The Cry Of The Heathen

The Cry Of The Heathen

A Sermon

(No. 189)

Delivered on Sabbath Morning, April 25th, 1858, by the

REV. C.H. SPURGEON

at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens

"And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. There stood a man of
Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help
us."–Acts 16:9.

THIS WAS NO DOUBT a special vision sent of God for the direction of the
apostle. For we are told in the next verse, that they assuredly
gathered from this vision, that the Lord had called them to preach the
gospel in Macedonia. And yet the vision may be very readily accounted
for by natural causes. Men usually dream of that which is most upon
their minds. Who would marvel that the miser should, in his restless
sleep, be pictured to his own sight as counting over his gold? Who
wonders that the mother's dream is often concerning her fair infant?
Who marvels that the wife frequently dreams of shipwrecks, when, in the
stormy night, she lies upon her bed, her last thoughts having been
exercised concerning her husband at sea? You wonder not that the
soldier in the trenches dreams of battle. And hence we cannot marvel
that the apostle Paul, whose whole soul was full of his Master's cause,
should have a vision in the night concerning a new field of labor,
which God had intended to open up to him. You will remember that the
apostle was, on this occasion, in a peculiar condition. He at first
endeavored to preach the gospel in Phrygia and Galatia, but he was
forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the Word in Asia. And "after they
had come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit
suffered them not." The apostle was like Abraham of old; he went forth,
not knowing whither he went. There was a certain path which he must
take, and when he strove to turn either to the right hand or to the
left, the Spirit directly forbade him, and he was compelled to go on
till he came to the sea-port of Troas. There, wearied with his journey,
he cast himself upon his couch, and in the midst of the night a vision
appeared unto him. A man who by his brogue and his dress was discovered
to be a Macedonian, said to him, "Come over and help us." God sometimes
tells men in their sleep the secret they could not discover when they
were awake. We have heard of the preacher who, tired late on Saturday
evening, has been unable to think of a discourse, in the middle of the
night has dreamed it through, and on the morrow he ascended his pulpit
and preached it. What wonder then, that the apostle Paul, specially
directed by the Spirit of God, after an day long wearily exercising his
mind an to the journey God intended him to take, should, after all,
when in his sleep, have a vision from on high, teaching him where he
should go.

And now, beloved, having thus prefaced our discourse, we have another
observation to make before we proceed to a full discussion of the text.
What an instance of Divine sovereignty we have in our text! He who is
wise can see sovereignty everywhere in the work of salvation, but how
clearly is it present here. Bithynia must not hear the gospel; the
apostle desires to go and preach it there; but as yet, it seems, God
does not intend that Bithynia should be evangelised. He desires to
tarry in Asia, and there throughout its length and breadth preach the
gospel; but he is strictly forbidden, and the command comes to him that
he is to go across to Europe, and there proclaim the gospel. Was not
this sovereignty? Why was it that God shut the door in Bithynia, and
opened it in Philippi! Was it that Philippi was more worthy, or that
Bithynia needed it less? Assuredly not. It was of God's mercy that he
sent the gospel at any time, and when he sent to Philippi the most
eminent of apostles to preach it, who shall blame him? Has he not a
right to do what he wills with his own? But we may rest quite assured,
that his sovereignty was not an arbitrary exercise of despotic will. It
was a sovereignty dictated by the highest wisdom; for while God rules
all things according to his own will, yet we are expressly told, that
he doeth it according to the counsels of his will, his will being no
blind headstrong thing, willing for no reason whatever, but being
always subject to his own sense of that which is the wisest, and which
will promote his glory and his creature's profit. However, we must
still observe, Divine sovereignty is that which casts a rich lustre
upon grace, when we recollect that it is sovereign and free. Oh ye, of
the race of Britain! bless the Lord, that he hath sent the gospel unto
you; for while doubtless there is wisdom in it, remember there is also
sovereignty in it. "He hath not dealt so with any nation. Praise ye the
Lord." Had he willed it, had he seen fit, the gospel had this day been
flourishing in the center of Africa, and you might at this moment have
been destitute of the word of the gospel, living barbarians like your
fathers, embruing your hands in blood. Unto the great, dread Sovereign,
who ruleth as he wills on earth as in heaven, be glory for ever and
ever.

And now we turn to our text. "And a vision appeared to Paul in the
night; There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come
over into Macedonia, and help us." First, we shall observe, that the
best help that can be rendered to any people is the preaching of the
gospel. "Come over and help us," that is, preach to us. Secondly, we
shall notice that although we have no visions or dreary in the night,
yet, the nations on the earth are calling to the church of the living
God, and are saying to us, "Come over to us, and help us." And then,
thirdly, I shall conclude, by solemnly asking the question, what do you
who love the Lord intend to say to those, who are now asking at your
hands the help of a preached gospel?

I. First, then, THE GREATEST HELP THAT CAN BE GIVEN TO ANY PEOPLE, IS
THE PREACHING OF THE GOSPEL, and when I say this, I am uttering a truth
which I need not guard. The gospel is a help, not in one way, but in
every way. Those who have not the gospel stand in the greatest need of
help; but when the gospel is carried, you carry everything within it.
In the folds of the gospel sleepeth the manifold wisdom of God, and his
manifold goodness also toward the sons of men. Behold, the nations of
the earth this day are still the bond-slaves of tyrants–many lands are
still subject to despotic dynasties, who trample men beneath their
feet, as if men were but earthen pitchers to be broken in pieces by the
iron wills of kings. How is liberty to be established in these lands?
Shall the point of the bayonet bring liberty to these nations that
still are slaves? Never, never. Iron makes our fetters, iron rivets
them, but iron never can unloose them. We need something more potent
than steel to carve out the liberty of mankind. Love, love of the
Gospel, must be the ground work of liberty, and if liberty, equality,
and fraternity, the three great words that are the world's heir loom,
are ever to be fully known and realised, it must be by the preaching of
the Word of Jesus. The preaching of the gospel is the terror of
despots. If you ask what makes this land free, every candid man must
say it is the open gospel and the unfettered preaching of the Word.
Glasgow's motto is, "Let Glasgow flourish by the preaching of the
Word." It is the coat of arms of liberty herself. Liberty flourishes by
the preaching of the Word of God. Certain it is that wherever you find
Protestantism, you find liberty, and wherever you leave Protestantism
behind you, you begin to feel the yoke, and to hear the groans of the
oppressed. It is true that Protestantism doth not in every place
produce perfect liberty, because it is not sufficiently true to itself.
There are still places where the slave feels the lash, while his master
calls himself a Christian; but this is not the legitimate effect of our
religion, but rather the effect of a delusion which hell itself did
first invent, and which nought but the deep depravity of men could ever
permit to stand before the face of God's sun. Yes, ye tyrants on your
thrones, the little stone cut out of the mountain without hands shall
yet break you in pieces! O great statue of tyranny with thy head of
gold, and thy feet of clay, thou shalt yet totter, for this shall break
thee in pieces, for the breaker is come out before us, and the king at
the head of us, and who can withstand his might? What shall hold out
against the mighty principle wherewith Christ makes men free?

Look, brethren, too, and see how the nations of the earth are lying
under gloomy superstition. Perhaps there is one thing in the world
worse than kingcraft, and that is priestcraft. May God save us from two
things–from tyrannical kings, and from priests of all sorts. Priests
of any sort are bad, but superstitious priests are the worst of all.
Oh, how many nations of the earth have their intellect blighted, their
hopes blasted, their progress shipped, their whole history eclipsed of
its glory, their state robbed of its riches, by the cursed dominancy of
priests. Men are compelled to believe just what the priest chooses.
Because he wears a cassock; because he has been educated in the deep
mysteries of craftiness, he is to be lord over men's consciences, and
consciences and hearts are to bow before him; wherever he comes his
word is to be law, his will is to open and shut the gates of heaven,
for he pretends that the keys of heaven and of hades are hanging at his
girdle. How shall we deliver men from these enthralling superstitions!
No how, but by the preaching of the gospel. You cannot make men free,
even by governments; you cannot give them a thorough freedom by giving
them a republic itself; for that republic must fall so long as
priestcraft is there, for liberty and priestcraft agree as well
together as God and devil, and no better; and until the one falls the
other can never stand.

But the preaching of the gospel which teaches that believers are all
priests and kings; which lifts every one of us into the high places of
princes and monarchs and puts every one of us on a level with pontiffs
and priests–this is the gospel which shall yet set men free, and the
preaching of this, and this only, is the world's great and grandest
hope of its deliverance from the slavery of the body and the yet more
accursed bondage of the soul.

But, beloved, there are some nations of the earth that have never as
yet tasted of the sweets of salvation. Large tracts of country have
been discovered, where the people are still debased and degraded; the
kraal of the Hottentot has not yet blossomed into a mansion, the spear
of the New Zealander has not yet been entirely changed for a pruning
hook. There are many places where all the joys of life and the social
comforts and enjoyments of our being, are as yet totally unknown. Now,
the gospel has blessings in both its hands. Wherever it goes it has the
blessings heaven, rich and golden–it has the blessing of the earth,
fair and silvery. They are both precious things, and while we believe
the gospel is ordained most of all to bless man for the hereafter, yet
the secularist himself, if he were wise, must take some interest in the
progress of the gospel, for it is a blessing to men even ill this life.
The great civilizer is the cross. Nothing else can make the barbarian
into a civilized man, but the cross and the vision of Christ hanging on
it. Blessed are the feet of them that bring glad tidings of peace, for
where they bring the glad tidings of peace with God, they bring also
good news of goodwill towards men,–even goodwill towards men as
creatures here, as well as good news to them as creatures that are to
exist for ever. My dear brethren and sisters, if you would bless the
world, in the largest possible sense, temporarily, spiritually, and
eternally; if you would bless the bodies and the souls of men, if you
would bless men in their children, in their houses, if you would bless
them in their meats and drinks and in all the necessities of life, the
one simple means of doing all this, is just the proclamation of the
gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that fully preached and received,
has been proved in instances which I need not now stop to recall to
your memories–instances abundant and recent, to be after all, the
power of God, not only to salvation but to civilization too.

There is yet one more point which I must mention here in which the
gospel is the best help to man. We must remember to-day, that there are
districts of the earth where the ground is yet red with blood. There
are sad portions of our globe that as yet must have the name of
Aceldama, the field of gore, there are spots where the horse-hoof is
splashed with blood; where the very carcasses of men are the food of
ravens and of jackalls, the mounds of Balaclava are as yet scarcely
green, and the spots where rest the relics of our own murdered sisters
and brothers are not covered with the memorial stone. War has ravaged
whole districts; even in these late times the dogs of war are not yet
muzzled. Oh! what shall we do to put an end to war? Mars, where is the
chain that shall bind thee like Prometheus, to the rock? How shall we
imprison thee for ever, thou cruel Moloch; how shall we for ever chain
thee? Behold here is the great chain, that which one day is to bind the
great serpent; it has the blood-red links of love. The gospel of Jesus
Christ the crucified one, shall yet hush the clarion of war, and break
the battle-bow in sunder.

Happy are we, thrice happy, that we have a gospel which shall make men

"Hang the useless helmet high,

And study war no more."

Let us spread it, then, to earth's utmost bounds; for, to repeat the
text I quoted just now, it hath blessings in both its hands, wherever
it goes temporarily as well as eternally, it blesses the human race.
And when it shall have spread to its utmost limits, when all the
habitable earth shall be covered with it then the mist that swathes our
planet shall be rolled away, and bright, like a new-born morning star,
this earth shall shine out with her sister stars in all her glory, and
the angels shall once more sing, and God himself shall repeat his
verdict–"all things are very good."

But still, beloved, the greatest help that the gospel brings is help to
the soul. Ah, Christian men, ye know what this means: your brothers and
sisters are this day wandering blindfold, they know not whither. Ye
know, for the Bible tells you that they are wending their weary way
down to the gulf of black despair! Oh does not your heart desire that
the blind eye should be opened, that the misguided should be directed
on the path to heaven: would not your pity desire to snatch the fire
brand from the flame? Do you not anxiously seek to know how you can
lead the vicious to virtue, and the virtuous to the righteousness that
is in Jesus Christ? Have you no desire to see God's elect ingathered,
to see them washed, and sanctified, and perfected? Remember this is to
be, and since it is to be it is certain that ye must send the gospel
far and wide, for by no other means can God's elect be gathered home.
How can they believe without a preacher? How can they preach except
they be sent? The gospel must go throughout all lands, that the elect
may be gathered home, and the Messiah's kingdom come. Oh! ye who love
the souls of men, it is to you an awful thought that hell's caverns are
filling; it is a dreary thing to you to see the broad road so crowded
with its many travelers? You are longing and wishing that the narrow
way might have more pilgrims, I beseech you, then, look to it, that by
every mean. and by all means ye aid the preaching of the gospel of
Jesus; for it is the help for which the earth calls, and the help which
you must render to it. Come over and help us by preaching Christ's holy
gospel. Thus have I done with the first head, may the Lord help us in
the second.

II. The second point is, that although not in visions of the night, yet
EVERY DAY AND EVERY HOUR, THE NATIONS OF THE EARTH ARE SAYING, "COME
OVER AND HELP US." Do you not know, that the loudest eloquence is
silence? To move the heart of the right-minded, ye need not the
declamation of the orator. The sight of silent, dumb misery is the
highest eloquence to a tender heart. It is true, I must confess it the
nations of the earth do not vocally ask for your help; nay, worse than
that, if you send them the help of the gospel they will many of them
reject it. Your missionaries have been slain,–the altars of false gods
have been stained with their blood; but still I solemnly repeat it the
nations of the earth are silently crying, "Come over and help us." If I
say; a person in the street sick, faint, and dying, although he spoke
not to me, though he asked me not to befriend him, I should think the
weakness of his silence more potent than all the power of words. Ay,
and if I saw him like a maniac, rejecting my help and pushing me from
him, if I was convinced that he was really a maniac, for that very
reason that he needed my help, I would thrust my alms upon him, I would
willingly give him my help and assistance, and so must you do. The
nations of the earth are dead in sin; how can they cry to you? But it
is yours to see their misery; and let the poor, poor dumb wounds of
this bleeding earth speak to you. It is true, earth is a maniac, and it
puts away the only cure. But what care we for that? It is ours to
thrust our kindness upon unwilling men, because we believe that their
unwillingness arises from the madness of their disease. Let us take the
poor man that has fallen among thieves. Let us pour in the oil and the
wine, and if he doth not receive it gratefully, because he is faint, if
he putteth his hand upon the wound, and rends away the liniment, and
unbinds the plaster, nevertheless. let us bind him up again, and set
him upon our own beast, and carry him to the inn. Let us pay for the
lodging even though as yet he cannot speak to thank us; and the day
shall come, when the wound is healed, and the burning fever is removed,
when his brain is cool, and his reason restored, that he shall fall at
our feet and kiss the hand that once he spurned. Unborn generations
shall bless the men that sent the gospel, which at first their fathers
did reject.

And now, brethren and sisters, let me plead the cause of the dumb. No
man of Macedonia is here to-day to say "Come over and help us," but let
me be the heathen's spokesman, and very earnestly ask you to come and
help him. Methinks, I will stand here as a heathen this morning, and I
say to you as if I had not heard the gospel. "Ye Christians of Britain!
ye highly favored ones, who know the name of Jesus and prove the power
of the Spirit, preach the gospel to us, for we are men like yourselves.
What though our skin be of a color less fair than your own? Yet he
fashioneth our hearts alike. Oh tell us not, because we feed on the
locust, and eat the serpent, that therefore we are not of your kith and
kind! Not that which goeth into a man defileth a man.' It is true, our
kings and princes are only fit to rank with your beggars; but oh! God
hath made of one blood all nations that dwell upon the face of the
earth; and from our huts and cabins we come forth to-day, and we say to
you, We are men–we are your brothers–younger brothers, it is true–we
have not had a double portion of the inheritance, brothers, too, whose
fathers spent their part in riotous living, but why should the
children's teeth be set on edge because the fathers have eaten sour
grapes? Why must the son of man for ever bear the curse of Canaan? O
preach the gospel to us! We are men, mother Eve is our mother, as well
as yours; Adam, too, is the father from whose loins we sprang; and
because we are men, the common sympathy of humanity bids you listen to
us, when we say, Come over and help us.' Besides, we have another
argument. We are told that unto you is the Word of this salvation
sent,' not for yourselves, but for us, brothers, who have not heard the
gospel and who know it not. And you have the treasure in your own land;
and we believe you have the treasure given to you, that you may lavish
handfuls of it out to us. We know that old Judea had the covenant and
the oracles, and the gospel to keep for coming generations; and we
believe that you men of Britain have the gospel, not for yourselves,
but for us. We have heard what your Master said, Ye are the lights of
the world;' not lights of Britain, not lights for yourselves, the
lights of the world. Oh! bear your burning torches into the glades of
our dark forests. come and shed your light through the dark mists of
our idolatrous temples; let the bats of our superstition, and the owls
of our ignorance, fly away before the sunlight of your gospel. It is
not for yourselves you have received it, but for us. Oh! give it to us.
Preach the gospel to us, for it is designed for us. But we have another
argument, brethren; look at our miseries!"

As the spokesman for my poor brethren to-day, I stand before you, and I
remind you of the tortures to which the poor Hindoo devotee puts
himself; I remind you of the cruelties enacted in the Chinese
empire–the horrors of a government that is based upon idolatry. I tell
you of the distress, the destitution, the poverty, the nakedness, the
misery, of the Bechuanas and the Bushmen, and I speak for these, and I
say, "Christians, you have the means of alleviating their woes by
sending them the gospel; will you not do it?" Look at the dwellers in
the land of the jungle and the lion. There they are; the serpent has
grasped them in his folds, and like the boa-constrictor of their own
forests, he is crushing their nations, until the ribs of the strong man
snap, and the hearts of the women melt like wax. And you have the sword
in your hands that can cut the serpent's head! Your Master bruised that
head beneath his heel, and you must do the same. Oh! come, come, ye
missionaries of the cross, ye ministers of Jesus, come and deliver us
from this deadly hydra! Save us from our fearful doom! Our miseries
invoke your aid. It is true, we cannot speak to you in gentle language,
but there was a time when poets walked amongst us, and some of the
light that shone in Paradise, yet gilded our darkness. and we treasured
up a few of those faint rays, and we are hoping that the sun of
righteousness will yet dawn upon us. Oh! come, roll away those mists;
come, chase our night. and let us see that sacred, high, eternal noon,
which is the daughter of the gospel following the Sun of Righteousness.

And now, Christian men, let me speak to you as one of yourselves.
Brethren, you and I are soldiers, soldiers of the cross, and at this
hour worlds are rushing to the shock. The fight is thickening, and we
are warriors! Shame upon the craven who stays from the battle. The
trump is sounding to-day. Mohammed has waked from his sleep; the
Moslem, with bloody hands, has sought to slay our race; the Hindoo,
too, the meek-eyed Hindoo, his eyes have glared like the eyes of his
tiger, and his lips have smacked with gore. The battle is raging. Not
there alone. Popery hath aroused itself, with mighty effort it is
endeavoring to win back this gem of the sea, this first isle of the
ocean. Infidelity, too, is on the stir; her myrmidons are flying here
and there. Everything is awake, except the church of God. Oh! rouse ye,
men and brethren; rouse, now that the fight is at its fullest fury. Now
is the time for our most desperate velour, our most earnest zeal.
Recollect, every time you bow your knees, and say, "Our Father," you
tell a lie at the end of that prayer, if you are not seeking to make
his kingdom come, and his will be done in earth, as it is heaven. You
are praying for what you do not try to get; you are insulting God by
saying, "Thy kingdom come," with as foul a mockery, as if I should say,
"Be warmed and be filled," to some poor dying beggar, and then refused
to give to his needs, that he might remove his distresses.

Recollect, too, that you cannot be Christians at all, not in the right
sense of the word, unless you everyone of you would compass sea and
land to make one proselyte. You must have in you the spirit of
propagathm, desirous to will others to Christ, or else the genuine
blood of Christianity is not in your veins. Of all things in the world
Christianity is the most prolific, if it be true. Mohammedism of old
had mighty power to spread itself, but not such power as Christianity
had. The religion of Jesus began like a mustard seed, with those few
men in an upper-room; but ere a half century had rolled away, the
gospel was preached to every nation under heaven, and if we had
Christianity in our hearts of the right sort–hot, burning stuff, not
the lukewarm shams of this degenerate age, our religion ere another
half a century will have won the day. If the Spirit of God should give
us true diligence, in the course of another half century there would
not be one district that would not have been trodden by the foot of the
minister, nor one town or city which would not have been evangelized. I
know I am not speaking without book now I am absolutely certain that
what I am saying is a sober matter of fact. If you will just calculate
the proportion between the four hundred, and the progress made in one
half a century, and then begin with the three or four millions–I
should hope there are as many as that–of true Christians in the world,
I say, it is a little thing to believe that if they were true to their
profession, they might, under Divine blessing, carry the gospel into
every known part of the habitable world before half a century has
rolled away. However, we need not be afraid we shall do it. There is no
fear that we shall run into any fanaticism. That is the last sin this
age will commit. We shall go on, and be as orthodox and cold as we
always were. No enthusiasm will ever fall upon us. We shall not see any
very great and strange developments of an enormous fanaticism at the
present day. Do not be alarmed, brothers and sisters. All I preach that
looks like fanaticism will not hurt this age. Ye may do what ye will;
preach ye never so wisely, ye will never make this deaf adder hear. The
church of this day is a great deal too deaf to do anything extravagant.
We do a little, and think it a wonderful deal. We each give fourpence
to send Testaments to China; we will talk of it for the next fifty
years! We sent out one or two missionaries to India (and are they not
one or two, compared with their needs?) it is a great thing. It is a
fine thing for the whole Baptist denomination to raise twenty thousand
pounds a year, when there are some men in the denomination who make as
much money as that in the time. It is a marvellous thing that out of
the whole lot of us we should not be able to get more than that. But
you know I am an imprudent young man, of course,–I always shall be I
dare say–to dare to hint that some people have a great deal too much
money to go to heaven with. Of course it will be very wicked if I dare
to say this morning, that to die rich is a very frightful thing; that
there are some people who have got too much riches to allow us to have
any sure and certain hope that they have the love of God at all; for if
they had more of the love of God, they would not grip their money so
tightly. They would say, "While men are damning, what is my money?
While men are dying, what is my gold? There it goes! As much as I need,
I have, God allows it me; as much as I shall require in my old age, as
much as my family can demand of me, that will I have, but as for more,
a blast and a curse would be on it if I had it. My gold and my silver
would be cankered, for I should be guilty of the blood of men's souls,
and then condemnation would be at my door, because I had the money
wherewithal to send the minister to preach to them, and I would not
give it."

Now, I say again, there is no fear of any one becoming improvidently
liberal. You need not be frightened that anyone here will give a
thousand pounds this morning. We provide ample accommodation for those
who feel inclined to do so. If anyone should be overtaken with such an
enormous fit of generosity, we will register and remember it. But I
fear there are no people like Barnabas now. Barnabas brought all he
had, and put it into the treasury. "My dear friend, do not do that, do
not be so rash." Ah! he will not do that; there is no necessity for you
to advise him. But I do say again, if Christianity were truly in our
hearts; if we were what we professed to be; the men of generosity whom
we meet with now and hold up as very paragons and patterns would cease
to be wonders, for they would be as plentiful as leaves upon the trees.
We demand of no man that he should beggar himself; but we do demand of
every man who makes a profession that he is a Christian, that he should
give his fair proportion, and not be content with giving as much to the
cause of God as his own servant. We must have it that the man who is
rich must give richly. We know the widow's mite is precious, but the
widow's mite has been an enormously great loss to us. O, that widow's
mite has lost Jesus Christ many a thousand pounds. It is a very good
thing in itself; but people with thousands a-year talk of giving a
widow's mite. What a wicked application of what never can apply to
them. No; in our proportion we must serve our God.

III. Now, I come in conclusion to ask you very pointedly and plainly,
WHAT DO YOU MEAN TO DO IN ANSWER TO THE HEATHEN'S CRY, "COME OVER AND
HELP US?" Have I in all this congregation one man who loves sound
doctrine, who has ability to preach, and who has a mind to go and
preach the gospel in other lands? Because if I have, and if I have ten
others who have a mind to give him ten pounds a year, I have an opening
for sending him out at once. In Port Natal there are twenty Baptists,
and those twenty Baptists are desirous of having a minister who should
not only preach to them, but to the wild tribes around. They will raise
him one hundred pounds, if we can manage to get the rest and send them
out a missionary. Who can tell; he might be another Livingstone,
perhaps a Moffat? Oh, that I had the honor of sending such an one from
such a congregation as this! Have we no young men here this morning,
who are ready to volunteer to go and preach the gospel in heathen
lands? I confess, when I think of myself, I know I cannot go away. My
calling is here. And yet I sometimes think what a lazy, feather-bed
life it is for one to lead, to be preaching here when there are all
these continents without the gospel. Some people think it wonderfully
hard to preach two or three sermons a week. but I think preaching
thirteen or fourteen is a fearfully little thing. And I think
sometimes, "Oh, if I were somewhere rise, where there are some toils,
some hardships to undergo! There is nothing to be done here. We cannot
suffer, we cannot work, we cannot will crowns of martyrdom, we cannot
will great battles here, as we could wish." Yes, young man, I say
again, if you are ambitious–if you are ambitious to serve Christ, the
height of your ambition should lead you to say, "I desire to preach the
gospel among the heathen." I hope there may be come here–some one at
least–whose heart God hath touched. What! can it be possible that I
should this morning address some eight thousand people, and yet out of
the whole eight thousand there is not one who can say, "Here am I, send
me?" Is it not strange? Very probably there is not. But yet I would
fain hope that somewhere there is one, who will write on the tablet of
his heart, "I will go home to pray, I will go home to study, and if God
has given me power to preach, if there be any door open in his
providence, here am I; I will be a preacher of the gospel in foreign
lands."

And now, what are you resolved to do who cannot preach? Why, there are
some of you, if you were to get up and preach, you had a great deal
better sit down. It would not do for you to go and preach in foreign
lands, because nobody would listen to you. I have often marvelled that
some people should think themselves called to preach when they have no
ability. As I tell them, "f God calls anybody to fly, he will give them
wings, and if he calls them to preach, he will give them ability to
preach." but if a man has not the ability to preach, I am sure he has
not the call. Well, what will you do Says one, "I will pray earnestly
in support of missions; I will cry to God, that great results may
follow." Do so; and you shall have our best thanks for your prayers.
But in doing that, you have not done very much. for recollect, that is
what the Roman priest did for the beggar. The priest said he would not
give him a sovereign, he would not give him a half-crown, nor would he
give him a penny. "Holy father," said the beggar, "will you give me
your prayers?" "Yes," said the priest, "kneel down." "No, not so," said
the beggar; "for if your prayers had been worth a penny, you would not
have given them to me." And when you say you will pray, but will not
help the cause with something more substantial; though we love your
prayers, we night say, "You would not give them if they were worth a
penny." If you have nought else to give to Christ, ye need not be
ashamed of saying, "Jesus, I give thee my prayers;" but if you are
blessed in your substance, you will be lying before him, if you ask him
to bless his cause, and do not give of your means in its support.

Now, let each, as he is able, help this great cause; and above all let
us all in our spheres be preachers of the gospel,

"Seeking to tell to others round,

What a dear Saviour we have found."

Let me say, before the collection is made, just this word. Alas! there
are some of you here, that are as much heathen as if you were in
Africa. To you I proclaim the gospel, and I have done–"He that
believeth and is baptized shall be saved, he that believeth not shall
be damned. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, find thou shalt be saved."
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