race. Let the new year bring with it a new heart; and let us, over the grave of departed time, extend the right hand of Christian fellowship, and wish each other peace on earth; andwhat this world cannot give-unfading happiness in heaven. "Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever.

Amen."

48

SERMON IV.

THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL.

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations.-MATT. XXviii, 19.

OUR blessed Saviour after His resurrection from the dead, and a little before His ascension to regions of everlasting glory, assembled around Him the companions of His earthly pilgrimagethe apostles and servants of His holy will. They were at table, when He suddenly appeared to them for the last time. Before His step was heard, the well-known accents of His heavenly tongue proclaimed what had been the invariable object of His mission-" Peace be unto you." But they turned affrighted at the sound and appalled at His unexpected appearance. Doubt and terror alternately predominated in their minds; and it was not until His just and poignant reproach at their incredulity-His sorrowful lament over the yet enduring hardness of their hearts, that they were able to enter thoroughly into the dispensations of Almighty wisdom, and into the actual purposes of their Divine Master's past existence. "Then opened He their understanding;" and

after various instructions and admonitions, "He led them out as far as to Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them." "Go," He said, "teach all nations" to observe whatsoever I have commanded you. Instruct them to govern their debasing passions, and to mortify their carnal desires. Relate the history of my bitter afflictions, of all my love, and all my devotions; bid them lay aside their superstitious rites, their unholy ordinances, their wretched and ruinous follies. Make them indeed my disciples, not simply professors of my doctrine; time-servers, pharisaical and self-sufficient hypocrites, “honouring me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me." Go-regardless of fatigue, or of distress—of famine, or of the sword. Go to all nations, wheresoever the finger of Omnipotence shall point: behold, "I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world!"

Thus supported-thus encouraged, the ardent and unwearied teachers of the Gospel, the fearless harbingers of perpetual peace and love and happiness, commenced their perilous career. The flood impeded not the daring footsteps of the Christian apostles; torture sealed not their inspired lips; tyranny could not daunt them, and death itself was welcomed with a tranquil smile. Ceaseless in toil and unshaken in difficulty, they endured continual indignities and restraints; they were beaten, and stoned, and calumniated;

D

"in journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers." They were endangered by their own countrymen not less than by Gentile ignorance and malice; and casting off all that binds men to their homes, utterly opposing themselves to the degrading habits and passions of the whole world, they proceeded courageously "to teach all nations." They planted the cross of Christ in the heart of sinful men, and caused its vegetating stem to be watered by the refreshing showers of genuine repentance. Palestine rejoiced in its grateful shade, and Asia soon participated that unspeakable blessing. Rapidly did its verdant branches spread towards all the quarters of heaven; at first, accompanied by manifest signs and wonders, but finally committed, through the grace of God, to patient zeal and exhaustless charity. The parting injunction of their blessed Saviour urged the apostles to inconceivable exertions; and, uniting the wisdom of the serpent with the harmlessness of the dove, their success bore ample evidence to the truth of their mission, as to the sincerity of their zeal.

Such were the first propagators of the Gospel of Christ! Such were the precursors of those noble-minded and disinterested men, of whom I am to-day the advocate. And perhaps never were there examples of more unmingled charity, more patient suffering, and more generous selfdevotedness, than the present times can testify.

My brethren, in estimating the greatness of any undertaking, you should also consider the circumstances under which it has been assumed, the temptations which divert, and the accidental occurrences of fortune which allure or repel exertion. Now, passing the immediate disciples of our Lord, (for they cannot in any degree be estimated by the same standard as their successors,) we shall find, that all the earlier accidents which marked the lives of the primitive Christians, conduced to prepare them for the dangers and distresses which they were afterwards ready to encounter. Persecutions of the most barbarous description followed them from their very entrance into the world. Simply to adopt the distinctive appellation of Christian, was to subject the individual to the most deadly torture; to draw upon him and upon his family, all the bigoted malignity of heathenism, all the unslackened fierceness of mistaken zeal. The minds, therefore, of such persons were gradually and adequately fitted for the emergency, were tempered by a process similar to that which tempers steel upon the anvil, to all the exertions, to all the infinite trials of the period. Thus, the impressions of adversity were far lighter, far less afflicting, than under other circumstances would have been experienced. The delicate voluptuary trembles at the blast, from which the vigorous hind derives health and elasticity of spirits; and