flowed with milk, its rocks exuded with honey, and its hills melted with wine. It is not likely that it should be always tributary, without a native government and jurisdiction. It is not likely that Christians, of the farthest nations, should not link their preferences to it. And will it be nothing for them to whom the lines have fallen in these pleasant places, that here they worship the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, as beneath patriarchal palms? That the footprint of the Incarnate God was upon this soil? That His shadow, when passing by, fell upon these streets and fields? That he stood upon these mountains? That he drank of these wells? The indigenous olive pleased his eye. The native vine embowered his head. "He came unto his own!" Can the remembrance of his visitation ever be effaced? Can that land be ever a common land? O Zion! Blessed shall they be who meet upon thy summit, be it under the lowliest roof,-thy dome never to be lifted up on high again! Thy dew, O Hermon! yet gathers on thy slopes, and shall continually flow the soft, pure, beautiful emblem of Christian love. Thy balm still bleeds, O Gilead! and henceforth shall signify the inward cure of spiritual woe! upon the sea, and bid its waves rejoice! heaven, and bear witness to its saints, as once they rested on thy height! Lebanon! Let thy cedars clap their hands! "Thou whole Palestina!" Triumph in thy redemption from thine ancient desolation,-in the return of them who cannot be strangers in thee,—in the fulfilment of thine own prophets,-in the observance of thine own sabbaths,-honoured as the earliest scene of Christianity, thy metropolis again graced with the mother-church of Christians, and all they who enter that city blessing it for that which must ever refer to its beginning at Jerusalem! Carmel look forth Tabor! rise toward "BUT NOW HAVING NO MORE PLACE IN THESE PARTS." THIS, my Beloved Friend, is too solemn an hour,—this hour of parting from home and country,—this hour of adjured record and vow, this hour which witnesses the pledges of life and death, this hour which suffers the mind to meditate only the unselfish, this hour of high and blessed triumph over yearning and anguish, this hour of willing sacrifice and cheerful daring, -it is too solemn an hour, for me to think of any save Yourself. The part you have taken shames back the apology which was pressing to my lips. In your presence I can have no pretence of right to refer to any feelings of mine own. To lose such a friend is a bitter cost to give him the right hand of fellowship that he should go unto the heathen,-to give it him in silence, as has been already done by his deeply-affected brethren,-to give it him with a grasp in which a contracting heart is felt that can scarcely quit its hold,-were an act which Christian fortitude might enable the fondest affection to perform. But to break the silence! To chasten down the inmost emotions! To rise up, amidst such a pause, to offer counsel or even encouragement,-this is no small task. You have laid it upon me. What could I weigh against your request? There are considerations, it is not denied, which lighten the present duty. You have preferred, my dear brother, that one * This Discourse was addressed to the Rev. John Sugden, A.B., at his Ordination as Missionary to Bangalore, March 20th, 1845. who has long known you, one whom you have consulted in the most serious passage of your holy ministry, one who hailed your missionary purpose from the first, but who advised also the test and probation of more anxious thought and more patient delay, -it is your preference which selects me to address you. I thus relieve your mind by obeying its wish. I know the solicitudes of a household far away,-what prayers, what tears, what devotements, date themselves to this spectacle, how that kindred behold in spirit what they could scarcely bear sensibly to behold, - .I represent to you them of whom you must, within a few short days, take most probably a last farewell, parents in the decline of life, the group of brothers and sisters, not knowing how to give you up, but too conscientious to forbid. I come from the province of which you are a native and from that favoured band of churches of which you are the child, as their deputy to declare that your praise is already among them, that they would have gladly retained you, but through me they greet and cheer you to your glorious work. There are present, honoured men at whose feet I should be far happier to sit and listen than to speak before them, that great Semitic scholar and critic* whose prelections it has been your privilege to receive, that beloved man, the pastor of this place, my fellow-student three and thirty years ago, whose meekness of wisdom, whose ripeness of piety, whose Oriental erudition and experience, for he was the Missionary! would have eminently qualified him to advise, direct, and warn, -others, who by much thought, by official insight, by sanctified learning, are most apt to teach,—but all in their candour and in their brotherly-kindness, enforce your choice. I bow to it. Hear what I offer to your attention only as a younger brother might attend to the elder-born! We feel at once that the words of the Text are remarkable words. They lay open no ordinary character. They express no common mind. They represent that character in a glorious activity, that mind in its boldest mood. They must be your study. They point your way. The Rev. E. Henderson, D.D. The Rev. Henry Townley, Minister of Bishopsgate Chapel. There are minds, which, by their order and temperament, are fitted to lead rather than to follow, to command more than to obey. They cannot pursue the beaten track, but open out their own high career. They cannot fill the inferior rank, but soon achieve preeminence and spring to the front. These break the dead level, and vary the dull monotony, of human character,— their influence is felt upon all the great movements of society,their deeds fix the public eye, and furnish the materials of history, -their renown is as a watch-tower, blazing on high and seen from afar. They are full of energy. Their activity is unappeasable. Their impulse is sleepless. But how few of these masterspirits are raised to bless mankind! They are the corrupters of knowledge, the pests of virtue, the spoilers of peace. Their march is a trail of blood. They know no love of their species. They hold their fellows as the valueless counters by which they play the game of their own ambition. Theirs is an evil greatness. They are placed aloft as stars, but they are stars of malignant phase and disastrous omen. Nor can we anticipate for insatiate qualities like these, unless they become sanctified by true religion, a benevolent direction. They ensnare their possessor. They bear him to giddy heights of power. They surround him with the intoxicating incense of flattery. They lead to many present distinctions and rewards. Yet have there been, and there are now, men of fire and might,-fashioned to acquire, and able to seize, all the meeds which the world honours and presents,-men who are to be allured by no such charms. Once these were their all. In their minds there burned no loftier purpose. Suffering was no sacrifice and daring no effort, if these aims might be fulfilled. But they have learnt the wretched vanity and hollowness of prizes such as these. They read the cheat. No more will they be abused. Henceforth, by patient continuance in well-doing, they seek for honour, glory, and immortality. They can afford to let the bubble burst and the garland wither. They would earn a purer fame. They would pile a more lasting monument. To reach their true destiny, their path lies amidst derision and reproach. Notwithstanding, they bear onward. Nothing can tempt and nothing can appal. They would rather lose their life in advance than save it by a backward step. Christianity developes this character. It gives this instinct all its own grandeur. It provides an exercise and a field for it. It "lifts up and takes away" such a man "in the heat of his spirit." He cannot be restrained within common limits. He cannot tread a narrow stage. He demands kingdoms for his confines, and a world for his range! That man was Paul. He was entitled to the honours of this towering dignity, this forcible concentration, of soul. There was no cold neutrality and inertness in it. It lived, it intensely lived. It must take a side. Its decision once formed, it must pursue it. It strengthened with difficulty and grew bold with jeopardy. We have seen it in all its perversion. Even then there was no compromise, no hypocrisy, no artifice. He was the fearless persecutor. He showed how destructive these mental gifts become in an unholy zelotism, how they rage like brands of hell! But when converted to the faith which he had laboured to destroy, there the whole manhood of the convertite was seen,ingenuous, intrepid, heroic. ،، What things were gain to him, " and how eager had been his quest !—" them he counted loss for Christ," and how uncomplaining was his abandonment ! He holds in his bosom no divided thought. Each feeling is absorbed, but only into one still more strong and deep than all. He turns neither to the right hand nor to the left. Christian and Apostle, Confessor and Martyr, life and death, are only so many forms and expressions of his one governing principle, of his great heart. Nevertheless there is nothing of imperiousness, of rude command, of haughty mien. He is gentle as the nurse. He speaks as to his children. To what low estate will he not stoop? What condescending office will he not undertake? He seeks not dominion. Yet he was ambitious, ambitious of labour and sacrifice. This is the cry of his spirit in the Text: "Having no more place in these parts." It is the shout of onset. It is the gauntlet of defiance. He will not rest. He cannot stay. He would en Past success, counter new foes. He would win distant fields. present honour, do not satisfy. Were we to read such words in forgetfulness of his high mood and bent of mind, we could not |