The discouragement of the Indian Missions lies in their disproportion to the field. How can a few scores of the best men influence a hundred millions of minds? Yet the work proceeds, and the success is great. But there cannot be a notoriety in it. It is penetrative. It is invisible by its depth. It is not of the surface. It is foundation-work. So the individual missionary may often think, that all is lost by being swallowed up in so vast a requirement. But the element of such an effect retains its identity. Whatever surrounds it, it may change that mass, but itself cannot be changed. Among the streams of the Mysore you will discern the lotus spreading itself with its leaves and its flowers, but the seed,-wrapped in a little earth, was thrown upon those waters, presently disappeared and sunk, yet to find in their bed a receptacle for root and outgrowth, until it graces and mantles the current in which it seemed overwhelmed. Oceans will speedily separate us. But we shall not forget each other. As we look up to the heavens, we shall remember that one hemisphere holds us still. Some of our constellations will shine on us as common points. When you mark those which will still be visible to you, and follow them in their declination, -you will think of us, while we watch them through our denser atmosphere and in our severer clime. Then, turning to the Orient, gazing upon those southern orbs which sparkle on the verge of our night, we shall think of you, as they culminate on you in receding from us, not without the recollection that you look into a farther sky, that you have left an inferior Crown* to gaze upon a brighter,—no inapt sign, no uninstructive symbol, that you have gone away from us in pursuit of a greater cause and with the emulation of a more resplendent diadem! The comparison of the Corona Borealis and Australis is according to ancient astronomy, that which was maintained until nearly our times, but not according to latest discovery. SERMON XXII. THE MINISTRY OF ANGELS. HEB. i. 14. "ARE THEY NOT ALL MINISTERING SPIRITS, SENT FORTH TO MINISTER FOR THEM WHO SHALL BE HEIRS OF SALVATION?" WHEN We look forth, still more when we think, upon the universe, we are astonished at its immensity. As space recedes into the illimitable, as imagination raises farther and farther back all the boundaries and outposts it can conceive, as confine yields to confine until none other can be supposed, we find characteristics of the same design, monuments of the same power, proofs of the same beneficence, which we observe in our own habitation. There still flame out suns: there still circle round them tributary worlds. We may speak of that system of which our dwelling forms a part. We mark in the planets which constitute it, the change of phase which denotes a separate revolution. We follow them in their differently measured rounds. Some have lunar light, as is apportioned to us. Manifestations are not wanting of seasons in them. One of this fellowship has only been claimed to it within modern years. Long had it wandered, at twice the distance of the farthest planet, unnoticed yet not unrelated, obeying the same centre with all the rest. The analogies of this system are obvious. It is governed by uniform laws. One answers to all: all answer to one. So perfect is the union, we call them a sisterhood: so unbroken is the harmony, we describe them as a choir. But this is only narrow cycle and epicycle. We gaze upon larger fields. Our sun no more rules. Mightier creations burst upon our sight. Yet there is no violent departure from the order we have hitherto ascertained. Still attraction and repulsion prevail. The shape is orb-like. The motion is rotatory. The beam of the most remote fixed star reaches us by the very principle which cause the lamp to cast its light upon our page. Great and little correspond. The inference is irresistible: the Creator of all this must be one. The presumption is almost as certain : the design of all this must be similar. Then, those worlds are provinces of an undivided empire. Their outward arrangements so fully agreeing, we may infer something which brings them into a common use. We are confirmed, by every enquiry into the course and condition of the physical structure which we inhabit, that it was made for inhabitation. The argument as strongly presses that it was contrived precisely for such creatures as are found upon it. There is respect to their organs of life and of enjoyment. There is adaptation to their every sense. How can it be denied, that every probability favours the conclusion that other worlds are abodes, that they are filled with their populations, and that throughout the universe, as far as it may be explored, there is the teeming of multitudinous life? And how can it be reasonably doubted, that such life bears traces coinciding with our own? Why are atmospheres, constellations, satellites, concentricities, multiplied, repeated, and still evolved, but that there is a resemblance of being? Notwithstanding this clear analogy, we are soon made to feel the limits of our ignorance. By a rigid demonstration of geometry we may guage those vast spheres: we possess no means of information, no particles of knowledge, in regard, if such exist, to their moral history. In the absence of all discovery concerning other creatures, the human fancy has not only been ingeniously fertile but impiously daring. Mythology is its conception. We cannot deny a certain beauty to it. Its dæmons implied very different ideas to its disciples from what they can to us. The classic writings assume that they were true and good beings, and therefore they are understood in a favourable light: they were the lords many, and the gods many, of their worship and of their heaven. The New Testament, so far as it couples them with fallen angels,-considers them as only wicked. It constantly shows that these angels were the chief agents and supporters of idolatry. Hence the simple cause, that the Pagan poetry and even philosophy speak of the dæmon without exception in a reverential sense, and that the inspired Volume as invariably speaks of him in that which is abhorrent. Nor let us lose ourselves in the picturesque of that superstition which crowded every scene with genii,—which gave satyr to the desert, naiad to the stream, and faun to the grove. They who have read these legends,-attuned by verse, adorned by taste,-well know what is the design of such machines. They are the very brood of vice. They are a rout of wild debauch. Whatever interventions are narrated of them, they were not the auxiliaries of innocence nor the defenders of worth. No woodland was safe in which they roamed: no river was pure in which they laved. The whole thought is one unchasteness. It is a defilement every where obtruding its taint. The endeavour is to hide the grossness. Many of our age and name would refine it into allegory. But the proofs of its utter abomination are manifest. When lawless passion built its shrines apart, there was restriction, there was check: but this was the ubiquity of the evil, mingling pollution with every fairest copse and every glassy spring. And when there was a bolder theory,— when æons and demigods were placed in the midway of earth and the empyrean,-it became a vain incumbrance. No interest of man was subserved. It was a glittering vision, explaining no difficulty, bringing no help. no help. A greater confusion was but introduced. None could say what was the Supreme control which wielded and restrained them. It was the endless subdivision of power. It wearied thought. It distracted hope. It was that pantheism which is more revolting and sacrilegious than the folly which says, There is no God! Its informations are They are constituted Inspired Scripture is our only guide. clear. Heaven is inhabited by creatures. for it. It is their proper region. It meets all their capacities. These are the angels. They are as Every creature has its habitation. So of these blessed existences, the celestial is the native home. "The army of heaven" is as discriminate as "the inhabitants of earth." Jehovah identifies himself with them, and takes a name N N proper to it, as men to earth. That habitation is congenial. from them, "the Lord of hosts." Jacob, therefore, when the angels of God met him, exclaimed: "This is God's host." When the angel announced to the shepherds of Bethlehem the advent of the Saviour, "suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host." They may speed on errands of duty, but this is their sphere. They are the singers of this temple, answering each other in antiphonal bursts of praise. They are seen “walking in their places" and "standing by." of this court. They swell its state and form its retinue. "I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God." "The angels in heaven." "As the angels of God in heaven." They are the princes - We thus find that there is another world filled with its race. They are substantive beings. The Text affords a strong, though implicit, argument. The question is proposed, and again proposed: "Unto which of the angels said He at any time?". Their rivalry is to be debarred. Their competitorship must be annihilated. Then they are real existences. Were they abstractions, impersonations, figures, the argument would be denuded of all its force. They are introduced with all the qualities of intelligence, motive, agency, rank. But what pretensions can they challenge to equality with the Eternal Son? Is not their confessed position the reply? "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation ?" The phraseology of the Passage requires a brief attention. These angels are spirits. This, of itself, might not be sufficient testimony to establish their incorporeal simplicity. For the word is applied to the human spirit in its embodied state. God is "the God of the spirits of all flesh." Men are now "blessed who are poor in spirit;" and Christ, manifest in the flesh, "yielded up the ghost." It is, however, an auxiliary proof, and prepares us generally for this whole conclusion. These spirits are ministering, and are said to be sent forth to minister. The reader of this translation might naturally suppose that it was the rendering of the same word in either place. But the original words are most different. In the first instance, one is employed which expresses an intense devotion.* Λειτουργικός. The |