the Church unseen.

That nation, those institutions, that epoch in the world's history, shall at the last day be accounted to have been most glorious, which shall have sent the largest number of Saints to that innumerable army; and when we hear the high vaunting claims of superior light and science and civilization, which are set up for these later times, let us ever weigh them in this balance, ascertaining by no other measure the truc temper and tendency of all that we see around us, directing to no other end our whole heart and soul and strength.

The Church, the whole body of the faithful, however strange such an assertion may appear to human wisdom, is, by divine appointment, the spring that moves the world. God Himself, and under Him, all subordinate agents, whether Spirits, or men, or the elements, the famine, the pestilence, the empires of the earth, are engaged in the same work. It was so with the ancient people of God. They were insulated by their civil institutions, by their prejudices, by the contempt in which they were held by other nations; their law was a barrier between them and their neighbours, with whom they had little communication or influence. Still this despised people constituted at that period the Church of God on earth, and His oracles had from time to time scattered many intimations of their future fortunes; in them therefore we find a key to all that happened around them; Egypt, Assyria, Persia, rose and fell by turns, but their moving principle was in Judea. And even now, all that so shakes and astonishes the earth is but for the accomplishing of the number of God's elect, and for the hastening of His kingdom. He is sifting nations and churches, to see who are faithful, who will employ the ability with which He has blessed them, to the spreading abroad of His word, and the salvation of

If they were zealous

His people. This is their trial; such was the trial of the Churches of old; of those seven, the most highly favoured, seven opulent cities with their adjacent country, so beautiful as to be the garden of the earth, to whom Christ spake in the apocalypse. By the event of this trial they were to stand or fall. and repented, all would be well; if lukewarm, the tremendous threat of the revelations would be accomplished; God would "spew them out of His mouth." And where are they now? they have withered away; the denunciation of Christ has taken effect; He has deserted them; His name is hardly heard in their confines; but a dark and slavish superstition once more broods over their land, and shuts out from them the light of a lost and betrayed gospel.

My brethren, we may be assured that now, and to the very end of time, every nation under heaven on which the Sun of Righteousness has shined, is undergoing the same trial of its faith, according to the measure of its privileges. Not only our own Church and nation collectively, but every district, every parish, every congregation, every individual, of which that Church and nation are composed, are more especially subject to that trial, inasmuch as we have been intrusted with ten talents, whilst others have received five or one. Not a day passes without bringing with it some test of our lukewarmness or our zeal, of our loyal love and duty, or of our unfaithfulness and indifference.

But how are we prepared to meet it? Public parsimony and private extravagance characterise our times; we have attained a high state of what is called civilization; the wants, or imagined wants, of the rich, are supplied from a thousand quarters, to the gratification of the most capricious fancy or taste. Meanwhile men have forgotten that self-denial is a Christian grace, and

are frugal in nothing but their charities. I speak of the generality of the world; and, alas! of many who, almost against their will, are hurried along in the world's course. Many noble projects are formed among us-many schemes for the relief of poverty, and the furtherance of the everlasting Gospel, are zealously and devotedly supported; but the contributors to these works of mercy are comparatively few. In the lists of our charities of those, at least, which no conscientious motive forbids to join-the same names are ever present, the same ever absent; and these last, names of wealth, rank, and influence, far more numerous than the former. Surely we fail in the especial trial which God appoints for us as citizens of such a country as our own.

If we behold a nation, herself blessed with an apostolical ministry-true and faithful preachers of God's holy Word, and dispensers of His Sacraments; if in every parish of that country there be a school for the nurture of Christ's little ones, and a Church opening wide her gates to every worshipper; if, moreover, we find that nation valiant and successful in war-versed in all the arts of peace-extending her commerce through the world-mistress of the sea, and of many a distant island, and vast continental tract in each quarter of the globe, occupying one seventh part of its surface; putting these things together-her religion and her power— her Church at home, and her unlimited dominions abroad-can we not discern the end and object of this her so marvellous exaltation? Is there not a harmony, a correspondence between these temporal and spiritual gifts of God? Should not her power be exercised for the universal extension of her religion, and her Church be as widely spread and as firmly rooted as her empire? And of late she has in a degree felt and acknowledged this duty; whereas long within the memory of those

who have scarcely passed the middle of their age, there were but two Bishops in all our foreign possessions, we now number twenty-one, of whom by far the greater part have been added within the ten last years. These are all men of the highest character and attainments, to whom the honours and emoluments which in this country may be expected to wait on successful talent and diligence, were fairly open; but God put it in their hearts to renounce these flattering prospects-to give up all for Christ-friends, home, country, parents-and to go among rude and savage people, in the hope of winning them to His fold. There, in too many instances, they have to witness the work of God, for which they have sacrificed their all, standing still for want of the aid of man, on which the Almighty has willed that it should depend. Churches and schools unfinished-hopeful missions abandoned-vast tracts of country consigned to the care of two or three ill paid and over-burthened clergymen, which in this favoured country would receive the undivided care of at least as as many hundred-infants unbaptised-children untaught―no Sabbath bell-no house of God-the short passing visit of the wandering missionary once perhaps in a month or six weeks-no reproof of the offenderno strengthening of the weak-no consolation, no blessed Sacrament for the sick and dying; and those who are thus subject to this hunger of the soul-this dearth of all the means of grace by which Christians are led, step by step, through the trials and temptations of this world to their blissful inheritance in heaven, are our own countrymen-bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh-who have left their native land because its numbers had outgrown its means, and by their departure are at once a relief to us that remain, and fulfil

B

the Divine command, by replenishing and subduing the waste places of the earth. But their wants have been unsupplied and unheeded, and the consequence cannot be doubtful. Men left to themselves, scattered thinly over the face of a wide country, struggling daily for their very existence with the severity of climate, and the stubbornness of an unsubdued soil, become as wild and savage as the forests in which they live, lose all sense of religion, all distinction between God's blessed day of rest, and the lawful seasons of labour, and pass rapidly into a state of recklessness and vice, far more dreadful, it may be feared, than that of the unbaptized heathen. And if this be the case of free emigrants, deprived of gospel light, what words can be found to express the darkness and desolation of the wretched convict chained to his fellow, going forth every morning to his hopeless labour, and returning at night in the same miserable captivity, to pass the hours of rest amid oaths and execrations, and every abominable form of vice. It was for our good, for the safety and security of our persons and property, that those wretched men were consigned to that dismal prison; and surely their accumulated vice should not be left by us to fester and ferment together in all the loathsomeness of corruption, without the leaven of the blessed Gospel to quicken and to heal it. No; we should not thus pass sentence on the soul; we should not, humanly speaking, make it impossible that they should repent and be converted, and find pardon at the last day. Besides, these countries, we may well believe, are destined to become mighty empires; and if their foundations were laid in righteousness, might be the homes of myriads of faithful Christians, and shew forth the glory of God in every corner of the earth; but surely the sins of the fathers descend