there may be no meaning: in a dull and lifeless preacher, there is no meaning; and, in one of a contrary character, there may be nothing worthy of

the name.

There is, besides, TOO LITTLE ATTENTION, in many churches, TO MAN AS MAN. I would consult his convenience in all lawful points. If he could sit easier on cushions, he should have cushions. I would not tell him to be warm in God's service, while I leave him to shiver with cold. No doors should creak: no windows should rattle.

MUSIC has an important effect on devotion. Wherever fantastical music enters, it betrays a corrupt principle. A congregation cannot enter into it; or if it does, it cannot be a Christian congregation. Wherever there is an attempt to set off the music in the service, and the attempt is apparent, it is the first step toward carnality. Though there is too little life in the style of music adopted among the Moravians, yet the simplicity of Christianity pervades their devotion.

ORDER is important. Some persons by coming in when they please, propagate a loose habit of mind. For man is a sympathetic creature; and what he sees others neglect, he is in danger of growing negligent in himself. If the reader goes through the service as though the great business for which they are assembled is not yet begun, the people will soon feel thus themselves.

The minister should take occasion frequently to impress on the people the IMPORTANCE OF THE WORK in which they are engaged. It is not enough to take it for granted that they feel this. We must take nothing for granted. Man needs to be reminded of every thing, for he soon forgets every thing.

MONOTONY must be, above all things, avoided. The mind is vagrant: monotony cannot recal it, There may be continued vehemence, while the at

tention is not excited: it is disturbance and noise: there is nothing to lead the mind into a useful train of thought or feeling.

There is an opposite error to vehemence. Men of sense and literature depress devotion by treating things ABSTRACTEDLY. Simplicity, with good sense, is of unspeakable value. Religion must not be rendered abstract and curious. If a curious remark presents itself, reserve it for another place. The hearer gets away from the bustle and business of the week: he comes trembling under his fears: he would mount upward in his spirit: but a curious etymological disquisition chills and repels him.

In truth, we should be men of business in our congregations. We should endeavor both to excite and instruct our hearers. We should render the service an interesting affair in all its parts. We should rouse men: we should bind up the brokenhearted: we should comfort the feeble minded: we should support the weak: we should become all things to all men, if by any means we may save

some.

On the Marriage of Christian Ministers.

IT seems to me, that many men do not give sufficient weight to our Lord's observations upon those who made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake, nor to St. Paul's reasoning on the subject of marriage. I would only imply, that both our Lord and the apostle seem to establish it in a principle, that a single state, when it can be chosen and is chosen for the sake of the gospel is the superior state. This, I fear, is too much forgotten; and those men, who might have received the saying, and have done more service to the church of God by receiving it, have given it little or no weight in their deliberations.

And yet it ought to be considered, that the very character which would best fit men for living in a single state, would abstract them too much from the feelings and wants of their people. I am fully sensible that I should have been hardened against the distresses of my hearers, if I had not been reduced from my natural stoicism by domestic sufferings.

The cases, I allow, are extremely few, in which a man may do, on the whole, more service to the church by imitating St. Paul than by marrying: yet there are such cases; and it behooves every minister seriously to consider himself and his situation, before he determines on marriage. He should not regard this state as indispensably necessary to him, but should always remember, that, cæteris paribus, he, who remains single is most worthy of honor.

But, when it is proper that a minister should marry, and he has determined to do it, how few select such women as suit their high and holy character! A minister is like a man who has undertaken to traverse the world. He has not only fair and pleasant ground to travel over, but he must encounter deserts and marshes and mountains. The traveller wants a firm and steady stay. His wife should be above all things, a woman of faith and prayera woman, too, of a sound mind and of a tender heart-and one who will account it her glory to lay herself out in co-operating with her husband by meeting his wants and soothing his cares. She should be his unfailing resource, so far as he ought to seek this in the creature. Blessed is she, who is thus qualified and thus lives!

But after all, the married minister, if he would live devotedly, must move in a determined sphere. Whatever his wife may be, yet she is a woman-and if things are to go on well, they must have two separate worlds. There may, indeed, be cases, when

a man with something of a soft and feminine cast about his mind, may be united to a woman of a mind so superior and cultivated, that he may choose to make it his plan that they shall move in the same world. In such rare cases it may be done with less inconvenience than in any other. But, even here, the highest end is sacrificed to feeling. Every man, whatever be his natural disposition, who would urge his powers to the highest end, must be a man of solitary studies. Some uxorious men of considerable minds have moved so much in the women's world, that reflection, disquisition, and the energies of thought have been ruined by the habit of indulging the lighter, softer, and more playful qualities. Such a man is indeed, the idol of the female world; but he would rather deserve to be so, if he stood upon his own ground while he attempted to meet their wants, instead of descending to mingle among them.

God has put a difference between the sexes, but education and manners have put a still greater. They are designed to move in separate spheres, but occasionally to unite together in order to soften and relieve each other. To attempt any subversion of God's design herein, is being wiser than He who made us; and who has so established this affair that each sex has its separate and appropriate excellence-only to be attained by pursuing it in the order of nature. Thought is or ought to be the characterizing feature of the man, and feeling that of the woman.

Every man and woman in the world has an appropriate mind; and that in proportion to their strength of thought and feeling. Each has a way of their own-a habit a system-a world-separated and solitary, in which no person on earth can have communion with them. Job says of God, He knoweth the way that I take; and, when the Christian finds a want of competency in his bosom friend

to understand and meet his way, he turns with an especial nearness and familiarity of confidence to God, who knoweth it in all its connexions and associations, its peculiarities and its imperfections.

I may be thought to speak harshly of the female character; but, whatever persuasion I have of its intended distinction from that of man, I esteem a woman, who aims only to be what God designed her to be, as honorable as any man on earth. She stands not in the same order of excellence, but she is equally honorable.

But women have made themselves, and weak men have contributed to make them, what God never designed them to be. Let any thinking man survey the female character as it now standsoften nervous, debilitated, and imaginative, and this super-induced chiefly by education and mannersand he will find it impossible that any great vigor of mind can be preserved, or any high intellectual pursuits cultivated, so far as this character stands in his way.

"DOING AS OTHERS DO," is the prevalent principle of the present female character, to whatever absurd, preposterous, masculine, or even wicked lengths it may lead. This is so far as it crails with man or woman, the ruin, death, and grave of all that is noble, and virtuous, and praise-worthy.

A studious man, whose time is chiefly spent at home, and especially a minister, ought not to have to meet the imaginary wants of his wife. The disorders of an imaginative mind are beyond calculation. He is not worthy the name of a husband, who will not with delight nurse his wife, with all possible tenderness and love, through a real visitation, however long; but he is ruined, if he falls upon a woman of a sickly fancy. It is scarcely to be calculated what an influence the spirit of his wife will have on his own, and on all his ministerial affairs. If she comes not up to the full standard,