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first preachers of the gospel were not settled ministers at home; living amidst all the luxury, and learning, and splendor, and fashion of the age. They were commissioned to go into all lands, to "teach all nations, to preach the gospel to every creature." Christian missions among the heathen, then, are not an invention of modern times. They were as truly instituted by Jesus Christ, as the Christian ministry at home. Nay, they are more literally an obedience to the commission given to the first preachers of the gospel, and more nearly an imitation of the example and labors of the Apostles.

It is not, therefore, a mere question of expediency, or of policy, whether we shall send missionaries, and the gospel of the grace of God, to perishing pagans. Christian missions are, by the explicit command of Jesus Christ, as binding upon the Christian world, as the support of the ministry at home. And this is the divinely appointed way, in which benighted nations have been enlightened and evangelised, and in which they will be in all future time. The angel, who has the everlasting gospel to preach to all nations, must commence his flight; the missionaries of the cross must be sent every where to employ the appointed means for the renovation of man, confiding in the promise of Jesus Christ; and then the world will be converted, the millennium introduced, and the glory of the Lord fill the earth, as the waters do the

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The Christian world, and even Christians in this country, may hasten the millennium; not by praying formally and heartlessly every day, "thy kingdom

come," while they do little or nothing to advance this kingdom at home or abroad, as though it was to be extended over the earth by miracles, a way in which it never gained a loyal subject;-but by multiplying the means of its advancement, by sending forth the gospel with its publishers into all the earth, and by pleading fervently, and in faith, the irrepealable promise of the Lord of Missions.

Christian missionaries have also the highest encouragement to preach the gospel, as the grand means of evangelising the heathen. They are as really commanded what means to employ for the conversion of benighted pagans, as to employ any means whatever. It is a part of their commission, "Teach all nationswhatsoever I have commanded you,-preach the gospel to every creature." It is not to be a question then, whether it is to be their great object to introduce the philosophy and sciences of Christian nations. Their great business is to make known "the gospel of the grace of God." This is the instrumentality by which the world is to be evangelised and saved. It is the sword of the Spirit unsheathed, and skilfully and prayerfully wielded, accompanied with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, which is to demolish the empire of darkness in pagan lands. And the kingdom of Jesus Christ can be extended over the earth by no other instrumentality, and by no other agency.

Christian missionaries may indeed find it their duty, and they undoubtedly will, to promote useful knowledge, the means of civilisation, and all useful institutions; and to encourage intellectual and physical

improvement; but all this must be done as auxiliary to their great work, that of making known the gospel of Christ. Their great business is to evangelise and save; and this is to be done by proclaiming evangelical truth, and the way of salvation. And missionaries have great encouragement to go forth and preach the gospel every where, because it is the divinely appointed means of attaining their high object; and the means which Jesus Christ hath promised to bless.

The missionaries of the cross, and the friends of missions, may also find great encouragement in their enterprise, from the increasing facilities of raising up missionaries, and obtaining the means of sending them forth, from the increasing facilities of conveying them to all parts of the earth, and communicating with them in all their different locations; from the increasing facilities of acquiring languages, from the progress of knowledge, from the march of freedom, from the providences of God, and from the prophecies of his word.

But the highest encouragement is still found in the promise contained in our text. However dark the immediate prospect of the missionary at any period, however circumstances may change, this encouragement never changes, this promise never fails.

And it is with humble reliance on this promise, my dearly beloved brethren, who are this day to be invested with the high and sacred office of missionaries to the heathen, that we consecrate you to your work. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, who are only the Agents of the Christian community, to distribute their charities, and to send

forth their missionaries, would not call you to this arduous and self-denying work, did they not believe both the commission and the promise, given to the first Christian missionaries, are still in force.

Were we not encouraged by this promise, and were not our confidence placed here, we should have no hope you would ever enlighten, or convert a single pagan. To send you away from all the endearments and privileges of your homes, from your circles of beloved friends, from the bosom of these churches, and from the altars of these sanctuaries, to sustain the privations and hardships of a missionary life, we should think a wanton sacrifice. We would dismiss you to other labors, and call home our missionaries now in the field, and abandon the enterprise, as well, as the hope, of ever evangelising the world.

But the commission and the promise are unrepealed, and remain in all their force. Yes, dear brethren, for your encouragement, as well as ours, the promise has been fulfilled, and fulfilled in the sense, in which we understand it. Not only to the primitive disciples was this promise executed, but it has as really been fulfilled since the ascension of the Saviour, and the close of the Jewish dispensation, as before. It has been fulfilled in our day. Jesus Christ has been with the missionaries sent from the American churches, and has granted them the guidance and support and grace implied in the promise. They have been qualified by his Spirit, sustained in great afflictions by his loving kindness, succeeded in their labors by his grace, and supported and consoled in a dying hour by his presence and smiles. Some indeed

have been cut down long before they had accomplished all, that it was in their heart to do. The beloved Warren, Newell, Nichols, Richards, Mosely, Parsons, Frost, and Fisk, all of precious memory, have been summoned away in the midst of their toils; and we doubt not, are now rejoicing before the throne in the fruit and reward of their sacrifices. They found the sure fulfilment of this precious promise even to the end; they died in the triumphs of faith; and it would be worth making all their sacrifices, and enduring all their toils, to die in the same joyful and triumphant manner.

But the mention of Fisk, that beloved missionary of high qualifications, so generally known and esteemed in our churches, so tenderly associated with all that is useful, and elevating, and endearing in the cause of missions, seems to cast a gloom over the horizon; for a bright star has early set in the eastern hemisphere. God grant that the brightness, with which it set, may cast abroad a clearer light, and accomplish more good, than the revolutions of many future years. That dying missionary could say, confiding in the precious promise of Jesus Christ,"To be where thou art, to see thee as thou art, to be made like thee, the last sinful motion forever past,— that's Heaven."

You may go forth, beloved brethren, trusting in the promise of the same Saviour, who furnished him with such eminent qualifications, and was with him to the end. One of your number, at least, is expected to go directly to the same interesting field of labor. he follows the footsteps of this much lamented

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