thies of kindred, and of home. They sped them to the remotest parts of the habitable globe, and civilization has marked their progress, and the rising chapel has been their monument, and the religion of the heart has graved their epitaph, and the soul-collecting bell has woke an echo among the dark mountains of idolatry to tell their tale of triumph from pole to pole. My Brethren, this is not the mere hyperbole of a fond enthusiasm bodying forth the images which it loves to dwell upon, but if it be the language of passionate admiration, believe me, it owes its energy to the inspiration of truth. The proof of a system is its works, and to them I bid you turn for confirmation. Look to America, whose distant provinces were lately withering in precocious wickedness, and are now basking in the meridian beams of the Sun of Righteousness. Look to Africa, once fainting under the yoke of a superstition, black as her children, and baneful as her climate, now rearing her aspiring head to bless the benignant power which at one blow struck the fetters from her limbs, and the manacles from her spirit. Look to Asia, to the temple of Seeva and the fane of Juggernaut. On the colossal walls of those palaces of Satan, the Almighty hand is at this instant tracing its mysterious characters, "thy kingdom is departed from thee." Look, in the last place, to the Christian missionary in many a nameless district, who now passes onward on his blessed pilgrimage, through fields of peace and plenty, and homes of comfort and hospitality, resounding the song of gratitude and the voice of prayer, from huts which were lately the scenes of the most exe crable sacrifices, and from lips whose every utterance was blasphemy to God. Thus, my Friends, have I laid before you some of those human causes, which, under the auspices of a higher power, have promoted the progress of Christianity, and some of the excellent effects which have followed its extension. To enter into the full details of this interesting subject would require more knowledge than I possess, and to treat it in all the magnificence of expression, which it seems to ask, would demand a far higher strain of thought and language than any which I can exert. Feeble, and faulty, however, as my appeal has been, I shall not sit down without a hope that it has not been preferred in vain. Of those who hear me, some, no doubt, will return to their homes uninformed and unimproved, and attribute their ignorance and their apathy to the deficiencies of the preacher. But the man of candour and the man of sense, and persons of both these qualities there are, I trust, in this assembly, will overlook the insignificancy of the pleader, in the strength and justice of his plea. They will desire, they will aid the propagation of the Gospel, nor will they leave this house without the attesting record of their own consciences, that, by their generosity and our exertions, "the word of God has" even this day “ grown and multiplied." now passes onward on his blessed pilgrimage, through fields of peace and plenty, and homes of comfort and hospitality, resounding the song of gratitude and the voice of prayer, from huts which were lately the scenes of the most exe crable sacrifices, and from lips whose every utterance was blasphemy to God. Thus, my Friends, have I laid before you some of those human causes, which, under the auspices of a higher power, have promoted the progress of Christianity, and some of the excellent effects which have followed its extension. To enter into the full details of this interesting subject would require more knowledge than I possess, and to treat it in all the magnificence of expression, which it seems to ask, would demand a far higher strain of thought and language than any which I can exert. Feeble, and faulty, however, as my appeal has been, I shall not sit down without a hope that it has not been preferred in vain. Of those who hear me, some, no doubt, will return to their homes uninformed and unimproved, and attribute their ignorance and their apathy to the deficiencies of the preacher. But the man of candour and the man of sense, and persons of both these qualities there are, I trust, in this assembly, will overlook the insignificancy of the pleader, in the strength and justice of his plea. They will desire, they will aid the propagation of the Gospel, nor will they leave this house |