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them in this vitally important matter, we need not wonder that the church is declining. It is not sufficient that the preacher thinks himself honest, the people must think so; and if, as a member of a conference, he has connived at the escape of a shattered reputation, and consented to send forth a man to preach to whom grave objections are made, without any effort to ascertain the facts, he cannot expect that the people will listen to his ministrations with full acceptance.

It is a great mistake for a conference in any investigation of the kind in question, to suppose that they may act toward the party accused as individuals toward an individual. They have no right either to pardon or to punish. They are trustees solemnly pledged before God and man to preserve the purity and efficiency of the ministry. As such they have no right to try experiments upon the church; to continue a man in hope that he may mend, and shut their eyes to manifest incapacity; and shift a useless man from one station to another, revolving him in his baleful orbit until he shall have equally cursed the whole church. They have absolutely nothing at all to do with the consequences of rejection to the preacher himself. They have no discretion in the matter; and the sickly sympathy which asks how we can save the man, instead of how shall we save the church, is utterly unworthy of Methodist preachers.

If it be said these are hard sayings, we answer, that all virtue is put to hard trials. It is hard for a jury to pronounce a verdict against a criminal; it is hard to rob a wife of her husband, and children of their father; it is hard to utter a word which will consign a fellow-man to a dungeon or immolate him on a scaffold. Yet hard as it is, honest men are found who can do it. The case is not so hard with the preachers as with jurors; for, independently of the actual suffering involved in their verdict being less, they have voluntarily assumed the trust. They have asked to be invested with it, and if they have not the moral courage requisite for the honest discharge of their duty, they ought in all fairness to resign.

The consequence of unfaithfulness in this matter of character must show itself very plainly. A conference thus unfaithful will be oppressed by a number of men known to be unacceptable and useless to the people. These will come out annually to claim relief as "deficient" in the salaries allowed them; while the station or circuit from which they come, weakened by losses, fretted by the many vexations incident upon such an appointment, and perhaps to a considerable extent backslidden in religion for lack

of proper ministerial service, presents a field of labor most undesirable to the next preacher, who perhaps goes to it with reluctance, remains with impatience, and often leaves it the worse for him, and he the worse for it. The green spots in such a conference are gradually worn down by the necessity of sending to them the men of "heavy families," and in a short time it becomes impossible for the bishop to provide for the preachers. Every year makes the matter worse, and utter ruin must result unless the process be arrested.

This is but a brief sketch of the evils attendant upon wrong proceedings in examination of ministerial character. We can readily see how twenty men of suspicious character or clerical incapacity may in the course of time ride down every station or circuit in a whole conference; and unless the preachers see to it, this number may readily be secured to each, if indeed it be not already found in all.

The style of preaching common in a church furnishes sufficient indications of its state. Unless the preaching be pure, forcible, and religious, it will turn no sinner from the error of his ways; if it be such, it will be the power of God unto salvation. We do not mean that right preaching will convert everybody, but when brought to act upon large numbers it will save a great many; certainly more than enough to repair the natural losses of the church -for God intends his religion to be progressive.

If, then, the preaching in common use among us be philosophical, however true the philosophy, the church must be narcotized; and if the devitalized bread be perseveringly given to it, it must sleep the sleep of death. Is our preaching theological rather than religious? We may be sure of one thing, that, if ministerial piety is declining, our ministers are becoming more metaphysical. Nothing makes clerical philosophers like loss of religion.

Are our preachers turning their attention to what are called doctrinal discourses, in distinction to direct preaching to the heart and conscience? Do we expect when we go to church to hear a fervent sermon, carrying conviction to the sinner and comfort to the Christian? Do we expect to have the principles of religion applied to the various circumstances of our daily life, and to be shown how in this respect or that we are doing or neglecting our duty to God and our neighbor? or do we go to enjoy an intellectual treat in the form of a theological discussion? Is the preacher busy during the week in endeavors to find out the secret of his people's hearts; to learn how they are walking; how they are tempted, and how they resist temptation? or is he busy in his private chamber, com

pounding a theological discourse? Does he, like Mr. Wesley, go into the pulpit trying to forget all that he has read, or trying to remember all that he has read?

We despair of being able to present this matter in such a light as will clearly expose it to people and preachers. The former may feel that something is sadly wrong; they may know that the sermons they hear do not comfort them and build them up; but it is not to be expected that many of them can trace the individual effect to the great comprehensive cause. The preachers will hardly be more readily affected. Their previous views and habits will be too apt to intercept the light of truth and bend it to a pleasant angle. Theology is a great temptation. Take this away and the clergy cease to be a profession, and become only good men who preach the gospel. It is easier, too, to preach from a knowledge of books than from a knowledge of men; to conduct an argument which has been conducted a thousand times before, than to distribute the bread of Heaven to a hungry congregation.

We fear, therefore, that what we have said will offend many, and convince few. Unpleasant truths generally meet with curt reception. With an honest desire to probe to the bottom the evils under which the church is suffering and waning, we have written these pages. We have made no direct accusations. Our object has been to attract attention to causes, not to men. We honestly believe that we have pointed out the evils from which our church is suffering so intensely, and under which she will inevitably die unless relief be given. Whether we are mere dreamers time will show; but certainly it is the part of those who govern us to inquire into the state of the church and find out what is the matter. We may depend upon it, that something more is required than vain regrets, or spasmodic local efforts, or even prayer itself. God cannot be induced to sanction unfaithful dealing, or sanctify metaphysical preaching. He will mercifully enable us to see our errors; but if we will not correct them, we must continue to suffer the consequences. But " woe unto them by whom the offense cometh!” The Methodist Church was raised up by God to supply a great natural want. While it shall fulfill this great purpose it will continue; it will prosper. But if it should fail to do its proper work, God will soon furnish himself with other and better instruments. "Enlargement and deliverance shall arise from another place," and the unfaithful church shall be cast away.

ART. II.-The Library of American Biography. Conducted by JARED SPARKS. In ten volumes. New-York: Harper & Brothers.

Ir it be true that " no man liveth to himself" alone, it is especially true that no great and good man thus liveth; for his influence, instead of being limited to a narrow sphere, circulates through all the great channels of society. Be it so that his labors are chiefly in one particular field, or aimed at the accomplishment of some particular end-it is an egregious mistake to suppose that his actions have not their ulterior as well as their more immediate bearings. The great cause in which Wilberforce spent his life was the negro's freedom; but no one who should attempt to estimate the influence of that great man, would think of stopping short of the fact that he was the benefactor of his race. To say nothing of the many good objects besides, which his great and philanthropic soul compassed in the course of his somewhat protracted life, the efforts by which he accomplished this particular object, also accomplished far more: they brought out to view one of the loveliest characters that Christianity ever formed, and touched incidentally chords of benevolent feeling in myriads of hearts, which responded to the grateful influence that moved them, in a course of earnest and self-denied philanthropy.

Notwithstanding every man has his part to perform in the economy of human society, it is manifest that much the greater portion of mankind are but very subordinate actors in it: the influence that commands, that controls, that decides, is concentrated in the few. There is a small assembly annually convened at Washington, in whose doings are bound up, to a great extent, the weal or the woe of this nation; and though they have all alike the privilege of speaking and voting, yet perhaps if the whole truth were known, it would be that the great mass were in subjection to a few master spirits, and that the minds that rule could be counted almost in a single breath. These men constitute the little leaven that leavens the whole lump. And so it is in regard to great discoveries in science: the mass of the world are dreaming of no such thing; but it turns out that some one mind has been bending its researches in some direction in which it imagined that light was soon to appear; and suddenly the world is surprised by the announcement of some new law of the creation, or of a new application of some one previously known, which sends the whole economy of society forward a whole century in a single day. Professor

Morse first got the idea of his telegraph, we know not how; but at first it was dim and shadowy, and there were not wanting those who believed that it would never be less so; but he held to it in a course of patient and earnest effort, till the theory was demonstrated by experiment; and now we are all, occasionally at least, using the lightning instead of the mail to convey our dispatches; and every one sees that here is a discovery that is to work a mighty revolution in human affairs. We say, then, without wishing to lessen any one's proper self-respect, or sense of responsibility, that the ultimate direction of things rests with a few leading, fortunate spirits of each age; and that the multitude live in an atmosphere which has been produced only in a very subordinate degree by their own agency.

It would seem, then, to be the ordination of Heaven that the great and the good who have lived before us should be felt not only by ourselves, but by all the generations that succeed them; for though their voice hath been hushed in the silence of the grave, there was a voice in their actions which has kept speaking since the grave has closed upon them, and which will continue to speak till all the graves shall give up their dead. Take, for instance, the patriots and heroes of our revolution-they have nearly all been summoned to their final resting place; but their influence is still at work, however unmindful we may be of it, in all that is noble and praiseworthy in our institutions-in the vital energy of the liberties of our country.

But it is not enough that the noble spirits of the past should continue to exist in this impalpable form; for there is danger that if we contemplate them only through this medium, we shall come gradually to forget that they exist at all; in other words, shall lose sight of the connection that exists between what they were and what we are; between their labors and our privileges. It is proper that they should be put beyond the possibility of being forgotten, by having an authentic record of their lives and characters made out at a proper time; and by this means there will be yet another end secured the picture will be far more true, and full, and effective, than if it were conveyed to us merely through the medium of tradition. Suppose the life of Washington, or Franklin, or Edwards, had never been written-we could not at this short distance from them have failed to know much of what they were and what they did the heroic and political exploits of the first, the philosophical discoveries of the second, and the profound theological and metaphysical researches of the third, would have rendered their memories respectively imperishable; but how much more

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