It will involve much labour for you to become the Christian instructor of that people, and you will have many difficulties to overcome; and therefore you have need of the grace of patience. They are a proud and haughty people; they call themselves the celestials; their empire is the Celestial Empire. In their eyes we are no better than barbarians; and though they love our goods and gold, and quail before our fleets and armies, our religion, our science, and our arts are all the objects of their blind and arrogant contempt. And you will have need of all the gentleness and meekness of Christ, if you are to be apt to teach such a people in the knowledge of Christ. Oh! how hard to teach a nation who think they have nothing to learn from us. How trying to a Christian's humility and forbearance to instruct a people, who think that they have more to teach him than he has to communicate to them. and gentleness, and meekness of wis-, in dealing with the manifestations of dom-patience in labour, and gentleness human depravity, when associated with and meekness in the tone and spirit in the delusions and abominations of Pawhich that labour is carried on; and ganism; and, in addition to all these, these Christian graces I would especially the specific obstacles in the way of charge you to cultivate, as those which success, arising from the natural pecuare specially needed in the sphere of liarities of the Chinese character. You exertion before you. have need of patience, then, my dear brother, peculiar need of it, in the mission which is before you. The God of patience must be specially your God, the God whom you invoke, and the God whom you imitate as well as adore. The patience and gentleness of Christ must be those attributes of his manifold and all-including perfection, which you would need above all others to contemplate and to reflect; to behold as in a mirror, and by beholding, to be changed into the same image, from glory to glory. Do not expect to be soon equipped for your special work in China, for it will, it must be long before that equipment can be yours. Do not be discouraged because you have to work long, and to labour long before any positive fruits are gathered in. It cannot be otherwise. Harvest cannot follow immediately after spring. Reaping-time cannot follow close upon the heels of sowing-time, and least of all in China. The husbandman has long patience, and must have. He cannot do otherwise. The march of the seasons cannot be quickened by human power. It cannot be accelerated to the rate of human wishes. And neither can the march of the seasons of the spiritual cycle, either at home or abroad; and if the spiritual husbandman must have long forbearance, and expectation, and hope deferred, even in the pastoral field at home, much more must he have it among the uncultivated wilds and wastes, and amid the ungenial skies and climes of the Pagan world abroad. Your difficulties, I repeat, will no doubt be very great. You have still both the language and the character of the Chinese to learn—their language, one of the strangest and most difficult in the world, and to the knowledge of which all the other philologies of human speech are no introduction and no assistance; and their character as peculiar as their language; their ways of thinking, and feeling, and judging; their manners, their customs, their habits, and their laws, being all as unlike those of every other nation, as their ways of speaking and writing. And it will only be after long intercourse with them, and much reading and conversing about them, that you will be able to master this indispensable knowledge. And even all the difficulties of acquiring this twofold knowledge both of their language and of themselves, will only be the first difficulties of the undertaking which is before you. You will then have to encounter all the ordinary difficulties of the Christian teacher and minister besides; the difficulties which every ambassador of Christ meets with in dealing with the hardness and stubbornness of the human heart, and the difficulties which every missionary to the Gentiles experiences She And I trust that the patience and strenuous perseverance of the Church at home, will be the counterpart and the encouragement of your own. has not manifested a spirit of impatience hitherto, in regard to the work of her missionaries, either to Jew or Gentile; and I hope she never will. She has made no importunate demands upon them to produce the fruits of their labours, in souls converted, in Pagans or Infidels baptized. She has chosen men for her missionaries, in whose devotedness, and prudence, and steady laboriousness she has confidence: and she has been content to wait till God, in his own good time, shall grant them success. Her patience has been answerable to theirs; and I have no doubt has been a stay and a support to theirs. And I think I may assure you in her name, that this is the spirit which it is her wish to continue to cherish and manifest. She will not overdrive you, or your fellow-labourers. She will not insist that the wilds of Heathenism should yield a return to her spiritual culture as quickly as the ploughed and enclosed lands of a Christian and highly-favoured realm. Be assured she will endeavour, by the grace of God, to remember for herself the Scripture charge which she now commissions me to address to you. "Be patient, therefore, brethren, to the coming of the Lord. Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him." She and you, and all her missionaries and pastors together, will never forget the example of the father of the faithful, who, after he had "patiently endured, obtained the promise." But let me not speak only of labours and difficulties; let me remind you in more exhilarating terms of your manifold and great encouragements. As your mission and commission are from God, so your encouragement also is in Him-in Him supremely. "All our springs are in Him." It is He who says to us, and who alone can say to us with effect and power, "Fear not; I am God all-sufficient. I am your shield, and your exceeding great reward." And the responsive utterance of faith is, "Some trust in chariots, and some in horses, but we will remember the name of the Lord our God. We will rejoice in thy salvation, in the name of our God we will set up our banners. The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in Him, and I am helped; therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth, and with my song will I praise Him." You are going forth, like Jacob of old, to the distant east; and you are going forth alone; with no companion but the staff in your hand, and the Bible in your pilgrim's wallet. And this house to-night is to you, especially, a Bethel-a house of God, and the gate of heaven. The Lord meets with you here to-night; He renews with you his covenant, and He says, "Behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of;" 66 while you, on your part, vow the Jacobvow, That if God will be with you, and will keep you in the way that you go, then shall Jehovah be your God; taking the stones of this sanctuary for your witness, and the pillars that bear up its noble architecture for the memorial of the covenant between you and your God. And He will not forget his covenant; nor will He permit you to be forgetful of yours. And the Bethel on which you have lighted to-night, will be succeeded by many other Bethels like itself. Wherever you go, My presence," saith your covenant God, "shall go with you, and I will give you rest." The gracious and realized presence of your God and Saviour will make every spot and every scene through which you pass, and even every conveyance in which you travel, a Bethel to your soul: the carriage of the railway, as you career over the plains of the old world of Europe; the cabin of the ship, as you plough the ancient sea of Egypt and Arabia, or the less historic oceans of India and China; and that humble upper-room, too, at Amoy, which is already a prophet's chamber, and where a welcome at once holy and hearty is awaiting you, from its Christ-devoted in-dweller. And the same all-present God, who goes with you to China, has also gone to China before you, to prepare the way for you, and for all the missionaries of the cross. He has gone before you both in his providence and his grace; both in what He has already achieved there by the worldly might of British power, and in what He has accomplished by the spiritual might of preceding missionaries. The providence of God has wrought great marvels in China in recent years. The jealous wall of ancient law-the impenetrable barrier which was so long drawn around both her good and evil, He has pierced, in these latter days, with five different breaches; and each of these is at this moment lying open, to be mounted and entered by the good soldiers of Christ. And it needs not that the walls of a fortress should be pierced at every point, or that, like the walls of Jericho, they should fall flat all round to the earth, in order that the fortress should be carried at sword's point. Itis enough that a practicable breach should have been effected here and there, and that the beleaguerers should be as prompt and brave to enter the breaches made, as they have been strong to make them. And the grace of God, too, has been there before you, and has wrought great wonders. It has laid up in magazines for | your use all the munitions of spiritual war. Already there are ample stores accumulated and laid up in British arsenals, upon the very skirts of that vast empire of darkness, of all the weapons with which are to be fought and won the battles of the Lord. The sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God, has been put into a Chinese hilt, and ground on native grindstones to an edge which can pierce through all the iron mail even of Chinese callousness, and all the indurated stubbornness of Chinese depravity. Morrison, Milne, Medhurst, Gutzlaff, Legge, have all laboured in Chinese translation, and philology before you; and with Anglo-Chinese Grammars and Lexicons, and Bibles ready to your hand, and awaiting your perusal, the Lord of Missions and missionaries has already prepared his own way, making the rough places plain, and the crooked places straight. Behold! the valleys already are exalted, and the mountains already are brought low. A voice has been heard in the wilderness even of China's farspreading desolation and barrenness, "Make straight in the desert a highway for our God." Other men have laboured, and you will enter into their labours, as well as originate labours of your own. Other men have sown, and you will reap what they have sown, as well as break up the fallow-ground, and sow fresh seed for yourself; and reaping in the same spirit in which your illustrious forerunners have sowed, both he that reaps and they who sowed shall rejoice together. You go forth alone, to carry the Gospel to an empire. You go forth single-handed to bear the message of Christ to hundreds of millions of men. With your staff you cross this Jordan, a weak and apparently unbefriended wayfarer. Jacob feels himself to be as feeble and insignificant as the worm that is drawing itself with difficulty across his solitary path. But from this hour, my brother, confer not in your thoughts with flesh and blood. Think not how weak you are, but how mighty is the Lord, and how strong you are yourself in the Lord. Open the eye of faith, and keep it open, that you may enterprise, and endure, as seeing Him who is invisible. Open the ear of faith, and never close it again, that you may ever hear Him who crieth to you from heaven, "Fear not, thou worm Jacob, I will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. Behold, thou shalt thrash the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff. Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away; and thou shalt rejoice in the Lord, and shalt glory in the Holy One of Israel." You go forth alone, like Jacob, to the land of the farthest east, "to the utmost verge of the green earth;" but our hope is that the God of Jacob will increase you there, and bless you, and give you a numerous spiritual seed. And at some future day, which some of us shall hope to see, when you re-cross this Jordan, and revisit your native Church and land, we shall anticipate to see you grown to two goodly bands. We assure ourselves in the Lord that you will then be able to say, not only as to-night, Behold me! but, also, Behold the children whom God has given me. And, perhaps, also, like Jacob, at that future distant day, you will return to this very spot where you have stood to-night, a spot which must ever be sacred and dear to your memory, and again anoint these temple-stones with a fresh libation of devotion, more fragrant than all the oils and perfumes of the Orient, and call the place El-Bethel, in grateful memorial that the God of Bethel was with you in all the way which you went, and answered you in the day of your distress, and in all places and at all times dealt with you, and owned you, and blessed you as your God. Beloved brother, and servant of the Lord, we commend you, we all unite with one heart and soul in commending you to the Lord, and to the word of his grace. We recommend you, as the Church at Antioch recommended Paul and Barnabas, to the grace of God, for the work to which you have this night been separated; the work whereunto it is our persuasion that the Holy Ghost hath called you; and we can find no words so suitable to be the last to fall upon your ears, in the parting charge delivered to you by this Church, than the lines of that old and sacredly-familiar Psalm, as given in our own time-honoured version: "Jehovah hear thee in the day When trouble He doth send, Grant thee thine heart's wish, and fulfil In our God's name we will HOBAB; A FAMILY HISTORY. PART II. WHEN Moses left Egypt, he had recognised himself as the deliverer of Israel from the Egyptian bondage. (Acts vii. 25.) To lead him to this we must suppose that he had become perfectly acquainted with the previous history of Abraham and his seed, and that some marked indication of the Lord's will in the matter had been made to him. This fact seems to fix the writing of the book of Genesis to the learned retirement which he enjoyed in the palace of the Pharaohs. This book he would carry with him to Midian, where it is most probable that he wrote or compiled the book of Job. With the contents of these two books, this man of God would undoubtedly familiarize the household of Raguel. It seems probable indeed that the reason of the extreme youth of his children, forty years after, may have arisen from his first teaching Zipporah the knowledge of the true God and of the covenant of grace, before he made her his wife; in fact, from his desire to see her a child of God first. The very names of his children show that he continued to keep the fear of the Lord and his own Divine mission before his mind, though his faith failed somewhat when the time came. We thus see that he must have dealt often and faithfully with Hobab about the salvation of his soul. All the things connected with his descent from Ham, and the destruction of the Kenites, would be talked over again and again. Very possibly, the truth of all was made to hinge upon the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, for we find Jethro, or Hobab, saying in Exod. xviii., "Now, I know that Jehovah is greater than all gods." Yet when it came to be a matter of immediate choice with him whether he would enrol himself into the Lord's covenant, and take instant action upon it, like many more in the world, he proved but a man who lived to time, and said, "I will not go." faithfully fulfils his holy covenant with them. So much so, as that we find the seed of that man cleaving to Jehovah, when the people of Israel have turned to idolatry. This becomes apparent throughout the history of Hobab's descendants, which we now proceed to trace. Was the Lord's covenant fulfilled to them, and that in the two elements of spiritual and temporal blessings? : 1. We receive no further information about Hobab personally. But that he and his family, and perhaps some of the tribe also, accompanied Moses and Israel, we know to be certain. And at length, when the twelve tribes took possession of Canaan, the Kenites were adopted into, and obtained possession with, the tribe of Judah. The circumstances connected with this incorporation of them into the chief tribe of Israel were the following From their connexion with Moses, they seem to have been associated with Levi during the sojourn in the wilderness. Hence, when the Levitical tribe assumed permanently its peculiar position in Israel, the Kenites knew not what to do. And until a consultation was had among the chiefs of the people, and inquiry was made of the mouth of the Lord, they tarried in Jericho, called the city of palm trees, and then went up with Judah. We cannot discover any other explanation of Judges i. 16, and of their temporary stay in the city of palm trees, except this. At least it appears to be the most probable. At the very outset, then, they are honoured in Israel. And so greatly did they prosper and multiply that, somewhat more than a hundred years after, one branch of the family found it necessary (Judges iv. 11) to emigrate to another locality. This striking increase is marked, not by this circumstance only, but by their having many cities in the time of David (1 Sam. xxx. 26-31); their leading men being among the elders of Judah, and David's personal friends; and also by their division into great branches in the time of Rechab. (1 Chron. ii. 54, 55.) In this place of Chronicles it must be observed that some intermarriage had taken place; Salma, one of the sons of Caleb (not Jephunneh's Caleb), having possibly married one of Zipporah's sisters. This makes the genealogy somewhat complex, but exceedingly interesting, as shall presently appear. From our former article it will be known that he did go, however, and that this interview, in Num. x., constituted a marked era in Hobab's life; his conversion dates from it. He had resisted much, yet grace prevailed at last. And though he had so often grieved the Spirit of God, we shall now find that our Lord does "not 2. In the wilderness, Hobab would be upbraid" even those who resist the a useful and important person to Israel. strivings of his grace for a long time, but | And equally so were his descendants to the people among whom their inheritance | known what to make of the word. Evilay. One of the greatest deliverances dently it is a mistake for Rechab. The which the Lord wrought for the Jews during the time of the Judges, was owing, in a great measure, to the bravery of the Kenite woman Jael, Heber's wife. Nor can we doubt that the act would raise this northern branch of the tribe into a position both of importance and of esteem. The song of Deborah is sufficient to evidence that. And whatever explanation we may be able to give of the apparent dissimulation and treachery practised upon Sisera, there can be no doubt, that Jael acted from pious motives, in ridding Israel of this cruel enemy, and that the act of riddance at least is to be approved of. We know the exceptions which have been taken by certain parties to some things here; but it is not difficult to meet them, nor need we interrupt our history farther than to say that the proclamation of Barak and Deborah (Judges iv.) was of such a kind as necessarily to destroy all trace which may have existed between Heber and Sisera. If Heber be of Israel, this proclamation must set him in opposition to Sisera. He may have been in Barak's army at the very time that his wife was drawing her own and Israel's enemy into her stratagem. Be that as it may, the result of the thing would be honour and esteem to these Kenites, one instance of the fulfilment of the covenant with Hobab. LXX. reads it so, and that on good grounds. For chapter fourth is supplemental to chapter second, and from the third to the twelfth verse we have particulars which were more generally given in the end of the second chapter. There it is said, "These are the Kenites that came of Hamath, the father of the house of Rechab;" here it is said, "These are the men of Rechab." Among these men of Rechab we have, to mention no more, Jabez, and Tehinna, "the father of the city of Nahash." There is only one Nahash, whose city would be particularized in this place. (2 Sam. xvii. 25.) And whether this Nahash was David's mother, or only another name of his father Jesse, it seems to be in this way that David and the Kenites were related. We shall not dwell on this part of the subject. We request, however, a careful perusal of these passages which we have marked, and (we think) it will be impossible to resist the conviction that 1 Chron. iv. 3—12 particularizes individuals of the house of Rechab, the descendant of Hobab, that David and a branch of these Kenites were connected as kinsmen, that the relation was through his mother (for it is most probable that Nahash was his mother), and, consequently, that the covenant, in its development, leads Hobab into the royal family of Judah, and into the genealogy of Jesus Christ. Those who know how the Hebrew people felt in regard to these two particulars, will perceive how high was the honour which was thus conferred on Hobab and his seed. We commend the field of research, in this third section of our history, to the careful attention of our readers. 3. There are a few passages which afford the headings of a very interesting history. But lest any one may shrink from all that we are convinced may legitimately be drawn from them, as if we leant upon imagination, we shall merely indicate the leading particulars. The passages to which we refer are, 1 Sam. Xxx. 26, 29; 1 Chron. ii. 54, 55; iv. 3-12; 2 Sam. xvii. 25. The more 4. The episode of Jabez has always carefully these are studied, especially if been regarded as very interesting. It the reader know the original Hebrew, becomes much more so, when we find and have an acquaintance with the theory that he is one of "the men of Rechab," of Hebrew proper names, the more con- and connect his piety with the fulfilment vincing will the evidence be, to show that of that covenant with Hobab, the developthe following statements are substantiallying of which we are tracing. (1 Chron. correct: On examining these places of Scripture, the first and instinctive thought that presents itself to our minds is, that the elders of the Kenites were David's friends, and this in some such way as to be related to him. We trace the relation thus: (1 Chron. iv. 12), "These are the men of Rechah." There is no Hebrew root for Rechah, and lexicographers have not iv. 9, 10.) "And Jabez was more honourable (nikbad, had in honour, great, respected, and loved) than his brethren. And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh, that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me! And God granted him that which he requested." While |