was indeed set to reading during his intervals of respite from active duties, but all of his studies were to be pursued with direct reference to immediate use; and surely his "profiting appeared to all." This method prevailed very generally among English Dissenters till comparatively recently, and it was certainly abundantly justified by its results. Mr. Wesley, by a like process, built up his lay ministry, comprising not a few men of decided ability and scholarship; and in our own times, that prince of preachers and of evangelistic propagandists, Mr. Spurgeon, is himself a product of the same system, in which he manifests his confidence by his large practical use of it. The average minister of the Gospel is not required to be, in the specific sense, a scholar; and while a good degree of general intelligence is highly desirable, both for mental training and for religious teaching; yet all that is thus required stops short of proper scholarship. The two callings-those of the Christian pastor and of the theological and biblical scholar-are diverse as to their subjects and the qualifications they call for; and because both are exacting in their demands, and engrossing to the minds devoted to them, they are usually incompatible. And this consideration should be allowed due influence in the ordering of both the substance of teaching and the methods of preparing men for the ministry of the Gospel. The purpose is to prepare those under instruction for the pastoral work, to fit them to preach the plain and simple Gospel to congregations, most of which will usually be plain people; and even the better educated will need simple Gospel truth more than learned discussions and elegant rhetoric. And, since the Gospel minister must pass his time in intimate association with unscholarly people, though it is desirable that he should be more learned and better cultured than the average of them, he ought not to be too far removed from them in his modes of thinking and in his associations and tastes. It is evident indeed that only a small proportion of our educated ministers ever become scholars, because they will give themselves diligently to their official duties, and choose to be faithful and effective ministers. And as they practically consent to do what they vowed to do when they assumed the work of the ministry-"laying aside the world and the flesh "--they become men of one book, because they are men of one work. The popular sarcasm whien says that it takes a young minister as many years as he spent in the seminary to get rid of the mannerisms of thought and speech and behavior there acquired, and to place himself in the same plane with his people, though often unjust, may still contain an element of truth, and if so, the fault is not their own but that of their training. Theological Professors, too, are usually "bookish" men, rather than men of affairs, in active sympathy with the great world of living and breathing thoughts and feelings; and of course they unconsciously draw their pupils into their own atmosphere of life and thought, and reproduce in them their own mental and spiritual habitudes. They are also scholars inflamed with a noble enthusiasm for their special studies, and in proportion to their abilities as instructors they awaken like enthusiasm among their pupils, and also initiate them into the first stages of scholarly life. But for all, except the few who are to become specialists, these beginnings must go no further, for as soon as the nascent minister passes outward through the door of the seminary he must begin to disuse and practically unlearn a large proportion of what he had there acquired, because it will not be called for. In the continental universities all the studies are special and largely professional, and both their theological and biblical learning is of a high grade, suitable only for specialists. With them the ideal of the ministry is, that it is a learned profession rather than a pastoral calling for the cure of souls. The condition of the State Church in Germany, and, to a modified extent in the British islands, attests the inadequacy and infelicity of these methods. The Roman Catholics proceed upon a wholly different theory. Their secular or working clergy are men of the people, and not very far removed from them in thought and associations, and their efficiency as pastors appears to be largely due to that fact. In like manner our Protestant congrega tions require "pastors and teachers" rather than scholars, real or ficti tious; and if our seminaries labor to give us only the latter kind rather than the former, they must assuredly fail of the most satisfactory results. The Bible, it will be granted, is the principal text-book in all properly directed education for the ministry; and with most of those who compass the whole course of the schools, in their preparatory studies, the English Bible will still be their chief resource, while not a few who have read the word only in their vernacular have become mighty in the Scriptures. Still the study of the originals is not to be depreciated, though it may be doubted whether the prevailing methods are altogether felicitous. They seem to be quite too microscopic to answer the requirements of ordinary students. An undue amount of time and labor is devoted to minute details of grammar and literature, which may be well enough for the specialist, but of which only a few can make any practical use. New Testament exegesis is probbably the very best matter of teaching and study for the minister of the Gospel; but to make this the most largely available, it should be extended as nearly as may be over the whole book, instead of exhausting itself upon the details and minutiae of a few brief paragraphs. But since the English Bible must be the minister's vade mecum, his constant companion and instructor, because out of it he must teach his people, it seems desirable that he should be most thor oughly and even critically read in the people's book; and in order that this may be so, the instructions of the seminary could be turned to excellent account in that direction. There can scarcely be thought of a better qualification for a Christian pastor, than that his memory and his heart should be stored with the written Word, clearly expounded and broadly appreciated. It may be suspected that neither the Sundayschool, nor the pulpit, nor the chair of Biblical exegesis, is doing all that is both desirable and practical in that direction. Theological seminaries must of course teach theology-even beyond the merely non-systematized interpretation of Holy Scripture; but doing this is perilously liable to be carried too far. It is needful that Christian doctrine should be learned in its subject matter before it shall be studied as a rationalized system. It is better to find the theory of the gospel among the teachings of the Bible, than to view them only through a preconceived theory, and so to build them up into artificial systems of doctrine, It might be for the better, if our theological schools would give increased attention to the plainest and least elaborated lessons of Scripture, and less to their value as parts of an ideal unity; and to making catechetics and not dogmatics, the chief method of teaching,-setting forth Biblical truth in its simplicity rather than giving out its essence after passing through the alembic of fallible minds. The former method is content to disclose the things stated in the Bible without polemical argumentation or philosophical generalizations; the latter, on the contrary, is systematic and theoretically harmonized with respect to the higher unities, and the mutual dependence of parts; and it demands that Scripture itself shall be interpreted agreeable to its requirements. In this form theology is now chiefly taught,-both in our Bodies of Divinity and Systems of Theology, and also from the chairs of our theological instructors. But the thought of the age is asking for some better method, by which God's truth may stand forth in the clear light of the sun, and not be so presented that it can be seen only through the distorting medium of superannuated creeds and prescriptive misconceptions. The foregoing are the notions of one who looks at the subject from the outside of the preacher and pastor of former times-and of late occupying a place among the laity and sympathizing with their tastes and sentiments, and, also, as a careful observer of the signs of the times, as indicated in current discussions, and from a somewhat intimate though non-professional relation to our schools of theology. I have felt, while highly appreciating their value, and largely sympathizing with their spirit, that their methods are not altogether satisfactory. I have, therefore, signified the things in which I have thus felt only a qualified and incomplete satisfaction, and in so doing have suggested what seems to be the needed changes of methods. IV. THE RELATIONS OF INTEMPERANCE AND CRIME. IN judicial life, the relations of Intemperance and Crime are always present challenging consideration as perpetual causes and effects. To this fact the testimony of all Judges of experience is uniform and conclusive. It led at a very early period in the history of the Criminal Common Law to the establishment of the elementary principle that drunkenness is no excuse for crime. That principle rests upon the manifest fact that, if it were allowed as an excuse, criminals would prepare for the commission of crimes by intoxication. Hence courts, even in capital cases, were constrained to treat drunkenness, not as an excuse, but rather as an aggravation of crime, and to hold that a drunken intent was equally as guilty as a sober one. More than two hundred years ago Sir Matthew Hale, then Chief Justice of England, said: "The places of Judicature I have long held in this kingdom have given me an opportunity to observe the original cause of most of the enormities that have been committed for the space of nearly twenty years; and by due observation I have found that if the murders and manslaughters, the burglaries and robberies, the riots and tumults, the adulteries, fornications, rapes and other enormities that have happened in that time were divided into five parts, four of them have been the issue and product of excessive drinking-of tavern and alehouse drinking." In the long-period that has since intervened, the progress of morality and civilization has, perhaps, modified to some extent the ratio given by that eminent jurist, but not sufficiently to make any essential difference in its truth. The late Chief Baron Kelly, then the oldest Judge of the Queen's Bench, in writing to the Archdeacon of Canterbury a few years before his death, stated that "two-thirds of the crimes which come before the courts of law of this country" [England] "are occasioned chiefly by intemperance." The writer of this monograph can speak personally from an experience of nearly thirty years on the bench of the Supreme Court of the State of New York and its higher criminal courts; and if his experience would modify to any extent the broad statement of Sir Matthew Hale, the change would relate only to classes of crimes. Taking crimes as a body, the opinion of Chief Baron Kelly, that two-thirds are occasioned by intemperance, would seem to him more nearly correct. It is, however, to be remembered that but a limited proportion of the actual crime of the country ever reaches the higher courts. It is disposed of by the Police and other Courts, not of record, held by Justices of the Peace and other inferior magistrates. If the numerous offences (including that of drunken ness) tried by those courts were collated with those tried by the higher tribunals, it is quite probable that even at this day the proportion of four-fifths given by Sir Matthew Hale would be found to be correct. The records of the prisons, which embrace all grades of crime, are more likely, therefore, to be accurate in their estimate of the proportion which, wholly or in part, grows out of the use of intoxicating drinks. A late Inspector of English prisons says: "I am within the truth when I state that in four cases out of five, where an offence has been committed, intoxicating drink has been one of the causes." And the Chaplain of the Preston House of Correction (an English prison) said: "Nine-tenths of the English crime requiring to be dealt with by law, arises from the English sin which the law scarcely discourages." In 1875, a Committee of the House of Commons of Canada reported that out of 28,289 condemned to the jails of the Provinces of Ontario and Quebec during the three previous years, 21,236 were committed either for drunkenness or for crimes perpetrated under the influence of drink; and the report of the State Board of Charities of Massachusetts for 1869 declared that "the proportion of crime traceable to this great vice must be set down, as heretofore, at not less than fourfifths;" and the Inspector of State Prisons of that State gave the same proportions. In 1874 the Board of Police Justices of New York city in their official report said: "We are fully satisfied that intoxication is the one great leading cause that renders the existence of our Police Courts necessary." An examination of later reports will fully justify the facts and conclusions above quoted; but these earlier figures have been purposely chosen, because they cannot justly be said to have been affected by the later and more general agitation of the subject of temperance. The action of the New York Grand Jury for October, 1884, is, however, so apropos that it might well be cited. In its report to the Court, the Grand Jury declared that nearly all the cases of homicide passed upon by them were committed in drinking-saloons when the actors were under the influence of strong drink; and the report comments unfavorably on the non-enforcement of the Excise laws. To ascertain the true relations of intemperance to the crimes triable only in the higher courts doubtless requires a classification to some extent of those crimes. Of murders and manslaughters the proportion would probably fall within that stated by Chief Baron Kelly, those crimes being often instigated by other causes, such as hate, avarice, jealousy and revenge. And yet the late Dr. Harris, Corresponding Secretary of the Prison Association, states that of seventeen cases of murder separately examined by him fourteen were instigated by intoxicating drinks. It is a rare thing in cases of homicide to find one that is not directly or re |