patriarchs; and groaned under that captivity, which drove them, and their degraded countrymen,from the scenes of ancient inspiration. Their writings were addressed rather to the future than the present; they dwelt on remote events; they had to tell of them at a distance,- it was seed time, and they prepared for, and prophesied of, a harvest to come. To this class of labourers did John the Baptist belong-and perhaps it may not be improper here, also, to include the great Messiah himself, whose personal ministry on earth seemed attended with but little proportionate effect. When the apostles came forth, at the age to which all the prophets had borne witness, and when the way for their office had thus been made ready, a rich and plentiful harvest awaited their exertions. What multitudes of converts were then brought to the truth, and what stupendous effects were they enabled to produce on the affairs of the world! On the day of their first effort, three thousand were added to the church, and afterwards they daily received such as should be saved. They over-leaped the barriers of Jewish prejudice, stepped across the boundaries of Palestine, and entered the vast and trackless territories of Gentile misery. They wrought in the unrestricted field of nature. They dispersed themselves to all quarters of the eartheast, west, north, and south. They visited alike Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, Scythian, barbarian, bond and free, sounding the trumpet of mercy, and proclaiming the

charter of salvation; and though the storms and tempests of persecution beat upon them, and swept them rapidly to the tomb, yet they departed laden with trophies, for they had "preached the gospel for a witness among all nations," and commenced and directed that scheme of vast operations, which at last heaved the mighty fabric of ancient idolatry to the ground. In the comparison of labour, as thus instituted, some "laboured," and others "entered into their labours."

The effort which had been made by the apostles, was triumphantly continued in following generations; but a long period of melancholy sterility succeeded. The world seemed to be frozen in perpetual winter, or produced nothing but briers and thorns. At length, however, men were again sent forth" to sow." The illustrious reformers proclaimed the truth once more; and the fruits of their labours, though in their days the exhibition of success was partial, have been pre-eminently to the praise and glory of God. In our own country, it was the office of the ministers of preceding generations, to occupy the toilsome, and apparently unsuccessful, station. Making one selection, which the opportunity will well allow,-those noble and persecuted men-you will recognize our allusion at once-whose lot it was to live under reigns of guilty oppression, and whom we think it an honour to claim as our religious ancestry, laboured for us.

They bore the brunt of a cruel and an infamous persecution; they opposed, and they suffered under unprincipled aggressions on the rights of conscience; they withstood and stemmed a growing torrent of licentiousness and crime, which threatened to inundate the land; they composed and completed those astonishing expositions of religious principle, those gigantic works of united industry, intellect, and piety, which have remained, and will remain imperishable monuments of honour,-contributing to the instruction, the temporal improvement, and everlasting welfare, of every period of time. What was thus prepared, and "sown" by reformers in many countries, and by the confessors and noble advocates of truth in our own country-we reap;" truly we" have entered into their labours." Every class of religious society participates in the benefit. Ministers reap :-we do it in the clearing away of difficult or useless controversy; in the levelling down from the Christian doctrine a surrounding host of interposing and obstructing errors; in the masterly achievements of critical investigation, rendering easy and clear, points which to this day might have been involved in deep and tiresome perplexity; in the embodying and arrangement of the system of evangelical truth which so assists our contemplations in the mystery of godliness; and, above all, in that example of unwearied labour, of firm, unbending principle, of constant and increasing spirituality of devotion, which

66

form the true ornament and only substantial dignity of the office. There is not one minister of religion, surely, in the modern age, knowing the ground on which he stands, who does not acknowledge his obligations in every part of his course, both public and private, to his great predecessors, and appropriate as an address to himself-"I sent thee to reap that whereon thou hast bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and thou hast entered into their labours." Ministers and people together reap:-we do it in the numerous privileges we so richly enjoy; our civil freedom, our religious liberty, our many opportunities of social and public communion, our pleasures of every order, in connexion either with our sublunary or transcendent interests,—— all these are, under God, to be traced, in no secondary degree, to those who so laboured for him in the times that have gone. Let us make our circumstances an excitement to our gratitude, while we acknowledge_" truly the lines are fallen to us in pleasant places, and we have a goodly heritage:" let us estimate them as adding fearfully to the weight of our responsibility, and receive the address of our Master-" OCCUPY TILL I COME."

And while we reap from generations past, we sow for generations to come. The system and character of the instrumentality, in its continued variety, is exemplified now. The servants of God employed in the ministrations of his

church, are constantly sowing. Whenever we preach or teach, we are thus engaged. Some of us may be honoured, perhaps eminently, in gathering much of the fruits of our own labour, and thus receiving encouragement for new and more arduous exertions; but few, if any, can calculate the entire influence of their exertions, or trace out all the ramifications into which the consequences of their employments shall spread. We must be content to lie down and die in hope, and leave the rest for future generations, and the judgment-day, to unfold. We have also to turn, and that with special propriety on the present occasion, to the circumstances of others. There are men, in those wide districts which have long been abandoned to the wildness and unmitigated misery of idolatry, who have gone forth there to commence the career of noble and apostolic toil. Missionaries, supported by the prayers and property of Christians at home, are now " SOWing" amidst the habitations of cruelty. Their work is arduous indeed. They have much to encounter, which none but themselves can know. Their obstacles are immense, and, in every report we receive or anticipate of their progress, must be fairly and fully taken into the account. Under the circumstances by which they are surrounded, and from the sphere they hold in gospel instrumentality, it ought not to be a matter of much surprise,-nay, it ought to be esteemed plainly and exactly according to existing