lays at our door the responsibility of reaching them with the command to love them. Christianity, as the missionary religion, says: we must go into all the world to save men; while Commerce says: we will go wherever it is safe, provided it will be profitable for us. Self-interest, as a motive power, has never yet regenerated others. By the law of self-interest, Commerce is a follower in the paths religion has made; and is not a leader of religion. These positions are certified in the general knowledge open to all.

First: whence is our geographical knowledge of the nations? Commerce demands such a knowledge, but does it give it? The pioneers in this science are the missionaries and not merchants. There is no question touching the people's welfare these patient men do not answer. The as yet unrivalled history of China is the work of a missionary. When the Chinese Government waked up to a sense of its position among the nations, its chosen translator of Wheaton's International Law was a missionary. Our information concerning the Dark Continent is owing to the efforts of these consecrated missionaries. The most accurate maps of Turkey and Japan have been prepared by such men of faith. Our Government has sent out

exploring expeditions at great expense, but the results have proven insignificant beside those of Christian missionaries. "It would be impossible," says Prof. Silliman, in his "Journal of Science," "for the historian of the islands of the Pacific to ignore the important contributions of missionaries to the departments of science."

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It is a fact worthy of mention, that the oldest monthly magazine of any kind on the American continent, is the "Missionary Herald." Rev. Dr. Peabody in the "North American Review" writes upon the supposition, that if this same magazine were solely a journal for the dissemination of knowledge and the advancement of learning, it would easily hold the first place among the periodicals of the age." Carl Ritter, that "prince of geographers," says of this same "Missionary Herald" in it "the reader must look to find the most valuable and instructive documents which have been sent home by the agents of any society, and where a rich store of scientific, historical and antiquarian details may be seen." History will bear out the statement of the "Princeton Review" when it says, "Our missionaries have rendered more real service to geography than all the geographical societies of the world." Prof. Agassiz

gave a merited compliment to the missionaries of the Gospel when he said "We must look to them not a little for aid in our future efforts for the advancement of science."

Secondly: The languages of these nations. How else can we so easily reach the heart as through the dialect of the people? At the same time, how dependent is Commerce upon this same knowledge! the one to do good, the other to get gain. In this respect religion prepares and makes easier the path of Commerce. The Christian missionary catches the jargons of a people, and by his laborious efforts unifies that strange dialect into a spoken language. The Pentecostal "miracle of tongues" is the sign of modern missions. There is scarcely a nation but must say of the Christian pioneers, with the Bible, "How hear we, every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?" As a class, the greatest linguists of the world are Christian missionaries. During the first fifty years of the history of the American Board, its missionaries alone gave twenty different nationalities and tribes a written language. Facts like these that fill volumes demonstrate the leadership of Christian truth above traffic. Christianity creates the great factors of commerce and pioneers the way. The Bible attests its

power in the changes it makes in habits of life as well as of thought. Commerce shadows the paths it has made. The words of a Grecian statesman to our missionaries at Athens are historic: "Ye are rearing a monument that shall outlast yon Parthenon."

Let India with its commercial forces and its Gospel missionaries testify. Eighty-six years ago the directors of the East India Company placed on record their judgment: "The sending of Christian missionaries into our Eastern possessions is the maddest, most expensive, most unwarrantable project that was ever proposed by a lunatic enthusiast."

Against such an unwarranted attack Sir Rivers Thompson, lieutenant-governor of Bengal, has recently said: "In my judgment, Christian missionaries have done more real and lasting good to the people of India than all other agencies combined."

Call up the name of Eliot modestly declining for himself the title "Evangelist to the Indians," now bearing the yet higher title of "Apostle "; recount the heroism of Carey venturing into India as into an unlighted mine, only asking that Scotland let not go the miner's rope; follow the history

of the poor mission scholar of Northumberland until by his translation of the Scriptures, and his voluminous additions to the Chinese literature, all China has become the debtor to Robert Morrison; picture the story of Livingstone wearing away his life for the helpless and forsaken, until while kneeling in prayer God called him home; bring to mind a Titus Coan, whose memory is immortal as the tens of thousands whom he reclaimed from cannibalism to civilization; names that are only peers with a larger host whose deeds are imperishable; and the measured, well-weighed words of R. N. Cust, Esq., Honorary Secretary to the Royal Asiatic Society, are verified: "The missionary appears to me to be the highest type of human excellence in the nineteenth century, and his profession to be the noblest. He has the enterprise of the merchant, without the narrow desire of gain; the dauntlessness of the soldier, without the necessity of shedding blood; the zeal of the geographical explorer, but for a higher motive than science."

Upon men such as these, the extension of the world's postal systems depends; railroads are built where they have walked, and the printing press is their right hand. Whenever they speak, Science,