be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves." With that frankness and honesty which were peculiarly characteristic of him, he proceeds to pourtray the difficulties and dangers which they would have to encounter in the prosecution of this important work; and with these faithful representations he mingles the most solemn warnings, and the most affectionate counsels, to animate them to zeal and activity in his service. The Directors of the Scottish Missionary Society, having received the offer of your services, would, in imitation of our blessed Redeemer, solicit your serious attention to some points connected with the work of a Christian missionary, which they deem it of peculiar importance to bring under your consideration, before you fully make up your mind to engage in this great and arduous, yet interesting work.

First, Let us entreat you to reflect on the IMPORTANCE of the work. In aspiring to be a Christian missionary, you indulge in no common ambition. You seek to be employed in an office than which there is not a higher or more honourable upon earth. To go as an ambassador from the mightiest monarch of this world to another of his fellow potentates, and that in relation to affairs of state of the greatest magnitude, shrinks into insignificance in comparison of being an ambassador from God to guilty men. To be a minister of Christ in a Christian country, is, in some respects, even less important than to be a missionary to the heathen for if a minister in a land of gospel light prove unfaithful, the people have other means of acquiring a knowledge of divine truth; but if a missionary is unfaithful, who shall supply his lack of service? Without any to care for their souls, the poor heathen must remain buried in their native ignorance, without God, without Christ, and without hope in the world.

To impress your mind with the magnitude of the work, consider what a solemn thing it is to have the charge of immortal souls; to have their everlasting happiness or everlasting misery suspended in some degree on you, a poor feeble worm! If you should be successful in turning some of the heathen from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, you will be the honoured instrument of rescuing them from a greater sum of misery, and of conferring on them a higher degree of felicity than tongue can utter, or heart conceive. But, on the other hand, if through your negligence or unfaithfulness, the souls committed to your care should be lost, how awful will be the consequences! You would 'hrink at the thought of being accessary to the death of a fellow-creature, whether by your apathy in not warning him of the danger to which he was exposed, or by your violence in pushing him into it: but how much more dreadful the idea of being accessary to the ruin of immortal souls, by carelessly leaving them to go on in sin without instruction and reproof, or by propagating erroneous principles,

and encouraging delusive views! You would not choose to be instrumental, either by your supineness in neglecting such means as might have warded off the danger, or by your positive agency, in laying waste your native land, in burning her cities, and towns, and villages, destroying the inhabitants, and involving the whole country in one general ruin: yet, vast as would be the wretchedness of which you would in that case be the author, how does it dwindle into insignificance compared with the misery of a soul, perishing, through your negligence or unfaithfulness, in the world to come,-a soul for ever banished from the presence of God to that place where hope never comes,"where" in the emphatic words of Him whose infinite compassion prompted the impressive warning, "their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched!" How awful the thought that the fate of many souls,

each destined to exist through a mysterious eternity in happiness or misery, as incalculable in extent as in duration,-each comprising, in its spiritual and immortal being, the seeds of happiness or misery larger than the whole amount of joy or sorrow felt by the countless individuals of our fleeting race in all the succeeding ages of this world's existence,-that the fate of these souls may be suspended on your fidelity; that if you prove unfaithful, many may be left in impenitence, exposed to that "wrath of God which is revealed against all unrighteousness of men," who, by more faithful and fervent exertions on your part, might have been saved in the day of the Lord! With what holy caution, with what fear and trembling, should we enter on an office involving such responsibility!

Indeed, on your faithfulness will, in some degree, be suspended the everlasting destinies, not only of the present generation, but of generations that are yet unborn. The Missionaries who first plant the gospel in a Heathen country, are not to be considered as the instruments merely of that fruit which it produces during the short period of their life; to them may be traced indirectly the whole of those fruits of righteousness which it shall bear through successive ages, to the end of the world. If, on the other hand, they slumber at their post; if they prosecute their labours in a cold, languid, heartless manner, they will not only have the souls of that generation required at their hand, but the souls of all those successive generations, who, if they had been faithful, zealous, and active in their work, might have had the knowledge of salvation transmitted to them, and have become partakers of divine grace, and heirs of eternal glory.

But as the consequences of the faithfulness or unfaithfulness of a missionary are not confined to his own age, so neither are they limited to the country which is the scene of his labours. The extension of the gospel to other quarters of the world is dependant, in no small degree, on the zeal, activity, and success

of missionaries previously in the field. Whether heralds of merсу shall be sent to the tribes of Africa or Australasia, is intimately connected with the conduct of Missionaries in the wilds of Tartary and the plains of Hindostan. The labours of Elliot and Brainerd, of Zeigembalg and Swartz, of Carey, and Marshman, and Martyn, have given a mighty impulse to the Christian world, -have fired the hearts of others to carry the standard of the cross to heathen lands, have animated the several missionary societies to embark in new undertakings, and to conduct them on a scale which they once would have deemed presumption and folly. But unfaithful Missionaries, by their inactivity, worldlymindedness, unhallowed tempers, and unholy practice, grieve the hearts of the friends of missions, chill their zeal, and paralyze their efforts for the conversion of the Heathen. Oh! how incalculable is the mischief done by a faithless Missionary! He is chargeable with the ruin of souls, not only in the country which is the scene of his labours, but in countries perhaps thousands of miles distant. Had it not been for his negligence, ambassadors of salvation might have been sent by the Christian world to many other lands, to proclaim the glad tidings of "peace on earth, and good will toward men."

Such considerations as these may well impress your mind with the transcendent importance of the work of a Christian Missionary; there is, however, involved in it, not only the salvation of men, but the glory of God. Among the Heathen his honour lies prostrate in the dust. They practise the cruellest rites, the grossest superstitions, the most abominable idolatries. "They have changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things; and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever." What an important trust then is committed to the Christian Missionary! It is his office to vindicate the honour of God; to maintain his injured rights; to display his glory in the eyes of the Heathen. What trust can you conceive equal to this! To have the fate of empires suspended on your single arm is nothing at all in comparison of having in charge the glory of Him who is the King of kings, and the Lord of lords.

Secondly, Consider the TRIALS and DIFFICULTIES of the work. Of late years the character of a Christian Missionary has been invested with a splendour, which is calculated to dazzle the eyes of the young and inexperienced; while, on the other hand, the sufferings, the hardships, the disappointments, the temptations, and the dangers to which he is exposed, are comparatively thrown into the shade. The Directors of the Scottish Missionary Society, though not entirely ignorant of the nature of the warfare, feel themselves unequal to the task of describing its

trials and difficulties: these, none can delineate but one who has been in the field of battle, and who has himself been engaged in the conflict. We shall say nothing of your taking farewell of your native land, never perhaps to behold it more of your parting with your nearest and dearest relatives, to whom you feel your hearts knit by the tenderest ties. We shall pass in silence your voyage across the stormy ocean, and your journey through a wild' inhospitable country. We shall suppose you arrived at the scene of your future labours. There you find yourself surrounded by men of a strange language, and, notwithstanding all your assiduity, you find it no easy task to acquire such a knowledge of it as to be able to read, and write, and speak it with correctness and fluency. When you go out and make known to them the message of salvation, you are struck with their ignorance. With whatever truths you begin, you find you take for granted others as known by them, of which they have not the slightest conception. You are surprised at their stupidity. Though you labour to make the truths of religion level to their comprehension, and to express them in the simplest language, yet your attempts are vain: they seem not to have the understanding of children. You are astonished at their insensibility. You address them concerning their sinfulness; you speak to them of death, and judgment, and eternity, of the joys of heaven, and the torments of hell; you point them to the Saviour; you tell them of the wonders of his love; you beseech them, by his incarnation in the manger, by his agony in the garden, by his passion on the cross, to be reconciled unto him: but you are scarcely able to win their attention, or, if they listen to you, they treat the whole as if it were but an idle tale. You are amazed at their obduracy. In reasoning with them, you employ incontrovertible arguments; you expose, in the clearest manner, the falsehood and absurdity of their system; you show the futility of their objections; you involve them in contradictions; but though silenced they are not convinced; the very next time you meet with them, they return to the combat with the same arguments and the same objections in their mouth. You are shocked at their credulity. While they treat with neglect and contempt the sacred truths of Christianity, though supported by the clearest and most satisfactory evidence, they receive, not only with confidence, but with reverence, the most frivolous stories, and the most irrational opinions, which an artful priesthood has chosen to impose upon them. When you first thought of becoming a missionary to the heathen, you perhaps represented them to your imagination, as listening with transport and with joy when you told them of the wonders of redeeming love : but when you reach the scene of your labours, you meet with so discouraging a reception from them, that you are ready to conVOL. VIII, January, 1825.

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clude nothing can be effected with the present generation; you sink into a state of apathy and inactivity; or if you go through the external routine of duty, it is without that zeal and energy which hope inspires, and even without that faith in the divine promise, and that prayer for the divine blessing, which are essential to success.

Your difficulties, however, will not arise merely from the heathen; even your fellow missionaries may prove a fruitful source of trial to you. You perhaps imagine that all who embark in this sacred work possess those various endowments which are requisite to it; that nothing prevails among them but peace, and harmony, and love; that jealousy, and envy, and bitterness, and evil-speaking are unknown; that the only strife among them is who shall be most holy, and most humble, and most heavenlyminded, and most devoted to the service of Christ, and most active in winning souls to him: but as among the disciples of our Lord there was a traitor, so among missionaries there have not been wanting men who were altogether unworthy the high office with which they were invested. Some have "made shipwreck of faith, and of a good conscience:" while others, by their proud, overbearing, disputatious, irritable, obstinate tempers, have been as briers and thorns in the sides of their brethren; have ruined their peace, and damped their zeal, and paralyzed their exertions in the cause of the Redeemer.

You have often heard that missionaries must lay their account with many personal hardships: but it is one thing to anticipate these at a distance, and another actually to struggle with them. In respect to external accommodation, some, no doubt, are placed in comfortable circumstances; yet, even with these, if they are faithful, it is a life, not of ease and pleasure, but of labour and toil. Others, indeed, have been destitute of every thing which the world calls comfort. They have had to take up their residence in some miserable hut, which scarcely sheltered them from the wind and rain; they have lived in a wilderness, banished from their friends and countrymen, and all civilized society; they have seen from day to day the faces only of barbarians and savages, and have often been exposed, through their caprice and cruelty, not only to danger, but to death. In journeying among the heathen, they have had to take many a weary step through uninhabited wilds, over stupendous mountains, amidst trackless woods, or along fields of ice or snow: when assailed by a storm, they have had no shelter but some solitary rock: when overtaken by the night, they have had no bed but the bare ground: cold, and hungry, and thirsty, they have laid down to sleep, until the sun arose, and warned them to proceed on their journey. In the midst of sickness, the situation of a missionary is often peculiarly trying; without medical advice, without suitable