and by two of them the intelligence of his resurrection was conveyed to the rest. But as yet that Comforter, the heavenly Spirit, had not been sent to them, which was not only to bring all things to their, remembrance, but to guide them into all truth. Still were they under the influence of a delusion which had represented him not as a spiritual but as an earthly prince, not as come to purchase and secure for them a celestial kingdom, but one of triumph and splendour over all the kingdoms of this world. They had not, in his life, fixed the eye of faith simply on the realities of his mediatorial office-they had been unable to see all the mysteries of redeeming love, as they subsequently did when taught them by the Holy Ghost; and accordingly, when they were informed of the fact of his re-appearance from the grave, they did not readily believe the joyous news. With but a feeble faith had they anticipated that mastery over the grave, as the finishing stone of the whole Christian edifice, without which it would be altogether valueless. "Now when Jesus," we read, was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils. And she went and told them that had been with him and mourned and wept. And they, when they had heard that he was alive and had been seen of her, believed not. After that, he appeared in another form unto two of them as they walked and went

into the country. And they went and told it unto the residue, neither believed they them.' "Afterward," to remove all doubt and distrust, and to impress with his own signet the truth which these slighted messengers had announced"Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen.'

To this testimony, so utterly irresistible, of the completion of our ransom from sin and misery, was added the renewal of his commission to his apostles, to make the good news of that ransom (the life-giving gospel) known to the whole human family dispersed over the face of the globe. "He said unto them, Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be damned." In obedience to this mandate, they commenced first with the Jews as God's ancient people, and afterwards they went to the Gentiles, as the new branch graffed on the tree of life. To all they told that glorious errand which successive ages have re-echoed till the present hour.

In the gospels, our Redeemer's history and precious words are recorded for us, and the fruit of his servants' labours are left to us in the other Christian scriptures, the whole volume being to the

believer, as he finds by sweet experience, a treasure surpassing in value all the massive wealth of the universe. To feed on the manna contained in this word of life, is the privilege of all who know God savingly, but this is impossible without a desire to unfold its truths wherever a human

being can be found. "Preach the Gospel to every creature," is the commission, vast and unlimited as the influence of those rays which have to-day lit up the dome of heaven and there is not a human being now grovelling in the mists of a South Pacific islander's intellect, or groping in the dark of a central African's idolatry, or bound by the spell of an American Indian's superstition, for whom that gospel does not intend its richest blessings, and for whom Christian Europe will not have to answer at last at the bar of judgment, to the question whether all that is possible has been done to convey to them the knowledge of the Redeemer and the Redeemer's words. Vain will it be to reply, as it has been sometimes done by persons whose education in a Christian land should have taught them a higher and a purer lesson, than that of coldness to the claims of the benighted and perishing heathen-vain will it be to reply, that these poor outcasts of humanity had not minds fitted to comprehend the simple truths of the gospel! Vain will it be to reply, that their understandings were too contracted to receive the heavenly light and instruction of the

gospel! Vain will be all such replies, which, if they prove any thing, prove the gross, hardhearted criminality of the enlightened part of the human family, in leaving untaught, unhelped, and forlorn, those other parts of it which different circumstances, conditions, and localities have sunk in their long Cimmerian night of ignorance and error. If we take the word of salvation in our hands-if we trace its gracious Author's design of extending that word to every nook of the globe, and of introducing in his own time that full flood of gospel-light, "when the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea"-if we look at ourselves as stewards of our heavenly Father, as all believers undoubtedly are, at least in name-if we carry on our thoughts to the reflection, that, in the exercise of that stewardship, one of our most prominent duties is to be the agents of his declared will, that the gospel should be preached to every creature-if we take a retrospect of our own past lives, and remember to what extent we individually have furthered the glorious cause, the effect, though it will fall as a feather on the hard and seared conscience, will upon the conscience made tender by a spiritual awakening to God, enter like an arrow and strike it dumb with terror and remorse.

Look at the contrast of primitive zeal with the zeal of modern times; behold the apostles persecuted, famishing, scourged, and murdered, in the

resolute and single purpose of preaching Christ and him crucified, to the pagans of Greece and Asia Minor: see them content to be reviled and cast out, as the offscouring of mankind, so that their adored Lord should be held up as the Atoner and Purifier from sin follow them in their thornstrewn path from city to city, going on with the Roman cross and battle-axe as the objects which bounded their vision, when gazing through the vista of futurity-going on, I say, delighted that the glorious Jesus might be announced as the sinoffering of a lost and perishing world: contemplate them with a calm and quiet brow, showing forth the finished redemption brought in by the long predicted Messiah, the hope of Israel, and the star of Jacob: yes, calm and quiet when the teeth gnashed fiercest and the clamour swelled loudest in their Jewish foes and calumniators ;-mark them, in a word, happy so that eternal souls might be saved, unaffectedly and completely happy, without a home, without food, without friends,

without any one of the props which every earthly plan requires for its success and its establishment. Now what principle was that which enabled them -thus to the death-thus tortured and maligned -thus deprived of all natural comfort—thus hedged in by all natural evils-what principle was it that cheered them on in their ascended Leader's cause, but that of unfeigned love to that Leader, and, for his sake, of unfeigned love to all