This motive of affection to the Lord makes provision, moreover, against the despondences that attend a want of success; for although a servant of Christ may, to his life's end, labor in vain, although the objects of his disinterested kindness should "turn and rend him;" yet, not the less, has he approved his loyalty and love; approved it even more conspicuously than those can have done whose labors are continually cheered and rewarded by prosperous results. Affection, in such cases, has sustained the trial, not merely of toil, but of fruitless toil, than which none can be more severe to a zealous and devoted heart. * * * * * It appears, then, that Christian benevolence contains within itself a balancing of motives, such as to leave room for the utmost imaginable enhancement of zeal without hazard of extravagance. In truth, it is easy to perceive that the religion of the Bible has in reserve a spring of movement, a store of intrinsic vigor, ready to be developed in a manner greatly surpassing what has hitherto been seen. Such a day of development shall ere long arrive, the time of the triumph of divine principles shall come, and a style of true heroism be displayed, of which the seeds have been long sown; of which some samples have already been furnished; and which waits only the promised refreshment from above to appear, not in rare instances only, but as the common produce of Christianity. In the present state of the world and of the Church, when communications are so instantaneous, and when attention is so much alive to whatever concerns the welfare of mankind, if it might be imagined that a great and sudden extension of Christianity should take place in the regions of superstition and polytheism; and that yet no corresponding improvement of piety, no purifying, no refreshment, no enhancement of motives, should occur in the home of Christianity, there is reason to believe that the influx of excitement might generate a blaze of destructive enthusiasm. If every day had its tidings of wonder—the fall of popery in the neighboring nations—the abandonment of the Mohammedan delusion by people after people in Asia—the rejection of idols by China and India; and if these surprising changes, instead of producing the cordial joy of gladdened faith, were gazed at merely with an unholy and prurient curiosity, and were thundered forth from platforms by heartless declaimers, and were grasped at by visionary interpreters of futurity; then, from so much agitation, uncorrected by a proportionate increase of genuine piety, new prodigies of error would presently start up, new sects break away from the body, new hatreds be kindled: and nothing scarcely be left in the place of Christianity, but dogmas and contentions. Thus the cradle of religion in modern times would become its grave.