ary is a
harbinger of the good time coming. When he preaches the Gospel to a
tribe which has long sat in darkness, the signs of the coming of the Son
of Man are displayed, The glorious Sun of Righteousness is near the
horizon. He is the herald of the dawn, for come He will whose right it
is to reign; and what a prospect appears, when we think of the golden
age which has not been, but must yet come! Messiah has sat on the Hill
of Zion for 1800 years. He has been long expecting that his enemies
shall be made his footstool; and may we not expect, too, and lift up our
heads, seeing the redemption of the world draweth nigh? The bow in the
cloud once spread its majestic arch over the smoke of the fat of lambs
ascending as a sweet-smelling savor before God--a sign of the covenant
of peace--and the flickering light of the Shechinah often intimated the
good-will of Jehovah. But these did not more certainly show the presence
of the Angel of the Covenant than does the shaking among the nations the
presence and energy of God's Holy Spirit; and to be permitted to rank as
a fellow-worker with Him is a mercy of mercies. O Love Divine! how cold
is our love to Thee! True, the missionary of the present day is only a
stepping-stone to the future; but what a privilege he possesses! He is
known to "God manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of
angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received
up into Glory." Is that not enough?

Who would not be a missionary? His noble enterprise is in exact
accordance with the spirit of the age, and what is called the spirit of
the age is simply the movement of multitudes of minds in the same
direction. They move according to the eternal and all-embracing decrees
of God. The spirit of the age is one of benevolence, and it manifests
itself in numberless ways--ragged schools, baths and wash-houses,
sanitary reform, etc. Hence missionaries do not live before their time.
Their great idea of converting the world to Christ is no chimera: it is
Divine. Christianity will triumph. It is equal to all it has to
perform. It is not mere enthusiasm to imagine a handful of missionaries
capable of converting the millions of India. How often they are cut off
just after they have acquired the language! How often they retire with
broken-down constitutions before effecting anything! How often they drop
burning tears over their own feebleness amid the defections of those
they believed to be c