bible before