"I'll go on, sir, and you'll see. 'As you have just heard out of the Holy Scriptures, so it has been, my dear friends, with the faithful witnesses and martyrs of the truth; hacked to pieces, run through the body, slain with the sword, or left to wander in the deserts, on the mountains, in dens and caves of the earth, of whom the world was not worthy. Even in the New Testament we read how Peter and Paul had to suffer imprisonment, how Stephen was stoned, James beheaded with the sword; how the Jews persecuted all the confessors of the most blessed Saviour, dragged them out of their houses, threw them into prisons, and took joy in stoning them. And even as the Jews began it, the heathen have carried it on; and not hundreds or thousands, but many hundred thousands of Christians in the ten great Christian persecutions sealed their belief in the Lord Jesus and their faithful confession of His holy name with their blood. In our last year's Mission festival in Müden, I told you how the holy apostles Peter and Paul met their death like heroes and martyrs; our beloved Hermannsburg church is named after them; and I told you about Saint Lawrence, after whom the church in Müden is called. "And to-day," you are questioning, "to-day are you going to tell us about martyrs again? We conclude so, from the text you have chosen! But wherefore always about martyrs?" My beloved, I have a special love to the martyrs; and I do not know how it happens, at every Mission festival they come with special vividness before my mind. I believe it arises from this: that I am persuaded the ever-growing zeal for missions among all earnest Christians is a token that before long the Church of Christ will have to take her flight out of Europe; and so the unconscious efforts of Christians is towards preparing a place for the Church among the wilds of heathenism. And therefore I believe that the times of martyrdom will cease to be far-off times for us any longer; that the kingdom of Antichrist is drawing near with speedier and speedier steps, is becoming daily more powerful; the apostasy from Christ is becoming constantly greater and more decided; Christianity is growing more and more like a putrid carcass, and where the carcass is, there the eagles are gathered together. And therefore missions are becoming more evidently the banner around which all living Christians rally; for what is written in the Revelation xii. 14-17, will soon receive its fulfilment. And when I see such great crowds of Christians singing praise and keeping holy day, then the thought always comes to me, How would it be if persecution were to break loose now? would all these be true witnesses and martyrs, and rather bear suffering, and yield up the last drop of their blood and endure any torments, than fall away and deny Christ? Oh, and when I reflect how mightily in those times of bloody persecution the Christian Church gave her testimony and fought