but rather in obedience to its purest and highest behests, the advance might be met and consented to by the latter.

Let me suppose, then, a society of Christians, great or small, actuated, as Moravians now are, by the zeal and the spirit of devoted missionaries,-pressed in conscience by the obligation of the Saviour's last say

establishment. The truth is, that Christianity for three centuries was left to find its way in the world; for, during the whole of that period, none of this world's princes did it reverence; all this time it was treated as an unprotected outcast, or, rather, as a branded criminal: yet the execrable superstition, as it was called, neither withered under neglect, nor was quelled by the hand of persecut-ing, "Go, and preach the Gospel to ing violence. It grew, and gathered into strength, under the terrible processes that were devised for its annihilation. Disgrace could not overbear it, threats could not terrify it, imprisonments could not stifle it,-exile could not rid the world of it, the influence of superstition, the fires of bloody martyrdom could not extinguish it; they could not prevail against a religion which had the blessing of heaven upon its head, and in its bosom the strongest energies of conviction. And so it spread and multiplied among men, in the signal triumph of principle over power, of the moral over the sensual and grossly physical, and men had the indestructible church, increased in magnitude, and settled more firmly on its basis, under the warring elements which had conspired for its overthrow.

every creature,"-bent on an expedition to the heathen of distant lands, if they had but an opening for the voyage, and the means of defraying it. Hitherto it would have been admitted that all is purely apostolical, and that as yet no violence has been done to the high and heavenborn sanctities of the Gospel. Now, what we ask is, whether we ought to vitiate this holy character in the next indispensable step, of the means being provided, the money being raised for the essential hire and maintenance of the labourers,—of the vessel being equipped, that is to bear them onward in this errand of piety-of the wealth being transferred to their hands for the erection of the missionary church and missionary dwelling-place. Is there aught of earthly contamination in this? Is the Unitus Throughout this whole transition, Fratrum, that church of spiritual from the time that the fishermen of men, at all brought down from its Galilee tended its infancy, to the time saintliness by those annual supplies that the emperors of Rome did ho- without which their perils among the mage to its wondrous manhood, it heathen could not have been enhad neither the order nor the means countered, their deeds of Christian of an establishment. This change did heroism could not have been pernot nor could not originate with the formed? They maintain their own ecclesiastical, it originated with the independence as a church, notwithcivil authority: it took effect by the standing, their doctrine and discipstate holding out to the church the line, and mode of worship, are left right hand of fellowship. The ad- untouched by the proceeding; in all vance was made by the former; and matters ecclesiastical they take their we should hold it tantamount to own way: It is true they are subthe vindication of a religious estab-sisted by others, but in no one article lishment, could we demonstrate how, relating to the church's peculiar buwithout the compromise of principle,siness are they controlled by them.

is to fill up the internal vacancies, and so, perhaps, as thoroughly to saturate with Christianity one nation. It is not enough reflected on, that under the latter process a vastly greater number of human spirits may be medicated into spiritual and immortal ones, than under the former; and, at all events, that the latter must have its accomplishment ere the knowledge of the Lord can fill the earth, even as the waters, which in their collapse admit of no internal vacancy, cover the sea.

They are maintained from without, but they need not because of this suffer one taint of desecration within. There is a connexion, no doubt, established between the two parties; but I can see nothing in it save a pecuniary succour rendered on one side, and a high service of philanthropy rendered upon the other, yet rendered according to the strict methods, and in rigid conformity with the most sacred principles, of those who are embarked on this high and holy vocation. The transaction, as we now relate it, is of purest origin, and has been nobly accredited by the beneficial consequences which have followed in its train; for, by means of these hireling labourers,-these hireling labourers, you will observe, as the ministers of our establishment are openly denominated,-by means of these hireling labourers the outposts of Christianity have been pushed forward to the very outskirts of the human population,-Christian villages have been reared in the farthest wilds of paganism, the prowling savages of Greenland and Lapland have been reclaimed to the habits and the decencies of civilized life, and successive thousands of before untaught idolaters, under the effec-fringement by them on their inviotive tuition that has been brought to bear on them, have lived in the obedience, and died in the triumphs of the faith.

Now, the essential character of this whole transaction is the same, whether we conceive these Gospel labourers to be employed in the business of a home, or the business of a foreign mission. By one process you carry the blessings of our religion beyond, by the other you circulate them within, the territory of Christendom. The effect of the one is to spread Christianity externally abroad, and so, perhaps, as to sprinkle many nations; the effect of the other

But the position which I want chiefly to fix at present is, that, whether the missionary movement lie in an outward or in a homeward direction, its whole economy and character may remain essentially the same. The enterprise may be supported in its expenses by one party-it may be executed in its work and labour by another party. Each may be distinct of the other, and give no disturbance to the other. The secular men may provide the means; yet the ecclesiastical men, in their proper department, may have the entire and uncontrolled management. They may take their support from others in things temporal, yet suffer no in

lable prerogative of determining and ordering in things spiritual. Their maintenance cometh from others; but their worship, and their creed, and their formularies, and their sacraments, and their ministrations-both of word and ordinance-are all of them from above. We yet see no compromise of principle in such a connexion as this. There is support given on the one side, but there is no surrender in the least article, either of faith or holiness, made on the other. The only submission that we can perceive on the part of these missionaries or ministers is, a submission to be fed by them and that

to be done which we have now supposed. Its proper object is not to extend Christianity into ulterior spaces, but thoroughly to fill up the space that had been already occupied. It is a far mightier achievement than may appear at first view, completely to overtake the length and breadth of a land. All the devices and traverse movements of the many thousand missionaries who, during the three first centuries, lived and died in the cause, failed in their accom

they may wait without distraction on
the business of their own unshackled
and uncontrolled ministry. In this
instance, as in the former, there is
the like pure origin, and there may
be a like, or, perhaps, a surpassingly
glorious result. Hence, by the fo-
reign mission, stations are planted
along the margin of our populated
earth,-by the home mission, stations
may be multiplied in the territory of
our own land. As the effect of the
one we now behold villages of peace
and piety in the distant wilderness-plishment.
as the effect of the other, the moral
wilderness around us may be lighted
up and fertilized, and we may be
made to witness both a holier Sab-
bath and purer week-days than here-
tofore, in all our parishes. If, by vir-
tue of the missionary doings abroad,
we read that hundreds of families, in
some before-untrodden field of hea-
thenism, have been Christianized
let us not forget that many of the
cities of our island where, without
one mile of locomotion, we may have
converse with thousands of families
who but for the same doings at home,
would be sunk in the apathy and
grossness of practical heathenism.
If, as the fruit of the one service, we
can appeal to thousands of savage
wanderers of the desert transformed
into Christian and companionable
men, let not the splendour of this
achievement eclipse the wants of the
other service, if, as ministers, we can
appeal to an effect equally splendid
on our own cottage patriarchs, on
our own virtuous and well-conditioned
peasantry.

Now, we think it is not by a fanciful, but a sound generalization that we pass from the case of a home mission to that of an establishmentwhich is neither more nor less, in fact, than a universal home mission. At its first institution, in the reign of Constantine, the very work remained

I beg you to recollect that fact, because it is one of chief importance in the argument for a religious establishment-that, notwithstanding the high endowments, the political endowments-notwithstanding the advantages of highly gifted men, though bordering on the ages of inspiration-yet all the movements in the three first centuries did little more than plant Christianity in the cities of the Roman empire. And that is the reason why the term "heathen" is synonymous with that of " pagan," which signifies "a countryman ;" it was because the great bulk of the countrymen, (and those who lived in the country) were still in this state of heathenism. These men did much in the work of spreading the Gospel externally, but they left much undone in the work of spreading it internally. They had Christianized the thousands who lived in cities; but the millions of pagans, or the peasantry, who were yet unconverted, evince the country to have been every where a great moral fastness which, till opened up by an establishment, would remain impregnable.

Now, this very opening was presented to the ministers of Christ when the Roman emperor, whether by a movement of faith, or of philanthropy, or patriotism, made territorial distribution of them over his kingdoms and provinces, and assigned a ter

other than the purest services of the sanctuary. Its single aim, as heretofore, is the preparation of souls for heaven; but in virtue of the bless

ritorial revenue for the labourers of this extensive vineyard; and so enabled each to set himself down in his own little vicinity, the families of which he could assemble to the ex-ings which Christianity scatters in its ercise of Christian piety on the Sabbath, and among whom he could expatiate through the week in all the offices of attention and Christian kindness. Such an offer, whether Christianly or politically made on the one side, could most Christianly be accepted and rejoiced in by the other. It extended inconceivably the powers and the opportunities of usefulness; it brought the Gospel of Jesus Christ into contact with myriads more of imperishable spirits: and, with as holy a fervour as ever gladdened the breast of the devoted missionary when the means of an ampler service in the Redeemer's cause were put into his hands, might the church in these days have raised to heaven those orisons of purest gratitude, that kings at length had become its nursing fathers, and opened up to us the plentiful harvest of all their population.

way, do the princes of this world find these are the best citizens of the earth; and that the chief defence of nations, the best safeguard of their prosperity and power, is a universal Christian education. There need be nought of contamination in this. The state pays the church, yet the church, in the entire possession of all those privileges and powers which are strictly ecclesiastical, maintains the integrity of her faith and worship notwithstanding; she would be the same hallowed church as when the fires of martyrdom were blazing around her-possess the same spirituality among her ministers, the same lofty independence in all her pulpits. The effect of an establishment is not necessarily to narrow Christianity, but to extend it-not necessarily to vitiate the ministration of the Gospel, but certainly to disseminate its ministrations amongst, as well as to spread them more diffusely abroad, over the families of the land.

There is just as little of the essentially corrupt in this connexion between the church and the state, as there is in the connexion between But, just as in philanthropy and the missionary cause and its pecu- in politics, there are mistakes upon niary supports each is a case of the this subject of a religious establishearth helping the woman. But what-ment, from the very common error of ever the earthliness may be on the one side, there might be none, and there need be none, on the other. The one may assist in things temporal, while the other may continue to assert its entire and untouched jurisdiction as heretofore in things spiritual. There might be thus an alliance between the altar and the throne, yet without the danger of any one earthly intermixture being at all engendered by it. The state avails itself of the church's services, and the church gives back again no

not assigning the right effect to its right cause,-there is a kind of vague and general imagination as if corruption were the invariable accompaniment of such an alliance between the civil and the ecclesiastical. And this has been greatly fostered by the tremendously corrupt popery which followed in historical succession after the establishment of Christianity in the days of Constantine, and which certainly shows in vivid contrast the difference between this religion in the period of its suffering, and this religion in the

period of its security and triumph. | vasion on the state, and all the adulBut it were well to discriminate (and terations practised either in the worit requires attention to do so-more ship or the lessons of Christianity was attention we fear than is sufficient to gendered from within. So far from bear down the popular and the pre- the state having too much power, so vailing cry which is lifted against esta- that it could make such an unlawful blishments)-I say, it were well to dis- invasion on the church, it had too criminate the precise origin of this little power, so that it could not resist frightful degeneracy. It arose not the unlawful invasion made by the from without-it arose from within. church upon itself. The theoretical It was not because of any ascendency fear is, lest the state should meddle of the state over the church, whom it with the prerogatives of the church; now paid, and thereby trenched on the historical fact is, that the church its independence in things spiritual: meddled with the prerogatives of it was because of an ascendency of the state. So far from the apprethe church over the state-the effect hended corruption having experience of that superstitious terror which it to rest upon, it is precisely the reverse wielded over the imaginations of men, in the actual corruption. and which it most unworthily prostituted to the usurpation of power in things temporal. The fear that many have of an establishment is, lest the state should obtain too great a power over the church, and so be able to graft its own secularity, or its own spirit of worldliness, on the pure system of the gospel whereas the actual mischief of popery lay in the church having obtained too much power over the state, and in the false doctrine which it devised to strengthen and perpetuate a temporal dominion which should never have been permitted to it. There is no analogy between the apprehended evil to Christianity from an establishment now-a-days, and the actual evil inflicted on Christianity by the corrupt and ambitious hierarchy of Rome. The thing dreaded from that connexion between the church and state which an establishment implies, is, lest the state, stepping beyond its own legitimate province, should make invasion on the church, and so, by a heterogeneous ingredient from without, in some way adulterate the church. The thing experienced, on the contrary, was, that the church, stepping beyond its legitimate province, made an in

But the truth is, that, after many conflicts, the matter is now better understood; and the understanding is, that neither should meddle with the prerogatives of the other. The state may pay the church, and that without conceding to it one particle of temporal sovereignty. The church may serve the state, yet without the surrender of one spiritual prerogative. To teach the people Christianity,that is the church's service: to teach them no other than what itself judges to be the Christianity of the Bible,that is the church's prerogative: to deal out among her parish families the lessons of faith and of holiness,— this is the church's incumbent duty; but that these shall be no other than what it judges to be the very lessons of that Scripture whose guidance in things spiritual it exclusively follows, and that in this judgment no power on earth shall control it, this is the church's inviolate privilege. The state may maintain a scholastic establishment,-which it does in Scotland, though not in this country,— but, without charging itself with the methods of ordinary education, leave these to the teachers. The state may maintain an ecclesiastical establishment, but, without charging itself