e offer of gold and silver have been tried, but
in vain. Effort and means have given place to horror and despair. The
prospect before you is the scaffold, the block, a yawning grave, and a
dread eternity. In this extremity a friend appears, and offers to be
substituted in your place. The offer is accepted. You, pale, emaciated,
and horror-stricken, are brought from your dungeon to behold once more
the light of day. The irons are knocked off from your hands and
feet--your tattered garments exchanged for cleanly apparel--and a ship
is in readiness to convey you to the land of your birth and the bosom
of your friends. The vital current of your soul, so long chilled and
wasted, now flows again with warmth and vigor; your eyes are lighted up,
and tears of joy burst forth like a flood. But, in the midst of your
joy, you are told of your deliverer. You turn, and behold! the irons
that were upon you are fastened upon him--he is clothed in your tattered
garments--is about to be led to your gloomy dungeon--lie on your bed of
straw, and thence to be taken in your stead to the scaffold or the
block. You throw yourself at his feet, and entreat him to desist; but
when you find his purpose fixed, you finally wish you had a thousand
hearts to feel the gratitude you owe, and ten thousand tongues to give
it utterance.

The Lord Jesus Christ has done for us all this, and unspeakably _more_.
We were under condemnation. The sentence of God's righteous law was
against us. The flaming sword of Divine vengeance was unsheathed. All
above and around us were the dark frowns of the Almighty and the red
lightnings of his wrath. Beneath us was not merely a damp dungeon, but
the bottomless pit yawning to receive us, and its flames ascending to
envelope our guilty souls. There was no escape. The prospect was
weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth--the agony of Jehovah's frown
forever. In this extremity the Saviour appeared--substituted himself in
our stead--bare our sins in his own body on the tree--received upon his
own agonized soul what was our due, and thus delivered us from the
untold horrors of eternal death, and opened before us the gate of
heaven.

To save the lost, then, was the spirit of Christ. The apostles imbibed
this spirit. _It is the spirit of missions._ The heathen are in a lost
condition. If we have the spirit of Christ we shall do what we can to
save them. The spirit of missions is not something different from, or
superadded to,