2. If the Gospel is indispensible to the salvation of mankind, why has not God long since sent it to them?—Because, in the first place, pagan nations have ever maintained violent opposition to its introduction. When the Gospel was given to the Roman empire, the fire of ten persecutions raged against it; and when it triumphed, the delusion and the sword of Mahomet, and the lying miracles and persecutions of popery combined to supplant and expel it.—Because a majority of nominal Christians have opposed and hindered the sending of the Gospel to the heathen; as, probably, some who make this objection now do. And because Christians have been too worldly, and slothful, and timid, and unwilling to do their duty.

God has provided the Gospel for all people, and commanded his disciples to send it to them; and if the heathen had been willing to receive it, and its enemies at home had not opposed sending it, and the friends of Christ had done their duty, the knowledge of the Lord might, long since, have covered the earth, as the waters do the sea. It is the fault of man, not of God, that the Gospel has not been sent to the nations. Is it to be expected that God shall send down angels to print Bibles and scatter them? We might as well insist that he should send them down to plough and sow for us, while we sit in idleness, or conspire together to hinder the work.

3. But if the heathen do, by the light of nature, as well as they can, ought they not to be accepted? The heathen do not do as well as they can, by the light of nature. This light teaches them to love and to worship God, to abstain from the idolatries and immoralities in which they indulge, and to practise the moral virtues which they neglect. Instead of doing as well as they can, they do as bad as they can. Imagination cannot contrive, or depravity execute wickedness, surpassing that which characterises the idolatrous population of the world. Their very temples and worship embody all that is impure, debasing, and inhuman. If there be a spot on earth where the attraction of guilt might be expected to draw down the exterminating wrath of heaven, it is in those idol temples, where six hundred millions of mankind worship devils, and persist in the practice of unutterable abominations.

4. But if the heathen cannot be saved without the Gospel, how can they help themselves, and how, of course, can they be to blame? They can be to blame, because they sin against the light of nature, in rejecting the worship of God, and preferring the worship of idols; and in every one of the gross immoralities which they commit, their crimes, if not aggravated by the presence of our superior light, are in themselves as enormous as they can be, and, with their light, eminently criminal and inexcusable; and it is as just that they should be punished for abusing the light of nature, as it is that we should be punished for violating the revealed laws of heaven. And as to their not being to blame for their sins, unless the Gospel discovers to them some way to escape punishment, it would be a sin

gular maxim, that criminals cannot deserve punishment, unless they can discover some way to escape it. We thought it was the business of law, not to facilitate, but to prevent the escape of transgressors. What if a band of robbers and murderers, overtaken by justice, and inclosed within massy walls, should try in vain to undermine or scale them, or to burst the door of the dungeon; would they not be to blame, because they could not escape, and the government would not show them how, or aid their endeavors? But God from age to age has been attempting to show the heathen the way of escape, and they have hated the light, and refused to come to it. They went from it, because they hated it, and when it was sent after them, and it shined in their darkness with the splendor of noonday, they raged against it and put it out. Besides, it seems to be assumed in the objection, that it is merely for the wickedness committed in this world, that the heathen will suffer in the world to come; whereas they form characters here of immutable wickedness, and continue through eternity as voluntary and as virulent in their aversion to God, as they were in time. It would mar therefore the joy of heaven, and not benefit the heathen themselves, to introduce them to that world of moral purity and glory. They would recoil from the insupportable light, and seek alleviation in the more congenial darkness of the world below.

5. But it is said by some, that the heathen do not need the Gospel; they are as well off without it as we are with it.—Are they patriots, republicans, the friends of liberty, and the enemies of superstition and priest-craft, and foes to the union of church and state Who say this? How little such men know about the condition of the heathen, or how much they calculate upon the ignorance of others, is manifest. The governments of all idolatrous nations are terrific despotisins. In all of them, the great body of the people are ignorant, poor, and vicious; are tormented by the fears of a dark and cruel superstition, and enslaved by a sordid priesthood; they are crushed by the united weight of a pagan church and state? union. No where is priestcraft so triumphant, or so terrible, as in pagan lands. There, too, the wife is the slave, and not the enlightened companion of her husband; and the blessings of the Christian family state is not known. Infanticide, and by the hands of the mother, is common; thousands of widows burn, annually, on the funeral pile with their dead husbands; and thousands of parents, when sickness or age has rendered them helpless, are carried from their own dwellings to die on the cold ground, by starvation and disease. Do not the heathen need the Gospel? are they as well off without it as we are with it? Were there no heaven to lose or hell to be endured, do they not need that peace on earth and good will to men which are found only in alliance with the Gospel?

6. It is said, that it is a libel on the character of God to suppose that so large a portion of the human race are so wicked, and ex

posed to such punishment. But is the lawgiver accountable for the misconduct of his subjects? It may as well be insisted, that the crimes of Christian communities are not crimes and do not expose men to future punishment, because, to suppose it, would be a libel on our Maker. But was it ever alleged in behalf of criminals in a court of justice, that there were so many of them, that to suppose them guilty, and to punish them, would be a libel on the government? It belongs to governments to make good laws, and then to execute them, instead of rendering disobedience impossible, or the following a multitude to do evil safe.

7. But after all, these, it is said, are the harsh and repellant views of an obsolete theology, and that the modern and more enlightened views are much more amiable and consoling.

But again we answer, that the views here exhibited are the result of divine testimony, and unquestionable matters of fact; and the Russian campaign, or the existence of shipwrecks and piracies may as well be denied, because it is much more amiable and consoling to believe that they never happened. But was the innocence of an accused person ever pleaded in a court of justice, on the ground that the supposition of his guilt is a harsh and repellant view, and the supposition of his innocence a much more amiable and consoling conclusion?

8. But it is said, God can take care of the heathen; he does not need us;—and, it may be added, can take care of our health, and plough, and sow, and reap our fields, and send angels to educate our children, and preach the Gospel to them. He does not need us. But do you think he will do it, because he can? Does his ability to work without man, supersede the necessity of man's instrumentality?-The express declarations of the Bible, and the analogy of Providence, stamp the supposition with folly and presumption.

The fact is, that the heathen are unholy and miserable on earth, and, as certainly as heaven is a holy world, are disqualified for heaven. The Gospel is the only remedy, and on Christians devolves the duty of sending it to them; and to palliate or to deny their sin, does not alter their character or condition. To form charitable opinions, and hopes, and good wishes, does them no good, but rather irreparable injury; for the heathen will never be converted, until their guilt and misery are admitted, and every attempt to palliate their guilt and cover their wretchedness, is a barbarous effort to prevent the sympathy of the Christian world from waking up, and the charity and prayers of the Christian world from hastening to their relief. Who is willing to assume this responsibility? What Christian, redeemed by the blood of Jesus, will dare to do it? What Levite will look upon them, and pass by on the other side, and tell the world that they are not wounded, and do not need the healing balm of the Gospel? The entire heathen world groans and travails in pain until now, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God.

PULPIT ELOQUENCE.

In the broadest sense of the term, the eloquence of a preacher will include all the qualities and advantages, which give him power to move the passious of his hearers and to persuade them to the practice of virtue and the service of God. If he has not knowledge and learning and a sound understanding, he will not be able to enlighten and convince. If he is destitute of fancy, he will be unable to draw from the great storehouse of nature, the images which may illustrate spiritual truths. Without rhetoric, he will not construct his discourses according to the rules of art, that is, so as to produce the greatest effect. Without deep feeling and the energy of his own kindled soul, he may indeed instruct and may please the imagination, but he will be unable to touch and inflame the heart. Even with all the indications of deep feeling, if his character be bad, or if any circumstance make his piety doubtful, he will speak in vain; he will bear away no one by the force of his eloquence. The first, and most important requisite, then, is a truly Christian character, a manifestly devout and benevolent spirit. Yet, strange as it may appear, there are some preachers, who, in their mistaken zeal to exhibit the highest powers of rhetoric, bring their own piety into question, and thus palsy the arm with which they hoped to strike an irresistible blow. I refer now to the rhetorical profaneness of appealing to God, of introducing the name of the Almighty, when there is no petition or request preferred to him, and merely for the purpose of rhetorical effect. It has been my fortune, or rather misfortune, in a few instances, to hear this kind of rhetoric from the lips of ministers of the Gospel, to my utter astonishment and confusion. If I am right in deeming this practice profaneness, it is right to expose it, and make it the subject of rebuke.

The great parliamentary orator and playwriter, SHERIDAN, as is related by Moore, always prepared sketches of his speeches; the more showy passages were written on small pieces of paper, or on cards; and he even was accustomed to make a memorandum of the precise place, in which, with theatrical profligacy, he proposed to dishonor the name of God for the sake of rhetorical effect, by crying out-" Good G, Mr. Speaker!" Such thoughtless and daring impiety is sufficiently shocking in the theatre, in parliament, in congress. Men accustomed to be profane in common conversation may be expected to be so in their public speeches. But can it possibly be believed, that precisely the same or very similar profaneness may be found in the writings, and heard, even now, in the discourses of the ministers of the Gospel, and immediately, too, after they have been praying, "Hallowed be thy name ?" The evil has existed, and does exist, and however

deplorable the fact, there is no wisdom in disguising it. On the contrary it seems necessary to expose it, however dishonorable to a few individuals, in order that their examples may no longer be followed by the young, and that the holy Christian office may no longer, on this account, be subject to reproach.

The first offenders, whom I shall hang up by way of terror, are some reverend bishops and doctors of divinity. I begin with MASSILLON, bishop of Clermont, the most eloquent of French preachers; and in producing a few profane expressions from his sermons, and from the sermons of others, I should feel justified in doing it only for the correction of a great evil. Were I a rhetorical teacher, I should not dare to repeat the passages as specimens of eloquence, any more than, in relating a good anecdote, I should dare to dishonor Jehovah by the repetition of the profaneness which originally belonged to it. With this apology I proceed to my work.

MASSILLON. "Great God! how little does mankind consult reason in the point of eternal salvation!"—"If thus it is, who, O my God! will be entitled to salvation?"-" Great God! what portion can remain to me for pleasures and indolence, in a life so short and criminal as mine!"-"My God! how many holy characters have in solitude complained, that their days passed too rapidly away!"—" Great God! what light! what peace! what delicious transports!"-" What a consolation, Great God! is that of hatred?"—"Thus, O my God! foolish and puerile men feel not the loss of their heavenly inheritance."-" My God! in this manner doth the unfortunate soul deceive himself."- 66 My God! and shall the sinner, already so odious through his own crimes, be spared, when he becomes a snare to his brethren ?"—"It would seem, O God! that the world doth furnish us with sufficient opportunities for our ruin.”—“O God! can the ear of man listen to such blasphemies without horror?"-" Good God! that the church should be reduced, through the lukewarmness of Christians, to oblige them by law to participate in thy body and blood!" These are not all the gems of profane oratory which might be produced from this writer. In the last passage, the address seems to be to Christ; and as the Catholic priest believed that he cooperated every day in the creation of his God in the mass, and ate him, it is no wonder he should thus make free with his name.

The next offender to be produced is an English bishop, the celebrated JEREMY TAYLOR, whose eloquence is incomparably superior to that of Massillon, Bossuet, or any other French preacher. "Is there any thing in the world so foolish as a man that is drunk? But, good God! what an intolerable sorrow hath seized upon great portions of mankind, that this folly and madness should possess the greatest spirits, the best company, the most sensible of the