theology the capacities of a free, rapid, and world wide expansion. But why does not the Church experience such an expansion? It has accomplished something; why has it not done immeasurably more for the cause of the Master? Through its four Boards, it has given no small extension to the truth at home and abroad; why has it not planted ten churches in this country where now there is only one; and why has it not preached the Gospel in every land, yea, to every creature under heaven? Whether we measure the spiritual forces with which our doctrines are clothed, or trace out-their proper developments, or examine the history of their achievements, we are conducted to the humiliating, but certain conclusion, that the energies now dormant in our church immensely exceed those that are in action. We seem to resemble, by a strange anomaly, both the faithful and the unfaithful servant in the parable; the faithful, to whom the Master gave the ten pounds, and the unfaithful, who went and hid his Lord's money.

The question forces itself upon our consciences, why does not a church, which rests on such a foundation, fulfil more perfectly its office? Let the judgment, which this inquiry brings to the house of God, begin at the pulpit. Does the ministry faithfully preach our peculiar doctrines? It has been thought that such preaching is uninteresting to the hearers; or if not wearisome, disbelieved; or if not rejected, unpopular; or if not unpopular, practically powerless. But what injurious mistakes are these! Our doctrines uninteresting? When clearly expounded, they compel the attention of men. In

credible? They master the understanding of not a few by the force of a complete and irresistible demonstration. Unpopular? They are endowed with a sort of fascination, constraining those who heard them yesterday with fixed aversion, to hear them to-day with profound attention. This preaching powerless? Let no man say that within the precincts of a church which has gathered into a single grave yard the ashes of Samuel Davies, Archibald Alexander, and Jonathan Edwards; the first memorable for the awakening power of his sermons; the second trying the spirits and discerning even the thoughts of our rising ministry; and the third preaching a sermon on the doctrine of election, which was mighty in the conversion of sinners, and delivering another, so instinct with the terrors of the Lord as to bring his audience to their feet, and compel the preacher, who sat behind him in the pulpit, to start up with the exclamation, "Mr. Edwards, Mr. Edwards, is not God merciful too?" The sepulchres of these men are with us until this day, and so is their theology; but where the spirit of profound meditation and importunate prayer with which they prepared their sermons? Where is their vehemency and tenderness of utterance? Where their annihilating reply to the disputers of this world, their masterly appeal to the understanding, and their onset on the conscience?

And then let the judgment pass to our ruling elders and deacons, to all our two hundred thousand communicants, men, women, parents, children, masters, servants, all. Where are the people who are mighty in prayer, full of faith and the Holy Ghost?

Why are revivals of religion rather diminishing, than multiplying, in frequency and power? Who among the rich give heed to the apostolical charge to "do good, to be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate?" Who among the poor imitate her example, which is spoken of in all the world where this gospel is preached? Why does our Board of Foreign Missions entreat the Church in vain to send the bread of life to starving millions? Why is our Board of Domestic Missions fainting under pecuniary embarrassments in the very heat and stress of its great work? Why is our Board of Education suffered to deplore, from year to year, the want of candidates for the sacred office? Why does not our Board of Publication expound and vindicate our faith in every mansion in the city, and in every log cabin in the wilderness? Here is our theology, not only embalmed in our standards, but received into our hearts. Here are its forces and its developments, many and mighty. Here are ministers and churches, and missions and schools, and colleges and seminaries of sacred learning. Here are all the elements of a redeeming power on earth, a paramount, permanent, expanding power. Why do we fail to realize its efficacy?

This venerable court of Jesus Christ is, by divine appointment, the tribunal to which such inquiries belong. And not less appropriate to them is the place of its present deliberations. Nearly one hundred and sixty-seven years ago, the revocation of the Edict of Nantz drove from the kingdom of France more than five hundred thousand Huguenots. They fled to all the Protestant States of Europe, to Eng

land, to the Cape of Good Hope, and to the shores of the Western Continent. Invited by the genial climate of the South to the infant colony of Carolina, large numbers of these exiled people of God found rest, some on the borders of the Santee, and others on the banks of the Cooper river. The latter company built their house of worship in a little vil lage, a few miles distant, called Charleston. Thither, on the Lord's day, they were borne on the bosom of the river, by the gentle flow of its waters, or the motion of the oar, or the ebbing of the tide. In their forest homes, and in their humble sanctuary, they wept for joy as the voice of their supplications and the melody of their songs, rising upon the tranquil and fragrant air, stood contrasted with the carnage and terror from which they had fled. This is the ancient Carolina. This, too, is Charleston. Near us is the site of their first house of prayer. Yonder is the Cooper river. There are the fields in which

they set up their dwellings and domestic altars. There the rich and odorous vegetation of the early summer repeats for us the life it lived for them. Around us lies their dust, awaiting the resurrection to meet their kindred dust, as that too shall rise from the graves of murdered saints beyond the seas. Here, in this presence, are their children. The blood which moistened the beautiful valleys of Languedoc and Tours, which stained the waters of every river, and the pavements of every city, from the English Channel to the Mediterranean, now runs in the veins of those with whom we worship God this morning. With what unanimity these adhere to that ancient faith, a stranger may not presume to

inquire. But they are our witnesses, this day, that in faith, order and worship, our Church is identical with their own ancestral Church in its pure and heroic day. Not these alone; for here are they also, whose fathers brought hither, many generations ago, the living and fruit-bearing stock of Presbyterianism. Let these, our own brethren, partakers with us of the root and fatness of the olive tree, and let believers of every name, and them who believe not, discover in our proceedings, and in us, no spirit of contention, or uncharitableness, or evilspeaking. May they see nothing in this august council but a pious zeal for the theology, the spirituality, and the extension of the Church, and for the glory of its Eternal King.

Now, fathers and brethren, the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work, to do his will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

THE END.

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