Ainerifan Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. 
 
 
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 MISSIONARY TRACTS. 
 
 NO. 14. 
 
 CLAIMS OF THE MISSIONARY WORK 
 UPON THE MENTAL STRENGTH 
 OF THE 5IINISTRY. 
 
 BV IlEV. DANIEL BLISS, OF THE SYRIA MISSION. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE BOARD, 
 
 Missionary House, 3.3 Pemberton Square. 
 
 1 8 5 6 . 
 

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American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. 
 
 MISSIONARY TRACTS. 
 
 NO. 14. 
 
 CLAIMS OF THE MISSIONARY WORK 
 UPON THE MENTAL STRENGTH 
 OF THE MINISTRY, 
 
 BY REV. DANIEL BLISS, OF THE SYRIA MISSION. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE BOARD, 
 
 Missionary House, 33 Pemberton Square. 
 
 1 8 5 6 . 
 

 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2019 with funding from 
 Columbia University Libraries 
 
 
 
 
 https://archive.org/details/claimsofmissionaOOblis 
 
CLAIMS OF THE MISSIONARY WORK UPON THE MENTAL 
 STRENGTH OF THE MINISTRY. 
 
 God accomplishes his purposes in the moral as well as 
 in the material world through secondary causes. Truth, 
 and men to present the truth, are the instruments which 
 he uses in converting the soul. Truth must be seen by 
 the intellect before the will is subdued ; and the preacher 
 of the gospel is commissioned to hold up truth sparkling 
 with brightness before the minds of men. The conver¬ 
 sion of the soul is not by power nor by might, but by the 
 Spirit of God. Yet vivid exhibitions of truth precede 
 the descent of the Spirit. God is a sovereign. He turns 
 the hearts of men as the rivers of water are turned. 
 There are no obstacles in his way. I will work and 
 who shall hinder it? saith the Lord. But so far as other 
 agencies are concerned, there are obstacles which stand 
 in the way of the conversion of the soul. So far, then, 
 as man has anything to do in converting the world, we 
 may look at the work as at any other enterprise, and send 
 our strongest and most skillful men to the most difficult 
 part of the work. 
 
 What part of the work demands the strongest and 
 most skillful men ? Is it the missionary work, in which 
 the preacher must tell over and over again the story 
 of the creation, of the flood, of God’s care over his 
 
4 
 
 CLAIMS OF THE MISSIONARY WORK 
 
 ancient people, of Christ’s life, of his death, of his re¬ 
 surrection ? Or, is it the home field, where men in Christ 
 must be fed with strong meat; the home field, the foun¬ 
 tain from which shall issue streams that shall make glad 
 the city of our God; the field in which Presidents and 
 Governors, teachers of colleges and teachers of theologi¬ 
 cal seminaries are to be educated ? The prevalent opin¬ 
 ion is that the strongest men, and men of the best culture, 
 should remain at home. This opinion is almost univer¬ 
 sal. Very few, however, will express it directly, for after 
 saying that the best men ought to remain at home and 
 that inferior men will do for missionaries, it would be a 
 delicate matter to urge one to go on a mission. Although 
 this opinion is not directly expressed, yet we learn its 
 prevalence from the remarks respecting young men about 
 to enter the ministry. Almost invariably, it will be said 
 of the strongest men and men of the best culture, that 
 they should remain in New England. It may be said of 
 a man of strong mind but not much literary taste, that 
 “ he will stir up the people at the west.” But it will be 
 said of this third man, “ He will do for a missionary.” 
 Notwithstanding this general opinion that the strongest 
 men should remain at home, there are reasons which 
 favor an opposite opinion. 
 
 I. The missionary must contend against a strong error, 
 and should therefore himself be a strong man. Idolatry 
 is no common foe. It has dragged down a race made in 
 the image of God, brutalized and turned the heart of 
 man into the heart of a beast. It is Satan’s strongest 
 ally. It entwines its ample folds around the best affec¬ 
 tions of the heart, appeals to the religious sense, and thus 
 takes hold of all that is immortal in man. It does not 
 attempt to shut up the religious emotions, but leads them 
 out by a dark and dreary way. 
 
UPON THE MENTAL STRENGTH OF THE MINISTRY. 5 
 
 Idolatry is wiser than atheism, and more subtle than 
 infidelity. Atheism is foolish, because it denies the first 
 principles of the mind. Infidelity is weak, because it 
 scoffs at a belief in things not attested by the senses, and 
 hence can never have universal sway. Idolatry does not, 
 like atheism, contradict the teaching of everything above 
 us and around us, all of which speak of God ; neither 
 does it oppose the longing of the soul after immortality, 
 or its instinctive desire to worship. All nature and the 
 soul of man cry out, There is a God. Idolatry replies. 
 There are lords many and gods many. Conscience 
 says, God is angry with the wicked every day. Idolatry 
 echoes back the sound, lacerates her victims, and then 
 casts them into the river or beneath the ponderous car to 
 appease the wrath of offended deities. The voice of God 
 within man’s spirit cries out. Worship. Idolatry catches 
 the sound and shouts aloud. Worship, yea, worship the 
 sim, the earth, mountains, lakes, stocks and stones, wor¬ 
 ship everything. Here lies the strength of idolatry. It 
 wakes up into conscious action the original faculties of 
 the soul, appeals to feelings which pervade the recesses 
 of the heart, and drags the spirit down to utter debase¬ 
 ment, not by destroying, but by perverting the noblest 
 part of our nature. 
 
 Idolatry is strong not only because it appeals to the 
 religious sense, but because it also appeals to the worst 
 and strongest passions of fallen man, and encourages 
 their indulgence by the sanctities of religion. No error 
 will cling with such tenacity to the soul as the one which 
 fosters the base desires under the name of piety. The 
 natural heart sinks into a more fatal depravity when she 
 calls her sin holiness. In this way, idolatry has made 
 her seat firm as the eternal hills. This is the system to 
 be overthrown. The missionary work is two-fold. There 
 is a pulling down, and a building up. In New England 
 
6 
 
 CLAIMS OF THE MISSIONARY WORK 
 
 the soil is already prepared for the seed, the primeval 
 forests have fallen, the few trees which remain are scathed 
 by the lightning and writhed by the wind, and must soon 
 fall. But on heathen shores the land is all covered over 
 with trees which have stood for centuries. Beneath them 
 is the deep tangled wild-wood, briars and thorns and bram¬ 
 bles. Into this dark forest must the missionary go, cut 
 down tree after tree, dig up thorn after thorn, bramble 
 after bramble; and after he has done all this, he has like 
 difficulties to contend against as he who sows the seed in 
 New England. Let the missionary then have a sagacious 
 mind to detect error, and an iron logic to pull it down. 
 
 II. Another reason why the strongest and most skillful 
 men should be missionaries, is found in the fact, that 
 communicating Christian truth in language Jilted to the 
 conceptions of a heathen mind, is of all things most diffi¬ 
 cult. If the missionary has a thought to convey, he must 
 use the heathen’s language. But it has no word adequate 
 to convey the thought. It was never made for Christian 
 ideas; and never carried a Christian thought from the 
 mind of the speaker and lodged it in the mind of the 
 hearer. Hence the missionary is baffled at the very out¬ 
 set of his work. Would he simply say, “ God is holy 
 he can find no word which means Jehovah, and no word 
 which means holy. Should he use the word which means 
 God in the language of the heathen, he would be under¬ 
 stood to speak of an image made like to corruptible man, 
 and to birds, and four-footed beasts and creeping things. 
 Should he use the word which means holy in the language 
 of the heathen, he would be understood to speak of those 
 disgusting rites which strike a death-blow to all virtue. 
 The missionary must learn the language of the heathen 
 thoroughly ; he must understand the power of every 
 word ; and then his ingenuity is taxed to the utmost, for 
 
UPON THE MENTAL STRENGTH OF THE MINISTRY. 7 
 
 he is under the necessity of giving new meanings to 
 words. He must take the language of idolatry, the 
 vehicle in which sensuous and sensual ideas have been 
 borne for centuries, whose very appearance and sound 
 suggest those ideas and those only; he must take this 
 vehicle, and without changing its appearance or sound, 
 turn out the old idea, put in its place a pure, a spiritual 
 conception, and send it to his hearer loaded with truth. 
 If there ever was a work which needed a giant mind, it 
 is the work of communicating truth in a language which 
 has no form of words to express that truth. It demands 
 cneative power. God regenerates the heart, but man 
 must regenerate words. The language of the heathen 
 must be born again, before the idea of God, of holiness, 
 of sin, of redemption can be conveyed to the mind by it. 
 Such a renovation has taken place. Moses and the Proph¬ 
 ets, Christ and the Apostles seized upon the language of the 
 heathen and made it the vehicle of other conceptions. 
 They cast out devils from men and women ; they also 
 cast out unclean spirits from the very words of the 
 heathen, swept and garnished them, and placed in them 
 pure thoughts. This process is going on now wherever 
 the Christian religion is taught. The words. Atonement, 
 Redemption, and Regeneration, were in use before they 
 conveyed the ideas which we now attach to them ; and 
 the word Paradise, was brought from the very dregs of 
 heathenism, where it signified a garden of sensual pleas¬ 
 ure. It was elevated by the Jews, and signified, with them, 
 the garden of Eden. Christ gave it a nobler meaning in 
 that memorable reply, “ To-day shalt thou be with me in 
 Paradise.” Still higher is its meaning when he “ who walk- 
 eth in the midst of the seven aolden candlesticks ” saith to 
 
 o 
 
 the churches, “ To him that overcometh, will I give to eat 
 of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise 
 of God.” Christian ideas were conveyed to the mind 
 
8 
 
 CLAIMS OF THE MISSIONARY WORK 
 
 by signs, by miracles, by the power of the floly Spirit; 
 and while these ideas were blazinor before the aroused 
 
 O 
 
 attention and consciences of men, they rushed into the 
 old vehicle of thought and made the language of the 
 heathen radiant with a divine life. But the day of 
 miracles is passed. Inspired men have all gone home. 
 The missionary must, by ordinary means, convey the 
 truths of the gospel, and change the corrupt and corrupt¬ 
 ing language of the heathen. Let the missionary have 
 then a creative mind, a heart glowing with eloquence, so 
 that truth shall hang upon his gesture, beam from his 
 countenance, and flash from his eye. 
 
 III. Another reason why the strongest and most skill¬ 
 ful men should be missionaries, is found in the fact that 
 they are to lay the foundations of all social reform and of 
 religious doctrine. 
 
 In our land the foundation is laid in the religious con¬ 
 sciousness of an enlightened nation. The missionary is 
 to commence anew. A mistake in the beginning is ruin¬ 
 ous in its consequences. A defect in the acorn develops 
 into the misshapen and gnarled oak. A fault hardly 
 noticeable, at first, becomes a monstrosity in time. The 
 wrong interpretation of a word, or the wrong meaning of 
 a phrase, when laying the foundation of a religious 
 system, works more ruin than a thousand mistakes after 
 that system has been established. It is like the first sin of 
 man, which taints all that come after. The errors which 
 have racked the church since the death of the Apostles, 
 can be traced to slight mistakes which some of the 
 teachers in the church made in laying down the first 
 principles of the gospel. The missionary is to make a 
 beginning. Christianity must be planted in China, in 
 India, in Africa, not by inspired men, nor by the aid of 
 miracles, but by men guided by the ordinary providences 
 
UPON THE MENTAL STRENGTH OF THE MINISTRY. 9 
 
 of God. It must be planted in the hearts of men, whose 
 intellects are no less blinded, whose affections are no less 
 corrupt, whose wills are no less obdurate than those to 
 whom the Apostles spoke. Should the missionary lay 
 down a false principle, philosophy will finally see it, and 
 draw it out into a heresy, which will swallow up thou¬ 
 sands. Should the preacher in New England make a 
 mistake, there are ten thousand intelligent laymen to 
 correct him ; but the missionary may drop the seed of 
 some fatal error which escapes the notice of all till it 
 springs up like thorns to choke the truth. 
 
 Let us send, then, to lay the foundations of the gospel, 
 men who have a clear understanding of doctrine, men 
 of profound judgments, who are least liable to make 
 mistakes. 
 
 TV. Another reason why the missionary work demands 
 the strongest men is found in the fact that a native minis¬ 
 try in heathen lands is to be raised up. 
 
 It is not expected, it is not desirable, that six hundred 
 millions of heathens should receive one million of pastors 
 from Christian lands; but a few men are to go and preach 
 the gospel and raise up a native ministry. The mission¬ 
 ary then is a teacher of teachers, a leader of leaders. In 
 New England the strongest men are sought to teach in 
 our theological schools, and it is a wise plan, for they 
 are to guide the guides of the church ; their work is ardu¬ 
 ous ; their responsibilities are great. Yet they instruct 
 young men over whose cradles mothers prayed, around 
 whose boyhood the sanctities of religion were thrown, 
 whose youth was spent under the tuition of good and 
 great men. These young men, with correct morals, with 
 a true philosophy, need further instruction from the 
 greatest minds, before they can teach others the truths 
 of religion where those truths are almost universally 
 
10 
 
 CLAIMS OF THE MISSIONARY WORK 
 
 acknowledged. The church has decided, and wisely too, 
 that theological professors should be strong men. But 
 the missionary is more than a theological professor, for he 
 must educate for the ministry young men over whose 
 cradles mothers have only muttered charmed words; 
 around whose boyhood the impurities of Idolatry have 
 clustered ; whose youth was spent under the tuition of 
 magicians and jugglers. These young men with corrupt 
 morals, with a false philosophy, with hearts all covered 
 over with the plague-spot of sin, must be taught by the 
 missionary to teach others the truths of religion, not 
 where those truths are acknowledged, but where they are 
 almost universally rejected. The missionary is more than 
 a theological professor, and should be a stronger man. 
 
 V. Another reason why the strongest men should be 
 missionaries is found in the fact that the Bible is to be 
 translated. 
 
 The translation of the Bible into a language is of the 
 greatest importance to those who speak that language. 
 The Bible written in the mother tongue of a people, is 
 the only sure guide in every thing that pertains to their 
 eternal welfare. 
 
 King James, when he wished to give the English peo¬ 
 ple the Bible in their own language, saw the importance 
 and the difficulty of the work. He called forty-seven 
 men, the ripest scholars in all England, to undertake the 
 work, and also ordered that the Bishops should find out 
 what men of learning there were who might assist; so 
 that, as the King remarks, “ Our said intended transla¬ 
 tion may have the help and furtherance of all our prin¬ 
 cipal learned men in this our kingdom.” King James 
 showed wisdom by engaging the talents and the learning 
 of the nation in such an important and arduous work. 
 The Anorlo-Saxon race will ever bless God for our old 
 
UPON THE MENTAL STRENGTH OF THE MINISTRY. 11 
 
 English Bible. But the Anarlo-Saxon race is not a six- 
 teenth part of the world ; other nations need a Bible ; 
 who shall translate it for them? They have no men 
 among themselv-es who can do it; the missionary is the 
 only man. He must translate from the original Hebrew 
 and Greek, not into his own vernacular tongue, as did 
 the translators of our Bible ; but into a foreign language, 
 which increases the difficulty tenfold. Yet, while we 
 admire the sagacity of King James in choosing the great¬ 
 est and best men to translate the Bible into the mother 
 tongue of twenty millions of people, we take an opposite 
 course ourselves, and keep our greatest men at home, and 
 send others to translate the Bible into the mother tongues 
 of six hundred millions of people. Let us send skillful 
 men, men learned in the ancient and modern languages. 
 
 The missionary work demands sagacious men, men of 
 keen, logical minds ; for idolatry is a strong error. It 
 demands men of creative minds, and men of eloquence ; 
 for the language of the heathen is deficient, and truth 
 must be communicated by the mysterious power of elo¬ 
 quence, which carries conviction, though words are few 
 and falter on a stammering tongue. It demands men of 
 clear understanding and of profound judgment, for foun¬ 
 dations are to be laid on which nations shall stand until 
 time is no longer. It demands men who are skilled in 
 philosophy, in history, in all theological learning; for the 
 missionary is to raise up a native ministry. It demands 
 men learned in the ancient and modern languages, and 
 men mighty in the Scriptures, for the Bible is to be 
 translated. 
 
 Reason teaches us that the missionary work pre-^ 
 eminently demands the strongest and most skillful men of 
 the church. But we are not shut up to reason. We have 
 apostolic example to guide us, and the words of the Holy 
 Spirit to direct us. Let us go back eighteen hundred 
 
12 
 
 CLAIMS OF THE MISSIONARY WORK 
 
 and ten years, to the city of Antioch, where the disciples 
 were first called Christians, and learn a lesson. “ Now 
 there were in the church that was at Antioch certain 
 prophets and teachers, as Barnabas, and Simeon that was 
 called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which 
 had been brought up with Herod theTetrarch, and Saul.” 
 These five preachers were in Antioch, the Syrian metro¬ 
 polis, the Oriental Rome ; a city upon which emperors 
 lavished their wealth in building porticos and aqueducts, 
 theatres and temples, walls and arches; a city which 
 Josephus says, “ without dispute deserves the place of the 
 third city in the world, both in magnitude and in other 
 marks of prosperity.” In this city, the home of Roman 
 governors, the resort of pleasure-loving citizens, visited 
 by poets, filled with Chaldean astrologers, Jewish impos¬ 
 tors, and a worthless rabble of Greeks and Orientals ; 
 in this large city are only five ministers. There was a 
 church in Antioch, and never did a church need more 
 watchful care than this. It had just sprung up from the 
 deeps of oriental superstition and pharisaic formality. 
 There were foes without and foes within, which threat¬ 
 ened to destroy the new religion. All the arguments 
 which are urged in favor of keeping the best men at 
 home, will apply with greater force to the case before us. 
 Antioch was the centre from which Christianity was to 
 radiate, the fountain which should send forth waters 
 for the healing of the nations. It stood in more danger 
 than any modern city or church of being overcome by 
 infidelity and superstition. If the Christians of Antioch 
 had had the same views on the subject of missions as 
 we have, and if one of their number had proposed that 
 two of the five ministers should leave that city, which 
 was nearly as large as New York, and go on a mission, 
 he would have been called a fanatic. And if some one 
 had proposed that the two most learned, most eloquent 
 
UPON THE MENTAL STRENGTH OF THE MINISTRY. 13 
 
 should ffo, he would have been called a monomaniac. 
 But God’s ways are not as our ways, nor his thoughts 
 as our thoughts; for as these five preachers “ min¬ 
 istered to the Lord and fasted,” the Holy Ghost said, 
 “ Separate me Barnabas and Saul, for the work where- 
 unto I have called them.” Notice whom the Holy Ghost 
 called. It is not Simeon or Manaen, but Barnabas, the 
 son of consolation, the son of prophecy ; Barnabas, who 
 was so majestically benignant, and so dignified in his 
 bearing, that the idolatrous Lycaonians supposed that 
 Jupiter, the father of gods and of men, had come among 
 them. The words are, “ Separate me Barnabas and 
 Saul; ” Saul, not Lucius. Saul is called the last and 
 most illustrious of the Apostles ; whose youth was spent 
 in the study of the Scriptures; whose ear was familiar 
 with the Greek, the Hebrew and the Latin tongues ; 
 whose mind was trained to logical acuteness ; whose 
 memory was well stored with hard sentences of old; 
 whose love for Greek literature led him to quote the 
 poets in his public addresses; he, who had seen the 
 Lord Jesus in the way ; a man of powerful intellect; of 
 great insight into tlie foundations of natural theology and 
 of moral philosophy ; a man of the sublimest eloquence ; 
 of a fearless independence ; of the noblest patriotism ; 
 the generous, courteous, self-denying Saul, is called ; 
 called hy the Holy Spirit; called from Antioch ; called 
 to the missionary work. 
 
 If the missionary work does not demand the greatest 
 men in the church, why were Barnabas and Saul called 
 to that work ? I seem to hear a hundred voices answer. 
 The work did demand the greatest men then, but things 
 have changed.” Things have changed ! What things ? 
 Has human nature changed ? The character of the 
 heathen to-day is essentially that of the heathen eighteen 
 hundred years ago. The description which Paul gave of 
 
14 
 
 CLAIMS OF THE MISSIONARY WORK 
 
 them in his letter to the Romans, will apply, every word 
 of it, to the heathen now livino^ on the earth. Things 
 have changed! What things ? The law still stands, 
 “ The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” “ For as manv as 
 have sinned without law, shall also perish without law.” 
 The only hope of salvation is still Christ Jesus. The 
 conditions of salvation are still faith and repentance. 
 “Go teach all nations,” are still living words. Sixty 
 souls every minute of time still drop into eternity. 
 Things have changed! Pray what things? Does a 
 community in Boston, does this community in Andover, 
 in which is lodged more religious truth than could be 
 found in the whole city of Antioch, this community 
 walled about by Bibles, supported by the sentiments of a 
 Christian age, shielded by the prayers of ten thousand 
 saints, does this community demand a greater teacher 
 than the missionary work demands, when the community 
 of Antioch, full of errors, surrounded by idolatry, dragged 
 down by the licentious customs of a corrupt age, did 
 not demand as great a teacher as that same work de¬ 
 manded ? Opinions may change, but principles never. 
 
 The Holy Ghost said, “ Separate me Barnabas and 
 Saul.” Christ taught humiliation by example; the Holy 
 Ghost taught how to select missionaries by giving an 
 example. But the churches, either by not seeing the 
 fearful condition of the heathen, or by supposing that 
 a congregation in New England of a thousand souls, is 
 more important than all else, or from desiring the best 
 thincrs for themselves ; the churches, for one or for all 
 these reasons combined, reverse the decision of the 
 Spirit, and keep the greatest men at home. 
 
 When a church in New England, thoroughly imbued 
 with the doctrines of the cross, rooted and grounded in 
 the faith, wishes to call a pastor, she hears many sermons 
 from many men, and then says, Separate me Saul or 
 
UPON THE MENTAL STRENGTH OF THE MINISTRY. 15 
 
 Barnabas for Christian Antioch; Simeon and Lucius and 
 Manaen will do for missionaries. Christian brethren, 
 there is something wrong somewhere. There is some¬ 
 thing wrong, not only in keeping the greatest men at 
 home, but in keeping so many men at home. Let us 
 look again at Antioch and learn of the Holy Spirit. 
 Antioch was as wide in extent as the City of Boston, and 
 contained more than four times as many people; and yet 
 two of the five preachers were called from it to other 
 labors. They were sent away not because Antioch did 
 not need them, but because Macedonia needed them 
 more. There are twelve orthodox pastors in Boston, and 
 every gale that sweeps from the East brings to our ears the 
 cry, “ Come over and help us;” but no one goes—why ? 
 The voice of the Spirit is hushed. He only speaks 
 through the word of God and by the still small voice in 
 the believer’s heart. Yet should the Holy Spirit speak 
 once again in audible tones, I doubt not he would say to 
 the twelve preachers in Boston, and to many other twelve 
 preachers, who dwell so near together and have the 
 charge of so few people, ‘‘ Separate me Barnabas and 
 Saul and Simeon for the work whereunto I have called 
 them ; ” let only Manaen and Lucius remain to break 
 the bread of life for the few thousands, while these go to 
 the perishing millions who have no bread. 
 
 At this hour, within five miles of Boston, there are not 
 less than twenty preachers of one faith, speaking to con¬ 
 gregations whose numbers, taken collectively, will not 
 equal twice the number of souls often gathered in one 
 assembly. Who can give a rational reason why these 
 twenty congregations ought not to assemble in five places 
 of worship instead of twenty, and listen to five preachers, 
 while the other fifteen are plucking heathen as brands 
 from the burning ? 
 
 Is there one whose heart has been touched by the 
 
16 
 
 CLAIMS OF THE MISSIONARY WORK. 
 
 power of divine love, that would refuse to go five miles 
 every Sabbath, and sit in a crowded congregation, if 
 thereby he could let his pastor go to the heathen and save 
 souls from the death that never dies ? 
 
 I know it is pleasant to have the church near our 
 dwelling, and to have but few in our seats; and all this 
 we may have, if we will settle a pastor in every little 
 village and neighborhood, and at the corner of every 
 street; but I had rather go twice five miles, and stand all 
 day in the door of the house of God, than to hear the 
 wail of a lost soul, which had perished because I chose 
 to live at ease in Zion. The church of God in New 
 England must awake ; she must put on a self-sacrificing 
 spirit; she must give up her best sons and her best daugh¬ 
 ters. Christian brethren, let us go home to our closets 
 and pray God to open our eyes to the fearful condition of 
 eight hundred millions of perishing souls. Let us look 
 not every man on his own things, but every man also on 
 the things of others. Let us deny ourselves a feast, that 
 the heathen may taste a little; and then we and they may 
 enter in through the gates into the city, and feast upon 
 the fruits of the tree of life, which grows on either side 
 of the river of the water of life proceeding out of the 
 throne of God and the Lamb. 
 
 The foregoing Address was delivered by Rev. Daniel 
 Bliss, now a missionary in Syria, at his graduation from the 
 Theological Seminary in Andover, Ms., in the summer of 
 1855. It is thought worthy of a place in our series of Mis¬ 
 sionary Tracts.