ct of his life, will be
ready to answer--"Here am I "; while those who are surrounded by the
cares and comforts of this world, have so many earthly claims and
relations to adjust, that the general result will be that of standing
still, and the enquiry,--"Who will go for us? "--will sound unwelcome
to the ear, will chill, not animate, the noblest sympathies of the
heart, and set the seal of silence on the lips. It is not meant
absolutely to say that every man should become a Missionary, in the
proper sense of the term. "There are diversities of gifts, but the
same Spirit; and there are differences of administrations, but the
same Lord" (1 Cor. 12. 4). While one has that ministration of the
Spirit which leads him to go and preach the gospel in person, another
shows that he is guided by the same Spirit in carefully supplying the
wants of him who thus goes "taking nothing of the Heathen" (3 John
7), from the abundance yielded by devoted diligence in his honest
vocation, and by rigid habits of self-denial.[6]

Again, consider the important command, "Love thy neighbour as
thyself" (Leviticus 19. 18). Can we, with any truth, be said to love
that neighbour as ourselves, whom we suffer to starve, whilst we have
enough and to spare? May I not appeal to any, who have experienced
the Joy of knowing the unspeakable gift of God, and ask--Would you
exchange this knowledge, with all the comforts and blessings it has
been the means of imparting, for a hundred worlds, were they offered?
Let us not then withhold the means by which others may obtain this
sanctifying knowledge and heavenly consolation. Is it a profitable
employment of our wealth, to raise it as a bulwark against those
difficulties, which, if they meet even the children's children of the
servants of God, are sent as especial proofs of their Father's
love--for what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not?--and are
designed to work out for them a far more exceeding and eternal weight
of glory? Are not these very difficulties, dangers, and afflictions,
against which we so anxiously desire to provide, the very marks by
which Jesus Christ himself, his Apostles and Prophets, and all the
chosen servants of God, have ever been distinguished, and the means
by which they have been perfected.[7] Can then our wealth be so
beneficially employed, either with reference to our own advantage or
that of others, in removing from our Christian course these means of
advancement, and characteri