man's wickedness and unbelief, ought to fidence in God as his Father. He ceases include every man. It is a diminishing to trust in His good-will towards him, of those riches of humanity which belong not by right to Satan, or to the creature, but to Jesus only, and ought, if men did not rob God of His own, to be gathered into His treasury. It is a child less in that family which ought to include all men; inasmuch as all men ought to love God, and dwell in His household. And if so, how dare men destroy themselves! How dare they thus rob God of body and soul, which are not their own! How dare they, in the exercise of this awful gift of will, become lost sheep, lost pieces of silver, or prodigal children! The greatness of consciously, perhaps, in thought, but the Saviour's love in seeking to save,-a love which is reflected in the joy of angels when even one sinner repents,-adds to the greatness of the sinner's guilt in refusing to be saved. His concern for man's loss, shews the wickedness of unconcern for a thing so dreadful. Let lost sinners, who seek salvation, rejoice in our Saviour's willingness to save even them; but let lost sinners, who seek it not, be amazed, and tremble at the sight of a Saviour's bitter sufferings and tears while on earth, because sinners would not know the things of their peace! "Oh! Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thee as a hen gathereth her chickens ander her wings, but ye would not!" or humbly to believe in the reality of His desire, or of His power, to make him good and happy; to give him, according to the riches of His grace, through Jesus, the best things in the best way. He thus backslides, first of all in heart, and begins to separate his interests from God, and to desire to depart from Him, and to enjoy the portion of his goods without a sense of His presence, or a wish for His blessing, or a thought for His glory. His secret prayer is,not expressed indeed in words, and not man's own And now let us consider more particularly the parable of the prodigal son, narrated, in such circumstances, by our Lord, and with reference solely to its individual application. LOST CONFIDENCE. Verses 11, 12.-"A certain man had two sons; and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me." This young man lost confidence in his father. He did not believe that he could be so happy in the fulness of his father's house, and in the enjoyment of his portion of goods there, as he could be, when spending this portion, according to his own likings, in a far country. This is a picture of a sinner's falling away from God through unbelief. He loses con nevertheless really in acts,-"Lord, give me my portion of goods, and let me use that portion as I will. Give me my body, and let me gratify its appetites; give me my mind, and let me employ its powers; give me my heart, and let me pour forth its affections; give me my time and talents, and let me employ all according to my own wishes, and as I think best for my own pleasure." This is lost confidence! "Take heed, brethren," says the Apostle, "lest there be in you the evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God." For this unbelief is indeed "the evil heart;" it is all evil, and the source of all sin,-the root of all misery. It was Adam's sin, and is the sin of all his fallen children. What is the real source of discontent, in which the bitter cry is heard, "What shall I eat and drink, and wherewithal shall I be clothed ?"-Lost confidence in God our Father, who knoweth that we have need of all these things! Why is it that we fall into grievous error, which tends to ruin the soul?-Because of lost confidence in our Father's wisdom to teach, and a consequent leaning, as "fools," on our own understanding. Whence arises hopeless despair?-From lost confidence in our Father's love and mercy to give us all good! Confidence in God is the soul's life; want of confidence, the soul's death. The one is union with God; the other separation. The one is heaven?; the other hell! And hear what the Lord has righteously said of those who thus distrust Him, (Jerem. xvii. 5,)-"Cursed be the man that a very solemn fact that He does so. If the sinner rebelliously insists upon it, God will permit him to eat of his own way, and be filled with his own devices. The body of the prodigal is not slain, nor his mind destroyed, nor his affections rooted out, nor his time ended, nor his talents removed, on the day he presumptuously seeks to enjoy all, without God. Unless he "chooses the fear of the Lord," he cannot be forced, by any out. ward compulsion, to serve God. It was thus, that when the demons asked Jesus to be permitted to enter the swine, and the people in the country of the Gadarenes requested Him to leave their coasts, He acceded to their petitions. Neither did He force the young man who came to Him for eternal life, to sell all that he had, and to take up His cross and follow Him; but permitted him to depart with his much possessions. Nor did He compel Judas to resign his thirty pieces of silver, but said only to him, "What thou doest, do quickly." O sin trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord: for he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited!" Upon the other hand, hear His blessing:-"Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is: for he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit." But it is added, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins!" and therefore, "lest there should be in us an evil heart of unbelief," and our hearts deceive us on a point so essential to our eternal wellbeing, let our prayer be, "Search me, O Lord, and try my heart, and see if there be any wicked thing in me; and lead mener, take heed! If, despising His counin the way everlasting!" "Trust in Him at all times; ye people, pour out your hearts before Him: God is a refuge for us." THE GOODS DIVIDED. sels, and neglecting His warnings, and treating lightly His messages, and losing confidence in His fatherly love, you insist upon getting the portion of your goods, to dispose of them according to "And he divided unto them his liv- the inclinations of your own selfish, deing." It is sufficient for our present purpose, to notice merely the fact, that the younger son got what he asked. He asked the portion of his goods, and his father granted his request. Strange! you are disposed, perhaps, to exclaim. Yet does not God thus act towards the sinner? Ah! it is ceitful, and desperately wicked heart,— then know, that God, in righteous judgment, will permit you to have your own way; and will give you the portion which you (oh! dreadful choice!) desire to possess without Himself! "The backslider in heart will be filled with his own ways." (To be continued.) THE GRANDEUR OF THE MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE. are seven of the eight hundred millions to whom the Gospel must be sent. In the most enlarged sense of the terms, The Field is the World. Our design is radically to affect the temporal and eternal interests of the whole race of man. We have surveyed this field statistically, and find, that of the eight hundred millions who inhabit our globe, but two hundred millions have any knowledge of the religion of Jesus Christ. Of these we are willing to allow, that but one-half are His real disciples, and that therefore there the wilderness of the West, and men We have surveyed this field geographically. We have looked upon our own continent, and have seen that, with the exception of a narrow strip of thinlysettled country, from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the mouth of the Mississippi, the whole of this new world lieth in wickedHordes of ruthless savages roam ness. almost as ignorant of the spirit of the Gospel, are struggling for independence in the south. We have looked over Europe, and beheld there one nation putting forth her energies in the cause of evangelizing the world. We have looked for another such nation; but it is not to be found. A few others are beginning to awake. Most of them, however, yet slumber. Many are themselves in need of missionaries. Nay, we know not but the movement of the cause of man in Europe is at present retrograde. There seems, too evidently, a coalition formed of the powers that be, to check the progress of moral and intellectual improvement, and to rivet again on the human mind the manacles of Papal superstition. God only knows how soon the reaction will commence which shall shake the Continent to its centre, scatter thrones, and sceptres, and all the insignia of prescriptive authority, like the dust of the summer thrashing-floor, and establish throughout the Christian world representative governments, on the broad basis of common sense and inalienable right. at hearing of men as immortal as ourselves, bowing down and worshipping a wandering beggar, or paying adoration to reptiles and to stones. Not only is intellect, everywhere under the dominion of idolatry, prostrated; beyond the boundaries of Christendom, on every side, the dark places of the earth are filled with the habitations of cruelty. We have mourned over the savage ferocity of the Indians of our western wilderness. We have turned to Africa, and seen almost the whole continent a prey to lawless banditti, or else bowing down in the most revolting idolatry. We have descended along her coast, and beheld villages burnt or depopulated, fields laid waste, and her people, who have escaped destruction, naked and famishing, flee to their forests at the sight of a stranger. We have asked, What fearful visitation of Heaven has laid these settlements in ruins? What destroying pestilence has swept over this land, consigning to oblivion almost its entire population? What mean the smoking ruins of so many habitations? And why is yon fresh sod crimsoned and slippery with the traces We have looked over Africa, and have of recent murder? We have been pointed seen, that upon one little portion, re- to the dark slave-ship hovering over her claimed from brutal idolatry by mission-coast, and have been told, that two hunaries, the Sun of Righteousness has shined. It is a land of Goshen, where they have light in their dwellings. Upon all the remainder of this vast continent, there broods a moral darkness, impervious as that which once veiled her own Egypt, on that prolonged and fearful night when no man knew his brother. dred thousand defenceless beings are annually stolen away, to be murdered on their passage, or consigned for life to a captivity more terrible than death! We have turned to Asia, and beheld how the demon of her idolatry has worse than debased, has brutalized the mind of man. Everywhere his despotism has been grievous; here, with merciless tyranny, he has exulted in the misery of his victims. He has rent from the human heart all that was endearing in the charities of life. He has taught the mother to tear away the infant as it smiled in her bosom, and cast it, the shrieking prey, to contending alligators. He has taught the son to light the funeral pile, and to witness, unmoved, the dying agonies of his widowed, murdered mother! We have looked upon Asia, and have seen its northern nations, though under the government of a Christian prince, scarcely nominally Christian. On the west, it is spell-bound by Mohammedan delusion. To the south, from the Persian Gulf to the sea of Kamtschatka, including also its numberless islands, except where here and there a Syrian church, or a missionary station, twinkles amidst the gloom, the whole of this immense portion of the human race is sitting in the region and shadow of death. Such, then, is the field for our exertion. It encircles the whole family of man,-it includes every unevangelized being of the species to which we belong. We have thus surveyed the missionary field, that we may know how great is the undertak-thousand smiling villages shall be reflected ing to which we stand committed. We have also made an estimate of the miseries of this world. We have seen how, in many places, the human mind, shackled by ignorance and enfeebled by vice, has dwindled almost to the standard of a brute. Our indignation has kindled We have looked upon all this; and our object is, to purify the whole earth from these abominations. Our object will not have been accomplished till the tomahawk shall be buried for ever, and the tree of peace spread its broad branches from the Atlantic to the Pacific; until a from the waves of the Missouri, and the distant valleys of the West echo with the song of the reaper; till the wilderness and the solitary place shall have been glad for us, and the desert has rejoiced and blossomed as the rose. Our labours are not to cease, until the last slave-ship shall have visited the coast of Africa, and-the nations of Europe and America having long since redressed her aggravated wrongs-Ethiopia, from the Mediterranean to the Cape, shall have stretched forth her hand unto God. How changed will then be the face of Asia? Brahmins, and sooders, and castes, and shasters, will have passed away, like the mist which rolls up the mountain's side before the rising glories of a summer morning, while the land on which it rested, shining forth in all its loveliness, shall, from its numberless habitations, send forth the high praises of God and the Lamb. The Hindoo mother will gaze upon her infant with the same tenderness which throbs in the breast of any one of you who now hears me, and the Hindoo son will pour into the wounded bosom of his widowed parent, the oil of peace and consolation. In a word, point us to the loveliest village that smiles upon a Scottish or New England landscape, and compare it with the filthiness and brutality of a Caffrarian kraal, and we tell you, that our object is to render that Caffrarian kraal as happy and gladsome as that Scottish or New England village. Point us to the spot on the face of the earth where liberty is best understood and most perfectly enjoyed-where intellect shoots forth in its richest luxuriance-and where all the kindlier feelings of the heart are constantly seen in their most graceful exercise. Point us to the loveliest and happiest neighbourhood in the world on which we dwell, and we tell you, that our object is to render this whole earth, with all its nations and kindreds, and tongues, and people, as happy, nay, happier than that neighbourhood.Discourses on Christian Missions, by American Ministers. OBOOKIAH AND THE INTRODUCTION OF THE GOSPEL INTO THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. "An orphan boy on one of the Sandwich Islands, of twelve years old, is seen escaping from a scene of the most disgusting carnage. He bears on his back an infant brother of only two months old. They are pursued; the infant is transfixed with a spear, while the lad is spared, and led away the captive of war. He is the only survivor of his family. The father and mother, with these two boys, had, on the approach of the enemy to their village, fled to the mountains; but were soon sought out and cut to pieces before the face of their children. Henry, the surviving boy, remained for some time with the man whom he had seen kill his father and his mother; is at length found by an uncle, who takes him to his house, and keeps him one or two years. Again is he, with his aunt, a prisoner of war, makes his escape, secretes himself at a little distance, whence he soon saw his aunt conducted from the prison to a precipice, from which she was thrown headlong, and dashed to pieces. Now alone in the world, and disconsolate, he determines to end a miserable existence in the same way he had seen his relative meet her tragic death. As soon as the enemy disappeared from the precipice, he approached to execute his horrid purpose. But being discovered by one of the hostile party, he is rescued just in time to save a life which should be the hand of Providence to bring life and immortality to light among his benighted countrymen. "Again we find him, by some means, once more restored to his uncle; yet, weary of life, and the last of his race, he never ceases to bemoan his parents. In this state of despondency and wretchedness, he conceives the strange idea of seeking an asylum in some foreign country. "While in this state of mind, an American ship arrives. Young Obookiah was immediately on board to seek a passage to America. His uncle refused to let him go, and shut him up in his house. But the young adventurer finds means escape, and is again on board, and is allowed to sail. to "But mark the next link in the chain. There is on board this vessel a pious young man, (Russel Hubbard,) a student of Yale College, who becomes a friend of young Henry, and takes much pains to instruct him in the rudiments of learning, of which he was totally ignorant. "After a few months we find Henry in New Haven. Wandering about the college-yard, he attracts the attention of E. W. Dwight, who, from this time, becomes his friend and teacher, is introduced into the family of Dr. Dwight, and finally comes to the knowledge of Samuel J. Mills, who takes him to his father's, in Torringford. Thence, after some time, he is transferred to Andover, becomes a Christian, lives in different places in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire; everywhere adorns a good profession, manifests a burning zeal for the salvation of his countrymen, and much solicitude for the salvation of all men. At length we find him in the mission school at Cornwall, the same decided, consistent Christian; the industrious scholar, the amiable companion, ever loved, and highly respected. "He has by this time produced a strong interest in favour of the Sandwich Islands. A mission thither was always his fond hope, and the object of his unremitting toil. It was a much cherished idea, that he might return, a messenger of peace, to his deluded countrymen; and for this purpose he used all diligence to be prepared. But, strange dispensation of Providence! he is cut down by the relentless hand of death, before he sees one of his benevolent schemes for his native island executed. "But let us pause here, and mark the hand of God. The time of blessed visitation had come for the isles of the sea. The English churches had already taken of the spoil of their idols, and were rejoicing and being enriched by their conquests. The American Zion must participate in the honour and profit of the war. Hence Henry Obookiah, an obscure boy, without father or mother, kindred or tie, to bind him to his native land, must be brought to our shores; be removed from place to place, from institution to institution, everywhere fanning into a flame the smoking flax of a missionary spirit, and giving it some definite direction; be made the occasion of rousing the slumbering energies of the Church on behalf of the heathen, and of kindling a spirit of prayer and benevolence in the hearts of God's people; and finally, and principally, his short and interesting career, and, perhaps, more than all, his widely lamented death, should originate and mature a scheme of missions to those islands, the present aspect of which presents scenes of interest scarcely inferior to those of the apostolic age. Behold, what a great matter a little fire kindleth! "But there is another aspect in which we must view the pleasing interposition. While Henry Obookiah was being used as the hand of Providence in preparing (through Mills and Hall, Griffin and Dwight, and others on whom his influ ence bore) the American church to engage in a plan of benevolent action, definitely directed towards the islands of the Pacific, there was a process transpiring at the islands still more interesting, if possible, and more strongly marked as the handiwork of God. Already had the decree passed for the destruction of idolatry, and those islands, too, were waiting for the law of their God. "An incident here will illustrate. I give it as taken from the lips of the Rev. Mr. Richards on his late visit to this country. On the arrival of our first company of missionaries, a consultation of the king and chiefs was held, whether they should be allowed to remain. Different opinions were advanced, supported by as different reasons. The second day of these deliberations had nearly closed without any decisive result. Now there came into the council the aged secretary of the late king, who had just returned from a neighbouring island. He had long been a sort of chronicler of the nation. His mind, in the absence of written documents, was a kind of historical depot. His opinion was asked, and his decision determined the momentous question, whether the glad tidings of great joy," which had then, for the first time, reached the islands, should be proclaimed, or the darkness of death which then brooded over them become darker than before. 66 Addressing the young king, he said, 'What did the late king, your father, enjoin on you as touching these men who now ask your protection and a residence among us?' He left in charge nothing concerning these men,' said the young king. Did he not repeat to you what Vancouver said to him, as he looked upon our gods, and pitied our folly ?-how he said that not many years would elapse before Englishmen would come and teach a better religion, and that you must protect such teachers, and listen to them, and embrace their religion? Now they have come, and what would your father have you to do with them ?' "He resumed his seat; the young king recalled the charge of his royal sire, and this little matter' fixed the decision that opened the flood-gates of mercy to thousands of the most abject of our race, and formed the commencement of a successful career of benevolent action, which shall not cease with time. Discern ye not the finger of God here?"—Read's Hand of God in History. |