their inheritance; it was theirs, therefore, by grant, and they were commanded to possess it.

The old men having perished in the wilderness, the labor, the danger, and the honor of its conquest was reserved for the youth. They were not only to subdue and conquer the Canaanites, but they were to be the instruments in the hand of God, of advancing his cause and the glory of his name in all the surrounding nations. Hence, they became the hope of Israel, the stay and the staff, as well as the ground of their future prospects and glory.

So

Thus God gave his ancient people a portion of the earth, which was filled with the most deadly and hostile foes, against whom, he promised that he would nerve their arm, so that one of them should chase a thousand, and two of them should put ten thousand to flight. God has given his Spiritual Israel, the whole earth, which is now filled with the most embittered and well disciplined foes, who make darkness their pavilion, and thick darkness of moral night, their hiding place.

Casting our eyes over this extensive field, we see nothing but wide wasting desolation around us, and the beacons of idolatry and superstition, lifting their towering heads amid the swarming millions of the population of this field, which, most emphatically, is the world. We see, then, that there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed.

Yes, in our very midst, there is much to pain the eye, and sicken the heart of every moral beholder. Our friends, for whom we have long sighed, and wept, and prayed, and at the door of whose stubborn hearts, the Holy Spirit has long been knocking, are yet unconcerned, and remain alike, unmoved by the thunders of Sinai, the

terrors of God's law, the voice of conscience, or the peaceful news of heavenly grace. Thus, constantly, are we reminded of the unaccomplished promises of heaven, that the earth shall be filled with the knowledge: of the glory of God; and as constantly are we constrained to say-" There remaineth yet very much land to be possessed."

f

The hope of our fathers, of the Church, and of the world, rests upon the young men. We are the crown of the rejoicing of our fathers. Let us hear their exhortations to us : "Be ye, therefore, very courageous, and cleave unto the Lord your God, and one of you shall chase a thousand, for the Lord your God, he it is, that fighteth for you, as he hath promised you." And their prayer, like Moses' is, "Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children, and let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish thou the work of our hands upon us, yea, the work of our hands, establish thou it."

The whole world is given to the Church, as her field of labor, and the sphere of her benevolent operations; and though darkness, gloomy as night, now covers most of it, yet upon its length and breadth, its mountains and valleys, its fields and forests, its palaces and hamlets, is to be poured the light of eternal day. Let us then feel assured, that "There remaineth yet very much land to be possessed." And therefore, permit me in the

1st. Place, briefly to survey this field; and

2d. The agency of Zion's sons, in accomplishing its redemption from moral death.

The field, says our adorable Saviour, "is the world," which is yet to be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God."

The kingdom of Christ was spoken of in prophecy, not as then existing, but as yet to come. "In the days of these kings" says Daniel, "shall the God of Heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever."

Again, says the same author, "I saw in the night, visions, and behold, one like the Son of Man, came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the ancient of days, and they brought him near before him, and there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, and languages, and nations, should serve him: his dominion, is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away; and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed."

Says David, as mouth of the Almighty, “I have set my king upon my holy hill of Zion; ask of me and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession."

The existence of the Christian Church, and the great prosperity attending her in these latter days, is but the commencement of the fulfilment of these glorious prophecies, which is to roll her onward in unrivalled splendor, "until her light shall go forth as brightness, and her salvation as a lamp that burneth."

Triumphant, as has already been this heavenly constituted kingdom, it is only yet seen like a dim taper, twinkling amid surrounding gloom, while over more than seven hundred millions of our unhappy fellow men, ignorance and bigotry hold an unbroken dominion.

The harvest then, is truly great, but the laborers are few, very few indeed, with but here and there a solitary one to dispute the empire of moral night.

Look for a moment, if you please, upon AMERICA. If you can pierce through the thick foldings of that dark mantle which surrounds her-I mean not our happy Union-these blessed United States, illumined as they are, form an honorable, a glorious exception to the whole world. But, look to Greenland, clothed in eternal snows, and glittering with mountains of ice, with a population of more than thirty thousand souls, sunk down in the grave of moral pollution.

Newfoundland, swept with the wintry polar blast, two-thirds of the entire year, with a population of eighty thousand wretched beings, possessed of souls immortal and precious as our own, bound in chains of the most sottish superstition and deplorable ignorance, yet, all hastening to the tomb, and the fearful retributions of an eternal state.

Ascend, if you please, the James, upon the Rocky Mountains, and look down upon the Russian and British possessions: then turn to the West, and gaze upon the numerous tribes of red men. See from the Pacific Ocean to Hudson's bay, unnumbered thousands of human beings, "without one cheerful beam of hope, or spark of glimmering day," and instead of the voice of gladness and the melodious notes of Zion's songs, there rises up to your high elevation, the hoarse and discordant warsong, and the furious savage yell. But

"The sound of the church-going bell,
These valleys and rocks never heard,
Never sigh'd at the sound of a knell,

Nor smil'd when a Sabbath appeared."

Scattered over these immense regions, are thousands of Adam's sons, but no messenger of mercy to welcome these wandering hordes to the Lamb of God and to the

cross of Christ; but all around is cold, and cheerless, as a winter's midnight at the poles.

But pass a little farther down, and again ascend the highest eminence of the Cordilleras, and look down upon the provinces of Mexico, as they slumber in their Papal chains, and amid the glittering tinsel of Popish mimicry, forget their own salvation. O, how inviting is this field, all white to a rich harvest. And yet, unhappy Mexico may almost say in the language of another, "No man careth for my soul."

Let me ask you again, young gentlemen, to ascend the Chimborazo, and look down upon South America. Here the same dreary prospects present themselves to our view. The iron hand of cruel and relentless oppression rests heavily upon the people; while the legitimate offspring of the crimsoned, mother Kirk, sitting enthroned in the superstition of the people, riots in all the "abominations of desolation." The deadly streams which incessantly flow from the Papal sea, are ever corrupting the fountains of life, and rolling over the length and breadth of this unhappy country, the desolating waves of misery and death.

It is true, there has risen up a few master spirits, such as BOLIVAR, and attempted to throw off the yoke of intolerable cruelty and despotism; but scarcely a single effort made to save the soul, or effect its moral emancipation. Midnight assassins, lawless banditti, mobs, and internal factions, are clothing this land in tears and sackcloth, and crimsoning its rivers with human blood. Scarcely along its whole line, from Cumana to Cape Horn, is there heard the voice of the sons of God, or the ministry of his word: but bigotry and superstition in all their horror reign. Yet this very