he voice of
the living teacher, is a very different thing from going into all the
world, and preaching the Gospel to every creature--an egregious
disproportion to the wants of the world--must we stifle all emotion and
all inquiry, in taking it for granted that it is now too late for
change? And yet there seems to be a tacit understanding, that any other
distribution than that now existing, of the _present generation_ of
ministers, is a point not to be agitated. At least, many a pastor quiets
himself with the thought, that no change is to be contemplated in his
particular case, for the care of a church is on his hands. Almost by
common consent, pastors are excused; and missionaries are looked for
from the young men and the children; and the hope of the heathen amounts
to this, that some young men may be kept from imitating the example of
their fathers and elder brethren, and be prevailed upon to enter the
missionary work before they _become pastors_. For if the mere fact of
being a pastor places the question at rest, young men will feel
themselves relieved as soon as they enter that office.

I have known young men whose minds were goaded on the question of going
to the heathen, like the conscience of a convicted sinner, till a call
was presented to some important church; and then they succeeded in
laying the subject at once and entirely aside. Like the pursued ostrich,
who thrusts her head into the sand, and vainly imagines that she is
concealed from her pursuers, so, I fear, some endeavor to elude the
convictions of conscience. I put the question to your own good sense,
your candor, and your pious feelings: Can the mere fact of being a
pastor excuse a man from going to the heathen, when perhaps he became a
pastor in violation of the Saviour's command?

It is acknowledged, that many pastors ought to have become missionaries
before they were settled--that the present amazing disproportion between
settled ministers at home, and missionaries abroad, ought never to have
existed. To argue so plain a case would be a waste of breath. How then
can the fact of having wandered from duty excuse one from the
performance of it? To-day, it is the duty of Jonah to go to Nineveh.
To-morrow, he has engaged his passage to Tarshish, has paid his fare,
has gone down into the sides of the ship, and is quietly at rest. Is he
therefore excused? To-day, the command of Christ presses upon me the
obligation to go to the heathen. To-morrow, leavi