of the world?" Could even Gabriel sustain all these trials unsupported?

The promise of Jesus Christ is important to the Christian missionary under the peculiar temptations which assail him. Every private Christian, it is admitted, must endure sharp temptations; and every Christian minister must sustain severe spiritual conflicts. But the temptations which assail the missionary of the cross, are often peculiar and powerful. He may be tempted, as soon as he resolves to spend his life in labors of love among the heathen, to conclude that he is not called, or is not qualified to engage in such an enterprise; and when he goes forth to its trials and toils, that he has run before he was sent. He may be tempted to believe, that his motives have been wholly defective, and that God will not bless his labors, nor accept his sacrifices. He may be tempted to employ his advantages, and the eminence his office gives him in the view of the Christian world, to display his talents and acquisitions, and to erect a monument of his own fame. After the novelty of his enterprise has passed away, he may be tempted to slothfulness in his exhausting labors, and to an undue and unjustifiable compliance with the customs of the heathen. He may also be tempted to court popular favor, and with the delusive hope of augmenting his influence, and becoming more useful hereafter, he may neutralize his labors, and injure his character, and destroy all prospect of achieving any thing great or good. He may even be tempted to turn away from the incessant toils of his office, to descend from the dignity of his character, and to yield to the vices,

which surround him. We have reason to bless the Great Head of the church, that this has been so seldom found in the history of modern missions.

The missionary in the midst of numerous and powerful temptations, it should be remembered, has not a host of Christian friends to fortify his mind, to strengthen his resolutions, and to stay up his hands; and where can he look for succor and defence, but to the Lord of missions? How could he ever hope to overcome all the numerous and powerful temptations which assail him, without the promised presence and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ? Take away this precious promise, and must not the missionary, in view of the unavoidable temptations which assail him, and meet his eye in prospect, sit down in despair?

Consider also the importance of the promise of Jesus Christ to the missionary of the cross amidst his discouragements. The Christian minister finds many painful discouragements, when planted in the best cultivated field at home. How much greater the discouragements of the missionary in the midst of a thick forest perhaps, or what is more disheartening, a moral desert. He has every thing to do; nor can he enter directly upon his great work of preaching the gospel to the heathen. He finds almost insurmountable difficulties in learning their languages; perhaps reduced to no grammatical rules, perhaps never written. When he attempts the exhibition of divine truth, instead of preaching the gospel in the style of a refined taste, and in the language of a commanding eloquence, he must make known its

truths through the slow and dull medium of an interpreter, or in broken accents, and with a stammering tongue.

He finds discouragements, also, in obtaining a comfortable subsistence, and in conducting his temporal concerns so as not to impede his pursuit of higher objects. Deprived of all his former Christian privileges, he finds no small discouragement in the slow progress he makes in piety. And here I cannot omit to introduce a pathetic remark from a beloved friend at one of the most eligible of the missionary stations. "We have no doubt," he writes, "but our friends at home have pleasant meetings still, but we do not enjoy them; they have their praying circles, but we meet not with them. They sit under the droppings of the sanctuary, but there are no such droppings here. If their hearts are frozen, they melt the ice at each other's fires; but if our hearts are cold, every thing around us is colder still; if our fires go out, there is no spark near us by which they can be rekindled."

The missionary of the cross finds discouragements also, from the unwillingness of the heathen to attend to his instructions, from their insensibility, from their captiousness, their prejudices, their vices. He is sometimes ready to exclaim, "I have made all these sacrifices, sustained all these privations, and endured all these toils, apparently in vain." And what can animate his drooping spirits, and raise him from his depression amidst all these discouragements, but the presence, and support, and grace of Jesus Christ? It is this alone which sustains him, inspires him with

courage, and leads him onward to toils and privations still greater, and more self-denying.

The promise in the text will be seen to be of great importance to the Christian missionary,

III. As it respects his LABORS.

He goes forth to cultivate a vast field, to subdue a rugged soil, and to fertilise with the waters of salvation a trackless desart. He has engaged in the greatest enterprise, which ever excited the energies, or exhausted the benevolence of man. He has assigned him not one, but many departments of labor. He goes out into a mental and moral chaos, where he has every thing to form, and mould, and shape. He must enlighten, and civilise, and evangelise. He must teach men to think, to investigate, to reason, to judge. He must arouse the most torpid mind, pour light into the darkest understanding, superinduce a feeling conscience, and reach and probe the heart. He must know how to direct his labors in the best manner, how to employ his time, and spend his strength to the greatest effect, how to make his efforts tell in bringing perishing pagans to know and embrace the Saviour. He must be able to seize the most favorable opportunities, to turn to the best account passing events, and peculiar circumstances, to disarm opposition, and to find the readiest access to the consciences and hearts of the heathen. He must be unremitting in his labors, "instant in season and out of season, always abounding in the work of the Lord."

His scene of labor is new and untried; and his task is to fell the forest, and clear the soil, and break up the ground, and cast in the seed, and nurture the plants, and turn the wilderness into a fruitful field. And amidst all his various, arduous, exhausting labors, to accomplish a work so great, what could he do,-what could he have courage to attempt, without the wisdom and aid of the Lord Jesus Christ? If the Christian minister is ready to exclaim in view of the multiplicity, the magnitude, the importance of his labors, "Who is sufficient for these things;" must not the missionary of the cross under the pressure of his more numerous and painful labors in an unaccustomed clime, amidst the discouragements of a pagan community, amidst the privations and hardships, which are unavoidable, and sometimes almost insupportable, faint ere it is noon, and yield to despondence, without the presence and consolation of the Saviour?

In this enterprise of incessant toil, talk not of human fortitude, and perseverance, and industry. This is not an enterprise, in which the springs of mere worldly fortitude and ardor are touched, and made the springs of action. Men may endure much to discover a new world, to conquer a kingdom, or to build up a nation, because here are motives to awaken ambition. But the missionaries of the cross go forth to a work of more noble daring, which requires greater fortitude and perseverance to accomplish; and they are forbidden by their heavenly King to be influenced by motives of ambition, of earthly fame or glory. They go far hence to the heathen to