using the term practice in reference to the whole active nature of man, whether inwardly, and before God alone; or outwardly, before God and before human beings. And these two ought uniformly, and very carefully, to be connected together. It is by such a union that you obtain a perfect framework of a useful discourse. If you give explanations without due application, your conduct says, either that your hearers have nothing to do with the truth but to perceive, or at most to understand it,-or, that they are such " mere reasoning machines," that obedience to the truth will immediately follow upon perceiving it. On the other hand, if you give application without explanation, your addresses will seem to be mere appeals to the affections and passions. A text which I have already quoted shows us, I think most decisively, the Apostle's practice: "By manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God." In properly explaining the text, there is the "manifestation of the truth;" and in properly applying it, you are commending yourself to every man's conscience in the sight of God." Plain as all these directions may appear to you, and obviously arising from the nature of the work to which you profess to believe yourself called, I am convinced-and will you allow me to say, that long and anxious experience has convinced me that they will of themselves, even if I went no farther, most materially aid you both in the exercise of public duty, and in careful preparation for it in private. Need you be ever at a loss? Look at the various characters and conditions of those who receive instruction from you. And look at the Bible, full of declarations which you may take as foundations of discourse. You sit down in your study, you have not omitted to "lift up your heart to the Lord." You select, in his fear, the passage from which you intend to preach. You wish to explain and apply it. Keep this in view; and if you proceed carefully, your task will be far less difficult than you suppose. You will ask, first, How may I so explain this passage of Scripture as most clearly to bring before my hearers the truths which it contains? And, second, How may I best apply these truths to their conscience, so as to

promote their salvation, by promoting their conversion or edification? With the Bible before you, what a rich and extensive variety of subjects of ministerial address you have in your possession! You will thus be enabled to avoid a wearying sameness, and an unprofitable novelty. Remember, therefore, having selected your text, and selected it in reference to the use you have to make of it, that all may be natural and easy,-what you have to do is, to prepare for the explanation, and the application, of the truths which it contains. And, with the Bible before you,-your heart kept right with God, and your mind preserved in a state of active and vigorous thought,-can you ever be at a loss for a text? You will bring out of your treasury things both new and old.

V.

MINISTERIAL STUDY MUST BE ORDERLY AND SYSTEMATIC.

J. AND now that you have explained to me the precise nature of the work for which I have to prepare, may I request from you some information on the subject of those intellectual qualifications to which you have already referred, and which you distinguished from those more spiritual preparations with which they were, however, to be always combined?

S. You wish now that our conversation should be directed to the subject of ministerial study?

J. I do.

S. The subject is a most extensive one, comprising a large number of important particulars. I can only give you a very general view, something like the map of a country, with its provincial divisions, and its chief towns. But even this may be serviceable. Such a bird's-eye view of an entire subject prepares us for the more profitable study of its separate portions, and is, indeed, necessary to its successful prosecution. These separate portions must not only be considered in themselves, but in their relation to other portions; and in their relation, too, to the great whole of which they are only portions. This, to say the least, will be extremely

difficult, I might say impossible,-unless we take care previously to map upon our mind the entire subject, fixing the positions, and marking the boundaries, of all its particular divisions. This is necessary in every branch of study; and I am inclined to think that in ministerial study it is peculiarly necessary. When so many things have to be considered separately, if there be not some principle of order, and a vigilant, self-controlling adherence to it, there will be a most embarrassing confusion, and very probably the diffi culty of study will occasion its total neglect. Your mind will settle down into an indolent inactivity, and you will content yourself with the continual reiteration of commonplace truths; endeavouring, perhaps, by a pompous enunciation of them, to compensate for that want of life and freshness which your discourses will unavoidably exhibit. If you happen to have a taste for eloquence, your orations will be the fanciful and pretty combination of artificial leaves and flowers; and if you choose to admire simplicity and plainness, your addresses will be the tedious prosings of a self-conceited ignorance. But your resolutions point to a different object. You wish to discharge your duties conscientiously and efficiently: you wish, not only to labour, but to be qualified for labours both abundant and successful. I enter upon my task, therefore, with encouragement. You wish to receive from me a few plain directions, and you resolve to make attention to them a Christian duty. With this disposition you will feel no difficulty in carrying out the hints they will be little more than hints-which I shall now be able to give you, and combining them into a regular system of study, in which you may employ what time you think ought to be thus employed, so long as the necessity of labour itself continues.

J. Then would you have me continue a student to the end?

S. Yes, in point of fact. In no other way will your ministry be to the end what it ought to be. In youth, indeed, when there is more to be learned, a larger proportion of your time must be devoted to study; when you are older, your engagements will be multiplied. There are pastoral duties

which are best performed by those whose experience is extensive, and whose judgment is mature. You will then be able to spare much less time than at present. Still, regulating the question of time according to circumstances, a student you must be to the end, a hard, prayerful student.

J. You said that you were inclined to think that system, necessary in every branch of study, is peculiarly so in reference to ministerial study. Why do you think so?

of

S. First, because of the great number of particular objects which it should embrace; and without system, study may become very desultory. Secondly, in nothing is the study of relations, in addition to the study of facts, more necessary. But, thirdly and chiefly, from the circumstance that you will be liable to many interruptions. You have only a portion your time to devote to study; and that portion may not always occur at the same period, nor be of the same duration. Many things will occur to make your mode of living, seemingly, desultory and irregular. To avoid the temptation incident to such circumstances, you will require a steady mental discipline; and one branch will be the possession of an extensive and accurate view of the various pursuits which may occupy you in your hours of study, and a clear perception of the relation which every separate pursuit bears to your one great object,-ministerial efficiency. As far as possible, you must be regular in the allotment of your time to your various duties; but as many things may interrupt you, it is most important to study regularly and systematically, even in the midst of irregular and desultory circumstances. J. And how is this to be effected?

S. By having what I again call a map of the whole country, drawn as upon your mind, with all its principal divisions. Whenever you take up any book, for instance,supposing that you are away from home, and your arrangements for study interrupted,—you ask yourself, To what particular branch of study does this work refer? What relation does it bear to other branches? You thus find your latitude and longitude,-your exact position. You read the book, and whatever information it communicates,

is not, as without this mental system it would be, merely empirical, but strictly speaking, philosophical. If you had nothing to do but to study, and could devote all your time, with the utmost regularity, to the acquisition of knowledge, you might then allot certain hours to certain occupations, and reduce your whole life to system. But this is not the case with a minister of the Gospel. He is not a mere literary student. He has much public labour to perform. There is not only preaching, but that important branch of pastoral duty, the visitation of his flock, especially the poor and the sick. His system of study, therefore, must be in his own mind; and if this be accurately planned, even where his actual study, in its outward form, is sometimes compelled to be irregular, yet, in its reference to his great object, it will be regular and systematic. I again say, Be regular, as far as possible, in the distribution of your time, and punctual in your proposed occupation of it; but when circumstances which you cannot control, prevent you from doing all that you wish, let them not hinder you from doing all that you can. Learn the art of reducing to system even those pursuits that seem to be least systematic. Have in your mind a complete set of labelled pigeon-holes. Let there be a place for everything, and put everything in its place. If sometimes you cannot prevent your reading from being desultory, so far as the succession of books is concerned, yet, by knowing to what particular abject the book you may actually be reading refers, and what the relation of that particular subject is to the whole scheme of truth, you will avoid the disadvantages which desultory reading often occasions, and secure the opposite advantages of systematic study. I am aware that at first it might seem more easy for you to have a regular course of reading laid down; but I want to aid you in what will be far more serviceable, that is, self-education, the honest and undeviating pursuit of truth, by a well-disciplined mind. You will thus be enabled to guide the circumstances which otherwise might bear you away into a region in which the minister of Christ should never be found,-that of busy idleness.

J. How shall I construct this mental system?