But "_beginning_" at Jerusalem, the Gospel Commission did not _end_ there? It was to embrace, first, "Judea," then "Samaria," then "the uttermost parts of the earth."[44] The ascending Redeemer's expansive heart took in with a vast sweep the wide circle of humanity. From the elevated ridge of Olivet, on which He now stood with the arrested group around Him, He might tell them to gaze, in thought at least, far north beyond the Cedar Heights of Lebanon and Hermon;--Southward to the desert and the Isles of the Ocean;--Westward to the fair lands washed by the Great Sea;--Eastward across the palm-trees of Bethany and the chain of Moabite mountains on unexplored continents, where heathenism still revelled in its rites and orgies of impurity and blood. With Palestine as their centre and starting-point, the vast World was to be their circumference. The Gospel was to be preached "as a witness to all nations." The Great Mission-Angel was to "fly through the midst of Heaven," having its everlasting truths to "preach to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people." Are _we_ faithfully fulfilling our Lord's farewell Apostolic Commission? As members of the Church of God, component parts of the Royal Priesthood, are we doing what lies in our power, that His name, and doctrine, and salvation, be proclaimed to the uttermost parts of the earth? Or is it so, that we are looking coldly, suspiciously, indifferently on the Church's efforts in the cause of Missions, suffering her funds to fail, and her schemes to languish, and her devoted servants to sink in discouragement? Or rather, are we prepared to incur the responsibility of heathen souls, through our neglect, passing hour by hour into eternity, with a Saviour's name unheard of, and a Saviour's love unknown? Go to the Rocky ridge above BETHANY, and listen to the parting injunction of our Great Master. His last words, ere the cloud received Him to glory, were _Missionary_ words, a _Missionary_ appeal, a pleading for the Gospel being sent to heathen shores. Ah! _our own Britain_ was then among the number! If the Apostolic Company had in these days, like many among ourselves, refused, on the ground of the _home-heathen_ in Judea, to send any of their band abroad, where would _we_ have been at this hour? With our Druids' altars, our bloody sacrifices, our cruel rites! But their best and noblest were commissioned to speed from port to port in the Mediterranean and the Isles of the Gentiles, with the Gospel errand on their lips, and the blessing of God on their labours! All honour to these leal-hearted men, who, in spite of national and hereditary prejudices, implicitly followed the will of their Lord and Master, who had given to them, as He has given to us, a great Missionary motto--"THE FIELD IS THE WORLD!" * * * * *