vailed upon by missionary associations, immediately to break off, and repair, with all the meagerness of their furniture, to the domestic or foreign field of labour :-forgetting that every day's deduction from the amount of regular and adequate study, will probably lead to a corresponding deduction from the amount of their usefulness even among the heathen, as long as they live; and that if missionary boards, by fixing their attention too exclusively on a single point, really injure the cause which they desire to serve, this is no reason why youthful candidates for the sacred office, who ought to calculate in the fear of God, not for the present moment only, but for life, should become willing partners in the injury. And, finally, some allow an indiscreet matrimonial engagement to embarass their whole course; to interpose an obstacle of the most retractable kind in the way of continued study; and even to make an assumption of the pastoral office, before their studies are half finished, almost indispensable.

From one or another of these causes, our candidates for the ministry, in all our Theological Seminaries, as well as those engaged in more private study, are daily breaking off their studies in the midst, before they have become well versed in any department of those studies, and before they have so much. as entered on some important departments. The consequence is, that they go forth mere sciolists in Biblical and Theological knowledge; in a great measure unprepared to defend any one article of faith or order against the attacks of a subtle adversary; destitute of those resources which will enable them, from year to year, to "feed the people with knowledge and with understanding;" altogether unqualified to be the guides and counsellors of the church in cases of delicacy, and seasons of trial; wholly unprepared to be a powerful auxiliary to the cause of religion through the medium of the press; prone to be "carried about with every wind of doctrine," and liable to become the dupes of every plausible projector of novel opinions, and schemes for doing good, that may obtrude himself on a community. What must the consequence be to the church, when a considerable portion of those who are to be her teachers and guides go forth to their work thus unqualified? Is it possible that they should be "workmen that need not be ashamed," prepared "rightly to divide the word of truth?” Can we imagine that such "babes" in Christ, and in scriptural knowledge, however warm their hearts, will be able to "go in and out" before a Christian people with wisdom, dignity and usefulness; to explain the doctrines of grace; to defend them

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against ingenious adversaries; to meet the learned caviller; to counsel anxious inquirers, in all the variety and mazes of their difficulties; and to administer safe and seasonable consolation to the perplexed and doubting Christian? We might as well expect to gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles." No, it cannot be. And if the evil of which I speak continues to prevail, our ministry, instead of rising in intellectual and moral power with the state of society, and the demands of the age, will more and more depreciate, to the deplorable detriment of Christ's kingdom, and to the mortification of those who desire to see the church adorned with able, faithful, and well-furnished pastors.

I am well aware that insisting on this point, will be regarded by some as an effort of "old school" prejudice and formality; and that, while learning in a few will be admitted to be important, the plan of conducting the great mass of our candidates for the ministry to the pulpit by a very summary course, is supposed by many to be expedient, and indeed required, in the present state of the church and the world. I answer, however urgent may be the demand for ministers, it is infatuation to take this method of meeting it. It were just as rational, when a direful pestilence was raging, to send out among the people, under the name and guise of physicians, large bodies of rash and ignorant young men, who would be likely to kill ten times as many as they cured.

Do you ask me, my Christian friends, what remedy can be applied to this evil? I answer, there seems to be no hope from the ordinary application of ecclesiastical authority. The highest judicatory of our church has remonstrated and recommended in vain. The wisdom and firmness of a few Presbyteries will avail nothing, while others stand ready to license and ordain those whom their neighbours would refuse. The wisest and best men in our church have entreated and mourned; but still the evil has continued to prevail. PUBLIC SENTIMENT, in relation to this matter, must be reformed, or the case is hopeless. The churches can apply the most effectual remedy, by frowning on such a course, and refusing to countenance those who thus set at defiance all Scripture and all experience. It is as much the interest as it is the duty of every church to do this. Were the churches faithfully to act thus, we should not so often witness the melancholy spectacle of young men who were highly acceptable and popular when they first settled in a pastoral charge, and who continued so for a few weeks, declining in acceptance almost immediately; and before they

had well passed what may be called the "honey moon" of the pastoral marriage, sinking in public estimation, and, after a speedy dismission, hanging in the market, like tainted meat, without attraction, and without an offer. If the churches did but understand their true interest in this thing, they would as carefully guard against the choice of novices and sciolists to be their teachers, as they would avoid young men suspected of unsound opinions. For, truly, if a young man has passed through only a hurried and superficial course of study, what security can any church have that he will not completely "run out, as to resources and acceptance, in less than six months; or become, immediately, a mere puppet, to be moved by some neighbour, of more art and less honesty than himself? One thing is certain, that a man who has himself learned but little, can teach but little; and that one of the most deplorable sources of disappointment in a stated ministry, is the misdirection and inadequacy of preparatory study.

The time prescribed for a "full course," in most of our Theological Seminaries, is three years.* This period is not, indeed, long enough, especially where the candidate is quite youthful, say below twenty-one years of age. But it is probably quite as long as the present generation can be prevailed upon to sanction. But, among the many things, in relation to this matter, to be regretted, one is, that even of those who profess to continue their studies regularly through this period, by unwisely soliciting and obtaining license at the end of the second year, their third and last year is in a great measure destroyed as a season of regular study. This step is taken sometimes to gratify the impatience of friends, who are often over-anxious to see and hear in the pulpit those candidates in whom they take a peculiar interest :-and sometimes it is resorted to as a means of ekeing out a scanty support. In either case, the effect seldom fails to be unhappy. If an individual, in these circumstances, be tolerably acceptable as a preacher, he will be so much solicited to preach, and the interruptions thence arising will be so numerous, as to render all regular application to study thereafter next to impossible. I have scarcely ever known an instance of a candidate who was licensed to preach at the beginning of the third year of his course, who did not find, whatever might have been his hopes and promises beforehand, that the death-warrant of the studies of that year was irrevocably sealed.

This is in addition to the academical and collegiate course.

In a word, it may be laid down as a fixed principle of ecclesiastical duty and policy, that the moment we give up our ancient practice of regular and thorough training for the sacred office;-the moment we adopt the habit of introducing to our pulpits, and clothing with the sacred office, unqualified, superficial, empty men-however fervent; it will be a miserable omen of our future prospects as a church. The inconsiderate and the narrow-minded may rejoice at such a prospect, as if it were a return to the simplicity of primitive times; but the truly enlightened and wise will mourn over it, as a departure from the principles of common sense, and practical wisdom, which all Scripture and all experience concur in pronouncing injurious, and inevitably fatal, in the end, to the interests of Zion. It is well known that our Methodist and Baptist brethren, were for a considerable time, to a great extent, regardless of human learning, if not unfriendly to it, in their candidates for the holy ministry. But it is equally well known, that both these denominations of Christians have felt the importance, for a number of years past, of directing increased attention to this subject; and of providing colleges and Theological Seminaries for their regular training. And it will also be remembered, as already hinted more than once, in the course of these letters-that the "new side" brethren, in the old dispute which long ago agitated and divided our church, when calm reflection succeeded to the strong impulse of passion under which they had acted, became sensible that they had not paid due regard to preparatory study for the ministry; that they had hastily licensed and ordained men, who were not qualified for the sacred office; and were at great pains and expense for establishing a wiser and better plan. Indeed it may safely be asserted that no denomination or party, ever allowed themselves to license, or to send forth invested with the office of teaching and ruling in the church, raw, halftrained, ignorant, and self-sufficient men, however zealous they might be, without eventual mortification and disap. pointment; without ultimately finding that they had done more harm than good to the cause of Christ, and had degraded themselves in the eyes of all enlightened observers.

Nothing is further from my view, my Christian brethren, than to plead for raising up as Gospel ministers a set of learned, heartless drones, who will study more to shine as scholars, than to "win souls to Jesus Christ." The men whom I wish and pray may be trained for the service of the church, are men of devoted and fervent piety; enlight

ened and warm friends to revivals of religion; men qualified and disposed to take an active part in forwarding all the laudable Christian institutions of the day; and, at the same time, so well instructed and solidly judicious; so intimately acquainted with the Bible, with the system of grace, with the history of the church, and with the human heart, as to be prepared at once with enlightened discrimination and zeal, to promote all that is good, and to discern and resist every thing of a contrary tendency, whether it appear in the form of an angel of light" or of darkness. Such is the character of the ministry indispensably, I may say, peculiarly needed at the present day, by every church which wishes to take a large and active part in the conversion of the world. And I fully believe that the day has come when no other ministry than such as I have described, will command the respect of the wise and the good, or really promote the interests of " pure and undefiled religion." It is not denied that men of very small knowledge, and of quite as little prudence,―provided they be truly pious, ardent in their temperament, and impressive in their elocution, may excite, and perhaps greatly excite, popular assemblies, for a short time; may even become instrumental in producing considerable awakenings; and be, for a few weeks or months, borne on the shoulders of the populace. But will this last for a single year? Can it be imagined that such persons are qualified to be stated pastors? Can they be expected to instruct, to unite, and to build up the people, as well as to rouse and collect them? Is it possible that they should bring forth, from Sabbath to Sabbath, what is necessary to meet the necessities of the various classes of their hearers; to convince the gainsayers, to enlighten the anxious and the doubting, wisely and seasonably to give each one his portion, and to feed and edify the people of God? None but those who shut their eyes against all reason and all experience can expect such a result. Ecclesiastical partizans may fondly imagine that they are promoting the Redeemer's kingdom by rapidly multiplying ministers almost at any rate. But it is just as certain that, if they act upon this principle, they are making work for bitter repentance, as it is that the relation between cause and effect is indissoluble.

The community stands in no need of any addition to the numbers of ignorant, superficial, incompetent ministers