DELINEATION OF MISSIONARY OBJECTS.

Chalmers.

THE Missionary Society has carried her attempts across the Atlantic; and the very apparatus which she has planted in the Highlands and Islands of our own country, she has set a-going more than once in the wilds of America. The very discipline which she has applied to her own population, she has brought to bear on human beings in other quarters of the world. She has wrought with the same instruments upon the same materials, and, as in sound philosophy it ought to have been expected, she has obtained the same result—a Christian people rejoicing in the faith of Jesus, and ripening for heaven, by a daily progress upon earth in the graces and accomplishments of the gospel.

I have yet to learn what that is which should make the same teaching, and the same Bible, applicable to one part of the species, and not applicable to another. I am not aware of a single principle in the philosophy of man which points to such a distinction; nor do I know a single category in the science of human nature, which can assist me in drawing the land-mark between those to whom Christianity may be given, and those who are unworthy or unfit for the participation of its blessings. I have been among illiterate peasantry, and I have marked how apt they were, in their narrow field of observation, to cherish a kind of malignant contempt for the men of another shire or another country. I have heard of barbarians, and of their insolent disdain for foreigners. I have read of Jews, and of their unsocial and excluding prejudices. But I always looked upon these as the jealousies of ignorance, which science and observation had the effect of doing away; and that the accomplished traveller, liberalized by frequent intercourse with the men of other countries, saw through the vanity of all these prejudices, and disowned them.

What the man of liberal philosophy is in sentiment, the missionary is in practice. He sees in every man a partaker of his own nature, and a brother of his own species. He contemplates the human mind in the generality of its great elements. He enters upon the wide field of benevolence, and disdains those geographical barriers, by which little men would shut out one half of the species from the kind offices of the other. His business is with man, and let his

localities be what they may, it is enough for his large and noble heart that he is bone of the same bone.

To get at him, he will shun no danger, he will shrink from no privation, he will spare himself no fatigue, he will brave every element of heaven, he will hazard the extremities of every clime, he will cross seas, and work his persevering way through the briers and thickets of the wilderness. In perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by the heathen, in weariness and painfulness, he seeks after him. The cast and the colour are nothing to the comprehensive eye of a missionary. His is the broad principle of good-will to the children of men. His doings are with the species; and, overlooking all the accidents of climate or of country, it is enough for him if the individual he is in quest of, be a man, a brother of the same nature, with a body which a few years will bring to the grave, and a spirit that returns to the God who gave it.

HAPPINESS.-Colton.

WHAT is earthly happiness? that phantom of which we hear so much, and see so little; whose promises are constantly given and constantly broken, but as constantly believed; that cheats us with the sound instead of the substance, and with the blossom instead of the fruit. Like Juno, she is a goddess in pursuit, but a cloud in possession; deified by those who cannot enjoy her, and despised by those who can. Anticipation is her herald, but Disappointment is her companion; the first addresses itself to our imagination, that would believe, but the latter to our experience that must.

Happiness, that grand mistress of the ceremonies in the dance of life, impels us through all its mazes and meanderings, but leads none of us by the same route. Aristippus pursued her in pleasure, Socrates in wisdom, and Epicurus in both: she received the attention of each, but bestowed her endearments on neither; although, like some other gallants, they all boasted of more favours than they had received. Warned by their failure, the stoic adopted a most paradoxical mode of preferring his suit: he thought, by slandering, to woo her; by shunning, to win her; and proudly presumed that, by fleeing her, she would turn and follow him.

She is deceitful as the calm that precedes the hurricane, smooth as the water on the verge of the cataract, and beauthe rainbow, that smiling daughter of the storm; but, like the image in the desert, she tantalizes us with a delusion that distance creates, and that contiguity destroys. Yet, when unsought, she is often found, and when unexpected, often obtained while those who seek for her the most diligently, fail the most, because they seek her where she is not. Anthony sought her in love; Brutus in glory; Cæsar in dominion;-the first found disgrace, the second disgust, the last ingratitude, and each destruction.

To some she is more kind, but not less cruel : she hands them her cup, and they drink even to stupefaction, until they doubt whether they are men with Philip, or dream that they are gods with Alexander. On some she smiles, as on Napoleon, with an aspect more bewitching than an Italian sun; but it is only to make her frown the more terrible, and by one short caress to embitter the pangs of separation. Yet is she, by universal homage and consent, a queen; and the passions are the vassal lords that crowd her court, await her mandate, and move at her control. But, like other mighty sovereigns, she is so surrounded by her envoys, her officers, and her ministers of state, that it is extremely difficult to be admitted to her presence-chamber, or to have any immediate communication with herself.

Ambition, Avarice, Love, Revenge, all these seek her, and her alone; alas! they are neither presented to her, nor will she come to them. She despatches, however, her envoys unto them-mean and poor representatives of their queen. To Ambition, she sends power; to Avarice, wealth; to Love, jealousy; to Revenge, remorse ;-alas! what are these, but so many other names for vexation or disappointment. Neither is she to be won by flatteries or by bribes: she is to be gained by waging war against her enemies, much sooner than by paying any particular court to herself. Those that conquer her adversaries, will find that they need not go to her, for she will come unto them.

None bid so high for her as kings; few are more willing,

tion with Contentment, and to partake of a tête-a-tête, and a dinner of herbs in a cottage. Hear, then, mighty queen! what sovereigns seldom hear, the words of soberness and truth. I neither despise thee too little, nor desire thee too much; for thou wieldest an earthly sceptre, and thy gifts cannot exceed thy dominion. Like other potentates, thou also art a creature of circumstances, and an ephemeris of time. Like other potentates, thou also, when stripped of thy auxiliaries, art no longer competent even to thine own subsistence; nay, thou canst not even stand by thyself. Unsupported by Content on the one hand, and by Health on the other, thou fallest, an unwieldy and bloated pageant, to the ground.

PATRIOTIC EXHORTATION.

Conclusion of a Sermon by the Rev. R. Hall, delivered before the
Volunteers of Bristol, in prospect of Invasion from France.

THE inundation of lawless power, after covering the rest of Europe, threatens England; and we are most exactly, most critically placed in the only aperture, where it can be successfully repelled, in the Thermopyle of the uni

verse.

As far as the interests of freedom are concerned, the most important by far of sublunary interests, you, my countrymen, stand in the capacity of the federal representatives of the human race; for with you it is to determine, (under God) in what condition the latest posterity shall be born; their fortunes are entrusted to your care, and on your conduct at this moment depends the colour and complexion of their destiny. If liberty, after being extinguished on the continent, is suffered to expire here, where is it ever to emerge in the midst of that thick night that will invest it.

It remains with you then to decide, whether that freedom, at whose voice the kingdoms of Europe awoke from the sleep of ages, to run a career of virtuous emulation in everything great and good; the freedom which dispelled the mists of superstition, and invited the nations to behold their God; whose magic touch kindled the rays of genius, the enthusiasm of poetry, and the flame of eloquence:

the freedom which poured into our lap opulence and arts, and embellished life with innumerable institutions, till it became a theatre of wonders; it is for you to decide whether this freedom shall yet survive, or perish forever.

But you have decided. With such a trust, every thought of what is afflicting in warfare, every apprehension of danger must vanish, and you are impatient to mingle in the battle of the civilized world.

Go then, ye defenders of your country, accompanied with every auspicious omen; advance with alacrity into the field, where God himself musters the hosts of war. Religion is too much interested in your success, not to lend you her aid; she will shed over your enterprise her selectest influence.

While you are engaged in the field, many will repair to the closet, many to the sanctuary; the faithful of every name will employ that prayer which has power with God; the feeble hands which are unequal to any other weapon, will grasp the sword of the Spirit: and from myriads of humble, contrite hearts, the voice of intercession, supplication, and weeping, will mingle in its ascent to heaven with the shouts of battle and the shock of arms.

My brethren, I cannot but imagine the virtuous heroes, legislators and patriots, of every age and country, are bending from their elevated seats to witness this contest, incapable, till it be brought to a favourable issue, of enjoying their eternal repose.

Enjoy that repose, illustrious immortals; your mantle fell when you ascended; and thousands, inflamed with your spirit, and impatient to tread in your steps, are ready to swear by Him that sitteth on the throne, and liveth forever and ever, that they will protect freedom in her last asylum, and never desert her cause, which you sustained by your labours, and cemented with your blood.