The missionary’s head will lie low, and others will have entered into his labors, before his ideal is realized.  The Future for which he works is one which, though sure, has never yet been seen.  The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord.  The missionary is a harbinger of the good time coming.  When he preaches the Gospel to a tribe which has long sat in darkness, the signs of the coming of the Son of Man are displayed, The glorious Sun of Righteousness is near the horizon.  He is the herald of the dawn, for come He will whose right it is to reign; and what a prospect appears, when we think of the golden age which has not been, but must yet come!  Messiah has sat on the Hill of Zion for 1800 years.  He has been long expecting that his enemies shall be made his footstool; and may we not expect, too, and lift up our heads, seeing the redemption of the world draweth nigh?  The bow in the cloud once spread its majestic arch over the smoke of the fat of lambs ascending as a sweet-smelling savor before God—­a sign of the covenant of peace—­and the flickering light of the Shechinah often intimated the good-will of Jehovah.  But these did not more certainly show the presence of the Angel of the Covenant than does the shaking among the nations the presence and energy of God’s Holy Spirit; and to be permitted to rank as a fellow-worker with Him is a mercy of mercies.  O Love Divine! how cold is our love to Thee!  True, the missionary of the present day is only a stepping-stone to the future; but what a privilege he possesses!  He is known to “God manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into Glory.”  Is that not enough?

Who would not be a missionary?  His noble enterprise is in exact accordance with the spirit of the age, and what is called the spirit of the age is simply the movement of multitudes of minds in the same direction.  They move according to the eternal and all-embracing decrees of God.  The spirit of the age is one of benevolence, and it manifests itself in numberless ways—­ragged schools, baths and wash-houses, sanitary reform, etc.  Hence missionaries do not live before their time.  Their great idea of converting the world to Christ is no chimera:  it is Divine.  Christianity will triumph.  It is equal to all it has to perform.  It is not mere enthusiasm to imagine a handful of missionaries capable of converting the millions of India.  How often they are cut off just after they have acquired the language!  How often they retire with broken-down constitutions before effecting anything!  How often they drop burning tears over their own feebleness amid the defections of those they believed to be converts!  Yes! but that small band has the decree of God on its side.  Who has not admired the band of Leonidas at the pass of Thermopylae?  Three hundred against three million.  Japhet, with the decree of God on his side, only 300 strong, contending for enlargement