out late, or to rob

early rising. The clergyman's day ought to end at ten o'clock; it is not wise to keep your people yourselves of the chance of rest by late reading. Early rising, moderately early rising, will give you two hours a day for reading, or an hour and a half for reading and half-an-hour for sermon-writing. You may think this a small allowance for the latter, and to some people perhaps it is too small, but sermons to be preached with effect must be written with consecutiveness, and however hard and long the subjects may be, thought over before you take pen in hand; when you begin to write you should write on straight. A sermon that has taken a week to think out, that has been on your mind during all your visiting,— and your visiting will scarcely fail to bring home to you every week the bearings of a well-chosen text, -a sermon that you have thought out well, will be all the better for being quickly written. That, however, vastly important as it is, is not the point; the point is that you maintain your belief, your intelligence, your sincerity, and the many-sidedness, the thoroughness of your knowledge by careful, prayerful study. This has its great reward in itself—it is purifying and exalting morally as well as intellectually; and it will come, as you give yourselves to it, to have not only the charm which every study faithfully followed has, but an especial charm as it

exercises the highest faculties of mind and spirit on those highest subjects which they are capable of approaching, and for the due contemplation of which they were made. In no study is it more true that to him that hath shall more be given, more power, more insight, more sense of fitting application, more true pleasure as we enter into the higher regions of perfect love and light.

V

THE fifth question addressed to the candidates for deacon's orders, and the latter part of the third question addressed to the candidates for the priesthood, are concerned with the duty of visiting the sick and poor, with a special reference to both. temporal relief and spiritual ministration. This is a matter about which some varieties of opinion exist, and although I myself entertain a very strong and decided opinion about it, as I shall presently say, I am not going to deny that the circumstances of different parishes and sorts of population do considerably vary the application of the rule. I take it to be of the utmost importance in every parish of manageable size that the clergyman should know every member of his flock, should visit every house, and put himself into relation with the interests and sympathies of every family.

I have no respect at all for the view that the minister is to be resorted to only for religious concerns; that it is a mistake for him to make himself too common or too familiar; that it is a waste of his time to spend it in work that can be done as well by district visitors; that he is degraded and his mission disparaged by the risk of his being treated as a substitute for the relievingofficer; that his occasional visits are apt to become mere gossiping calls and the like. I think that even if these risks were common or real, they ought to be encountered, nay, that the unfortunate result ought to be faced, if it is unavoidable, rather than this duty should be imperilled. Of course, in a parish of 1000 people such visitation is simple enough; and I might even go so far as to say that a parish of 4000 people might be handled by a single clergyman so that he should never be a stranger in any house, provided he is willing to devote a regular portion of his time to it, although, of course, the larger the population the more exacting in a compound ratio becomes the demand for visitations of the sick.

And the reason for this will be surely very apparent. It is not that the minister may make himself popular, or even that he may in every case make opportunities of religious influence; it is because he is put in charge of a special flock

by the Great Shepherd who knows His own and is known of them, and who sends him even as the Father hath sent Him Himself, to fulfil His law by bearing their burdens. There must be a real sympathy, and that cannot be without a personal individual acquaintance. The acquaintance may never reach the point of sympathy, sometimes the approach may be repelled, or the intercourse too repulsive to be borne, but without the acquaintance the sympathy cannot become a likeness in any way of the Lord's sympathy, or a very efficient factor in the working of the church. So, however well your parishes may be organised with lay help and district visiting, nothing will dispense the clergyman himself from the duty of which I have spoken. Of course, it requires tact, and patience, and a humility as well as a manliness that will face what has to be faced. I do not think that the custom of visitation should be limited to the families that attend at church, or that call themselves church people; wherever the clergyman can go he ought to go, and wherever he finds a difficulty he ought to spare no pains to overcome it; for very often the very people who present the most obstacles to your knowing them are the people who are best worth knowing, and for whom some sort of social intercourse will be most remunerative both ways.

The great majority of the English people are reserved, and there are many districts in which, from various causes, any new clergyman is an object of guarded suspicion; but also the great majority, whether churchmen or dissenters, will honour the faithful, and humble, and persevering minister. They can see through shams and makeshifts, can sound hollow services, and treat the well-meaning with an irritating patronage, speaking with assumption of superiority of very much that they do not understand; but in the long run they will be won by the man who shows his sincere sympathy with them, and they will never be won by one, however they may run after his preaching, or however proud they may be of his cleverness, who stands aloof from them. Your care, your sympathy, your ministerial sorrows and anxieties, as well as joys and successes, lie not merely in your flock as a whole, but immediately, and as to all efficacious result, in the pastoral work on individuals. Families may be brought to church, children may be brought to church, the sick may be always tended, as aggregates; but the fruit of the work is in the individual result, and that cannot be achieved without immediate contact of man and man. So organisation is a wonderful subsidiary means, but no organisation can supersede personal devotion to the flock. You may say, If this is to be the rule we