hinges the emancipation of his heart from a | as ever, that wealth which grows by comthraldom which represses all the spiritual petition, instead of being exhausted, this is energies of those who live without hope, what, we trust, she will ever be ready to and, therefore, live without God in the bestow on all her people. Silver and gold world. It is guilt-it is the sense of his she may have none-but such as she has 'awakened and unexpiated guilt; which she will give-she will send them to school. keeps man at so wide a distance from the She cannot make pensioners of them, but God whom he has offended. Could some will, if they like, make scholars of them. method be devised, by which God, jealous She will give them of that food by which of his honour, and man jealous of his safe-she nurses and sustains all her offspringty, might be brought together on a firm by which she renders wise the very poorest ground of reconciliation---it would trans- of her children--by which, if there be truth late the sinner under a new moral influence, in our text, she puts into many a simple to the power of which, and the charm of cottager, a glory surpassing that of the which he, before, was utterly impractica- mightiest potentates in our world. To hold ble. Jesus Christ died, the just for the un-out any other boon, is to hold out a projust, to bring us unto God. This is a truth, mise which she and no country in the uniwhich, when all the world shall receive it, verse, can ever realize-it is to decoy, and all the world will be renovated. Many do then most wretchedly to deceive-it is to not see how a principle, so mighty in ope- put on a front of invitation, by which numration, should be enveloped in a proposi-bers are allured to hunger, and nakedness, tion so simple of utterance. But let a man, and contempt. It is to spread a table, and by his faith in this utterance, come to know to hang out such signals of hospitality, as that God is his friend, and that heaven is draw around it a multitude expecting to be the home of his fondest expectation; and fed, and who find that they must famish in contact with such new elements as these, over a scanty entertainment. A system he will evince the reach, and the habit, and replete with practical mischief can put on the desire of a new creature. It is this the semblance of charity, even as Satan, doctrine which is the alone instrument of the father of all lying and deceitful proGod for the moral transformation of our mises, can put on the semblance of an anspecies. When every demonstration from gel of light. But we trust, that the country the chair of philosophy shall fail, this will in which we live will ever be preserved achieve its miracles of light and virtue from the cruelty of its tender mercies-among the people--and however infidelity that she will keep by her schools, and her may now deride---or profaneness may now Scriptures, and her moralizing process; and lift her appalling voice upon our streets--- that, instead of vainly attempting so to or licentiousness may now offer her sicken- force the exuberance of Nature, as to meet ing spectacles--or moral worthlessness may and satisfy the demands of a population have now deeply tainted the families of whom she has led astray, she will make it our outcast and long-neglected population, her constant aim so to exalt her population, -however unequal may appear the con- as to establish every interest that belongs test with the powers and the principles of to them, on the foundation of their own darkness---yet let not the teachers of righ-worth and their own capabilities---that teousness abandon it in despair; God will taunted, as she has been, by her contempbring forth judgment unto victory, and on tuous neighbour, for the poverty of her the triumphs of the word of his own testi- soil, she will at least prove, by deed and by mony, will he usher in the glory of the lat-example, that it is fitted to sustain an erect, ter days. and honorable, and high-minded peasantry; and leaving England to enjoy the fatness of her own fields, and a complacency with her own institutions, that we shall make a clean escape from her error, and never again be entangled therein-that unseduced by the false lights of a mistaken philanthropy, and mistaken patriotism, we shall be enabled to hold on in the way of our ancestors; to ward off every near and threatening blight from the character of our beloved people; and so to labour with the manhood of the present, and the boyhood of the coming generation, as to enrich our land with that wisdom which is more precious than gold, and that righteousness which exalteth a kingdom.

There is one kind of institution that never has been set up in a country, without deceiving and degrading its people; and another kind of institution that never has been set up in a country, without raising both the comfort and the character of its families. We leave it to the policy of our sister kingdom, by the pomp and the pretension of her charities, to disguise the wretchedness which she cannot do away. The glory of Scotland lies in her schools. Out of the abundance of her moral and literary wealth, that wealth which communication cannot dissipate--that wealth, which its possessor may spread and multiply among thousands, and yet be as affluent

SERMON XIV.

On the Duty and the Means of Christianizing our Home Population.

"And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature."-Mark xvi. 15.

1

Now, those very principles which were so obviously acted on at the beginning, are also the very principles that, in all ages of the church, have characterized its evangelizing processes. The Bible Society is now doing, by ordinary means, what was done by the miracle of tongues, in the days of the Apostles-enabling the people of all nations to read, each in their own tongue, tne wonderful works of God. And the Missionary Societies are sending forth, not in

CHRISTIANITY proceeds upon the native indisposition of the human heart to its truths and its lessons-and all its attempts for the establishment of itself in the world are made upon this principle. It never expects that men will, of their own accord, originate that movement by which they are to come in contact with the faith of the Gospel; and, therefore, instead of waiting till they shall move toward the Gospel, it has been provided, from the first, that the Gospel shall move towards them. The Apostles did not spired Apostles, gifted with tongues, but the set up their stationary college at Jerusalem, | expounders of apostolical doctrine, learned in the hope of embassies from a distance in tongues, over the face of the globe. They to inquire after the recent and wondrous do not presume upon such a taste for the revelation that had broke upon the world. Gospel in heathen lands, as that the people But they had to go forth, and to preach there shall traverse seas and continents, or among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. shall set themselves down to the laborious And, in like manner, it never was looked acquisition of some Christian language, that for, that men, in the ardour of their curi- they might either have access to Scripture, osity, or desire after the way of salvation, or the ability of converse with men that are were to learn the language of the Apostles, skilled in the mysteries of the faith. But that they might come and hear of it at their this taste which they do not find, they exmouth. But the Apostles were miraculously pect to create; and for this purpose, is there gifted with the power of addressing all in now an incessant application to Pagan their own native language-and when thus countries, of means and instruments from furnished, they went actively and aggres- without, and many are the lengthened and sively about among them. It is no where the hazardous journies which have been supposed that the demand for Christianity undertaken-and voyages of splendid enis spontaneously, and in the first instance, terprise have recently been crowned with to arise among those who are not Chris- splendid moral achievements; insomuch, tians; but it is laid upon those who are that even the ferocity and licentiousness of Christians, to go abroad, and, if possible, to the savage character have given way under awaken out of their spiritual lethargy, those the power of the truth; and lands, that who are fast asleep in that worldliness, within the remembrance of many now which they love, and from which, without alive, rankled with the worst abominations some external application, there is no ra- of idolatry, have now exchanged them for tional prospect of ever arousing them. The the arts and the decencies of civilization; dead mass will not quicken into sensibility for village schools, and Christian Sabbaths, of itself; and, therefore, unless some cause and venerable pastors, who first went forth of fermentation be brought to it from with- as missionaries, and, as the fruits of their out, will it remain in all the sluggishness of apostolic labour, among these outcast wanits original nature. For there is an utter derers, can now rejoice over holy granddiversity between the article of Christian sires, and duteous children, and all that can instruction, and the articles of ordinary gladden the philanthropic eye, in the peace, merchandise. For the latter there is a de- and purity, and comfort of pious families. mand, to which men are natively and originally urged by hunger or by thirst, or by the other physical sensations and appetites of their constitution. For the former there is no natural appetite. It is just as necessary to create a spiritual hunger, as it is to afford a spiritual refreshment; and so from the very first, do we find, that for the spread of Christianity in the world, there had to be not an itinerancy on the part of inquirers, but a busy, active, and extended itinerancy on the part of its advocates and its friends.

Now, amid the splendour and the interest of these more conspicuous operations, it is often not adverted to, how much work of a missionary character is indispensable for perpetuating, and still more for extending Christianity at home-how families, within the distance of half a mile, may lapse, without observation or sympathy on our part, into a state of practical heathenism-how, within less than an hour's walk, hundreds may be found, who morally and spiritually live at as wide a separation from the Gospel

the missionary vessel, and go in quest of untaught humanity at a distance, and hold converse with the men of other climes, and of other tongues, and rear on some barbarous shore, the Christianized village, as an outpost in that spiritual warfare, by which we hope, at length, to banish depravity and guilt, even from the farthest extremities of our species. These are noble efforts, and altogether worthy of being extended and multiplied a hundred fold. But they are not the only efforts of Christian philanthropy; nor can they be sustained as a complete discharge from the obligation of preaching the Gospel to every creature under heaven. For the accomplishment of this, there must not only be a going forth on the vast and untrodden spaces that are without; there must be a filling up of the numerous and peopled vacancies that are within-a busy, internal locomotion, that might circulate, and disperse, and branch off to the right and to the left, among the many thousand families which are at hand: And thoroughly to pervade these families; to make good a lodgment in the midst of them, for the nearer or the more frequent ministrations of Christianity than before; to have gained welcome for the Gospel testimony into their houses, and, in return, to have drawn any of them forth to attendance on the place of Sabbath and of solemn services; this, also, is to act upon our text, this is to do the part, and to render one of the best achievements of a missionary.

and all its ordinances, as do the barbarians of another continent-how, in many of our crowded recesses, the families, which, out of sight, and out of Christian sympathy, have accumulated there, might, at length, sink and settle down into a listless, and lethargic, and to all appearance, impracticable population-leaving the Christian teacher as much to do with them as has the first missionary when he touches on a yet unbroken shore. It is vain to expect, that by a proper and primary impulse originating with themselves, those aliens from Christianity will go forth on the inquiry after it. The messengers of Christianity must go forth upon them. Many must go to and fro amongst the streets, and the lanes, and those deep intricacies that teem with human life, to an extent far beyond the eye or imagination of the unobservant passenger, if we are to look for the increase either of a spiritual taste, or of scriptural knowledge among the families. That mass which is so dense of mind, and, therefore, so dense of immortality, must be penetrated in the length and in the breadth of it; and then many will be found, who, however small their physical distance from the sound of the Gospel, stand at as wide a moral distance therefrom, as do the children of the desert, and to overpass this barrier, to send out upon this outfield, such ministrations as might reclaim its occupiers to the habits and the observations of a Christian land, to urge and obtrude, as it were, upon the notice of thousands, what, without such an "How can they believe," says Paul, advancement, not one of them might have "without a preacher," and "how can they moved a footstep in quest of- these are so preach, except they be sent ?" To make many approximations, that, to all intents sure this process, there must be a juxtapoand purposes, have in them the charac-sition between him who declares the word, ter, and might, with the blessing of God, and them who are addressed by it; but to have also the effect of a missionary enter- make good this juxtaposition, the Apostle prise. never imagines that alienated man is, of his When we are commanded to go into all own accord, to move towards the preacher the world, and preach the Gospel to every--and therefore, that the preacher must be creature, our imagination stretches forth be- sent, or must move towards him. And, peryond the limits of Christendom; and we haps, it has not been adverted to, that in advert not to the millions who are within the very first steps of this approximation, these limits, nay, within the sight of Chris- there is an encouragement for going ontian temples, and the sound of Sabbath bells, ward, and for plying the families of a city yet who never heard the Gospel of Jesus population with still nearer and more beChrist. They live to manhood, and to old setting urgencies than before. It is not age, deplorably ignorant of the way of sal-known how much the very juxtaposition of vation, and in ignorance, too, not the less an edifice for worship, tells upon the churchdeplorable than it is wilful. It is this which going habit of the contiguous householders; so fearfully aggravates their guilt, that on the how many there are who will not move at very confines of light, they remain in dark- the sound of a distant bell, that with almost ness: and thereby prove, that it is a darkness mechanical sureness, will go forth and minwhich they love, and which they choose to gle with the stream of passengers who are persist in. Thus it will be found more crowding the way to a place that is at hand tolerable for the heathen abroad, than for ---how children, lured, perhaps, at the first, the heathen at home; and therefore it is, by curiosity, are led so to reiterate their atthat for the duty of our text, the wilds of tendance, as to be landed in a most precious Pagan idolatry, or of Mahometan delusion, habit for youth and for manhood---how this are not the only theatres-that for its full tendency spreads by talk, and sympathy, performance, it is not enough that we equip and imitation, through each little vicinity;

1

37535 CODE=: Se, and T Dr. are a these amis 1 in the m r the more AUTO me for the Gos and, in returave forth to ens hand of et upon our text › render one t issionary. ow can they be hout a preac th, except they be this process, then a n between him them who are al te good this partes. er imagines that ar a accord, to more t and therefore, that t it, or must more ps, it has not been a e very first steps

and thus, in groups, or in clusters, might thy with itself through the hearts of a
adjoining families be gained over to the or- listening congregation---unless, acquitting
dinances of religion---how the leaven, when himself as an upright minister of the New
once set a-going, might spread by the fer- Testament, he expound with faithfulness
mentation of converse, and mutual senti- and some degree of energy, those truths
ment, through the whole lump; till over the which are unto salvation; and so distribute
face of a whole city department, the Chris- among his fellow-sinners, the alone substan-
tian fabric, which stands conspicuously in tial and satisfying food of the soul-unless
the midst of it, and whither its people are such a demonstration be given of the awful
rung every Sabbath, to the ministrations of realities in which we deal, as to awaken in
the Gospel, might come to be its place of many bosoms the realizing sense of death,
general repair; and attendance there be at and of the judgment-seat-and above all,
length proceeded on as one of the decencies unless the demands of the law, with its ac-
of its established observation. Some of the companying severities and terrors, be so
influences in this process may appear slight urged on the conviction of guilty man, as to
or fanciful to the superficial eye; and yet make it fall with welcome upon his ear,
they are known and familiarly known, to when told, that unto him a Saviour has been
be of powerful operation.
born. These are the alone elements of a
You must surely be aware, that it makes rightful and well-earned popularity. Elo-
all the practical difference in the world, to quence may dazzle-and argument may
the retail and custom even of an ordinary compel the homage of its intellectual admir-
shop, should it deviate, by a very small ers-and fashion may even, when these are
hairbreadth, from the minutest convenience wanting, sustain through its little hour of
of the public--should it retire, by ever so smile and sunshine, a complacent attend-
little from the busy pavement, or have to be ance on the reigning idol of the neighbour-
ascended by two or three steps, or require hood-but it is only if armed with the pan-
the slightest turn and change of direction oply of Scriptural truth, that there will
from the beaten path which passengers do gather and adhere to him a people who
inveterately walk in. And human nature hunger for the bread of life, and who make
on a week-day, is human nature on the a business of their eternity. To fill the
Sabbath. There is no saying on how slight church well, we must fill the pulpit well,
or trivial a circumstance it may be made to and see that the articles of the peace-speak-
turn; and odd as the illustration may ap-ing blood, and the sanctifying Spirit, are
pear, we feel confident that we have not, at the topics that be dearest to the audience,
present, either a profound or a pious hearer, and on which the Christian orator who ad-
who will undervalue one single stepping- dresses them most loves to expatiate. These
stone, by which a hearer more might be form the only enduring staple of good and
brought to the house of God---who will de- vigorous preaching; and unless they have
spise any of the means, however humble, a breadth, and a prominency, and a fond
that bring a human creature within the reiteration in the sermons that shall be de-
reach of that word, which is able to sanc-livered from the place where we now
tify and save him-who will forget the stand,* they either will not, or ought not
wonted style of God's administrations, by to be listened to.
which, on these minutest incidents of life, Yet grieved and disappointed should we
the greatest events of history are oft sus- be, did he confine himself to Sabbath minis-
pended--or, who will deny that the same trations-did he not go forth, and become
Being, who, by the flight of a single bird, the friend and the Christian adviser of all
turned the pursuers of Mahomet away from who dwell within the limits of his vineyard
him, and so spared the instrument by which-did he not act the part of an Apostle
a gross and grievous superstition hath found among you, from house to house, and vary
an ascendency over millions of immortal the fatigue of his preparations for the pul
spirits, that he can enlist in the cause of his pit, by a daily walk amongst the ignorant,
own Son, even the least and slightest fa- or the sick, or the sorrowful, or the dying.
miliarities of human practice; and with It is your part to respect, as you would a
links, which in themselves are exceeding sanctuary, that solitude to which, for hours
small, can fasten and uphold the chain, together, he should commit himself, in the
which runs through the earthly pilgrimage work of meditating the truths of salvation;
of man, and reaches to his eternity.
and it is his part to return your delicacy by
his labours of love, by the greetings of his
cordial fellowship, by his visits of kindness.
It is a wrong imagination on the side of a

ere is an encour!! ard, and for pr opulation with stre etting urgencies that hown how much the re in edifice for worshipe going habit of the acS

how many there are the sound of a distant mechanical sureness

gle with the stream of e crowding the way to -how children, lure by curiosity, are led s tendance, as to be land habit for youth and r tendency spreads by and imitation, through a

But after all, though local conveniency may allure, in the first instance, to the house of God, local conveniency will not detain the attendance of multitudes, unless there be a worth and a power in the services which are rendered there---unless there be a moral earnestness in the heart of the preacher, which may pour forth a sympa3 M

* This Sermon was preached at the opening of a city chapel, which has a local district assigned to it, and whose rule of seat-letting is on the territorial principle.

people, when they look on the Sabbath for | have a warm and a willing reception upon
a vigorous exposition of duty or doctrine, yours. It is utterly a mistake, that any
from him whom they tease, and interrupt, population, whatever be their present habits,
and annoy, through the week; and it is a will discourage the approaches of a Chris-
wrong imagination on the side of a pastor, tian minister to their families. It is a par-
when looking on the church as the sole ticularly wrong imagination, that in cities
arena of his usefulness, he does not relax there is a hard or an insolent defiance
the labour of a spirit that has been much among the labouring classes, which no as-
exercised on the great topics of the Chris-siduities of service or of good-will on the
tian ministry, by frequent and familiar in- part of their clergyman can possibly over-
tercourse among those, whom, perhaps, he come. Let him but try what their tem-
has touched or arrested by his Sabbath de- perament is in this matter, and he will find
monstrations. You ought to intrude not it in every way as courteous and inviting,
upon his arrangements, and his studies; as among the most primitive of our Scottish
but he ought, in these arrangements, to peasantry. Let him be but alert to every call
provide the opportunities of ample con- of threatening disease among his people,
verse with every spiritual patient, with and the ready attendant upon every death-
every honest inquirer. You should be bed-let him ply not his fatiguing, but his
aware of the distinction that he makes be- easy and most practicable rounds of visita-
tween that season of the day which is set tion in the midst of them-let him be zeal-
apart for retirement, and that season of the ous for their best interests, and not in the
day which lies open to the duty of holding spirit of a fawning obsequiousness, but in
courteous fellowship with all; and of hiding that of a manly, intelligent, and honest
not himself from his own flesh. It is the friendship, let him stand forth as the guar-
gross insensibility which obtains to the pri- dian of the poor, the guide and the counsel-
vileges both of a sacred and literary order- lor of their children; it is positively not in
it is the disturbance of a perpetual inroad human nature to withstand the charm and
on that prophet's chamber, which ought, at the power which lie in such unwearied
all times, to be a safe retreat of contempla- ministrations; and if visibly prompted by
tion-it is the incessant struggle that must the affinity that there is in the man's heart
be made for a professional existence, with for his fellows of the species, there will, by
irksome application, and idle ceremony, and a law of the human constitution, be an affi-
even the urgencies of friendship; these are nity in theirs towards him, which they can-
sufficient to explain those pulpit imbecili- not stifle, though they would; and they
ties, of which many are heard to complain, will have no wish to stifle it.
while themselves they help to create them.
And, therefore, if you want to foster the
energies of your future clergyman; if you
would co-operate with him in those mental
labours, by which he provides through the
week for the repast of your Sabbath festi-
val; if it is your desire that an unction and
a power shall be felt in all his pulpit minis-
trations; if here you would like to catch a
glow of heaven's sacredness, and receive
that fresh and forcible impulse upon your
spirits, which might send you forth again
with a redoubled ardour of holy affection
and zeal on the business of life, and make
you look and long for the coming Sabbath,
as another delightful resting-place on your
journey towards Zion-then suffer him to
breathe, without molestation, in that pure
and lofty region, where he might inhale a
seraphic fervency, by which to kindle among
his hearers his own celestial fire, his own
noble enthusiasm. If it be this, and not the
glee of companionship, or the drudgeries
of ordinary clerkship that you want from
your minister, then leave, I beseech you,
his time in his own hand, and hold his asy-varied and active benevolence, will have
lum to be inviolable.
nought to address on the Sabbath but empty

It is to this principle, little as it has been
recognised, and still less as it has been pro-
ceeded on, it is to this that we confide the
gathering at length of a congregation within
these walls, and that too from the vicinities
by which we are immediately surrounded.
That the chapel will be filled at the very
outset, from the district which has been as-
signed to it, we have no expectation. But
we do fondly hope, as the fruit of his un-
wearied services, that its minister will draw
the kind regards of the people after him;
that an impression will be made by his
powerful and reiterated addresses in the
bosom of their families, which may not
stop there; that the man who prays at every
funeral, and sits by every dying bed, and
seizes every opening for Christian useful-
ness that is afforded to him by the visita-
tions of Providence on the houses of the
surrounding neighbourhood, and who, while
a fit companion for the great in his vine-
yard, is a ready, and ever accessible friend
to the poorest of them all; it is utterly im-
possible, that such a man, after his work of

But, we trust, that from this asylum his walls. After being the eye-witness of what excursions will be frequent; and sure we he does, there will spring up a most natural are, that nought but an affectionate forth-desire, and that cannot be resisted, to hear going is necessary on his part, that he may what he says. It is not yet known how