which we have alluded; it then follows that the average amount which each member has placed into the common treasury of the Church for her extension in this and other lands, is less than one penny per week! We cannot believe, if our hearts are right with God,, and our eyes open to the obligations He has so plainly and frequently enforced, that either ministers, office-bearers, or people, can rest satisfied with such a state of things as this. We may speak of the superiority of our ecclesiastical system, of our soundness and uniformity in doctrine and discipline, and of the many benefits we thereby enjoy compared with the members of other communities; but if this is all we are prepared to do, beyond procuring Gospel privileges for ourselves-if this is the extent to which we exemplify a loving, active, healthful Christianity-then it may be our wisdom to remain in comparative obscurity until we are better able to answer the question, "What do ye more than others?" We are not unmindful of the fact that the local claims on many of our congregations have been very frequent and very heavy; but even these have been neither so great nor so general, as to account for, or justify, the deficiencies of which we complain. The main reason lies in the absence of systematized beneficence-an unwillingness to make sacrifices for the cause of Christ. When our people have learned to give as the Lord hath prospered them-not occasionally, but statedly-even if portions of these regular sums should be the fruits of self-denial; and when the office-bearers of our congregations have afforded opportunities for the regular payment of such sums, through efficiently managed Associations, we shall have less reason to lament over our leanness. To set Old Testament rules and examples entirely aside as unsuited for us in the use of money, because we are not under the law, but under grace, is but the feint of a covetous spirit; as if the more perfect religion of the Son of God was less hostile to a sordid selfishness, than the one which previously prevailed. To suppose that a man drawn up to heaven by a hand that is never opened but in love and mercy-a man feeling the vital influence of a system of faith which has sacrifice written on it from beginning to end-is left more at liberty to indulge an exclusive spirit, than he who received the religion that blazed from Sinai's dreary summit, is surely to break up all the principles of connexion between cause and effect.

THE CHURCH'S WORK.

BY THE REV. DR. HALL, NEW JERSEY.

WE are apt to suppose that we have enough to do for the souls with whom we are officially connected, and of whom we have, by solemn vows, assumed the oversight. Thus it may happen that the minister and his associate elders, the more deeply and diligently they are concerned for their particular charge, may the more lose sight of the regions beyond them, and forget what is due to the common and universal cause of the diffusion of Christianity.

This is not apostolical-this is not evangelical. The changes that have taken place in the circumstances of the Church since the primitive days, may warrant our system of local congregations and local pastors-assigning a certain district, or a certain number of families, and a certain edifice to the care of one minister. But if this be now the best economy for a settled Christian community, and the best general plan for the stability of the

Church, it cannot be lawful to carry it to such an extreme as would so shut up these organizations as to allow no egress to the world at large. In one sense there may be undue culture bestowed upon one spot. For though it is impossible that any community should be too well instructed, too carefully trained in what pertains to their faith and duty, yet it would be a violation of the principles of Evangelical economy to expend labour on a minute and thorough cultivation of a certain number of souls already well instructed, whilst an innumerable multitude are as yet ignorant of the first lessons, and perishing for the want of them. It does really seem as if sometimes there was a superfluity of religious privileges enjoyed by favoured communities, and as if this repletion operates upon the Christian character like the excess of riches on a contracted mind, producing insensibility to the condition of others, fixing a habit of a plodding routine of services and occupations within one's own little enclosure, only broken by an occasional enterprise for ourselves—some freak of pride for our own gratification, and therefore for our spiritual hurt.

In this the ministers and other officers of the Church have the chief responsibility of teaching and exemplifying a better way. The ministry should take care to be recognised in their true character; not as if their whole office consisted in the relation they hold to a certain number of pewholders, but as ministers of the whole Church; not as if all their functions, all their office, all their rights were limited, qualified, and bound down by the terms of their "call" to a particular congregation, but as holding a commission preceding, pre-dating, overruling all calls and all congregations, as ministers to whomsoever they may have an opportunity of preaching Christ.

We have, indeed, fallen into the usage of employing the term " pastor" in an exclusive sense, which neither the New Testament nor our Form of Government authorizes: as if no ordained minister were a pastor unless he had a particular congregation to serve. If this opinion of the institution of the ministry should obtain, we must not be surprised to find pastors of particular congregations conceiving themselves as bound to care only for those who employ them-such as are not, in this sense, pastors, overlooking their obligation to work in the ministry till a special field is formally opened to them-and those who have no mind to go into the vineyard justifying their inaction with the plea that no man hath hired them. Above all, we may fear to see ordained men, and candidates for ordination, turning away from what we call missionary employment, on the ground of its being so voluntarily a department of the ministerial work, that even when Providence shuts them off from every other, they see no obligation pressing them in the direction where all is open and clear.

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The want of an active zeal in diffusing the benefits of the Gospel among the most destitute around us, is a prevailing cause of our want of interest in the whole enterprise of missions. The primitive idea of missions is, that Christianity must be taught to every creature. "As the Father hath sent me, so I send you." Every one who is "sent" is a missionary.' The work of missions is, therefore, not for a certain class of ministers, but is the essence of the office itself. Each one is to be an aggressive champion for Christ and the Gospel. Conservatism is not enough. The commission is, "Go ye, go ye." If we look upon our goodly heritages, where Christianity has existed for centuries; where one generation has followed another in the very same seats, and at the same table, through a succession of pastors, and content ourselves with ministering to these assemblies, is it wonderful that, making no exertions out of this time-worn circle, we should

have but feeble impressions of the obligation for providing for a distant or an entirely foreign population? On the other hand, were we to discard the opinion that our ministrations may be monopolized by any set of regular hearers; should we feel that our office as ambassadors for Christ requires us to seek out, preach to, read to, give the Bible to, and talk to all whom we can personally reach by the most diligent use of our time; had we the zeal that would make our hearts yearn beyond the well-dressed, well-instructed auditory that regularly assembles in our elegant churches and lecture-rooms, towards the poor, the degraded, the vicious in the very streets and suburbs of our towns and cities; were our consciences to cry out, "Here is heathenism, here is ignorance, here are social and moral evils and sufferings within sound of the bells of your churches; here are children as destitute of knowledge as the offspring of Hindoos, and you ministers of the Gospel are bound, by the primary obligations of your office, to carry the benefits of Christianity to them." If these voices were regarded by us, then we should have something more than words and prayers for the larger work of missions. This actual devising and labouring for the absolutely ignorant, neglected, and destitute, would make us know what heathenism is, what the condition is of millions upon millions of the unevangelized, and make us feel how much more imperative and more blessed, more apostolical and Christ-like it is to be pastors of a poor and scattered and exposed flock, than of such as have never known for a day the absence of such care. Both these kinds of pastoral care are required of each minister of a congregation, but (to use the modern phraseology), the pastoral should not be exercised to the exclusion of the missionary: each one should not only reap that whereon he bestowed none of the effective labour, but to labour also in the regions beyond, and not to boast in another man's line of things made ready to his hand.

The predominance of intellectual and speculative over practical theology in our studies, tends to alienate our thoughts from missionary work. The minds that are absorbed in the mere theories of divinity,—and that in the new books of men, instead of the very text of God's Word,-cannot fix with much zeal on the common-place work which is not to stand in the wisdom of men. The same effect follows that indulgence in miscellaneous reading, which, to a degree unknown to our predecessors, puts the Bible aside, and gives it the minimum of our reading. Were a tenth of the research and meditation now bestowed by ministers and theological students on airy nothings under the name of divinity, and on subjects that even by name are incongruous with their active duties, to be given to the history, geography, and moral condition of our race, whether with or without the light of the truth, -if a tithe of the time given to invent, or comprehend the inventions of religious philosophy, were given to devising means of overturning idolatry and famishing ignorance, and elevating the religious and social condition of man, far and near-what a vast power would be given to the whole cause of Bible charity by the very agitation and experiment! It must be admitted that the world should thus be studied and explored by every minister who would take an intelligent part in the means of its conversion, even if he would do no more than prompt others to their duty. The whole atlas of this teeming, sinful, ignorant, and suffering world should be familiar to the guides of public sentiment, even though its study requires the sacrifice of many literary accomplishments. It is a most solemn point for the self-examination of every minister, "How much of my reading, and writing, and reflection bears directly on the practical, actual work of doing good to my fellow-men around and beyond me?"

Then there are peculiar circumstances in the present state of the Church that furnish reasons for the decline of a candid interest in the whole work that comes within the scope of missionary benevolence. Denominational, and even congregational, and even clerical rivalry-the leaven of worldliness, which receives too much encouragement by the conniving at, or open adoption of external show, in order not to lose the favour of the worldthe absence of practical concert among our ministers and Churches-the absorbing of pastors and people in the interests (too often merely the interests of the edifice, the income, the numbers) of their own particular corporation-the power of an external ecclesiastical prosperity, to hide the absence of spiritual vitality-the temptations of our ministry to affect a more literary, refined, self-indulgent position than comports with the New Testament standard-such facts as these-and can they be questioned ?are incompatible with a lively, self-denying zeal for anything, much more for a work like missions. For how could we plead such a cause when every eloquent word and learned argument would chide us with the inconsistency of saying, but not doing-of finding burdens, but hardly putting the finger to it, except in writing and in oratory.

Suffer me also to suggest, whether we are not in danger of being misled in our ministerial duty by the peculiar forms in which we are often required to deal with the subject of missions. It seems to me that it comes into our hands too much as a money-business; and that the missionary idea is too much amalgamated with collections for its legitimate influence. The communications and documents from our missionary institutions are chiefly calls for contributions; and our temptation is, to measure our faithfulness to the work itself by the punctuality with which we second these applications. Indeed, the money exhibit is always so prominent, that the Church is in danger of having the wrong standard before them, and of misjudging where "the excellency of the power" lies. The adequacy of our pecuniary contributions should be, indeed, an essential item in our consideration of duty in the case; but it is not all, or chief. If we suffer our people to infer that they redeem their evangelistic duty by the payment of ever so much money, what is it but a mere application of the old tradition, "It is Corban; that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me," and thus are "free?" I would leave it to the brethren of larger observation and wisdom to judge, whether the whole cause of religious charity be not in danger of becoming secularized by the disproportionate prominence given to this part of its claims. The raising of funds is a new necessity, arising out of the new circumstances of the Church as compared with the first age. And so seems to be the necessity of assigning to organized societies or committees, that office of sending out ministers abroad, which used to be performed directly by the Church. In both these respects we have counterbalancing advantages and disadvantages. But surely one of the most important problems that we have to work is, how to preserve these new circumstances from injuriously affecting the vital spirit of evangelization. One of the most beautiful features of the New Testament Church history is the absence of machinery and of invariable methods. The difficulty of our task is, to preserve the simplicity of the model-times, and yet to make the wise adaptation of our proceedings to the actual change of the things and persons with which we are concerned,

"THE FIRST MAN IS OF THE EARTH, EARTHY."

SCIENCE and religion long stood in doubtful opposition. There was much needless dread among the believers in the one, and much needless boasting from the disciples of the other. Religious men expressed their convictions with the mingled caution and asperity of fear, while scientific men hastened with an air of unholy triumph to place their discoveries in direct opposition to the statements of Scripture. Time has done much to reverse these positions. The progress of investigation, the growth of scholarship, the enlargement of knowledge, have removed many of the objections formerly brought against Scripture, or enabled its defenders to give them full and satisfactory answers. Now, there is less of unbelieving dread on the one hand, less of unseemly boasting on the other. It is no longer necessary to scoff at revelation in order to appear witty, or required to question its truth in order to appear learned. The advocates of a heaven-given Bible have learned to use the weapons of their opponents; they can walk abroad among the mysteries of science with as fearless a step as the most daring unbeliever, and are able to claim the results of its highest teaching in proof of the statements and doctrines of the Word of God. The attempts to produce opposition between the works and the Word of God have utterly failed. The longer it continued, the greater became their agreement; the more they were pressed into strife, the greater became their harmony; as they approached, their enmity was laid aside, they discovered they were friends. The clear eye of science looked on the serene face of religion, and received somewhat of her benignant expression; the pale brow of the ambitious student has bent over the page of revelation, and his eye blazed with light brighter than the fire of genius, for it was radiant with hopes of a coming immortality; the mightiest of modern sages have laid their honours at the feet of Jesus, and taxed their powers to do Him service. The mysterious music of the starry host has found fitting utterance in strains of glowing eloquence, and the dark history of Chaos, written by the Almighty hand on the rocky skeleton of our globe, is telling now to earth's inhabitants of the stupendous power that framed their rolling home-of that unfathomed wisdom, that unbounded goodness, at whose manifestation the morning stars sung together, and at the fuller exhibition of which the redeemed bands chant forth their meed of praise: "Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty, in wisdom hast thou made them all."

Among the topics that have exercised the curiosity of man, the question of his origin could not fail to receive a due share of his attention. It was natural to inquire, Whence did my race proceed? How did the linked life I enjoy originate? These questions come home to every breast with such a personal interest, that we need not wonder at the various speculations that sprang up from them in the absence of an authoritative revelation. It is interesting to mark the gropings of the human mind, when left to itself, with its intuitive though partial perception of truth on this point, and, setting aside the tales which the vanity of particular nations led them to put forth regarding their ancestry, to watch the tendency of written history, of unwritten tradition, of mythological poetry, to terminate the upward line of man's genealogy in one primeval pair. It is at this point that science has come in with its voice of authority to confirm the vague utterances of the imagination. By a series of laborious investigations, of well-arranged proofs, of long-drawn deductions, it has been conclusively shown that, notwithstanding all the differences of form and colour, of intellect and appearance, observable among men, there is no reason to doubt the truth of the apostle's assertion, “that God hath made of one blood all men who dwell upon the earth." In thus teaching, science has but acted as the handmaid of revealed truth, relieving from objections that seemed to be formidable, those explicit, unwavering statements of the Bible, in which the veil of obscurity that rested on our origin has been removed, and the light of historic truth made to shine upon that august personage, the great ancestor of our race, the first of living, breathing, thinking men.

While thus we are satisfied regarding that outward diversity which may be seen by the eye, there is another inlet of knowledge that starts the difficulty afresh. In the confusion worse confounded of our many tongues and languages, we hear, or think we hear, abundant proofs that men could not have one common origin. We find it hard to imagine how the harsh guttural sounds of one savage speech can have any