The same principle applies to our more extensive labours for the good of the whole world, and is the very life and soul of home and foreign missions. We can enter the abodes of ignorance and crime at home, and ply with offers of mercy the inhabitants of the foulest den, and plead with every prodigal to return to his Father, because we believe that in all this we are in Christ's stead, and are warranted to beseech in God's name, and with the full assurance that we are not working alone, but "together with God." We can visit any spot in heathendom, cheered and borne up by the same assurance amidst every difficulty, discouragement, and danger. Whatever else is doubtful, this, at least, is certain, that in every endeavour to save sinners, we are but expressing our sympathy with Jesus in His love to them, in His longing to see of the travail of His soul, and to be satisfied in their salvation; and that when experiencing the deepest sorrow because men will not believe, we are only sharing the sufferings of Him who mourned on account of unbelief, and wept over lost Jerusalem because it would not know the things of its peace. All this is as certain as that there is such a living person as the Saviour, unchanged in character, everywhere present, seeing the evil and the good, hating the one and loving the other, whose labour and whose joy is that God's name should be hallowed, His kingdom come, and His will be done on earth as it is done in heaven. Oh, how depressing, how deadening, to have any doubts as to this reality of the interest which our God and Saviour takes in the good of human souls! How must the dread thought silence the tongue, wither the heart, and paralyse the hand, that however ardent the wish influencing us to be good ourselves, or to do good to others, God is indifferent to both, and has no real interest in either--as if we had more love, more holiness, and more desire that the kingdom of righteousness should advance, than the loving and holy God! Nay, how is it possible for us to have any true love at all to human friends unless it is first kindled by Him, and is in sympathy with Him, who loved His neighbour as Himself?