God has, in the main, a settled method in the employment of his instrumentalities for the diffusion of good, and for the accomplishment of his will upon earth. God has various instrumentalities. Sometimes he operates through the agency of men, and sometimes through the agency of elements which are beyond the control of men. Sometimes the agents of his power are seen and known by us, and we understand the manner of their working. Sometimes they are unseen and unknown, and we can only say of the effect, "The Lord hath done it." But it is especially observable that in the employment of his instrumentalities, God is generally very deliberate. Though he has the power to operate quickly and suddenly,-to speak and it is done, to command and it stands fast, he seems to prefer the other method. Even if the final blow is sudden, he often takes a long period to make preparation for it. If the result bursts upon us at once, as it sometimes does, a careful eye can easily see that the elements were at work and tending towards the result, for a long time before it was developed. The operations of God in nature are gradual and deliberate. They proceed often through many successive, silent, inappreciable influences, but all tending to the one result. The state of the atmosphere at various periods favors the evaporation of moisture. The evaporation of moisture secures the formation of clouds. The clouds produce rain. The rain, as it comes from time to time, mingled with the warm and fertilizing influences of the sun, ripens the harvest, so that the reaper gathers his sheaves with rejoicing. How distant is the series of instrumentalities, or each of them, taken one by one, from the end. Yet they all tend towards it. How deliberate is the march of God's power and goodness, going forth from the early spring to the autumn, through all the elements, working, night and day, to give man food and health, life and strength, and happiness. Like motion transmitted through an indefinite succession of wheels and cogs, the teeth of one working into the teeth of another, so are the works of God. In most instances God permits protracted toil to precede the fruits of that toil and rest from it. "The husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain." Time and labor, wisely expended, form the history of many days and months, before the last grapes are gleaned, and the garner filled for winter. Indeed few persons reap, for themselves, the full results of their labor. They set in motion causes, whose effects are of a more enduring character. The inventor of machinery, the manufacturer, the worker in metals, from the miner up to the most expert artizan,—each sows that which others will reap; each plants the field from which other men will gather a harvest. It is the order of things that many persons are, in most instances, employed to bring one work to perfection. By virtue of that division of labor, which is among the elements of civilization and refinement, no one can take to himself the glory of any entire production. Among the materials of every fabric, either in themselves or in the form which they have taken, there are always some in respect to which the workman enters into another man's labors. When God bestows his blessings upon us, as human beings, by human instrumentalities, it is generally in this deliberate manner. The infant, nourished by food and refreshed by sleep, advances by imperceptible degrees to the vigor of manhood. The improvement of every day, and the influence of every day's improvement upon the ultimate result, is not easily computed. But when the iron muscle, the noble figure, the manly bearing, and the conscious dignity of ripened years appear, they bear witness to the efficacy of the unwearied activity of the influences, each in its sphere, which have terminated in such a result. The work of education, physical and mental, is a work of time. Touch after touch of the pencil brings out at last the beauty of the soul. Grain after grain is knocked off from the marble by the graving tool, till, at last, it stands a perfect specimen of sculpture. The light first appears, an almost imperceptible breaking away of the night; at length the morning redness increases; ray after ray is sent up from under the horizon; and, at last, we have the full brightness of noon. We are often interested in observing in history, or in the lesser events lying within the circle of our personal knowledge, how by a combination of circumstances God prepares the agent who is to take an important part in some great event, then prepares the way for him to act most efficiently, and finally gives him success, by making all beings and circumstances subservient to the end which he designs to accomplish by him. For many years, through the manner and form of their early education and the influences governing them, we can trace the mode in which God prepares men for great occasions. This is especially seen in the history of missions, in their early principles, their first agents, their original operations, their gradual growth, their increasing success. The method of God's government is slow and deliberate. He is not driven by human impatience. He is not hurried by men's enthusiasm. He is not hindered by impediments, before which men faint. In his government, result follows cause in unceasing succession, and each result becomes a new cause, in unvarying round. Every successive event is dovetailed into that which goes before and that which follows after it. Men labor, and others enter into their labors. One begins what a second and a third carry on, and a fourth completes. And this achievement only opens the way for new achievements still, from age to age. The same principle prevails, where God acts with a less visible intervention of subordinate agency. In punishing the wicked, lightning does not suddenly smite the transgressor. Nor does a swift-winged bird fly to feed his people in famine. It is the order of things that the best results shall be the fruit of a gradual process. No morning dew, nor shower, nor day of sunshine is the single instrumentality in producing a crop; but they all unite their energy. They are all repeated again and again, till the fruit appears. The sick do not ordinarily recover at once, as if by a miracle; but by the gradual influence of efficacious medicines, or by the recuperative energies of natural constitution. The same is true of the method in which God effects his purposes of mercy towards men. It is always true that, in regeneration, an individual passes in an instant of time, from the state of an enemy of God to the state of a friend, from being an unbeliever, to a believer; and it is in this instantaneous change, that the Spirit performs his mighty work upon the human heart. But yet the way for this result may, in the divine counsels, have been long preparing; and by an influence now here, now there, God may have been gradually winding the web of his grace around the struggling captive, till at length his opposition is conquered, and he submits, a willing and a joyful subject, to the authority of the Prince of Peace. How deliberate was the process by which God prepared the world for the birth of Christ and the new dispensation. Prophet, and priest, and king died, full of anticipation, and yet the vision tarried; the glory delayed till every thing was ready, and then Christ came. Still further preparation, however, was demanded for the public proclamation of the gospel of Christ; and he lingered thirty years before he took on him his office as a teacher, and began to astonish men with his mighty works. There were reformers before the Reformation of the sixteenth century. Wiclif, who is commonly called the morning star of the Reformation, flourished more than a century before Luther broke the chain of religious thraldom, and bade God's people go free. Every revival of religion is, in like manner, a gradual work. Many glorious results appear nearly together; but this is, so to speak, merely casual. The preparation for those results may have been in some cases shorter, in others, longer; but in all a reality, which time may not, but eternity will, disclose. In that preparation, now an influence was necessary to be called into action here, and now, there. In one place, a difficulty was to be removed; in another, a facility or a susceptibility increased. Memory, in some cases, inust be quickened, to recal past impressions. Instruction must be communicated. The sinner must be convicted of sin. He must understand and perceive the rectitude of God's law. He must be alarmed in view of his danger, and led to the cross of Christ. The influences leading to this consummation may be scattered through years. The hymn learned by the lisping infant may have been the first step towards the conversion of the ripe man. A single word, or a sentence from the lips of a pious parent or Sabbath school teacher, a brother or a sister, may strike the key note, whose vibrations will never die away, but chime in with the harmony of the song of the redeemed. A sermon or an exhortation, heard ten years ago, and another five, and another to-day, seeming to fall on vacant ears and to be sown in listless hearts, may be the links in the chain of blessing by which the sinner is drawn to Christ and his soul saved. When the light and the gay sit in the house of God as if it were no scene of interest to them, and float away from it, apparently, as thoughtless as they entered, who can tell but God has been at work with their hearts? The casket of their memory is his; and if he has locked up there an awakening thought or a divine impression that shall result hereafter in their conversion, who shall forbid him? When men are converted, their conversion is not, doubtless, the sole work of the last instrumentality; but of a series of sanctified instrumentalities, of which the last struck, so to speak, the finishing blow; as every stroke of the artizan's hammer contributes to form the heated iron, till the last completes the work; and, as every dew, and rain, and mist, and damp night, and sunny day contributes its quota to the growing corn, till the last hot sunshine puts it beyond the reach of detriment by the frost, and secures the certainty of a prolific crop. Hence, if a spiritual effort is not fol lowed by immediate success, it is not certain that it is lost. If an immediate result does not appear, as the fruit of our endeavors, who will dare say that we have labored in vain? If the mechanic does not fashion his instrument by a single blow of the hammer, was the blow misdirected? The rill that comes trickling down the mountain's side, or stealing through the valley, is not the mighty river, pushing its majestic way to the sea. But does it not form a part of it? The dew-drop that lies upon the leaf of the young corn, and in an hour slips down to the root or is exhaled by the heat, does not, by itself, produce the blade or the ear; but does it not accomplish its own part towards it? We ought to appreciate more highly the lesser events and circumstances, which, in the progress of things, may work the grandest and the most benign results. modern poet has well said,— "A pebble in the streamlet's bed A dew-drop, on the infant plant, May warp the giant oak forever." A The missionary Boardman has long slept in dust. How often have his brethren visited the green grave where he rests, and wept that he has ceased from among the living. But when a native preacher returned from the forest, some five years ago, reporting that during his absence he had baptized 1550 Karens, all disciples of Jesus, did we not at once remember Boardman, and think “He being dead yet speaketh?" The time of his labors among that people, and of his death is so recent, that we can easily trace the connection of his instructions with these results. And if that happy teacher has any of the spirit of a Christian, instead of boasting of the conversion of those Karens as if it were his own work, he will rather refer it to the teacher by whom he was himself brought to Christ, and this one will refer it to his spiritual father, and so back to their first missionary; while the first missionary will see only God's hand in sending him thither and giving him success, and all will join in the ascription, "Not unto us, not unto us, but to thy name be the glory." And so it will be in the conversion of the world. The preparatory work for that great event is going on. Sometimes, in some places, it seems to be retarded: but even then, it may, in some imperceptible way, proceed; or if it is delayed in one place, it is only that there may be a more successful application of power at a more important one. The points at which the work is begun are constantly multiplying. It is as if rays of light were shooting up from every part of the horizon, and meeting in a point over our heads, in whose splendor the whole earth is to be bathed ;—not to be illumined by one sun, but swallowed up in one glory;—not to send its inhabitants from local temple to temple, but to be itself the temple of the Lord God and of the Lamb;—not to be any longer the ignorant worshippers of the unknown God; but to send up the purest incense of praise from every household and every heart. "Let us not be weary in well-doing; for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." Let us view every spiritual effort made among us or by us as a part of the great preparatory work, by which souls are to be brought to Christ. We may not see the fruit of all our endeavors. Other men have labored, and we have entered into their labors. We labor, and other men will enter into ours. Let us, therefore, prize every opportunity of doing good. Let us use every sea son of prayer, as a means of increasing our efficiency. Let us not boast of the good wrought by us, as if it were our work, and not the work of our fathers; yet not the work of our fathers, but the work of God. And while we ply the work of faith and the labor of love, let it be in the patience of hope. "Thou canst not toil in vain; Cold, heat and moist and dry "Thence, when the glorious day,- And Heaven cry, 'Harvest Home."" SYSTEMATIC CONTRIBUTIONS. The command relating to the evangelization of the world was issued by our Lord to be fulfilled by the eleven apostles and by their successors in the minis, terial office. And, as the Lord has ordained that they who preach the gospel should live of the gospel, it is the duty of all Christians and of others to sustain those who go into all the world, for the purpose of preaching the gospel to every creature. Thus the command is of binding force and efficacy in respect to two classes of persons,-those whose office it is to preach the gospel, and those who are under obligation to aid them in that work, by liberating them from the necessity of occupying themselves in any other engagements. The period during which the command is in force is from the time of its promul gation until its complete fulfilment,-until the gospel shall have been preached to every creature in all the world. A statistical survey of the world shews us at a glance that much is to be done, before the whole world shall have heard the sound of the gospel. There is a class of persons, whose official rank and whose qualifications make it their duty, in the providence of God, to preach the gospel; and there is another class, who have the means to sustain them while they are doing it. God has formed, qualified and deputed these two classes of persons for their several efforts, in reference to the great duty designated. He has also invented the gospel, and rendered it available, in its renovating, sanctifying, benign and saving efficacy, to meet the wants of all mankind. The divine apparatus for the evangelization of the world is, therefore, complete. It remains only that the use of that apparatus by those who are able and appointed to wield it, should be judicious, effective and persevering. The missionary work is one which requires the constant application of the appointed energies, until the necessity in which it originated is fully met. A benefaction once or twice in a man's life, an occasional effort after a stirring sermon, a mere temporary enthusiasm, is not adequate to meet the wants of a perishing world. What may be necessary to be done, or what endeavors may be spared, in some future brighter and happy age, we cannot tell. But during the life-time of the present generation, at least, we may anticipate the necessity of daily offering the prayer, "Thy kingdom come." And as long as our sphere is in the church militant on earth, it will be necessary that our contributions should be poured into this department of the treasury of Christian benevolence |