hundred rears before us. God thus by His providence teaches us the details of our work and labor, points out to us the mode and manner in which sacred truth may be savingly applied to the souls of the heathen, and also how His servants may conduct missions among barbarous people. We must fall back, then, upon these facts for instruction and direction as to the regimen and rule of our work here. We know already what we have to teach souls. But we need, all missionaries need, skill and discretion as to the modes of carrying on their work. Let us observe the wise steps of our predecessors here. Let us seek out and examine the lives of the noble spirits who have spent their lives in Gospel labors on heathen soil. No one can estimate fully the riches of missionary biographies or the value of missionary journals. There are the records of the mother Church of England, the narratives of the successful ventures of the godly of the different denominations; and, not seldom, of even pious Romanists. Everywhere we may learn wisdom and pick up instruction. Culling advice from this held, learning discretion from another, extracting skill from a third, we shall, with a prayerful spirit and with the Divine blessing, become master workmen for Christ in the household of faith.
Cut there is this great favor vouchsafed all the true disciples of Christ laboring for Him, that, whatever may be their mistakes, their ignorance, their blindness, and their unskilfulness, He abideth faithful; "He cannot deny Himself;" that "the word of God abideth for ever;" and that, though even our labors maybe crude and ill-designed, yet
