It is the wrong problem, we say then, to which our essayists have set themselves down. The missionary problem, we hold, is nothing different from the problem every minister must solve—it is, how shall we let down the net on the right side of the ship? But the problems our authors have been working, is, how shall we enclose every fish that swims in the wide sea? The great vessel of humanity has lain stranded for five thousand years and more, fast at stem and stern-but now also the breakers are a-head setting in with tempestuous fury, under midnight-darkness, and from a sea on which there is much sorrow.' In these circumstances, the only question, we are persuaded, that should occupy our attention, is this, how can we with the greatest expedition bring the life-boat along side, and present its free refuge to all who will avail themselves of it. Nothing, however, will gratify our friends, unless they be able to tow out the disabled vessel from among the reefs on which she has struck, and launched her as gaily as in the days of her youth.

It cannot, therefore, be we who address ourselves to an enterprise in which hope lends no aid, but our essayists.

6

Dr Harris, p. 120, pities all who are committed to our views, as working without hope, and predicts that in consequence they will soon cease to work at all. But they who have placed themselves in this predicament as to the missionary cause, are not they who set forth, saying as they go, the election will obtain it,' but they whom nothing else will satisfy than a new heaven and a new earth. And we cannot refrain from adding, that this view, which we argue for, is the one that requires the more spiritual state of mind, though Mr Hamilton, pp. 269, 270, complacently tells us that men who have not the mind of Christ, can admire, appreciate, and desire our views, men of spiritual apprehension of heavenly temper, partakers of the divine nature alone can delight themselves in his. To those, however, who can look somewhat deeper, than this loose declaimer, it will at once occur, that the statement must needs be reversed to coincide with truth. Of such a millennium as he contends for, all poets have sung, and the most gentile taste could always relish it. But introduce election into the question, and none will love the vision and linger over it, but they who have been renewed by the Holy Ghost, to prefer the glory of Christ as their chiefest joy.

It is curious to notice how coolly men talk of the instrumentality that will retrieve a world-and these not our essayists only, but such men as Douglas and Taylor. You would think that the whole data of the question were patent, and that they knew the capabilities of every power that will bear upon the issue, just as in a common problem of dynamics-they speak so confidently and so defini

tively. Printing,' says Douglas, by its unlimited multiplication. of copies supplying materials for universal education-and universal education creating a demand for copies that proceeds without any assignable term-these are the two great means to bring about the moral revolution of the world-quickly will they gain the mastery over the powers that are not-the idols of polytheism.' Those,' says Taylor,+ who are accustomed to read the future in the past, will not find it easy to resist the belief that a christianizing of the world is to be the consequence of that singular conjuncture of circumstances, which makes this country at the same moment, the centre of colonization, and the centre of the long inert, but now active law of evangelical diffusion.' Yet however inconsistent it may be with such views, it is clear, that these very writers did at other times regard the moral forces now in operation as little capable of changing the character of earth. It seems as if it were only when considering missions under trammel of current ideas, that they could write as in these passages; and no sooner do they escape into a freer space, and look through a transparent medium on the tendencies of the world, than they adopt a very different estimate. The conviction,' says Douglas, that great changes are about to arrive, is strengthened by every view of society which can be taken the war of opinion is already begun-and the warfare of opposing forces must inevitably follow.' And,' says Taylor,§ it must be granted as possible, that the contest which is now actually taking place between the principle of religious belief, and the atheistical spirit, a spirit of vigour, intelligence, contumacy and levity, may go on to the advantage of the latter, until its languishing opponent lies in the dust, or is driven into the wilderness.' No doubt there is much increase of gospel light. But this will only occasion the more desperate resistance on the part of them who rule the spiritual darkness, until the two parties have approached to an equality, when nothing but the interposition of Heaven will save the cause of truth and scatter the foe.

It is not just, however, because we affirm this, to reproach us with substituting the instrumentality of judgment for the instrumentality of truth, as throughout their volumes our essayists do. Dr Harris correctly styles judgments the pioneers' of God, and this is all we would ever contend for. They are but the artillery, like the stars which fought against Sisera, under cover of which the armies of

"Hints," p. 32. With many striking views, these "Hints" are not worthy of their author. They breathe the spirit rather of a shrewd politician, than develop the scheme of a spiritually-minded Christian.

+Four Lectures," p. 180.

5 Saturday Evening."

+ Thoughts on Prayer."

the living God will approach the citadel of antichrist, and it will be fully up to what any one expects, if they but open a breach for the entrance of truth, and remove from the very frontiers of the world those awful fortresses that have so long commanded its empire. This is all that is averred; but to this at least must the argument come, if the entire testimony of Scripture is not to be emasculated and enigmatized on the principles of neology. Subordinate and collateral instrumentality, it cannot be denied, has at all times largely entered into the administration of grace; and it would be an utter dereliction from all analogy, did we find the Mediatorial economy finally established upon earth in another way. The word shall go forth, neither can it return void. Great shall be the company of those who publish it, and the ends of the earth shall hear their voice. Still it will need the thunder to discharge the cloud and send down the rain. The earthquake must grasp the hills, and cast them into ruin, ere straight paths are made for the conqueror's feet. The fire, the whirlwind, and the hammer,— then the still small voice.

Nor is it less certain that we are on the eve of such a crisis; and therefore we cannot but regret here also, that our essayists have not brought this view to bear upon their cause. Surely, if we can almost descry those judgments that are to break antichrist in pieces, we will sound the alarm to a slumbering world with a more earnest tone, and at the same time so put the energies of Christianity in readiness, that she may avail herself of every change. On every account, therefore, a due consideration of our period, as one of hastening conflict and crowded eventfulness, must operate with impressive advantage upon the mind of Christ's church. But who will deny that our period is what we maintain? All the dates of prophecy and all the signs of providence concur in assuring us that things are coming to a point. The tacklings are loosed. Even Dr Harris and Mr Hamilton seem to admit, that the sixth vial is pouring out its last dregs. Why not tell us also, that after this is done, the seventh will without an interval discharge its amazing tempest? Such an element was essential to the full elucidation of missionary claims; and had it been faithfully represented, it would effectually have aided the cause. We may tell the church, with every figure of speech, and in every tone of pathos, that the world lieth in wickedness, and that it must be restored to Christ. But leaving God to drain off the floods of ungodliness from this ashamed and mourning earth, in his own time, and with an aim that subdues all things to itself, the grand concern of every spiritual man is just to proclaim over every land,-the deluge is rising, behold the ark! Our crown of rejoicing above, will not be a regenerated earth, but ransomed souls!

We close with a deep sentiment of Taylor's, well worthy of being pondered by all friends to the missionary cause, and especially valuable to the Church of Scotland in this perilous strait of her history. The missionary zeal has been sent down upon us, not merely, not chiefly, perhaps,-as the means of converting the nations, but as a spirit of burning and of judgment. It ferments in the lump to separate the precious from the vile,—to make manifest who are on the Lord's side, and who, by the confession implied in their conduct, are to be numbered with his foes. Then it penetrates more deeply into the mass of profession. But the work of the Refiner is not yet perfected. Think we that he is content with what has been accomplished, or will stay his hand, just at the moment when the fine gold is bursting forth from the dross. Assuredly not. He will rather urge the heat in confident hope of the issue. It is sublimely affecting to look round and see in what manner we are shut up,-shut up beyond the possibility of escape, -into the hand of Him who is dealing with us. Omnipotent both for judgment and mercy, and stern in the determination of awful beneficence, and wise to catch us in our own craftiness, he has been leading the church into the snare of its own zeal for its good." Would to God that he led all by these remarks to search our ways! There is no little boasting, arrogant enough, of missions in these essays, and everywhere; but surely when we consider how they may be working to discriminate and rebuke, such a spirit ought to be exchanged for sackcloth, and mourning, and fear. Many are at their wit's end as to what is befalling our Zion, and they cannot understand how all this convulsion should take place, when missionary zeal had broken out so purely among us. But may the explanation of our calamities not be found in the probability, that it is by missions God is testing our church and will distinguish its members? Let us express our own conviction, that the missionary spirit of the church has as much to do with its present difficulties, as the more avowed points of combat,-and that just the farther, therefore, we imbibed this spirit, and urged our schemes, the wider must the chasm between the parties open, until eventually they could no more unite and co-operate, than the angels of light and the powers of darkness.

"New Model," pp. 116, 117.

ART. IV.-The Office and Work of the Holy Spirit. By the Rev. JAMES BUCHANAN, one of the ministers of the High Church, Edinburgh, &c. Edinburgh: Johnston. 1842.

It is a token for good to the interests of vital godliness that there is so much increased attention to the work of the Holy Spirit. Wheresoever spiritual life is strong, it has its origin, and derives its daily nourishment from cherished dependence on the Spirit of God. Nothing, therefore, is more symptomatic of a low and earthly tone of feeling in the church, than indifference in regard to his operations and living agency. It dries up the streams of spiritual life-it tells that the fountains are already running low. It is only the dead church that entirely disregards or denies-only the declining church that overlooks or undervalues the promise of the Father. And nothing tends more to ensure the Holy Spirit's departure, than indifference to his presence. No degree of previous or present deadness will repel him from the awakening church, which he hath taught to feel and mourn over his absence; but no degree of previous or present liveliness will long detain him in the church which, notwithstanding his teaching, undervalues his presence or overlooks his agency. Wheresoever, and in whatever way the Holy Spirit is thus neglected-though it should be through professed dependance on the very grace he has himself already bestowed, the injurious effects will soon appear. In failing duly to acknowledge the Spirit of life, a lively church will speedily decline, a declining church will speedily fall dead. The forms of godliness may for a season remain entire, but its vital power will all evaporate; the outer movements, as of spiritual life, may still be put forth, but the life itself will be quenched. But though this result, unless prevented by a fresh outpouring of the Spirit in the free spontaneous grace of God, be inevitable, there are still many different stages and aspects in which this incipient and progressive deadness will appear. In its first aspect-in the case of a church which has been sound and lively in the faith, and still holds in possession some venerable form of sound words, handed down, perhaps, as an heir-loom from better days-it not unfrequently appears, in the unconscious substitution of zeal for the doctrines of christianity, in place of love to Christ himself-in a rigid but impersonal adherence to the dead letter of a sound confession, instead of a clinging personal adherence to Jesus as the living head of the new covenant. Placing little reliance on the personal teaching of God's Spirit, their doctrines are drawn from creeds and compared with confessions through fear of being judged by others, instead of being ga