DISCOURSE XXXVIII.

UTILITY OF PREACHING.

2 TIMOTHY IV. 2.

PREACH THE WORD.

Preaching the word of God was considered a very necessary and important work in the earliest days of Christianity. Said the Saviour, after reading in the book of Isaiah: "The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath annointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor." Matthew records, that after the temptation in the wilderness, Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The same evangelist speaks of him further along in life, as he appeared on the mount teaching the multitudes, and transcribes for us his matchless discourse. Alluding to him still further along in his course of duty, the same writer says, that when he "had made an end of commanding his disciples, he departed thence to teach and to preach in their cities." He records these as among the injunctions which the Saviour gave to his disciples: "As ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand." "What I tell you in dark

ness, that speak ye in light; and what ye hear in the ear that preach ye upon the house tops." Luke records that he said to one: "Let the dead bury their dead, but go thou and preach the kingdom of God." Luke also says, in the Acts of the Apostles, that the followers of the Saviour, "daily in the temple, and in every house, ceased not to teach and to preach Jesus Christ." Paul writes to the Corinthians of himself and companions in this manner: "We preach Christ crucified." And again: "Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel of Christ." And to Timothy he And to Timothy he says: "Give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine." "Preach the word."

It was the preaching of Christ and the apostles which established Christianity in the world. It was their preaching which led men to God, and induced them to worship him in spirit and in truth, and to conform to the laws of justice and mercy in their intercourse and dealings with mankind.

If the Gospel had not been preached at first, the great moral revolutions of which we read in religious history, would not have taken place; our lines had not been cast where they are; our condition had not been what it is. If, so long ago, God's love had not been taught, if his paternal character had not been revealed, if his great and precious promises had not been explained, if his grand and benevolent purposes had not been announced, the nations now so much improved would have continued groping in darkness, in the gloom and degradation of heathenism. If the great Teacher had not first instructed his followers, and then sent

them into all the world, to preach the Gospel to every creature, we could not have come into life to enjoy the advantages and priviliges we now enjoy the world. would have opened to our vision as a dark world, illumined only by false, deceitful lights. Indeed, it is impossible to calculate the benefits which have accrued to ourselves and mankind at large, as the results of the preaching of the Saviour and his primitive followers. Their proclamation was a word of power; and while the effects of their labors are manifest, they are too stupendous and grand to be fitly described. We can but say, that the weary and the heavy laden have found rest, under the guidance of the Christian teachings, and leave it to be inferred what this implies by those who hear it, as they shall, in knowledge and reflection, be able to attain its meaning. Our idea of the results which have followed the preaching of the Saviour and his disciples, takes the greater or lesser form according to our knowledge of the history of the Christian world, and our experience in Christian life.

In all ages since the day when the Saviour and his disciples taught, the benefits of Christian preaching have been witnessed. But since the rise of Protestantism, they have been marked in a high degree. Christian preaching has lifted all Protestant countries far above the other lands of the earth.

For centuries it has been the custom of the priests of the Church of Rome to pay more attention to the forms of worship, to the masses, and the processions of their sect, than to the command to preach the Gospel. And consequently the great body of their people

are ignorant and superstitious. Look at Italy, Spain, Mexico, and the several States of South America. Look at the Catholic population of the Canadas and the other British provinces. In this latest day, this day of broad and glorious light, the people at large, of all Catholic countries are famishing for the bread and water of life. They are not without religion, of a certain kind. They do not neglect the observances to which they are called. Their respect for the rites of worship is everywhere to be seen. They kneel often in the consecrated temple; they are constant at the mass and the confessional. They cross themselves, and are sprinkled often with holy water; but they rarely hear the voice of instruction, their minds are not fed with the truth of God, their hearts are not warmed and enlivened with the lessons of the Gospel.

While

The method of the ministers and pastors of the Protestant Church has been a different one. they have naturally and zealously led their people to observe the simple, but impressive forms of devotion; they have endeavored to declare the whole counsel of God; they have preached the Gospel to the poor; they have opened the eyes of the blind; they have healed the broken hearted; they have opened the prison doors; they have let the oppressed go free; they have preached the acceptable year of the Lord, the year of Jubilee, the age of restoration and rest for all the wandering and lost; they have, in a word, fed the sheep and the lambs, as commanded to do by their Master.

And the result is, the inhabitants of all the Protest

ant lands, are intelligent worshippers of God; are comparatively free from error and superstition; comparatively noble, exalted and happy. For the proof of this, look at those States of Germany where Lutheranism prevails, or at the Cantons of Switzerland where Calvinism has triumphed. Look at Scotland, where the sturdy and bold reformer, Knox led his countrymen in their warfare against ecclesiastical usurpation and oppression. Look, too, at our own New England, where stern old Puritanism has infused into the masses its spirit, and built its monuments of learning and religion.

Reform is a word of no power in Catholic countries. The idea of infallibility suppresses every thought of change or progress. If the population of the Catholic world is improved at all, it is because the influence of the Protestant Church is felt beyond the bounds of that church; it is because the leaven of Protestant instruction of independent Christian preaching is finding its way into all regions of religious thought and life.

Before the old French and Indian war broke out, the French Jesuits had converted the Indians of the Canadas and the northern parts of New England, to the Catholic religion. And the Jesuits have been their religious guides ever since. But they have not readily made any improvement since their conversion. They are as ignorant now as they were then. As to their moral condition, perhaps it is lower; for while they have adhered to a religion of forms, they have become addicted to the worst vices of the palar races. Let not this be charged to their nature, but to the neg