A few words in the application of this discourse may properly be addressed to the pastor elect. My Brother, are rent with the cry of bigotry and speak to them the words of eternal life. persecution. Is it not time, then, to To you is committed the care of the awake to our duty, that, by a vigorous lambs of this flock. Your discretion, enterprise, we may retrieve what is and enterprise, and influence, will be past, and stop the progress of decline? the spring of that whole system of reliThe causes which have laid us waste, gious education, which, under God, are, many of them, in operation still, must determine their character for time and without a special counteracting in- and eternity. You are to catechise them fluence, will not be confined to their and to stimulate the church, and every present limits. Other churches will family in your charge, to the work of become feeble, and the feeble desolate.religious education. It becomes you Ambition, covetousness, irreligion, re- || to acquire, as you easily may do, an allvenge, and false zeal, by their continu- pervading influence among your peoal droppings, will wear away, by piece-ple, under which, they shall assume a meal, our firm foundations. The chil-character and stability, such as they dren of alienated families are multiply- ought to possess. That prudence, in a ing, and their education, or want of it, minister, which would avoid difficulties are operating alike to change the char by doing nothing, is pernicious. It is acter of the State. Their opinions, your duty to be active, and prudent their property, their example, and their too. It is not enough that your charge suffrage will have its influence in every grows no worse. Without special hintown, and upon all our public concerns, drances, you must be sadly deficient, changing, silently, and to a fatal extent, if they do not grow better. But to gain the civil, the moral, and the religious this all-pervading influence, you must character of the State. love your people, and secure to yourself a reciprocal attachment. And to do this you must be faithful to them. You must know your flock, attend religious meetings, pray by the bed of the From this discourse you perceive || sick, visit mourners, and go from house your duty to this people, and to the to house to teach them and to do them church of God. To you, though an good. earthen vessel, is committed that treasure, which is able to enrich them forever. Upon your fidelity, under God, will depend their eternal destiny. To become faithful, you must study. Neither talents nor piety will supersede the necessity of application. The mind must be disciplined or it will lose its vigor; it must receive, or it cannot com municate. Sermons must be studied, or they will be common-place, pointless compositions. Unstudied, written sermons, are as much more intolerable than unpremeditated, extemporary effusions, as methodical dulness is more irksome than immethodical zeal for as to matter both will hang in even scales. But study is not all; you must act. You must take care of the wastes in your own limits. You must be instant in season and out of season, to preach the gospel to your people. Calling together, from week to week, the different districts of your charge to Such, brother, is the work in which you are about to engage. Do you shrink from such toil-such exclusive consecration to your work? Have you much collateral business of your own? A literary field to cultivate for fame? A vineyard of your own to till, and flocks to tend, for filthy lucre's sake? Now then is the time to stop, for it is better not to vow than to vow and not perform. If private christians cannot serve God and mammon, much less can faithful ministers of the Lord Jesus. But if your heart's desire is, to give yourself wholly to the Lord, and to know nothing among your people, save Jesus Christ and him crucified; and if still, at times, the cankering thought arise, what shall I eat, and what shall I drink, and wherewithal shall I be clothed, then, brother, have faith in God. Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Trust then in the strictest economy you have acted a the Lord and do good, and verily thou saving part;- for had you fallen, the shalt be fed. For it is not merely a du-tax of your vices had been more than ty enjoined upon others, that they, four times the expense of supporting which preach the gospel shall live of the the gospel. The tax of intemperance, gospel, but a promise also given to his of litigation, and of sickness induced by ministers, which Jesus will not fail to the excesses which prevail where the verify. Be faithful, then, to God and gospel does not restrain men, would to your people. Give them your time, grind you to the dust. There is that your talents, and your prayers. Let withholdeth more than is meet, and it them know, from experience, the bles-tendeth to poverty; and in no case is sings of a faithful ministry; and God, this proverb more strikingly verified I doubt not, will both incline and ena-than in those parsimonious calculations, ble them to take care of you. by which societies curtail to themselves the privileges of the gospel. You perceive, brethren, from the skeith given in this discourse, what your pastor is called to do; and you cannot but perceive that your best good demands that all of it should be done, and that to do the whole, will occupy every moment of his time. If, in reality, you were unable to support him, so that he might devote to your service You perceive, also, from what has been said, your duty to the church of God generally. No minister liveth for his own charge exclusively. An extended field lies open before him, to be cultivated by the joint labours of pastors and churches. To you, with others, will appertain a friendly care of vacant churches and waste places. To you it belongs, as a guardian of the church, to|| attend statedly the several ecclesiastical his whole time, in that case, could no meetings of the church, that you may know her interest, and afford your counsel and co-operation for the general good. Indolence, or indifference, or worldly business, which produces a neglect of ecclesiastical meetings and of enterprise in the business of the church, will limit your influence to do good, diminish your zeal to do good, and subtract essentially from your stim- || ulus to pastoral fidelity among your own people. Nor is your eye, or heart, or hand to be confined to the narrow limits of an association. The State, the Nation, the World demand your prayers, and charities, and enterprise. Do you sink under such a weight? It is enough to crush an angel. But through Christ, strengthening you, you, can do it all. The church and congregation in this place will now permit a brief application of what has been said to themselves. We have heard, friends and brethren, with great satisfaction, of your high estimation of gospel privileges, and of your very laudable exertions to avert from yourselves and your children the multiplied evils of becoming a waste place. Upon principles of policy you have acted wisely. Upon principles of help be derived from other churches, after the example of Paul, it might be his duty, by his own hands, to minister to his necessities. But if the same wise dom guide you, which hitherto bas seemed to prevail, you will see to it that the necessity be real and not imaginary; the result of a natural and not a moral inability; created by the providence of God and not by that covetousness, which is idolatry. As much as in you lieth, you will see to it that no avocations of necessity divert him from those labours, which your best good demands. It is a sad mistake, too often countenanced by ministers themselves, that small congregations are unable to support the gospel: when the fact is, that no congregation is able to do without the gospel; for the tax of desolation is four times as expensive as the tax, which is requisite to support the institutions of religion. This is no fiction.— Go to those societies, which have judged themselves unable to support the gospel ;-go to parents, and demand the items squandered by their prodigal children, beside breaking their hearts by their undutiful conduct. Go to the tavern on the Sabbath day and on week than it takes away. It is God himself who hath said, Honour the Lord with thy substance, and with the first fruits of all thy increase, so shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses sha!! burst out with new wine. This duty of supporting the worship of God has not ceased with the Jewish dispensation, nor has this promise been repealed, and the whole providence of God, to this day, has been a practical confirmation of his faithfulness in its fulfilment. The Jews often distrusted this assurance and robbed God to save their property, but they were always reduced by the experiment. They sowed much and brought in little, and when it was gathered, God did blow upon it. The dew of heaven was stayed, and the earth did not yield her increase. Ve are cursed with a curse, for ye have robbed ine, even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground, neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time, in the field, saith the Lord of hosts, and all nations shall call you blessed, for ye shall be a delightsome land saith the Lord of hosts.* days ;-attend the arbitrations, the courts, the trainings, the horse-racings, and the midnight revels;-witness the decayed houses, fences, and tillage; the falling school-house, and tattered || children of barbarous manners, and then return to your own little paradise, and decide, whether you will exile the gospel, as too expensive to be support. ed. If you are too poor to support the gospel, you are, demonstrably, too poor to do without it. If the one would severely press you, the other would grind you to powder. A few families may fatten in waste places, but it will be upon the vices of the rest. The greater || portion will be poor, and ignorant, and vicious, Do you demand how a poor people can support the gospel? Let them first appreciate the privilege according to its importance, and then let the father, and the mother, and the son, and the daughter, and the servant, lay, weekly a light tax upon their pride, and another upon appetite, needlessly gratified, and add to these savings another item, acquired by some special effort for the purpose; and another, as God shall have prospered their lawful industry, and the result of the whole would be an abundant supply.* Any ten families of ordinary property, could better afford to support the gospel, than to do without it. When societies cal culate what they can afford to give for the support of the gospel, they go upon the supposition, that what they do give is so much subtracted,annually,from the The same rule of administration is rewhole amount of their income; a sup-garded still. The curse of heaven still position, which is utterly erroneous ;for, in fact, as it respects the diminution of property, they give nothing. The gospel is not a debtor to those who support it, but they are debtors to the gospel. It does not subtract from the property of a society, but adds to it, more * The expense of ardent spirits consumed in the poorest societies, to the great injury of bealth and morals, would furnish annually an ample support for the gospel. If this were not enough, how many superfluities in dress might be forborne. And what if each member of the society should consecrate one hour a week to some lucrative employment, the avails of which should be appropriated to support the gospel. Would not these combined earnings go far to pay for preaching on the Sabbath?' fastens upon communities that despise the gospel, and neglect its support.Their decline in outward prosperity, is notorious; and their restoration is no less manifest, when, convinced of their folly, they make a competent provision for the public worship of God. Nor is the fact mysterious, or miraculous, since the life of man, his health, his wisdom to plan, and his strength to execute, the life and vigor of his flocks, and herds, every stalk of grain and every blade of grass, are in the hand of God. In ten thousand ways he can add to, subtract from, your income. A fit of sickness, a broken bone, a profligate * Malachi iii, 9, 10, 11, 12. love of Jesus, and our own solemn child, a vexatious lawsuit, a dearth, or a flood, a murrain among your cattle, or a blast on your field, may cut off, at once, all your sacrilegious savings, While his blessing can, in as many ways, make you rich, and add no sorrow with it. You may give, therefore, with an unsparing hand, as exigencies demand, for the support of the gospel, and it shall be given unto you again, good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over. Your cruise of oil shall not fail, and your bar-peculiar day. Exertions, which once rel of meal shall not waste. We predecessors might do less than their duty, and the primary impulse, unresisted, would cause things to move on in the right way. But now, the resistance is increased, and the impelling forces diminished, and nothing but an impulse, carefully and constantly applied, will keep things in their proper course, might suffice to avert desolations, are My beloved brethren in the ministry, not sufficient now. The law which op. Permit me to address to you also, aerated once, to prevent the dissolution word of exhortation on this interesting of congregations, can be evaded, and is occasion. If the views we have taken evaded, by every man whose impiety, in this discourse are correct, have we or covetousness, or resentment, prompts not occasion to blush and to tremble at him to do it. Personal attachment to our past deficiencies? But what shall the minister, is now the strongest bond we do? Weary of our Master's work, of union, and to hold together by this or disheartened by past delinquency-bond, a society of fallen men, demands shall we stop, and in despondency re- no ordinary vigilance and fidelity. Our sign our commission and abandon our work? Or shall we this day renew our ordination vows, and go home to our people, resolving in the strength of the Redeemer, to do better for the time to come? Which of us could bear to leave our work as it is, and go to judgment with the account of his stewardship? How many superfluous things have we done, wasting our precious time? How The necessity of study is not diminmany important duties have we neglect-ished, but the necessity of action has ed, putting in jeopardy the souls of our greatly increased. Action is now the people? How often might we have order of the day; for beside the pecuspoken to edification, when we have liar exigencies of our own people, and held our peace? How many pastoral the churches in this state, such a field visits might we have made which we of labor is opening before us, as the have not? How many district lectures world never saw. Jesus is coming quickmight we have preached, which have ly to take possession of the earth, and not been heard? How many precious is now putting in requisition the hearts, prayer meetings attended, which, the thoughts, the time, and strength, of through our negligence, have had no all his ministers; and which of us existence, and how feeble in our socie-will not rejoice that it is so, and give ties, the whole amount of our moral in-him all ?—AMEN. fluence, compared with what it might have been, had we done our duty with all our might? What shall we say, brethren? Shall we seek to lighten the tax of guilt by denying the extent of our duty? It is at our peril that we do it. The glory of God, the prosperity of the Redeemer's kingdom, the welfare of souls, the terrors of the Lord, the CHRISTIANITY. How charming is DIVINE PHILLSOPHY ! pose; But musical as is Apollo's lute, Sixth annual meeting of the American The board met in Salem, (Mass.) according to appointment, on Wednesday, Sept. 20, 1815, and was continued by adjournment to Friday, the 22d. Present, Gen. JEDIDIAH HUNTINGTON, her last will and testament; and whereas the legacy is held at present in litigation; Voted, That the President and Recording Secretary be authorized to employ legal counsel, and to take all other proper measures to recover said lega cy. Voted, That the Corresponding Sec Hon. JOHN TREADWELL, Esq. L. L. D. retary present the thanks of this Board Rev. JOSEPH LYMAN, D. D. to the Church Missionary Society in England for their donation of twenty sets of the Missionary Register, with sundry other communications on the subject of Missions. Voted, That twenty five copies of the annual reports of this Board, and of the sermons delivered before this Board, or at the request of the PrudenThe session was opened with prayer tial Committee, which have been, or by the Vice President. On the subse-shall be, published, be sent to the Secquent days the meeting was opened with prayer by the Rev. Drs. Appleton and Lyman, and the sesson was closed with prayer by the Rev. Dr. Morse. The minutes of the last meeting were read. The accounts of the Treasurer, as examined and certified by the Auditor, were exhibited and accepted. The annual report of the Prudential Committee was read and accepted. retary of the Church Missionary Society, for the use of said Society. Voted, That the person appointed as second to preach before the annual meeting of the Board, shall be considered as appointed the preacher for the next succeeding year, unless he shall preach the sermon in the year for which he was appointed as second. The Rev. Dr. Davis was appointed to preach at the next annual meeting The following gentlemen were apof the Board, and the Rev. Dr. Applepointed officers of the Board for the ton his second. year ensuing; viz. The Hon. JOHN TREADWELL, Esq. President. Rev. SAMUEL SPRING, D. D. Rev. Dr. SPRING, Rev. Dr. MORSE, Rev. Dr. WORCESTER, Corresponding Secretary, Publick worship was attended in the evening, when the annual sermon was delivered by the Rev. Mr. Chapin, from Psalm xevi, 10-Say among the hea then, THE LORD REIGNETH. Voted, that the thanks of this Board be presented to the Rev. Mr. Chapin for his sermon delivered last evening, by appointment of the Board; that a copy be requested for publication; and that Dr. Lyman, Dr. Appleton, and Gen. Sewall, be a committee to carry this vote into effect. The Corresponding Secretary was Whereas the President of this Board, directed to express the thanks of this has stated, that a legacy of $500 has Board to the London Missionary Sociebeen given to this Board, by Sarah Nor-ty, for the Chinese version of the New ton, late of Farmington, deceased, in *In making extracts from the minutes of this meeting, it is not thought necessary to enter into all the details of business, such as the appointment & reporto of committees, &c. Testament, and the transactions of said Voted, That it be distinctly provided, that every Missionary employed |