aration of children is thought of, they
show full well that they are no proof against an agony of feeling.
Certainly, then, you will not plead for exemption. You would not place
upon others this burden, and pull away your own shoulders from it. You
have souls too generous and benevolent to do that. You cannot find it in
your hearts to offer to the lips of others a cup more bitter than you
would drink yourselves. You can choose guardians for your children far
better than the missionaries can who are abroad, and your children shall
have the same provision for their support and education as theirs have.

We have glanced at some excuses. Many others there are in this
excuse-making age. Be entreated to look at them with the command of
Christ, a sinking world and a coming judgment, in your eye, and as far
as they have weight and _no farther_ be influenced by them. Where
exemption cannot honestly be pleaded, the command in all its force is
binding.

That some pastors of influence and talent should become missionaries,
seems necessary; for _how otherwise can the means be raised to sustain
missions abroad, and to send forth young men who may offer themselves_?
It is well known, that operations abroad have been and are still
exceedingly crippled. It is well known, too, that quite a company of
young men have at different times been waiting, for want of requisite
funds to send them forth to the heathen.

Now this is the state of things, not because there is not money enough
in the hands of Christians--no one imagines that such is the fact--but
because Christians, as a body, are not aroused to duty. What means shall
be taken to arouse them? I, for one, am inclined to think that there
would be hope, if some influential and prominent pastors would enter the
missionary work. In such a case, I should indeed have strong hope that
the impulse, falling in with the spirit of primitive practice and the
will of the Holy Ghost, would be such as to bring forth the funds needed
to sustain the operations now begun, send forth waiting young men, and
carry themselves also into the field. I feel quite confident, that the
measure would soon clear the seaboard of all who might be detained, and
place their joyful feet on foreign soil.

The great body of professed Christians are becoming luxurious in their
modes of life. One cannot go through the churches, after the absence of
several years, without being forcibly impressed with this fact. They
pres