To say that the principle of disinterested benevolence had never been known among men before the publication of Christianity would be an exaggeration;—an exaggeration very similar to that of affirming that the doctrine of immortality was new to mankind when taught by our Lord. In truth, the one had, in every age, been imperfectly practised, and the other dimly supposed; yet neither the one principle nor the other existed in sufficient strength to be the source of any very substantial benefit to mankind. But Christ, while he emphatically "brought life and immortality to light," and so claimed to be the Author of hope for man, did also with such effect lay the hand of his healing power upon the human heart, long palsied by sensualities and selfishness, that it has ever since shed forth a fountain of active kindness, largely available for the relief of want and misery.

As a matter of history, unquestionable and conspicuous, Christianity has, in every age, fed the hungry, and clothed the naked, and redeemed the captive, and visited the sick. It has put to shame the atrocities of the ancient popular amusements, and has annihilated sanguinary rites, and has brought slavery into disesteem and disuse, and has abolished excruciating punishments: it has even softened the ferocity of war; and, in a word, is seen constantly at work, edging away oppressions, and moving on towards the perfect triumph which avowedly it meditates—that of removing from the earth every woe which the inconsideration, or the selfishness, or the malignancy of man inflicts upon his fellows.

It remains, then, to ask, By what special means has Christianity effected these ameliorations? and it will be found, that the power and success of that new principle of benevolence which is taught in the Scriptures, are not more remarkable than are its constitution and its ingredients. Christian philanthropy, though it takes up among its elements the native benevolence of the human heart, is a compound principle, essentially differing from the spontaneous sympathies of our nature. Now, as this new and composite benevolence has, by a trial of eighteen centuries, and under every imaginable diversity of circumstance, proved its practical efficiency, and its immense superiority over the crude elementary principle of mere kindness, it would be a violation of the acknowledged methods of modern science to adhere pertinaciously to the old and inefficient element, and to contemn the improved principle. All we have to do on an occasion wherein the welfare of our fellows is so deeply interested, is to take care that our own benevolence, and the benevolence which we recommend to others, is of the true and genuine sort; in other words, that it is Christian. If, as every one would profess, we desire to live, not for selfish pleasure, but to promote the happiness of others, if we would become, not idle well-wishers to our species, not closet philanthropists, dreaming of impracticable reforms, and grudging the cost of any effective relief, but real benefactors to mankind, we must take up the lessons of New Testament philanthropy, just as they lie on the page before us, and without imagining simpler methods, follow humbly in the track of experience. By this Book alone have men been effectively taught to do good.

A low rate of activity, prompted merely by the spontaneous kindness of the heart, may easily take place without incurring the danger of enthusiastical excesses; but how is enough of moral movement to be obtained for giving impulse to a course of arduous and perilous labors such as the woes of mankind often call for, and yet without generating the extravagances of a false excitement? This is a problem solved only by the Christian scheme, and in briefly enumerating the peculiarities of the benevolence which it inspires, we shall not fail to catch a glimpse, at least, of that profound skill which makes provision, on the one side against inertness and selfishness, and on the other against enthusiasm.

The peculiarities of Christian philanthropy are such as these: it is vicarious, obligatory, rewardable, subordinate to an efficient agency, and it is an expression of grateful love.

I. That great principle of vicarious suffering which forms the centre of Christianity, spreads itself through the subordinate parts of the system, and is the pervading, if not the invariable law of Christian beneficence.

The spontaneous sympathies of human nature, when they are vigorous enough to produce the fruits of charity, rest on an expectation of an opposite kind; for we first seek to dispel from our own bosoms the uneasy sensation of pity; then look for the gratitude of the wretch we have solaced, and for the approbation of spectators; and then take a sweet after-draught of self-complacency. But the Christian virtue of beneficence stands altogether on another ground; and its doctrine is this, that whoever would remedy misery must himself suffer; and that the pains of the vicarious benefactor are generally to bear proportion to the extent or malignity of the evils he labors to remove: so that, while the philanthropist who undertakes the cure only of the transient ills of the present life, may encounter no greater amount of toils or discouragements than are amply recompensed by the immediate gratifications of successful benevolence, he who, with a due sense of the greatness of the enterprise, devotes himself to the removal of the moral wretchedness in which human nature is involved, will find that the sad quality of these deeper woes is in a manner reflected back upon himself; and that to touch the substantial miseries of degenerate man is to come within the infection of infinite sorrow.

And this is the law of success in the Christian ministry—that highest work of philanthropy. Every right-minded and heaven-commissioned minister of religion is "baptized with the baptism wherewith his Lord was baptized." In an inferior, yet a real sense, he is, like his Lord, a vicarious person, and has freely undergone a suretyship for the immortal welfare of his fellow-men. He has charged himself with a responsibility that can never be absolutely acquitted while any power of exertion or faculty of endurance is held back from the service. The interests which rest in his hand, and depend on his skill and fidelity—depend, as truly as if divine agency had no part in the issue—are as momentous as infinity can make them; nor are they to be promoted without a willingness to do and to bear the utmost of which humanity is capable. Although the servant of Christ be not unconditionally responsible for the happy result of his labors, he is clearly bound, both by the terms of his engagement and the very quality of the work, to surrender whatever he may possess that has in it a virtue to purchase success; and he knows that, by the great law of the spiritual world, the suffering of a substitute enters into the procedures of redemption.

He who "took our sorrows and bore our griefs," left, for the instruction of his servants, a perfect model of what should ordinarily be a life of beneficence. Every circumstance of privation, of discouragement, of insult, of deadly hostility, which naturally fell in the way of a ministry like his, exercised among a people profligate, malignant, and fanatical, was endured by him as submissively as if no extraordinary powers of relief or defence had been at his disposal.

On the very same conditions of unmitigated toil and suffering he consigned the publication of his religion to his apostles: "Ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake: Whosoever killeth you shall think that he doeth God service: Behold, I send you forth as sheep among wolves." Though endowed with an opulence of supernatural power for the attestation of their commission, the apostles possessed none for the alleviation of their own distresses; none which might tend to generate a personal enthusiasm by leading them to think that they, as individuals, were the darlings of Heaven. And in fact, they daily found themselves, even while wielding the arm of omnipotence, exposed to the extremest pressures of want, to pain, to destitution, to contempt. "Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling place." Such was the deplorable lot, such to his last year of houseless wanderings, houseless except when a dungeon was his home, of the most honored of Heaven's agents on earth. Such was the life of the most successful of all philanthropists!

Nor have the conditions of eminent service been relaxed: the value of souls is not lowered; and as the "sacrifice once offered" for the sins of the world remains in undiminished efficacy, so, in the process of diffusing the infinite benefit, the rule originally established continues in force; and although reasons drawn from the diversity of character and of natural strength, among those who are the servants of God, may occasion great apparent differences in the amount of suffering severally endured by them, it is always true that the path of Christian beneficence is more beset than the common walks of life with disheartening reverses. Whoever freely takes up the cause of the wretched, is left to feel the grievous pressure of the burden. The frustration of his plans by the obstinate folly of those whom he would fain serve, the apathy, the remissness, or the sinister oppositions of professed coadjutors, the dangerous hostility of profligate power, and worse than all, the secret misgivings of an exhausted spirit; these, and whatever other instruments of torture Disappointment may hold in her hand or have in reserve, are the furniture of the theatre on which the favorite virtue of Heaven is to pass its trial.

But this law of vicarious charity is altogether opposed to the expectations of inexperienced and ardent minds. Among the few who devote themselves zealously to the service of mankind, a large proportion derive their activity from that constitutional fervor which is the physical cause of enthusiasm. In truth, a propensity rather to indulge the illusions of hope, than to calculate probabilities, may seem almost a necessary qualification for those who, in this world of abounding evil, are to devise the means of checking its triumphs. To raise fallen humanity from its degradation, to rescue the oppressed, to deliver the needy, to save the lost, are enterprises so little recommended, for the most part, by a fair promise of success, that few will engage in them but those who, by a happy infirmity of the reasoning faculty, are prone to hope where cautious men despond.

Thus furnished for their work by a constitutional contempt of frigid prudence, and engaged cordially in services which seem to give them a peculiar interest in the favor of Heaven, it is only natural that benevolent enthusiasts should cherish secret, if not avowed hopes, of extraordinary aids, and of interpositions of a kind not compatible with the constitution of the present state, and not warranted by promise of Scripture. Or if the kind-hearted visionary neither asks nor expects any peculiar protection of his person, nor any exemption from the common hazards and ills of life, he yet clings with fond pertinacity to the hope of a semi-miraculous interference on those occasions in which the work, rather than the agent, is in peril. Even the genuineness of his benevolence leads the amiable enthusiast into this error. To achieve the good he has designed does indeed occupy all his heart, to the exclusion of every selfish thought: what price of personal suffering would he not pay, might he so purchase the needful miracle of help! How piercing, then, is the anguish of his soul when that help is withheld; when his fair hopes and fair designs are overthrown by a hostility that might have been restrained, or by a casualty that might have been diverted!

Few, perhaps, who suffer chagrins like this, altogether avoid a relapse into religious—we ought to say, irreligious—despondency. The first fault, that of misunderstanding the unalterable rules of the divine government, is followed by a worse, that of fretting against them. When the sharpness of disappointment disperses enthusiasm, the whole moral constitution often becomes infected with the gall of discontent. Querulous regrets take the place of active zeal; and at length vexation, much more than a real exhaustion of strength, renders the once laborious philanthropist "weary in well doing."

And yet, not seldom, a happy renovation of motives takes place in consequence of the very failures to which the enthusiast has exposed himself. Benevolent enterprises were commenced, perhaps, in all the fervor of exorbitant hopes; the course of nature was to be diverted, and a new order of things to take place, in which what human efforts failed to accomplish should be achieved by the ready aid of Heaven. But Disappointment, as merciless to the venial errors of the good, as to the mischievous plots of the wicked, scatters the project in a moment. Then the selfish, and the inert, exult; and the half-wise pick up fragments from the desolation, wherewith to patch their favorite maxims of frigid prudence with new proofs in point! Meanwhile, by grace given from above in the hour of despondency, the enthusiast gains a portion of true wisdom from defeat. Though robbed of his fondly-cherished hopes, he has not been stripped of his sympathies, and these soon prompt him to begin anew his labors, on principles of a more substantial sort. Warned not again to expect miraculous or extraordinary aids to supply the want of caution he consults Prudence with even a religious scrupulosity; for he has learned to think her voice, if not misunderstood, to be in fact the voice of God. And now he avenges himself upon Disappointment, by abstaining almost from hope. A sense of responsibility which quells physical excitement, is his strength. He relies indeed upon the divine aid; yet not for extraordinary interpositions, but for grace to be faithful. Thus, better furnished for arduous exertion, a degree of substantial success is granted to his renewed toils and prayers. And while the indolent, and the over-cautious, and the cold-hearted, remain what they were; or have become more inert, more timid, and more selfish than before, the subject of their self-complacent pity has not only accomplished some important service for mankind, but has himself acquired a temper which fits him to take rank among the thrones and dominions of the upper world.

II. Christian philanthropy is obligatory.

Natural benevolence is prone to claim the liberty and the merit that belong to pure spontaneity, and spurns the idea of duty or necessity. This claim might be allowed if the free emotions of kindness were sufficiently common, and sufficiently vigorous, to meet the large and constant demand of want and misery. But the contrary is the fact; and if it were not that an authoritative requisition, backed by the most solemn sanctions, laid its hand upon the sources of eleemosynary aid, the revenues of mercy would be slender indeed. Even the few who act from the impulse of the noblest motives, are urged on and sustained in their course of beneficence by a latent recollection that, though they move freely in advancing, they have no real liberty to draw back. If the entire amount of advantage which has accrued to the necessitous from the influence of Christianity could be computed, it would, no doubt, be found, that by far the larger share has been contributed, not by the few who might have done the same without impulsion, but by the many whose selfishness could never have been broken up except by the most peremptory appeals. To ensure, therefore, its large purpose of good-will to man, the law of Christ spreads out its claims very far beyond the circle of mere pity, or natural kindness; and in the most absolute terms demands, for the use of the poor, the ignorant, the wretched, (and demands from every one who names the name of Christ) the whole residue of talent, wealth, time, that may remain after primary claims have been satisfied. On this ground, when the zeal of self-denying benevolence has laid down its last mite, it does not deem itself to have exceeded the extent of Christian duty; but cheerfully assents to that rule of computing service which affirms that, "when we have done all, we are unprofitable servants; having performed only what we were commanded."

Manifestly, for the purpose of giving the highest possible force and solemnity to that sense of obligation which impels the Christian to abound in every good work, the ostensible proof of religious sincerity, to be adduced in the momentous procedures of the last judgment, is made to consist in the fact of a life of beneficence. Those, and those only, shall inherit the prepared blessedness, who shall be found to have nourished, and clothed, and visited the Lord to his representatives—the poor. The "cursed" are those who have grudged the cost of mercy.

And it is not only true that the funds of charity have been, in every age, immensely augmented by these strong representations, and have far exceeded the amount which spontaneous compassion would ever have contributed, but the very character of beneficence has been new-modelled by them. In the mind of every well-instructed Christian, a feeling compounded of a compunctious sense of inadequate performance, and a solemn sense of the extent of the divine requirements, repugnates and subdues those self-gratulations, those giddy deliriums, and that vain ambition, which beset a course of active and successful beneficence. This remarkable arrangement of the Christian ethics, by which the largest possible contributions and the utmost possible exertions are demanded in a tone of comprehensive authority, seems, besides its other uses, particularly intended to quash the natural enthusiasm of active zeal. It is a strong antagonist principle in the mechanism of motives, ensuring an equilibrium, however great may be the intensity of action. We are thus taught that, as there can be no supererogation in works of mercy, so neither can there be exultation. Nothing, it is manifest, but humility, becomes a servant who, at the best, barely acquits his duty. Let it, for example, have been given to a man to receive superior mental endowments, force of understanding, solidity of judgment, and richness of imagination, command of language, and graces of utterance; a soul fraught with expansive kindness, and not more kind than courageous; and let him, thus furnished by nature, have enjoyed the advantages of rank, and wealth, and secular influence; and let it have been his lot, in the prime of life, to be stationed just on the fortunate centre of peculiar opportunities; and then let it have happened that a fourth part of the human family, cruelly maltreated, stood as clients at his door, imploring help; and let him in the very teeth of ferocious selfishness, have achieved deliverance for these suffering millions, and have given a deadly blow to the Moloch of blood and rapacity: and let him have been lifted to the heavens on the loud acclamations of all civilized nations, and blessed amid the sighs and joys of the ransomed poor, and his name diffused, like a charm, through every barbarous dialect of a continent. Let all this signal felicity have belonged to the lot of a Christian—a Christian well taught in the principles of his religion; nevertheless, in the midst of his honest joy, he will find place rather for humiliation than for that vain excitement and exultation wherewith a man of merely natural benevolence would not fail, in like circumstances, to be intoxicated. Without at all allowing the exaggerations of an affected humility, the triumphant philanthropist confesses that he is nothing, and, far from deeming himself to have surpassed the requirements of the law of Christ, feels that he has done less than his duty.

Christian philanthropy, thus boldly and solidly based on a sense of unlimited obligation, acquires a character essentially differing from that of spontaneous kindness; and while, as a source of relief to the wretched, it is rendered immensely more copious, is, at the same time, secured against the flatteries of self-love, and the excesses of enthusiasm, by the solemn sanctions of an unbounded responsibility.

III. A nice balancing of motives is obtained from an opposite quarter in the Christian doctrine, of—The rewardableness of works of mercy. This doctrine, than which no article of religion stands out more prominently on the surface of the New Testament, having been early abused, to the hurt of the fundamentals of piety, has, in the modern Church, been almost lost sight of, and fallen into disuse, or has even become liable to obloquy; so that to insist upon it plainly has incurred a charge of Pelagianism, or of Romanism, or of some such error. This misunderstanding must be dispelled before Christian philanthropy can revive in full force.

Amidst the awful reserve which envelops the announcement of a future life by our Lord and his ministers, three ideas, continually incurring, are to be gathered with sufficient clearness from their hasty allusions. The first is, that the future life will be the fruit of the present, as if by a natural sequence of cause and effect. "Whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap." The second is, that the future harvest, though of like species and quality with the seed, will be immensely disproportioned to it in amount. "The things seen are temporal; but the things unseen are eternal;" and the sufferings of the present time are to be followed by "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;" and those who have been "faithful over a few things, will have rule over many." The third is, that though the disparity between the present reward and the future recompense will be vast and incalculable, yet will there obtain a most exact rule of correspondence between the one and the other, so that, from the hands of the "righteous Judge" every man will receive "severally, according as his work has been." Nor shall even, "a cup of cold water," given in Christian love, be omitted in that accurate account; the giver shall "by no means lose his reward."

Such are the explicit and intelligible engagements of him whose commands are never far separated from his promises. It cannot then be deemed a becoming part of Christian temper to indulge a scrupulous hesitation in accepting and in acting upon the faith of these declarations. And as there is no real incompatibility or clashing of motives in the Christian system, any delicacy that may be felt, as if the hope of reward might interfere with a due sense of obligation to sovereign grace, must spring from an obscured and faulty perception of scriptural doctrines. The intelligent Christian, on the contrary, when, in simplicity of heart, he calculates upon the promises of Heaven; and when, with a distinct reckoning of the "great gain" of such an investment, he "lays up for himself treasures that cannot fail;" is, at the same time, taught and impelled by the strongest emotions of the heart, to connect his hope of recompense with his hope of pardon. And when the one class of ideas is thus linked to the other, he perceives that the economy which establishes a system of rewards for present services can be nothing else than an arbitrary arrangement of sovereign goodness, resolving itself altogether into the grace of the mediatorial scheme. The retribution, how accurately soever it may be measured out according to the work performed, must, in its whole amount, be still a pure gratuity; not less so than is the gift of immortal life, conferred without probation upon the aborigines of heaven. The zealous and faithful servant who enters upon his reward after a long term of labor, and the infant of a day, who flits at once from the womb to the skies, alike receive the boon of endless bliss in virtue of their relationship to the second Adam, "the Lord from heaven." Nevertheless, this boon shall conspicuously appear, in the one case, to be the apportioned wages of service, an exact recompense, measured, and weighed, and doled out in due discharge of an explicit engagement; while in the other, it can be nothing but a sovereign bestowment.

But it is manifest that this doctrine of future recompense, when held in connection with the fundamental principles of Christianity—justification by faith, tends directly to allay and disperse those excitements which naturally spring up with the zeal of active benevolence. The series or order of sentiments is this:—

The Christian philanthropist, if well instructed, dares not affect indifference to the promised reward, or pretend to be more disinterested than were the Apostles, who labored, "knowing that in due time they should reap." He cannot think himself free to overlook a motive distinctly held out before him in the Scriptures: to do so were an impious arrogance. And yet, if he does accept the promise of recompense, and takes it up as an inducement to diligence, he is compelled by a sense of the manifold imperfections of his services, to fall back constantly upon the divine mercies as they are assured to transgressors in Christ. These humbling sentiments utterly refuse to cohere with the complacencies of a selfish and vain-glorious philanthropy, and necessitate a subdued tone of feeling. Thus the very height and expansion of the Christian's hopes send the root of humility deep and wide; the more his bosom heaves with the hope of "the exceeding great reward," the more is it quelled by the consciousness of demerit. The counterpoise of opposing sentiments is so managed, that elevation cannot take place on the one side without an equal depression on the other; and by the counteraction of antagonist principles the emotions of zeal may reach the highest possible point, while full provision is made for correcting the vertigo of enthusiasm.

If, in the early ages of the Church, the expectation of future reward was abused, to the damage of fundamental principles, in modern times an ill-judged zeal for the integrity of those principles has produced an almost avowed jealousy towards many explicit declarations of Scripture: thus, the nerves of labor are either relaxed by the withdrawment of proper stimulants, or are absolutely severed by the bold hand of antinomian delusion.

Moreover, a course of Christian beneficence is one peculiarly exposed to reverses, to obstructions, and often to active hostility; and if the zeal of the philanthropist be in any considerable degree alloyed with the sinister motives of personal vanity, or be inflamed with enthusiasm, these reverses produce despondency; or opposition and hostility kindle corrupt zeal into fanatical virulence. The injection of a chemical test does not more surely bring out the element with which it has affinity, than does opposition, in an attempt to do good, make conspicuous the presence of unsound motives, if any such have existed. Has it not happened that when benevolent enterprises have consisted in a direct attack upon systems of cruel or fraudulent oppression, the quality of the zeal by which some were actuated in lending their clamors to the champions of humanity, has become manifest whenever the issue seemed doubtful, or the machinations of diabolical knavery gained a momentary triumph? Then, the partisans of truth and mercy, forgetful, alas! of their principles, have broke out almost into the violence of political faction, and have hardly scrupled to employ the dark methods which faction loves.

But there is a delicacy, a reserve, a sobriety, an humbleness of heart, belonging to the hope of heavenly recompense, which powerfully repels all such malign emotions. Who can imagine the circumstances and feelings of the great day of final reward, and think of hearing the approving voice of him who "searches the heart," and at the same time be told by conscience that the zeal which gives life to his labors in the cause of the oppressed ferments with the gall and acrimony of worldly animosity, that this zeal prompts him to indulge in exaggerations, if not to propagate calumnies; and exults much more in the overthrow of the oppressor, than in the redemption of the captive? If the greatness of the future reward proves that it must be altogether "of grace, not of debt," then, unquestionably, must it demand in the recipient a temper purified from the leaven of malice and hatred. Thus does the Christian doctrine of future reward correct the evil passions that are incident to a course of benevolence.

IV. Christian beneficence is only the subordinate instrument of a higher and efficient agency. "Neither is he that planteth anything, nor he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase." Such, on the scriptural plan, are the conditions of all labor, undertaken from motives of religious benevolence. But the besetting sin of natural benevolence is self-complacency and presumption. It is perhaps as hard to find sanctimoniousness apart from hypocrisy, or bashfulness without pride, as to meet with active and enterprising philanthropy not tainted by the spirit of overweening vanity. The kind-hearted schemer, fertile in devices for beguiling mankind into virtue, and rich in petty ingenuities, always well-intended, and seldom well-imagined, verily believes that his machineries of instruction or reform require only to be put fairly in play, and they will bring heaven upon earth.

But Christianity, if it does not sternly frown upon these novelties, does not encourage them; and while it depicts the evils that destroy the happiness of man as of much deeper and more inveterate malignity than that they should be remedied by this or that specious method, devised yesterday, tried to-day, and abandoned to-morrow, most explicitly confines the hope of success to those who possess the temper of mind proper to a dependent and subordinate agent. All presumptuous confidence in the efficiency of second causes is utterly repugnant to the spirit that should actuate a Christian philanthropist; and the more so when the good which he strives to achieve is of the highest kind.

V. Lastly, Christian beneficence is the expression of grateful love. The importance attributed throughout the New Testament to active charity is not more remarkable than is this peculiarity which merges the natural and spontaneous sentiments of good-will and compassion towards our fellows, in an emotion of a deeper kind, and virtually denies merit and genuineness to every feeling, how amiable soever it may appear, if it does not thus fall into subordination to that devout affection which we owe to him who redeemed us by his sufferings and death. The reasons of this remarkable constitution of motives it is not difficult to perceive. For, in the first place, it is evident that the love of the Supreme Being can exist in the heart only as a dominant sentiment, drawing every other affection into its wake. Even the softest and purest tendernesses of our nature must yield precedence to the higher attachment of the soul; for he who does not love Christ more than "father and mother, wife and children," loves him not. Much more, then, must the sentiment of general benevolence own the same subordination. Again; as the promise of future recompense, and the doctrine of dependence upon divine agency, elevate the motives of benevolence from the level of earth to that of heaven, they would presently assume a character of dry and visionary abstraction, unless animated by an emotion of love, belonging to the same sphere. Zeal without love were a preposterous and dangerous passion: but Christian zeal must be warmed by no other love than that of him who, "for our sakes became poor, that we through his poverty might be made rich."

It has already been said that religious enthusiasm takes its commencement from the point where the emotions of the heart are transmuted into mere pleasures of the imagination; and assuredly the excitements incident to a course of beneficence are very likely to furnish occasions to such a transmutation. But the capital motive of grateful affection to him who has redeemed us from sin and sorrow, prevents, so far as it is in active operation, this deadening of the heart, and consequent quickening of the imagination. The poor and the wretched are the Lord's representatives on earth; and in doing them good we cherish and express feelings which otherwise must lie latent, or become vague, seeing that he to whom they relate is remote from our senses.

This motive of affection to the Lord makes provision, moreover, against the despondences that attend a want of success; for although a servant of Christ may, to his life's end, labor in vain, although the objects of his disinterested kindness should "turn and rend him;" yet, not the less, has he approved his loyalty and love; approved it even more conspicuously than those can have done whose labors are continually cheered and rewarded by prosperous results. Affection, in such cases, has sustained the trial, not merely of toil, but of fruitless toil, than which none can be more severe to a zealous and devoted heart.

It appears, then, that Christian benevolence contains within itself a balancing of motives, such as to leave room for the utmost imaginable enhancement of zeal without hazard of extravagance. In truth, it is easy to perceive that the religion of the Bible has in reserve a spring of movement, a store of intrinsic vigor, ready to be developed in a manner greatly surpassing what has hitherto been seen. Such a day of development shall ere long arrive, the time of the triumph of divine principles shall come, and a style of true heroism be displayed, of which the seeds have been long sown; of which some samples have already been furnished; and which waits only the promised refreshment from above to appear, not in rare instances only, but as the common produce of Christianity.

In the present state of the world and of the Church, when communications are so instantaneous, and when attention is so much alive to whatever concerns the welfare of mankind, if it might be imagined that a great and sudden extension of Christianity should take place in the regions of superstition and polytheism; and that yet no corresponding improvement of piety, no purifying, no refreshment, no enhancement of motives, should occur in the home of Christianity, there is reason to believe that the influx of excitement might generate a blaze of destructive enthusiasm. If every day had its tidings of wonder—the fall of popery in the neighboring nations—the abandonment of the Mohammedan delusion by people after people in Asia—the rejection of idols by China and India; and if these surprising changes, instead of producing the cordial joy of gladdened faith, were gazed at merely with an unholy and prurient curiosity, and were thundered forth from platforms by heartless declaimers, and were grasped at by visionary interpreters of futurity; then, from so much agitation, uncorrected by a proportionate increase of genuine piety, new prodigies of error would presently start up, new sects break away from the body, new hatreds be kindled: and nothing scarcely be left in the place of Christianity, but dogmas and contentions. Thus the cradle of religion in modern times would become its grave. But a far happier anticipation is with reason indulged; for it may well be believed that the same Benignant Influence which is to remove the covering of gross ignorance from the nations, shall, at the same moment, scatter the dimness that still hovers over the Church in its most favored home; and then, and under that influence, the fervors of Christian zeal may reach the height even of a seraphic energy, and yet without enthusiasm.