Before the commencement of the recent missionary efforts, there had been missions to the heathen. But these, if carried on with anything more than a perfunctory assiduity, were anomalous to the general feeling of Christians, and sprung from the exemplary zeal of individuals. But the modern missions are maintained neither by the zeal of the few, nor by the mere zeal of the many; but rather by the deep-seated impulsive power of a grave conviction, pressing on the conscience even of the inert and the selfish—and much more on the hearts of the fervent and devoted—that a Christian has no more liberty to withhold his aid and service from these evangelizing associations than he has to abandon the duties of common life; and that, for a man to profess hope in Christ, and to deny what he might spare to promote the diffusion of the Gospel, is the most egregious of all practical solecisms. Those who are ignorant of this remarkable revolution of sentiment, or who may be sceptical concerning it, would do well to take up, at hazard, any dozen of the discourses, and reports, and tracts, that are yearly, and monthly, and weekly, flowing from the religious press, and among which they will hardly find one that does not assume this as an admitted principle, and as the ultimate motive of every hortatory appeal. And if, among these ephemera, there are any, and such are not seldom to be found, that bear the stamp of superior intelligence, it will be seen almost invariably, that the reasoner summons all the force of his mind, not so much to prove that every Christian is bound to promote the diffusion of scriptural knowledge, as by some new ingenuity of illustration to place the acknowledged duty in a stronger light, or to show in what manner it bears upon the specific object for which he pleads. And it is to be noted that these popular addresses exhibit, for the most part, much more of the gravity and calmness which naturally belong to the style of those who feel that they are standing upon undisputed ground, than of the solicitude, or the inflammatory verbosity and turgidness of writers who are laboring to fan a decaying blaze of indefensible enthusiasm. Or again: it may well be inferred that the modern missionary zeal springs from motives of a substantial and permanent kind, since they affect, without exception, every body of Christians (holding the doctrines of the Reformation) and are felt in the same manner by the Christians of every Protestant community of Europe. And moreover the feeling has not declined, but has sensibly increased since the first years of its activity; and it has endured the trial, in some instances, of severe and long-continued discomfitures, or of partial success. These are indications of a spring of action far more sedate and enduring than any feverish excitement can ever supply.