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myself to be looked to, as a candidate for such a relation. It was in accordance with the principle which this opinion involved, that I understood every step to have been taken, which led you to invite me to settle with you in the ministry. It is to the same principle, and the cause which it supports, that I feel committed by every honorable and Christian feeling, and it is on this ground that I am willing to rest the decision of the present question.

"When unexpectedly called, in the providence of God, to decide between two different invitations, I made this principle my guide. The promise of a reservation of a portion of my time for public purposes, being given in both cases, it became a question of decisive character, in which of the two situations existed the greatest prospect of usefulness to the missionary cause, without the hazard of neglecting my more immediate duties to the people. It was a question of too much responsibleness to decide without advice. I felt the need of counsel. In a meeting of enlightened and judicious men, I communicated the circumstances and facts on which it had become my duty to decide. In their opinion, if no honorable commitment to the call at Salem had been made, it was my duty to accept the second call; but if such commitment had been in any way implied, it was my duty to accept the first. On solemnly reviewing what had taken place, I did not hesitate to say that I felt committed to the missionary cause, and to the Tabernacle society and their pastor, so far as the interests of that cause had committed me to them. If it were true as I supposed, that by accepting your invitation, I could fulfil the duties you required, and yet, by a connection with your pastor, be able to promote the missionary interest, as a main object of usefulness, while in the other place it would be only a secondary concern, I was prepared to give an affirmative answer to Salem, and a negative to Charles

town. And it is on this ground, therefore, I now feel it to be my duty, as well as my delight, to accept your invitation.

"I have chosen to be thus explicit in my answer, that the principle on which I act might be fairly understood. In making the decision, however, to which it has led me, it must be obvious to all, that Christian propriety and consistency of conduct, require me to give it, on the condition that the object which it seeks be in fact secured.

"It is in reference to this end, that an arrangement has been made with your present pastor, satisfactory to us both, by which the junior pastor is in no year under obligation to labor in the parish more than nine months of his time.

“It is in reference to the same principle and end, and out of regard to what I hold an indispensable duty to Him who has put me into the ministry, that I feel sacredly bound to state, that should your present pastor be removed from the relation he now sustains towards you, or should any other event destroy the principle on which this decision rests, so as to prevent me from rendering that service to the cause of public charity which I now anticipate with confidence, I must in such a case, be allowed the privilege of submitting the question of my future duty to the advice and decision of a mutual council.

"And may Almighty God smile on this result, and by a rich supply of his blessings, convince us all, that we have been controlled in this solemn concern, not so much by our choice as his pleasure. Entreating, therefore, a remembrance in your prayers to God for me, that in every relation and duty of life, I may be found faithful to you, and to God, I give myself to the Lord Jesus and to you as his servant, praying that at the final day, we may be the occasion of mutual rejoicing to each other,

and be permitted to dwell forever in the presence of the

blessed.

"With Christian affection,

"Yours in the gospel,

"ELIAS CORNELIUS.

"Andover, June 24, 1819."

The services of the installation were in a high degree appropriate. The sermon was delivered by the Rev. Dr. Beecher, of Litchfield, Conn. The other exercises were performed by neighboring ministers, and by Dr. Wor

cester.

"wan

Perhaps there is no moment in the life of a Christian minister more intensely interesting, than the morning after his public consecration to his work. The excitements of that consecration, which are sometimes as a sort of deceitful ballast to the soul, have passed away. The feeling of responsibleness comes with oppressive weight. The eternal interests of hundreds and thousands, for which he is in a fearful sense accountable, are now to form a part of his daily care. How far he shall be sustained by the fervent prayers and generous co-operation of Christians in his flock, he does not know. The supplications, which went up to God, when they were dering as sheep without a shepherd," may prove as the winter brooks of the Arabian desert. The minister has now the naked consciousness that he is an "6" ambassador for Christ." He has been designated to stand between the "dead and the living; while over his path, in his study, and around his bed, is He, whose "eyes are as a flame of fire." Such a moment furnishes a test almost infallible, of the true character of the minister. Is his piety such as will lift him above these depressing thoughts, and make him "run in the way of God's commandment," or does he begin to feel that he

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has assumed an irksome task, that the spirit, which has hitherto sustained him, was the mere breath of popular applause ?

Whatever might have been Mr. Cornelius's consciousness of deficiency, there is full reason to believe that he rejoiced that he was "counted worthy to be put into the ministry." He possessed what is to be regarded as the fundamental qualification, not so much, perhaps, the actual possession of extraordinary piety, as the belief, conscientious, and, as it were, wrought into the very texture of his soul-that a minister must make the acquisition of eminent holiness the great business of his life, that without a large portion of the spirit of his Master, he had better never draw near to the altar of God. This conviction was one of the main elements of his religious life from the beginning. He wished to be the means of saving a multitude of souls from eternal death.

He knew that this

was impossible without a clear apprehension of the nature of scriptural holiness, and a vigorous, and an habitual pursuit of it himself. In his conversation he frequently alluded to it, and with such simplicity, as convinced the auditors of his sincerity. Others of less attainment in holiness, might acknowledge the same thing when compelled to do it, in the exigencies of preaching or ministerial intercourse, but it flowed from the lips of Mr. Cornelius as if it were the spontaneous feeling of his heart. His prayers in the family and in the house of God, were frequently offered in behalf of the ministers of Christ, that they might stand "perfect and complete in all the will of God." Those passages in the Bible, which refer to this point, were familiar to his recollection, and had been doubtless, often turned into petitions in his most secret addresses at the throne of mercy. The two books upon which he set a higher value than upon any others, after the sacred volumé, were the Memoirs of David

Brainerd and of Samuel Pearce; not that these men possessed a more cultivated taste than others, or that their lives were filled up with a greater variety of striking incident, but because they "lived and walked with God." He could scarcely turn over a page of their memoirs, without meeting those heart-broken confessions of sin, and those ardent aspirations for Christian perfection, which found an echo in the depths of his own soul. They possessed those elevated conceptions of the importance of piety in ministers, and that "following after that they might apprehend that for which they were apprehended of Christ," which commended themselves to the most enlightened decisions of his judgment, and to the most sacred feelings of his heart.

Next after the possession of a large measure of personal holiness, a considerate minister will direct his attention to the character of his sermons. He "who knew what was in man," appointed the preaching of the gospel, "to save them who believe." In Mr. Cornelius's first efforts in preparing sermons at Salem, there were doubtless imperfections, as he was ever ready to acknowledge. His exertions in doing good had been almost wholly of a general and active kind, and for two years previously, expended in portions of the country, and in the supporting of such objects, as demanded almost entirely extemporary preaching. The life of an agent or an itinerant missionary is attended with serious disadvantage, in respect to meditated and arranged thought on any subject. His habits become almost wholly executive and financial, his associations accidental and temporary, and his power to produce a continued impression upon an enlightened congregation, lost, or materially impaired. Mr. Cornelius brought back from his southwestern tour valuable materials for producing an effect on the hearts and consciences of men, but these materials were not perfectly arranged

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