A GREAT duty rests upon you, if you are a believer. You must watch, and pray, and labour for souls; for all souls; for the souls in distant lands; for the souls in your own country; but especially for the souls of your relatives, friends, and neighbours. Many considerations enforce this duty. Listen to some.

Love to Christ is the great motive. You are to live to Him. You do live to Him, when you seek the spiritual welfare of those lost ones whom He came to seek and to save. You obey his command, you copy his example, you exhibit his spirit, you assimilate to his character, you extend his kingdom, you augment his triumphs-this is to live to Christ; and such a life is the evidence, because it is the offspring of love.

Desires for God's glory form a strong inducement. Do you not believe that God is glorified, when the

angels around his throne rejoice over a repentant sinner? If your instrumentality brought that sinner to repentance, you have helped to glorify God. If you desire that He should be glorified, you will strive for the conversion of souls.

The very possession of saving truth implies an obligation to diffuse it. You do possess this truth. You enjoy the light of the Gospel. You know the way of salvation. May you-dare you keep this a secret? Shall the hungry die without the bread of life, when you might point them to it? Is it right that many should thirst in painful ignorance of the wells of salvation, whilst you can tell them of its blessed waters? Thousands are stricken around you with the leprosy of sin; you know the great Priest who can heal them. May you conceal this knowledge ?

Can

Christian consistency demands your exertion for the salvation of souls. You profess and call yourselves Christians. You pray that God would teach those who are in error, would have mercy upon all men, and would fetch them home to the fold of Christ. you stop here? Can you ask for what you do not seek to obtain by all possible effort? Again, you profess to believe that sinners are in danger. If they die unrepentant they will not enter heaven. You know some who are in this awful condition. Can you pray so feelingly, and then indulge in idle chit-chat with such persons, without warning them of their peril, and without beseeching them to be reconciled to God? Can you? If you can, where is your consistency? Let conscience speak, and hearken to its monitions.

Besides, the facilities afforded by intimate association encourage and enforce the duty of caring for souls. You are not isolated beings. You are not shut up in uninhabited islands. You are not without a circle to feel your influence. The most insignificant amongst you has at least one person accessible to his counsels,

and in some especial manner under the moral power of his affectionate regard. The relationships you sustain imply great and various responsibilities. The friendships you have formed give you an important opening for your labour of love. The neighbours with whom you are frequently brought into contact ought to take knowledge of you that you have been with Jesus. You may therefore do much which no one else can do. You may preach sermons to hearts which a minister's voice never reaches, and with a point which no public discourse can be expected to possess. Add to this, that your efforts, if wisely made, will have more simplicity, more insensible influence, be more easily accounted for, and awaken less opposition than the efforts of a stranger, however accredited his office.

Another motive is natural affection, This must be a very powerful inducement. Those souls which are perishing for the lack of spiritual knowledge are the souls of many naturally dear to you. Their welfare is precious as your own. You are bound to them by ties of incalculable strength. Now strive to realize their state before God. Fix your mind on the fact, that they are yet in their sins, yet impenitent, yet unsaved! Imagine them drawing near to death, their awful awakening from a life-time of moral slumber, their agony, their despair, their wailing. as of the excluded virgins at the marriage feast. Think-may they not reproach you then? May they not ask in tones of anguish why you, who marked their spiritual insensibility, never strove to arouse them from it; why you, who knew their peril, never adjured them to flee from the wrath to come? Think-how terrible was the remorse of that worldly father whose dying child exclaimed, fixing her glazing eyes fearfully upon him, Father, I owe it to you that I have lost my soul!" Think-there will be a judgment day! You must meet then the souls you might have warned, have entreated, have prayed for!

What account will you give of the opportunities of usefulness you have lost? What answer will you make to their upbraidings? What feelings of unavailing, bitter agony may then arise within your breast, as you mark loved ones-husband, wife, child, parent, friend, neighbour-standing at the Judge's left hand, the objects of his withering frown, and about to be banished to everlasting woe. If you did not warn them while on earth, the doom of Ezekiel's watchman will be yours; the wicked will have perished in their sins, and perished rightly; but their blood will God require at your hand. Pray that the blood of souls may never rest upon you; and labour in God's

strength, with earnestness and faith, that you may win

souls for Christ.

WILL YOU DO THIS? Will you now pledge yourselves, in humble dependence upon Divine strength, to act as Missionaries in your own social circle ?

We believe that many of you will. We believe that you will consecrate your time and energies in this special enterprise of Christian love and zeal. You only wait to be set to work.

You are about then to engage in a great work. "Mission" has become a fashionable phrase: your Mission is to bring God's truth to bear upon your relatives and friends. You are not to contemplate a departure from your native land, that in dark heathen climes you should risk health and life, as the heralds of salvation. In quiet home scenes lies your Missionary field. A fire-side circle will be your largest congregation. A companionship for an hour with two or three friends will give you the opportunity of unfolding your embassy. A tract left on a shop counter may represent one function of your ministry.

You will have the pleasant consciousness that, though working actually alone, you are yet in spirit united with many others engaged in the same enterprise of faith. Strangers to you-separated by con

tinents and oceans-their work is the same; their prayers arise to the same throne, their dependence is on the same Spirit. You may hear of their exertions, and ascertain their disappointments and their successes, though you never meet them face to face.

That this may be secured, we earnestly invite all those who have given themselves to the Lord and his Church, to associate themselves in a Social Circle Mission. Let them write to us, giving us as a guarantee of good faith, not for publication-their names, and we will then inscribe them on a new Missionary roll. We will answer questions-point out plans-counsel as to modes of operation-and do everything in our power to keep this new Mission in useful and active working.

From the reports we expect occasionally to receive, we shall be able to furnish general statements showing the progress and results of this new society. This is a novel scheme; but, by God's blessing, it may prove of no slight value.

All we now ask is, the names of those who are willing to become Missionaries. When we receive these, we will make further statements, and sketch the work more in detail.

We must not forget to mention, that several Christian young persons of our acquaintance are already thus engaged, and are making it their special business to carry the Gospel to those in their own circle of friends who are yet unenlightened by its blessed beams. We believe that they have found their labour not altogether in vain, even if we refer only to its influence upon their own consciences and lives. And it is the circumstance that some are thus employing themselves, which has led us to think of extending this new form of evangelical agency amongst our readers.

EDITOR.