used, and we know how eminently they were successful. I will not say that missions conducted on a different principle have not had their blessing from God in their degree; nor should anything now said be supposed to refer to the state of a settled Church; but we all well know that the Gospel principle of a mission is simply set forth in our SAVIOUR'S Words: "Go your ways; behold I send you forth as lambs among wolves. Carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes, and into whatsoever house ye enter, first say, Peace be to this house. And in the same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they give, for the labourer is worthy of his hire." They were to be unprotected and exposed to danger in some degree as lambs are among wolves; they were to be unprovided for, and dependent upon those whom they taught; they were to go with authority and a blessing; they were to share in the riches or the poverty of the people among whom they laboured. We know this; but strangely enough have not faith to act upon it.

Surely there are men enough among us who, irrespective of all personal considerations, would in this spirit go forth to the LORD's work, willing to count their lives but loss for CHRIST's sake. Would that this were fairly tried,-for hardly may we expect the doctrine of the Cross to be preached, with a due success among men, save through a manifest bearing of the Cross. The self-chosen poverty, self-humiliation, self-abandonment of the missionary. more

recommend the Gospel to the heathen whether at home or abroad, than all other appliances whatsoever. Learning, talent, a splendid establishment have little hold upon the mind in comparison with that obvious proof of sincerity in a teacher,—selfsacrifice and a life of sanctity.

Finally, my brethren, let us open our eyes to the true character of this life and to the real objects of our sojourn here. And as affliction is sooner or later the portion of all men, let us determine to anticipate its approach by our Christian bearing throughout life, by looking at, standing by, taking up, bearing about, embracing our Cross.

M

SERMON X.

THE GRAVE OF CHRIST A TYPE OF THE CHURCH'S STRUGGLES.

S. MATT. XXVII. 61.

AND THERE WAS MARY MAGDALENE AND THE OTHER MARY SITTING OVER AGAINST THE SEPULCHRE.

We are now called to look upon a picture of wondrous beauty and interest-the sight of those two women in their deep sorrow, who, out of all mankind, are deemed worthy to gaze, with faith and hope, upon the stone that bars the entrance of that sepulchre from which is to come the world's Redeemer. There they sit as mourners at the grave of CHRIST, the full sense of their loss only slowly breaking upon their minds. There they sit on the eve of that awful day of the mysterious darkness, when "the earth did quake and the rocks rent," the involuntary expression of nature's awe at the dreadful deed but just committed. There they sit, and the calm is all the more solemn and intense, by how much the scenes they had just witnessed

breathed violence and the wrath of man. There they sit, wrapt in thoughts, sad indeed, yet not unmingled with hope; unable as it were to withdraw themselves from the subject of their mighty griefs.

And what were their thoughts? Indeed it is difficult to know where best to begin in the attempt to divine them; for here was mixed so much that was of earth with so much that wears a heavenly aspect, so much attachment to the Person of CHRIST in His Fleshly Presence with so much faith in His mission from on high,—so much grief at His death, with so much hope of His resurrection,— so much thought of His mangled body, and of that "face so marred more than any man's," with so much of a present feeling that He was still in being, and that these woes were to issue in some great and unusual event of power and Divinity, that we may well pause in admiration at our task. And here, if the sentiments of Magdalene had harmonized with those entertained by the rest of the Apostles, our work had been the easier; for it is not difficult to divine their less complex feelings. To their high expectations their visions of earthly grandeur, had succeeded a blank of hopeless despondency. Those heights of greatness and of splendour, to which the nation of the Jews had attained under its greatest monarch, they had looked to see renewed ; nay, the magnificence of Solomon's reign was now to prove the type only of that glorious earthly kingdom of