It is also to be remarked, in the third place, that simultaneously with these changes in the condition of the world at large, there has been a gradual reviving of the spirit of apostolic piety, and of religious action and enterprise in all Christendom. The Churches, delivered from the power of persecution, and from that hardly less disastrous alliance with the civil power, which is founded on the principle of persecution, have been refreshed and enlarged. The spirit of prayer for the conversion of the world has been awakened. Millions of voices are daily uttering that petition" thy kingdom come," with a new fervor of desire and of faith. The actual enterprise of converting the world, has been commenced with a calm and resolute zeal, a confidence of ultimate success, a spontaneous yet systematised combination of efforts, a liberality in contribution, and an energy in action, which, in their steady progress, make it more and more manifest that the finger of God is in the movement. Thus, while God in his mysterious workings has been preparing the world at large for a great and universal moral revolution, he has also been training and furnishing the Churches of Protestant Christendom, to take advantage of the crisis, and to carry the story of Christ and redemption to all mankind. Look at what he is doing for the Churches and in the Churches-see how he is setting them free from old encumbrances-see how he is multiplying their numbers-see how he is augmenting their resources and means of action-see how he is pouring out his Spirit upon them, and bidding them arise and shinesee the multitudes of young men endowed with gifts of nature and of education, whom his Spirit converts and calls to serve him in the gospel, and whom the Churches may equip and send forth to fill the world with light. Say what do these things mean in respect to what is just before us? Do these signs show that God will dispense with the instrumentality of human efforts in completing that great moral revolution which seems everywhere impending? Or do they rather show that he intends to have the gospel preached by human voices in every land and in every language, and that he would have his servants "go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature," and so much the more as they see the day approaching.

And what success has thus far attended the enterprise of converting the world by the foolishness of preaching? I may not occupy your time with the statistics of the missionary enterprise at large, nor even with the details of the success which has crowned those efforts in which it has been our privilege to participate. But I may direct your attention, for a moment, to those familiar facts in this one point of view. In the work of evangelizing the heathen and Mohammedan nations, every success is an expansion of the work, and every expansion creates an imperious necessity for new exertions. When the missionary in some dark land finds the tokens of an approaching revolution manifesting themselves around him-when inquirers begin to come around him by day and by night-one by one, or in companies-when his schools are thronged in consequence of an awakened thirst for knowledge in a barbarous people-when a clamor for Bibles, and for Christian tracts

and books, breaks forth on his right hand and on his left, from a people who have learned the use of letters-when converts begin to be multiplied under his teaching, and need, because they are converts, the more instruction and the more watchfulness-what are all these indications of success but the rapid expansion of his work ?-and as his work grows under his hand, he must have larger means and new helpers, or else he dies exhausted and broken down amid his triumphs. Thus, while God in his providence gives us free and safe access to the nations, and is at the same time giving us peace and prosperity at home, and abundant instrumentalities and resources for the prosecution of the work, he is all the while leading us on in a way in which it is impossible to retreat, and impossible to stand still, without dishonor, not to ourselves only, but to him whose name we bear and to whose cause we are devoted. Thus, the wonderful and increasing success of our missionary work, continually betokening the approach of that bright day when Christ shall reign over all the earth, is continually laying upon the Churches a necessity, inevitable except by the most dishonorable retreat from the most glorious of enterprises-a necessity not only to go on, but to go on with so much the more earnestness and faith and selfdenial.

Fathers and brethren in the ministry of the Gospel, the application of all this to us, in our public employment and relations, is too obvious to require an argument. We live, we are entrusted with this sacred ministry, in the twilight, as it were, of that day which faith has so long seen approaching. We are called to instruct and animate the Churches, to guard them from danger, and to lead them on to every holy enterprise, at this peculiar crisis in the history of redemption. Our commission is like that once given to Moses, "Speak to the children of Israel that they go forward." We are to understand, we are to make the Churches understand, that God calls us not to rest satisfied with past achievements or with present success, but to attempt greater and greater things, and to expect in each attempt greater and still greater results. Oh! what have we done-what have our Churches done that any of us should speak or feel as if we had already reached the limit of enterprise or of achievement?

Assembled as we are, "to consult the duties of our office, and the common interest of the Churches," it becomes us to remember and to remind each other, how much is depending on the fidelity and the skill with which our work is done. Our position as ministers of the word, and as pastors of these favored Churches, has an importance ever increasing, as the progress of events brings us nearer to the expected triumph of our Redeemer over all the earth. Whether these Churches will do their part in the work of making the Gospel known to every creature, must depend, under God, on the intelligence, the earnestness, and the diligence, with which they are taught and guided by their pas

Let them have a cold-hearted, secularized, easy, slothful ministry-let them have a ministry holding the form of godliness and orthodoxy, but denying its power-let them have a ministry uninstructed in

the things of the kingdom of God, unable to divide the word of truth, or to discern the wheat from the chaff-let them have an unsound, enthusiastic, revolutionary ministry, seizing upon every novelty, turned about by every wind of doctrine, rushing headlong into every ill-considered project-let them have any ministry not qualified by gifts and graces to produce a sound, enlightened, manly, self-denying piety; and how soon would the disaster be felt, not here only, but everywhere. Let the Spirit of God descend with his reviving grace upon their souls -let the number of them that worship in spirit and in truth, presenting themselves to God a living sacrifice, be multiplied in these parishes; and instantly a new energy is manifested in every department of the Divine enterprise of evangelizing the world.

By what motives, then, are we urged to fidelity in our work as pastors and leaders of the flock of God? Our success in this work is to save the souls of those who hear us, and is to leave the light of pure Christianity still radiant on these hills after we shall have been gathered to our fathers. Nor is this all. Our success in this work, or our failure, has, in these days, an obvious and immediate connection with the advancement of God's designs of mercy for all nations. In such times as these, the zeal, the purity, the spiritual prosperity and progress of these Churches, or their languor and sloth, their declension and decay,-is felt at once, far and near, in its effects on the progress of Christ's universal kingdom. It is felt, far west, beyond the Mississippi, where, in that confluence of emigration, the home missionary, sustained by our churches, gathers around him the children of our fathers, in some log hut, or under some spreading shade, and waking in their hearts kind memories of the homes, the sanctuaries, and the graves of "old Connecticut," bids them not forget their fathers' God. It is felt in those distant isles, where the missionary from our shores sees a regenerated nation, and hears from glen, and vale, and ragged cliff, sweet songs of praise, mingled with the everlasting anthem of the ocean. It is felt in all the tropic climes of eastern Asia, where Apostolic men, in our behalf, and depending on our fidelity to the cause, are establishing Churches and Christian schools, and the mighty enginery of the press, for the illumination of those countless millions. It is felt in the old haunts of Grecian genius, where Athens and Corinth receive once more the simple doctrine of Jesus and the resurrection from those whom God has sent by our instrumentality, and where the men of Macedonia are calling for our help. It is felt under the waning crescent of the Turk, where the Armenian trafficker, to whom the pearl of great price is sent from these occidental shores, rises up to demand of his priestly oppressors freedom and the keys of heaven. Lebanon feels it-" that goodly mountain," where the untamed Arab and the wilder Druse listen to our brethren, and weep over the sod that covers precious dust which we have loved. The Nestorian feels it, as from his "misty mountain-tops," and from the mouth of each old cavern sanctuary, he looks with hope too long deferred to catch the day-spring strangely dawning in the west. Thus it is, brethren, that in such a time as this, when the redemption of all nations is drawing nigh,

our position as pastors of these favored Churches involves a responsibility continually increasing. Lowly and narrow as each one of us may feel to be the sphere of his immediate agency, the influence of what we do, or fail to do, in our humble places-the influence of God's blessing on our faithfulness, or of his frown on our slothfulness and cowardice, goes out from where we stand, as if on some electric chain, reaching from station to station till it encircles the world.

With such thoughts as these enlarging our views and glowing in our hearts, let us "consult the duties of our office and the common interest of the Churches." With such thoughts let us gird ourselves anew for labor. Remembering that the field is the world, and that Christ's followers are to preach the gospel to every creature; and watching with holy sympathy the progress of the angel flying in the midst of Heaven; let us pray and labor, and so much the more as we see the day approaching.

O, that approaching day! What though its full splendor may not shine upon these mortal eyes! We will do our part, God helping us, and then its light shall be the brighter on our graves; and when we look down on the new earth from the new Heaven, we will sing the louder in the chorus of the morning stars, and our voices shall mingle with a more triumphant gladness in the acclamations of the sons of God.

SERMON CCCXXXI V.

BY REV. SIMEON NORTH, LL.D.,

PRESIDENT OF HAMILTON COLLEGE, CLINTON, N. Y.

THE GIFT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT TO CHRISTIANS, A PREPARATION FOR THE CONVERSION OF SINNERS.

"Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free Spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee."-PSALMS, li. 11, 12, 13.

THE psalm of which these words constitute a part, is supposed to have been composed by David, on his recovery from one of those seasons of backsliding, by which his religious experience was diversified. Under the influence of a guilty and debasing passion, he had suffered himself to wander far from him who was the life and spring of his spiritual enjoyments. The gross acts of wickedness, of which he had become guilty in this state of estrangement from God, were faithfully pointed out to him by the prophet Nathan. He was thus brought to a lively conviction of the guilty part which he had been acting. His conscience was roused from its slumbers, and he was made to see how utterly vile he had rendered himself in the sight of God. His mind was filled with shame and self-abhorrence; and he was therefore constrained to take up the language of penitence and confession. "Against thee, thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. For I acknowledge my transgression, and my sin is ever before me."

From himself, his mind seems then to have turned to others, who might have been affected by his example. As if by his wickedness, he had grieved away that Spirit by which alone he could be prepared successfully to teach the ways of God to others, he supplicated in our text for a return to his heart of the divine presence, and a restoration of that joy which he had experienced before his departures from God. His language is, " Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free Spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee."

There is a principle, then, involved in this language which may at all times be contemplated with profit by the children of God; and especially when he is not present with them in the reviving influences of his grace. This principle is, that the presence of God by his Spirit with his children, prepares the way for the salvation of those who are in a state of impenitence. In the statement of this principle, it will be seen, there is the assertion of an important fact.

I. For evidence of this fact, we shall appeal, in the first place, to the word of God. If the connection of ideas in our text be distinctly