Motives to Earnestness

I. It is demanded alike by the theme and the object of it.

When Pilate proposed to the illustrious prisoner at his bar the question, What is truth? he placed before him the most momentous subject which can engage the attention of a rational creature; and if Christ refused to give an answer, his silence is to be accounted for by the captious or trifling spirit of the querist, and not by any supposed insignificance of the question, since truth is the most valuable thing in the universe, next to holiness; and it is truth that is the theme of our ministry, even that which by way of eminence and distinction is called the truth. Take any branch of general science, be it what it may, and however valuable and important it may be considered, its most enthusiastic student and admirer cannot claim for it, par excellence, that supremacy which is implied in the definite article, the truth. Who shall adjust the claims for this distinction, between the various sciences of natural and moral truth, and declare which is the rightful possessor of the throne, against the false pretensions of usurpers? Who? The God of truth himself; and he ha ;« done it.

and placing the Bible on the seat of majesty in the temple of truth, has called upon all systems of philosophy whatever to fall down and do it homage. This is our subject: eternal, immutable truth — truth given pure from its Divine source, and given with the evidence and impress of its own omniscient Author. Oh, what are the loftiest and noblest of the sciences; chemistry, with its beautiful combinations and affinities; or astronomy, with its astounding numbers, magnitudes, distances, and revolutions of worlds; or geology, with its marvellous and incalculable dates of by-gone millions of ages — to the truths of revelation? “What is dead, inert matter, with its laws of materiality, however diversified, classified, or combined, — compared with the world of mind, of souls, of immateriality and immortality, and with the laws of moral truth by which they are regulated? “What is nature, to the God of nature? What the heavens and the earth, to the glorious mind that looks out upon them through the organ of vision, as from a window that commands the grand and boundless prospect? What the fleeting term of man’s existence upon earth, with its little cycles of care, and sorrow, and labor, compared with the eternal ages through which the soul holds on her course of deathless existence? The works of creation are a dim and twilight manifestation of God’s nature, compared with the grandeur and more perfect medium of redemption. The person of the Lord Jesus Christ is itself a wonder and a mystery, which shall shine all other displays of Deity into darkness; this is the shekinah in the holy of holies of the temple of God’s creation, towards which, as they bend over the mercy-seat of his work of redemption, all orders of created spirits, from the most distant parts of the universe, reverently turn and do homage to the great God our Saviour. This, this is our theme, the truth of God, and concerning him; the truth of an incarnate Deity; the truth of man’s redemption by the cross; the truth of the moral law, the eternal standard of rectitude, the tree of knowledge of good and evil; the truth of the gospel, as the tree of life in the midst of the paradise of God; the truth of immortality, and of heaven, and of hell; the truth couched under the symbols of the Levitical law, and the predictions of inspired prophets, and fully exhibited in the gospels of evangelists, and the inspired letters of apostles. Again I ask exultingly and rapturously, what are the discoveries of Newton, or of Davy, or the inventions of Watt, or of Arkwright, compared with these? Viewing man in his relation to immortality, as a sinful and moral agent, what is art or science, compared with revealed truth? And shall we, can we, be otherwise than earnest in the promulgation of this truth? Shall we touch such themes with a careless hand, and a dronish mind? Shall we slumber over truths which keep awake the attention, and keep in activity the energies of all orders of created intelligences, and which are the object and the resting place of the uncreated mind? Let us look at the earnestness with which the sons of science pursue their studies: with what enthusiasm they delve into the earth, or soar on the telescope to the heavens, or hang over the fire; with what prolonged and patient research they carry on their experiments, and pursue their analyses; how unwearied in toil, and how enduring in disappointment, they are; and then how rapturously they hold up to the world’s gazing and wondering eye, some new parti-. cle of truth, which they have found out after all this peering and prying into nature’s undiscovered secrets! Ministers of the gospel, is it thus with the men who have to find out the truths of nature, and shall Ave who have the volume of inspired,

revealed truth opened before us, drone, and loiter, and trifle over such momentous realities? Shall the example of earnestness be taken from him who analyzes man’s lifeless flesh, to tell us by the laws of organic chemistry its component parts, rather than from him who has to do with the truths that relate to the immortal soul? Shall he whose discoveries and lessons have no higher object than our material globe, and no longer date than its existence, be more intensely in earnest, than we who have to do with the truth that relates to God and the whole moral universe, and the truth that is to last through eternity? What deep shame should cover us for our want of ardor and enthusiasm in such a service as this!

And then what is the purpose for which this truth, so grand, so awful, so sublime, is revealed by God, and to be preached by us? Not simply to gratify curiosity; not merely to conduct the mind seeking for knowledge, to the fountains where it may slake its thirst; no, but to save the immortal soul from sin, and death, and hell, and conduct it to the abodes of a glorious immortality. The man who can handle such topics, and for such a purpose, in an unimpassioned, careless manner, and an icy heart, is the most astounding instance of guilty lukewarmness in the universe: to his self-contradiction no parallel can be found, and he remains a fearful instance how far it is possible for the human mind to go in the most obvious, palpable, and guilty inconsistency. A want of earnestness in the execution of that commission, which is designed to save immortal souls from eternal ruin, and raise them to everlasting life, is a spectacle which, if it were not so common, would fill us with amazement, indignation, and contempt. We have read the speeches of the great masters of eloquence, both of ancient and modern times; and have read also of the intense anxiety, and untiring effort, with which they have sustained by corresponding efforts, the mighty periods that flashed from their burning souls: and do we condemn as enthusiasts the Athenian orator who thus agonized to save his country from the yoke of Philip; the majestic Roman who roused the indignation of the republic against the treason of Cataline; or our own Wilberforce, who for twenty years lifted his voice, and appealed to the justice and mercy of a British Parliament, against the atrocities of the slave trade? On the contrary, we deem no eulogy sufficient to express our admiration of their noble enthusiasm. But our panegyric upon them is a condemnation upon ourselves; for how far short of them do we fall in earnestness, though the salvation of a single soul, out of all the multitudes that come under the influence of our ministrations, is an event, which in its consequences is inconceivably more momentous, because enduring through eternity, than all the objects collectively, for which these men exhausted the energies of their intellect and life. Do we really believe that we are either a savor of life unto life, or of death unto death, to them that hear us? Or is this mere official phraseology, which is never intended to be understood in its ordinary import? Is it a matter of fact, or only the solemn garnish of a sermon, the trickery and puffing of pulpit vanity, that souls are perpetually rising from beneath our ministry into the felicities and honors of the skies, or dropping from around our desk into the bottomless pit? Are companies of immortal spirits continually emigrating from our congregations to colonize eternity, to people heaven or hell, to swell the numbers of the redeemed, or to add to the multitude of the lost? If this be true, and we are gross deceivers, more pulpit actors, reverend hypocrites, if wp do not 1)

believe in t’heir truth, — then where is the earnestness that must give consistency to our professions, and which is appropriate to our situation, and adequate to our convictions? Have we really become so carelessly, so criminally familiar with such topics as salvation and damnation, that we can descant upon this with the same calmness, coolness, not to say indifference, with which the public lecturer will discuss one of the minutest branches of natural philosophy? 0 where is our reason, our religion, our consistency?

II. Earnestness is imperatively demanded by the state of the human mind, viewed in relation to the truths and the object just set forth.

This was glanced at in an earlier part of the work, but must be now resumed and amplified. The entreating and beseeching importunity employed by the apostle, and which are found to be no less necessary to us, presuppose on the part of its objects, reluctance to come into a state of reconciliation with God, which must be assailed by the force of vehement persuasion. Although we have to treat with a revolted world, a world engaged in mad conflict with Omnipotence, yet, if the guilty rebels were weary of their hostilities, and in utter hopelessness of success, were prepared on the first offer of mercy, to throw down their arms, and in the spirit of contrition to sue for pardon, ours would be an easy mission, and we might spare ourselves the trouble of earnestness and expostulation. But the very reverse is the case. “The carnal mind is enmity against God, and is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” The hearts of men are fully set in them to do evil. We find them taken up, occupied, influenced, governed, by the palpable and visible things of the present life; and our business is to engage them in a constant resistance of the undue influence of the things which are seen and temporal, and to do this by a vigorous faith in things thaiare unseen and eternal: our aim and labor are, by the power of the unseen world to come, to deliver them from the spell of the present state, with whose pageantry they are enamored, and under whose fascination they are well pleased to continue. And then apart from, or at any rate in connection with this, they are so occupied by the pursuits of business, so engrossed by the cares, the comforts, and the trials of life; engaged in such breathless haste to pursue, such distracting bustle to possess, and such ardent hope to enjoy, the various objects of their earthly desires, that when we call their attention to serious religion, as the one thing needful, we are as one who would stop another in a race to offer him an object foreign to that for which he is contending, and who, by the competitor for the prize, is deemed intrusive, impertinent, and obstructive.

But the difficulty stops not here: if this were all, we should have only a very small share of the opposition which now calls forth our energy and requires our most strenuous efforts; for when we have succeeded in gaining a hearing and arresting attention, we have to contend, not only with an indisposition to receive the truth, but a determined hostility against it. We have, as our first business, to fasten a charge of guilt upon men naturally disposed to think well of themselves: to produce a sense of utter worthlessness and depravity in those, who, in the utmost length to which their concession will go, admit only some few imperfections and infirmities; to displace a feeling of complacency by one of self-condemnation and abhorrence: and to substitute for a general and unhumbled dependence upon divine mercy, such a conviction of exposure to lhe curse of a violated law, as makes it difficult for the trembling penitent to see how his pardon can be harmonized with the claims of justice; to offer salvation upon terms which leave not the smallest room for self-gratulation, or the operation of pride; indeed, to carry such a message as frequently excites disgust, and calls forth the bitterest enmity of the human heart, and arms all its passions in determined hostility. And then the salvation exhibited in the gospel is not only opposed to the pride, but to the passions of the soul of fallen man. It requires the excision of sins dear as a right hand, the surrender of objects which have enamored the whole soul, the breaking up of habits which have grown with our growth, and strengthened with our strength. Sometimes we have, in addition to all this, to summon our hearers to a war without, as well as a conflict within, and to verify the words of Christ, that he came to send a sword instead of peace, and to set parents against children, and children against parents. What minister has not sometimes felt his very courage ready to quail, and his steadfastness in danger of faltering, when called to lead on some persecuted convert to brave the cruel mockings and reproaches, the frowns, the threats, and the violence, of his nearest and dearest earthly connections? I agonize as I write, to think what I, among others, have witnessed of this kind. Yerily it is through much tribulation, that some, even in these peaceful times, are called to enter into the kingdom of heaven. And then, to follow on the difficulties of the Christian ministry, to prevent the first impressions of divine truth from vanishing like the cloud, or exhaling like the dew; to guide the inquirer from finding repose anywhere but at the cross of Christ; to guard the feeble, and to inspire the timid with courage; to detect the deceit of the heart, and to aid the novice in breaking off from besetting sins; to inspire the resolution to crucify the flesh, and to stimulate the soul to an ever onward progress in sanctification; to meet the epidemic malady of our nature, which assumes so many shapes, and appears under such a variety of symptoms, with a proportionate and well-adapted variety of treatment; to help the believer to beat down his foes under his feet, and amidst all his various trials, temptations, and difficulties, to continue steadfast, immovable, and always abounding in the work of the Lord, notwithstanding the counteracting influence of much unremoved corruption in his heart; — this, all this, must require in him who has to do it, earnestness of the most collected and concentrated kind. To carry on the ministry of reconciliation in this revolted world, with the intention and desire of recovering its inhabitants from sin and Satan unto God, when the opposition to be overcome is considered, must appear to every reflecting mind the most hopeless of all human

undertakings, apart from the promised aid of the Holy Spirit. It is this alone that could induce us to continue in the ministry another hour. Without this agency, we must retire in utter despair. But then, even this is not to be viewed, much less expected, apart from human instrumentality; and man’s earnestness is that very species of instrumentality which the Divine Agent employs. It is not the feeble ministrations of the lukewarm and the negligent that God blesses for the conversion of souls, but the heart-breathed, fervent wrestlings of the ardent and the diligent. He maketh the winds his messengers, and flames of fire his ministers. Here, then, is a double argument for earnestness, in the difficulties which are to be subdued in the accomplishment of our object, and the co-operating agency of the Spirit of God. The former shows its indispensable necessity, and the latter encourages us to put it forth. Without it, we cannot look for the aid of the Spirit; and without the aid of the Spirit, it would be exerted in vain. May we be able to take a right view of our obstacles and our resources.

III. Consider the aspect of the times, as affecting the human mind, and the objects of our ministry.

The view which has been just given of the difficulties that lie in the way of the faithful minister, applies to all countries and to all times, inasmuch as the depravity of human nature is co-extensive with the race of man. But still there may, and do, exist circumstances in one age and country, to give greater force to these difficulties, which are not found, at any rate to the same amount, in others. The features of our own age are strikingly impressive, and in no small degree hostile to the success of the gospel, and the prevalence of evangelical piety.

The sphere of human pursuits, whether we consider the active or speculative departments, is filled with unusual energy and excitement. Earnestness is the characteristic of the age. If we turn our attention to trade, we see men throwing their whole soul into its busy occupations, and laboring as if their salvation in another world depended upon their success on earth. What ardor of competition; what rage for speculation; what looking about for novel schemes, and what eagerness to embrace them when offered; what hazardous and reckless gambling, do we see going on all around us, — leaving out the impetus to all this which the railway system has introduced, and saying nothing of the multitudes who instead of plodding onward in the beaten path of regular trade, endeavor, by watching the share market, to make a bound to wealth, — how engrossing are the pursuits of secular business, in these days of large returns and small profits. Think of the consumption of time, and the absorption of soul, which are necessary to maintain credit and respectability; and also the strength of religious principle which is indispensable to follow the things that are just, and true, and honorable, and of good report. How many professors are in danger of being carried away, how many are carried away, by the tricks, artifices, and all but actual dishonesties of modern trade: and what but a powerful and energetic ministry can be expected to rouse and help God’s professing people to bear up against, and to keep in check, much more to subdue, this sordid and selfish spirit? What can be sufficient but an intense devotedness on the part of ministers to make things unseen and eternal bear down the usurping power of things seen and temporal? Who but the man that knows how to deal with invisible realities, and wield the powers of the world to come, can pluck the worldling from the whirlpool of perdition which sucks down so many in the torrents of earthly-mindedness, or prevent the professing Christian from being drawn into it? If our own minds are not much impressed with the awful glories and terrors of eternity, we shall not and can not speak of these things in such a manner as is likely to rescue our hearers from the ruinous fascinations of Mammon. How in such an age we seem to want a Baxter and a Doolittle: an Edwards and a Howe; a Whitfield and a Wesley, to break in with their thunder upon the money-loving, money-getting spirit of this grossly utilitarian age.

Then think of the engrossing power of politics. What a spell has come over the popular mind, from this source, since that tremendous outburst, the French Revolution: for more than half a century the potency of this subject has been perpetually augmenting, till the rustic oi the village, as well as the merchant of the city; the recluse student of the cloister, no less than the man of the exchange, have alike yielded themselves up to the fascinations of the newspaper, now accommodated, not only to every party in politics, but to every creed in religion, and at the same time cheapened down to almost the poorest member of society. This is matter neither of surprise, nor, provided it do not thrust out other and still more important matters, of regret. It is but the constitution of our country developing the energies of its popular element. The people are claiming their share of power and influence; may they prepare themselves by knowledge and piety to exercise it rightly. The stream and tendency of opinion in Europe at large, as well as in our own country, is evidently democratic; but without education and religion the nations will daily become desirous of more liberty, and at the same time less capable of enjoying and preserving it. The less they feel of outward force and of the compulsion of secular power, the more they need the control of moral principles. At such a time, when the elements of good government are, so to speak, in a high state of excitement, and amidst much repulsion and attraction amongst themselves, are settling into their proper order, there will be such an unusual degree of interest felt in this great matter, as to throw into the shade matters of still deeper moment.

In sight of this, will any one deny that we want an earnest ministry to break in some degree the spell, and leave the soul at liberty for the affairs of a kingdom which is not of this world? When politics have come upon the minds, and hearts, and imaginations of the people for six days out of the seven, invested with the charms of eloquence, and decked with the colors of party; when the orator and the writer have both thrown the witchery of their genius over the soul; how can it be expected that tame, spiritless, vapid common-places from the pulpit, — sermons without either head or heart, having neither weight of matter, nor grace of manner, neither genius to compensate for the want of taste, nor taste to compensate for the want of genius; and what is still worse, having no unction of evangelical truth, no impress of eternity, no radiance from heaven, no terror from hell; in short, no adaptation to awaken reflection, produce conviction, or save the soul, — how can it be expected, I say, that such sermons can be useful to accomplish the purposes for which the gospel is to be preached? What chance have such preachers to be heard or felt, or what claim have they, amidst the high excitement of the times in which they live? Their hearers too often feel, that in listening to their sermons on the Sabbath, as compared with what they have heard or read during the week, they seem as if they were turning from the brilliant and tasteful gas-light to the dim and smoking spark of the tallow and the rush.

Another characteristic of our age is an ever-growing taste for elegance, refinement, and luxurious gratification. We cannot wonder at this, nor if it be kept within proper bounds, greatly regret it. It is next to impossible that the progress of art, and the increase of wealth, should not add to the embellishments of life, and multiply the sources of tasteful enjoyment. But then, just in proportion as we multiply the attractions of earth, is our danger of making it our all, of leaving heaven out of sight, and learning to do without it. This is affecting the church, and the hardy and self-denying spirit of Christianity is in danger of being emasculated, and of degenerating into a soft and sickly effeminacy. Elegance and extravagance, luxurious enter* tainments and expensive feasts, are beginning to corrupt the simplicity that is in Christ; and amidst sumptuous buildings, gorgeous furniture, costly dress, and gay equipages, professors of religion are too much setting their affections on things that are upon the earth, and turning away from the glory of the cross to the glory of the world. Who is to call them off from this pageantry, and make them by God’s grace feel how vain are all these things? Who can set up a breakwater against the billows of this ocean of worldly-mindedness, and guard the piety of the church from being entirely swept away by a flood of ungodliness? Who but a pastor that can speak in power and demonstration of the Spirit, — a man who shall rise Sabbath after Sabbath in the pulpit, clothed with a potency to throw into shadow, by his vivid representations of heaven and eternity, all these painted nothings on which his hearers are in danger of squandering their immortal souls?

Akin to this is a continually augmenting desire after amusement. A love for pleasure, diversion, and recreation, is an appetite evidently increasing, for which there are those who are ever ingenious and ever busy to furnish a supply. Religion is no enemy to rational enjoyment, even though it be not strictly spiritual; and they who can supplant the low and vulgar sensualities on which the multitude have fed, by a more refined and elevated taste, even if it should not rise into the element of religion, are doing a service to their country and to their species. But still, a taste for amusement, both mental and bodily, may be carried too far, and many foreseeing and deeply reflective minds are of opinion that it is going too far now.

There cannot be a thoughtful mind, one that looks upon our sojourn in this world as a probation for eternity, but must reflect with serious alarm and grief upon the endless devices which are suggested by the wisdom that cometh from beneath, to hide from mankind their duty and their destiny as immortal creatures. It seems as if by common consent, mankind were striving who should be most successful, by inventing new kinds of diversions, in blotting from the mind all considerations of eternity. Pleasure - taking is the rage of the day, a taste which has been excited into a hungry appetite by the railway system. Before this desolating influence, the sanctity of the Sabbath, and with it of course the prevalence of religion, are likely to be destroyed. It may be said that anything is better than the alehouse and the gin-shop. This is freely admitted, but it may be questioned whether some of the modern stimulants to pleasure do not lead to, and not from, these scenes of iniquity. The people, it is affirmed, must have recreation. Be it so, but let it be of a healthful kind, and let the great aim of all who have any influence upon the public mind be to endeavor to implant a taste for the recreations afforded by cheap and wholesome literature, by quiet home enjoyments, and above all, by the sacred delights of true piety.

In connection with this may be mentioned as one particular species of amusement, the taste for works of humor which has been produced in this country within the last ten years. There is no sin in mirth: man is made to enjoy it, and there is a time to laugh as well as to weep. And he must be a very misanthrope, a vampire which in the dark night of sorrow would suck the last drop of happiness from the human sufferer, who would forbid the smiles of gladness and everything which ministers to the gratification of the laughter-loving heart. But then it is a different thing from this, to wish to keep down this propensity within due bounds, and to remind men that they have other things to do in this world than to laugh and be merry. Dr. Vaughan says: —

(i We are not certain that some of our wise men do wisely, who are going abroad just now with their cap and bells, in the hope of securing better attention to their lessons from the foolish. A fondness for grotesque jokes and everlasting caricature, bears as little resemblance to manly feeling, as the ecstacies of a young lady over the last new novel. Truth is a grave matter, and can owe little ultimately to the services of a buffoon. It loses half its dignity, if often presented in association with the ridiculous. Those who find their chief pleasure in broad farce, are rarely capable of a due exercise of earnest and reverential feeling. Your great wits do not spare their best friends, and your votaries of fun are generally persons prepared to sacrifice anything to their god. The mind which is wont to pay much homage to the laughers, too often forgets to pay a real homage to anything higher. In such a service, the fine edge of moral feeling is almost of necessity worn away. Not that we would send a man to the bow-string, because he has indulged a laugh. On the contrary, the man who cannot so indulge is not a man to our liking. There is something wrong in him, physically, mentally, and morally. All truly healthful men, in the spiritual, as well as in the natural sense, know how to enjoy their laugh. But your great laughers are generally slow workers. To make a merriment of folly is not to displace it by wisdom. Our proper business here is neither to grin nor to whine, but to be men. We say not that good may never be (‘one by means of ridicule, but we are convinced that its general effect is such as we have ventured to indicate. It is an instrument, moreover, which has two edges, — use it, and you have no right to complain of its being used.”*

These are wise and true sayings, as seasonable as they are important, and called for by the excessive taste for this

* British Quarterly Review, No. VI. p. 254.

species of composition which now prevails. If anything need be added in corroboration of these arguments, it is the fact stated by the justly lamented Dr. Arnold, that since the publication of periodical works of humor, he had perceived a visible declension of manly sentiment and serious thoughtfulness among the elder boys of his school. This is strong and decisive testimony as to the influence of a continued indulgence in broad farce. Is there not precisely the same effect produced on the minds of our young men, especially when to this is added the moral tendency of the sentiments which are sometimes clothed in the garb of humor? Nothing can be more opposed to, or destructive of, the serious spirit which true religion requires, than this constant and regular supply of materials for laughter. Nor does the mischief stop with the young and the undecided in religion, for it is infecting the professors of religion. It is hard to conceive how earnestness and spirituality can be maintained by those whose tables are covered, and whose leisure time is consumed, by these bewitching inspirations of the god of laughter. There is little hope of our arresting the evil, except we make it our great business to raise up a ministry who themselves shall not be carried away with the torrent; who shall be grave, without being gloomy; serious, without being melancholy; and who, on the other hand, shall be cheerful without being frivolous, and who by their chastened mirthfulness shall be among the laughers, if not as total abstainers, yet as a moderate man among drunkards, and whose temperance’ shall check, or at any rate reprove the excesses of their companions. And then what a demand does this state of things prefer for the most intense earnestness in our Sabbath-day exercises, both as to prayers and to sermons. In this modern taste we have a new obstacle to our usefulness of a most formidable kind, and which can be subdued only by God’s blessing upon our fidelity and zeal. Such men are wanted, as shall by their learning, science, and general knowledge, give weight to their opinions and influence to their advice, in their private intercourse with their flocks, and as shall by their powerful and evangelical preaching, control this taste, and supplant it by a better.

Nor must we omit to notice, and to notice with peculiar emphasis, the impetus that is now given to the human understanding through all its gradations, from the highest order of intellect down to the humblest classes of the laboring population. We have already alluded to this subject, but on account of its importance must here refer to it again, and a little more at length. As regards the laboring classes, education is advancing among them with rapid strides, as far at least as the counteracting tendency of the manufacturing system will allow. The poor must and will be instructed. The change of opinion on this subject that has come over a large portion of the community within the last quarter of a century, is indeed marvellous; and instead of loud descants upon the dangers of an educated people, we now hear little else but as loud descants on the evils of ignorance. This is a happy conversion, and its results will be auspicious, not however without some temporary admixture of evil. It is really refreshing to read the programmes of educationary schemes which are drawn up for the culture of the working classes, by those who are promoting their mental improvement. But improvement in education is not confined, and cannot be confined, to the lower classes, but must be carried forward in equal proportion among those that are above them. The universal mind is awakened, and in motion onwards:

it is in a state of intense excitement and irrepressible activity. Discoveries in science and inventions in art come so fast upon us, that we have scarcely recovered from the surprise produced by one, before another calls upon us to indulge in new wonder. Feats of science and art, especially in the department of engineering, are performed or projected which look as if man in the pride of his intellect felt that nothing was impossible to him. As might be expected, all the knowledge thus obtained and accumulated is flowing by the thousand rills of the press and cheap books, through every department of society. The annual expenditure of millions of pounds in cheap literature will show to what extent information on all subjects is reaching the working and other classes. Knowledge is the great idol around which the multitudes are gathering to pay their homage and record their vows. Is there anything in such a state of things at which the friends of religion should take alarm? Quite the contrary. Christianity began her career, as every tyro in history well knows, in the most enlightened age, and amongst the most polished nations of antiquity; and from that moment to the present, has never shrunk from the broadest daylight of learning and science, to skulk in the darkness and gloom of barbaric ignorance; and its ministers should ever be foremost as the patrons of knowledge. But then it is evident that such a state of things requires an indomitable earnestness in the sacred duties of their calling to secure for religion its clue pre-eminence amidst all the various claimants upon the public attention. Giving to general knowledge all the importance that is claimed for it, this, apart from religion, is not the sovereign remedy, the grand eatholicon, which is io heal the disorders and restore the moral health of diseased humanity. There are some, and, indeed, not a few in our own country, as well as upon the continent of Europe, who dream, and all history proves it to be but a dream, of regenerating the world by the principles of reason and the aid of secular education. They think they can regulate society without religion, and renew the heart of man without God. We might ask them what philosophy did for such purposes in Egypt, its cradle, or in Greece, its temple? They forget that by the permission of Providence a grand experiment was made in the latter country, during the five centuries that preceded the Christian era, by the sages of the schools, to see what knowledge, apart from Divine revelation, could do to reform the moral world, and make it virtuous and happy. We venture to call for the resirit, and if the advocates of reason refuse to give it, an apostle shall supply the answer, — “The world by wisdom knew not God.” It would seem as if, not satisfied with a single demonstration, these men were hazarding a second trial. Again with still greater advantages, and still greater confidence, they are flocking to the ordeal. Education is to be improved and extended; the press is pouring forth its cheap literature; science is broken down to such fragments and measured out in such drops, as even infant minds can receive and digest; and every appliance is to be furnished to give effect to the knowledge thus communicated; lecturers on all subjects are travelling through the country, and are pouring forth streams of information in every direction; while rational and invigorating amusements are to come in to aid the general improvement. By the advocates of the sufficiency of knowledge alone to improve the taste and raise the morals of the nation, the largest expectations are indulged of the regeneration of society, as the result of all these laborious efforts; but which, without a prophet’s eye we may predict, are doomed to certain and

bitter disappointment; and may confidently anticipate that the result of the second experiment will be the same as the first, and prove not only that the world by wisdom will never know God, but that nothing less than the foolishness of preaching will achieve its moral reformation.

The state of our popular literature, as moulded to a considerable extent by these men, proves that such an experiment as that of teaching mankind to do without religion is going on. In much of what is read by the masses, there is an unconcealed hostility to Christianity. Infidelity of the boldest and most daring kind is associating itself with a great many of the cheap publications of the day, with an energy and a success that would astound as well as alarm those who are not in the secret. But still there are many of the guides of the popular mind, perhaps most of them, who would not patronize .this open assault upon the foundations of our faith — they go a more insidious, though scarcely less injurious way to work; they are acting up on the principle that the best way to attack religion, and the least likely to shock prejudice and excite alarm, is to say nothing about it, to treat the whole subject as a negative, a nonentity, a thing to be forgotten; with which it is no part of their business to concern themselves, and which may be left to float quietly down the stream to the gulf of oblivion. All that is thought necessary to provide for the million in the way of reading, is amusement and general knowledge: and, to a very great extent, the object of all this is accomplished. The laboring classes, with increasing knowledge,- are more and more alienated from religion. The masses are not yet won to Christianity, but are sullenly standing aloof from it.

In such a state of things, what kind of ministry is it that is wanted? The answer is easy — men of earnestness; of earnest intellects, earnest hearts, and earnest preaching; men whose understanding shall command respect, whose manner shall conciliate affection, and whose ministrations shall attract by their beauty, and command by their power. The accessibility of the laboring classes gives us an advantage in approaching them. Neither prejudice nor fashion bars us out from them. We have neither to scale the walls of bigotry, nor to silence or evade the dogs of angry intolerance: the door is open, and we may walk in. But we must be men of the age, men who understand it, who are, to say the least, up with it, and know how to avail ourselves of its advantages, and to surmount its difficulties. But I cannot do better here than refer to an admirable article in the Eclectic Review, on the Modern Pulpit, from which the following extract is given: —

“What is good preaching? Alas, how many answers would be given to this question! And yet is not the true answer — the preaching by which souls are saved? Then, the best preaching must be that by which the greatest number of souls are saved. In order to that end, however, men must be brought within the sphere of the pulpit; and to bring the greatest number of men within that sphere is the design of Dr. Vaughan in his treatise, (on the Modern Pulpit,) and it is ours. In one word, what we specifically want in the modern pulpit is — adaptation. Now we have read a good deal in our time, not more than enough, of the necessity of adapting the efforts of the pulpit to the constitution of the human mind, to man’s moral nature, to his actual condition as fallen, guilty, wretched, and exposed to future punishment. And not seldom have we read most seasonable injunctions, addressed to our young ministers, on the personal adaptation of their discourses to the condition of individual men. All this we regard as of equal importance at all times, and in all conceivable circumstances. But, at present, our aim is to excite as much attention as we can to the truth — that along with these general and fixed adaptations, there is required a constantly varying adaptation to the constantly progressive changes of society.”

The writer then goes on to explain what he means by this varying adaptation of the pulpit to the advancement in society, in reference to one portion of it — the working classes.

“Education is raising these great masses of the community into higher degrees of intellectual culture. New powers are at work. Incredible facilities are multiplied for diffusing knowledge, spreading opinions, and increasing the number of thinkers. Now in such an age, to say nothing of other views of society, it is obviously the duty of evangelical preachers to adapt themselves to the circumstances in which they are placed; not, as this talented writer would be among the last to suggest, by withdrawing from the pulpit the great themes of the mediatory system, and substituting for them philosophic truth, or a rationalized gospel, but by such a general line of conduct with reference to the circumstances of a growingly enlightened age, and such a strain of preaching as shall lay hold of the public mind, and bring it under that doctrine, which, and which only, is the power of God unto salvation. Let there be a just estimate formed, and which to be just cannot be a low one, of the mental powers of the common people; a judicious and hearty sympathy with their real wants and reasonable wishes; a studious consideration of the means by which the multitude shall be brought back to the sanctuaries of religion, which they have to a considerable extent deserted; an assiduous endeavor to connect the functions of the pastor with the literary cultivation of the people. For these purposes let there be correct information of their state of intellect, their prevailing habits, their peculiar temptations, their literary tendencies and aspirations as to the books they read — let there be all this, but then let it be only as so much power put forth to bring those masses under the influence of the gospel. Oh, it were a noble triumph of the modern pulpit to see men of strong principle, and self-controlling wisdom, gathering round them the most boisterous elements of our social atmosphere, conducting the lightnings with which its darkest thunder clouds are charged, and showing to the nation they have saved, that the preaching of the cross is still the ‘power of God.”5

Of course, such an enterprise of home-evangelization will require that our ministers shall be men of action* Adaptation, then, there may be, and should be, in the sermons and the general habits of the ministry to the age in which they live, in the way of laying hold of public attention, widening the sphere of their action, and adding to their influence as preachers of the cross. Stronger intelligence, profounder thinking, more logical argumentation, more varied illustration, more chastened composition, more refined sentiment, more genuine, yet Christian, and unobtrusive philosophy, may be required in one age than another, and in this than in some preceding ages; but then all this must be in harmony with the simplicity that is in Christ, and only so much added to the height or the ornaments of

* Connected with my own congregation is an Institution, partly religious and partly literary, for the benefit of the young men and elder boys of all classes, but chiefly of the working classes, which has existed for more than a quarter of a century, which has a library of nearly 1200 volumes, and to the members of which lectures on miscellaneous subjects are periodically delivered. As a proof of the advantages it has conferred, as well as of the taste of the age, two of our members, both of them formerly in our Sunday school, took an excursion last summer, through France, up the Mediterranean to Athens, from thence through Southern Greece, back to Sicily, Naples, Pompeii, Rome, and Italy: and on their return delivered in three lectures an account of their travels, that would bear no distant comparison with some other accounts that have been given to the public from the press. They were able to appreciate, and did appreciate with enthusiasm, the remains of antiquity in Greece and Rome, as well as the exhibitions of modern times.

the pedestal which is to exalt the Saviour, and attract a perishing world to the fountain of life.

Having referred to the state of public opinion and feeling with reference to religion among the lower classes, it may not be amiss to glance at the higher and more educated portions of the community. Many of these are moving on two lines, or in a stream that divides into two channels, and flows in two opposite directions — the devout going off to Puseyism, and a large part of the rest to a philosophical infidelity. A loose, unsystematized theism is adopted by many of our men of letters, in some cases a new edition of the opinions of our English deists of the last century, and in others, and a still more numerous class, bearing a strong affinity to the pantheistic or mystic spirit of the German philosophy. Of the disposition of modern science, in the persons of some of its more illustrious votaries, to retire from revealed religion as if ashamed to be seen in its company, we have an affecting instance in the great octogenarian naturalist of Prussia. It is indeed a melancholy spectacle, to witness such a man as Humboldt — whose eye has seen so much of the visible universe, and whose pen has recorded so ably the researches of his vast genius; whose intellect seemed formed by the Creator, not only to study his works, but to proclaim his glories — send forth such a work as “Kosmos,” and in that work declare it was no part of his business to trace the wonders he describes to their still more wondrous Author! How deeply painful to see this high priest of nature officiating with such zeal and devotion at the shrine of matter, and yet never throwing one grain of incense on the altar of the Infinite Mind which made the worlds. Yet this is only a specimen of other similar cases. Alas, alas! that such a mind should ho so warped by the modes of thinking prevalent Among lii< countrymen, and should have sent forth perhaps his last gift to the lovers of science, in which the Hegelian pantheism is too obviously, interwoven.

With such a view of the state and tendency of the educated mind in this age, we see an additional argument for an earnest, and at the same time intelligent and educated ministry. We shall want men, and we are not without them already, who can enter the lists and do battle with the seductive and dangerous forms of error, that have done such mischief on the continent of Europe, and are likely, without great vigilance and stout resistance, to repeat the mischief here also. The spirit of mental philosophy which was called up by Locke, and has since been sustained in different schools, by Reid and Kant, and those who have descended from them, is at the present moment widely diffusing itself through the English and American mind. Education will no longer be confined to literature and natural science. A disposition and determination are formed to explore the world of mind, as well as that of matter, and to give to subjective studies a place, and that a very high one, among the objective ones. Psychology is now, and will be still more so, the favorite pursuit of great multitudes of reflective intellects. The mind of Germany is operating with power and success upon the mind of England, to an extent which is surprising, and in some views of the case, alarming. It is, one should think, impossible to trace the progress of Transcendentalism from the time of Kant to that of Hegel, and to see how, as it diverged more and more widely from the metaphysics of our land, it has associated itself with Rationalism in theology, and led on to Pantheism in philosophy, without some apprehension for the result of its introduction to this country. Perhaps the practical character of the English understanding will be one of our safeguards against a system which to the great multitude must ever remain a mere scientific speculation. It may, however, be feared that some of our young ministers, and our students in theology, especially those of speculative habits, captivated by the daring boldness, the intellectual vigor, and the theoretic attractions of the great German philosophers, may too adventurously launch forth on this dangerous ocean, and make shipwreck of their doctrinal simplicity and practical usefulness. Let them be assured that neither the transcendentalism of Kant, nor the eclecticism of Cousin, are safe guides for men who would be useful in saving souls. The warning voice has already been lifted up in high places on the other side of the Atlantic, where German philosophy was likely at one time to be received with avidity, and there will not be wanting voices to utter words of warning in this country also. It would not only be useless, but unwise to set out this, or any other system of philosophy, as the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which we are forbidden by the command of God, and the flaming sword of the cherubim, to approach: this, as well as every other object of human inquiry, may be studied, and by a cautious and discriminating mind, may of course be studied with advantage. We would by no means contend that there is nothing in the industry of German investigation, in its method of analysis, in its subjective taste, or even in the systems which are the fruits of its researches, which may not be borrowed with advantage by ourselves; but against that willing and entire surrender of their intellects to a school the masters of which have advanced from one degree of error to another, till they have left us no gospel but a fable, and no God but nature, which some are beginning to manifest in this land, we must raise an emphatic and protesting voice.

A work has lately made its appearance, likely to be extensively circulated among those who have any taste for philosophical studies, or any wish to become acquainted with German literature; a work which cannot fail to command attention, and will certainly secure for its accomplished author the admiration and respect of his numerous readers — I mean the “History of Modern Philosophy,” by the Rev. J. D. Morell. It is impossible to deny to this gentleman the fidelity of the historian, the impartiality and the candor of the true philosopher, and at the same time the excellence of a very able writer. It is on some accounts a happy circumstance that such a subject has fallen into such hands, since Mr. Morell’s attachment to evangelical truth, united with his intimate acquaintance with continental literature, will qualify him we trust to be a safe pilot for the English mind through the perilous seas he has undertaken to navigate. It may be hoped that his own attachment to the subjective system of philosophy, will not lead his ardent readers and admirers to go further in that direction than his own discriminating and well-balanced mind would wish or approve; and we are quite sure that he would join with many who are perhaps more apprehensive than he is of the influence of German philosophy, in the opinion that no surer way could our young ministers take to hinder their usefulness than to allow such studies to obscure the simplicity of their matter, or to deaden the energy of their manner, as preachers of the gospel, and that he would also most emphatically say, “Beware, lest any man spoil you (as preachers) through philosophy and vain deceit.”

From a very able and complimentary critique on Mr. Moreli/s work, contained in the twelfth number of the “North British Keview,” obviously by Dr. Chalmers, the following appropriate passage may with advantage be introduced here: speaking of Carlyle, the reviewer says: —

“They are not creeds, but men, who are the objects of his idolatry, which, under the name of hero-worship, he renders alike to those of most opposite opinions — as to Luther, and Knox, and Cromwell, on the one hand, so with equal veneration to the lofty poets and transcendentalists of Germany, upon the other. He is a lover of earnestness, more than a lover of truth: and it would not be our counteractive at least, to urge that he should be a lover of truth, more than a lover of earnestness. We should rather say that both are best, and would our island only not be frightened from its propriety by the high-sounding philosophy of the continent — neither overborne by its pretensions, nor overawed by its cabalistic nomenclature — would our savans and theologians but keep unmoved on the ground of common sense, and by their paramount demand for evidence at every step, lay resolute arrest on the pruriencies of wanton speculation — then, while they rejected all that was unsubstantial and unsound in the dogmata of the transcendental school, it were well that they imported the earnest and lofty enthusiasm of its disciples, into the phlegmatic universities, and no less phlegmatic churches, of our land. We do not need to take down the framework of our existing orthodoxy, whether in theology or in science. All that we require is that it shall become an animated framework, by the breath of a new life being infused into it. Ours has been most truly denounced as an age of formalism; but to mend this, we do not need to exchange our formulas, only to quicken them; nor to quit the ground of our common sense for baseless speculations; nor to substitute the Divine Idea of Fichte for a personal and living God; nor to adopt for our Saviour a mere embodied and allegorized perfection, and give up the actual and historical Jesus Christ of the New Testament; nor. finally, to go in quest of a chimerical ontology in upper regions far out of mortal ken; and for visions of merest fancy there, to renounce either the certainties of our own palpable and peopled world, or the truths which He who dwelleth in the heavens brought down from heaven, because no man can ascend into heaven, or tell the mysteries and glories of a place which he never entered. What we want is, that the very system of doctrine which we now have, shall come to us not in word only, but in power. As things stand at present, our creeds and confessions have become effete, and the Bible a dead letter; and that orthodoxy which was at one time the glory, by withering into the inert and lifeless, is now the shame and the reproach of all our churches. If there have been the revival of a more spiritual philosophy in France, or elsewhere, it might well humble us; but this is not exactly the quarter from which wTe should expect our revival to come. Prayer could bring it dowTn from above; and it is only thus, that all which is good in Puritanism, its earnestness without its extravagance; its faith, without its contempt for philosophy; its high and heavenly-mindedness, without the baser admixture of its worldly politics and passions — it is only thus the Augustan age of Christianity in England, an age which Mr. Carlyle has done so much to vindicate and bring to light, wTill again come back, to reform our State and bless our families.”

From this article it is perfectly evident that if England should have a tendency to go wrong, Scotland will do something to put us right, and that the followers, but improved ones, of Reid, will do much to keep the descendants of Kant in check, and hold the balance even between the Scotch and German philosophies. Surely nothing more need be said to show and prove what kind of men we want for such an age, and to indicate that for times of such excitement, we must have men of strong intelligence, simple faith, and entire devotedness. It is, in every view we can take of it, an earnest age, and earnest men alone can at such a time do anything” anywhere. and

EARNESTNESS. 21 i

least of all in the pulpit. Events with trumpet-call, summon us to our post, with every faculty awake, and every energy engaged. Amidst the din of business, of politics, of science, and of fashion; amidst the jests of laughers, the eloquence of orators, and the clamor of parties, the voice of the preacher will not be heard, unless he speak loudly, nor listened to unless he speak earnestly: we shall gain no heed for our holy religion, unless we put forth all our strength; it will be pushed aside, overborne, trampled down in the jostling crowd, if we do not put forth our mightiest energies to bear it up, and to make way for it through the strife and the theory of abounding secularises.

Let us not deceive ourselves by substituting anything else for this. It may be all very well and proper in its place to keep pace with the times in which we live, as regards other matters; in classical, mathematical, and philosophical literature, in academic degrees, in tasteful architecture; but these things, in the absence of a living power of intense devotedness, will be but as the flowers which shed their fragrance upon our grave, or as the sculpture which decorates our tomb.

IV. We may next contemplate the earnestness displayed by some other bodies, with which it may be truly said, we have to contend.

And first of all, let us look at the activity of the Church of Rome. What a change has of late years come over that wonderful and dreadful system, so far as its external circumstances are concerned. Many are disposed to think lightly of its present condition, efforts, prospects, and hopes; and it will be acknowledged it is unwise and impolitic for Protestants to lend their aid in magnifying* the power, and swelling the pride and expectations of the Man of Sin. But then it is no less unwise and impolitic, on the other hand, to miscalculate his forces, to shut our eyes on his efforts, and to deny his victories. What we need is just as much of alarm as shall rouse us to action, without producing panic; enough of fear to lead us to buckle on our armor, and yet not so much as to paralyze our energy. Look at the present condition and prospects of Popery, as compared with what they were soon after the French Revolution. Weakened by the withering scorn of an infidel philosophy, to which its own corruption had given rise, it was ill-prepared to sustain the shock of that awful outbreak of human passion, and it fell an apparently lifeless corpse before it. The Gallican Church was subverted, its priests were banished, its property confiscated, its places of worship closed. A French army was in possession of Rome, and the Pope was a prisoner in France, while his adherents were trembling and dispersed in all parts of the world. The opponents of Romanism exulted in the confidence that its days were numbered and its end was come. They exulted too soon. That lifeless corpse which lay prostrate in Europe, has since then shown signs of returning animation — its wounds have been healed — it has risen from the earth — and recovering its full health, is going forth at this time with giant strength to contend with Protestantism for the mastery of the world. Popery has gained political power in England. It is renewing its old fight in France for the education of the people — its chapels, its priests, its bishops, its monks, its missions, are everywhere multiplying — its ancient craft and cruelty are again called into activity, as Tahiti can witness — it is drawing hundreds, I fear, if we include both clergy and laity, of influential persons from the Church of England, and tainting with its spirit hundreds more who remain behind to diffuse the corruption still more widely — it has done much to blot from the memory of statesmen its past history, and to hide from their eyes its hideous form — and with an ardor kindling to an intense flame, and a hope flushed into a stronger confidence by these victories, it is still going on from conquering to conquer. There are, it is true, for Rome fearful and appalling portents to be set off against these bright signs: there is the confiscation of ecclesiastical property and the dissolution of the monasteries in Spain — the rapid defection going on in Germany, under Ronge and Czerski — the conversion of whole congregations and parishes in the south of France to Protestantism — the rising spirit of free inquiry even in Italy — with the growth of knowledge and the advance of education everywhere. From all this it is evident that the great battle of the Reformation is to be fought over again, and we are in the field of action, where the forces are mustered and the conflict is going on; and we are unworthy of our position and our occupation if we do not give our energies, the best and the noblest, to the cause. Let us take pattern from our foes, and imitate their intensity of action. They are in earnest if we are not. Were it possible for us to see a perfect disclosure, in one bird’s-eye view, of all that is going on in the Vatican, that most astounding instance of centralization out of the bottomless pit; could we see

the gigantic intellects that are planning, and the burning hearts that are feeding the fire of their zeal, and the busy hands that are working in that focus of all that is daring in design and mischievous in effect to the world’s intellectual and spiritual welfare, we should feel that we are safe from the tyranny of that audacious system, only under the vigilance of an Omniscient eye, and the protection of an Omnipotent arm. But that help and that vigilance are not to be looked for by the supine and lukewarm, and can be expected only in the way of zealous activity and confiding prayer. To whom chiefly should Protestantism look for the instrumentality necessary for its defence, but to its ministers? Let them, in answer to the call which events are making upon their energies, prepare themselves by study, by deep devotion, and by intense action, to grapple with this ancient foe of spiritual Christianity.

But this is not the only instance of earnestness offered to us, which we should contemplate, and from which we should deduce a stimulus to our own activity. We have far more to fear from England than from Italy; from Oxford than from Rome. I do not now allude merely to the Tractarian party; we have little to fear from them, compared with the other section of the Established Church — the evangelical clergy. The Church of England is in earnest. Many of us can recollect the time when it was not so. A pervading secularity characterized her clergy; a drowsy indifference her people: if the former got their tithes, and ate, drank, and were merry, and the latter got christening, confirmation, and the sacrament when they died, it was all they cared for. The only thing that moved either of them to a pang of zeal was the coming of the Methodists into the parish, and when these were mobbed away, they relapsed again into their former apathy. Exceptions there were — bright and blessed ones — but they were only exceptions. Thank God, it is not so now. A vivifying wind has swept over the valley of dry bones, and an army not only of living, but of life-giving men has sprung up. Venn, Berridge, and Romaine; Newton, Cecil, and Simeon have lived and awakened a new spirit in the church to which they belonged. Look at that church as she is now to be seen, full of energy and earnestness: divided, it is true, into parties as to theological opinion, to a considerable extent Romanized in her spirit, and aggressive in her designs; but instinct with life, and a great deal of it life of the best kind. Even the orthodox and the Puseyite clergy are all now active, preaching, catechising, visiting the sick, instituting and superintending schools. The day is happily gone by when the taunt of fox-hunting, play-going, ball-frequenting parsons could be with justice thrown at the clergy of the State church: they are now no longer to be found in those scenes of folly and vanity, but at the bed-side of the sick man, or in the cottage of the poor one. We must rejoice in their labors and in their success, except when their object and their aim are to crush Dissenters. There are very many among them of the true apostolic succession in doctrine, spirit, and devotedness; many whose piety and zeal we should do well to emulate; many with whom it is among the felicities of my life to be united in the bonds of private friendship, and public co-operation. Sincerely and cordially attached to their church, they are laboring in season and out of season, to promote its interests. Who can blame them? Instead of this, let us imitate them. For zeal and devotedness they are worthy of it. I know their labors, and am astonished at them. Think of a clergyman, and multitudes of such there are, who, beside his other labors, spends four or five hours every day in going from house to house, visiting the sick, instructing the ignorant, comforting the distressed. Can we wonder that such men should lay hold on the public mind? Is it not in the natural course of things that it should be so? It is admitted that the clergyman of a parish has advantages for this species of ministerial occupation which we have not; he considers all the people within certain topographical limits as belonging to him, as being, in fact, his cure; while, on the other hand, most if not all of these persons, except such as by profession really belong to other denominations, look upon him in the light of their minister. This ever-active assiduity, in addition to the Sabbath-day exercises, is admonitory to us. Can we see this new sight, the whole Church establishment, from the Archbishop of Canterbury down to the curate of the smallest village, with all their modern and comprehensive agency of Pastoral Aid

Societies, Ladies’ District Visiting Societies, Scripture Headers, Church of England Tract Societies, and other means of influence and power, in busy commotion, dotting the land all over with churches and schools, and thus, by all these efforts, laboring to occupy so entirely the nation, as to leave no room for, and to prove there is no need of, any other body of Christians — can we see all this constantly before our eyes, and not see the need of an earnest ministry, not only to maintain our ground, but to advance? Not that I mean to assert that the evangelical clergy would altogether wish to push us off the ground. No, I believe there are many who unfeignedly rejoice in the existence, operations, and success, both of the Methodists and Dissenters, and who would consider it a deep calamity for the nation, if they were arrested in their career of evangelical ministration to-morrow. The spirit of the Evangelical Alliance is diffusing itself abroad. Sectarianism is, we hope, beginning to wither at the root, and Christian charity is grappling with the demon of bigotry. But still we are at present not prepared for the fusion and amalgamation of all parties into one, and till then we may learn from each other; and with the most entire good will towards my brethren in the Church of England, without envy or jealousy, I call upon my other brethren within my own denomination to imitate the zeal of which they are the witnesses among the clergy of the Establishment. I am a Dissenter from conviction as well as by education, and know not the lure which would induce me, or the suffering which would terrify me, to abandon my principles. I believe, as I ever have believed, since I reflected upon the subject, that the establishment of religion by the enactments of secular legislation, has no sanction from the New Testament, is a corruption of Christianity, and injurious to its spirit; and I believe the time will come, when the same views will be entertained by all the genuine followers of Christ; hence I am, and ought to be, anxious, while I cultivate a spirit of brotherly love towards those who differ from me, to uphold, though without wrath, malice, or any uncharitableness, the denomination by which my conscientious opinions are embodied and expressed. Dissenters of England, and especially Dissenting ministers, I say therefore unto you, be in earnest; first of all and chief of all in attachment to the doctrines of Evangelism, to the creed of Protestantism, to the great principles which God has employed in every age and country where true religion has had existence, to vitalize a dead, and purify a corrupt world. Be it your prayer, your endeavor, your hallowed ambition, to possess a ministry of competent learning, and especially of soundly evangelical sentiment; a ministry which, as regards their matter and manner, shall be the power of God to the salvation of souls; a ministry wThich, in the simplicity of their discourses, and the intensity of their zeal, the fervor of their piety, and the all-comprehending extent of their labors, shall vie with the best specimens of the clergy of the Church of England. There is earnestness there, and if we would not be swallowed up in the rising tide and increasing torrent of their zeal, let us meet it with a corresponding intensity. Let each minister in his own separate and individual sphere of action, set himself to work and put forth all his energies without waiting for combination with others. Not that I speak against combination. We have far too little of it, and this is our weakness. In polity we are too independent, and should be vastly improved as regards our internal condition and our external influence, if we were more compact. But as to ministerial earnestness we need not wait for others: each

man can do what he wills, and may do much, though no other man did anything. Ministerial activity, like Christian piety, is a matter of individual obligation, and no one is so dependent upon his neighbors, as that he needs to halt till they are ready to march with him.

Nor is it necessary nor proper, advocate though I be for the Evangelical Alliance, that we should be silent as to our views of the spirituality of Christ’s kingdom. As we are not to sacrifice love for truth, so neither are we to sacrifice truth for love, nor to throw away a smaller diamond of truth for a larger one. All truth must be held, as well as all love. I differ from some of our brethren in my views of certain confederations for the maintenance and spread of our Nonconformity, because I believe that whatever good they may do in one way, they do more harm in another; but I do not differ from them in my conviction that our principles, as a part of the New Testament, ought to be taught, and to be taught with earnestness too. If true, they must be important, and if important at all, very important: subordinate I know, immeasurably so, to the doctrines whereby men are saved; but still of consequence. Provided the gross misrepresentation, the exaggerated statement, the studied caricature, the uncharitable imputation, the withering sarcasm, the bitter irony, and the malevolent ridicule be expunged from controversy, and there be as much of the delicacy of love, as there is of the firmness of truth, there can be no harm, but must be much good, not only in stating our own opinions, but in answering those who differ from us. All systems of church polity derive their value and importance from their subserviency to the cause of Evangelism. Church of Englandism or Dissent apart from this, is but as the pole without the healing serpent which it was erected to exhibit; and to be zealous about either except as viewed in reference to the truth as it is in Jesus, is but like contending about the wood of the cross, to the neglect of the Saviour who was crucified upon it.

How, then, are we to meet that abounding zeal which we ourselves perhaps have been in no small degree the occasion of awakening, but by a corresponding vigor of action? We cannot advance, nay, we cannot keep our ground without it. We have to contend against an energy which is astounding and all but overwhelming; and if this cannot move us to earnestness, nothing will.

V. This state of mind and action is within the reach of every minister of Christ.

Some men, from a natural physical energy of character, may be more prone to, and better qualified for, this fervid and devoted zeal than some others. They are of a more mercurial temperament than their phlegmatic brethren, who creep while the others fly, and who require more stimulus to rouse them into activity than is necessary to keep the rest at the full speed of their progress. This is constitutional to a very considerable extent; but it is, after all, more of a moral than a natural inability in many; and the sinners whom they address and call to repentance, and to whom they declare, that the only hindrance they have to true religion is an impotence of will, are just as excusable for their want of penitence and faith, as any minister under heaven is for a want of earnestness. He may never be able to be a scholar, or a philosopher, or a mathematician, though he may acquire more of all these attainments than he supposes is within his reach, if he will but give himself to early-rising, make a good apportionment of his time, and adopt a well-arranged plan of study. His situation and engagements may be such, however, that he may not hope to rise to eminence in these things; but nothing forbids his activity, zeal, and entire devotedness to the great work of preaching the gospel and caring for men’s souls. He may not be a consummate orator, for he has not voice for this; but he may, if he pleases, use what voice he has with good effect: he may not have the ability for finished composition; but he can, if he gives himself time and labor, produce sermons full of spiritual power: he may not be able to attract around him the rich, the literary, or the great; but he can interest the poor, and engage the children of the Sunday school, and perhaps their parents: he may not have ten talents, but he need not wrap up his one in a napkin and bury it in the earth. Every man has one talent at least, with which he can busily trade and acquire profit for his employer and reward for himself. If the pride of some men over-estimates the number of their talents, the modesty, or in some cases the indolence of others, leads them to make too low a calculation of theirs. There is a source of latent energy in most men, which they have been so far from exhausting that they have scarcely touched it; they have in many cases to break up a virgin soil. I knew a minister of Christ, and loved him well, who was in a situation where he had done little, and feared he never should do more. Everything was dull around him, and he was dull with it. It pleased

God to remove him to a new situation, and then he became a new man. He revived from his torpor, and everything revived around him. An activity and energy were now evinced which surprised himself and those who knew him. He formed a new congregation, instituted a variety of religious organizations of a useful kind, and was one of the most earnest men I knew. All this energy was not a new creation, but a resurrection. So it might be with many more. There are the principles of activity within them which are only waiting for the influence of circumstances, or the power of will, to give them life, motion, and vigor. Away then with the excuses of indolence, the fears of timidity, the objections of modesty, and the opiates of conscience; for it is these, and not impossibilities, which prevent any man from being zealously affected in a good thing. Every minister can be an earnest man if he so wills; and he is so when anything in which he has a deep interest is at stake. Let his house be on fire, or his health and life be in danger, or his wife or child be in peril, or some means of greatly augmenting his property be thrown in his way, and what an intensity of emotion and a vehemence of action will be exerted and put in motion; and there needs but the might and pressure of the interests of immortal souls upon his conscience; there needs but a heart constrained by the love of Christ so as to be borne away by the force and impetuosity of this hallowed passion; there needs but a longing desire to be wise in winning men to Jesus; there needs, in fine, but a heart fully set in him to accomplish the ends and objects of his office, to possess that high and noble quality of soul which it is the object of this work to recommend. There are the same constitutional varieties in tradesmen as are visible in ministers, and yet we never hearken to the former when in justification of their failure for want of energy, they tell us they have no physical capacity for, or tendency to, activity. Our reply to them is, that what is deficient in them by nature, must be made up by reason and diligence. We say the same to the preacher of the gospel, and while by this representation we would constrain his conscience by a sense of obligation, we would interest his heart by awakening hope. He may never be able, with his measure of talent, to reach the success of some more gifted and more favored brethren; but he may have a measure of his own, far more than enough to recompense any labor he may bestow to obtain some success; and instead therefore of spending his time in envying others, or sitting down in despair to do nothing, because he cannot do as much as they, let him rise up, and have the blessed consciousness and reward that he has done what he could. *

You who may read these pages can possess and exhibit real earnestness; all its delightful excitement, all its blessed results, all its eternal consequences, are within your reach. There is no lion in the street, except what your own imagination sees there, and your own sloth has placed there. Make the effort, it is worth the making: try, you can but fail, and it is better to fail than not to make the attempt. Think what a result may issue from a new devotedness. We have never yet any of us rightly estimated the immense importance and momentous consequences of our work. How can we? They are eternal, and who can duly estimate eternity? Do we believe what we preach, that the conversion of a soul is of more consequence than the creation of a world? Is this sober truth or mere rhetoric? Is this fact, or the mere garniture of a sermon; only a dash of eloquence, an artifice of our oratory? If true, and we know it is so, how momentous! A soul, weigh it in the balance of the sanctuary, and settle its worth: appraise its value. Salvation! wondrous word, and more wondrous thing. One word only, but containing millions of ideas; uttered in a moment, but requiring everlasting ages, and all the amplitude of heaven, for the unfolding of its meaning. Archbishop Williams, who was also Lord Keeper in the time of Charles the First, once uttered this memorable speech: “I have passed through many places of honor and trust both in Church and State, more than any one of my order for seventy years before. But were I assured that by my preaching, I had converted one soul to God, I should therein take more comfort than in all the honors and offices that have ever been bestowed upon me.” What a confession from an Archbishop, that he did not know he had been the instrument of converting a single soul to God; what an impressive importance does the confession stamp upon the work of saving souls; and what a stimulus should it supply to us who are engaged in this divine employment!

How vain and worthless a thing is the popular applause, which some receive for eloquence, compared with the proofs of usefulness in the conversion of immortal souls! What are the flatteries of the foolish, or even the eulogiums of the wise; what the honeyed compliments, or the golden opinions of the most distinguished circle of admirers, weighed against the testimony of one redeemed sinner that we have been the instrument of saving from death, but as the small dust in the balance! How have some men, pre-eminent for their intellectual power and accustomed to fascinate the spell-bound multitude by the power of their eloquence, yearned amidst all their popularity for some more substantial, satisfying, and abiding reward of their labor, than that admiration of their talents which they were accustomed to receive. It may be they were not unsusceptible to the emotions of vanity, nor ungratified by the expressions of applause, at the time; but when they found that this was all the result of their labors, they sickened of the incense and the honey, and exclaimed in the bitterness of disappointment, and the anguish of self-reproach, “Is this all my reward? Oh, where are the souls I have converted from the error of their ways?” We have a striking proof of this in the late Dr. McAll, whom it was my privilege to call my friend. It was impossible for this extraordinary man to be ignorant either of his great powers, of the estimate in which they were held, or the effect they produced on others by his pulpit exercises. Nor was he by any means unsusceptible of the influence of applause. But how empty did this appear to him as compared with the abiding results of real usefulness; which, if he had not enjoyed in such large measures as some others, it was not for want of any anxiety to obtain it. “Deeply affected was he often,” says Dr. Leifchild, “by the fear of not being useful in his ministry.” “I have admiration enough,” he would say, “but I want to see conversion and edification.” He spoke of some other neighboring ministers whose churches, he said, resembled a garden which the Lord had blessed, or whose spots of verdure were more vivid than his own; but added that his emotions in making the comparison, partook of a character that absorbed or overwhelmed sorrow for himself. I remember on one occasion, after a brilliant speech from himself, he listened to a much plainer and less oratorical brother, whose address, however, seemed much more penetrating on the minds of the audience, and produced an appearance of being deeply affected on their countenances. At that moment the speaker, hearing a loud sobbing behind him, turned round; it was McAll. “Ah,” said he, afterwards, “. that effect, in such a legitimate way, I would give the world to be able to produce.” Though the desire thus ardently breathed, was elicited on the platform, it extended to every description of ministerial address. “Oh,” said he to Mr. Griffin, again and again, “I care nothing what the people may think or say of my abilities, if I may but be useful to souls!” and once with a kind of swelling indignation, “God knows, I do not want their applause — I want their salvation.” This is eminently instructive and impressive, and is one of the most convincing instances which the history of the pulpit can furnish of the worthlessness of almost everything else as an object of ministerial pursuit, and as the reward of ministerial labor, compared with the salvation of immortal souls. This was not the confession and the lamentation of one whose envy led him to depreciate the value of that which he had no hope of obtaining, but of one who was the admiration of every circle into which he entered, and whose surprising talents commanded the plaudits of all who heard him. How much

of the power of that vast intellect, and that splendid eloquence, and of the admiration and eulogium which they drew upon him, would Dr. McAll have given up for a portion of that usefulness, which he saw was granted to the humbler but more effective talents of some of his far less gifted brethren. Let the men who are but too apt to envy such displays of genius, and who, when they see the spell-bound multitude listening in breathless silence, or dispersing in audible applause, fret because they cannot do so with their enchantments, study the scene before us: let them follow Dr. McAll home from the crowded, fascinated, admiring congregation, leaving behind him the atmosphere perfumed and vocal with applause, to commune with God and his own heart in his closet, and there hear him exclaiming with a burst of agony, “Lord, who hath believed our report, and to whom has thine arm been revealed?” Let them mark all this, and learn that in the estimation of the most gifted minds, there is no object of pursuit so sublime, nor any reward for ministerial labor so rich, as the salvation of immortal souls.

VI. We may next direct our attention to the fact that earnestness has usually been successful in the accomplishment of its object, and that little has ever been achieved without it.

We admit, and in the conclusion of this work, shall more emphatically state, the necessity of a Divine influence to convert the soul; but still the Spirit works by means, and by means well adapted to accomplish the end proposed. We do not look for the Spirit to convert souls without the truth; it is by the presentation of this to the judgment, and by the co-working of Divine grace upon the heart, that the great change of regeneration is effected. It is evident, however, that this blessed result can take place only in those cases where the truth is really contemplated. The attention must be fixed upon it, or no result can take place. Attention, and to a certain extent abstraction of mind, may be said to be essentially necessary to the work of conversion. Hence those preachers are not only likely to be most useful, but are most useful, who have the greatest power of fixing attention upon the truth, and holding the mind in a state of abstraction from all other topics. When the attention is so withdrawn by their manner of preaching from foreign matters and fixed upon the truth then presented, the Spirit in a way of sovereign mercy gives forth his influence, to change the evil bias of the heart towards the truth thus exhibited to the understanding faculty. We perceive in different preachers very various kinds of power to engage the attention: some do it by a commanding eloquence; others by an impressive oratory; others by a burning ardor; others by a melting affection; and some even by eccentricity; but amidst all this specific variety of manner we shall find the one prevailing characteristic to be, an adaptation to arrest and fix the attention. A preacher may be immeasurably inferior to many others in the vigor of his intellect and richness of his imagination, and yet may be very far their superior in seizing and holding the minds of his hearers. We cannot hope to do good if we do not succeed in gaining the attention of the hearers, and our expectations of accomplishing the objects of our ministry, may be indulged with much confidence, if we can so preach as to compel our hearers, so to speak, to listen to us. There is a striking incident mentioned in the Life and Remains of Mr. Cecil, of St. John’s Chapel, Bedford Row, that master of pulpit eloquence. He was once invited to preach in a village, where the joyful sound of evangelical truth was rarely heard in the parish church, and where he thought it probable he should have no other opportunity to proclaim it. To his mortification when he had got half-way through the sermon he perceived that he had not succeeded in gaining that close attention of the people which he deemed essential to the success of his sermon. The time was going by, the case seemed desperate, and it occurred to him that something must be done, or the opportunity was lost; and pausing for a moment where the subject admitted of his trying his experiment, he said, with some degree of that impressiveness which pertained to him, “Last Monday morning a man was hanged at Tyburn,” and then went on to make the recent execution bear upon the subject o( discourse. The expedient of course succeeded, the wandering eyes of the congregation were fixed upon the preacher, and their truant minds upon the sermon. He gained their attention, which was riveted to him through the remainder of the discourse. Such self-possession is a noble qualification for a public speaker: and the moral of the anecdote is, — we must have the attention of our congregations, or we can do them no good; and the more we can command this, so as to lead them to think of the truth, the more likely we are to do them good. The history of all successful preachers will prove that amidst a vast variety of means of gaining this, they each had the power of doing it, and in that power lay the secret of their success.

Let any one who is at all in doubt whether the importance of earnestness is overstated in this work, consider who among departed ministers have been, and who among living ones are, the most distinguished as successful preachers of the word of God. If he apply this to the fathers and founders of Nonconformity, he will find that in the first rank stand Baxter, Bunyan, Doolittle, C larks on, Flavel, Heywood, and Howe; and when he has read their glowing, and pungent, and powerful appeals to the hearts and consciences of sinners, he will not wonder that such sermons effected the high purpose for which all sermons should be preached, that is, the conversion of sinners. Coming on to latter times, it is unnecessary, after what has been said, to mention Whitfield and Wesley, except to reiterate that in addition to other high and nobler qualities, earnestness was the great means of their extensive success. They lived and labored for scarcely anything else than the salvation of immortal souls. As a proof of the intensity of their zeal, reference may be made to the race of men into whom they breathed the fervor of their own souls, and whom they raised up now and then, to carry on their own great work. With here and there an exception, the present race of Methodist and Dissenting ministers are stiff, formal, cold-hearted men, compared with not only the leaders, but the next immediate followers of those illustrious instruments of the modern revival of evangelical religion. How few of us are worthy to be mentioned with Coke and Fletcher, Rowland Hill, Berridge and Grimshaw; with Cecil, Newton, and Romaine. What men were raised up in Wales by the Whitfield movement, Daniel Rowland, Jones of Llangan, Howell Harris, and their successors, John Elias, Christmas Evans, and Williams, of Wern; men who caused the mountains of their own romantic country to echo to their mighty voices, and filled its valleys with the fruit of their impassioned oratory. If we look across the Atlantic, what a wonderful man do we discover in Jonathan Edwards, whose printed sermons, and which were only in accordance with his ordinary ministry, are full of such earnestness as is exhibited in the specimen given earlier in this work, whose ministry was so full of its successful results. Call to recollection Stoddart, Bellamy, Dwight, Davis, who, in the land of the pilgrim fathers, diffused abroad by their unreserved devoted - ness, the savor of that Name which is above every name. In Scotland there have been the Erskines, the McLaurins, the Walkers, the Dicks ons, and others of by-gone days, whose remains tell us how they handled the word of God, and whose memoirs inform us with what success. In these venerated men we see the secret of all ministerial power, a desire amounting to a fervor for the conversion of sinners, and an adaptation to accomplish this in their preaching.

If the illustrious company of reformers, who present the most august examples of burning zeal, next to the apostles, be not referred to, if the majestic and mighty Luther, the profound Calvin, the heroic Zuingle, the intrepid Knox, the elegant and classic Melancthon are passed over, it is not only because they are too well known to need a mention, but also because they may be thought too high above the ordinary sphere of ministerial activity to be imitated: and yet if the pattern of the great Master himself is placed before us for contemplation and imitation, surely that of the most renowned of his servants need not be withheld. What singleness of aim, and unity of purpose, and concentration of energy were there in these rare and extraordinary men, and what less could have carried them on through their noble career?

But descending to others, what men have been with us in the recollection of the present generation, and the brilliant horizon of whose setting sun has scarcely ceased even yet to glow with the radiance of their names: the gigantic Fuller, the mighty Hall, the seraphic Pearce, and the lion-hearted Knibb; the intellectual Watson, and the masculine Bogue; the eccentric yet generous and commanding Wilks, the judicious Roby, the mild yet persuasive Burder, the pathetic Waugh, the wise and tender Griffin, the captivating and lovely Spencer, and the eloquent McAll. Honored be their names, fragrant their memories, precious be the recollection of their example! May we who survive cherish the recollection of their life and labors, and never forget that their greatness and their usefulness arose not more from their talents than from their devoted earnestness in the cause of evangelical truth.

But descending to others and to living examples, more upon the ordinary level, it may be well to look round upon those by whom, in our own day and before our own eves.

the ends of the Christian ministry, and the object of evangelical preaching are most extensively accomplished, and to inquire by what order of means this has been done. It would be invidious to mention the names of living men, to select from among the multitude those who are pre-eminent above their fellows in usefulness, in popularity, in the constant exhibition of evangelical truth. Two names, however, may here obtain a place, honored by us all, and an honor to us; the names of men of widely differing, yet equally conspicuous and acknowledged excellencies, who are too far above us to excite our envy, and whose celebrity will defend this willing, affectionate, and admiring testimony, from the charge of invidious selection or fulsome adulation; and who, each in his own sphere, one in the northern, the other in the southern hemisphere, is shedding the lustre of an evening star, and reflecting upon the church the glory of that great Sun of Righteousness, in whose attraction it has been their delight through a long, and holy, and useful life, to revolve; who yet live, and long may they live, that our younger ministry may learn in the holy labors of Chalmers and Jay, how beautiful and how useful is human genius, when sanctified by grace and devoted to an earnest preaching of the gospel of salvation.

But we are not considering now what may be done, and is done, by the gifted few, who by their rare endowments are fitted, as well as designed, to enrich our theological literature by their valuable works, or to gather around their pulpits the literary or philosophical spirits of the place in which they dwell: these are the exceptions in all denominations to the general rule of preachers, even as those who listen to them, are the exceptions to the general rule of hearers. Our remarks apply to the men who move the masses, who operate upon the popular mind as it is most commonly found; and what are they 1 not perhaps men of high scholarship, profound philosophy, or elegant composition; but men of energy and earnestness; men laying themselves out for usefulness; man of tact and of business in the management of their fellow-men; men of heart, of feeling, and perseverance. Where is a large congregation, a flourishing, well-compacted church to be found? — there is an earnest man. Where, in what country, or in what denomination, does one such man labor without considerable success? Where has the faithful, devoted, energetic preacher of evangelical truth, to borrow and use in a figurative sense the words of the Lord’s forerunner, had to say, “lam the voice of one crying in the wilderness?” Where do we find small congregations, dissatisfied or declining churches, and empty chapels? Where do the ways of Zion mourn, and her gates languish, because none come to her solemn feasts? Certainly not where the ministers are as flames of fire. No matter where, or under what discouraging circumstances, such a man, who is one of these sacred flames, may commence his labors, he will soon draw around him a deeply interested and attentive congregation: no matter what may be the denomination with which he may be associated, he will not only excite the indifference, or subdue the prejudice, by which he is surrounded, but will awaken interest and conciliate regard. Under the magic power of his devotedness, blessed as it will be by God the Spirit, the verdure and beauty of spring will succeed to the gloom, desolation, and sterility of winter, and the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for him, and the desert rejoice and blossom as the rose. In some cases, the change has been as sudden and as complete as in Russia, from hybernal frosts and snows to vernal flowers and fragrance: churches that seemed only the repositories of the dead, and places for monuments and epitaphs, have become crowded with living and listening hearers of the joyful sound; and chapels once far too large for the last remains of a former congregation, have been soon found too small for the new one that has risen up in its place.

It would be no unprofitable exercise for any one to look round upon some of our most successful ministers, and after surveying the extent of their usefulness, to say to himself, “How has that man done this? What have been the means by which, under God, he has accomplished so much?” Unhappily there are a few, perhaps, who are so enamored of what is literary, intellectual, or philosophical, that even in large ministerial success they see little to admire or to covet, if this be not associated with scholarship and science. This is a bad state of mind, indicates a worse state of heart, and proves that the man who is the subject of it, has totally mistaken the end of the ministerial office. There are some of our most useful preachers, who are far more conscious of their literary and philosophical defects, than these supercilious scholars can possibly be; and who would purchase, if they could be obtained by money, at almost any cost, if they had the means, the high attainments which their more limited education never enabled them to acquire: but at the same time they would not give up their usefulness for all the literature of Greece and Rome, with all mathematics and philosophy in addition; and amidst their deficiencies in all that would give them weight and influence in the world of letters, feel adoringly thankful for all that weight and influence which they have acquired in the church. Their labors in the pulpit have gained them an acceptance which is far more surprising to themselves than it can be to others. Peradventure, also, they may have adventured on the sea of authorship, and have had a prosperous course, where many expected they must soon make shipwreck. None can be more sensible than themselves of their defects in composition, and often they have been ready to blame their presumption in taking up their pen, and to resolve to lay it down forever, when perhaps some instance of usefulness has come to their knowledge, as if to reprove their vanity, wounded by a sense of their own deficiencies, and to make them thank God and take courage. They knew their own department of literary action, and aimed at nothing higher than to be useful; willing to bear the sneer of literary pride and endure the lash of critical severity, if this one only object of their ambition could be accomplished, the salvation of immortal souls, and the establishment of believers in their holy faith. Such men there are among us, who. owe not their success to a finished education, for it was their misfortune not to enjoy this precious advantage to the same extent to which it is now carried; nor to high scholarshijo, to which they make no pretensions; but to an intense desire to be useful, and to something of earnestness in carrying out the desires of their hearts: and in addition to the direct usefulness they have accomplished by their own labors, they may be abundantly useful in another way, by showing that where large literary acquisitions cannot be obtained, still simple earnestness without them may be blessed of God, for accomplishing in no inconsiderable extent the great ends of the Christian ministry.

It has been said that a man who has decision of character enough to make up his mind to the determination to be rich; who has a good share of talents to uphold his resolution, and a rigid system of self-denying economv.

will ordinarily succeed; and observation seems to a considerable extent to support the remark. With far greater certainty may it be said, that he who enters upon his ministry with an intense zeal for God, an ardent passion for the salvation of souls; and with this, sustained by deep piety, a tolerable share of talents and acquirement, and a. fixed purpose in humble dependence upon God’s grace, to be a useful minister of Christ, will not fail of his end. The failure of such a man would be a new thing in the earth. We know of no such case, and we may not expect to know it. We. say to every sinner, in calling him to repentance, he may be saved if he will: not intending by such an expression, that he can be saved without the Spirit of God; but that he may secure that Divine power if he have faith to receive it: so we may almost venture to say to every minister of Christ, it is his own fault if he is not useful; intending by such an assertion, that as the gospel he preaches is God’s own truth; as preaching is his own institute; as the minister is his own servant; and as to all this, He has added the promise of his grace, it would seem as if in the case of entire or extensive failure, he has himself to blame. -

But we may look at the power of earnestness, as seen not only in the cause of truth, but of error. It has often served a bad cause as well as a good one. Islamism owes its existence and its wide dominion to this quality, in its extraordinary founder: Mohammed exhibits one of the most wonderful instances of this, the world ever witnessed; and with what dreadful results was it followed in his case! We may say the same of Popery: that stupendous fabric of delusion, which throws its dark and chilling shadow over so large a portion of Christendom, owes its erection and its continuance to the intense devotedness with which it has inspired its votaries: it is this that upholds a system constantly at war against the dictates of reason, the doctrines of revelation, and the dearest rights and liberties of humanity. It is this mysterious and indomitable earnestness of the priesthood, which has resisted the attacks of logic, rhetoric, and piety; of divines, philosophers, and statesmen; of wit, humor, and ridicule; and which in this age of learning and science, commerce and liberty, not only enables it to maintain its ground, but to advance and make conquests. The Church of Rome, which would, in the hands of a lukewarm priesthood, fall by the weight of its own absurdity, or be crushed by the hands of its constant assailants, is still strong in the hearts of its members; each of whom, from the Pope down, through all its civil and ecclesiastical gradations, to the most insignificant member, is a type of concentrated and intensely glowing zeal.

The pages of ecclesiastical history furnish us with some extraordinary instances of the power of the pulpit, as exhibited in the cases of some Popish preachers. I do not now refer to the court of Louis the Fourteenth, which, with that grand and licentious monarch at its head, was subdued into a transient frame and season’ of devoutness by the sermons of Massillon, but to the preaching of far inferior, and less known orators, and to effects less courtly, but not less striking. When Connecte, an Italian, preached, the ladies committed their gay dresses by hundreds to the flames. When Narni taught the populace in Lent, from the pulpits of Rome, half the city went from his sermons, crying along the streets, Lord have mercy upon us, Christ have mercy upon us; so that in only one passion week, two thousand crowns’ worth of ropes were sold to make scourges with; and when he preached before the Pope, to cardinals and bishops, and painted the crime of non-residence in its own colors, he frightened thirty or forty bishops, who heard him, instantly to their own dioceses. In the pulpit at Salamanca, he induced eight hundred students to quit all worldly prospects of honor, riches, and pleasure, and to become penitents in divers monasteries. Some of this class were martyrs too. Here then was the power of earnestness; but being in this case given to the cause of error, being directed rather to the imagination than to the heart, and intended to correct mere ceremonial irregularities, rather than to lead to repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, we are not surprised that the storm of passion soon subsided; that Narni himself was so disgusted with his office, that he renounced preaching, and shut himself up in his cell, to mourn over his irreclaimable contemporaries; for bishops went back to court, and rope-makers lay idle again. This striking fact is replete with instruction, not only as showing the power of the pulpit, but at the same time the essential feebleness of that religion which does not aim at the renovation of the heart, and the transient nature of that effect which is produced by mere rhetoric, unaccompanied by a sober exhibition of the truth to enlighten the judgment, warm the affections, and awaken the conscience.

But it is not only on this grand scale that we see the power and success of an ardent zeal, even in a bad cause; for there is no system of opinions, nor any course of religious practice, however remote, not only from the truth of revelation, but from the dictates of common sense, and even the decorum of society, but what, if preached and propagated by men of intense ardor, will gain, for a while, some disciples to believe it, and even some apostles to propagate it. If men are really in earnest in blowing bubbles, some will be found to look at, to admire, and to follow their airy and unsubstantial balloons. It has been already said, that earnestness is contagious: a man in this state of mind and action, is sure to draw some others under the influence of his own example. If this is the case with a bad cause, how much more may we expect it to be so in a good one. Everything, then, combines to prove, that our want of success must be traced up, rather to our neglect of the right means to obtain it, than to any backwardness on the part of God to give his blessing to our own intelligent, judicious, and earnest exertions.

VII. The state of our denominations demands immediate and devoted attention to the subject.

In speaking of our own denomination, we find in its general condition, much cause for thankfulness and congratulation. In the number of our churches and the competency of a very large number of their pastors; in our colleges and schools; in our missionary and other organizations; in our periodical and other religious literature; in our public spirit and liberality — we see signs of prosperity, and tokens for good: and if we are true to ourselves and to our cause, we have nothing to fear. Our opponents cannot do us so much harm as we may do to ourselves. With a system of doctrine which we believe is taken from the New Testament, and a system of polity which, in all its general principles, is derived from the same source, we may not only stand our ground, but advance, if we will present the former in all its fullness, and will administer the latter with discretion and charity. Everything, under God’s blessing, depends upon our ministry. This, which is important to every denomination, is especially so to ours. We go forth, not only unsupported by the wealth and the power of the Established Church, but without the aid of that elaborately organized combination which is to be found in some sections that separate from it. Our ministers, so to speak, do not contend in regiments and in rank and file, but single-handed, and should therefore be all picked men, each possessed of courage and of skill. Let us only take care to send none but such into the field, and we may hope for a still more abundant measure of prosperity than we at present enjoy. There is room enough for all denominations in the vast wilderness of our neglected and unchristianized population, and we have no need to look at each other’s labors with jealousy and envy. Satan is ruining souls faster than all of us united can save them. It is a mark of deep malignity of heart, and a proof that it is the distempered zeal of bigotry that moves us, and not a pure love to God and souls, when we see with uneasiness the success of other denominations of evangelical Christians, and rejoice over their failure. To seize with avidity any acknowledgments of, and lamentations over, a want of usefulness, and then tearing them from their connection and exaggerating their statements, to hold them up exultingly to the world, and tauntingly to the denomination from which in frankness and in sorrow they have come, may suit well with the strategy of polemical warfare, and serve the cause of a party, but ill accords with the spirit of divine charity, and promotes but little the cause of our common Christianity.

In how many places of worship connected with the Establishment, and even where the gospel is preached, but preached with feebleness, do we find small congregations, and few souls converted to God. Do we rejoice over this? On the contrary, it is for a grief and a lamentation. And is there a heart so envenomed with the gall of bigotry, as to rejoice in the confession that is now made, that many of our congregations are withering away under the effete ministrations of incompetent men? Such a withering is indeed going on in many places. The fact cannot be concealed, it is notorious. We have been incautious in the admission, not of bad men, for few of these ever find their way into our pulpits — not of heretical men, for we take care not to receive such — but of incompetent men; not always incompetent in intellect, but in talents for public speaking, and the active duties of the pastorate. From this cause, combined with the increased energy and activity of the Church of England, our congregations are diminishing in some places, though multiplying and increasing in others. With the freedom of action we possess, unrestricted by parochial limits and ecclesiastical laws; with the world all before us, and Providence our guide; with a good feeling towards us on the part of the middle and lower classes, we have every ground to hope for success, if we can obtain an adequate number of energetic and earnest preachers: but we have not taken sufficient care to find out and educate this right sort of men, and in some places are certainly losing ground. Considerable towns might be mentioned, where congregations once numerous and flourishing are reduced down to mere skeletons, under the dull and deadening influence of heartless men, and yet perhaps good men too. It is more easy to settle an incompetent minister over a church than to remove him. It is true, we have advantages for such removal, not possessed by the Church of England. The pastorate is not in our churches a freehold; yet it must be confessed that even with us, the difficulty of getting rid of a pastor, except for immorality or heresy, and only on the ground of inefficiency, is not small. That a minister should wish to stay when he has preached away nearly all his congregation, breeds a suspicion of the purity of his motives, and is a reflection upon the integrity of his character. To reduce a congregation and scatter a church, first by inefficiency, and then by obstinacy in retaining his post in opposition to the wishes of his flock and the advice of his friends, is a serious matter to account for to God. Some such men talk of waiting for the leadings of Providence. One is at a loss to find out what rule of interpretation for ascertaining the will of God they have adopted: to everybody else but themselves, deserted pews and a dissatisfied as well as a reduced church, are a sufficient indication of the leadings of Providence, for their removal. In such a case one should suppose there needed no voice from heaven to say to the minister, “Arise, and go hence;” nor any finger to come forth, and in flaming characters write “Ichabod” on the walls. It is sometimes said in reference to such men and their flocks, that the people must suffer the consequences of a hasty choice: and so far as they are concerned, they deserve it; but then they suffer not alone, for the denomination in its strength, and character, and efficiency, suffers with them. The work of conversion, not only in our own denomination, but in the Church of England, and among the Methodists, goes on but slowly, and the spirituality of the great bulk of professors is too low. This is confessed and lamented by the Evangelical clergy, and by the Wesleyan ministers, as well as by ourselves. The Spirit’s influence seems in

some way and from some cause obstructed, and in the absence of this, our denomination is more likely to feel and manifest the visible results of it than almost any other; and such a consideration should lead us to more serious thoughtfulness and earnest prayer for a re ived and intensely devoted ministry.