for our sins: and not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world." He has ascended up on high, and ever liveth for us as Mediator, "to bring many sons and daughters unto God." He has sent His Holy Spirit to be with us, and to abide in us for That Spirit reveals to all who will receive His teaching, the glory of God our Father in Christ Jesus the Son, our Brother.

ever.

Just in proportion as men know God as their Father in Christ, and become true sons to Him, will they become united to each other as true brethren ; and thus the real and highest unity of man with man will be realised as the Church of Christ possesses the earth, and her prayer is answered, "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven!"

PROGRESS OF MISSIONS.

THE beginning of the nineteenth century marks an epoch of revival in the Protestant Church. It would be going beyond the limits prescribed by our subject to consider the causes of that remarkable reaction into indifference of life, or of positive error in doctrine, which followed more or less rapidly the stirring period of the Reformation. Such tides, indeed, in the affairs of men,-now rushing with irresistible waves to the utmost limit of the land; then receding and leaving behind but a few pools to mark where the waters once had been; and again, after a longer or a shorter interval, advancing with a deep flood over the old ground, are among the most striking phenomena in history.

The last century witnessed the Protestant Church at its lowest ebb. We thankfully acknowledge that God did not leave Himself without holy men as living witnesses in every branch of that Church. And we record, with deepest gratitude, how, more than in any other country, He preserved in our own country both individual and congregational life, with orthodox

standards of faith.

Still, taken as a whole, the Protestant Church was in a dead state throughout the world; while, during the same period, infidelity was never more rampant, and never more allied with philosophy, politics, science, and literature. It was the age of the acute Hume and learned Gibbon; of the ribald Paine, and of the master of Europe, Voltaire; with a host of literati who were beginning to make merry, in the hope that God's prophets were at last to be destroyed from the earth. Rationalism triumphed in all the Continental Churches. Puritanism in England became deeply tainted with Unitarianism. The descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers had, to a large extent, embraced the same creed in America. The Established Churches in England and Scotland, though preserving their Confessions, and having very many living men in the ministry, suffered, nevertheless, from that wintry cold which had frozen the waves of the great Reformation sea, and which was adding chill to chill. The French Revolution marked the darkest hour of this time; yet it was the hour which preceded the dawn. It was the culminating point of the infidelity of kings, priests, and people; the visible expression and embodiment of the mind of France, long tutored by falsehood and impiety; the letting loose of Satan on earth, that all might see and wonder at the Beast! That Revolution inscribed lessons in letters of blood for the Church and for the nations of the world to learn. Christians accordingly clung nearer to their Saviour amidst the dreadful storm which shook and destroyed every other resting-place, and were drawn

to the throne of mercy and grace, thereby becoming stronger in faith and more zealous in life. The indifferent were roused to earnest thought by the solemn events which were taking place around them. Speculative infidels even, became alarmed at the practical results of their theories. Mere worldly politicians trembled at the spectacle of unprincipled millions wielding power that affected the destinies of Europe, and recognised the necessity of religion to save the State at least, if not to save the soul. Men of property, from the owner of a few acres to the merchant prince, and from no higher motive than the love of their possessions, acknowledged that religion was the best guarantee for their preservation. In countless ways did this upheaving of society operate in the same direction with those deeper forces which were beginning to stir the Churches of Britain, and to quicken them into new life.

The history of Europe during the first part of the present century, is a history written in blood. It is one of war in all its desolating horrors, and also in all its glorious achievements and victories in the cause of European liberty and national independence. Never was war so universal. It raged in every part of the earth. For years, the Peninsula was a great battlefield. Belgium and the plains of Germany were saturated with blood. Allied hosts conquered France. Armies crossed the Alps and ravaged Italy, and were buried beneath the snows of Russia. The contest was waged from the Baltic to the Bosphorus. The old battle-fields of Greece, Egypt, Palestine, Asia Minor,

Persia, and the Crimea, were again disturbed. War swept the peninsula of India to the confines of Cashmere. It penetrated beyond the walls of China, and visited the islands of the Eastern Archipelago; touched the coasts of Arabia, and swept round Africa, from the Cape to Algiers. It marched through the length and breadth of the great Western Continent, from the St Lawrence to the Mississippi, and from Central to Southern America. Every kingdom experienced its horrors but our own; every capital was entered by the enemy but our own! During all this terrible period, our Sabbath services were never broken by the cry of battle. The dreadful hurricane raged without, but never for a single hour disturbed the peace of our beloved island-home. No revolution from within destroyed our institutions, and no power from without prevented us from improving them. The builders of our spiritual temples did not require to hold the sword. Our victories, with their days of national thanksgiving, and our anxieties, with their days of national fasting, tended to deepen a sense of religion in every heart. Men of God, in rapid succession, rose in all the Churches. A pious laity began to take the lead in advancing the cause of evangelism. In Parliament there was one man, who, by the purity of his private life, the noble consistency, uncompromising honesty, and unwearied philanthropy of his public career, along with his faithful published testimony for the truth as it is in Christ, did more, directly and indirectly, than any other of his day for the revival of true religion,