at home and abroad, in abstract terms, under historical references, and in familiar anthropomorphic language. The Gospel message comes from the Power which has “set on fire the foundations of the mountains," and kindled the central furnace which blazes out through three hundred active volcanoes-or it is nothing. It comes from the Power who rocks the world with earthquakes, and pours out the raging ocean "from the hollow of His hand"—or it is nothing. It comes from the Being who is at this moment hurling along this enormous globe in space, at a speed seventy times quicker than the quickest cannon shot at the first moment of its flight; from the Power whose glory dimly shines in the firmament, spangled with fifty millions of suns, in the infinite distances-or it is nothing. The God of the Bible is the Eternal Cause of the universe, or the Gospel is a delusion. Let, then, this message be delivered with fuller reference to this awful and resistless Power. Let mighty Nature speak, as well as conscience and Scripture, to the souls of men; and let this Gospel be published as a "command to all men everywhere to repent, because God hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom He hath ordained." Men often little dream what Power they are defying in refusing Christ, because the majesty of God is not spoken of by the preacher as it ought to be. Let the idols vanish at His presence! The Gospel must be preached to the heathen so as to overawe them by its origin. Its messengers must speak as if they believed that all who reject it shall "fall into the hands of the living God." Nothing less than this will shake the stiff-necked nations of Asia. Judgment will not convert men, but it will prepare them to believe in saving mercy. Surely it is not necessary to add that it is still more important to approach them with an intense belief in this love and mercy of the Saviour God—a love and mercy which preceded their birth, a love and mercy to every man, so real, so warm, so powerful, that guilt and sin, and death itself, shall be conquered by that Almighty Saviour. That Saviour must be believed in with a vividness, a freshness, a reality which will bring Him near to every soul that hears of Him. There is nothing like an inspired joyfulness of belief in the love of Christ in the preacher, for overcoming heathenism abroad or atheism at home. And this can come to us only as the result of a baptism by the Holy One. I have but one more suggestion to make respecting the Christianity which God will bless as "power unto salvation." It is contained in the other clause of the Apocalyptic passage which I have already quoted. "Fear God, and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment is come." Here, again, the unsatisfactory discussions of Christendom are, I think, likely to weaken the testimony which we send to the heathen. We have disputed at home over the Prophecies, and handled them often in so foolish a manner that the abler sort have come to think we had better leave

THE WORLD'S FUTURE

out of account in preaching Christianity to the pagans. I am persuaded that herein is a great loss of power. There are four chief theories prevailing in Europe and America as to the future of the world,

as to "what shall come to pass hereafter." All of them agree in one idea— that a future better than the present awaits the world. The first of them is the Atheistic theory. A great and growing multitude hold that the final result of science is materialism, and therefore, logically, atheism, since, if men deny distinct spirit in themselves, they will logically deny it in the universe, and come to think that there is nothing alive in nature except themselves and the animals, from whom they trace their descent. These scientific persons, therefore, look forward to a universal reign of materialistic atheism, when the cheerful earth, purged of all religions, shall be plagued no more by fear of God's judgment or the dream of life everlasting. The second mass of men believe in the Roman Catholic religion. They think that one day, perhaps soon, all the world will become subject to the Papal Chair-every human mind, every human conscience, every human will, become subject to the Pope of Rome. O woman of Babylon, great is thy faith! Then there are vast multitudes of people who have, through sheer disgust and weariness, abjured prophecy, but still rest in the vague belief that somehow things are generally drifting towards a better time; when, through the blessing of God's spirit and existing agencies, the world shall be "filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” A fourth mass of thinkers, daily growing more numerous, hold to what they call the true future of prophecy. The late Dean Alford was one of the soberest of these scholars. Under different modifications, they maintain that no follies of former interpreters should blind us to the fact that the Bible everywhere represents the Divine government of the earth, since the rise of Babylon, as a great connected drama, of which four acts are finished, and which is hastening towards a catastrophe-at the end of "the times of the Gentiles"—when an epoch of awful judgment on the nations of the whole earth will usher in the triumphant kingdom of God among men. Well may we pray "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it in heaven "-for then the world will be, not burnt up, but beautified; the nations not destroyed, but weeded and reformed; and the earth be filled for ages with a God-fearing and rejoicing population. And these readers of the Bible maintain that the Gospel ought to be preached to the heathen along with this warning, "Fear God, and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment is come." I strongly maintain that this belief is not a hindrance but a stimulus to earnest labour, and that it ought not to be discouraged by any missionary society. It tends to keep up the sense of the Divine government and the Divine Presence in the world, and it places the converts to Christ in the attitude of the early Church, by teaching them to "love the appearing of the Lord," and to "wait for God's Son from Heaven, even Jesus, who delivered us from the wrath to come." In one word, our difficulties are so stupendous, that God alone can overcome them; and He will sanction our efforts only as we set His Word of judgment and mercy in the front, His power, as the Pillar of Fire, in the van, and His kingdom, as the true hope of all mankind, in the ages to follow.

REV. J. MACKENZIE, MISSIONARY FROM SOUTH AFRICA.

I listened to a discourse yesterday morning, in a part of which was described the intellectual position of some men in our English society at the present day, and the preacher said that their standpoint was "I don't know." It occurred to me, as a practical missionary, that that intellectual position had very likely some connection with "I don't care." Those whose intellectual position is "I don't know, I cannot satisfy myself about anything in particular," are likely soon to say, "nor do I care." I have the honour to stand in Exeter Hall, the place where people know and believe, the place where people also express an interest and a feeling which amount to anxious care concerning the wrongs, the injuries, and the woes of the world around them. What is it, then, which enables your missionaries to carry on their work successfully, those whom you send to different parts of the world? You have heard something of it in the speech to which you have just listened; I shall give you in two or three words my own version of it after

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS' EXPERIENCE.

We go to these people in their ignorance and degradation, and announce to them the love of God to mankind; we go to them exemplifying-alas, how imperfectly!—that love in our own persons, in our families, in our own every-day life. The missionary, to be successful, must be a loving, sympathising, care-taking man; in some sense he exemplifies that love which he tells them has come from heaven. Patronage won't do; argumentation won't do. You may argue till Doomsday, and, as the previous speaker has said, you will leave not only Englishmen, but men everywhere, where you found them. But love, the exhibition of it in your own walk and conversation, not merely to the lovely and the loving, but to the loveless and the unlovely, that will captivate the heart of the degraded. It will arouse the most sottish mind, it will elevate the most degraded, when they had it brought to them from heaven and exemplified in the life of men like themselves. I feel, therefore, that in speaking to you about Bechwanaland I am speaking to no theorising or theoretical audience, but to those who for many years have been most deeply and practically interested in South Africa. No human beings could be more degraded than were those amongst whom the missionaries of this Society commenced their labours at the beginning of the present century. They were serfs and slaves in astate of utter degradation. What are they now? In the language of a Cape historian, they are a respectable, industrial people; a respectable, labouring population. You have had your preaching station, which, in the course of time, has become a partially self-supporting church, and afterwards an entirely self-supporting church; and not long ago one of these churches sent a call to an English Congregational minister in this country, who accepted the call, and went out to become a pastor of a church which has gone through those three stages. It is often said, and I am always thankful to hear it, that the London Missionary Society is not a sectarian institu

tion. It retains its old name of "the Missionary Society, commonly called the London Missionary Society," and we are sent out, as I have always understood, to preach the Gospel of the blessed God, and to leave matters of Church government to the settlement of future events. There is a church in the Cape Colony which exemplifies this. Some people imagine that that is the kind of thing you say on the platform, and that after all there is, perhaps, little behind it. Well, there is this behind it. Some time ago a missionary of this society was unfortunately disqualified from public work by a throat affection. The church of which he was the pastor, being an entirely self-supporting church, looking round, chose a member of the DUTCH REFORMED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

of Cape Colony. Accordingly, the church buildings and everything else passed over into the hands of that Church. The London Missionary Society, as an evangelising institution, having done its work and done it nobly, hands over the congregation, the building, and all the appliances of a successful effort, to the Dutch Church of Cape Colony. I think that is a practical attestation of the fact that we are a catholic society, doing work for whomsoever may fall heir to it. You are aware that the Dutch-speaking colonists of Cape Colony, when missionaries first went amongst them, were very much opposed to mission work. I do not say it was because they were Dutch or spoke the Dutch language; for our own planters in the West Indies were equally opposed to those who came with the open Bible in their hands, and said, "We are going to preach what God says to all men, to your slaves." It is a dangerous Book to preach from to men who are meant to be retained in bondage; it is like the bringing of matches to a powder-magazine, to bring the revelation of God's love and mercy into contact with the human mind. But what is the attitude now of those who opposed your missionaries at the commencement of the present century? Why, they are engaged in the work themselves. It is a most pleasing thing to say that the Dutch Reformed Church has now its own mission to the heathen in the northern districts of South Africa. Those who were opposed to the mission work and frowned upon it are not only engaged in it themselves in their own villages, but they have actually established stations in the Transvaal and the surrounding districts, which they themselves support. Now, had your missions not been successful in Cape Colony, had all this been a matter of platform oratory in this country, how is it that those who were opposed to the work many years ago now approve of it and are engaged in it? There can be no other reason than that they have seen that it is the very work of God; that it has done good in Cape Colony; and that they, as Christian men, are bound to go on with it. Then, while we have nothing to do with party government in Exeter Hall-while it is all the same to this society who is in power and who is out of power-still we are always glad and thankful, as missionaries, and as members of a missionary society, to be able to say, with reference to South Africa, that the English Government has done there a most beneficent and valuable work. If you turn your

attention to the vast continent of America, for instance, and ask, "Where are the Aborigines ?" echo sorrowfully answers, "Where?" You find in museums the Bible in languages which were once living and spoken tongues, but which are no longer spoken. Now, why did that take place in North America? Merely because the voice of Exeter Hall did not reach the western settlements of that continent; the restraining power which emanates from this hall-in other words, from the Christian conscience of England-was not felt there. In South Africa, we have had a happier history. Races which were decreasing when the English Government went there are now increasing; they had shown their right to live upon God's earth by their ability to improve, to work, and to be helpful in the economy of the land of their birth. Now, in taking this course the English Government had no superhuman means for acquiring knowledge; in many cases the information which they went upon was derived from missionaries. The Hottentots were freed from the position of service by the intervention of whom? If I were to mention a name it might be considered invidious, yet the history of the country is such that it is not invidious to say that it was a missionary of this institution—a missionary of the London Missionary Society-by whose instrumentality chiefly hordes of serfs were elevated to the position of human beings. I refer to Dr. Philip. So those questions which come up with reference to the social condition and well-being of the South African tribes, are

QUESTIONS WHICH HAVE TO BE CONSIDERED

by you, as members of the London Missionary Society; and I am sure I meet every where with the kindest interest. I hear members of the society say, "Show to us if you can how this matter can be settled, how the difficulties in Bechwanaland can be put right, and we will give you what help we can." In crossing the Orange River we come to the country which the London Missionary Society has occupied for a considerable number of years-over fifty. What has been done in South Bechwanaland in the life of one man-a long-lived man, but one whom I am proud and glad to see here to-day? When Mr. John Campbell visited Bechwanaland as the missionary pioneer, he found those who were indeed higher in civilisation than the abject Hottentots and Bushmen of the southern part of the Continent, but who were still utterly degraded, living a low, heathenish life, and having a very low type of civilisation. What is the case now? At our last New Year's prayer-meeting there were some 80 waggons drawn up at the village church of Kuruman. A waggon represents about £150 sterling. Those waggons would be drawn by teams of oxen; each would have perhaps ten oxen to pull it, and each ox would cost about £4. Now that would represent a considerable sum for the travelling appliances of the country. Their owners are living, or were living, at farms; they had led out "fountains," by means of which they irrigated; they were producers, and occupied important positions with reference to the food supply of the neighbouring diamond-fields, supplying stock and grain. With reference to the higher and spiritual work, the Church members in