MINISTERS ABANDONING THEIR VOCA

TION-IS IT RIGHT?

SIR, A glance at the Reports of some of our independent Colleges, which contain lists not only of those who are, but of those who have been students within their walls,-will show that a rather considerable proportion of them have ultimately become engaged in other occupations than that contemplated when they entered, or even when they left, the schools of the Prophets.

To some extent, we suppose, this is unavoidable. It cannot, perhaps, be always foreseen, that an interesting youth, possessing some of the highest requisites, will, before he passes through his curriculum, give proof that whatever may be his intellectual qualifications, his physical powers are incompetent to the task of a pastor; and with others presenting equally high recommendations for piety, it may be painfully manifest, before the years allotted to study have passed away, that they do not possess mental power to warrant their undertaking the pastoral office. Thus we find some have "resigned."

But proceeding further, and following those who have completed their course at College, and whose early pulpit exercises have so far afforded warrant of their capabilities of preaching, as to lead to their settlement over churches-we find not a few who speedily make manifest that whatever other requisites they may possess, they are not "apt to teach "-or at least are incompetent to guide, those to whom they stand in the relation of leaders. Hence some have "declined the ministry."

In other cases, where this essential quality is not wanting, an increasing family without an augmented salary, puts a minister upon eking out with a school, what the Church fails to supply a course which necessitates the omission of pastoral duties. Such an one has become Chaplain to an Almshouse."

Several of our ministers, we are grieved to find, have "conformed to the Church of England."

But there have been instances of a voluntary abandonment of the pastoral office, for one more lucrative-as that of a Secular Teacher-which it would not be easy to excuse. That persons, in youth, selected for their promising talents and piety, which has never been called in questionplaced at an Academy sustained by benevolent contributions-qualified for the ministry, and called out by churches of their own faith and order-set apart by the imposition of hands, and enjoying a fair reputation as accredited ministers, without any of the causes to which we have previously referred,--yet possessing talents which, perhaps, become a snare to them,-that SUCH should abandon their vocation-is it right? J. R.

Hexham, Nov. 5th, 1850.

THE SECRET OF POWERFUL
PREACHING.

No sermon preached in New England has acquired greater celebrity than that preached by President Edwards, at Enfield, July 8th,

1741, from the words: "Their foot shall slide in due time." When he went into the Meetinghouse, the appearance of the assembly was thoughtless and vain, the people merely conducting themselves with common decency. But as the preacher proceeded, the audience was so overwhelmed with distress and weeping that he was obliged to desire silence, that he might be heard. A powerful revival followed. It is said that a minister in the pulpit in the agitation of his feelings caught the preacher by the skirt, and cried," Mr. E., Mr. E., is not God a God of mercy?" Some of the hearers were seen unconsciously bracing themselves against the pillars, and the sides of the pews, as if they already felt themselves sliding into the bottomless pit. This fact is often cited simply as a proof of Edwards's peculiar eloquence, the more striking because it was his habit simply to read from his notes without gestures.

But there is another element to be taken into account in explaining this result, and one that has been strangely overlooked. On the evening before the sermon to which we have referred was delivered, a number of ministers and pious Christians met together, and united in fervent prayer for a blessing on the discourse of the preacher. Behold then the secret of successheartfelt and united supplication.

Another sermon, the immediate results of which were perhaps more striking than the results of any one of modern times, was preached by a Mr. Livingstone in Scotland. This also is often cited as an illustration of the power of eloquence. But in an old work, by Robert Fleming of Rotterdam, entitled "The Fulfilling of Scripture," will be found precisely the same explanation of these extraordinary results. Here then is the secret. Christians having received on the Sabbath an anointing from on high, spent the night in that wrestling and prevailing prayer which such an anointing alone calls into exercise.

These two extraordinary facts, therefore, are to be cited as examples not of the power of eloquence, but of the power of prayer. And as one preacher was a giant of intellect, the other of ordinary capacity, they show that the power of the Gospel is not limited by the talents of the preacher, but depends for its full effect on the suitable combination of those two elements of ministerial as well as apostolical strength, "The Word of God and prayer." They show what the pulpit is capable of effecting, and cause us to mourn that its ordinary efficiency is far below what ought to be expected from an agency capable of so much. They tell Christians not to be wishing that they had a more talented minister to build up their Church, but to compass about the one they have with prayer-to double their minister's energy by doubling their own prayers; for, to multiply by prayer the usefulness of the ministers we have is as advantageous as to multiply their number. Let any germon be compassed about with prayer, as was that at Enfield, and the Kirk of Shotts, and see if the preacher do, not show that his words are spirit and life. Let any pulpit where the truth is preached be encircled day and night by such prayer, and charged with electric energy it will give shocks of resistless power.

MORE than one great experiment is now being carried on among the nations of the earth, in relation to matters both civil and religious. We shall instance this only in two cases-those of America and France. America is making, in the face of the world, an experiment of a twofold character, both secular and religious. She is now determining the question whether that great Nation can be governed without either Monarchy or Aristocracy, and without the aid of a StateChurch, and whether religion can be maintained without the bounty and patronage of the powers that be. If these two points can be thoroughly established, it will be one of the most momentous events in the history of either civil government or of the Christian religion. It is not at all necessary to prove that a larger measure of national prosperity and social happiness results from wellconducted Republican government; it is quite enough that it should be at least equal to that secured by an absolute or a mixed monarchy. Let this be proved, and the extraordinary difference of expense-to say nothing of the far higher points of calling forth the self-governing powers of the people, elevating their minds, ennobling their feelings, and developing their energies-will immediately cast the balance in its favour.

The

Now, so far as the experiment has gone, it has been completely successful. There is no people under heaven either so well or so cheaply governed as the inhabitants of the United States. truth is, they require very little government: their intelligence and virtue place them far above the bulk even of the best nations of the world, and render them, in a measure, "a law to themselves." Dr. Dwight himself records in his admirable disquisition upon New England, that in no "other country under the sun is so little done to govern the people, and in none other are the people governed so well." No other nation on the face of the earth admits of advantageous comparison with them. This point is so certain, so thoroughly established, not by the boastful Republicans themselves, but by men of learning and genius, every way competent to form an opinion, citizens of divers nations of the Old World, as to render another word unnecessary.

But what of the religion of the United States? It may be said, It is all very well as to temporal things: with a territory so large, and a population still so sparse, it were hard indeed if they were not comfortable as to matters appertaining to this life. But how goes it with their spiritual concerns and prospects? Having no State-Church, have they any religion at all? Are they not a host of heathens, a nation of Atheists? Not quite so. In this respect they are as much in advance of all other peoples as in matters political, social, and economical. If the article of Education, as the first element, whether in common schools or in colleges, be instanced, even England herself is comparatively uneducated. In no land is there so large a measure of sound education-education leading the soul to God. If again the reference be to religious instruction, the diffusion of Evangelical truth by public preaching, the results will be alike satisfactory in proportion to the population, it will be found to possess a far more adequate supply than either Scotland or England can boast. The edifices, too, reared for public worship are in a style of high respectability. The ministers of the Gospel are far more thoroughly prepared, far more specially trained for their high function, than those of the Established Church in England; and they are provided for in a manner which may well put to shame that Institution. If they have no mitred cormorants, if they have no prelatical consumers of sterling millions, they have no starving curates! For a tenth of the annual cost of the English Church they enjoy fifty times the amount of the evangelical knowledge imparted by the State-paid clergy of the English nation! American intelligence and American piety are the soul of the American Republic. With the exception of England, they are the only people on the earth fit for a Commonwealth.

But it is time to inquire into the state of the population of France, that we may see how far they are qualified for that form of government which accident has thrown among them; for it was neither the object of national choice, nor the creation of national wisdom. If true religion be needful to the thorough working and sure permanence of public insti

tutions, that form of government will not be long endured in France. Of sound education that country has very little; of spiritual religion almost none. None can say that intelligence, that true religion constitutes the soul of its Republic, which, indeed, can hardly be said to have any soul at all. The utter want of true religion is the great calamity of France, and till, in the course of Divine Providence, the waters of life shall be let loose through all its departments, upon all its people, it will neither have rest nor happiness. France is a nation without God

anation which has, through many ages, been the stronghold of Popery and the right hand of Rome, and been at length ruined by the enemy it harboured! That nation is, at this moment, in the course of making a grand experiment upon human nature, in connection with government and with legislation. The nation has talents, genius, learning, and spirit, but it is wholly uninfluenced by the simple, pure, and all-powerful religion of the New Testament a lack which cannot be supplied even by its acknowledged politeness and its heroic magnanimity. In no nation in Europe is the idea of God so faintly impressed on the public mind. The spirit of the land is the spirit of Atheism! The meet motto of the nation is, "There is no God!"

This truth, alike certain and dreadful, forms the basis of an argument which will prove irrefragable as to the government of that country. Such a people are not fit for perfect freedom, and should they enjoy it, society will ever and anon tremble on the dread brink of a ferocious anarchy, and occasionally precipitate itself into the gulf below!

This fact is forcing itself upon the attention of the more enlightened men of France, especially those who have some portion of Protestant light shining within them. It has, for a considerable time, been the opinion of Lamartine, who has expressed himself with equal truth and boldness on the state of the public mind, and the spirit and character of public men, as will appear from the following extract, translated from his Works:

In former times man did not lay himself down to sleep on this deep and perfidious ocean-bed without lifting up his heart and voice to God, without giving glory to his sublime Author, in the midst of all these stars, of all these waves, of all the mountain summits, of all these charms and perils of the night; evening prayer was wont to be made on ship-board. Since the Revolution of July it is done no longer. Prayer is dead on the lips of the old liberalism of the eighteenth century, which had nothing living in

it but its cold hatred to all spiritual things. This sacred breath, which the sons of Adam transmitted to us with their joys or their sorrows, is extinct in France, in our days of pride and warfare. We have mixed up God in our broils. The shadow makes certain men afraid. These insects, newly born, to die to-morrow, whose barren dust the wind will soon carry away, whose whitened bones will be cast on the shore by these eternal waves, fear to confess by a word or a sign the Infinite, whom heavens and seas confess; they disdain to name Him who stooped to create them; and this, why? Because they wear a uniform, amount to a certain number, and call themselves Frenchmen of the nineteenth century.

To this testimony we will add another, borne by one of the ablest of the sons of Gaul-a man whose knowledge of France and Frenchmen is inferior to that of no

living contemporary. We need hardly say we speak of Guizot. That profoundest of modern French thinkers, and bestinformed of French historians, has delivered himself with more than his usual frankness on this momentous subject. In his late Address to the Bible Society of Paris, he enunciates the following doctrines:

Men cannot be, in the great questions of their destiny, the inventors, the authors of faith, charity, and of their hopes. These wants are not satisfied at purely human sources. We must derive them from superhuman sources. These are the sources which you open to men by distributing to them the holy books. Therefrom they may derive faith, charity, and hope. Faith! for therein God shows himself constantly present, and acting in the world and in man; therein is the action of God; therein the necessary starting-point of faith. Archimedes demanded, but found not, a fulcrum on which to move the world. Man cannot by himself alone find a base on which to fix it. He must receive it from God. Charity! the love of God for men is manifested in the Gospel, and that alone is a sufficient source of the love of men for men. Except therein, all charity is weak, and soon exhausted. Hope! there is none which pacifies and satisfies the heart of men, if it does not extend beyond and rise above this earth. Eternal hopes can alone purify and ennoble the terrestrial hopes. Confined to the earth, our hopes transform themselves into avidity and selfishness. Christianity alone, then, can pacify and satisfy the need of faith, charity, and hope, which 80 powerfully agitate man and society. If any one doubt this, let him look at what the adversaries of Christianity do, let him listen to what they say. At the same time that they attack it with fury, they pass themselves off for its heirs and successors, and pretend that they walk in the path it has opened. Falsehood and profanation ! What is most anti-Christian is the spirit of revolt and the spirit of license. When Christianity appeared in the world, there was a fine opportunity of propagating the spirit of insurrection. Than at that epoch, when was there ever more despotism, moral degradation of the upper classes, and oppression of man by man?

And yet you will not find a single trace of insurrection in the history of the foundation of Christianity, nor the spirit of insurrection in its words. This immense revolution was accomplished by moral action alone-by the moral and interior reformation of men. That is, because Christianity is essentially submissivesubmissive to God, submissive to established order. It has the spirit of liberty, and even of conscientious resistance, but no spirit of rebellion. It is also essentially severe; license is as hateful to it as revolt. It is madness to attempt to extend liberty and democracy by means of the relaxation of religious belief and of morals. Sincere belief and severe morals are indispensable to democracy and democratic liberty. The relaxation of opinions and of morals in a democratic society leads inevitably first to anarchy, then to despotism. See how the United States were founded. Do you think it was by the relaxation of morals? No; the founders of the American Republic were rigid for themselves and for others, and it was the spirit of rigidity which formed their strength, and preserved them from the disorders and errors inherent in democracy. Be assured that with the spirit of revolt nothing will ever be founded: as Christianity has the secret of faith, charity, and hope, it is it, also, which has the true secrets of order and social regeneration in democratic societies, more than in any other. Let the spirit of revolt and license not flatter itself, then, in being able to usurp the Christian work; there is absolute incompatibility between them. At the same time that Christianity can alone satisfy the want of faith, charity, and hope in our democratic society, it alone can give it the spirit of order, resignation, and severe morality, without which it cannot subsist-at least with a régime of liberty. Have, then, full confidence in your undertaking-it is essentially good; it responds to the greatest and most pressing interests and instincts of our time. Pursue it with ardour. Make Christians: it is Christians that our society requires. I say Christians-that is our name; that is what we ought to propagate. The Bible Society has scrupulously confined itself to its task; it is to Protestants alone that it has distributed holy books: but its sentiments, its wishes, and its hopes are not confined to the narrow circle to which its action is limited; it ardently desires to make Christians everywhere; it calls by that name all who take the sacred writings as the basis of their faith, of their hope, and of their charity. Whether they be in the bosom of the Catholic Church, or in the different branches of the Protestant Church, it sees in them Christians and brethren. Union in the party of political order is recommended, and rightly 80,-that union is, in fact, the only means of safety; but it is not less necessary to the party of moral order. The question is now between Christianity and impiety, which affects to advocate the interests of humanity. All Christian forces should unite against the common enemy: they can do it. A new fact has introduced itself-liberty cf conscience in the Christian Church. Let that liberty be accepted and respected by all Christians; it will secure their union and the triumph of the common faith. But beware of a factitious and forced union; be Christians to the fullest extent of the word. Love one another, that is charity; support one another, that is tolerance; respect one another,

that is the right of liberty; assist one another, that is your well-understood interest. On these conditions, and on these alone, there is safety for society. We are in the path of that safety. Christians, be all together under the standard of the Cross-Hoc signo vinces.

It is refreshing to the spirit to read such language, and to think that it proceeded from the lips of a French Statesman will create no ordinary emotions in the minds of our intelligent readers. Let the destinies of France but be committed to the hands of such men-let that spirit not only govern the rulers, but pervade the nation, and France will yet one day become as mighty in peace as she has been in war, the model community of Europe. All good men will sigh for the advent of such a day; and we trust the foregoing facts and sentiments will contribute to strengthen and increase the interest which British Christians have hitherto taken in the Protestant Churches of that country-Churches, indeed, few in number, and small in power, and consequently weak; but having truth, they have God in them, and are sure to survive the manifold and multiform evils which now cluster around them, ever and anon threatening their extinction.

STATE OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH.

ACCORDING to the voice of the Highest, "That which maketh manifest is light." Those that do good delight in light-the doers of evil, in darkness. It was an evil day for the Church of England, the Pension List, and corruption generally, that introduced the system of Reports to the House of Commons, or to Her Majesty. The Church, in particular, has reason for lamentation over the remembrance of the perverse genius that first suggested the idea. From time to time Returns are being made, every one of which contributes to add something to its predecessors, illustrative of the corruption that prevails in high places. The Legislature has laboured hard to put an end to the system of non-residence among the Clergy, but without success. According to the last Return, nearly a thousand of them are thus absent, without assigning any reason whatever, while many of those actually assigned are ridiculous or preposterous. Upwards of 400 men of the cloth seem to set at nought the order, and have actually made no return! The following has been given as, at the present time, pretty near the mark :

by the boasted Establishment of our land. But this is not the only tale that the Return in question tells. The Scottish Press has been at pains to do what the Government functionaries, in kindness to the Church, abstain from doing, by drawing up a Table of the annual value of the several benefices of which the incumbents are non-resident. They have given the number of non-residents whose stipends amount to the various grades, and in an adjoining column the total amount, so that we may at a glance discover what the Church of England pays her truantclergy, or rather what the nation might appropriate for some useful purpose:

Incum

bents.

Stipends.

Total.

Total.

bents.