dependence of his mind; and in order to magnify his fortune, may neglect to magnify his office.

Even here, from an increasing remissness in self-examination, he may deceive himself by persisting to believefor the films are now grown thicker over his spiritual sight -that his motives are defensible. Were not his discernment laboring under a temporary blindness, he would reprobate the character which interested views have insensibly drawn him in to act. He would be as much astonished to be told that this character was become his own, as was the royal offender, when the righteous boldness of the prophet pronounced the heart-appalling words, "Thou art the man.

Still he continues to flatter himself that the reason of his diminished opposition to the faults of his friend, is not because he has a more lucrative situation in view, but because he may by a slight temporary concession, and a short suspension of a severity which he begins to fancy he has carried too far, secure for his future life a more extensive field of usefulness, in the benefice which is hanging over his head.

In the mean time, hope and expectation so fill his mind, that he insensibly grows cold in the prosecution of his positive duties. He begins to lament that in his present situation he can make but few converts, that he sees but small effects of his labors; not perceiving that God may have withdrawn his blessing from a ministry which is exercised on such questionable grounds. With his new expectations he continues to blend his old ideas. He feasts his imagination with the prospect of a more fruitful harvest on an unknown, and perhaps an unbroken soil-as if human nature were not pretty much the same every where; as if the laborer were accountable for the abundance of his crop, and not solely for his own assiduity—as if actual duty faithfully performed, even in that circumscribed sphere in which God has cast our lot, is not more acceptable to him, than theories of the most extensive good, than distant speculations and improbable projects, for the benefit even of a whole district; while, in the indulgence of those airy schemes, our own specific and appointed work lies neglected, or is performed without energy and without attention.

Self-love so naturally infatuates the judgment, that it is no paradox to assert that we look too far, and yet do not look far enough. We look too far when passing over the

actual duties of the immediate scene, we form long connected trains of future projects, and indulge our thoughts in such as are most remote, and perhaps least probable. And we do not look far enough when the prospective mind does not shoot beyond all these little earthly distances, to that state, falsely called remote, whither all our steps are not the less tending, because our eyes are confined to the home scenes. But while the precariousness of our duration ought to set limits to our designs, it should furnish incitements to our application. Distant projects are too apt to slacken present industry, while the magnitude of schemes, probably impracticable, may render our actual exertions cold and sluggish.

Let it be observed that we would be the last to censure any of those fair and honorable means of improving his condition, which every man, be he worldly or religious, owes to himself, and to his family. Saints as well as sinners have in common, what a great genius calls, "certain inconvenient appetites of eating and drinking," which while we are in the body must be complied with. It would be a great hardship on good men, to be denied any innocent means of fair gratification. It would be a peculiar injustice that the most diligent laborer should be esteemed the least worthy of his hire. the least fit to rise in his profession.

The more serious clergyman has also the same warm affection for his children with his less scrupulous brother, and consequently the same laudable desire for their comfortable establishment; only in his plans for their advancement he should neither entertain ambitious views, nor prosecute any views, even the best, by methods not consonant to the strictness of his avowed principles. Professing to "seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, he ought to be more exempt from an over-anxious solicitude than those who profess it less zealously. Avowing a more determined confidence that all other things will, as far as they are absolutely necessary, "be added unto him," he should, as it is obvious he commonly does, manifest practically, a more implicit trust, confiding in that gracious and cheering promise, that promise expressed both negatively and positively, as if to comfort by a double confirmation, that God who is "both his light and defence, who will give grace and worship, will also withhold no good thing from them that live a godly life."

It is one of the trials of faith appended to the sacred office,

that its ministers, like the father of the faithful, are liable to go out, not knowing whither they go;" and this not only at their first entrance into their profession, but throughout life; an inconvenience to which no other profession is necessarily liable; a trial which is not perhaps fairly estimated.

This remark will naturally raise a laugh among those who at once hold the function in contempt, deride its ministers, and think their well-earned remuneration lavishly and even unnecessarily bestowed. They will probably exclaim with as much complacency in their ridicule, as if it were really the test of truth – "A great cause of commiseration truly, to be transferred from a starving curacy to a plentiful benefice, or from the vulgar society of a country parish, to be a stalled theologian in an opulent town!"

We are far from estimating at a low rate the exchange from a state of uncertainty to a state of independence, from a life of penury to comfort, or from a barely decent to an affluent provision. But does the ironical remarker rate the feelings and affections of the heart at nothing? If he insists that money is that chief good of which ancient philosophy says so much, we beg leave to insist that it is not the only good. We are above the affectation of pretending to condole with any man on his exaltation, but there are feelings which a man of acute sensibility, rendered more acute by an elegant education, values more intimately than silver or gold.

Is it absolutely nothing to resign his local comforts, to break up his local attachments, to have new connections to form, and that frequently at an advanced period of life? Connections, perhaps, less valuable than those he is quitting? Is it nothing for a faithful minister to be separated from an affectionate people, a people not only whose friendship but whose progress has constituted his happiness here, as it will make his joy and crown of rejoicing hereafter?

Men of delicate minds estimate things by their affections as well as by their circumstances; to a man of a certain cast of character, a change, however advantageous, may be rather an exile than a promotion. While he gratefully accepts the good, he receives it with an edifying acknowledgment of the imperfection of the best human things. These considerations we confess add the additional feelings of kindness to their persons, and of sympathy with their vicissitudes, to our respect and veneration for their holy office.

To themselves, however, the precarious tenure of their situation presents an instructive emblem of the uncertain condition of human life, of the transitory nature of the world itself. Their liableness to a sudden removal gives them the advantage of being more especially reminded of the necessity and duty of keeping in a continual posture of preparation, having "their loins girded, their shoes on their feet, and their staff in their hand." They have also the same promises which supported the Israelites in the desert.--The same assurance which cheered Abraham, may still cheer the true servants of God under all difficulties.-"Fear not-I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward."

But there are perils on the right hand and on the left. It is not among the least, that though a pious clergyman may at first have tasted with trembling caution of the delicious cup of applause, he may gradually grow, as thirst is increased by indulgence, to drink too deeply of the enchanted chalice. The dangers arising from any thing that is good, are formidable, because unsuspected. And such are the perils of popularity that we will venture to say that the victorious general, who has conquered a kingdom, or the sagacious statesman who has preserved it, is almost in less danger of being spoiled by acclamation than the popular preacher; because their danger is likely to happen but once, his is perpetual. Theirs is only on a day of triumph, his day of triumph occurs every week; we mean the admiration he excites. Every fresh success ought to be a fresh motive to humiliation; he who feels his danger will vigilantly guard against swallowing too greedily the indiscriminate, and often undistinguishing plaudits which his doctrines or his manner, his talents or his voice, may equally procure for him.

If he be not prudent as well as pious, he may be brought to humor his audience, and his audience to flatter him with a dangerous emulation, till they will scarcely endure truth itself from any other lips. Nay, he may imperceptibly be led not to be always satisfied with the attention and improvement of his hearers, unless the attention be sweetened by flattery, and the improvement followed by exclusive attachment.

The spirit of exclusive fondness generates a spirit of controversy. Some of the followers will rather improve in casuistry than in Christianity. They will be more busied in opposing Paul to Apollos, than looking unto "Jesus,

the author and finisher of their faith;" than in bringing forth fruits meet for repentance. Religious gossip may assume the place of religion itself. A party spirit is thus generated, and Christianity may begin to be considered as a thing to be discussed and disputed, to be heard and talked about, rather than as the productive principle of virtuous conduct.*

We owe, indeed, lively gratitude and affectionate attachment to the minister who has faithfully labored for our edification; but the author has sometimes noticed a manner adopted by some injudicious adherents, especially of her own sex, which seems rather to erect their favorite into the head of a sect, than to reverence him as the pastor of a flock. This mode of evincing an attachment, amiable in itself, is doubtless as distressing to the delicacy of the minister as it is unfavorable to religion, to which it is apt to give an air of party.

May we be allowed to animadvert more immediately on the cause of declension in piety in some persons who formerly exhibited evident marks of that seriousness in their lives which they continue to inculcate from the pulpit. If such has been sometimes (we hope it has been very rarely) the case, may it not be partly ascribed to an unhappy notion that the same exactness in his private devotion, the same watchfulness in his daily conduct, is not equally necessary in the advanced progress as in the first stages of a religious course? He does not desist from warning his hearers of the continual necessity of these things, but is he not in some danger of not applying the necessity to himself? May he not begin to rest satisfied with the inculcation without the practice? It is not probable indeed that he goes so far as to establish himself as an exempt case, but he slides from indolence into the exemption, as if its avoidance were not so necessary for him as for others.

Even the very sacredness of his profession is not without a snare. He may repeat the holy offices so often that he may be in danger on the one hand, of sinking into the notion that it is a mere profession, or, on the other, of so resting in it as to make it supersede the necessity of that strict personal religion with which he set out: he may at least be satisfied with the occasional, without the uniform practice. There is a danger-we advert only to its possi

* This polemic tattle is of a totally different character from that species of religious conversation recommended in the preceding chapter.