particle ever being lost, but the whole of it taken up into the general system of cause and effect, and always in operation somewhere. And thus we should have seen that though he was apparently as isolated as a ship in the midst of the Atlantic, the waves which the motion of that ship generates from shore to shore, were only an image of his ever-circling, widening, shoreless influence; and that the influence which thus blended and bound him up with the whole race, invisible and impalpable as it is, is yet the mightiest element of society, the element wielded by God himself."

("Great Commission," pages 3-6.)

The entrance of sin, and its consequences, are thus impressively stated:

"At the time of the creation a principle of evil was at large in the universe. Satan, together with an unknown multitude of associate rebels, having swerved from his allegiance to the blessed and only Potentate,' had been driven from the immediate presence of God, cut off from the loyal part of the creation, and doomed to be the prey of his own mighty depravity. Actuated by that universal law, by which each being and principle seeks to conform all things to its own nature, and stimulated by implacable hatred against God, he came to efface from our world the divine image, and to stamp his own on its breast instead. In the execution of this dreadful project he succeeded. By no employment of force, but by the simple action of mind on mind, through the medium of the senses, Satan prevailed on man to sin. As the first sinner was the first man, human nature was poisoned in its fountain. The first man is sinning still, in effect, in each of all his posterity. The first sin is thrilling still; and will vibrate on through the whole line of being, till it reaches the last of human kind. How closely compacted, how vitally interwoven, must be the system of our mutual dependence, and how mysteriously penetrating and pervading the principle of our reciprocal influence, when a single sin can thus distract and derange the whole !

"Yet now it was that man first made the monstrous essay of living to himself. As if he had only to withdraw his allegiance from God in order to dissolve relations with the universe, selfishness now became the law of his sinful being. But such separation was impossible. Live to himself, in the sense of selfish

appropriation, he might; but detach himself from the relations of dependence and influence he could not. Cease to be the centre of a hallowed influence he might; but cease to be the centre of all influence he could not. From the moment he ceased to be a universal good, he became a universal evil. Each act of selfishness is the infliction of a universal injury; and every successive sin awakens afresh the echoes of the original curse. Not only did our primary relations of mutual influence remain, the introduction of sin appears to have stimulated them into preternatural activity and power. Every man, in effect, became a Jeroboam,-his life laid a train of evil for multitudes, and for ages to come. His infantine hand could cpen a flood-gate of evil which the arm of Omnipotence alone could shut. His careless laugh could do more to counteract a moral principle than the proclamation of a law could do to enforce it. Though touching only one point in society, he could send an impulse of evil through the whole. While the thunders of Sinai soon died away to a whisper on the ear of the world, many a whisper of evil, as it passed from lip to lip, waxed louder and louder, till nations echoed with the sound, and distant ages received its reverberations as possessing all the authority of law.

"Parental influences, blending with the first rudiments of infant being, tainted character in its very source. Familiar intercourse became one of the grand ordinances of mutual temptation and ruin. Relationships, calculated to circulate happiness through all the veins of the social system, were perverted by sin into so many channels of destruction. Tendencies and influences of evil which had long been gathering, gradually assumed the definite and enduring form of civil government, and gave a character to nations; from which again, as from so many centres, they propagated their ef fects through all the globe, and for all time. Evil example, acquiring the despotic power of precedent and custom, showed itself stronger than anything human which could be brought to counteract it, tended to displace every other power, and claimed to reign alone. In a word, the social principle, in all its forms, entered into the service of sin, and showed itself mightier for evil than for good. Thrones and temples, collecting the scattered elements of evil, concentrated, strengthened, and gave them back again to the world under the solemn names of law and religion. Yes, reli

2 S

gion itself, or that at least which bore the name, lived only to aggravate the evil, and to keep it in constant and destructive circulation. Satan became the god of this world.' Wherever he looked, the expanse was his own.

Temptation in his hands had become a science, and sin was taught by rule. The world was for him one storehouse of evil, an armoury, in which every object and event ranked as a weapon, and all were classed and kept ready for service. He beheld the complicated machinery of evil, which his mighty malignity had constructed, in full and efficient operation, and the whole resulting in a vast, organized, and consolidated empire.

"But more: not only did the laws of our mutual influence remain-not only did sin stimulate them into fearful activity they increased in power with each successive age. The mechanical philosophy informs us, that, on the prineiple of the equality of action and reaction, no motion impressed by natural causes, or by human agency, is ever obliterated. No sound or sentiment, therefore, which has ever been uttered, is or can be lost. The pulsations of the air which the utterance set in motion, continue, in their effect, to operate still; so that every sound or sentiment will be recoverable in the most distant ages. No deed has ever been performed without leaving behind it, on some part of the material universe, an indestructible witness to its existence. Had any one of. all these sentiments and deeds never been uttered or performed, certain impressions would have been wanting from the material elements which they now contain; so that they form at this moment a minute and faithful record, to an eye capable of reading it, of all the eventful past. Their existing state is the complicated result of all the impressions produced on them from the commencement of time, and presents to the eye of Omniscience a vast book of remembrance, from whose unerring pages he could read forth at large the history of the world."

("Great Commission," pages 8-12.)

and his soul is one region of alarm." What is he now to do?

"To ask if the world, or any person or power belonging to it, can extend the aid which the crisis demands, would be sheer impertinence. That is the very power which has brought on the crisis, and from which he requires to be rescued. So completely is he now detached from it in heart and hope, that he turns round and looks back on it, with wonder at its infatuation, aversion for its sins, and yearning pity for its state. The cloud which threatens him with its bolt, impends also over it. What must he 'do

to be saved?"

"In the absence of all the objects he has been accustomed to confide in; in the clear and open space which their withdrawment has left around him, behold the cross! All the forms of terror, and ministers of justice, which his sins had armed against him, blend and melt into a form of love, dying for his rescue. The cross has received the lightnings of the impending cloud, and has painted upon it the bow of hope. To his anxious inquiry, what he must do to be saved, the cross echoes back, 'Be saved,' and every object around him joyfully repeats,

Be saved.' Then God is love! and the cross is the stupendous expedient by which he harmonizes that love with the rectitude of his government! Then the sinner need not perish! and this is the amazing means of his salvation! Had it ever been his lot to gaze on the appalling spectacle of an ordinary crucifixion, the sight would probably have left an image on his mind never to be effaced. Is possible, then, that he can behold 'Jesus Christ, evidently set forth crucified before his eyes;' that he can know the dignity of the sufferer, as God manifest in the flesh; can believe that he hates the sin as deeply as he loves the sinner; can reflect that the effect of his death is to be his own deliverance; and can look into the heart of this great mys tery, and find it to be love; without experiencing a change? If every word which he hears spoken, even by a fellowman, leaves some impression on his mind, can he hear that he is saved, and believe that the voice which assures him of salvation is the voice of God, without feeling it thrill through every faculty of the soul? If every object and event he may witness, produces some effect on his character, is it possible that the event which is to affect his whole being for ever, which, for him, shuts for ever the gate of hell, and throws open, and fills

with visions of glory the ample spaces of eternity, should produce only a transient and slender impression? Must he not, by necessity of nature, love him, without whom he would soon have had nothing in the universe to love, but have been eternally hateful even to himself? Must he not render obedience to him, without whom the chains of his slavery would soon have been riveted for ever? He waits not for a reply; he needs not a command. He is under the mastery of a principle which is its own law a principle of boundless gratitude and love. The power of the cross has moved the primary forces of his nature, the mysterious springs of hope and fear, of adoration and love. The world has lost him. His heart is at the feet of Christ.

He dates life and happiness from the transition. Henceforth he moves in a region of which the cross is the central object, and where the benignant and attractive influences which stream from it in all directions hold him in willing and delighted allegiance.

"Here, then, is the secret of that supreme influence which the Gospel exercises over the man whom the world had

debased, and sin had ruined; and this is the line of truth along which the Spirit of God delights to operate. By acquainting him with his immortality, it, in effect, gives him a soul, and gives it on the threshold of a new and an eternal world. By acquainting him with his responsibility and guilt, it calls his conscience from the dead; and by unveiling to him the mystery of the cross, by which that guilt is cancelled, and that immortality entitled to heaven, one overpowering sentiment subjects his whole nature to the authority of Christ. The

Spirit has taken of the things of Christ,

and has shown them to him with so transforming an effect, that he is a new creature in Christ Jesus." "

("Great Commission," pages 30—33.)

Thus saved through the cross, the love of Christ constrains him to live according to the will of Christ, and to seek the honour of Christ by bringing others to experience the same saving grace. And this feeling is strengthened when individuals are united in churches. They then feel it to be their duty, as they know it to be their privilege, to combine all their means of influence into one mighty instrumentality, acting not only upon those who are in their own neighbourhood, but in

the regions beyond, that thus the dead in trespasses and sins may be quickened, and increasing hosts of the living, the spiritually living, may show forth the praises of their Saviour and their God. What the means of influence are, Dr. Harris first points out; and then proceeds to consider the subject under the aspects suggested in those divisions of his work which we have already laid before the reader. But it is to the work itself that the reader must go, if he wishes to understand the powerful argument which it contains. There is a oneness about the Essay which renders extracting exceedingly difficult. From begin

ning to end the author is engaged with the various but connected portions of one vast subject; and on this he is so intent, that nothing like digression occurs. There is not a more perfect continuity in a long train of mathematical reasoning, than will be found in Dr. Harris's Essay. The attentive reader finds he is now reading proceeds from himself continually advancing. What what he read a few minutes ago, and will be found to have prepared him for the pages to which he will next come. The Essay has nothing of the book-making character about it. Words are the expressions of thoughts; and the thoughts all relate to the developement of one glorious subject. Dr. Harris never was more successful than on the present occasion. The close of the

Essay will show both the thorough

earnestness of the writer, and the connexion between the opening statements and the concluding exhortation.

"Delay to join in the march of mercy; and you will lose opportunities of honouring God, and of serving your race, such as never occurred to the church before, and can never be enjoyed by you again. Be indolent, covetous, self-indulgent now, and the very stones will cry out. universe will upbraid you, the perishing Continue to live for yourself; and the will point at and reproach you as acces sary to their destruction, the Judge him. self will say, I never knew you.' On the contrary, be faithful now, and the very trees of the field will clap their

hands; live unto the Lord, and all things shall live for you, and be ready to serve you in his cause; be entirely devoted to his claims, and others shall be moved by your example, and the world blessed by your influence, and Christ himself shall rejoice over you. Less than entire consecration has been tried for ages; and the fatal result is to be seen in the thousands perpetually passing-passing at this moment-to the bar of God from regions where the sound of salvation has never been heard. If you sympathize with Christ, then, in the travail of his soul, you will from this time see what entire devotedness can do for their recovery. Moved by his example, you will look through your tears on a world perishing in its guilt; and you will feel that you are never imitating him so much as by self-denying, pains-taking endeavours for its salvation. Subdued by the tenderness of his claims, you will freely acknowledge that you are not your own; that the same reasons which bind you to do anything for Christ, bind you to do everything in your power, and to do it in the best possible manner; that you are bought with a price which might well purchase the entire dedication of a whole universe of intelligent beings to all eternity. Affected and engrossed by the magnitude of his cause, the cause of the world's recovery, you will feel that to throw less than all your energies into its promotion is an insult to all the momentous interests which it involves. Not only, therefore, will you task your own powers in its behalf, you will task them partly in an earnest endeavour to move heaven and earth to join you. a word, constrained by his love you will 'thus judge,'-and never can you be said to be moved by his love except as you are thus judging, and laboriously acting on the judgment,-'that if one died for all, then were all dead; and that he died for all, that they who live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him who died for them and rose again.' Hasten, then, into his presence, fall down at his feet, and surrender yourself, and everything you have, to his service. He will graciously accept the dedication; and ten thousand ages hence you will be still praising him that you did so; and an unknown number will join in blessing him on your account." ("Great Commission," pages 529, 530.)

In

Mr. Hamilton's Essay, entitled, "Missions: their Authority, Scope, and Encouragement," is in some respects singularly contrasted with

the "Great Commission" of Dr. Harris. The latter possesses almost an epic unity; the former is almost like a collection of insulated statements, not running into each other, and forming one equable flow of thought, but united by means of the orderly arrangement of the several parts. We are not to be understood as speaking disparagingly. If the separate arguments are brief, they are always well wrought out, and triumphantly concluded: and every page sparkles with beautiful thoughts. The author's mind seems so richly stored, that almost every expression is allusive and ornamental; and yet all are employed with such judgment, as almost in every instance to contribute to the clearness of the illustration, or to the strength and progress of the reasoning. A few extracts will be sufficient to show the general style of this excellent production.

Mr. Hamilton thus forcibly describes at once the revival of the Missionary spirit, and its intimate connexion with evangelical principle: shows, in fact, that as that principle involves all that is felt and contemplated in Missionary operations, they, in their turn, are only its proper developement; that where evangelical principle finds a congenial soil, and is allowed to germinate in its own proper character, there, and there exclusively, Missionary undertakings are commenced, and carried out to their genuine results.

"The religion of the cross soon conquered the selfishness of those who be lieved. They judged that they should not live to themselves. A softening influence breathed upon public manners. The cruel sports of the arena were indignantly stopped. Vindictive laws were mitigated. Kingdoms and homes felt the bland and subduing change. The earth melted.'

"And it looks for universality. Its ambition burns but in its love. Adapted to every condition of man, addressing him through every medium, it proposes to itself no rest, and it will satisfy itself with no victory, until 'He who tasted death for every man' shall be acknowledged and adored by all. 'At the

name of Jesus every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.'

"This is to be accomplished in an order of means. Christian men, distributively and collectively, must publish the glad tidings of salvation. They should not only be ready always to give a reason of the hope which is in them,' they should not only stand on the defensive, but by a systematic agency they are bound to make known and commend their religion. If they understand and value it aright, they are assured that it exclusively can bless and deliver man, that by it alone man the citizen can be raised, and man the immortal be redeemed. It alone can heal the fountain of the present life; it can cast the branch of a divine virtue into the spring of the waters, and they are made sweet for ever.

"But the idea, the theory, seems peculiar to the Gospel. Idolatry never thought of extending itself by persuasive Missions, by moral means. It has sometimes been enforced by conquest. Later errors and impostures have also resorted to violence, for the purposes of proselytism. Christianity, in the masquerade of superstition and war, sounded the onset to the Crusades. But as the faith of the Son of God disclaims every form of coercion, so idolatry, and its kindred évils, can boast no other dependence. Where are the Missionaries of Paganism to be found in the cities and countries of professed Christianity? What altars have they raised among us? By what apparatus do they intend to establish the worship of their gods? We are, therefore, entitled to regard the Missionary principle, when properly understood, as a sublime originality, worthy of the religion which dictates it, and most appropriate to it. Missions could only be consistent with the Gospel; the Gospel could only be consistent with Missions.

"The duty has been long neglected. The cross, which should have gathered a world around it, by its infinitely tender attractions, long stood abandoned, solitary, 'left as an ensign on' its own sacred 'hill,'-a gnomon, casting over the dialplate of empires the long shadow of ages, ever cycling in their awful, silent revolutions. That neglect has been strangely excused. The very circumstances alleged to palliate it, really grew out of it. It is asked, scarcely in a strain of apology, 'Is it not propitious, that Missions were not more early commenced? that a per

verted view, a debased standard, of our religion were not more widely propagated? that the mutual oppression, which was the current practice of all parties, did not obtain a larger extension? that a disputatious, dialectical style of refining upon truth, had not acquired a greater prevalence?' It is easily rejoined, that it was from this neglect, from the torpor of those activities which should have prompted Missions, and found their place in them, that these evils sprung. They are the sickly growth of confinement. The rust eat into the armour because it was not in use. Intestine feud arose from the repression of righteous war. Practical Christianity brooks not restraint. The word of God must not be bound. It pines away in inaction. It wants the mountain track, and mountain breeze, to give it health and vigour. Had the church duly pondered its position and relation to those who were 'without,' had it appreciated its obligation to send to them the Gospel, had it strung its arm for this grand exercise,-it would have found no time for ambition, no taste for controversy, no pretext for persecution. Scholastic subtleties amused its state of sloth, but that sloth produced them; cruel irritations excited its listlessness, but that listlessness called them forth. No better antidote to its corruption of doctrine, no better preservative of its brotherly love, could have been discovered, than in the hearty and resolute discharge of the responsibility committed to it, of any, of all, the most sublime,

the moral conquest of the world, the present and everlasting salvation of mankind!

"The enterprise, however, is at last begun. It would be unjust to say, that it drags along slowly and feebly. 'Nobles put their necks to the work of their Lord.' The cheerful giver' is beheld on every side. Men of true greatness dedicate themselves to its most perilous tasks. The solemn feast and assembly derive from it their zest, and the reason of their convocation. The liveliest sympathy of tens of thousands is with its progress and issue. It continually swells its revenues, and enlarges the number of its adherents. Its zeal spreads from individual to individual, from rank to rank, from church to church, like the teeming of a vernal season, or 'the morning spread upon the mountains,' the first indexes and best reflectors of the rising day.

"Everything settles into seriousness around us. We seem to be, at least, in