made. But methinks there is something to cause great displacency, and even a degree of ́intimidation, in the thought of approaching the` most illustrious society in the universe in the company of spirits of our own nature and our own times, trained under nearly similar privileges and instructions, or possibly the very same, but who through superior zeal shall have left us in an immense disparity. Think whether it be impossible that, even on the passage to heaven, there might be an unwelcome sense of the contrast between persons, who, in going thither, shall be finishing a course of ardent devotedness to their Divine Lord, in exertions to extend his kingdom in destruction of the cruel reign of superstition, made with a degree of success attested by immortal spirits of redeemed heathens that shall have preceded them to the sky, and others that are to follow,

and persons who, having been in circumstances so similar to theirs in the introduction of life, and having professed the same devotedness to Christ, shall yet be conscious of having scarcely made an effort in aid of that service, of having scarcely perhaps given it their cordial

good wishes; conscious (may we not surmise, in some instances?) of having hardly been sorry that the comparatively small number, as yet, of conversions from heathenism, should seem to afford some advantage to the recusant or caviller. May not the thought of the feelings possible to be excited at such a time by such a contrast, suggest to Christians whose faculties ́seem more readily applicable to the exercise of finding objections to animated schemes of Christian experiment, than to that of devising means for their success, a new topic for solicitude and perhaps for prayer, namely, that they may be permitted to enter the superior state in a way that shall not immediately bring them in communication or comparison with their brethren ascending from the war against idolatry? At least, in order to be entirely free from the anticipation of any reflections, tending to throw a shade over the joy of passing into the great Master's presence at nearly the same time as those devoted spirits, there must be the testimony of conscience that in some other manner his service is zealously prosecuted. The man indifferent or opposed to the enterprise in

which these men are to die, but who yet professes to take an interest in the advancement of religion and the general good, can avoid the apprehensiveness of such a future comparison only by having evidence to himself that, though projects which seem to him to partake somewhat of enthusiasm are not exactly adapted to seize his mind, he is diligently intent on promoting the cause of God in plainer, less adventurous, and let him call them, if he will, soberer methods. But, in truth, experience is not in favour of our expecting a very active zeal for extending Christianity in any method, from those who recoil from missionary projects as premature and enthusiastic.

For ourselves, my brethren, when we think of those who are thus appointed to fall in the immediate conflict with the powers of paganism, shall we not earnestly desire and pray, that we may be so animated to promote the Christian cause in every practicable way, that we may never have reason to wish these men had not been our contemporaries, no more privileged than ourselves in early life; or that there would be an oblivion of this, to avert any pain of

comparison when they and we shall go to the

great account.

TRUE IDEA OF DIVINE SOVEREIGNTY.

To return, but for one moment, to the repressive influence on some good men's principles of action and hope, from the idea of the sovereignty of the divine appointments, we may observe, that the most assured belief in the divine decrees, as comprehending all things, has not necessarily the effect of paralyzing the active powers. There is no denying that such is its tendency in cold, inanimate, indolent spirits, that are really indifferent to the objects demanding their exertion. And so with respect to any doctrine of religious or moral truth, there is a possible state of mind which is apt to take from it an injurious impression. But let there be an earnest interest about the objects in question, and then the zeal and activity will be incited rather than repressed by the faith in all-comprehending and absolute decrees. Accordingly it has been, we think, for the greater proportion, by decided predestinarians, that the

most ardent and efficient exertions of religious innovation have been made upon the inveterate evils of the world. That they were not checked and chilled by this article of their faith, is the least that their conduct testified of its effect. Not only were they not withheld from driving impetuously against the hated thing before them by any surmise whether it might not, for the present, be guarded invisibly by the shield of a decree. Not only did they dart their weapons, when the enemy appeared to be within their reach, without being stopped by any suspicion of an optical deception in this seeming nearness, this possibility of striking it. This is only supposing them not to be the less energetic in consequence of their predestinarian faith; it is what they might be, supposing them the while to forget it. But it was not as forgetting their principle, and being actuated, for the time, solely by the independent force of different ones, that they so nobly exerted themselves. No! they acted in the full recollection of it, as a source of invigoration no less indispensable than for Antæus to touch the earth. It was in the element of this