Alas how mean does it appear in the disciples and servants of the Saviour to say, when His cause, the propagation of the blessed Gospel for the salvation of immortal souls, requires their absence from home, I cannot quit my houses or my lands, or my father or mother, or my brother or my sister, or my wife or my children. Does not such conduct shew more love to these than love to Christ? Our Society does not now require everlasting separation from kindred; and therefore, those who may and should, but will not go, are left without excuse.

I shall now close with one idea, on which I feel still more confident, viz. that it is the duty of every disciple of Jesus to subordinate his personal and his domestic affairs to the cause of God his Saviour; for as the knowledge of Christ is of supreme value and importance to himself, so the communication of that knowledge to the whole of mankind is an object, which with him ought to rank higher than any other. We are convinced this will really be the case with him who, in the language of our text, counts all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ.

But, my Brethren, can we say that in this Christian land, this supreme regard to Christian knowledge is the prevailing feeling of the disciples, even those of them who are accounted most sincere. We fear not. Oh, how active and zealous and laborious are we for the purposes of individual and family aggrandizement! How much trust in our own exertions; how little faith in the Divine promises! Laying up treasures on earth, providing a competence for old age, accumulating fortunes for our children-for these things the different classes of men in our nation, the literary, the mercantile, the civilians, the clergy, are all anxiously labouring. I decry not industry, but I do decry the making of these things] our supreme object: I do decry placing these things higher in our estimation, and nearer to our hearts, than the things which concern Messiah's reign, and a world's salvation. The precept which commands us to seek first the kingdom of God, and promises that all other necessary things shall be added to us, is applicable here as well as in our individual case. There is a

want of consistency between our principles and our practices; for that which we say we deem supremely excellent, infinitely important, and indispensably necessary to human happiness and salvation, we do less, than for many of those objects, which we confess to be very secondary to the knowledge of Christ.

Still, although I do not think that in the Missionary doctrine, or the Missionary practice we have attained, either are already perfect; I do with you, my Christian friends, rejoice in what the Lord hath wrought ;-that he has, in these last days stirred up the hearts of His people to this great argument, and has made the feeble band of modern missionaries not altogether useless. But oh, how much yet remains to be effected! The empire of ignorance still how wide! the night of error in many regions of the globe, yet how dark! It is because so much remains to be done, that I have this day spoken, as if nothing had been achieved. I would not that my discourse tended to discourage; or should seemingly approach to querulous ingratitude. But in this cause, my brethren, look not at the things that are behind, but at those things which are before; that ye may press cnwards, and ever keep the eye of faith, steadily fixed, "looking to Jesus." My fellow sinners-Remember Jesus; learn of him, and speak of him;-for yourselves attain the knowledge of Christ, and diffuse the knowledge of Him in every direction-in your families, around you in your own neighbourhoods, and let the circle of your united efforts widen and widen till they reach the most distant circumference of the habitable globe. Begin with the knowledge of Christ, and end with the knowledge of Christ. Christ is man's best Friend. He is head over all things to the Church. He is the Dispenser of every blessing, temporal, and spiritual; and all we possess, should be devoted to the service, or sacrificed to the cause, of Jesus Christ. Yea, doubtless, we should count all things but loss, however, in other respects gainful, that would impede our efforts to promote the universal dissemination of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord. The longest life thus spent in any part

ment, implied in the word watch, are addressed to all persons; to those who stand in the relation of mere creatures, by creation and Providence; to those who have become children by the grace of faith, repentance, and adoption; and to those especially, who are rulers of the household. There is scope enough furnished by the subject to address every class of persons-ministers as well as magistrates, to be vigilant in the performance of their respective duties; and to address churches on the necessity of communicating a knowledge of their Lord's will to all the different national branches of the household, scattered over the face of the world; beginning, however, in their own houses, their own neighbourhoods, and their respective countries. But we this day merely glance at these various topics, and I shall now close with noticing the motives to watchfulness which Holy Scripture sanctions. Some of these are addressed to admiration of what is excellent, and gratitude for what is kind; but more to our fears and to our hopes.

It has been a conceit of proud man, both in the west and in the east, in ancient Rome and in modern China, that either hope or fear entering into the motive of moral action, is destructive of virtue. But this is a sentiment as opposite as possible to the whole scope of divine revelation; for promises and threatenings, exciting hopes, and awakening fears, run through the whole of the Sacred Volume from beginning to end. The promises of pardon and of peace, and of a filial relation to God, and eternal bliss, are presented to the hopes of faith and repentance. The servant who has faithfully employed the talents committed to his care, shall be commended by the great Lord of all for having done well, and shall be welcomed to his Lord's joy. But on the faithless, and unbelieving, and hard-hearted, and impenitent, who may have wasted their Lord's goods, or neglected the talents committed to them, shall be tribulation and anguish for ever and ever. And indeed, the most prominent motive addressed by our Lord, in the subject of this day's discourse, to the servants of the household, appeals to their fears, viz. the sudden and unexpected coming

of the Master, whilst they are indulging in sleepy slothfulness, or tyrannising over their fellows.

I shall now, my friends, drop the figure or comparison employed by our Saviour, and exhort you to let the possibility of sudden and unexpected death, (which may be considered, to you, the coming of the Lord,) have the weight on your minds which it ought. The old-fashioned distinction between an habitual and an actual preparation for death, has considerable meaning and propriety. Every person who has not repented, and believed the Gospel, is habitually, totally unfit to die; and those who have the fear of God before their eyes, and who have, it is hoped, repented and believed the Gospel; if their faith be not in vigorous exercise, and their obedience unreserved, and their usefulness extensive, as the Providence of God may enable them, they are not in actual preparation to meet their Lord. And observe, finally, that the warning and the threatening in the passage before us, are both addressed to those who are denominated servants, which may justly cause those who hold offices in churches, as well every member, to watch heedfully against a deadening spirit of self-security, and the pernicious presumption, that long life will be theirs.

should he find his household in disorder, he would certainly punish those who had abused his confidence, and violated their acknowledged duty; or the specific commands which he had, at his departure, given them. Under such circumstances, the best advice that could be given to a family, would be that which is contained in the words of our text, Watch; be careful and attentive to your proper work, for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.

It is generally thought that our Lord, in the discourse addressed to his disciples, in connexion with the sentence which I have read, referred to four events: to the destruction of Jerusalem; to the termination of the then existing state of the Jewish church; to the death of individual men, and to the final judgment of all mankind. Indeed, its application to the general judgment, could be no otherwise appropriate, than by considering the death of each individual as introducing him to that state of existence in which he shall be judged. I will not this day refer to the awful calamities which befel the Jews, when Jerusalem was overthrown by the conquering Romans, in which transactions an immense number of human beings perished; but shall direct my discourse to two general topics: first, Man's relative situation; and, secondly, Man's obligation to watchfulness; and whilst discoursing on these two leading ideas, I shall consider man both as a creature and a Christian.

I. Man is not his own maker, nor was the world he inhabits produced by his power; his being is derived, the supply of his wants is from another, and therefore man is not his own master; he may not do what he pleases, either with himself or with what he possesses. Man owes his existence, and the sustentation of his being, to a supreme Lord, who is the great and glorious Creator of the universe. To him man owes life, and breath, and every good. If a fellow-creature, who affords any one the means of daily support, is entitled, by general consent, to a certain portion of service, to be performed with perfect good faith and good will, how much more ought man to acknowledge that the great Creator and Lord of the universe is entitled