displace. This great enterprise has been engaged in, also, in full view of the apathy and coldness and want of zeal of the great body of the christian church; of all the prejudice which has been caused on heathen shores by those bearing the christian name, who have gone for unholy gain, for plunder and rapine; of all the unrighteous wars which professedly christian sovereigns have waged there; of all the injury done by slaveships approaching a heathen coast under the abused flag of a christian nation, to seize and fetter its unoffending inhabitants and to bear them away to hopeless bondage; and we expect to prosecute this great work in the, very light and blaze of burning villages and hamlets, fired by those who bear the christian name. This immense and far-spread prejudice we hope to overcome by the exhibition of that benevolence to which the gospel prompts, and by making the heathen understand, by a long course of efforts pursued for their good, that all who bear the christian name do not visit their shores for plunder and rapine. And this work has been commenced in full view of the belief that all this evil is systematized and arranged under the control of one master mind, the presiding spirit of evil, and that it is "methodised and wielded with a comprehension of plan which no man man can explain upon the principle of accidental coincidence." Under this comprehensive plan, these various forms of evil are all marshalled and wielded, and

every point may be defended by a leader who seems to have the power of ubiquity of action to strengthen whatever position is attacked. In such an enterprise on what kind of religion shall we rely? Not the admiration of the beautiful is to accomplish the work: not that religion which would go to assimilate itself to these systems or to adopt their forms as its own: and not that "goodness" which, "like the morning cloud, soon vanishes away."

Thirdly, The missionary enterprise is one which is to be pursued through scenes of alternate hope and fear; in times of elation and depression; when the sea is smooth and a steady breeze swells all the canvass, and when the storm arises and the billows roll. The appeal is not to be made to the church on the ground of success. The heart is not to be unduly elated when opposition yields and the gospel achieves great triumphs; nor is it to be depressed when opposition becomes formidable and no impression is made on the powers of darkness. The church is not to become self-confident or suddenly flushed with the hope of victory when her sons press forward to fill the ranks of those who have fallen in her service; nor is she to be disheartened when they prefer the gains of commerce, the honors of a learned profession, or the calm retreats of the porch or the academy, to the paths of self-denial which must be trod by the christian missionary. It is the nature of this work to be calm and con

fident in God, though the last herald of salvation on heathen ground, faint and feeble, should lift up the cry for help, and not a youth of the land should run to his aid. The church is not to be elated unduly when religion seems to make its way triumphantly among mountain fastnesses, to find out an old and dilapidated church, and to kindle up again the flame of pure devotion in its ancient temples; nor is she to despond though armed hosts follow the adventurous tread of the christian missionary, and murder the priest of religion, and lead christian matrons and virgins into captivity, and extinguish there the holy flame which had begun to burn anew on those mouldering altars. From the very nature of Christianity, it will visit those mountain fastnesses again, undismayed, with the firm confidence that the holy light of religion will yet shine unextinguished there. Nor is the church to place her reliance on the wisdom of men, nor to feel unduly elated when the leaders in this cause are blessed with uncommon prudence and sagacity, nor be dismayed when such men are removed. The enterprise lives on while its earthly leaders die. It is not essentially disturbed though such a man as Worcester, or Evarts, or Cornelius, or Wisner be taken from its councils, for the Great Leader and Counsellor lives. Those were uncommon men. Few causes in which men have been embarked have had such men to lose many a cause could not have parted with them and yet survived.

Many an enterprise has been begun and ended under a single leader; and when the great mind that conceived it was withdrawn, no one was found to carry forward the plan which he had formed, and the fabric which he had reared fell by its own weight. The plans which had been commenced by Alexander could have been matured and perpetuated only by his own talents; and when he died the immense empire which he had founded crumbled to fragments. The empire over which Napoleon ruled rose under his own mighty genius; and had he never been driven from his throne, the world would not have had an intellect fitted to perfect his plans when he died. Cromwell left no successor to carry out the principles of that Protectorate which had made England more formidable and more respected than she had been under all her dynasties of kings from the time of Alfred; and deprived of his mighty mind, the nation bowed to the sceptre of the most miserable specimen of royalty that ever occupied a throne. Not so when perpetuity and triumph depend on principle. Had Samuel Adams and John Hancock, when proscribed by the British government, been arrested and put to death; had the voice of Patrick Henry been silenced by a poniard or a bribe; had the sagacity of Franklin and Sherman been withheld from the councils of the revolution; nay, had the ball from the rifle of the Indian chief, aimed with a skill which had never before failed, pierced the heart of Washing

ton, there would have been other Adamses and Hancocks and Henrys and Shermans and Franklins and Washingtons, to conduct the nation to freedom, for there were great principles of liberty involved, which could neither be proscribed nor bribed nor put to death. So in the cause of spreading the gospel around the world. No matter what earthly leader falls, the cause is to live. There are great principles involved in that cause, and it must live on from age to age; and when a leader falls the church is not to be dismayed. She has embarked in this enterprise expecting that this is to be, and has learned to anticipate that a long succession of such men as Worcester and Evarts and Cornelius and Wisner must die before her object is accomplished.

Fourthly, the missionary enterprise contemplates such sacrifices as can be met only by steady principle. It supposes that there must be great self-denials, great expenditures, great sufferings. It was an elementary idea in the work of the Savior when he undertook our redemption, that he was to be poor, despised, and forsaken; that he was to grapple, single-handed, with the most mighty enemy of God that the universe contains; that he was to endure the keenest tortures which the human frame could be made to bear. It was an elementary idea in the religion of Paul, that he was to abandon his splendid prospects of distinction; that he was to look away from the honors of scholarship,