unspeakable words which it was not possible to utter. But I forbear. Consider the worship of heaven, especially as described in the Revelation iv., v. On this delightful theme every information needful is imparted to us. The worship of the ever-blessed Jehovah is represented as continually carried on by some or other of the celestial host. "They rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come." Rev. iv. 8. him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. And the four beasts said, Amen. And the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped him that liveth for ever and ever." Rev. v. 8—14. "And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever. And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on The worship of the Supreme is also their seats, fell upon their faces, and represented as influenced by special worshipped God, saying, We give thee dispensations of grace or providence; thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which when all who are his servants in all art, and wast, and art to come; because parts of his one vast empire are de- thou hast taken to thee thy great power, scribed as suspending other work to and hast reigned. And the nations combine with one mind and one voice were angry, and thy wrath is come, in the praise of the Eternal. "And and the time of the dead, that they when he had taken the book, the four should be judged, and that thou shouldbeasts and four and twenty elders fell est give reward unto thy servants the down before the Lamb, having every prophets, and to the saints, and them one of them harps, and golden vials that fear thy name, small and great: full of odours, which are the prayers of and shouldest destroy them which desaints. And they sung a new song, stroy the earth. And the temple of saying, Thou art worthy to take the God was opened in heaven, and there book, and to open the seals thereof: for was seen in his temple the ark of his thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us testament and there were lightnings, to God by thy blood out of every kin- and voices, and thunderings, and an dred, and tongue, and people, and na-earthquake, and great hail." Rev. xi. tion; and hast made us unto our God 15-19. See also at large, Rev. xv. kings and priests and we shall reign on the earth. And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the beasts, and the elders and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto VOL. XII.-FOURTH SERIES. Nor is scripture silent on the momentous question, whether we shall have active employment in heaven? Doubtless, our light shall be free from all error, and our study of the works and ways of God shall furnish endless occupation. Our review of the past, also, will be far more complete and salutary, than any we have attained while in the low and cloudy valley. But there will be active employment also, suited to our renovated minds and bodies. This is implied in what is called the Lord's prayer, "Thy will be done on earth, as it is done in heaven." It is explicitly revealed in Rev. xxii. 3, " And his ser 2 E vants shall serve him; and they shall fies our desires, and satisfies our wants see his face." If it be inquired, what kind of service shall be performed? we may safely leave this to the decision of infallible wisdom and infinite love, to him who will assign to every individual his place in the society, whether viewed as a child in the family above, or as a member in the one body, or a citizen in the kingdom of heaven; and who will adapt the service required to his powers and dispositions. Two facts throw a steady light upon this subject. When God made man in his own image, in glory and majesty, as a holy, intelligent, and immortal creature, far removed from all necessity to procure his living by the sweat of his brow, he placed him in a garden to till and to keep it. The second fact is the example of angels. Their nature, and rank, and residence, and honour, were superior to Adam's; they are of God's household, and surround his throne; they have been and still are engaged in active service. One of them destroyed Sennacherib's army; one of them smote Herod the persecutor, who died a painful death; one of them liberated Peter from prison. "They all do his will, hearkening to the voice of his word." And has not the Lord of angels and men revealed it, that we shall be like to the angels ? I must pause, as it is not my design to write an essay, or to expand the hints here kindly offered to my fellow travellers. Is there any condition here comparable to that eternal state which God has promised to all who believe in his Son? What bewitches us? What real good is below which is not found above in perfection and without any alloy? Is our earth, in spite of the universal blight which is the fruit of the fall, possessed of much which pleases all our senses by scenes of magnificence and beauty, and which grati by its productions? Heaven as a place is far superior to this world. Are many sources of enjoyment open to us from employments, from relative duties, from the various departments of knowledge, from the whole fabric and machinery of society? These all exist on a larger scale and of a faultless character in the world above. Have we our highest felicity here from communion with God, from a humble dependence on the Saviour, from the enlightening, sanctifying, and sustaining influences of the blessed Spirit? These are a pledge of future intercourse and future joy, a taste of rills which flow from the fountain to which the access is direct in the upper world. Have we gratification in the perusal of the sacred scriptures in hearing the gospel, in having glimpses of the great truths there portrayed? The realities are above. Now we see the objects darkly and in a mirror, but there face to face. Is there solid comfort here in the converse of true Christians? There is; but mixed, and scanty, and very uncertain, affected by uncontrollable circumstances. There, communion is perfect, universal, eternally progressive, and exclusively edifying. Here, all is vanity and vexation of spirit, found to be so sooner or later. There, all is stable, and satisfying, and rising without enda tide of glory which never ebbs-a day without a night-a peace, a joy, a glory, without interruption and without termination. May we humbly pray for the Spirit of Christ to show us, and impress on us habitually the things above, where Jesus sits at the right hand of God; and there we shall live above the world, and crucify the flesh, and abound in all the fruits of holiness which are through Christ Jesus to the glory of God! Would we possess the spirit of the primitive Christians, follow their foot steps, and share their missionary success, we must come under the influence of the same celestial hope as theirs. "We reckon the sufferings of the present time not worthy to be compared with the glory to be revealed." "He who has this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure." "Ye took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that you had a better, an enduring substance in heaven." "To them who look for him will he appear the second time, without sin, unto salvation." Liverpool. J. L. WHY ARE WE NOT MORE PROSPEROUS ? BY THE REV. STEPHEN DAVIS. THIS is an inquiry which is now forcing itself very painfully upon the consideration of our brethren, almost universally, throughout the country; and while some of the reasons which have been given for it imply desert of censure, and others as certainly call rather for sympathy, there is one reason which has long struck my mind with peculiar force, to which I am anxious affectionately to engage particular attention. I refer to the marked disparity that exists between ourselves and the first Christian preachers in pressing upon the hearers of the gospel its open and immediate acknowledgment, through the divinely instituted ordinance of believers' baptism. It is freely admitted that the scripturality of our practice is almost uniformly, more or less, insisted upon whenever the ordinance is administered; but in some places, to avoid giving offence to particular ordinary hearers, this is for the most part, if not altogether, confined to a week evening service; and it was once acknowledged to me by a highly esteemed brother, that as his sentiments respecting baptism might be understood from his publications, he did not often refer to it particularly in his pulpit ministrations! It is undeniable, that in many of our congregations, individuals may attend upon the Lord's day services, from one year's end to another, without hearing scarcely a word upon the subject, unless the ordinance is about to be administered. But it was essentially different with the hearers of John the Baptist, of our blessed Lord, and of the apostles; and Christ has enjoined its observance as universally as he has enjoined the reception of the gospel, making it the first duty of every Christian to testify his or her discipleship to himself. John the Baptist instructed his hearers that he was sent "to baptize with water," and he took his station for preaching close to a river, for the ready and convenient administration of the ordinance. John i. 33, iii. 23. Jesus, by his disciples, baptized more than John; and it was clearly his uniform practice to initiate his professed adherents after John's example. John iii. 22, 26, iv. 1, 2. And when the multitude, at the Pentecost, entreated from Peter and his brethren " what they should do," he did not satisfy himself with exhorting them to repentance, and to call upon the name of the Lord; he knew perfectly this would be only half fulfilling his Lord's commission, and no consideration of the inconvenience, or disagreeableness, or obloquy even, or persecution to which they would be exposed by their attention to Christ's appointment, had even the smallest influence with Peter to make him refrain from pressing it upon their immediate and open observance; "Repent (he said), and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins." We are informed immediately afterwards, "Then they that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls," Acts ii. 38, 41. And as both Peter and his believing hearers were, beyond all question, specially guided and influenced by Christ's promised Spirit, and the Christian church was divinely intended to be a permanent institution after the apostolic model, our ministration of the gospel may most certainly be expected to be accompanied with the divine blessing, only in proportion as Peter's preaching is faithfully imitated. When Philip went to Samaria, all we are informed in reference to his preaching is simply, that he "preached Christ" to its inhabitants. We are not told that he said anything to them about being baptized, but it is most clear that this was included in his doctrine, for we are presently notified, that "when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women,” Acts viii. 5, 12. And it was precisely the same with the Ethiopian eunuch, all that the evangelist states is, that "he preached unto him Jesus ;" and the very next words of the Holy Ghost are, "And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water, and the eunuch said, See, here is water, what doth hinder me to be baptized?" Acts viii. 35, &c. wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord," Acts xxii. 16. Paul indeed tells us, "Christ sent him not to baptize, but to preach the gospel," but it is most clear from the connexion, and other portions of the sacred history, that he is not to be understood absolutely, but comparatively only; and that he committed the administration of baptism, for the most part, to his assistants, but he personally baptized Crispus, and Gaius, and the household of Stephanas among the Corinthians; and either himself or Silas baptized Lydia, and the jailor, and their households, and we may be perfectly satisfied that he did not, by these baptisms, exceed his commission. 1 Cor. i. 13—17, Acts xvi. 15, 33, xviii. 8. And when Peter saw that the Holy Ghost was given to Cornelius and his friends at Cæsarea, he did not say, Can any man forbid that these should be received into our fellowship, without anything further? but, "Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord," Acts x. 47, 48. Here, then, we see clearly how John the Baptist, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the apostles, preached and acted, and how we are, therefore, to preach and act ourselves. We have, indeed, no reason to suppose that in all their discourses baptism was undeviatingly introduced. We read nothing respecting it in our Lord's recorded sermons, and in the epistles to the churches it is only introduced incidentally. But enough may be readily gathered from the sacred narrative to prove that in pressing the gospel upon their auditors, they uniWhen Ananias was sent to Saul to formly kept it within their view, and Damascus, he did not merely inform urged it upon their observance. And him that he was a messenger from in proportion as they are imitated, we Jesus, he also added, Why tarriest may expect to be divinely prospered. thou? Arise, and be baptized, and Let us, therefore, seriously consider our 66 ways, and in the strength of the divine grace make it our resolute determination to copy the divine guidance with the most scrupulous exactness; and in proportion as Jesus is consistently honoured, we shall, unquestionably experience his most high and holy approbation, and our ministry will be TRIALS WHICH ARE TRIALS IN MISSIONARY LIFE. BY ONE WHO HAS WITNESSED OR FELT THEM. From the New York Recorder. THE heavy rains have come. Dark | little to encourage or support him; yet days are visiting the sunny land where he finds not in all this his chief trials. the Buddhists pray-pray, prostrating He loves his work, he learns to love the themselves at the shrine of Gaudama. overcast days, and when he has a few Now the idolatrous heathen, with their moments' release from his almost children, gather about the missionary ceaseless toils, he may admire the everband, asking for the Christian's God, changing clouds, which, during the and wishing to become disciples. In rainy season, assume every variety of the company of inquirers may be seen form and hue-now dark and threatenwhole families of all ages. The man or ing, and again gorgeous in their drapery the woman of sixty is as totally igno- of crimson and gold. At times the rant of the first principles of the gospel, sky reveals more glorious sunsets than as the smallest child among them; they ever graced the horizon of Italy or are all alike to be taught everything. Greece; red, purple, violet, lilac, yellow, Now the rows of bamboo-huts have and azure, are frequently seen extendoccupants assigned to each of them, and ing quite to the zenith, and varying the school-rooms are filled, and the from the darkest to the lightest shade. arduous task of enlightening the rude During the monsoon the reedy bamboo natives is commenced. The pale mis- bends towards the descending sun, the sionary, with enfeebled health, nerves orange and citron groves rustle and himself for his labour. He visits their shake in the wind, while the thundering houses daily, supplying their wants, and tempest rises as if from out the deep trying to improve their grovelling habits. Morning and evening he preaches to them the truths of the gospel, and throughout the day he teaches both the young and the old in the schools; he watches the slow progress of his pupils, again and again he reiterates his instructions, which are with difficulty comprehended; but he does not despair, and for a dreary, rainy six months continues his duties, confined to the busy humdrum of a school-room, with but He watches the moments between showers, and seeks exercise in the open air; if he chances to walk too far and is completely drenched before he returns to his home, it is better than to stay within; and this he regards no trial. When deep darkness descends upon the hills thickly covered with pagodas and idol temples, and upon the rich green valleys redolent with the dewy perfume of eastern flowers, the mission |