and to sing, 'Welcome, flying time! Welcome, departing hours and years! I am now ready to be offered! I desire to depart and be with Christ! Ye wheels of nature, speed your course; Ye mortal powers, decay; Fast as ye bring the night of death, Ye bring ETERNAL DAY. How inestimable is that religion, which inspires hopes and presents prospects such as these! which gives its possessor the victory over time and death, and prompts him to 'sing himself away to everlasting bliss.' Reader, is this religion, with all its hopes and its consolations, yours? Are you an enlisted soldier and follower of Christ, an enrolled member of his holy family and kingdom? Forget not, then, your high obligations. Forget not your solemn responsibilities. The work before you is indeed great; but the cause in which you labor is glorious. Our divine Master expects every servant to do his duty; and, for our encouragement, he is addressing us individually from the skies, 'Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. He that overcometh shall sit with me on my throne, as I have overcome and am seated on my Father's throne.' But does the eye which falls on this page beam with no such heavenly illumination? Does the conscience of the reader admonish him, in terms too significant to be mistaken, that he has neither part nor lot in the matter, because his heart is not right in the sight of God? Let him resolve, then, in the strength of heaven, before he closes this book, or rises from the seat on which he sits, that this year shall not be spent as the last-that this shall be a new year to his soul. Fear to delay such a resolution ;—and having made it, fear to trifle with it. Begin the year with God, and spend it in his service. Spend it in such a manner, that should you be summoned away before its close, your end may be happy, and your immortality glorious. COMMUNICATIONS. MINISTERIAL SOBRIETY. A MAN may possess valuable and even exalted traits of character, and yet be destitute of those which qualify him for a particular office. This is too obvious to need illustration. To no office, however, is the remark so strictly applicable as to that of a minis ter of Christ. That those who sustain this office should be perfect, is not to be expected. But so many, often, are their imperfections, so difficult the duties devolving on them, and so narrowly is their conduct watched, that we need not wonder, if some, even of those whose piety is unquestionable, do little or no good in the ministry. I have seen such toil through life, abundant in labors, and yet accomplish comparatively little. The reason was, that some foible or frailty peculiar to themselves, and which would not have disqualified them for any other office, was observable in their characters, and furnished matter of continual reproach. In writing a letter of advice to a young minister, Paul was careful to enumerate the qualifications necessary in order to success in his important work. Among these, he insists, that a Bishop should be sober,-meaning, undoubtedly, that he should have his mind and feelings so balanced by considerations of eternity, as to be in a state of habitual seriousness.-I propose, in this paper, to consider some of the causes which tend to prevent sobriety of character in the minister of the Gospel. 1. Habits of education may have this effect. Students, in the preparatory school, and on arriving at college, all meet on a level, and mingle familiarly together. They are young, and have the vivacity and buoyancy of youth; consequently, are social and talkative, exhibit original and amusing traits of character, and see multitudes of things which are entertaining and ludicrous. They easily learn to tell stories, use satire, give and return the idle jest, and to lay up a fund of anecdote, from which to draw in future life. Add to this, they are a society by themselves, and can indulge in what is amusing to an extent seldom equalled in subsequent years. Free from cares, as to what they shall eat and what they shall drink, if the monitor does not find them absent, or the Professor puzzle them at the hour of recitation, all anxiety is gone. Now take young men by hundreds, and bring them together in these circumstances from different parts of the country, and it seems impossible almost that habits of sobriety should be cultivated. I wish I could say that these remarks do not hold good even in regard to our Theological schools, so that, during the four, seven, or ten years, in which young men are secluded from the world, if there be not one or more powerful revivals of religion, by which the soul is quickened and advanced in piety, the habit of light feeling and light conversation becomes very strong. I know it will be said that, to some extent, these feelings are not improper for young men in this situation. And if this were granted, still the fact would remain, that years thus spent, go to form habits for life. Multitudes in this way have picked up stories and anecdotes, which they have afterwards retailed, and have heard them laughed at, perhaps to the thousandth time. Nor is this all. They have formed associations of ideas, embracing the ludicrous, which follow them to the end of their days. Like the ghost of Banquo, they rise up and beset them most fearfully when in company. Besides, not a few of those who go into the ministry were not pious while in college. Of course, they had still fewer restraints than others who were professors of religion. Many of this character have to lament, while they live, that their associations of ideas were depraved by the society of their youth. I do not feel called upon to say how far habits of education may be an excuse for a want of sobriety in after life. That they greatly influence the whole life, there can be no doubt; and I could not rationally account for that deficiency in ministers of which I am speaking, without going back to the circumstances of their early years. If others have had a different experience, I can only say they have been uncommonly favored. 2. The peculiar habits of the ministry are another cause of this deficiency.-The period intervening between the commencement of preparatory studies, and ordination, cannot usually be less than eleven years. During all this while, as things have been, but little bodily exercise, commonly is taken; so that by the time we have completed our education, the stomach begins to complaim of weakness and indigestion. The whole system responds to these complaints. "Propter stamachum, homo est quod est," is not so far from literal truth. By the new duties of our office, we are driven again into the study. We must write new sermons--must think -must preach, and do it all, time or no time at our disposal. Some may think it a small matter to write a sermon, very easy, —' he walks across the study-scribbles a little on a bit of paperthrows it into the fire, and begins another;'-but all this while, there is an anxiety and an agony of feeling, which suspends digestion, prostrates the spirits, and deranges the whole nervous system. The same process is acted over weekly, perhaps daily. The result is, that ministers become, in many instances, nervousmen, dyspeptic, hypochondriacal, &c. This is a very natural result, (as well as a very common one,) of their situation. Let the minister, besides, have a small salary, a growing family, little economy, and an increasing debt. Then let him be in constant expectation of difficulties between himself and his people, and you have a nervous man-easily moved. He then is full of frights and fears, As one at point to die; And long before the day appears, He heaves up many a sigh! He, who in his strength would laugh at the rattling of the spear, now trembles at the shaking of a leaf. There is more rigidity of nerve in one laboring man, than in an army of such. Oh! why are farmers made so coarse, A kick, that scarce would move a horse, Nor Now the point at which I would come is this: the same set of nerves which may be easily depressed, is as easily excited. And he who, in his study, feels bowed down under depression of spirits may, when out of his study, be easily exhilarated by society and conversation. The pendulum oscillates to either extreme with great rapidity. The result is, that men thus situated exhibit extremes of character-a depression which is not becoming a Christian minister, and a hilarity which is thought to be still more unseemly. In these moments of pleasure, the tongue is prompt in conversation, the ideas flow rapidly, memory is vivid, and the feelings are hurried into a state of delicious excitement. In these moments, too, many a light, or injudicious, or severe remark is dropped, and the effect of many a good sermon is destroyed. is this always because the heart is so wicked; for if the same man, at the same hour, were unexpectedly called to a scene of sorrow, he would be as ready to weep as he now is to laugh. I am not undertaking to palliate the light-mindedness of a minister, because his nerves are shattered, or his bodily system is out of order, and therefore the strings of the harp will readily pour out music too melancholy or too gleesome. But I am aiming to develope the true cause of the want of ministerial sobriety. I am confident that much depends upon the state of health. If ministers cannot, by exercise or otherwise, have what Juvenal calls mens sana in sano corpore, we may look in vain for symmetry or unvaried consistency of character. I may here add, that this nervous susceptibility has been greatly heightened in years past by the moderate use of alcoholic stimulants. No man can feel any degree of excitement from this source, and at the same time either feel or exhibit due ministerial gravity. A minister who uses these liquors not only has the consciousness of letting himself down in his own opinion, but he has something worse. He has a serpent within him; and it rages like that which was pulled from the head of Alecto, as she came up from Tartarus, Vipeream inspirans animam, Pertentat sensus, atque ossibus implicat ignem. He who drinks with others must talk with them; and he must let himself down to their scale, however low they descend. We should not be too severe, however, upon ministers of the last generation. Most, undoubtedly, sinned in ignorance, and we may hope that God winked at their sin. But I can well remember what were my impressions when a child at the annual festivals, when I saw my good minister at the public tables, eating and drinking as others did, and from his usual temperate habits, perhaps even more excited than the rest of the company. Such sights were never frequent, and yet the impressions left upon the mind of childhood were not easily effaced. If I may be allowed to borrow an allusion from the talented but guilty Sterne, these are sins over which the witnessing angel would drop tears of regret, as he gave them into the chancery of heaven. Unceasing thanks to God, that we are delivered from this snare-the only one which could be set in sight of the victim, with perfect success. Among the habits of the ministry, I should also mention its continually recurring and most responsible services. In order to perform these services properly and profitably, the feelings must be solemn and elevated. Let a man, during the same week, preach and pray repeatedly in public, go to the sick bed, console the mourner by sympathy and instruction, meet his church at the communion table, attend inquiry and other meetings:—and who can do all this, without feeling a severe and unnatural draft upon both soul and body? The consequence is, that when he has a short respite from these responsibilities and anxieties there is a re-action in the soul, which throws it to the other extreme. Woful are the instances, both in number and aggravation, in which a minister has more than destroyed all the impressions of his preaching and exhortations by a want of sobriety immediately afterwards. 3. The love of immediate applause, is another cause of the want of ministerial sobriety. Goldsmith says, that oratory is the most glorious of all arts, because it brings its triumphs and applauses with it. The orator enjoys it, even while addressing his audience. But most men are too indolent to seek to shine in this way. The road is too long and too hard to travel. To shine in conversation, and to command the admiration of the social circle, is a much easier business. Thousands may excel here, who have not the patience to study in order to thrill an audience by genuine eloquence. The consequence is, that multitudes are tempted to split on this rock. In our reading we meet with anecdotes, and ludicrous facts, both on the pages of history, and in the publications of the day. In our intercourse with men, too, we of necessity learn many more which have never appeared in print. In this way, a man may, if he pleases, soon become a walking jest-book. He who has great opportunities to learn these things, will have as great to communicate them. It is thus easy to draw the eyes of a circle, to cause them to stare and admire, and go home and repeat the strange stories they have heard. Pride is thus flattered by attention, and by the laugh or the looks of surprise, and we are led on to tell stories and an use others, at the expense of that respect which is due to the ministerial character, and to ourselves. How often have we seen a circle VOL. IV. NO. I. 2 |