was saying, and
the President was glad that she held such a relation as she did to a
cause so evidently right, with a reverse side so evidently wrong. The
plain little body of the Church Social beamed thorough sympathy.

"Do you say," continued Mr. Carew, "that God will be merciful to the
heathen because of their ignorance? I believe He will, and do not doubt
that it will be 'more tolerable' for those who have never heard than for
those in this country (heathen also, in the Scriptural sense) who, having
often heard, are still rejectors of the Gospel. But there is a greater
question involved than that of lessened stripes or mitigated woe. Do you
say that men will be _saved_ by lack of knowledge? The prophet said his
people _perished_ for lack of it! Ah, if God had ordained ignorance to
be the way of salvation He might have spared Himself great cost!--cost of
the redemption sacrifice, and of its proclamation, often in martyr blood.
But He confers His boon to faith and 'faith cometh by _hearing_.'

"You say it will increase the responsibility of the heathen if they hear,
and put them in worse case if they reject the message? Very true. But
had that been a sufficient reason it would have silenced our Lord's 'Go
ye' at the outset of the age. Never would the Gospel have traveled to
our barbaric fathers, and we should be without hope to-day. But the
treasure was too great which the Saviour sought. No thought of deeper
shadows cast by the very brightness of the light could deter Him from
holding it forth. Beyond all cost of difficulty, danger, or the deepened
condemnation of the lost, was the value of the Church He sought--the
pearl of great price for which all other possessions might be forfeited!
Ah, friends, since the object is so dear to Him, where are our hearts
that we think of it so coldly! The burden of my plea is _for Him_; not
for the missionary, not for philanthropy, not even so much for the
heathen themselves, as _for Him_, because He loves and longs to give but
lacks the human vessels through which to give!"

The speaker paused, and absently pushed back the hair from his flushed
forehead. An almost tragic yearning shone in his deepset eyes. There
was one in the congregation whose heart burned in a fellowship of grief
over the Saviour's unmet longing. Mr. Carew continued more slowly, in a
voice intensely sad and almost broken:

"Do you sometimes quote softly for _your_ comfort, 'I will guide thee