ledge and belief of christian truth, so far as they depend on created agency, are diffused through the instrumentality of christian men; and, that it is the will of Christ that christian men should diffuse this knowledge and faith as extensively as possible. The earth-the whole earth-is labouring under moral putrescence, and, therefore, throughout the whole earth, is the divine counteractive to be diffused. There are two or three very important practical conclusions, which come out of this statement of the case.

In the first place, there can be no doubt of the propriety and obligation, as there can be no doubt of the necessity, of christian missions to heathen and infidel nations. They are wide-extended, putrifying marshes, and can only be healed by that spiritual salt, of whose healing virtue, the salt thrown by the prophet into the bitter empoisoned waters is a striking figure.1 Christians who take no part in such undertakings, seem to deny either the need of the heathen world or the power of christian truth, or to disclaim at once the possession of the knowledge, and the obligation of the duty, implied in the words, "Ye are the salt of the earth." Their conduct seems to say, the earth does not need salt, or Christianity is not salt, or we are not Christians.

In the second place, it seems equally beyond doubt, that Christians must mingle themselves with society, in order to serve the purpose of their being constituted the salt of the earth. It is not the will of our Lord, that we should be monks or hermits. It is his will that christian churches should be select bodies, "a people taken out from among the Gentiles"—"a peculiar people”—“a people dwelling alone." It is his will that his people in their most confidential friendships, should follow the law of the elective affinities of their new nature. But while all this is true, it is not only not their duty to go out of the world, but in all ordinary circumstances they cannot do their duty unless they are in it. The

2 Kings ii. 19-22.

2 Acts xv. 14. 1 Pet. ii. 9. Numb. xxiii. 9.

world is surely the place for the salt of the world. Christians must mingle with society, and in mingling with society, they must, in the various ways which may seem best fitted to gain their object, apply to their fellow-men that truth by which alone they can be saved.

And in the third place, it seems a natural conclusion from what has been stated, that the capacity of a Christian to produce saving good, and his obligation to attempt it, correspond with the closeness of the relation in which he stands to the individuals who are the proper objects of his christian benevolence. The closer the salt can come to the body that needs it, the more intimately it can insinuate itself into the substance, the greater probability of its serving its purpose. He does not act like a Christian, who does not do what lies in him, that the whole earth should be salted. But he acts very like a fool, who makes great exertions to put down moral putrescence among the antipodes, while he allows it to exist and increase in his own country, his own city, his own neighbourhood, his own family. Home attempts to put down spiritual corruption, should not supersede foreign enterprise for the same purpose. But since the pestilence is universal, while I will do what I can to send remedies to the inhabitants of Calabar or Japan, I will especially look after my own country, my own city, my own relations, my own family. My securest way of extending the influence of Christianity, is first to influence those I am most intimately connected with, and then, through them, those with whom I have a comparatively remote connection. I expect to find the best missionary agent in the man who is most diligent and conscientious in attending to the spiritual concerns of "his own, especially those of his own house." I shall come to doubt whether that be salt at all, if what is constantly in contact with it be not salted.

The whole of our Lord's statement goes on the supposition, that, to be successful in making others Christians, and in thus making them holy and happy, we must be ourselves

Christians, we must ourselves be christianly holy and happy. We must "have salt in ourselves,"1 if we would be the salt of the world. To be really useful as foreign or home missionaries, or christian instruction agents, or sabbathschool teachers, men must be Christians indeed; not merely men who have learned a system of theology by rote, and are fluent enough in imparting it to others, but men who know, and believe, and experience, the truth as it is in Jesus. How can men teach what they do not know? How cant hey exemplify what they have never experienced? It is christian truth, under divine influence, that makes men christianly good and happy; and it is just in the degree in which we find in a man christian truth embodied, and christian influence exemplified, that we find him a fit agent for advancing Christianity. "Let the dead bury their dead," but let them not pretend to be fit agents for promoting their spiritual resurrection.

If the professed followers of Christ, instead of holding the truth, embrace error-if, instead of leading holy lives, they live in conformity to the present evil world—it is plain they cannot serve the high and holy purposes for which they are separated from the world. Unconverted members of christian churches are plagues to the church, and plagues to the world. And however active such persons may be made in a kind of promoting the cause of Christianity, by such motives as they can alone feel the force of-and it is astonishing what exertions they can be brought to put forth-little good is to be expected, and much evil is to be feared, from their exertions. Worldly minded, untender-walking, while, at the same time, loud, noisy, bustling, professors of Christianity, are among the worst enemies of Christ and Christianity, of the church and of the world. Instead of being such salt of the world as counteracts and even cures putrescence, they are like salt of another kind, which, when

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