ct. It is wonderful with what
electrical rapidity the soothing suggestion has spread abroad. It is so
insidious and speciously good, that it has found its way, like an angel
of light, to the best hearts and holiest places. Indeed, it is a point
very difficult to be determined; and many judge no doubt with perfect
correctness, when they decide to act in this way. The danger consists in
the eager rush and universal resort. To be sensible that there is such a
rush, begin and enumerate. Directors and officers of various
societies--and they are not few--of theological seminaries too, and of
colleges, think they are employed in furnishing the requisite men, the
requisite means, and the requisite instrumentalities, and so are
preaching to the heathen by proxy. Among ministers, the talented and
eloquent, the learned and the influential, think they must labor in the
important field at home; keep the churches in a state to operate upon
the world, and so preach to the heathen by proxy. Ministers generally,
about eleven thousand eight hundred out of twelve thousand, are zealous
for training up young men, and think in that way of preaching to the
heathen by proxy. Pious men of wealth, and those who are in
circumstances to acquire wealth, or imagine that they have a talent to
acquire it, profess to be accumulating the necessary means, and to be
thus preaching to the heathen by proxy. Sabbath-school teachers, fathers
and mothers, are fond of the notion of raising up children to be
missionaries, and of thus preaching by proxy. Proxy is the universal
resort. Now _some_ proxy effort, and much indeed, is proper and
indispensable; but must it not strike every mind, that such a universal
and indiscriminate resort to it is utterly unreasonable?

How often do we hear the exhortation, "Let mothers consecrate their
children to the missionary work in their earliest infancy. Let them be
taught, as they grow up, that to labor among the heathen is the most
glorious work on earth. Let teachers in Sabbath-schools impart such
instructions, and ministers in their pulpits. Let ministers and elders
search out young men, urge them to engage in the work of missions, and
let the churches educate them for that end, and pray for them that their
zeal fail not. Let no pains be spared and no efforts be wanting, to
raise up and send forth a large body of young men to labor for the
heathen."

Now in regard to such an effort, every reflecting mind can see that it