Hence new schools, new societies, new lectures, are hastily instituted, and almost as hastily fall into neglect. The seed is sown, but it is neither watered nor weeded; so that, long before it comes to a state to afford any serviceable produce, it perishes for want of cultivation. Habits of clerical vagrancy are in this respect highly injurious; and though, generally speaking, it may be more the misfortune than the wish of the clergy, frequently to change the sphere of their ministration, induced to do so on ac count of the inadequacy of many of our cures to afford a decent provision, the effect upon their flocks cannot be too deeply deplored. Congregations are thus dispersed; new habits are formed; some, who "seemed to run well," go back; while others, who were just coming under the influence of the benevolent plans laid for their benefit, are forgotten in the multiplicity of new objects and operations. A minister who is conscious of that common failing, the love of novelty, should strenuously watch and pray against it; and he should especially beware of being seduced, by a flattering prospect of hypothetical good, to forego what is real and substantial. There is great danger of "despising the day of small things;" of consuming life in laying projects which are never likely to be realized, instead of attending to what is actually within our power at the present moment. A minister should not be above descending from generals to circumstantials; from congregated hundreds, as they present them selves to his notice on the Sabbath, to the most solitary outcast or straggler whom he may happen to encounter during the week. If, for instance, he should observe any one individual apparently impressed, or impressible, with religious considerations, he should endeavour to improve the occasion for permanent advantage. The physician of the body, indeed, retires 1 as soon as his patient recovers; but the physician of the soul, whose lessons of heavenly wisdom began perhaps to be anxiously listened to in the season of sickness and affliction, should not thus abruptly take his leave he should endeavour to deepen the salutary impressions made in the hour of dejection, and to watch over the practical operation of those resolutions which were formed while the spirit was tender and the heart susceptible. A few cases thus anxiously and perseveringly followed up, will probably in the end bring forth far more abundant and substantial fruit, than is likely to arise from the most flattering variety of imposing but transient and abortive projects. A clergyman contented thus to labour unostentatiously and unintermittingly, will in the course of years see grow up around him a generation formed in some measure under his guidance, and prepared, it may be hoped, by the blessing of God, to become "his crown of rejoicing in the presence of the Lord Jesus at his coming." 8. Another source of impediment arises from the personal indiscretions, inconsistencies, and defects of ministers.-The specifications under this head would be as endless as painful. For example, frivolity of character; indiscretion of speech; petty meanness of conduct; ignorance of the proprieties of society, or contempt for them; gross deficiency in the knowledge of the common affairs of life, followed by embarrassments, which not only expose the individual to ridicule in the eyes of the world,' but prove how little he is qualified to counsel others in their difficulties, or to solve, on just principles, their cases of conscience; and which, moreover, lead persons to the inference, that a man so apparently weak of understanding, and open to mistake and imposition in daily affairs, cannot be a very competent guide or authority in the matters of religion. Akin to this is whatever justly tends to lower a minister's character and respectability. I would adduce only two illustrations-namely, not ruling his own house wisely; and, allowing his pecuniary expenses to exceed his income. These two points, simple as they may appear, deserve serious consideration; for, among the subordinate causes of want of pastoral success, it might be difficult to find any of greater potency than these, wherever they occur. A clergyman overwhelmed with debts to his parishioners, whether his debts arise from vanity or from improvidence, loses his influence over their minds; and it is well if he is not also guilty, as too many persons who heedlessly plunge into debt are, of artifices, evasions, and perhaps worse offences, which must bring him into contempt, and utterly destroy the spiritual effect of his ministrations. However rigid may be the economy called for by a clergyman's circumstances, to that degree of economy he is conscientiously bound to submit; and every step beyond it, except under inevitable visitations of Providence, is an advance towards disgrace and ruin both as a man and a minister. The privations of many of the poorer clergy are indeed most deeply to be deplored and sympathized with-and would that they were remedied!-but, to the credit of this class generally be it spoken, it is not in their quarter that the above-mentioned impediment to ministerial usefulness is to be chiefly found. Virtuous indigence may excite pity, but it is not in itself either contemptible or disgraceful; nay, if borne with patience and self-denial, and not augmented by vanity or imprudence, it may serve to elevate rather than debase a minister in the eyes of his parishioners: but it is where Divine Providence has bestowed sufficient for the purposes of comfort and respectability, but where, unhappily, ostentation or habits of improvi dence create larger demands, which there is not sufficient strength of religion or self-denying principle to repress, that the offence in question arises, and is attended with the most disastrous consequences.-The other point, also, above mentioned, is of great moment; for the world at large, religious or irreligious, perfectly concur with the Apostle, that, if a man rule not his own house well, he is not likely to take care of the church of God. The subject deserves to be mentioned the more particularly, even in this brief enumeration, because some ministers of undoubted piety, and who are exemplary in most points of personal conduct, mournfully fail in their plans of domestic government. A minister's household ought to be an example to his whole flock; and shame to the clergyman who, either from negligence, or from connivance, or from the love of ease, or from culpable weakness, or even from an exclusive attention to his public duties and the concerns of others, suffers the aspect of his family to cast a public reproach upon his sacred ministrations! Even such apparently slight circumstances as his domestic arrangements, the dress and deportment of his servants and other branches of his family, will be keenly scrutinized, and, if unsuitable to his pastoral character, may produce ill effects which no advice or exhortation can counteract. It is scarcely necessary to specify personal deficiencies of a different kind-such as defects of manner, slovenly composition, an unhappy method of reading the services, defective enunciation, and a variety of kindred points; which, however, deserve their due measure of consideration among the subordinate classes of ministerial impediment. It is very certain that the world are powerfully swayed by such minor considerations; and not a few ministers of great attainments, and endowed with. much zeal and piety, have had occasion to lament, that, for the want of attending in their youth to these little external matters, their future usefulness was in a considerable degree impeded, and their labours rendered less acceptable to society. The topic, however, would not have called for an especial mention in the present enumeration, had not some good men, upon principle, diverted their own attention, and that of the younger clergy, from all points of this nature, alleging the example and the remarks of the great Apostle of the Gentiles as their authority. But it is very clear that this eminent servant of Christ, who was willing to become "all things [lawful] to all men, that he might save some," never meant to discourage a due attention to the little proprieties of manner, and the indifferent tastes and prejudices of society. His reprehensions are levelled only at those who debased the purity of Christian doctrine by unholy mixtures; who substituted the captious reasonings of the sophists, and the ambitious eloquence of the schools, for the simplicity of solid Christian instruction, and the humbling doctrines of the cross of Christ. 9. The defects mentioned under the preceding head imply more or less culpability in those of the clergy to whom they apply the impediment next to be mentioned is of a different character; for it is the calamity, but not always the fault, of pious and exemplary ministers, particularly in obscure country places, when they cannot command influential lay co-operation and assistance.-In many happy instances, laymen of wealth and inAluence are seen uniting with their pastor in his schemes of utility; enforcing the observance of the Sabbath in their families and neighbourhoods; providing for the comforts of the poor; ensuring a full and punctual attendance on Divine worship; promoting education and good morals; and doing all in their power to render the exertions of their spiritual instructor generally acceptable and efficient. Instances might be mentioned, in which landed proprietors have even made it an express condition in their agreements with their tenantry that their children should be taught to read the Scriptures, and that both parents and children should regularly frequent public worship. But it is not always that the scene of a minister's labours is thus auspicious. Often, indigent, unknown, unsupported, he enters a parish, where, if he will not fall to the level of the surrounding religious indifference, and connive at the prevailing vices of the place, he must be prepared, not for general co-operation in his measures, but for suspicion, misrepresentation, and reproach,-especially if his doctrines have been duly formed by the unaccommodating standard of the Scriptures and of his own church. In such unhappy, but alas! too common instances, a minister may exert himself for years, with the greatest discretion, humi. lity, and diligence, before he be gins to discover the salutary effect of his labours. It is painful to reflect what formidable embarrassments one single individual, of wide but abused influence, may cause to the faithful ministrations of his pastor, and the spiritual welfare of his neighbours. In many instances, a vague, unmeaning outcry of "Methodism," or "Calvinism," or "Evangelism," or "Puritanism," (it matters little by what name of reproach scriptural piety is desig nated,) is raised in a parish, to the utter exclusion of justice, candour, or impartiality in judging of the doctrines or the conduct of the im plicated individual; and thus for a lengthened period may the most faithful and consistent servant of Christ be constrained to proceed in desertion and sorrow, till the soundness of his tenets and the purity of his life effectually refute the calumny. And even where there is no positive attempt to im pede a minister's plans of useful» ness, the coldness and neutrality of his more wealthy parishioners will often produce many of the effects of positive hostility. These things che Christian minister must, whereever necessary, be prepared to bear, since they naturally result from the great contest, which has been in progress for nearly six thousand years, between darkness and light, the kingdom of Satan and the kingdom of God. They must, how ever, be classed among the serious impediments to the success of the pastoral office, and should be prevented, as far as possible, by such a wise and disinterested line of conduct as may disarm malice of its sting, and convert neutrals and opponents into friends. 10. The impediment just men tioned was from without the walls of the sanctuary; but a still more formidable one is found within its inmost pale-the want of union among the clergy themselves. Even in cases where some leading individuals among the surrounding Jaity are disposed to co-operate in promoting the extension of religion in their vicinity, the difference which exist among the clergy themselves furnish a fearful obstacle. This is too large a subject for discussion in the present cursory remarks there is, however, one particular branch of it, which it may be important just to notice, namely, the want of cordial union among many who, differing as they may in points of minor interest, yet agree in all the essentials of faith and practice, and are really anxious for the salvation of mankind. It is deeply to be lamented that the divisions in the visible church of Christ are not confined to the necessary breach between those who evidently serve God, and those who as evidently serve him not; but that even among those who in the main think alike, and who are equally anxious for the extension of the Redeemer's kingdom, the enemy of souls contrives to sow the tares of division, and to wound the Saviour in the house of his professed friends. It surely is not to be wondered at, that the preaching of the Gospel meets with comparatively such small success, when we consider how grievously even those " who have esca ped from the pollution which is in the world through lust," are often perplexed by controversies on unessential points of doctrine or discipline, and by the divisions which they witness among the ministers of Christ. When will Christians duly feel the necessity of forgetting trivial debates, in the wiser, and holier, and infinitely more useful office of contending for the common faith, and strengthening each other's hands in the general contest with "the world, the flesh, and the devil?" W. MISCELLANEOUS. REMARKS DURING A JOURNEY Charleston, North Carolina, THE celebrated Missouri question continued the great subject of discussion, both in and out of Con CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 249. gress, as long as I remained at Washington. The debates, both on the constitutional difficulties involved in the question, and on the expediency of the proposed restrictions, were very interesting; the former, as developing the spirit of the constitution, and requiring a constant reference to the original principles of the confederation; 4 Ꭰ the latter, as exhibiting the views of the most enlightened men in the country with regard to the probable effects of the admission of slavery into Missouri. I left Washington on the 24th ult. proceeding only to Alexandria, six miles distant, where I slept, and where I had been not a little surprised to meet Joseph Lancaster a few days before. I set off the next morning at three o'clock, in what is called the mail-stage, the only public conveyance to the southward, and a wretched contrast to the excellent coaches in the north. It is a covered waggon, open at the front, with four horses; and although it was intensely cold, I was obliged to take my seat by the driver, in order to secure a view of the country during the remainder of the day. The road lay across woody labyrinths, through which the driver seemed to wind by instinct; and we often jolted into brooks which were scarcely fordable. Leaving Mount Vernon, which I had previously visited, to our left, we reached Occoquan, twenty-three miles, to breakfast. Occoquan is romantically situated on a river of the same name, which winds below masses of rock, that my companion compared to those of the Hot-wells at Clifton, but they did not appear to me to be so high. We then proceeded by Neapsco, Dumfries, the Wappomansie River, Acquia, Stafford, and Falmouth, to Fredericksburgh, a small town on the Rappahannock, which we crossed by moon-light. Our journey this day was fifty miles in sixteen hours. -The next morning at three o'clock we left Fredericksburgh, and, passing the Bowling Green, Hanover Court-house, and the Oaks, reached Richmond at seven o'clock, sixty-six miles, in seventeen hours. At Hanover Court-house, at least 150 horses were standing fastened to the trees, all the stables being full, as it was a court day. This gave me a good opportunity of examining the Virginia horses, which appear to deserve their re putation. After we left Alexandria, the country assumed an aspect very different from any which I had before seen. For miles together the road runs through woods of pine, intermingled with oak and cedar; the track sometimes contracting within such narrow limits that the vehicle rubs against the trees; at others expanding to the width of a London turnpike-road, yet so beset with stumps of trees that it requires no common skill to effect a secure passage. On emerging, at intervals, from forests which you have begun to fear may prove interminable, the eye wanders over an extensive country, thickly wooded, and varied with hill and dale; and the monotony of the road is further relieved by precipitous descents into romantic creeks, or small valleys, which afford a passage to the little rivers which are hastening to the Atlantic. Every ten or fifteen miles you come either to a little village, composed of a few frame houses, with an extensive substantial house, whose respectable appearance, rather than any sign, demonstrates it to be a tavern (as the inns are called), or to a single house appropriated to that purpose, and standing alone in the woods. At these taverns you are accosted, often with an easy civility, sometimes with a repulsive frigidity, by a landlord who appears perfectly indifferent whether or not you take any thing for the good of the house. If, however, you intimate an intention to take some refreshment, a most plentiful repast is immediately set before you, consisting of beef-steaks, fowls, tur kies, ham, partridges, eggs, and, if near the coast, fish and oysters, with a great variety of hot bread, both of wheat flour and Indian corn, the latter of which is prepared in many ways, and is very good. The landlord usually comes in to converse with you, and to make one of the party; and as one |