interposition and fulfilment, were so many impregnable chains fastened to it, and reaching out into the present and visible, so as to be both seen and handled and again made fast, by the invincible links of faith, to every drifting voyager. To these links therefore, Isaiah and the believing hearts of his age could cling, and be thus held fast and made buoyant with hope, in all time of their darkness and despondency, until the day-star should arise, the promised morn appear, and the glorious day of the world's redemption shine forth in its meridian splendor. Let the storms ply their deep and threat'ning bass, The Bow of Promise shall the shade illume, Brightly descried in Faith's eternal glass, E'en like an angel's many-coloured plume Waving in tempest-pledge that in her bloom, Nature, emerging from the stormy mass, Will keep her time and order. Let them passThe wicked and their plottings; 'mid the gloom, The Church surveys her covenant sign, and smiles; And 'neath her solemn rainbow's dripping arch, A mystic wing spreads o'er her daring march, And forth she goes, on heavenly work the whiles, Though weeping, sure that Christ in joy shall bring Earth's gathered sheaves at harvest-moon to sing.

But to Adam and Eve, to Abel and Enoch, and to the early seed of the woman-the sons of God, the true believersthese promises, these prophecies, and these fulfilments, were ALL future. Satan had triumphed. Man was cursed. The earth groaned, being burdened. Cain, who was himself the hoped-for Deliverer,* was already a murderer, and the child of succeeding promise, the first bloody victim of all-conquering death. As men multiplied sin increased, and irreligion, ungodliness, and apostacy abounded. And yet to them and their believing posterity was still held forth and reiterated the glorious promise of an ultimate and universal establishment of the kingdom of Christ, the Jehovah who was to come, that, as the Mighty God, he might destroy the works of the Devil, spoil principalities and powers, making a show of them openly, and bring in an everlasting righteousness, and a kingdom that should not be moved.

How great then was the faith required of these primitive and patriarchal believers, to live, and labour, and endure, and suffer, and hope unto the end, for the promise to be realized to themselves and all future ages, while they had no other foundation to stand upon than the simple word, and promise, and command of God! How childlike, how beautiful! How touchingly inspiriting and yet reproving to us, is the confidence with which they laid hold of that one rope thrown out to them from above as they struggled against the floods of unbelieving

*Eve said, "I have received Him, even Him who will be! The promised One! The longed for!"

and ungodly men, amid the whirlwinds of temptation and delusion, and relied upon the anchor of their hope, clung to the promise and prophecy, and held fast to God, to duty, and to a joyful expectation! Oh! how long was that vista through which the eye of their faith had to pierce! How dark the vaulted labyrinth of ages and empires, of floods and fires, of revolutions and dynasties, of progress and decay, of victories and defeats, of eclipses and returning light, of persecutions and triumphs, through which their faith had to wind its darkling way to the glorious but far distant future! How faintly did the lamp of prophecy burn, when it cast its flickering shadows and transient beams of light upon the waves of future ages, as these, like tides, rose and fell, ebbed and flowed, and what time they broke in fury on the shore! For let it be remembered, that the whole scheme of redemption, and its accomplishment and final triumph, were all, to the faith of these primitive believers, future, invisible, indefinite, obscure, known only in part, and seen only as through a glass darkly. And yet they believed. They counted Him faithful who had promised. They staggered not through unbelief. They had not obtained the promises; but they saw them afar off, and were glad. They rested in hope. They endured, as seeing Him who, though invisible, was sure to come, and to take to himself his great power, and reign. They took God at his word. They esteemed that word as of more certainty and might than all the treasures of earth, all the armaments of power, and all the wisdom and polite strategy of statesmen. They counted the cost. They calculated the chances. They weighed all consequences in the scales of eternity and estimated their comparative value by the arithmetic of heaven. And esteeming an interest in this kingdom, and in its ultimate glory, as of more importance than all material and sublunary things, they denied themselves for its sake, separated themselves from the world, and consecrated themselves, and all they possessed, to the promotion of the cause of Christ, and to the overthrow of the cause and kingdom of Satan.

It was the saddest time e'er lowered on earth,
As sin and sorrow woke in Paradise,
When mercy's voice 'mid frighted nature's cries,
Broke forth, and pledged a Saviour's birth.
Then faith in Adam's heart heard the glad cry,
And the dark cloud which had his soul begirt,
Was loaded with glad prophecy, and bright
With the eternal Saviour nigh.

Oh! when we contemplate these ancient disciples of the same faith, and see them going forth in the grey misty morning of the world's sad apostacy, to contend not merely against flesh and blood, against unbelieving, scoffing men, and against

potentates and rulers, but also against principalities and powers, with no promise of a present victory; when we picture them to our minds, sowing the seed of the word for a distant and future harvest; when we behold them thus toiling and sacrificing, not for themselves, but for us, who have entered into their harvest; when we hear Enoch proclaiming the coming of Christ's final and glorious kingdom to an unbelieving generation, and Noah preaching the same glad tidings, and Job exulting in the ainticipated incarnation of a manifested God; when we look in upon the dying Jacob, and see him lifting up his eyes to this star of hope, and dying peacefully under the light of its promised salvation; when we contemplate Moses preferring self-denial, and sacrifice, and death itself in the cause of Christ, to the pleasures of sin, and the splendor of a throne; and Daniel and his compeers testifying for the supreme authority and dominion of a coming Messiah, in the fiery furnace and the lions' den;-oh! with what shame and confusion of face should we be filled, when we contrast our unbelief, our unfaithfulness, and our cold and lukewarm service, and our selfish covetousness, and our easy, self-indulgent benevolence! How will they convince, and accuse, and condemn us! And how far will they transcend our measure of reward, if, with our poverty of faith and works, we are even thought worthy of any place in their blest society-who, out of their deep poverty both of motive and of means, abounded to the greatness both of faith, and of hope, and charity.

Unto the East we turn-from the cold bourne

Of our dull Western cave Faith's pensive mood
Sets there her tranced eyelid, gathering food
Of solemn thoughts, which make her less forlorn,
While back to patriarchal men she's borne.

There, mid her evening and dim solitude,
She joins the companies of the wise and good,
Who walked upon the Gospel's glorious morn;
Their dwarf dimensions of mortality

Seeming to grow upon the golden sky,
So great, so high their heart's fidelity!

OUR FAITH PROVOKED TO EXERCISE, NOT ONLY BY THAT OF FORMER AGES, BUT ALSO OF HEATHEN NATIONS.

Isaiah provoked his carnal, worldly, and unbelieving generation, by holding up, in contrast with their unbelief and want of zeal, the faith and devotion of them that were no people by covenant, but to whom, by missionary effort, the word of God had been revealed, and by whom that word, with its exceeding great and precious promises, had been believed and acted upon, as indeed the word and testimony of God. And, oh! how should we now be provoked, when we find nations that until recently lay in midnight darkness, awaking to the

call of the gospel trumpet, and not only themselves receiving the gospel, but, clothing themselves in its panoply, becoming the heralds and missionaries of the cross to their benighted fellowmen.

The Queen of Rarotonga, an island in the South Pacific Ocean, having about four thousand inhabitants, who are converted to christianity, addressed recently the following letter to the Treasurer of the London Missionary Society.

"Dear Sir-Love to you through the Lord Jesus the Messiah. You know that ours is a land of poverty, and that we have no gold holes here. Firewood, sweet potatoes, and poultry, are the only means by which we can obtain money.

“At the annual meeting of 1855 we found that our subscriptions did not amount to what we intended; and we urged one another to increase diligence that our subscriptions might be more next year. One of our number got up and said, "The bag for this year is not full. Let us try if we cannot choke it up before we talk about next year.' Then we began to search our pockets, and by some means or other we got up to what we promised, and we were very happy, and thanked God for giving us the means.

"We are prospering spiritually and temporally. Men and women are imitating the good ways of you foreigners, who have come to us with the blessings of the gospel, and whose customs were never before known in this land. We are planning to get more money for the coming year, and we have already obtained something toward it. This is my word to you, Mr. Moneyholder. Do not be cast down; you have hitherto had much, and I hope you will yet have more. We will do what we can, and would do more; but we have no hole here where gold is found. These are our desires, that the word of God may increase among us, and spread throughout the world. The amount of our subscription for 1855 is two hundred and thirty dollars. Signed,

October 4, 1855."

NA MAKEA.

The report of the London Missionary Society for 1856, states that the donations to that Society for the previous year, from its missionary stations, was £14,773 8s. 5d., or about $71,000; and speaking of the inhabitants of Rarotonga, Dr. Van Camp, American Consul in the Islands, remarks:

"It is also interesting to notice how anxious they are, both men and women, old and young, to contribute to the missionary cause abroad. They have regular missionary societies, and at their meetings make interesting speeches, and get up contributions for the relief of the poor naked heathens of the West,

who have not had the light of the gospel among them. This is done by a people who wear no clothing except two yards of common cotton wrapped around their loins, and on Sunday some wear a shirt besides. These people contribute liberally to the London Missionary Society; they have one day in the year which they call the 'neay,' when they form in large processions, and carry their donations, which is generally of money, to the missionary house. They also contribute food and useful articles for the noble barque John Williams. On her arrival they also form a procession miles long, each carrying some article. Some have pigs strung on a pole, others chickens, fish, yams, bread-fruit, &c."

How does such a faith in the purpose and power of God, and in the success and sure recompense of every effort made for the advancement of his kingdom, as exhibited by such people, in circumstances of such deep and abounding indigence, shame the poverty of our contributions offered out of the abundance of our wealth, and in the great weakness of faith, notwithstanding the clearness of the evidence on which we are permitted to rest, and the positive command by which we are required to give and labour and pray for the universal extension of the gospel and kingdom of Christ!

Let us then stir up our heart to the consideration of this subject. The principle of Foreign Missions is not enthusiasm nor fanatic zeal, or the authority of any man nor of any church. It is not sectarian proselytism or denominational ambition. No, it is none of these. It is, as we have seen, nothing more nor less than that faith which lies at the foundation of all religion-faith in the Bible as God's word-faith in the promises and prophecies of God contained in the Biblefaith in the power of God to accomplish all his purposes-faith to believe that our efforts, however feeble and inadequate, are mighty through God to the pulling down of the strongholds of sin and Satan, and that they will secure for ourselves a recompense of glory. It is that faith which confers not with flesh and blood, with selfishness, or even with prudence. It looks for no present and temporal reward. It asks not if the result is probable, or even possible. It is impeded by no difficulties or dangers. It shrinks from no toil or sacrifice. It measures results by no scale of economy and penurious outlay. It only asks for the word and promise and command of God. This is enough. This is all that it wants. And planting itself firmly on this rock of ages, it consecrates body, soul and spirit, wealth and influence, to the glorious work of the evangelization of the earth.

This principle animates the Queen and people of Rarotonga and many other missionary churches. This principle animated