eriment been tried to justify such a
supposition? When and where have individuals or companies gone forth
with the sole design of benefiting the heathen, and yet proved their
extermination? The settlers of New England are not an example in point,
for the improvement and salvation of the heathen was not their main aim.
It was indeed an idea in mind, but not fully and prominently carried
out. It is _yet to be proved_ that a company of persons, however
numerous, of disinterested views, aiming solely to save the nations, and
directing all their energies of body and of mind to that end, would
prove the extermination of the heathen, instead of their salvation.

Neither can it be presumed that the descendants of such persons,
trained, as ought to be supposed, with faith and prayer, would possess a
spirit so selfish and different from that of their fathers, as to prove
the extermination of the heathen. And if such is the necessary event,
what is the conclusion at which we must arrive? It seems certain, that a
mere handful of missionaries cannot put forth the instrumentality which,
according to God's usual providence, is necessary to save them: that a
great number and variety of laborers are needed to do the work. Let us
be slow, therefore, to trust in the objection; for if it must be
admitted, the lawful inference will not necessarily be, that Christians
of all classes and in great numbers should not go forth to the heathen;
but the inquiry will arise, whether heathen nations as nations must not
cease to exist, and remnants of them only be saved--a painful and dread
alternative, from which every benevolent heart must instinctively
recoil.

_There are other reasons why laymen should engage in the work of
missions._ The work of the world's conversion is too great, too
momentous and too pressing, to admit of exemption simply on the ground
of profession or employment. When the liberties of a people are at
stake, how few are excused from the field of battle? But now the
question is not one of temporal liberty: it is whether six hundred
millions of the human race shall be won to the company of the redeemed
on high, or left to sink in the untold agonies of the world of woe. In
this unparalleled emergency, when the question is, whether the destiny
of a world shall be heaven or hell, who can be excused on so slight a
ground as that of profession or employment? A few ministers cannot do
the work. It is too great. It is presumptuous to e