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However, the Missionary should doubtless possess Christian knowledge and real personal piety. Without prescribing what his soul-experience of the "terrors of the Lord," and the "joy of believing" in Jesus should be, he ought not to be unacquainted with spiritual exercises of the heart, connected with, or antecedent or consequent to, the conversion of the soul, or its being turned from darkness to light, and from Satan to God. He must be an experienced Christian.* God usually makes the most holy men the medium of spiritual blessings to others.

He should possess some skill in languages; a rather critical knowledge of Holy Scripture, and of the evidences of revealed religion; a knowledge of the history of the

will into the hottest front of the battle, by men who are fitter for the work, but who claim that very fitness as the apology for sitting still; pleading their literature, and popular elocution, as a discharge from the war." (MELVILLE HORNE.)

"Among other calumnies which were circulated against the founders of the Missionary Society, was the ungenerous imputation, that they were ready to transport their brethren to uncongenial climates, to labour amongst savage and heathen nations, whilst they continued to enjoy the delights of home. This reproach was as untrue as it was unkind, for Dr. Bogue and others requested of the East India Company permission to go to India, and were refused. (Cong. Mag. Feb. 1826.)

Some have gone to be temporary Superintendents and Commissioners; but, query? Did any of the Founders or Directors ever actually go to be Missionaries? Have they not all "continued to enjoy the delights of home?" They have transported others, but never gone themselves. Where then is the calumny or the untruth?

*"In the qualification of a Missionary we must enquire not only into the sincerity of his piety, but also into the power of it. We should injure many by questioning their piety, who are not yet possessed of that vigourous and steadfast faith, that joyous hope, and that fervent love, which are absolutely necessary to support a man under all the sacrifices, dangers, hardships, and discouragements of a Missionary warfare. The tree that is green, flourishing, and fruitful, while standing in a rich soil, and sheltered by a surrounding wood, might wither and die, or be torn up by its roots, if removed to a heath, and standing alone exposed to the tempest." "A tolerable strength and maturity of religion, will therefore be as needful as the sincerity of it." "His Missionary zeal should not have been lately kindled, but such as having burned for years promises to continue in its heat." (MELVILLE HORNE.)

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church and of the world. He should have enlarged views of human nature, in contradistinction from strong sectarian or national prejudices. English, or American, or French, or even European prejudices should not be allowed to influence strongly his mind. He should not have a zeal for his national usages, which form no part of Christian practice. A Christian Missionary from England is not sent to India or any other part of the world to introduce English customs, but Christ's Gospel. He should not be shocked nor irritated by the innocent usages of other nations, which happen to differ from his own. A Missionary's views of Providence, and the gracious care of God extended to all parts of his world, should elevate his mind above the Swiss disease of extravagant love of country. A notion which some people possess, that there is nothing good or comfortable out of England, that all God's works, every where, are inferior and to be despised, in comparison with what he hath done for England, may be called patriotism; but it is a notion that is unjust, and of an impious tendency, and is unworthy of a Christian Missionary.

He should have enlarged views of human governments, and not be a stickler for or against any form into which circumstances may have moulded the system of national rule, or even of Ecclesiastical Government. There is no reason why he should not have his own opinions on such subjects, but he should not be a keen politician, nor a high man for his own sect-ion or "branch" of the universal Church, whether Greek, Latin, or Protestant."* He should have "a single eye" to the glory of God and the good of men; a simplicity of intention that appears above board. He should not be an intriguing Ecclesiastic, nor of a grovelling plebeian mind, that would flatter the rich and powerful to obtain secular interest. He must carry the principle of unlimited toleration to the ends of the earththat man is not accountable to man, but is accountable to

* "You greatly prevaricate (or err) if you are more zealously intent to promote Independency than Christianity; Presbytery than Christianity; Prelacy than Christianity." (HOWE.)

GOD❝onely” for his religious opinions. If he could, he must not induce the state to make up his lack of persuasion and spiritual industry by penal statutes.

5. He should possess an aptness to teach, and affectionate zeal to do good to men in every way, but especially by proclaiming to them the blessed Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by teaching them all that our Saviour commanded. A fierce zeal, a melancholy austerity, and a restless, fretting, irritability of feeling,* and an eccentric, odd temper-although these may possibly be connected with true piety, are still all so many blemishes in a Missionary. A well-meaning, obstinate wrong-headedness, may appear to a sincere young man decision of character and Christian courage; but under such a persuasion he may rather "hinder" than "further" the Gospel among the Heathen.

6. He should be a man of prayer, and hold daily and hourly communion with God—a holy man.† He should enter on his work as the servant of Him who has all power in heaven and on earth; and with the same feeling and intention, he must go onward in it. He must look above and beyond the Churches, up to God and to his Saviour. If man forsakes him, he must not forsake the work. If he be neglected by Missionary Societies, or their Secretaries, and his office be merely praised and pitied, rather than really esteemed, he must not abandon it in disgust. He must lead, and not follow in this great enterprise.

*The two most lauded Protestant Missionaries, Brainerd and Martyn, justly esteemed for their general excellencies, were not, however, the one in his suicidal austerities, and the other in his sensitive irritability, to be imitated.

"The moral weight of the clergy, [and of every minister of religion at home or abroad,] arises above all, under the divine blessing, from the holiness of their lives. It was in part the personal holiness of our Lord, as contrasted with the hypocrisy of the Scribes, which enabled him to speak as one having authority. And had the enemies of St. Paul found aught to object against the purity of his life, he would not have been brought before four successive tribunals, to defend himself merely from the frivolous charge of being a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes." (SUMNER.)

In the Quarterly Theological Review, (Dec. 1825,) which is con

7. With his mind thus fortified by an immediate reference to, and constant dependence on heaven, he will

ducted in a mild but partial spirit of criticism, there are some remarks on a book of the late learned Missionary Printer, Mr. Ward, entitled, "Reflections," &c. The reviewer has expressed the sentiment, which, in Discourse XV. page 195, we suspected was generally prevalent, viz. "That the Missionary work is still, by the churches, deemed, in comparison of the Ministry at home, a low service."

The Reviewer sneers at Mr. Ward for asserting that our Saviour appeared in Judea as an "humble itinerant," and as "the Missionary from heaven."

This sneer is countenanced by applying to the case Dr. Johnson's remark, in his life of Milton, that every man's particular profession, acquires in his own mind an undue degree of importance. This is, no doubt, true; but it applies equally to Authors, Reviewers, Parish Priests, and Bishops, as well as to Missionaries. There may be a bias in the Reviewer, as great as in the Missionary. What then are the facts? Can it be denied by any Christian, that the blessed Jesus appeared in Judea in the form of a servant going about" doing good, or as an "humble itinerant teacher,"* unsanctioned and disallowed by the priesthood of the land.

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Bishop Heber, the Reviewer remarks, took his leave of the Christian Knowledge Society with a "graceful modesty," describing himself as "their Missionary to Calcutta." By this it is supposed the Bishop did not mean to magnify his office, but the opposite. Now, for Bishop Heber we have the highest possible respect, and sincerely believe him to be a Bishop of an Apostolic spirit; but if Bp. Heber thought, as the Reviewer seems to do, that being a Bishop over a few thousands of European Christians in India, was a higher office than being a Messenger of Christian Churches" to millions of Pagans, we differ both from the Bishop and the Reviewer: and this opinion we form, not from a desire to magnify our office, but to do justice to an office still in very low estimation, not only among the "Great Clerks" of National Churches, but also among the Pastors, or preaching Bishops, of Congregational Churches both in England and Scotland. To be plain, we consider the venerable Missionary Carey to have filled, during his residence in India, as high a station under the Government of Providence, as the Lord Bishop of Calcutta, whose office, and the importance of whose duties, we have no wish to depreciate.

* It is true our blessed Saviour appeared in Judea as the Messiah, but still the question returns, Did Messiah appear as a dignitary of the Jewish church, or as an "humble itinerant teacher ?"

persevere.* No man who puts his hand to this plough does well to look back and desert it, without some apparent and just cause. But when such cause does occur, a Missionary may return with honour to his native land. That he should bind himself to perpetual exile, and to expatriate his children, is a superstitious requirement of man's imposing.

8. He should "endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ." To complain of difficulties inseparably connected with the work, is unworthy of him. And he should have the determination of a good soldier, rather to die in conflict, than desert or compromise his cause. But this soldier-like feeling and resolution, to fight till death, striving to dispossess spiritual enemies, does not make him insensible of the neglect of his fellow Christians; nor are

* "If success be demanded, it is replied, that is not the inquiry of Him" of whom are all things," either in this world or in that which is to come. With Him the question is this, What has been aimed at, what has been intended in singleness of heart?" (Martyn's Memoirs.)

"Success may be viewed two ways; as to the actual preparation of means for the extensive diffusion of knowledge, and as to the actual turning of many to righteousness. The former kind of success has in some measure attended the Ultra-Gangetic Missions; for the latter we greatly long, and earnestly pray." (MILNE.)

"The conservation of duty to the public (and to his Saviour) ought to be more precious than the conservation of life and being; according to that memorable speech of Pompeius Magnus, when being in commission of purveyance for a famine at Rome, and being dissuaded with great vehemency and instance by his friends about him, that he should not hazard himself to sea in an extremity of weather, he said only to them, 'Necesse est ut eam, non ut vivam;' It is necessary that I should go, not that I should live." (BACON.)

"THE PEOPLE of the Universal Church comprise all nations—whose conversion it is the duty of all men to promote to the utmost of their power."

"With regard to the remuneration to be allotted to the Ministers of the Universal Church, as well as to those of particular religious communities, it must be allowed that a certain recompence is both reasonable in itself, and sanctioned by the law of God, and the declarations of Christ and his Apostle, The workman is worthy of his meat. Who goeth a warfare at any time at his own charges? Let him that is taught in the word, communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things-let the elders that

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