There was nothing, humanly speaking, to remove it. Their destiny to the sacred profession of Ministers of the Gospel was, for the most part, settled from the mere circumstance of family preferment; means of an earthly subsistence; or because they were deemed fit for nothing else. Hence the duties of the priesthood were necessarily neglected. The double service of our Lord's Day's worship ceased to be performed; and in most parishes one service in the week, and, in many, service on alternate weeks, and even at greater intervals, marked the unwilling labour of the professedly devoted Ministry of the Church. Hence, too, spiritual intercourse between the Minister and his flock was scarcely known; and in those cases where he did reside among them, the duty was deemed satisfied, if a message from some sick or dying sinner procured a short and hasty reading of a prescribed office, or a lifeless administration of a supposed sacramental seal for the pardon of a mispent life, and a charm to waft the soul to heaven. Could it have been otherwise than this, when our public journals teemed with advertisements for spiritual posts in the Lord's vineyard, described with appendages better suited to the transfer of an earthly

possession ripe for the wild enjoyment of some ignorant feudal baron, supported by the prey which the forest around his castle might yield to the feats of his own arm?

And what was the accredited preparation for the sacred office of the Ministry? What, but a heedless and an extravagant passing through a few obsolete and useless forms of ancient regimen in places termed nurseries for the learned professions; but which, in the comparative absence of learning as of religion, were but the laughing-stock of Europe, and our own disgrace? Happily, on this point, some manifest change has been accomplished; and opportunity, at least, is better afforded in these ancient seats of, what were originally, the piety and the learning of the land, for the acquirement of useful and religious knowledge. When, in the progress of spiritual improvement every where, more shall be done in these our ancient Universities, to bring them back to what they have, by charter and foundation rule, always professed to be, places of moral and religious discipline, as well as of mental cultivation and learning; when parents can send their youth under better feeling than can now be indulged, that their boy shall not be suffered to indulge in every dissi

pated and extravagant habit under restraint easily evaded, and with cold indifference strangely manifested in quarters where indifference is the besetting sin; when parents can hope that their own means shall not be drained by the permitted, because not effectually checked, extravagance of these seats of learning, nor their other children left helpless and destitute through the unrestrained selfishness, and shameful extravagance of one; when such an epoch arrives, and it is at least a portion of the character of these times to hope for its approach under the general revival of the truths of the everlasting Gospel, then shall the climax be wound up for this part of our national reformation, and a piously educated priesthood shall better meet their awfully solemn charge of souls that cannot die.

It could not be but that under such spiritual pastors, betrayed in their education, secularized in their habits, false to their ordination vows, and ignorant of their ministerial duties, because ignorant and unawakened to the consideration of Gospel truth, it could not be but that ignorance, sin, and carelessness should every where abound. The memory of many of us, and the history of the thing open to us all, substantiate

painfully this painful fact. Hence it was that our Church itself fell into disesteem. The loose, and careless, and secularized lives of her ministers brought disgrace upon herself. For it required more scriptural knowledge, and more knowledge of what our Church is in herself, her origin, her principles, her doctrines, and her rule, than what the times afforded, to bring more sober-minded people to understand and apply the provision which Christ himself had made for this identical condition, at any period, of his true Church: "The Scribes and "the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat;" have real ministerial authority derived unto them from God: "all, therefore, whatsoever they bid you "observe, that observe and do; but do not ye "after their works: for they say and do not." (St. Matt. xxii. 2, 3.) No wonder that under such misunderstanding on the part of the untaught people, and such shameful dereliction of their duty on the part of the ministers of religion, schism should have sprung up around us; and that under the ardent zeal of its leaders, and the ignorant condition of their followers, it should have passed on as a slight and venial thing, and that the assurance of Scripture, that schism is a sin against God, should have been forgotten.

To meet these ills in the ministrations of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it has pleased God to give a different tone to the character of numbers in the Christian Ministry at the present day. There has evidently been, and still is, an outpouring of the Spirit in these latter days; and the Ministers of the Gospel are manifestly becoming more and more under its holy influ ́ence, and more and more devoted to the right understanding and better discharge of the duties of their sacred calling. They are brought into the ministry under far stricter examination of the prescribed requisites for their solemn office; and the increasing knowledge and practice of evangelical truth around them, in their preparation for their holy calling, better fits them in the Spirit of Christ to "do "the work of an Evangelist."

And here, my brethren, let me add one word of advice in the way of immediate application of this especial point. If, in the truth of God's holy Word, you can know the value of an awakened ministry, yourself awakened to the same cause, "Christ crucified" and souls redeemed; or if, in mere reason, you see how good it ever must be that the Church of Christ be served by faithful ministers; put up your frequent