CORINTH was another of the cities into which Christianity made an early and victorious entrance. This was a place of great renown in its day. Such were its commerce, its science, its temples and its schools, that the prince of Roman orators denominated it totius Græcia lumen, (the light of all Greece,) and another writer called it the ornament of Greece. Its elegance, however, was even surpassed by its vice. It is well known that lasciviousness was carried to such a pitch in this most abandoned city, that in the language of those times the appellation of a Corinthian given to a woman, imported that she had lost her virtue, and Corinthiazein, or to behave as a Corinthian, spoken of a man, was the same as to say, that he was addicted to uncleanness. To this scene of iniquity did the Apostle direct his course, like the sunbeam to the stagnant lake, not to partake of its impurity, but to draw from it a pure, and beneficial exhalation. And how did he attempt the reformation of this dissolute people? Did he begin by descanting upon the deformities of vice, and reading lectures in praise of virtue? Nothing of the sort. He himself shall inform us. In writing to his converts he tells them, "And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified." And at Corinth was the attraction of this truth so irresistible, as to raise there one of the most considerable of the primitive churches, to which no small portion of the New Testament was addressed.

These, however, are but instances selected from a general course of exertion and success. Wherever the Apostles went, the doctrine of the cross was the theme of their public discourses, and the topic of their more private instruction. Whether standing amidst the elegancies of Corinth, the classic beauties of Athens, the overwhelming grandeur of Rome, or the hallowed scenes of Jerusalem, they presented this to all men alike. They did not conceal the ignominy of the accursed tree behind the sublime morality of the Gospel, and permit the unsightly object to steal out only insidiously and by degrees; but exhibited it naked, and at once, as the very foundation of that religion which they were commissioned

and inspired to promulgate. When the Jew on one hand was demanding a sign, and the Greek on the other was asking for wisdom, they replied to both, "we preach Christ crucified." They never courted the philosopher by a parade of science, the orator by a blaze of eloquence, or the curious by the aid of novelty. They tried no experiments, made no digressions. Feeling the power of this sublime truth in their own souls; enamoured by the thousand thousand charms with which they saw it attended; emboldened by the victories which followed its career; and acting in obedience to that divine authority, which regulated all their conduct, they kindled into raptures amidst the scorn and rage of an ungodly world, and in the fervor of their zeal, threw off an impassioned sentiment, which has been returned in distinct echo from every Christian land, and been adopted as the watch-word of an evangelical ministry, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Wonderful was the effect of their labour. A revolution more extraordinary than history records, or imagination could have conceived, was every where effected, and this by what was derided by the men who gave laws to the opinions of the world, as "the foolishness of preaching." The powers of paganism beheld the worshippers of the gods drawn away from their shrines, by an influence which they could neither understand nor resist. Not the authority of the Olympian Jove, nor the seductive rites of the Paphian Goddess, could any longer retain the homage of their former votaries. The exquisite beauty of their temples and their statues, with all those fascinations which their mythology was calculated to exert upon a people of refined taste and vicious habits, became the objects not only of indifference but abhorrence. e; and millions by whom the cross must have been contemplated with mental revulsion as a matter of taste, embraced it with exstacy as the means of salvation. The idolatrous rites were deserted, the altars overturned, the deities left to themselves to sympathise with each other in dumb consternation, the lying voice of the oracles was hushed, the deceptive light of philosophy was extinguished, Satan fell like lightning from heaven, while the ministers of light rose with the number, the

order, and the brilliancy of the stars. Resistance only promoted the cause it intended to oppose, and persecution like the wind of heaven blowing upon a conflagration, served only to spread the flame. In vain "did the kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord." The Imperial eagle collecting all her strength, and rousing all her fury, attacked the Lamb of God, till she too, subdued and captivated by the cross, cowered beneath its emblem, as it floated from the towers of the capitol, and Christianity with the purple waving from her shoulders, and the diadem sparkling upon her brows, was proclaimed to be the Truth of God, and the Empress of the world, on that very throne of the Cæsars where she had been so often arraigned as a criminal, and condemned as an impostor.

What an illustrious proof is there in all this, of the divine authority of the New Testament. The men that set out in the project of converting the world from idolatry and irreligion with no instrument but a cross, and no patronage but his, who was crucified upon it, must either have been mad or inspired; and the result proves which was the fact.

Since the Apostles fell asleep, and others have entered upon their unfinished labours, has not this continued to be the means by which nations have been subjugated to the sway of religion? I appeal to the records of ecclesiastical history.

What was it, I ask, which, by the instrumentality of Luther, and Melancthon, and Calvin, and Zuingle, dissolved the power of the Beast on the continent of Europe, and drew away a third part of his worshippers, within the pale of a more scriptural communion? It was the doctrine of justification by faith in the blood of Christ.

David Brainerd, the apostle of the American Indians, has left upon record an essay to inform the world, that it was by preaching Christ crucified, he was enabled to raise a Christian church, in those desolate wilds where he laboured, and among a barbarous people devoted to witchcraft, drunkenness, and idolatry.

The Moravian Missionaries, † those holy, patient, unos*Note A in the Appendix. + Note B in the Appendix.

tentatious servants of our Lord, have employed with peculiar effect these heaven appointed means, in converting and civilizing the once pilfering and murderous Esquimaux. With these, have they also "dared the terrors of an Arctic sky, and directing their adventurous course through the floating fields and frost-reared precipices that guard the secrets of the Pole," have caused the banner of the cross to wave over the throne of everlasting winter, and warmed the cold bosom of the shivering Greenlander with the love of Christ.

Mr. Kicherer, when he first laboured amongst the Hottentots, proceeded upon the plan recommended by some modern sciolists. He tried to civilize their habits, as a preparatory process for communicating to them the principles of religion; but every effort failed, till he was obliged to try that last, which he should have done first, and added another experiment to the already copious induction of proofs, that the doctrine of the cross, is the only certain method of ameliorating the moral condition of the world.

And what is it which, at this moment, under the direction of your own Society, is kindling the intellect, softening the manners, sanctifying the hearts, and purifying the lives of the numerous tribes of the degraded sons of Ham? It is the faithful saying, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." It is this, poured in artless strains from the lips of our Missionaries, and set home upon the soul, by the power of the Holy Ghost, which is more than realising the fable of Amphion's lyre, and raising up the stones of African deserts, into the walls of the church of God.

O, had the cannibal inhabitants of Taheite been persuaded to renounce their wretched superstition and cruel customs, by any efforts of a purely rational nature; had the apostles of philosophy been the instruments of their conversion, and had the gods of Pomare been sent home by them, to be deposited in the British Museum, instead of the Missionary Rooms, how would the world have rung with the praises of all-sufficient Reason. New temples would have been raised to this modern Minerva, while all the tribes of the Illuminati would have been seen moving in triumphal procession to her shrine, chanting as they went the honours of their

illustrious goddess. But thine, thou crucified Redeemer; thine is the power, and thine shall be the glory of this conquest. Those isles of the Southern Sea shall be laid at thy feet, as the trophies of thy cross, and shall be added as fresh jewels to thy mediatorial crown.

And, indeed, not to quit our own age, or our own land, do we not see all around us the attractions of the cross? What is it that guides and governs the tide of religious popularity, whether it rolls in the channels of the Establishment, or those of Dissent? Is it not this, which causes the mighty influx of the spring tide in one place; and is it not the absence of it, which occasions the dull retiring ebb in another. Yes! and raise me but a barn, in the very shadow of St. Paul's Cathedral, and give me a man who shall preach Christ crucified, with something of the energy which the all-inspiring theme is calculated to awaken; and in spite of the meanness of the one, and the magnificence of the other, you shall see the former crowded with the warm and pious hearts of living Christians, while the matins and vespers of the latter, if the Gospel be not preached there, shall be chanted to the cold and cloistered statues of the mighty dead.

To conclude this part of my discourse, where, I ask, and when, was there an idolatrous nation converted to Christianity, or a lukewarm church reclaimed from indifference; where the Minister at home, or the Missionary abroad, who was successful in bringing sinners unto God through Christ, by any other system than that which I have before described? This has ever been successful, and with the proofs of its power embodied in the records of its victories, can we, who have adopted it as the instrument of our warfare, doubt for a moment, of its ultimate, and universal triumph!

III. Let us now anticipate the final accumulation of Missionary success. "All men shall be brought to Christ."

I do not mean to infer from this expression, or from any other which can be found in the word of God, that we are ever to look for an age, when every inhabitant of the globe, shall become a real Christian. But what I contend for, is, that the scripture warrants us to expect an era, when by