gress of the gospel is to be taken out of the way, and the kingdoms of this world are to become the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ. Amidst these anticipations, let us not forget the place which the “lost sheep of the house of Israel" have in the prophecies which refer to the last times. The first communication of the gospel to the nations of the world was connected with one great event in their history-their “ fall,” their "casting away." The consummation to which we are so eagerly looking is to be connected, as the word of prophecy clearly makes known, with another event in their history-"the receiving of them again.” Their "diminishing" has been the "riches of the Gentiles," but much more shall be their "fulness." Compared with the first riches, this last, it is declared, will be as "life from the dead." The tendency may be to forget this to overlook it in our aspirations and earnest longings. (Hear.) To bear it rightly in mind might stimulate our feelings in the matter of doing or seeking to do Christ's will regarding the outcasts of Israel. We

cry "Watchman, what of the night? watchman, what of the night?" as to the world at large; let the cry have respect particularly to the condition of the Jews. When the final "shaking of heaven and earth” comes, they will not be forgotten; let us not forget them now. Tidings of awakening reach us from every quarter of the world—from America, the Continent of Europe, Turkey, the far East. Let us seek that similar tidings may soon reach us of the Jews, scattered everywhere throughout the world. The vision of the "dry bones" which Ezekiel saw has an application to the world at large. The spiritually dead are everywhere, and they are numerous,―very many, and very dry. The vision has a special application to the case of the Jews. What the prophet saw and describes has a special application to them. The mighty revival which he witnessed in the vision has, in like manner, a general application. It will receive accomplishment in the history of the whole earth. But in the first instance, it will receive special accomplishment in the history of the Jews. Already it has had one accomplishment, in their first restoration. It will receive a more glorious accomplishment, in their second and final restoration. They shall then, indeed, come out of their graves, and stand on their feet, a great army. (Applause.) Two duties devolve on us in this matter. The first is, preaching the gospel to them. This duty is taught the Church by the prophet's vision. He was commanded to "prophesy to the dry bones." That this must be the will of Christ, we know. In His first commission given to those whom He sent forth, He confined their work to the lost sheep of the house of Israel; and though, in the commission which He gave on the eve of His ascension, the commission was extended, and they were required to "go into all the world, and to preach the gospel to every creature;" they were required to "begin at Jerusalem,"-in the first instance, to offer salvation to the Jews. This they did. The Jews rejected the word, and Christ's servants turned to the Gentiles, In prospect of their restoration, let us bear in mind the first commission, and likewise the great and precious promises which we have to plead in their behalf. The other duty is to pray for them. This, too, was taught by the vision. Ezekiel was commanded to prophesy to the wind,-to the breath, that it might come and breathe upon the slain. In all our work for the salvation of our fellow-men, prayer must bear its right proportion to preaching. Then only may we expect that preaching will avail. To this we are called in

behalf of the Jews. If remissness has in any measure overtaken us in this great work, let us seek to recover our position, to redouble our zeal, and to increase the faith and fervour of our prayers. Then may we expect that God shall truly be as the dew to Israel. (Applause.)

Dr WYLIE said I rise to second the adoption of the Report, as just moved by Dr Beith, and, in doing so, to say a very few words on the general subject. I feel that there is at present an ebb in the tide, that but a few years ago seemed to be bearing this Church, and every Church, full on the great work of the conversion of the Jews. It is not to be denied that there is a somewhat prevalent feeling of disappointment in connexion with this branch of the Church's labours, arising from the belief that the measure of our success is not in proportion to our efforts in the Jewish field. Now, I wish briefly to indicate one or two grounds which go to shew that this belief is without just foundation, and that, taking into account the very peculiar and great difficulties that attend this department of the Church's work, the measure of success that has attended her efforts is a fair and reasonable one, and that, on the whole, it is as great as any that has attended us in the Gentile field, and that it is such as, instead of discouraging us, ought to stimulate us to continue and to increase our efforts. In the first place, we are to bear in mind that the Jews are an apostate people, and all history and experience shew that apostate churches and apostate nations, like apostate individuals, are more difficult to be restored than those that had never known the truth. (Hear, hear.) They are twice dead. Therefore it is that the conversion of the Jews is made matter of special promise--is spoken of as a work out of the ordinary course, and indeed as a miracle. The conversion of the Gentiles is described as a being born, which is according to nature; the conversion of the Jews as a rising from the dead, which is against nature. In the second place, we are to bear in mind that they labour under a double curse. In addition to that curse which the whole world lies under as a fallen world, the Jews lie under a special and self-invoked curse. The Jew, like every other son of Adam, has within him what his own prophets so emphatically term "a heart of stone," but that heart of stone is in him of double hardness. But that impenitency, instead of making us turn away from the Jews, should move us to pity them, and draw us towards them, for that curse they may be said in a sense to bear for us. Not only was their "fall" our "rising," but their continued impenitency is to us a proof that He whom they rejected, and for rejecting whom this curse fell upon them, was the Holy One and the Just. In the third place, if the Jew may be said to be twice cursed, he may be said also to be twice fallen. He once stood at the head of the world; he was for ages the chosen of Heaven; and now for ages he has borne the contempt, the hatred, and the scorn of the world, and has been as low as he once was high. This is no ordinary fall; and if the former cause has given him a double hardness of heart, this last has given him a double pride of heart. All the glorious prerogatives that once ennobled him, by an inevitable law now tend to degrade him, to contract his sympathies, to harden his pride, and to shut him up in unbelief. He cannot forget what he was; and he believes that, scorned and contemned as he is by man, his standing before God is still the same-the favourite of Heaven. He has the blood of Abraham in his veins, and therefore he deems it of

no moment that he has not the faith of Abraham in his heart. He is born to inherit heaven, and cannot, he believes, miss it; and he accounts it foul scorn to be called to place himself on the same level with a Gentile as regards salvation; and especially does he account it foul scorn to be called to confess himself a fellow-sinner, and seek salvation in the way of faith and repentance through the Crucified One. Any one of these difficulties is enough to form a mighty hindrance to the work-all three combined form a triple barrier, which only the triple armour of unfaltering faith, of unwearied labour, of persevering and abounding prayer, can break through. (Applause.) Here, then, is the condition of the Jew: he is a man twice fallen, twice cursed, twice dead. To recover him, then, can be no ordinary work; but in proportion to the difficulty is the work, and in proportion to the greatness of the misery in which the Jew is sunk, so are we bound to labour, and pray, and wait for his conversion. (Applause.) But there are encouragements. And foremost among these is the great change which has recently come over a large portion of the race. Many indications there are that they have come to the turning point of their destiny. From one to two millions of Jews—that is, every fourth man or so-have now thrown off the fetters of Rabbinical slavery. They may not have broken altogether with Moses, but they have sworn eternal enmity to the Talmud. What invests this movement with great importance is, that it has been contemporaneous with a change of policy towards them on the part both of churches and nations. The barbarous policy of neglect and persecution, pursued for fifteen centuries, has in the present century been abandoned, and the heart of the Jew has become at once responsive to our kindness; he has broken his own chains, and he has drawn nigh in confidence to us. But, farther, they have undergone a great social change, which has given scope for the display of the noble qualities that are inherent in the race. We are so much accustomed to think of the Jews as mostly bankers, brokers, jewellers, and money-changers, who, like leeches, suck the life-blood of nations, that we forget we owe them any obligations save those of mortgages and bills of exchange. This is a false estimate of their character, and a false estimate of the obligations we lie under to them. They have of late taken a high position, and exercised a wide influence, both in the political and the literary world. One of the greatest travellers of modern times was a Jew-Dr Wolff. (Applause.) The greatest ecclesiastical historian of the last age was a Jew-Dr Neander, the successful defender of Christianity against Strauss. (Applause.) A considerable sprinkling of the best pastors in the churches of Germany are Jews. Some of the first political men, both in France and Austria, are of the seed of Abraham; and some of the most powerful journalists in both these countries are Jews. (Applause.) Some of the boldest missionaries in Persia, in Syria, as well as among the Teutonic nations, are of the stock of Abraham; and the first Protestant bishop in Jerusalem was a Jew. There is perhaps no other nation of the same numbers on the earth that has produced so many eminent men. (Hear.) All these facts are signs of a wonderful national movement. It is calculated that during the past half century there have been more conversions among the seed of Abraham than during the past thousand years. The day is breaking over Israel. The veil is rending. Even in his degradation the Jew bears marks of his primeval

grandeur. His intellect is amazingly active, penetrating, and comprehensive. His heart is full of noble aspirations, even amid the ignoble pursuits in which he has been condemned to pass his days; and obviously the time is near when he shall again be placed at the world's summit, and be enabled to consecrate his glorious powers to a glorious causethe advancement of the kingdom of that Messiah whom he has so long rejected, but whom he will yet love as ardently, and serve as zealously, as he aforetime hated and opposed Him. "And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your ploughmen your vine-dressers; but ye shall be named the Priests of the Lord: men shall call you the Ministers of our God." (Applause.)

and

Dr DUNCAN said—It is not without pain that I mark a falling off this year, not in one only, but in each source of income. I will not allow myself to suspect that this has arisen from any diminution of the affection of our people, or any relaxation of their hearts' desire and prayer to God for Israel, that they may be saved. That were indeed a symptom of decay, and a premonition of impending danger, I say not to the mission, but rather to our Church itself. Much rather would I seek other causes. Great events have occurred, and are in progress, and amidst them diversified claims arise, fitted to distract attention, and to press hard on the limits of ability. I trust, however, this grief is but the precursor and preparative of greater joy, such as Paul felt when he said to the Philippians-" But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at last your care of me hath flourished again; wherein ye were also careful, but ye lacked opportunity." Our love to Israel was manifested early on our own exodus from the house of bondage: let it be held out steadily. Let us in this imitate the love of Jehovah, Israel's God, who hath not cast away His people whom He foreknew, whose gifts and calling are without repentance; to whom, while, as concerning the gospel, they are enemies for our sakes, they still, as touching the election, are beloved for the fathers' sakes. This mission is peculiarly a work of faith and labour of love. It is also pre-eminently a trial of these graces. "Go, preach, beginning at Jerusalem"-Jerusalem, the rebellious house! The words of a mission to the Jews, given of old, and still in force, are these "Son of man, go, get thee unto the house of Israel, and speak with my words unto them. For thou art not sent to a people of a strange speech and of a hard language, but to the house of Israel. Not to many people of a strange speech and of a hard language, whose words thou canst not understand. Surely, had I sent thee to them, they would have hearkened unto thee. But the house of Israel will not hearken unto thee, for they will not hearken unto me; for all the house of Israel are impudent and hard-hearted. Son of man, all my words that I shall speak unto thee, receive in thine heart, and hear with thine ears; and go, get thee unto them of the captivity, and speak unto them, and tell them, Thus saith Jehovah; whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear." Followers of Him who hath loved Israel with a love of perpetuity, let us prove that ours is the love which many waters cannot quench, nor the floods drown. There is a time and a season, appointed of the Father, when "all Israel shall be saved." The written vision makes this much plain. But the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak and not lie, though it tarry. Meanwhile there is the remnant according to the election of grace to be

gathered into the sheepfold of the Shepherd of Israel, our good Shepherd. Never since apostolic times was the number of believing Jews so great as at this present time, though in no age has a small remnant according to the election of grace been wanting, as has been shewn in an interesting historical work by one whose loss we now deplore. Gathered long since into the fold here below, gathered now into yonder fold above, Da Costa has left us-Da Costa, the friend and guide of Cappadose, (whom may God long spare to Israel, to Holland, and to the universal Church of Christ!)-Da Costa, while he lived, the prince of Holland's poets, and greater far, a prince and a mighty man in Israel, in whom we and our mission have lost a zealous friend and able helper. Help, Lord, for the godly faileth! The daughter of Zion is the very personification of desolation and woe. Jehovah hath cast off His altar; He hath abhorred His sanctuary. Her gates are sunk unto the ground, her princes are among the Gentiles; the law is no more; her prophets find no vision from Jehovah. "O daughter of Jerusalem, what shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? for thy breach is great as the sea; who can heal thee?" One can-One who can do all things, One who knows that these dry bones can live, and who has resolved and said that they shall. For the Lord will not cast off for ever. But though He cause grief, yet will He have compassion according to the multitude of His mercies. Poor Jew! guardian of the ancient archives of Divine Revelation, thou art thyself a library of most varied, grand, solemn, and touching lessons, from oldest time to this youngest day. Child of the patriarchs, child of the promises, brother according to the flesh of my Lord the Christ, God over all, blessed for ever; from Ur of the Chaldees came thy father, (the father of us all,) unwitting whither he should go, but called by El Shaddai to walk before Him and be perfect, while new-born idolatries had begun to spread with the spread of Noah's children over a lately flooded world, which, in the wisdom and longsuffering of God, should be permitted to last till the Seed promised to Abraham should come, in whom all families of the earth should be blessed. Wandering in the land of promise, with not a foot of ground thine own, "how goodly are thy tents, O Jacob!" But hard thy children's lot in the land of Mizraim-the house of slaves. But high is the hand, and strong is the outstretched arm, that brought thee out, when, marching through the flood on foot, thou wast glad in Him! Espoused in the waste howling wilderness, and brought into the land which thy Husband-king had purchased, thy tribes were gathered around His sanctuary, and great was the Holy One in the midst of thee. David He chose from following the lambs with young, and raised him to feed His people Israel, promising to build Him a sure house, making with Him an everlasting covenant of sure mercies. As time proceeds, sins bring judgments; mercy brings revivings and restorations. At last the Lord of hosts comes to His temple. He comes to His own, and His own receive Him not. Despised, rejected, crucified, He prays, "Father, forgive them." Rising again, He commands, "Go, preach, beginning at Jeru salem." Exalted to the right hand of the Majesty on high, He pours on Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplications; multitudes are turned unto the Lord,-look on Him whom they have pierced, and mourn for Him, and, pardoned, rejoice in Him. But with some of them God was not well pleased, for they did always resist the Holy Ghost; as