Annual Sermon (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1847. Excerpt: ... SERMON. In other meetings of this great missionary convocation, business is to be transacted, reports are to be presented and discussed, and various inquiries are to be prosecuted respecting our plans and methods of evangelization. But this evening we meet exclusively for the higher purpose of worship and Christian edification. We are here that we may bring ourselves, with our great work upon us, into the immediate and felt presence of Him who heareth prayer, and that we may receive from the ministration of his word some appropriate lesson of instruction, admonition or encouragement. He who by your appointment, fathers and brethren, speaks to you on this occasion, is required to speak not as a debater to aid the progress of discussion and the dispatch of business, not as a lecturer to unfold the philosophy, or to trace out the incidental bearings of the missionary work, but simply as a minister of the word of God. Yet, on the other hand, it is not needful, in such a presence as this, to insist on those first principles which every pastor has occasion to inculcate, from time to time, when he urges upon his flock that great command of the Redeemer to his followers, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." These fathers and brethren, coming together from so many different regions of our common country, for the very purpose of conference on the progress of the work which Christ by that command committed to his followers, and of devising the methods and the means by which its progress may be promoted; these missionaries, returned from so many distant lands with their reports of what God has wrought, and with their plea for help in the work to which their life is consecrated and in which they hope to die; these youthful sons and daug...