Our work,

It operates through sympathy. We are brethren. our aim, our strongest desires, our highest honor, our dearest interests, our eternal recompense, are the same. Just so far as we are sanctified, what one feels, and attempts, and accomplishes, must powerfully interest and actuate another.

Again, there is the duty and blessedness of necessary co-operation. We must labor together. Missionaries are the messengers of the churches. The churches must send them forth, sustain them with their prayers and contributions, and supply the increasing demand for men, which the opening fields require. The energy of the one increases the energy of the other. The missionary prepares work for the churches, and throws the obligation of its performance upon them; and can the churches remain inactive, when urged to exertion by such a fearful responsibility?

Again, it diverts the mind from those unimportant points of doctrinal difference, and metaphysical distinction, and abstruse speculation, which squander the time, and pervert the talents, and ruin the souls of thousands. It places us in full front of the enemy. It teaches us the necessity of concerted and concentrated action. It proves that neither allegiance, nor courage, nor conquest, depend upon the dress or the language of the companies.. Nay, more, it proclaims the unutterable folly and phrensy of those who forget their vigilant and vigorous foes, and turn their arms upon themselves.

It operates, too, through the influence of its own greatness. It expands the mind, liberalizes the soul, elevates the aim, arouses faculties and feelings which nothing else could have addressed, and produces efforts and results which no other object could command.

These are some of the invaluable effects of missions upon the churches. But where are your facts? say they who regard this doctrine as a mere splendid theory. Such facts we are capable of furnishing.

The missionary himself exhibits the powerful reflex influence, of his undertaking. While those who knew him in his native land, may have wondered at the unexpected talent and energy he displays among the heathen, this will explain the difference. His character has been disciplined and improved. He has become capable of exertions for which his powers appeared inadequate before.

And then, beside the increase of his own mental and moral energy, his conspicuous situation has extended his relations, and given him an influence which he never could have exerted at home. However favorably he may have been regarded before, he now appears in a new capacity. Thousands who would never have known him, except as a missionary, read his communications, and receive the impressions they are calculated to produce. Here, then, is not simply a new stimulus to action, but a new medium through which usefulness may be extended.

In the second place, the reaction is most salutary upon the particular friends of the missionaries and their cause. But the operation extends beyond the private circle. Wherever there is the greatest degree of piety, there is the most lively susceptibility on this subject; and as the cause of missions becomes better known and appreciated, the interest of Christians must spread and deepen, until all will sympathize with the Saviour, and all live to obey his last most important command.

Where is there a minister of the Gospel, possessing the spirit of his Master, who is not stimulated and invigorated by the self-denying labors of his missionary brethren? Trace out the influence through these channels of spiritual blessing to the world, and see what must be its boundless results.

Nothing more powerfully arrests the attention of youth and chilIren, than missionary narratives. By these means they are taught how much they differ from the heathen, and how they ought to pray, and contribute, and labor for their salvation. We are struck with this new and promising feature in the Christian community, as we pass through the churches. In schools and private families, we are greeted with the smiles of infancy, while little hands are stretched out to present their mite, saved for the benefit of the heathen. Visit the Sabbath and infant schools throughout the country, and see the thousands of children, who, within a few years, have been awakened to new interests, and new modes of beneficence, by the progress of missions. Hundreds of dollars are now annually raised, through the gatherings and savings of children, who, a few years ago, never contributed to any object. I visited one school, containing one hundred and fifty scholars, in which three hundred dollars had been raised

within the last year for foreign missions. Is there no promise in this incipient and self-denying benevolence? Will not the church, as well as the world, enjoy its inestimable advantages?

Much has been attributed to the reaction of missions, as a means of producing our revivals, and improving all our home institutions. How much the education, and tract, and Bible societies owe to the strong appeals we furnish them, let the burden of their reports, and especially the eloquence of their agents attest.

These are some of the channels through which the richest blessings are poured into the churches from the missionary stations. We know that every missionary has not exerted an extensive and benign influence. We refer rather to office, than its incumbent. But if the situation be so commanding, is it not credible that its oćcupants will labor with incomparably greater effect, than in stations they would probably fill in the domestic department? If the beneficial tendency of their exertions upon Christendom was the only inducement to enter upon a missionary life, we wonder how such crowds of young men dare refuse their agency.

II. Missionary operations not only increase the piety and energy of the churches, but greatly assist in supplying their domestic destitution.

Our former position being admitted, this is its legitimate consequence. If every Christian could be brought to employ all his talents, it would require but a small proportion of the present numberperhaps only the reduced proportion of Gideon's army-to accomplish a greater amount of good than is now effected.

That ten thousand ministers in the United States, and more than fifteen hundred thousand professing Christians should produce so little religious effect among only fourteen millions of souls, not the half of them adults, is almost incredible, especially when we measure the ability of all by the usefulness of a few. Let the spiritual torpor which now curses the Christian church be removed-let universal life reanimate her ministers and laymen, and converts would greatly multiply, and revivals spread--the young men would be sanctified--the ranks of the ministry replenished, and Zion would appear clothed in the beauty and majesty of her Lord.

We have referred to the influence of foreign missions upon the young. Many a converted youth has had his attention directed to

the ministry through the reading of missionary journals.

has ever produced. churches; the other of perfect delight.

I have

two instances in my mind, of the most promising men this country One occupies a distinguished position in the strikes his harp to a Saviour's love in regions Those who remain in their native country are prepared by the same influence for every kind of trying service. Here again I could mention cases of peculiar usefulness-men who had devoted their lives to missions, but were providentially detained - at home. Witness the recent and growing interest manifested for the spiritual improvement of our slave population and western citizens. The claims of these portions of our community are assigned by multitudes as their only reason for not engaging in foreign missions. In the exact measure that young men are actuated by missionary zeal, are they prepared for those stations at home which demand sacrifice and diligence, and which yield but little worldly compensation.

The reaction of missions upon the domestic interests of individual denominations, is instructive. The Moravians began the noble effort for the conversion of the heathen, about a century ago. A congregation consisting of six hundred individuals, principally exiles, organized themselves into a missionary body at Hurnhut, and nobly resolved to aim at sending the Gospel through the world. The liberal soul has been made fat. Forty stations among the heathen— more than two hundred missionaries, and upwards of forty thousand converts, proclaim the blessing of God upon their efforts. The little. band has multiplied itself into eighty congregations at home, and the small sum they could at first spare out of their penury, has increased to an annual collection of sixty thousand dollars.

Brethren, do you inquire why it is that we love to single out this example? I would ask you in reply, why is it that you and your fellow-Christians furnish us with no other? If you would only make the experiment, we could give you all the illustrations you require. To the shame of protestant Christendom, this is the only church which could with any propriety be called a missionary body. Other sects, as far as they have evinced any thing like the same spirit, have reaped the same fruits.

The churches are beginning to look upon the missionary enterprize with an eye of favor, and no doubt that denomination will become the most popular and powerful, which combines with the purity

of its doctrines, the strongest zeal in their promulgation. It is to seminaries pervaded by this spirit, that young men, and those of the greatest promise, will resort. It is under this banner that individuals and churches, repelled by bigotry, wearied with bickerings, and emaciated by error, will range themselves and prosper.

When we speak of the vigor, which missionary exertions throw into our domestic institutions, we refer to a very natural operation. That man who has courage to attempt a great enterprize despises the difficulties of a small one. The energy produced by the one, overlooks all the appalling trifles of the other. When have the churches ever accomplished so much for America as since they have put forth special efforts for the heathen?

III. The church through missionary efforts, places herself in the best and indeed in the only position for receiving the most abundant spiritual blessings. In the first place, these efforts have a direct tendency to remove the most serious obstructions to piety and efficiency. Where the work of evangelizing the world is carried on with energy, it indicates and produces self-denial and liberality. We need not stop to show that nothing is more repugnant to eminent holiness, or usefulness, than a selfish parsimonious spirit. It is abhorrent in the eyes of a Holy God. "For the iniquity of his covetousness," said Jehovah, "was I wroth and smote him." However paradoxical it may appear, it is true, that they who give the most, have the most to give. Their ability increases with the benevolence of their dispositions. There are those which scatter and yet increase. this I ," is the instructive lesson of inspiration on this point, "he which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly, and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. purposeth in his heart, so let him give; cessity, for God loveth a cheerful giver. all grace abound toward you; that ye always, having all sufficiency in all things may abound to every good work." What terms more explicit and emphatic could be employed?

say,

"But

Every man according as he not grudgingly nor of neAnd God is able to make

But missionary zeal not only removes those encumbrances, which enchain our energies--it not only increases our ability to receive and communicate spiritual blessings; but it secures to us those promises. which are connected with enlarged exertions. "The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth shall be watered also himself. If thou draw out thy soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflict