analogies, if we do not often receive tidings of extraordinary visible success. Have they not to clear away the mean and baleful brushwood and jungle, and the "lofty forests that tower in all the dusky magnificence of guilt?" Have they not to grapple with and slay the monsters, that have held there an undisturbed and unopposed asylum for ages? Have they not to uproot prejudices, which have been rankling in their unpruned luxuriance of crime, since the beginning-for ages watered and cherished by the god of this world? And is there, on ordinary principles, reason to expect that all this will be done, and that the principles of the gospel will be implanted, and that the result will be displayed and declared, in the short and brief space which untutored human impatience would allow? How gross and how ignorant the misjudgment ! It may be, we hear from far countries little, proportionably, of victory, -much of crosses, failures, disappointments; yet there is to be no despondency, no relaxation, noabandonment; we must still proceed, stedfast and persevering, and remember, according to the established rule

THEY SOW FOR FUTURE TIMES.

Future times no doubt will reap. We cannot, we must not, believe that the labour shall be in vain in the Lord. Brainerd has not wrought among Indian savages, nor Schwartz in Hindostan, nor Morrison in China; Martyn wasted not amidst the inhospitable sands of Persia, nor was Smith martyred among the western plunderers of human kind, for no avail. Judging from the analogies of former times; judging from the influence already existing on the minds of men; judging, especially, from the truth and faithfulness of that God, who has uttered his promises and sworn his oath that his gospel shall prevail we say, it is impossible. The age shall come, when they shall live again in the triumph of their labours. The glory of the Lord shall shine over the fields where they have trod and toiled: the dews of heaven shall fructify, and its sun shall ripen them. "The handful of corn on the earth shall then be on the top of the mountains, and the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon." Then "the ploughman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed." Labour shall be crowned and closed. The connexion between the different orders of instrumentality, the combined usefulness and influence of their respective and allotted operations, shall be consummated in one vast display of final success. The spiritual universe, all cultivated for immortality, shall be laden with the fruits of righteousness, and ready for a gathering of glory; the poetry of prophecy shall become the narration of fact; the distant visions of anticipation shall become the palpable realities of fulfilment; and then shall be heard " a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done."

If the expansion which has been almost necessarily given to the preceding parts of the subject had allowed, it would here have been proper to notice with some circumstantiality,

3. The spirit in which these offices should be sustained. For the present we state briefly,

There should be contentedness. None should murmur, because their department of operation is not more profitable, more honourable, or more imposing. None should look with envy on others, who are allowed a more than ordinary portion of usefulness, or success. Envy! far be that child of hell from infusing its poison to rankle in the bosoms of the servants of God! All distinctions here, as in other matters, are from heaven. What remains then for us but to fulfil our duties in humble acquiescence, happy that we are employed at all, for here too may the question be proposed, "Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God?"

There should be diligence. There is no time in this work to loiter and be idle. All things demand an unremitting industry. The requirements of God, and the miseries of man, plead for activity energetic and unceasing. We have but to look around on the fields, to find a motive irresistible. Think of the vast extent yet unvisited and uncultivated; think of the immense multitudes who are perishing for lack of knowledge; think of the dark and dreadful destinies of eternity, the last habitation of souls ;-and can we rest? can we refuse the employment of all power of body and of mind? We have heard the words of the Redeemer, let us take them for our own-" I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work."

There should be patience. The order of proceeding in the offices to which we have referred, will at once commend such a spirit as this: its opposite is contrary to all principles on which heaven smiles. In no being is a spirit of patience more requisite, than in a servant of Jehovah. Who has been in his vineyard a single day, and even in that short experience has not found the propriety of this acknowledgment? We have but to pronounce the apostolic exhortation, which well agrees with the leading metaphor of the subject: "Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.”*

There should be supplication for the Divine blessing. There is no success, where there is no

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prayer. God has said, " For all these things I will be inquired of." No human exertion, of whatever kind, can avail for one purpose, of whatever insignificance, if there be not upon it the consecrating energy of heaven. Without that, every seed would die, every plant would wither, every device would fail, every hope would perish, and the whole world would be a desolate wilderness, blighted by the mildew of a lasting, irreversible curse. "Paul plants, Apollos waters, but God gives the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase." He tells you himself the secret of ministerial prosperity: "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." Let us acknowledge that principle; let us treasure it in our memories; let us bring it into all our connexions with Christianity; let us think of it when we preach, and think of it when we hear; let us place it in full force when we are applying to ourown spiritual advantage and final salvation, and when we are stretching the contemplation of our sympathies, and the operation of our efforts, over the wide regions occupied by the unenlightened and destitute of our species, yearning for their welfare, and striving for their redemption. How fervent then will be our aspirations, how earnest our pleadings, how powerful our wrestlings, that He may come down in his power, who reclaims the lost, and makes the dead to live!-And it shall not-no, it shall not