66 us not deceive our stripes, imprisonment and scorn, and rejoice that they were counted worthy to suffer for the name of Christ? It matters not, my brethren, that we are called to none of these things. The quesion is, have we the hearts to do and bear them? If we have not now, we should not then have had them. If we have not the mind which was in Christ Jesus, we are none of his. Beloved brethren in so great a matter let selves."Not every one," says Jesus Christ, "that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." And again, Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?" Nothing can be clearer than that God desires the conversion of the world. Nothing can be more obvious than that it must be effected through the preaching of the Gospel of Christ. Nothing can be more certain than that it must be brought about by human means. Nothing can be more evident than that the responsibility of its accomplishment devolves upon the Church. Participation in Christian privileges is thus the first condition of Christian obligation. And the rule of our responsibility is simply this, "according to that a man hath it is accepted of him, and not according to that he hath not." Remember, my beloved brethren, tha: he to whom we all must give account, has given us all we have, and be not so unjust as to keep part from him. If the love of Christ be truly in your heart, you will not wish to do it. True love keeps nothing back from the beloved. Health, fortune, happiness and life-yea, more than life, were there yet more-it freely gives to him. Like Jesus, it goes out to seek, that it may save, the object of its care. And if indeed it be like Jesus, it will not spare even its own heart's blood for their salvation. It is the testimony of Paul, in regard to some of Corinth, who had exerted themselves even beyond their means, to aid his mission in Macedonia, that "they first gave their own selves to the Lord." It was a wise and prudent forecast, and I commend it to your imitation. Give yourselves up to the Lord, and you will have nothing to withhold. You will take your little children by the hand, and lead them to his altar, and beseech him to accept them for the Church; and you will train them up in his nurture and holy admonition, that they may be meet for his acceptance. You will dedicate to him your dear domestic hearth, and all that VOL. II.-43 gather round it, and set up in their midst an altar of perpetual prayer and praise. You will pour out before him, whether you have little or much, the treasures which his goodness lends, and implore him to accept them here that you may find them hereafter in heaven. Oh, that God would put it into the hearts of this congregation thus to give themselves up to the Lord! Oh, that God would put it into the hearts of the Churchmen of this land, so far to imitate their brethren of the Church in Corinth, as to be willing according to their power! The superfluity of millions, that now rust, or are abused to frivolous or sinful uses, would supply with spiritual food a famishing world. The strength of body, the gifts of mind, the weight of influence, the able hands, the generous hearts that now content themselves with secular ends, and labor but for temporal interests, converted to the Lord, and consecrated by the live coal from off his altar, would supply an army that should leaguer every land. The noble rapture, like a flame of living fire, would spread from heart to heart. Again "the arm of the Lord" should wake, as in the ancient time.— Again, the gates of hell should totter to their fall. The Church of the living God, roused from her sleep, should shake the dust from her fair garments; and gird on her panoply for battle."Strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might," she should go on "from strength to strength;" until, triumphant over every foe, God, for Christ's sake, bestows on her the victory.* *The conclusion of this discourse, being specially connected with the circumstances in which it was preached, is here omitted.-ED. SERMON XXIX. THE MISSIONARY ARGUMENT.* By the Rt. Rev. GEORGE W. DOANE, D. D., MARK XVI. 15. Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature. He THIS was the parting precept of the Saviour of mankind. came into the world that all, even as many as should believe in him, "should not perish, but have everlasting life. During all his painful sojourning on earth he proclaimed himself, in word and in deed, "the light of the world." And he died, that he might be "the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world." In perfect and entire consistency, then, with the original purpose of his incarnation, with the teaching and practice of his life, with the motive and object of his death, was the parting precept of the Saviour,-"Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature!" It was addressed originally to the Apostles; and the same page which records it, records also their prompt, implicit, and persevering obedience" they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following." Did they fulfill the Saviour's precept? Was the Gospel preached by them to every creature?" Alas, no! They were but mortal And though they gave themselves, body and spirit, to the work, they did but sow the precious seed, before they were com men. Preached before the Board of Directors of Dom. & For. Miss. Soc. of the Prot. Epis. Church, in the U. S. pelled, by cruel persecution, to enrich it with their blood. The work which they began, they entrusted to faithful men, with power to send others after them; so that from their time until now the sacred line has never once been broken, nor the Divine husbandry been interrupted, nor the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts ceased to extend to all valleys its gracious roots, and to spread over all hills its comfortable shadow, and to extend to nation after nation, and to kingdom after kingdom, its life-sustaining, life-restoring cup. Still, is the Saviour's purpose yet accomplished? Has it yet gone into "all the world?" Is the Gospel yet preached "to every creature?" Alas, no! There are myriads of human hearts that are fainting for the protection of its shadow. There are millions of immortal souls that are perishing for the refreshment of its cup of life. 66 WHY IS IT so? OUGHT IT TO BE SO? SHALL IT CONTINUE TO BE SO? I. WHY IS IT SO ? Are the means which God has appointed for the extension of his kingdom inadequate to the result? Is his ear heavy that it cannot hear?" Or his "arm shortened, that it cannot save?" The supposition is alike injurious to his power and wisdom, his holiness and goodness. He has proclaimed the everlasting Gospel. He has founded the universal Church. The leaves of the one are given "for the healing of the nations." The gates of the other are open to kingdoms, and tongues, and kindreds, and people. In her divinely instituted, and perpetuated ministry, the glorious vision of the Seer of the Apocalypse is realized-" And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment has come!" In her divinely instituted and perpetuated sacraments, the gracious voice, that, on the Isle of Patmos, won his favored ear, addresses all mankind-" the Spirit and the Bride say, come! and let him that heareth, say," to his neighbor, "come! and let him that is athirst come! and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely!" Why, then, the question returns-why, since God has made provision so ample for the spiritual wants of all, his holy Church freely opened, his holy word freely offered, why is it that all are not participants of its pre cious privileges, subjects of its constraining love, heirs of its immortal hopes? The noble argument of the great first missionary to the Gentiles will supply our answer. True he says, "whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." "For the same Lord over all, is rich unto all that call upon him, and there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek. But how shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent?" Alas! brethren, that it should be so--but so it is-the lapse of nearly two thousand years has abated scarce a single jot from this unanswerable Apostolic reasoning for the claims of Missions. There are yet whole nations, and I had almost said whole continents, of them who call not upon God because they `do not believe on him, who believe not on him because they never heard of him, who cannot hear of him without a preacher, and who can have no preacher unless he shall be sent. And there are others, countless others, of our flesh and of our bone, who, though in the pleasant land of their fathers they may have heard of God, and, even among the heathen who know him not, or the wicked who disregard him, do still believe in him and fear him, are losing, as the rainbow fades, the impressions which even we, with all our means of grace, so faintly and so feebly hold, and, far from home, and all its holy and delightful sympathies, are longing till their very heart is sick within them, for those sacred ministrations of comfort and of hope, which, without a preacher they cannot have, and to whom no preacher can go unless he shall be sent. The subject, then, you see, my Christian brethren, is brought home to us-to you, and to me-and, when we ask, why it is, that souls are perishing for lack of saving knowledge, it becomes us also to ask, and that solemnly, and anxiously, as in the presence of Him who has declared, all souls are mine-are we doing what we can for their relief? Have we given according to the ability with which God has blessed us? Have we exerted, in the furtherance of his own cause, the ability and influence with which God has endowed us? Have we poured out upon it-this at least all of us can do, and God forbid that any of us should not!-have we poured out upon it, warm from the heart, our fondest and most fervent prayers? If it be not so, if for Christ's own cause, the cause in which he shed his precious blood, the Christian's |