onverts! Yes! but that small band has the decree of
God on its side. Who has not admired the band of Leonidas at the pass of
Thermopylae? Three hundred against three million. Japhet, with the decree
of God on his side, only 300 strong, contending for enlargement with
Shem and his 3,000,000. Consider what has been effected during the last
fifty years. There is no vaunting of scouts now. No Indian gentlemen
making themselves merry about the folly of thinking to convert the
natives of India; magnifying the difficulties of caste; and setting our
ministers into brown studies and speech-making in defense of missions.
No mission has yet been an entire failure. We who see such small
segments of the mighty cycles of God's providence often imagine some to
be failures which God does not. Eden was such a failure, The Old World
was a failure under Noah's preaching. Elijah thought it was all up with
Israel. Isaiah said: "Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the
arm of the Lord revealed?" And Jeremiah wished his head were waters, his
eyes a fountain of tears, to weep over one of God's plans for diffusing
his knowledge among the heathen. If we could see a larger arc of the
great providential cycle, we might sometimes rejoice when we weep; but
God giveth not account of any of his matters. We must just trust to his
wisdom. Let us do our duty. He will work out a glorious consummation.
Fifty years ago missions could not lift up their heads. But missions now
are admitted by all to be one of the great facts of the age, and the
sneers about "Exeter Hall" are seen by every one to embody a _risus
sardonicus_. The present posture of affairs is, that benevolence is
popular. God is working out in the human heart his great idea, and all
nations shall see his glory.

Let us think highly of the weapons we have received for the
accomplishment of our work. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal
but spiritual, and mighty through God to the casting down of
strongholds. They are--Faith in our Leader, and in the presence of his
Holy Spirit; a full, free, unfettered Gospel; the doctrine of the cross
of Christ,--an old story, but containing the mightiest truths ever
uttered--mighty for pulling down the strongholds of sin, and giving
liberty to the captives. The story of Redemption, of which Paul said, "I
am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ," is old, yet in its vigor,
eternally young.

This work requires zeal for God and love for souls. It need