truly Christian, it will be recognized as such, and will diffuse abroad a Christian influence. It would not then, by any means, infringe the law of charity toward mankind, to put forth special exertions for the evangelization of nominally Christian America.

There is one respect, indeed, in which the United States is differently situated from the land of Palestine at the time of the apostles, in reference to the matter under discussion. Foreigners were not flocking to that country by hundreds of thousands in a year, there to take up their permanent abode. Here is a reason for particular attention to the spiritual improvement of our population, which did not exist in the case of the ancient Hebrews. A sufficient number of persons enter our borders from abroad every year, and become incorporated with our people, to form a respectable state. The addition to our population by immigration in the year 1848, amounted to a quarter of a million. In 1849 it was probably a hundred thousand more than this. The increase by immigration in a single year, exceeds the popu lation of Connecticut at the present time; and at the present ratio of representation, would be entitled to five representatives in Congress. There are as many as ten States of this Union whose numbers are less than the immigration which pours into this country in one year. It is estimated that in the next ten years, the influx of foreigners will amount to four millions. Is it our duty to carry the Gospel to the destitute in foreign lands, and is it not our duty-a duty devolving on us, and which no other nation can, or ought to perform in our steadto give the Gospel to the people of foreign lands, when they throng our thoroughfares, and make their homes by our sides?

But, furthermore, these immigrants do not at once break off all connection with those whom they leave behind. Each one of them is bound by ties of intimacy to one or more persons who remain in the country whence he came. The attachment to their native country will indeed be stronger in some than in others. The German love of the father-land is not soon eradicated. A difference of language contributes to the power of former associations over the mind of the immigrant. But all will remember with interest the place of their birth, and scenes of their earlier joys and sorrows, cares and labors, and the friends from whom they have parted. The millions who have come to our land in search of new homes, will be connected by the bonds of kindred or friendship with other millions abroad. A correspondence, by letter and otherwise, will be kept up between them. As the facilities of intercourse with foreign countries increase from year to year, particularly when the penny-postage system shall be adopted by sea and land, communication between our immigrant population and the countries of Europe from which they came, will be more frequent. In this manner America will sustain the closest relations with the people of that continent. Having derived her existence from one of the European nations, and having adopted as her children so many of the native citizens of others, she must be to them an object of peculiar interest. Whatever may be the feelings of the rulers of those nations, the people must cherish sentiments of regard for us as their kinsmen. We know that they

do in fact sympathize with us, and that they are happy in the knowledge that we sympathize with them. The Irish, Germans, Italians, and others, desire the blessings of good government, because their brethren in this country enjoy the protection of equal laws.

In these facts we have a reason peculiar to this country, why an effort should be made to give the gospel to our whole population. We cannot but exert a powerful influence as a nation, over the character and destiny of Europe. Millions of our citizens will be personally known to some who are there. Our institutions, the practical working of our government, the manners, morals, and religion of our people, will be interesting subjects of inquiry to them. If we hold up the light of divine truth in our lives, it will be seen abroad. There is no nation at present, there never was a nation so happily situated as ours, for diffusing, far and wide, a good religious influence. If none should go forth from this country for the express purpose of carrying the gospel to other nations, our influence as a Christian people would be felt. But a truly Christian nation will send out missionaries. The missionary spirit will be active in proportion as the desire is intense for the evangelization of our own country. And a missionary enterprise which has hitherto languished will, I feel certain, take its proper place, ere long, beside those which have for their object the supply of the destitutions at home, and the conversion of the heathen. I refer to the incipient and feeble effort to propagate a pure Christianity in Europe. The providence of God points most evidently to America as the country which should take the lead in this enterprise. The gospel is here preached and held in as great purity, at least, as in any other country. And we claim kindred with almost every nation of Europe. There runs in the veins of millions of our people, the blood of various races on that continent. The society or societies which will hereafter divide with our home missionary and foreign missionary boards, the regards of the Ame rican churches, will find suitable men to send as missionaries to every part of Europe, among some portion of our population; but then we must have a flourishing state of religion at home, that those who may have in other respects suitable qualifications, may be seized with the missionary spirit, and may count it an honor to be sent abroad as ambassadors for God. Special efforts must be made for the conversion both of our native, and our naturalized and foreign population, that they may be prepared, like the foreign Jews at Jerusalem, on the day of Pentecost, to go back to the countries whence they or their fathers came with the gospel of Christ.

It is not, then, the dictate of a selfish policy, that we should feel peculiar anxiety about the religious interests of the United States, The instructions of our Saviour, and the conduct of the apostles, are our warrant for giving priority to the claims of our own people as objects of Christian charity. And it also appears as rational as it is scriptural, to do more for Christian America than for other countries; or, rather, it appears to be the best and the most expeditious method of doing good to the world, to relieve as fast as possible the spiritual wants of our own land.

It might be added to what has been said of the relations of this country to Europe, that a decline of piety at home must inevitably be followed by embarrassment in our missionary boards. And this is not theory. The secretaries of these boards know well that it has been a sorrowful fact more than once. A few years ago the American Board found it necessary to curtail its operations for want of funds. This was after a time of ruinous and sinful speculation, in which the church was too deeply involved. The same society is now laboring under a debt from which it emerges but slowly. It cannot avail itself of the advantages it has already gained to carry out its extended plans. It can hardly sustain itself at its present rate of expenditure. It is constantly a little in advance of its means. The mighty stream of emigration to California, and other schemes for accumulating wealth without industry, show what is the idol of the people, and why the treasury of the Lord is not filled. And there is likewise a deficiency of laborers. The number of pious young men is decreasing; and of those who are pious a smaller proportion devote themselves to the work of the ministry and of missions.

The remedy for these embarrassments in the operations of our foreign missionary societies, is a deeper spirit of piety at home. The persons to whom the management of these societies is committed do sometimes assure us, indeed, that if the churches were more engaged in the cause of foreign missions, there would be more piety at home. And in a certain sense this is true. The existence of a warmer interest in missions would be an evidence of an improved state of religion among us; and Christian benevolence, prompted by this deeper interest in religion, would doubtless react upon and assist in sustain. ing the spirit of piety. But real devotion to Christ, it must be confessed, does not begin at our fingers' ends, to enter thence into our hearts. True religion does not commence in some work of our hands, and end in the conversion of our souls. The good fruits of righteousness do not bear the root. "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things." When the grace of God was bestowed in an extraordinary degree on the churches of Macedonia, and "in a great trial of affliction, the abundance of their joy, and their deep poverty, abounded unto the riches of their liberality," and "they besought Paul with much entreaty" that he would carry their gift to the poor saints at Jerusalem; they "first gave their own selves to the Lord," and then to Paul in obedience to "the will of God." And this was the true and proper order of these acts of consecration the spirit of piety must first be in the soul, sanctifying the whole man for the Lord, and then in the overt act of performing deeds of charity. It ought not to be expected that America will do what she ought for the heathen, till she first gives herself to the Lord. Were it our main object to publish repentance and remission of sins among all nations, it would be best to begin at Jerusalem. Could another day of Pentecost be enjoyed in the American church, and Jesus Christ be preached from house to house in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, a new impulse would be given to the cause of

missions.

Secondly. One special effort for the spiritual good of the United States, should take the form of a presentation of the word and truth of God to every individual.

We have the authority of the Scriptures for this sentiment. The apostles ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ from house to house.

That very command of our Lord which requires us to "preach the Gospel to every creature," refers as much to the personal application of truth, as to the extent of territory which should be evangelized. We must carry the Gospel to individual men as well as to all places. There are persons in the midst of this community who never hear the Gospel. The same authority which obliges us to carry the Gospel to India or Africa, binds us to preach it to those in our immediate neighborhood who never hear it. It is preposterous to send missionaries half round the globe, and leave a part of those "creatures" to whom we are commanded to "preach," perishing in ignorance and sin on our right hand and on our left.

It will not excuse such an omission of duty, that the Gospel is accessible to our population, and they can hear it if they will. If this was strictly true, the command to preach the Gospel to every creature in this part of the world would not have been fulfilled. Multitudes of our fellow-citizens do not feel their need of the Gospel, and will not come to our places of religious worship; they will not purchase and read the Bible of their own accord, and thus become the means of awakening in themselves an interest in the public ordinances of religion. The benevolence of religion will not permit us to say, that they ought then to go without the Gospel. This would be just, one might contend: they do not deserve that further trouble and expense should be incurred on their account. But God in the Gospel does not treat men according to their deserts. Who of us deserved that the Lord Jesus Christ should be at so much pains and expense for our salvation? Ours is a religion of mercy. It is because all are ill-deserving, and might in strict justice be left to suffer for their sins, that we have any Gospel to preach. He who has prepared the way for the publication of a Gospel of grace by the sacrifice of himself, expects his Gospel to be preached in the same spirit of self-sacrifice. As towards the author of our salvation, who has bought us with his blood, it is just and obligatory that we proclaim the good news of pardon by Christ in unwilling ears. If men do not come into our religious assemblies to hear it, we must carry it out into the highways and hedges. We must entreat men in Christ's stead to be reconciled to God.

If it should be objected to this view of our duty, that we are only required by our Lord to preach the Gospel, let it be considered that preaching in the New Testament sense of that word, is not necessarily that formal presentation of truth which we now designate by the term. He was a preacher, in the time of the apostles, who lifted up his voice in any public place, as in the streets of a city, and drew to himself the attention of the passengers. When our missionaries in Madras stand at the gate of their residences and address a few words

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to any who may pass, concerning the faith in Christ, they are fulfillin g the command to "preach." In the text the apostles are said to have preached" in private houses; and it is said of Philip in the Acts, (viii. 35,) that he "preached" to an individual. The object of preaching is not to make a public harangue, but to produce in the mind of the hearer a certain effect; when this can be done only by mere private address, we act in the spirit of our Lord's command whem we The formal and public presenemploy this mode of communication. tation of the truth at stated times and places, for very obvious reasons, can never be discontinued. The speaker would be among the last to propose any substitute for the labors of an educated, settled, and permanent ministry. But the whole duty of preaching the Gospel has not been performed, when it has been proclaimed to such as have come to the public religious assembly for the express purpose of hearing it. The apostles did not think that their duty was discharged when they had spoken in the place where men usually congregated for religious purposes. And they were probably impelled to carry the Gospel to private houses by a constraining feeling of love for man and for Christ, rather than by a mere sense of duty.

Our circumstances are, in some respects, quite different from those of the early Christians-a fact which renders the personal application of divine truth even more obligatory upon us than it was upon them. The Gospel was then new, and it had the attraction of novelty. Great numbers were dissatisfied with the existing religions, and deChristsired a change. Many were in an attitude of expectation. ianity was, moreover, introduced by signs and wonders. For these reasons the apostles were waited on by throngs of eager listeners. On one day three thousand were converted. The Christians, it is related, had favor with all the people. When the lame man was healed at the gate of the temple, all the people ran together unto Peter and John. Afterwards it is stated that the people "magnified" them. When the apostles were arrested for persisting in their work, the captain of the temple and the officers brought them before the council" without violence, because they feared the people." The attention of the people of Jerusalem generally was favorably directed towards them: "Ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine," said the High Priest, "and intend to bring this man's blood upon us." Such an excitement as this, occurring now in the city of New-York, setting aside the consideration of the miracle connected with it, would be a matter of talk and inquiry through the whole country. Nor was Wherever Paul the interest in the Gospel confined to the Jews.

preached among the Gentiles, he seems to have drawn to himself the attention of the people generally. The movements of the apostles were noticed and closely observed. On one occasion it was said of him and his associates: "These that have turned the world upside down, are come hither also,"

Men are far enough Very different is the case with us at present. from being beside themselves with religious frenzy. They attend upon the ordinances of religion, so far as they do attend, too generally, with a feeling of indifference, and they absent themselves with a