The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1871-12-06

Rev. VIM. y. Burns, the Chinese MISSION
ary, in writing to his mother, and referring
to text on which he had been preaching in
Annoy on the words, because iniquity shall
abound, the love of many shall wax cold, "
makes the following remarks:
81 felt they were solemnly applicable to
my own state of heart Unless the Lord
the Spirit continually uphold and quicken,
oh! how benumbing is daily contact with
heathenism! But the Lord is faithful, and
has promised to be as rivers of water in
dry place, and as the shadow of great rock
in weary land
"His alluson here, ;" says his accomplished
brother and biographer, Gas well as often in
other letters, to the benumbing influence of
continual contact with heathenism, and the
danger generally of losing the keen edge
and high tone of practical godliness while
dwelling in land in which all the usual
means and incentives of the spiritual life are
in so great measure withdrawn, is at once
touching and instructive, and suggests to US
an aspect of the missionary life which most
of us at home but little think of. We are
apt to regard the Christian missionary as,
by the very act of his conservation to SO
sublime vocation, at once raised to region
of exalted faith and fervor far above US, in
which all the ordinary perils to the life of
the soul are unknown. The idea of carnal,
formal, perfunctory, unspiritual and com.
mon. place missionary seems to us almost a
contradiction in terms. We think naturally
of those brave athletes of the cross very
much as ordinary Christians in early days
thought of the ascetic recluses of the desert
as men, by the very nature of their call
ing, pre-eminently devoted in heart to God,
and almost as a matter Of course and ipso
facto, full of faith and Of the Holy Ghost
No mistake, I believe, can be more grievous.
The whole history of missionary life and
labor abundantly shows how possible it is to
lose the life of faith, even while seeking the
propagation of the faith--to leave house
and home and kindred for Christs sake and
the gospels, and yet in heather land, to
breathe little either of the love of Christ or
the grace of the gospel. Most of us little
think how hard thing it must be for soil.
tary wanderer in such land as China to
maintain the life of Christian godliness in the
very atmospere and element of heathenism
without Sabbath without Christian fel-
lowship or brotherhood; without Christian
faith to look into, or a Christian hand to
grasp; with an utter disbelief of all Chris,
tian truths, and of everything belonging to
higher world, looking out from the eyes Of
all around him; with nothing left to feed
the inner springs of his soul but his Bible,
his closet (if indeed he can command closet
and his God. The brightest lamp will burn
dim in an impure and rarefed atmosphere.
1t is only by special miracle that the chill
dren of Israel can thrive and be of fair
countenance on the pulse and water of Baby
lon. The palm tree of the desert "knoweth
not when heat cometh, but it is because its
roots are watered by hidden springs far un'
der ground We can understand, then, how
it was that the subject of this memoir, while
wandering amid the heather villages on the
mainland, go intensely longed for Sabbath
at Hong Kong, and so continually cast him