upon the children; and nations just now struggling into life, will have reason to curse the niggard and ungrateful hand that planted them in ignorance and irreligion.

For now more than one hundred and fifty years the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel has striven faithfully and perseveringly against this progress of vice this enlargement of Satan's kingdom, and God's signal blessing has hitherto attended her endeavours. To her the United States of America owe their church. She has been the main support of the Clergy in the Colonies, which still remain to us in that quarter of the globe; to her increasing efforts and expostulations is mainly due that increased number of foreign Bishops and Clergy, which is the praise and hope of our times. She has stood between the living and the dead; between a lukewarm and faithless nation and the wrath of a just and jealous God.

For her and for her venerable companion, equal in age, in desert, in the apparent favour of God, I entreat your aid, and for this reason especially, because I bebelieve that they forward the cause of Christ's Church on earth, in a truly Christian spirit, and by means which are in accordance with God's will, and have an especial assurance of His favour. They have established a character for moderation—a virtue of great price in the sight of God, and of inestimable benefit in His service.

Their Committees are composed of sober and honest men, as far as may be without distinction of party. No one can justly lay to their charge that they select for officers of trust "the heady and high minded," or those who "dote about questions and strifes of words." No one can say that they "cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrines which they have learned," or that they "are tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine." On the

contrary, they send forth to us wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the "doctrine according to godliness;" they hold fast the faithful word which they have been taught, that they may be able by "sound doctrine both to exhort and convince the gainsayer;" and all this "out of charity, out of a pure heart, and faith unfeigned." They are, moreover, connected indissolubly with our own pure and apostolical branch of Christ's Church: they not only have the names of all the Bishops of that Church inscribed in the list of her members, but they acknowledge her authority, and lend an efficient aid in maintaining her discipline and doctrine.

Let not the means we take to forward our holy cause be considered a matter of small importance. Let us not suppose that zeal and sincerity alone are wanting, and that self appointed teachers, if they have but these requisites, will effectually promote the cause of their Redeemer, without the warrant of His calling and commission.

How can the human mind apply itself to the contemplation of sacred things with greater freedom than it has for many ages enjoyed on the banks of the Rhine and of its tributary streams? Having shaken off the trammels with which the usurping power of Romanism had fettered the energies of his heart, the German philosopher despised the teaching of the primitive Church of Christ, and proceeded to the study of the word of God, without a guide or interpreter. At first, with the greatest earnestness, he inculcated his own comment on that holy book, and then he proceeded to deny altogether its divine origin and inspirations. From such instructors multitudes have heard that their Saviour's pretensions to the Godhead

are an imposture, and they have treasured the blasphemous doctrine in their hearts. Who does not believe that in those countries the establishment of Societies similar in their principles and practice to those which I advocate, would have been an inestimable advantage? Might they not, by holding up on high Gospel truth and duty in its fulness and integrity, have stayed the progress of infidelity in the Church, and of anarchy in the State? Might not a belief in the efficacy of repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, have grown up with the growth and strengthened with the strength of those who now employ the best faculties with which God has endowed them, to do despite to His Holy Spirit, and to deny His gracious purpose in our redemption? Might not these very men have carried to foreign lands the Gospel message of forgiveness of sins through the death and mediation of the incarnate Son of God, who now proudly deny His divinity, and scoff at His meritorious cross and passion?

That these Societies, tried so long and so early, and found so faithful, so pure in discipline and doctrine, so fruitful in good works-that these should languish through faint and ineffectual support, gratitude, love, shame, the warning of foreign countries, the distinctive blessings and privileges of our own; our allegiance to Christ, our feeling for the poor and ignorant at home and abroad, our yearnings for the conversion of the Heathen, make, we believe and hope, impossible. We at least, my brethren, will discharge our duty. If they have given us such spiritual things, we will not think it a great thing to give to them our carnal things. Of these we well know the vanity-how they perish in the using-how many immortal souls have perished from their abuse; that they cannot speak peace to a wounded

conscience, assuage the pains of sickness, or smooth the bed of death; but that out of this mammon of unrighteousness we are suffered to make friends, which, when we fail, may receive us into everlasting habitations, that we may take from the vain pride and pleasures of the world that which so employed is death, and devote it to the service of Christ and of His Church, this we will esteem a great thing indeed—a mighty privilege—which we will embrace, cherish, and improve, for the love of Jesus Christ our Lord.

FINIS.