Page:Early voyages to Terra Australis.djvu/173

 THE SOUTIIKUN LAND. 25

Your Majesty ought to give much consideration to the fact that Christ our Kecleemcr and supreme good, when He finished the period of His first coming, recommended to His Apostles with the greatest strictness the preaching of His gospel, as the principal means by which the redemption of the human race, which had cost him so much, was to receive its consummation. For this cause it was the last charge He gave to them, that they might understand that it was the principal service they had to render Him, and for which He had chosen them. Immediately after so doing He ascended up to heaven, to give to His most holy humanity the seat of ineffable glory at the right hand of His Father, and re- ceive the crown of the sovereign and universal empire over heaven and earth, as is shown by the evangelist St. Mark in the passage quoted above : " And He said unto them. Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every crea- ture. He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved." And after He " had spoken unto them He was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them." Thus also should Your Majesty set the eyes of your heart upon the consummation of the preaching of the gospel in the southern hemisphere, which this same Lord is now recounting to you, with the crown of the uni- versal empire of the globe in His hand, ready to place it upon your head, if you value, as it should be valued, this Divine commission, and execute it with that zeal and devo- tion which the charge enjoins. But if, which God forbid, Your Majesty should not accept this commission, or with- hold the said zeal from the undertaking, it would doubtless be the greatest disaster that could happen to this kingdom, and the most certain sign that God is withdrawing his Hand from us ; and even already it seems that this withdrawal has fallen upon us, in that we are not attempting a task which ap- plies to us so well, and which so much concerns these king-

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