and the low on the doctrines and duties of the Gospel of Christ, or with Peter, we had kept in view the coming of.the Lord, and been looking for and hasting unto that day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements melt with fervent heat, and waiting for it in all holy conversation and godliness.

To us, the earthen vessels, belongs all the shame and sin of our derelictions, and of the unsteady hand with which we have carried on the work of God, to him the praise of the excellency and power which have attended even this unworthy promulgation of his truth. How gratefully should our hearts laud and magnify his name that he has not wholly cursed our labours and rejected the comparatively barren and impotent service we have rendered him! "When we remember these days of old, and consider the years of many generations," we can indeed, say, "The Lord's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. He found him in a desert land and in a waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye."

In view of all the facts which have been spread out before us, too tediously minute, perhaps, to have been profitable, we should honour, next to God, those human instruments he has used in advancing the interests of his Church. Our fathers in the ministry who have gone before and entered into rest, had around them, in this country, new as it was, and disturbed by border conflicts, and desolated by civil war, (leaving behind all these demoralizing influences which war ever brings in its train,) difficulties to contend with which never has fallen to our lot. That in the process of years, they have accomplished so much, while it is cause for thanksgiving to the Giver of all good, is honourable also to them. Of some there is evidence yet existing, of their fervent piety and self-consuming zeal. Of others, evidence of self-reliance, and firmness and boldness of character. Others had made respectable attainments in learning, others were gifted with rare powers of popular address, and impressed their hearers with a deep sense of the truths they uttered; most appear, whatever advantages or disadvantages they may have enjoyed, to have been true and devoted Ministers of Christ.

And as to ourselves, if they were not apostles unto others, yet doubtless, they were to us, for the seal of their apostleship are we in the Lord.

2. We should address ourselves with earnestness and diligence to the work which yet lies before us. If the next twenty-four years is to see a doubling again of our ministry and membership, we have ourselves a work to accomplish which we should hasten to perform. In respect to the outward temporal means, we have advantages our fathers never enjoyed. The wealth of the State has greatly increased. At no former period could these lines of communication between its different parts which now exist, and are deemed indispensable, have been constructed; which are at once the fruit of increasing enterprise and wealth, and the necessary means of a more rapid increase for the future. At no period were there such facilities of a thorough education, both for our sons and daughters, and at none such ample means for training an educated ministry. At none were there such facilities for furnishing our people with a religious literature, and at no period were they so thoroughly furnishAt no period did the virtue of sobriety, especially in the use of intoxicating drinks, so extensively prevail, for there is evidence enough that there was a thoughtless freedom in the use of these, which often went on to an excessive indulgence in those who bore the Christian name.

ed as now.

If, with an equal zeal, and fervour, there shall not be a higher scale of Christian beneficence, and a more extensive scheme of benevolent effort than existed with them, we shall be recreant to our sacred trust. We can give thousands where they could give but hundreds, or but tens, to the cause of Christ. We can in a few hours travel distances in our evangelistic labours which it would have required days for them to accomplish. As there is an economising of time from earthly drudgery, there should be a greater profusion of effort in things religious and spiritual. As we stand upon the institutions they have founded, as upon a higher vantage ground, there should be with us a wider scope of effort, and a more continuous and uninterrupted diligence in spreading the Gospel. We should carry forth, in every community, a religious influence over those neighbourhoods

and persons who have hitherto seemed beyond its reach. And the ever increasing numbers of our servile population, few comparatively in the days of our fathers, must be indoctrinated in the truths of the Gospel, with which, in this Christian country, they should be brought into contact that they may be saved.

We have sometimes feared that the spirit of Evangelism prevails amongst us less than among our fathers. Both as to Domestic Missions and Foreign, it is possible that for years past, there has been no increase of zeal and effort. When we find in 1793, Robert Wilson of Long Cane, passing through the length of the State, as far as Wiltown, near the sea, on a missionary tour, and read his account of his reception in various places, when we find Hall from the Synod of the Carolinas performing missionary work in Georgia, till the grateful inhabitants gave his name to one of their counties in testimony of their regard; when we find Sloss, Hurlburd, and Stuart, sent to found churches in Alabama, and from 1800 to 1803 Bowman and Montgomery, and Dr. Hall, sent forth as missionaries to the Natchez, who were followed by Daniel Brown and James Smiley; when we find in 1811, the Presbytery of Harmony sending Drs. Fisk and Storrs, then young and untitled ministers, through Middle and Lower Georgia, to preach the Gospel; and when we see the Missionary Society of the Synod of South Carolina and Georgia, founded in 1819, under Dr. Barr as its President, sending out two of its members, one of whom is amongst us this day,* first to the Creeks, and when rejected there, onward to the Chickasaws in Mississippi, to make arrangements for a Missionary station, and then planting there Stuart, Hugh Wilson and Blair, with two families of Lay brethren, and continuing the mission till they resigned it to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, in 1827, and at the same time sending Domestic Missionaries through this State and Georgia; and when in 1837 we had five brethren, natives of this State, preaching the Gospel in Foreign lands, and have now but one, and he of those who then went forth, it may well be questioned whether with our increase in Missionary contributions we have really increased in Missionary zeal. * Rev. D. Humphrey.

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And when we view our common country, as yet not rent asunder as Israel at length was, into two rival kingdoms; when we consider the goodly heritage God has given us, our extended territory, with its virgin soil, its lakes and majestic rivers, its subterranean stores, and all its boundless sources of prosperity; when we behold it looking forth upon two oceans, touching the wealth of Europe with its right hand and of Asia with its left, covering every sea with its commerce, and destined in its midway station to be the thoroughfare of nations; when we consider that as the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he committed to the barbarous tribes who preceded this vast domain, to keep till we should inherit it, and that the Church here planted, occupies a vantage ground for the world's salvation, are we not called upon to redouble our zeal in external efforts, and to render more efficient our home organization that we may do our full share in advancing Christ's Kingdom. It behooves us, indeed, to wake to more assiduous labours, more selfdenying charity and larger enterprises.

3. Yet, while as a body, we should possess the aggressive missionary spirit, we still have work to do, earnest work, each in his own local sphere in which God has placed him. Some of us might well be, for the Church's good, followers of Paul in the missionary work, our souls filled to their utmost capacity, with a desire not to build on another man's foundation, but to preach the Gospel in the regions beyond, "running," as one of the Fathers describes the course of Paul, "from ocean to ocean like the sun in the heavens." But, without ever chang ing our location, there is enough to do around us, enough to do in the profound study of God's truth, enough to do in petition and intercession at the throne of grace, enough to do in affectionate meditation on the Redeemer's inestimable worth, enough in bending all our reading and intercourse with men, to an effective service in our utterances of the Gospel of Christ, that our ministry be not despised, that our discourses be rich in doctrine, warm with love, and pointed with the sharp arrows of truth. Is this laborious? We are born to labour. Our rest is not here, but yonder. in the skies! Does it require increasing ardour of soul, and strong, overpower

ing motive? And can we not find it in a Saviour's love! I want more tongues, more bodies, more souls for the Lord Jesus," says Whitfield, "Had I ten thousand, he should have them all."

And the time is short. This disastrous year and its frequent deaths admonish us. The heads of some of us are hoary, and our steps totter to the grave; and we have lately seen how the young, the gentle, the affectionate, the promising soldier, whom we had just welcomed to our ranks, can be cut off. We may say to you, in the language of another, "Go on" increasing in your ministerial work, but "an inch of time remains, and then eternal ages roll on forever."

ARTICLE VII.

THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF 1854.

The annual meetings of our General Assembly, aside from the interest which pertains to them as current events of the day, have a far wider interest, considered as an index of the existing spirit and tendencies of the great body of Christian people therein represented, now the largest Presbyterian body in the world.

The late General Assembly, whose session opened at Buffalo on the 18th and closed on the 31st May last, is entitled to consideration in this regard, perhaps, in as high degree, as any other Assembly for years past. The unprecedented fulness of the representation, especially of the Eldership, the ability, age, and experience of many of the members, the harmony and kindness, and at the same time the manliness and boldness of the discussions, together with the intrinsic and permanent importance of many of the acts passed, all concur to invest the proceedings of the body with unusual interest.

We recur, at this late period, and after they have lost all their freshness and novelty, to these proceedings, with a view chiefly to discuss the true interpretation of the more significant of them. Some of them are of importance, because of their direct and palpable bearing upon