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The language of another is: "Do you tell me that I must be a clergyman? Tell not me that. Tell that to the marines. I am young, but have learned something. I cannot forget the wan countenance of my mother as she listened to the complaints of the parishioners against the words, and the manners, and the dress of her husband and herself and her children; and as she took her last look of the parsonage where her infants were born, and where she had tended her frugal garden of herbs and flowers. She went in a sort of exile to a second parish, and then, as in another banishment, to a third, where again she found no rest, until she had her dismission from the church militant."

It is doubtless true that the wants of the world for ministers will not be fully met until ministers receive a pecuniary recompense adequate to their needs, and until they be allowed to work in one place so long as there is no valid reason for their removal to another place. Still, our young men need to be reminded again and again, that it is not the clergyman alone who must pass through much tribulation into the kingdom of God. The very brightest page of the good man's biography is that promise of our Redeemer: "There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake and the gospel's, but he shall receive a hundred fold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life." Our young men need also to be reminded that temperance is often a harder virtue than abstinence, and temperance amid luxuries is harder than temperance without the possibility of obtaining luxuries; and while a clergyman must deny himself in bearing the evils of a meagre stipend, the banker, if he be rich in faith, must deny himself in resisting the temptations of inflowing wealth; and the self-denials of the palace may be equal, while dissimilar, to those of the parsonage. Henry Thornton may have endured as great pain in refusing to gratify himself as Wil1 See Note A, at the end of this Article.

liam Carey endured in being unable to gratify himself. The pious warrior, enwreathed with the laurels of victory, may. pass through as great a fight of afflictions in opposing his love of fame, as the minister endures in being neglected and impoverished by men who fail to detect his worth.

Our young friends need to be reminded further, that not only the religious man, but every man is doomed to encounter hardships peculiar to himself. A young lawyer and a young physician often suffer more than a young minister. Every profession is in some respects worse than every other. The sons of mariners, of editors, of physicians often shrink back from the calling of their parents. With what eagerness did Rufus Choate turn away from the turmoils of the law for a few minutes' refreshment under the shade of classic authors. "Would that I had been a geologist" said Daniel Webster. One year after John Adams retired from his presidency he wrote: "Under the continual provocations breaking and pouring in upon me, from unexpected as well as expected quarters, during the last two years of my administration, he must have been more of a modern Epicurean philosopher than ever I was or ever will be, to have borne them all without some incautious expressions, at times, of unutterable indignation." A president of the United States, a member of the National or the State Senate, a postmaster, a custom-house officer is liable to be "dismissed" from a service which he remains as able to perform as he ever was. One of the modern Romish fathers, earning his daily bread by teaching the Oriental languages and working as a compositor in a printing-office, had for his motto: "Tribulations are my distinction, and poverty my glory."

Besides, our young men hear too often of clerical disquietudes without hearing often enough of clerical compensations. The calling of the preacher is to walk with God. His business is to dwell in the truth. His daily life is in those great arguments which expand the soul. His familiar words are on the loftiest themes. His daily routine of action is round. about the spiritual world. He writes for eternity. His scr

mons will continue their benign results in heaven. He follows his parishioners to the very margin of the river, which they cross before him. They point him to some tree of life which has just presented itself to their eye, and which he would not have detected unless they had turned his vision upon it. They direct his ear to some new psalm which is echoed to their hearing, and which he would not have noticed unless he had seen them exhilarated by it. As the door of heaven is opening for them, he looks through the avenue which they pass through, and beholds things which it is not lawful for man to utter. He that walketh with wise men shall be wise; and the pastor walks hand in hand with men whom the heavens have begun to touch, and in one minute after he hears their last word, they are sanctified, they are glorified. Our youthful friends must not read of the down-cast clergyman without reading the oracle, inspiring as well as inspired: "They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever."

Again, if we would augment the number of ministers, we must expose the errors not only of young men who ought to become ministers, but also of the parishes that ought to support them. Many parishes conduct themselves as if they supposed that the sensibilities of pastors are not to be cared for as are the sensibilities of other men. Pastors are so earnest in recommending a spiritual life, that they expose themselves to be treated like disembodied spirits. A clergyman who has a world-wide reputation remarked in his extreme old age: "If I live three years longer I shall not have property enough left to pay for my coffin." But he had preached so often against the love of filthy lucre that he was not suspected of feeling an acute pain in view of his penniless old age. A venerable pastor says: "After the outbreak of the late rebellion I was deserted by two of my wealthy parishioners; one on the pretence that I did not discourse on politics, the other on the pretence that I did discourse on politics." Yet this pastor had uttered so many rapturous

words on the joys of living elevated above the world, that he was not imagined to be grieved by this desertion of his lifelong friends. When a minister has spent the flower of his life in a parish, and become attached to its hills and brooks and vales, and then loses the melody of his voice, and ceases to attract the multitude into the new meeting house, he is often cast aside as if he were nothing but a worn-out auctioneer, whose voice has become like a cracked bell and can no longer induce the bystanders to bid high for their pews; but he is not supposed to be broken-hearted by the indignity which he suffers, for he has often read from the pulpit: "To us remains nor place nor time;

Our country is in every clime;

We can be calm and free from care
On any shore, since God is there."

He must not harbor any local attachment, for he is a clergyman; his only care must be for "being in general." He must not indulge in even healthful amusement, for he is a clergyman, and his thoughts must be above the world. He must not cherish a love of reputation, for he is a clergyman, and must be willing to regard himself the "offscouring of all things."

Now it is very true that there are minor usages appropriate to a minister as to no one else; just as there are minor usages appropriate to soldiers and sailors as to no one else. But the minister is a man before he becomes a minister. He has duties to himself as a man which antedate his duties to himself as a minister. It is of more fundamental importance that he be treated as a human being than that he be treated as a professional one. His opulent parishioners have no right to enjoy their luxuries and see him crippled for want of a library. If it be his duty to reprove a man who will resent the reprimand, it is their duty to stand by him and ward off the resentment. Our parishes demand that their minister be earnest and eloquent; but such a minister will have sensibilities. His organization and culture make him like a sensitive plant, shrinking at the first rude touch. His people,

then, should gather around him as a hedge, and protect him from rough handling. The wants of the church for pastors will not be met until the public mind is penetrated with the truth, that the duties of all men are essentially the same; those of laymen are correlate with those of clergymen; the pastor being the president of the brethren, and the people rallying around him as their brother while he is their bishop; he their earthly high-priest while they are kings and priests in the same temple.

There is another wrong view which must be set right, or we shall fail of obtaining for the ministry some young men who ought to enter it. It has been said, that if a youth have not a spirit inciting him to encounter the worst evils of a pastorate he is not fit, and should not be encouraged to prepare, for one; either he has no piety, or else has not piety enough, or not manliness enough, to become a pastor.

We must own that if he clearly perceives the ministerial office to be required of him, and if he recoils from it because it thwarts his selfish aims, he does want one of the most decisive signs that he is, and he does exhibit one of the most decisive signs that he is not, a disciple of Jesus. Still we must not be in haste to say that a young man is unfit for the ministry because he starts back from its annoyances. He is a young man, and although he recognizes his obligation to deny himself for the eternal welfare of the world, yet he does not discern his obligation to deny himself for the temporal convenience of an avaricious parish. He is a young man, and does not see through the clouds of trouble that hang around the clerical office; he does not refuse, but does not detect, his duty that lies hidden behind those clouds. He may be a godly man, and still conscientiously believe that he is not called to be a clergyman. Every pious youth is not thus called. A late eminent judge of the supreme court of Massachusetts became a convert to the truth not until after he had gained a large practice in the law. He then inquired of his pastor: "Ought I not to leave the law and enter the pulpit?" His pastor replied: "No; for three reasons: first,

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