Missionary Sermon, May 12, 1819

On Wednesday morning, May 12, 1819, Jlr James preached the annual sermon on behalf of the London Missionary Society, in Surrey Chapel. This discourse produced such an extraordinary impression, and so greatly heightened his fame as a preacher, that it claims a prominent place in this narrative of his life. From the commencement of his ministry, he had manifested the strongest interest in Foreign Missions. “With Dr Bogue for his tutor and friend, with Monison for his feUow-student, whose passion for evangelising China had an almost supernatural intensity, it was impossible for him to be indifferent to the condition of the heathen. It has been already stated, that when Mr Wilson proposed that he should remove from Birmingham to London in 1815, he felt it to be one considerable reason for accepting the invitation, that he should be able to attend regularly the meetings of the Missionary Directors, and to exert some influence on their operations. This reason had the greater weight, because he was not qiute satisfied with the manner in which the aSairs of the society were at that time conducted.

Early in 1816, Mr James had occasion to criticise with some severity the general proceedings of the Board. Among Dr Bogue’s students in that year was a young man named John Smith, who had been a member of the Carr’s Lane church, and who had been

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received by the Missionary Society on Mr James’s recommendation. He had only just commenced his studies when the directors determined to send him out, at once, to Demerara. In the judgment both of his former minister and of his tutor, he was altogether unprepared to go; and Dr Bogue, having protested without eflFect, wrote a long and most earnest letter to Mr James, invoking his interference, not only to avert mischief in this particular case, but in order to check the very erroneous and pernicious policy which, it was alleged, the directors had been pursuing for several years. In this letter it is affirmed, that “a few laymen wish to rule the society with a rod of iron; “they are” well meaning men, but they have neither the knowledge, the comprehension of mind, nor the temper necessary for the management of a missionary society. The missionary students and the missionaries they look upon as menial servants, whom they are to govern according to their sovereign pleasure, — as men who are to have no will of their own, but to yield implicit obedience to the London directors.” He goes on to say, that” they were sending out men to the heathen who, although truly religious, had not even such a knowledge of the gosjiel of Christ as to be able to teach it with

propriety These things I have endeavoured to oppose,

sometimes with success, and at other times without; and as the severe system is increasing in violence, it will be with less and less effect I have also endeavoured to oppose what I conceive an unreasonable fondness for the South Sea Islands and South Africa. In the former, I suppose there are not thirty thousand inhabitants. They have eight or ten missionaries [there already], and the directors are sending out four more, only one of whom has received any theological instruction. In the whole of South Africa, including the inhabitants of every colour in the colony, and all the various tribes which Mr Campbell heard of as probably accessible in time, the population does not amount to two hundred and fifty thousand, and there are already nearly forty missionaries there of one kind or another. I have earnestly pleaded that these might suflSce for the present, and that the vast, populous regions in the East might receive more of our attention; but my remonstrances are in vain What will the intelligent

part of mankind think of a great society, more than one-half of whose missionaries are employed about three hundred thousand people, when there are, perhaps, more than seven hundred millions perishing for lack of knowledge, and calling on them to come over and help them?” Dr Bogue then states at great length the principles which ought to guide the society in reference to these important matters, and earnestly requests Mr James to do his best to insist on their practical recognition. His old tutor s appeal was immediately responded to; and the second * of Mr James’s letters to the society on this subject bears date February 23, 1816. It is addressed to the secretary: —

“My dear Sie, — Perhaps I ought to crave the pardon of the directors for troubling them with any further remarks upon the appointment of Mr John Smith as their missionary to Demerara; but as your letter has not removed in the least degree my objections, nor furnished me with any light upon the subject of which I was not previously possessed, so far as his quahfications are concerned, I am compelled, both by a regard to the welfare of my yoimg friend, who has entrusted his affairs to my hands, and by a still higher regard to the success of the missionary cause, to persist in my endeavours to obtain an alteration in the appointment. I am not pertinaciously contending for my own opmion as mine; — this, in opposition to the wisdom, and the will of the directors, woidd entitle me to their just contempt but I am now writing with a zealous and mo.st sincere regard to their honour and success, which, if I err, must be my apology. You mistake in supposiug that I thought Mr John Smith was to laboiu: principally amongst the whites; what I insisted upon was, that he must be necessarily known by them, and, imless he was respected for his abiUtics as a teacher, was not very likely to secure their patronage. In my humble opinion, your own letter increases the evidence of his ineligibihty. Whoever goes out to Demerara should go out as a repairer of the breach — a restorer of paths to dwell in. To do this, it is necessary he should not only be a man of peace, but a man of personal influence. No other is likely to be respected by the missionaries whom you have already there. No other is likely to repair the mischief which imprudence and imbecility have already occasioned in that quarter of the world. The missionary cause stands at this moment on the edge of a precipice at Demerara, and you

* The first I have not been able to find.

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want a man of great wisdom as well as gentleness to take it off. Mr Smith, as it respects men and things, is entirely a novice. His timidity, the necessary result of a deficient education and a modest

temper, renders him unfit to cope with and. Besides, sir, I

rest my objection on the broad basis of the right which every student has, to claim an education for missionary work. It was under this idea Mr Smith offered himself as a missionary. It was with this irapHed stipulation he gave himself up to the society. Eather than have decided to go out to the heathen in the present unprepared state of his mind, he would have gone back to his former employment. I submit it to the consideration of the directors, whether it will not operate as a serious check upon young men disposed to devote themselves to the interests of the heathen, if they find that they are liable to be called away almost before their education has commenced. What pastor will recommend a young man under such circumstances 1 If Mr Smith is sent out to Demerara, I beg most explicitly to be understood as withdrawing my recommendation of him to the society. Instead, therefore, of writing to him in a different strain to my first letter, I am compelled, by my convictions, to follow up the advice which I therein gave, and endeavour to go on stih further, by entreating him to relinquish the object altogether, rather than to go out in his pi-esent uneducated state. Are there no other missionaiy students at the seminary, who have enjoyed more advantages than he has, who can be sent to the station 1

“The directors, sir, must pardon me if I suggest a few more remarks, occasioned by a paragraph in your letter, viewed in connexion with the existing circumstances of the society’s affairs.

“You say, ‘The directors have of late met with several instances of opposition to their wishes from some of the young men now at Gosport, whom they intended for African missions after a short course of education, sufficient in their judgment for such situations, by the young men writing to their pastors to get them to interpose on their behaK.’ From this most comprehensive paragraph I infer the following things: —

“1. That the young men are not to be consulted as to the field in which they are to spend their future lives, and discharge the duties of their arduous and important office. As a society, sir, we are loudly complained of for our conduct towards our missionaries. We are accused of exercising a system of stern tyranny over these devoted young men, and of viewing them more in the light of menial servants than as honourable co-workers in the same great cause. This is not only the charge preferred against us by enemies, but it is an opinion entertained by a large proportion of our most zealous and enHghtened friends. Having spent nearly three years in the Go.sport academy, I can speak from experience; and I assure you, that, times without number, I have heard the students bewaU this very circumstance. I have been informed that the sentiment has been uttered in the directors’-room without contradiction, that a missionary is to have no will of his own, no view, no preference as to the station he is to occupy, but to follow implicitly the will of the directors. AU this looks very like evidence in support of the charge mentioned above, of our treating the missionaries more like servants than brethren.

“2. I infer from your remarks that it is not pleasant to the directors to be troubled with the ad-vice and opinions of country ministers. I speak, sir, from the most pure and tender regard to the welfare of the society, when I assure you that the neglect of the country directors is a subject of very loud and increasing complaint. An opinion prevails very widely, that in affairs of consequence the views of country friends ought to be consulted. I cannot be supposed to be writkig now from any considerations of a selfish nature, for I am not a director, though a warm and active friend to the cause.

“3. I cannot help inferring from your letter, especially if it bo viewed in connexion with several circumstances which have lately transpired, that the directors are not quite agreed with many of their brethren in the country as to the necessity in every case of a good education for the missionaries. Many of us have seen with inexpressible regret, that some have lately been sent out, and more are intended to be, with very little or no instruction. All the country ministers with whom I have ever conversed unite in opinion that every man who goes to the heathen in the character of an ordained minister shoidd have a good previous education, even though savages or negroes are to be the object of his labours. Our standard of education is already too low; it had not need be lowered. Our cause depends upon the qualifications of our missionaries.

“4. Many of the country friends of the society are of opinion that suflBcicnt attention has not yet been paid to the civilisation of Africa nor to the evangelisation of Asia. With the exception of what Morrison and Milne have done for China, how little has yet been done for the populous regions of the East! In Hindostan we are doing comparatively nothing. By your letters I conclude that Asia is not yet coming forward as prominently to notice as it should.

“These, sir, are a few amongst other remarks which might be made in reply to your letter, and upon the general affairs of our society. I know not if any of my countiy brethren have ex],)ressed similar statements to the directors, but I know that they hold such.

“It is a pretty general opinion, that if we were to copy the conduct of the Baptist mission we should not do amiss. Like them, we should

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have some important station in the East, occupied by a body of able men, whose united exertions would be the means of causing the rays of Divine truth to diverge from the spot they occupy as a centre. I again beg the indulgence of the directors for obtruding these remarks upon their attention, and once more to express my hope that another appointment may be made for Demerara. — I remain, my dear sir, yours truly,

“J. A. James.

“BiEMiNGHAM, Fehvuary 23, 181G.”

This letter greatly delighted Dr Bogue, and he entreated Mr James not to abandon the good work he had taken up. “Allow me,” writes Dr Bogue, in April 1816, “again to recall your attention to the subject of our late correspondence. I wish you to continue the champion for that princijile which you so ably advocated in your letter to the directors. It is one of the highest importance, and I have no doubt but your perseverance will fully establish [it], so as to deliver us from the guilt and dishonom- of sending to the heathen men unqualified to discharge the duties of a good missionary of Christ.” The doctor adds, with something like a chuckle, “Your letter prodigiously galled some of the London gentlemen.” But so far as Mr Smith was concerned, both his tutor and pastor interfered in vain, — he was sent out to Demerara immediately. A few years afterwards, his sufferings and death roused the fierce and righteous indignation of the Anti-slavery party in this country; and Henry Brougham’s speech on the “martyr, John Smith,” is one of the noblest which the great orator ever delivered.

Although the policy of the London directors, in neglecting the education of their missionaries, and concentrating their strength on the scattered and degraded populations of Southern Africa, and the remote and insignificant islands of the South Pacific, whUe India and China were almost forgotten, appeared to Mr James exceedingly erroneous, and although he frankly and vigorously condemned their treatment of their agents, which he thought in suiting and tyrannical, he was happily not among the number of those who abandon a great enterprise because the men who happen for a time to be at its head are mistaken in their plans, or arbitrary in their temper. He continued to be the hearty friend of the society, and whUe he censured, he endeavoured to remove its defects.

The directors, whatever may have been their faults, knew how to discriminate between mere carping censoriousness and the dissatisfaction of a friend whose very love prompted his complaints; and in 1819 they gave him the highest proof of their esteem and confidence, by requesting him to preach their annual sermon. Forty years ago this sermon was the most important and exciting service connected with the missionary anniversaries. There was no Exeter HaU meeting, and the “business” was transacted by three or four hundi-ed persons, who met to “hear the Report” in one of the city chapels, where the oratory was quite subordinate to the narration of facts and the statement of accounts. It was in the Wednesday morning sermon, in Surrey Chapel, that the eloquent advocates of the society exerted their strength; and this was the great centre of attraction both to those whose missionary zeal was nothing more than a morbid hunger for religious excitement, and to those who felt deeply the grandeur of the missionary enterprise.

Mr James’s reputation as a preacher attracted an immense congregation; the place was nearly full two or three hours before the service began. In the front seat of the gallery which runs round the place, were seated all the principal ministers connected with the society, both in London and the provinces, — many whose names are now forgotten, and many whose memory we still venerate, — Bogue, and Winter, and Waugh, and Haweis, and Wilkes, — men held in reverence for their age, their wisdom, their personal sanctity, their ministerial power, their arduous and successful labours in the service of Christ and His Church.

The sermon, which occupies fifty pages of the Collected Works, and lasted two hours, was not read, but delivered viemoriter. The preacher’s brother sat in the pulpit with the manuscript in his hand, prepared, if there was a moment’s hesitation, to suggest the forgotten word; but, from first to last, the discourse was delivered exactly as it stood on the paper — not an epithet or a preposition was changed. At the close of the fii’st hour, the preacher requested permission to jjause for a few minutes, and the people sung a hymn. Such was the excitement of the congregation, that during this temporary interruption of the discourse, oranges were thrown into the pulpit to refresh the exhausted orator. The hymn finished, he rose again, and recovermg his strength, thundered on for another hour, and closed at last with a peroration anticipating the homage of all created things to God and Christ: — “The ten thousand times ten thousand angels round about the throne shall respond to the shouts of the redeemed on earth, ‘Saying, with a loud voice. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing; ’ and still the chorus shall swell, and still the strain shall wax louder, and louder, ‘till every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, shall cry. Blessing, honour, glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.’ Amen and amen.”

The congregation listened with enthusiastic admiration; and old men in the front of the gallery were heard at the close of some of the more thrilling passages to murmur their applause.

That the sermon has serious faults, few modern readers would deny. Like the Bible Society speech of 1812, the thought is sometimes crushed by a mass of glittering ornament. In eighteen lines, Satan falls “like lightning from heaven;” the apostles and their immediate successors are “ministers of light, who rose with the number, the order, and the brilliancy of the stars;” persecution, “like the wind of heaven blowing upon a conflagration,” serves “to spread the flame;” — Rome is “the Imperial eagle” which, “collecting all her strength, and rousing all her fury, attacked the Lamb of God, till she too, subdued and captivated by the cross, cowered beneath its emblem as it floated from the towers of the Capitol;” — and Christianity, “with the purple waving from her shoulders, and the diadem sparkling upon her brow,” is “proclaimed to be the Truth of God and the empress of the world, on that throne of the Caesars before which she had been so often arraigned as a criminal, and condemned as an impostor.” A few pages further on, in order to introduce a rapid review of the religious condition of the world, we are required, “for the sake of Ulustration,” to suppose that we occupied the station of the angel represented in the Apocalypse as standing in the sun, and that, with eyes piercing as the beams of day, “we were looking down on the revolutions of this low, diurnal sphere,” These are only illustrations of the profuse excess of metaphor by which the sermon is enfeebled. John EUas, the gTeat Welsh preacher, — no foe to the wise and moderate employment of the imagination in the pulpit, — heard the sermon, and is said to have exclaimed when it was over, “I believe the cross was there, but it was so heaped up with flowers I could not see it.” And another critical hearer delivered his judgment in a form even more terse and epigrammatic — “I don’t care to dine at a pastry-cook’s.”

The faults which forty years ago were recognised by comparatively few, are likely now to make most readers overlook the real worth of the sermon. If the diamond turns out to be paste, it is natural to infer that the gold is a lacquered fraud. But in this case good solid metal is discredited by the shining tinsel. As this discourse presents all the excellencies and all the defects of Mr James’s early style of preaching, I shall make no apology for entering very fully into a discussion of its merits.

The first two or three sentences of the Introduction are wanting in ease, but are immediately followed by a passage admirably calculated to rivet attention, since it repels by a vigorous practical argument what was a very common objection to attempts to convert the heathen. It was alleged that without miracles these attempts must be altogether inefi’ectual; he replies —

“This objection, however, is best answered by an appeal to facts. However difficult it may be to ascertain with precision the exact time when the testimony of miracles ceased, nothing is more certain than that these witnesses had finished their evidence long before the conversion of the northern and western parts of Europe; and the demand of supernatural interposition as necessary to the propagation of Christianity is urged with an ill grace by a Protestant, when it is remembered that there is not a single Protestant country which did not receive the gospel unaccompanied -with signs and wonders; and with stni greater K

UG

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inconsistency is it made by an Englishman, when it is considered that this happy country, the glory of Christendom, the joy of the whole earth, and the evangelist of the world, was recovered from the thraldom of Saxon idolatry without one miraculous operation.”

By a felicitous transition the subject is introduced: —

“^Vliat, then, are the means with wMch we set out on this high and holy enterprise of converting the world 1 I answer, The doctiine of the cross: for saith Chiist, ‘If I be lifted up,’ or, ’ when I am lifted up, I will draw all men unto me.’”

The next paragraph indicates the line of tliouglit the preacher proposed to follow, and closes by a reference, introduced without abruptness or violence, to his recent and “irreparable loss.” He knew, and determined to possess, the power which a preacher derives from being master of the sympathies of his congregation.

“In these words, our Lord announces the nature of His approaching death; He was about to be Ufted up, or crucified: He predicts the consequences with which His crucifixion woidd be followed; all men would be gathered to Him: He specifies the means, and the manner of their conversion; they would be drawn or attracted by an exhibition of His death. In other words, the text presents us with the great object of missionary zeal, the grand instrament of missionary exertion, and the final consummation of missionary success. It will be instantly perceived that I have not sought after novelty of subject, and it will soon be discovered that I have not attained ingenuity or profundity of discussion. The state of my mind and f eehngs since I received the application of the directors, would alone have precluded these. Their request for my services on this occasion found me at the tomb of all that was dearest to me on earth, — a situation not very favourable for penetrating into the depth of any other subject than my own irreparable loss. One thing which induced me to comply with their soHcitation, was a hope that my mind would be drawn away in some degree from the heart-withering recollection of departed bUss: nor has that hope been altogether disappointed; for the subject of my sermon has often presented such visions of spiritual glory, as have made the tear forget to fall, and hushed the sorrows of a bursting heart, and taught the preacher, that while the missionary cause goes as the messenger of mercy to pagan realms abroad, it is one of the best comforters in the house of mourning at home.”

But he was too wise to permit the Introduction to consume mSSIOKARY SERMON, BIAY 12, 1819. 14.7

much time; it occupies scarcely two pa-es out of the fifty. He has awakened attention; stated his subject and the manner in which he intends to treat it; above all, he has disarmed unfriendly criticism, and secured a kindly hearing; and he is now ready for the great work of the morning.

According to the outline of the discourse he has just sketched, he has first to present “The great object of missionary zeal,’’ which, he says, is “to bring men to Christ.” Nothing can be simpler or more obvious than this thought, which is the real starting-point of the sermon; both in conception and expression, it is absolutely free from all pretension to what is startling or original. He knew, what some preachers seem never to have discovered, that a very striking statement of a division, though sometimes useful to stimulate and excite careless listeners, is apt to make the subsequent filling up and development appear commonplace. The quaint, the grotesque, the fanciful, Mr James habitually shunned in the heads of his sermons; partly, no doubt, because he felt it was dangerous to awaken expectations it might be difficult to fulfil, and partly for other reasons of a more serious nature. Nor is this quiet description of the object of missionary zeal followed by a sudden effort to rouse the imagination or fire the passions. He goes on to say —

“There are at the present moment more than six hundred millions of the human race in the appalling situation of the men “whom the apostle describes as ’ without Christ in the world; ’ and the question is, with what feelings and what puryoses a Christian should survey this vast and wi-etched portion of the family of man. To ascertain this, you have only to contemplate the scene which at your last anniversary was brought before you with such force of reason, pathos, and eloquence. Behold St Paul at Athens.”

Then follows a passage of brilliant declamation on the scenery, the historical associations, the genius and the intellectual culture by which the apostle was surrounded. “The glorious prospect of mountains, islands, sea and sky,” and the plain of Marathon, “where the conquests of the old Greek heroes had saved, not their country only, but the mental liberty and energy of man “—” the

Acrojwlis, crowned with the iride of Grecian architecture” — - “those peerless temples, the very fragments of which are viewed by modern travellers with an idolatry almost equal to that which reared them,” are gathered into a magnificent picture, only to heighten and strengthen the representations of that profound passion of the apostle for the Divine glory, and that zeal for the salvation of men, which made him insensible to all this beauty and grandeur, his spirit being “stirred in him,” because “he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.”

“Tint must have been his indignant grief at the dishonour done by idolatry to God — what his amazement at the weakness and folly of the human mind — what his abhorrence of human impiety — and what his compassion for human wretchedness, when such stately monuments had not the smallest possible effect in turning away his view from the guilt which raised them, and the misery endured amidst them!

“Here, then,” he exclaims, “is the object of our zeal, to bring to Christ those who are afar off.”

The paragraph which follows, and in which he weaves into one long sentence some seven or eight of the Old Testament proyhecies of Messiah’s glory, is far too artificial. It could add nothing to the clearness of his meaning, nothing to the impressiveness of his appeal, to say that in sending the gospel to heathen nations the Church was endeavouring

“to scatter the fruits of Isaiah’s rod, and diffuse the fragrance of Jeremiah’s branch, over all the famishing and fainting cluldi-en of the fall; to open new channels through which the cleansing streams of Zechariah’s fountain and the vivifying waters of Ezekiel’s river may flow; to prepare for the coming of Haggai’s desire of all nations, and to bring forth the people sitting in darkness and in the valley of the shadow of death, to feel the enlivening beams of the moral sun, the dawn of which ]Ialachi foresaw, and to catch the healing virtues which he shakes from the golden 2)lumage of his wings.”

This passage bears no trace of being inspired by a sudden and irresistible rapture at discovering in the modern missionary enterprise the issue, fulfilment, and consummation of what had been revealed to prophets and psalmists in the ancient days. It is a manufacture, not a creation — it is ingenuity, not eloquence.

Having stated his object, the preacher resolves to magnify and exalt it before he passes on. And lie does this by shewing “that such an object associates our cause, first, with the design of the Son of God in redemption;” secondly, “with the ultimate end of all providential arrangements;” thiixUy, “with the best interests of the human race:” and he illustrates and insists upon every one of these points with vehement energy. The following passage forms the first of these subdivisions: —

“The object of the Redeemer’s visit to our world was not to teach men the arts and the sciences — not to instruct them in letters — not to introduce the reign of philosophy — not to break the yoke of civil tyranny, nor to promulgate the best theory of human government; valuable as are these objects to the present interests of mankind, thoy are infinitely too low to be the end of the incarnation and death of the Son of God. For such pui-poses He would not have deigned to approach the horizon of our globe. No, my brethren, the one object of the humiUation of the tSon of God was the salvation of the human soul. And what must be the value of the salvation which was worthy of that humiliation 1 When Jesus Christ rose from the throne of His glory, it was to avert the curse which threatened to sink a guilty world to perdition, to roll back the torrent of damnation, and pour through its deserted channels the streams of salvation; to rescue innumerable millions of immortal spirits from the consequences of the fall, and lift them by the power of His grace from the borders of the flaming pit to the heavens of the great God. This was the favourite object on which His nund reposed from eternity — which He seemed in haste to disclose, as soon as the apostasy of man presented an opportunity — which He loved to announce to the world by the messages of the yrophets, and to exhibit in shadow by the sacrifices of the priests for four thousand years before its accomphshment. In seeking to save the souls of the heathen by bringing them to Christ, we raise ourselves into the dignity of a partnership with the Son of God in these His mighty designs; we enter into the fellowship of that cross which is destined to occupy eternity with the development of its wonders, and to fiU the universe with the brightness of its glory.”

The second principal division of the sermon is devoted to “the grand instrument of missionary exertions” — the doctrine of the cross: “And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.”

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“It was evidently our Lord’s intention to represent the conversion of the nations, not merely as a circumstance that would follow His death in the mere order of time, but as a consequence connected with it in the order of cause and effect.”

It could scarcely have been without consideration and design that the solid matter both of the first and second divisions was introduced by an attempt to stir the heart and excite the imagination. The description of the glories of Athens, and of the apostle who “bewailed a city of philosophers, with more intense and piercing grief than any of us ever did a horde of idolatrous savages,” precedes the three subordinate divisions under the first head; and before stating, under the second head, what is essentially included in the doctrine of the cross, illustrating the various powers of attraction which the doctrine of the cross exerts, and reviewing its past successes, he recalls “the splendid fable told of Coustantine’s conversion,” and exhorts “the hosts of our British Israel marshalled around this pulpit, and confederated in the mighty enterprise of wresting the empire of the world from the prince of darkness,” to “behold the cross suspended in the firmament of revelation, radiant with its own brightness, and inscribed with the ausiDicious motto, ‘By this, conquer.’” And lie contrasts Christian missions with the bloody Crusades of the middle ages, which, “in the midnight of superstition, disturbed the slumber of the globe, and, like a volcano, precipitated all Europe in a state of fusion upon the valleys of Judea.”

He includes in the doctrine of the cross, “the manner of Christ’s death;” “the design of Christ’s death, as an atonement for sin “the divinity of Christ’s person, as constituting the value of His satisfaction;” “the gratuitous manner in which its blessings are bestowed;” and “its moral tendency and design, as respects the heart and conduct of those by whom it is received:” giving to each of these particulars a separate paragraph; and finally con-, centrating all that he had said in the following passage: —

“It is not one of these, but all of them combined, which form the doctrine of the cross. Take either of them away, and the arch is destroyed, — all the rest sink together to the dust, a mass of splendid ruins, a heap of crumbling fragments. Without the atonement, the fact of the crucifixion appears to me a dark, unintelligible, inexplicable spot upon the page of revelation, connecting notlung, supporting nothing, explaining nothing: the atonement, xsithout the deity of Chiist, wants both the impress and the value to secure for it confidence; and acceptance of the atonement and the deity of Christ, TOthout the justification of the soul by faith, leaves the system without any link which can connect it -^v-ith the experience of the- sinner; while all together would be of no avail in his salvation, unless they secured his sanctification.”

He then passes to the second part of the same division, and illustrates the various powers of attraction which the doctrine of the cross exerts. His first point is, that the” stupendous fact arrests, and fixes the attention. ’

“The human mind, especially in its ruder states, where there is such a preponderance of imagination over reason, is much more easily and powerfully wrought upon by a narration of facts than a statement of principles; and the whole fabric of Christianity, both as to doctrines and duties, is founded upon a fact, and that fact ch-awn out into details more touching and tender than can be found in any history or in any romance. The life and the death of the ’ lan of sorrows,’ to all the sobriety and power of truth, unite the fascination of fiction. The veiled splendour of His deity, occasionally bursting through its thin disguise, and irradiating the gloom of His poverty — the extremity of His suflFerings, and the heart-affecting meekness ynth. which He bore them — the perfection of His virtues, together vdth. the unrelenting cruelty of His enemies — the mysterious combination of glory and meanness in His person and life — the garden of Gethsemane — the scenes of Pilate’s hall and the Mount of Calvary; — give a magic power to the story of the cross. But when we thus know that this was the incarnation and crucifixion of the Sou of God for a world of sinners, we arrive at the acme of all that is marvellous and interesting and sublime. History in its most extraordinary narrations, and imagination in its loftiest flights, are both left infinitely behind.”

Secondly, The doctrine of the cross, “as an exhibition of unparalleled love, melts and captivates the heart.” Thirdly, “As a system of mediation, it allays the fears of a guilty conscience.” Fourthly,

“By admitting an individual appropriation of its benefits, it appeals to all the feeUngs of self-regard and personal interest. It is the glory

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of the gospel, that wMle it makes an ample provision for the world, and invites the whole family of man to the feast, it lays all its blessings at the feet of every individual to whom it comes, and tells him that they are all for him, if he will accept them. It does not appraise the value of the human race by a method of calculation founded only on the mass of mankind, but represents every individual as an object of infinite importance, and of distinct and separate consideration in the view of Infinite Mercy.

“Think of the effect of this upon the mind of an obscure pagan, who, amidst the millions around him and above him, has no idea of his own individual importance; who, by a long series of cruel oppressions, has begun to lose all self-respect; who, under the debasing influence of tyranny, has reconciled himself to the thought of having no separate destiny or accountability, and of being a mere appendage to the establishment of some lordly master; — I say, conceive the effect of the gospel upon this man’s mind, when led forth by a missionary to Mount Calvary, and told that if he believe the truth, the Son of God died upon the cross for him, for no child of Adam rather than for him, as much for him as if he stood alone in need of a Saviour, and that all the blessings of salvation shall centre and settle in him. Do you think there is no attraction here 1”

Fifthly, “By the suitableness and certainty of its blessings, it awakens hope, and establishes faith.”

He then considers “the effects which the doctrine of the cross has already produced,” and rapidly, yet without hurry or confusion, tells the history of its triumphs in the apostolic age, first in Jerusalem, the very scene of the crucifixion, then in some of the great centres of paganism. A few vivid details are given to illustrate the depravity in which the apostles found their Gentile converts — Antioch and Corinth being taken as “instances selected from a general course of exertion and success.” And then the preacher shews that it was by “Jesus Christ, and Him crucified,” that these degraded people were delivered from the dark superstitions and darker vices of heathenism. The great religious revival at the time of the Reformation, and the success of modern missions, are traced to the same Divine and irresistible power.

The third principal division anticipates the filial consummation of missionary success. After somewhat limiting, with characteristic caution, the comprehensive declaration, that “all men shall

MISSIONARY SEK5I0X, yiXY 12, 1810. be brought to Christ,” he invites his hearers to “contemplate for a few moments the state of the earth, together with the means which are employed for its improvement,” affirming that there is very much in the present “exertions of the Christian world” to confirm and strengthen the highest anticipations. Then follows that view of the religious condition of mankind which it is supposed a pex’son might have who “occupied the station of the angel represented in the Apocalypse as standing in the sun.” There is, however, scarcely any attempt to exhibit what had been principally promised, “the glories of the final consummation of missionary success.” It is plain that the preacher gave scarcely any pains to this part of the discourse. Perhaps he was sensible that after the rich and brilliant colouring of the first two divisions, the attempt to place vividly before the congregation the vision of the world filled with the holiness and joy of heaven would produce weariness rather than delight.

Let me pause here for a moment, to call attention to the fulness and strength of the tide of thought by which the congregation has been swept along. By shewing the identity between the object of the missionary enterprise, on the one hand, and the great design of Christ as the Saviour of men, the ultimate end of all the complex movements of the Divine Providence, and the highest interest of the human race, on the other, — the preacher has ennobled his theme, and given it an air of impressive grandeur. By presenting a brief yet comprehensive summary of the most important truths of the Christian faith, and affirming that these constitute the instrument of missionary success, he has pressed into his service the fervent attachment of his audience to the evangelical confession, — an attachment which would have been unshaken by imprisonment and by the prospect of death. By illustrating the various powers of attraction which these truths possess, he has built up a moral argument on their behalf, in which all who heard him would greatly exult, and at the same time recalled the most sacred and solemn passages of their own spiritual history; for the heart of every Christian there, had been won from sin and wretchedness to God by the very charm and constraining power that he described.

LIFE OF JOHN ANGELL JAJIES.

And although both the argument and declamation under the third division, on “the final consummation of missionary success,” are deficient in vigour, they probably derived from the ardent manner of the preacher and the enthusiasm of his audience a power not properly their own.

Among those passages which I have quoted, there are several in which the thought is not only just and sound, — the two most important characteristics of all thought, — but also striking and impressive. The purpose, however, for which I have given this analysis is chiefly to shew how much of truth was naturally and without any show of eflbrt introduced into the discussion and development of the preacher’s principal idea; and it is the truth which a sermon contains which gives it power. Is there not some reason to fear that this has been too much forgotten? There is often in modern sermons a great deal of thought about the truth, sometimes very fresh and beautiful, and sometimes very ludicrous in its pretensions to freshness and beauty; but there is too little of the actual statement of the truth itself. It may be doubted whether some of those who most firmly and affectionately adhere to the doctrines commonly described as evangelical, have obtained a sufficient mastery of theological science to be able to wield the doctrines they believe with much effect. The decline of the study of systematic theology has greatly enfeebled the English pulpit.

It should be remembered that it requires far higher intellectual power, and more strenuous intellectual effort, to present Sunday after Sunday the very truth of God clearly and impressively, without wearisome iteration of the same forms of thought, the same illustrations and the same language, than to interest a congregation with our own thoughts and reflections on spiritual topics. But, I repeat, it is the truth itself, and not our striking thoughts about it, in which spiritual power lies.

What would a minister try to say to the troubled heart of his dying child who was longing for rest in God, and seemed to long in vain; or to his aged parent, on whom the sorrows of sixty or seventy years had been wasted? He would try to reproiluce as vividly as he could the very substance of what God had taught him on those awful questions that startle and oppress us when our thoughts “wander through eternity.” And, if I mistake not, he would soon discover that to do this again and again, without indolent and repelling repetition, would tax his powers far more severely than those discourses of his which were most rich in “striking” and “original” ideas.

To return to the sermon. In the successive appeals with which it closes to the directors, the missionaries, the ministers, and the general congregation, the preacher exerts all his strength. He does not forget that Dr BogTie is in the gallery, and that now is the time for reasserting the necessity of giving to the missionaries ‘■ every opportimity of acquiring those qualifications which are pre-eminently important in their situation.”

“I speak,” he says, “the sentiments of all my brethren in the ministry with whom I have conversed on the subject, when I respectfully but urgently advise a lengthened term of education for such of our missionaries as are destined to the East. It is our opinion that four years are quite little enough for the literary and theological education of men who are to preach the doctrines of the gospel in a strange language, and to present them pure as they were revealed from heaven, in a faithful translation of the sacred volume. In this country, valuable as are hterary attainments, — and highly valuable they are everywhere, — a minister may discharge the duties of his office vdth. considerable success, although he be ignorant of eveiy language but his ovra; and even should he unhappily swei-ve from the truth, there are many on eveiy hand to pluck up the weeds of error as fast as they arise in the garden of the Lord- But what is a missionary to do without a hterary education, who cannot hold a conversation vdth a pagan tiU he has acquired a foreign tongue — who cannot distribute a tract tiU he is able to translate it into a language, the gemus and stmcture of which are totally chssimilar to any with which he is acquamted? The work of translating the Scriptures is of immen.se importance, and of no small cUfficulty, and should not be entrusted to unskilful hands. One imperfect version of the Bible may pollute the crystal stream of revelation for ages, and one error in theology planted amongst the heathen may luxuriate amidst almost boundless space. First versions and first systems of doctrine deUvered to the converts from idolatry should be as perfect as possible, since these are the models of others which succeed, and in addition to the circumstilnce of propagatmg their own imperfections, if any such attach to them, they soon acquire the veneration which is paid to antiquity, and cover their errors with the defence

LIFE OF JOHN ANGELL JAMES.

of this sacred shield. I can assure the directors that any increase of expense incurred by renewed attention to civilisation in barbarous countries, and by an extended literary education being given to their missionaries going to the East, will be most cheerfully defrayed by increased liberality on the part of their constituents.”

The appeal to the congregation, responded to on the spot by the largest collection ever made after the Surrey Chapel sermon, is marked by great impetuosity and vehemence: —

“If anything can be needed to excite your benevolence, I bring forward this morning five petitions, each soHciting your assistance, and each sufficient of itseK to merit the greatest liberaHty.

“The first is littered in the groans of six hundred millions of human beings, who, as they pass before you on their way to eternity, repeat that imploring language, ‘Come over and help us.’ The second is from several hundred missionaries, who, looking around upon the immeasurable scene of their labours, urge the admonition of their Master, ‘The harvest is great, but the labourers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send more labourers into his harvest.’ The third is from the directors, ’ stating that their expenditure this year has exceeded their receipts above five thousand poimds, and entreating that they may not be forced to slacken their exertions for want of funds to support them, which must inevitably be the case unless they are encouraged to go forward by increased liberality on the part of their constituents.’ The fourth is from heaven, borne to us by the spirits of departed missionaries, who hover over our assembly this morning, ’ beseeching us to carry on with renewed vigour that cause in which they sacrificed their lives, and the magnitude and importance of which, amidst all their zeal for its interests, they never perfectly knew tiU they were surrounded with the scenes of the eternal world.’ The fifth is — will you believe it? — from heU. Yes, directed to your hearts in the shriek of despair, comes the solicitation of many a lost soul in prison, ‘Oh, send a missionary to my father’s house, where I have yet five brethren, that he may testify to them, that they come not to this place of torment!’ You cannot reply to this, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’ What hearts you must possess if you can be deaf to such pleas, and can turn away such petitions unrelieved! Have you arrived at the very limit of your ability, and is every private resource exhausted? Then let us go to the treasury of the sanctuary, let us melt down the church plate, and convert even that into a means of sending the gospel to the heathen, assured that if we have nothing else to give, it will be more acceptable to our divine Lord to see it so employed, than to behold it gUttering upon His sacramental board But do not plead such a necessity till you have surrendered the luxuries of your own houses, till the gorgeous display upon your own tables is given up. The mere tithe of extravagance would support all the missionary and Bible societies in existence magnified to ten times their present extent. A showy and lavish profusion in our habits is not only injurious to our own spiritual interests, but also to the interests of others. It is a felony upon the fund of mercj’. Frugality is the best financier of philanthi-opy, and one of the most important auxiliaries of the missionary cause.”

The impression produced by the sermon on most of those who heard it, and on thousands in eveiy part of the country by whom it was eagerly read on its publication, it is scarcely possible to describe without appearing to be guilty of the wildest exaggeration. During the forty years which have passed since it was delivered, the popular type of excellence has been so completely altered, that those passages which once excited the greatest admiration are now regarded as its greatest blemishes. Excitement, no matter how tumultuous, was the universal craving, and the stimulants by which it was produced were of the most violent description. Every one who has read Sheridan’s speeches knows that, only a few years before, the House of Commons itself was willing to be intoxicated by what seems to us the muddiest and most fiery rhetorical wine; — how soon the taste will change again we cannot predict; — but the slightest acquaintance with the history of literature should teach us, that while the really great and original thinkers of every age, men who have extended the boundaries of human thought, or have been able by speech or song profoundly to aflPect the hearts of men, are sure of immortality, the mere literary costume of to-day, which is the solitary claim of many writers and many preachers to an imaginary superiority over their predecessors, will seem as antiquated forty years hence as the shoebuckles and wigs of our grandfathers are now, and can confer no lasting fame.

Let this missionary sermon be judged by those elements of power which it contains over the permanent principles and passions of human nature, not by the conformity of its style with that of the preaching or the literature which happens just now to be most popular, and the secret of its success will be discovered.