too little on character. Knowledge, piety, zeal, love, not numbers, give strength to a church." "My animal frame has seldom been able, for many years, to sustain that degree of emotion which is often desirable in the pulpit, and a sense of duty has required me to restrain those feelings, on which the satisfaction and success of a preacher's labours greatly depend." To Dr. Tyler he wrote: "It occurred to me while reading your Review, that your training to the pen, in our old monthly meeting, had further ends than you were then aware of." "I never allow myself to forget that I am a minister of the gospel, and probably am recognized as such, by my dress and manners, even among strangers. This consideration is always present to my mind on a journey. In one case, where an ostler had administered some remedies to the inflamed eye of my horse, having forgotten to remunerate him, I wrote back sixty miles to a friend, to do this in my behalf." "Without time to enter into particulars, my difficulty is that Dr. Taylor's note to his sermon, his views of native depravity, of means and regeneration, are virtually Arminian; at least that they will be so understood, as to bring up a race of young preachers thoroughly. anti-Calvinistic." "The best commentary on the religion taught by a minister, is, that first of all it makes himself a good man. His hearers do demand and ought to demand that he shall live what he preaches. "Who would listen to a Diotrephes condemning ambition, or to a Pharisee condemning hypocrisy? Words are cheap; splendid professions are empty things. Let the man possess the love of God in his own soul. This will give sanctity and weight to his life, his language, his very looks." "During twenty-two years' experience as an instructor of theological students, I have heard not a few young men lament their own haste in entering the ministry, but not an individual have I known to intimate that he had spent too much time in preparatory studies." "What was knowledge in the thirteenth century is ignorance now. What was energy then, is imbecility and stupidity now. As was said in another case, it becomes not our sacred profession, in this period of intellectual progress, to remain like the ship that is moored to its station, only to mark the rapidity of the current that is sweeping by. Let the intelligence of the age outstrip us and leave us behind, and religion would sink, with its teachers, into insignificance. Ignorance cannot wield this intelligence. Give to the church a feeble ministry, and the world breaks from your hold; your main-spring of moral influence is gone." "The man who cannot say No, and stand to it, is of little account in this world." "The ship in full sail keeps on her way for a short distance after her canvass is taken in; but if the propelling power is not renewed, VOL. I.-No. 9. 52 she moves slowly, then stops, and then is drifted backward by the tide." "It would give me no pain to see New England en masse Presbyterian in one year." A CHARGE TO THE PEOPLE. SUBSTANCE OF A CHARGE TO THE PEOPLE," DELIVERED AT A RÉCENT INSTALLATION. [By request furnished for the Presbyterian Magazine.] By the appointment of the Presbytery it devolves on me to address the members of this church and congregation on the subject of their duties involved in this pastoral relationship now formed. The minister has been reminded of his duties and exhorted to their faithful performance. Suffer me in like manner to speak to you, the people; to mention some of your duties, and to point out the strength of your obligations. I shall do this plainly, but I hope in the spirit of Christian affection. If a word should be spoken that seems tinctured with a spirit of rebuke, it must be regarded as general and not personal, as aimed at a common sin, and not at this particular congregation. The Head of the Church has committed the ministry of reconciliation to men, imperfect men. "We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us." In speaking of your duties to your pastor, I will speak of your duties to him as a man, and of your duties to him as a minister. As Christ has appointed men to preach the gospel, the hearers of the gospel, and especially the professors of the gospel, should be willing to receive them as such, and to supply their human wants, to bear with their human infirmities, and to respect their human peculiarities. 1. As a man, a minister has human wants. He needs food and raiment, and a home with its proper comforts, not to speak of those means of intellectual improvement which as a scholar and a teacher he needs. The preacher needs bread, but he "cannot live by bread alone." Too many of our congregations, unconscious themselves of intellectual wants, do not appreciate this want of their minister.* The law of nature, and the higher law of Christ, equally say that they who preach the gospel should live by the gospel. We do not expect those who hate the gospel to respect either the one or the * At a late installation in the West, the people were justly charged never to allow their minister to be so straitened as to be compelled to withdraw his subscription from the religious Quarterly of the denomination. Such a periodical is a necessary of life in the ministry. How many of our ministers are, by the penuriousness of their congregations, prevented from taking that most valuable work, the "Biblical Repertory." other of these laws; but Christian men and women, who love Christ and his cause, are expected to honour both, and especially to love the appointments of their Master. When Christ sent forth his apostles, even as sheep in the midst of wolves, he required that they should depend on the hospitality of those to whom they carried the gospel. This doctrine was preached and practised by the apostles; and although Paul sometimes, on account of the peculiarity of his circumstances, declined being dependent on others, and supported himself by the labour of his hands, he invariably maintained the principle that they who preach the gospel should live by the gospel. To the Romans he says, "If the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things, their duty is also to minister unto them in carnal things," Rom. xv. 27. To the Galatians he says, "Let him that is taught in the word, communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things," Gal. vi. 6. And thus might we go on multiplying quotations from one end of the New Testament to the other, but the principle is hardly denied. The duty of a congregation collectively is manifest, and is generally recognized, but the principle, carried out, throws an obligation on all who hear the gospel, and especially on all who profess to receive it, according to their several ability to contribute of their substance. And in whatever way in any particular congregation the gospel may be supported, whether by pew-rents or by voluntary contributions, the duty rests upon all, faithfully and punctually as God gives them the ability, to minister their proportion. The burden or the privilege, whichever it may be regarded, should not be left to the few, but all take their share. It seems to be a principle of human nature to value a thing in proportion to its cost. The man who does nothing for the gospel will not be likely to care much for it; while he who truly loves the gospel will doubtless do something in the way of contributions and labours for it. A minister's salary should be paid punctually; first, as a matter of justice, because it is so promised and expected; second, as a matter of convenience, if not of absolute necessity to him; for there are few whose income is sufficient to give them means beforehand; and third, as a matter of Christian policy. A minister is expected to be an honest man-scrupulously so; he is expected, moreover, to be a man of some delicacy of feeling. Now it is not pleasant for such an one to wear another man's coat, or to sit down to eat another man's bread. He ought to be able to pay for the things he uses, and to pay for them before he uses them. But apart from a minister's feelings, there is another consideration-it is the judgment of the world. There are few things men are less likely to forget, or less ready to forgive, than a pecuniary debt. Our Saviour illustrates this fact in the parable, where one servant seizes his fellow servant by the throat, and demands, "Pay me what thou owest." Ministers sometimes suffer in reputation because they are not punctual in discharging their pecuniary obligations. Sometimes, no doubt, they are themselves to blame; it is the result of their own improvidence or extravagance; but how often is it the fault of the people. One of the exhortations of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthian Church was, that they should so conduct that the ministry be not blamed. One of the sources of the Church's power for good is the moral influence of the ministry, and if through her carelessness this influence is weakened, she is the loser, and Christ's cause is the sufferer. We do not expect in these days that any peculiar sacredness. will attach to the name or office of a minister of the gospel. Excessive reverence is not the fault of the age. Unless by his character a minister of the gospel commands respect, he need not expect to do so ex officio. While, then, it especially becomes them to take heed unto themselves, let not the church be the occasion of their minister's becoming contemptible by his penurious chafferings, or his long unpaid accounts, resulting from the church's want of generosity, or want of justice, or want of punctuality. 2. As a man, the minister of the gospel has his infirmities. There are spots on the sun, and weaknesses in the best of men. Do not stumble at your minister's imperfections-do not fix your mind upon them-do not direct attention to them-do not exaggerate them; rather cover them; look from faults to virtues, from imperfections and weaknesses to excellencies. We ministers of the gospel do not claim to be above judgment; but we ask a portion of that charity that other men need. We do not think it is charitable to us, or edifying to others, to make our infirmities a prominent object of attention. It is sometimes the case that an individual, or a few, take a dislike to a minister. There may be no special ground for it; they have no particular charge to bring, but they do not like him. They will not deny that he is a Christian, and a Christian gentleman; that he preaches the truth, and that he preaches it faithfully-but they do not like him, and if they attempt a reason for their dislike, it is about as magnanimous and reasonable as the man in Peter Pindar: "I do not like you, Doctor Fell, The reason why, I cannot tell, The true reason sometimes is, that the minister is liked by others; sometimes that he cannot be made their man. Such injustice is sometimes aggravated by subsequent treatment apparently kind; after having destroyed their victim, they speak well of him, just as the Sandwich Islanders after having murdered Captain Cook, adored his bones. The more unreasonable such a prejudice is, the harder it is to combat it, and the more unlikely that it will ever be cured. Such persons, if they are Christians, ought to remember that they are bound to be reasonable. They should remember too, that the minister is engaged not in his own, but in his and their Master's work, and that in thwarting him and injuring his influence, they are working against Christ's cause. Such a course is about as wise as if the farmer's son, because he does not like his father's man, should do all he can to hinder him in his work; blunt his scythe, break his plough, root up his plants. If the minister be worthy of his office, let his hands be held up, let his influence be strengthened, let him be encouraged and helped in his work. Let him not be made an idol, let him not be worshipped. Ministers do not need flatterers, but they need friends. The people who wanted to worship Paul, were presently the very persons to stone him. Let the minister be esteemed for the sake of the truth he preaches, for the sake of the Master he serves. You would not refuse pure water even if it should be handed to you in a fractured vessel. Nor would you refuse gold, although handed in a ragged purse. Do not then despise God's truth, although presented by a man of like passions with yourself. If Christ has considered him worthy to be sent, do you consider him worthy to be received. 3. As a man, each minister has his peculiarities. We are not all made alike in body or in mind. Now those points which characterize individuals are to be respected and tolerated. A minister is not to be disliked on account of the colour of his hair, or the size of his person. But we have heard of those who objected to a man because he was insignificant in appearance; he was a good man and an able preacher, but like Zaccheus he was small in stature, and therefore quite unfit to be the pastor of so fine a congregation. Now objections to a man on account of innocent mental peculiarities are equally frivolous. As Christ sends a man to be your minister, be willing that he should be a man, having his own thoughts and his own ways, responsible alone to his Master for them. While we cheerfully acknowledge that his work as a minister is his great work, that relation his chief relation, he also sustains other relations in life, domestic, social, political. He is a man as well as a minister; allow him to rule his house, and to direct his domestic affairs, according to his own judgment. In social life allow him to have his friends, and to exercise his own taste in those matters. If, as a citizen of a free country, he has his own opinions on political subjects, and chooses as a Christian man to assert them, or even to vote according to them, be willing that he should. In becoming a minister, a man does not forfeit his civil rights, or cancel his civil obligations; he still continues to be a man and a citizen; and shame on that intolerant spirit that cannot bear that another man, and especially a minister of the gospel, should think his own thoughts, and act according to his own convictions. But we sometimes meet with those who cannot bear that a minister should have a single thought or opinion which which does not square with their own; and if he dare say a word, or lisp that he has a mind of his own, he may prepare himself for the consequences. By some it is insisted that the minister shall have no thought, or at least, shall express no thought on any subject that concerns the congregation, about which there can be two opinions. In questions |