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THE COMMISSION.
VoL 3. SEPTEMBER, 1858. H«i. 3.
RELIGIOUS IMPORTANCE OF
CITIES.
Military men, whether acting on the
defensive or the aggressive, have al¬
ways paid the utmost attention to cities.
They have considered those who held
them as virtually masters of the whole
country. But “ the children of this
world are in their generation wiser than
the children of light.” Those who lead
forth to the conquest of the world
“ the sacrimental host of God’s elect,”
seem often, in our day, (though it was
not so in Apostolic times, when the
first preachers planted the standard of
tho cross in Jerusalem and Samaria,
Damascus and Antioch, Corinth and
Rome,) to overlook the vast relative im¬
portance of cities. They do, indeed, in
foreign lands, from necessity, -perhaps,
judiciously concentrate their -efforts,
and, for the most part, make cities the
centres of their operations. But at
home their resources are frequently
weakened and wasted by a most un¬
wise diffusion. A vast deal of time
and energy, talent and treasure, is ex¬
pended, with very little apparent, and,
we think, with very little real success,
upon small towns and villages, and re-
motennd sparsely-settled country places.
Tho progress of tho gospel is stayed
in such places as Mobile and New Or¬
leans, Wheeling and St. Louis, for lack
of men and money detailed and appro¬
priated, with miserable policy, to other
and far less important and promising
localities. We would not disparage
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any place, however small, however
obscure. If there is one immortal soul
within it, it is, in virtue of that fact,
invested with immense importance.
That soul is worth more than the whole
material world. And it should, it must,
if possible, have the gospel. But an
evangelical, as well as common, arith-
niatic teaches us that, however valua¬
ble one soul may be, a thousand souls
are a thousand times more valuable.
Cities are the great centres of life,
the radiant points of the world’s forces-
When large, they exert in every direc¬
tion a mighty power over vast sur¬
rounding districts. Paris, we are some¬
times told, is France. And but for cer¬
tain geographical and political circum¬
stances, New York might be in the same
sense, and in the same degree, the
United States. Every kind of talent
seeks in cities its most appropriate and
promising sphere of effort nud devel¬
opment. Genius, born amid the hills
and groves, mountains and forests, of
the country, nurtured into maturity and
vigour in solitude, leaves the stillness
and serenity of rural scenes, and yields
the soft delights which it had enjoyed
uponitsgcntle mother’s bosom, to mingle
in tho din, and strife, and struggle of city
life. Wealth gravitates to cities. Pov¬
erty, upon the strong dark tide of its
miserable fortunes, perpetually drifts
to cities. Power erects in them its
throne. Vice, feeling itself a blotch
upon the fair face of open nature, slinks
away, and seeks in the dark and dirty
A.
