worst of it is, we not only have no indemnification for this amazing, immense sacrifice, by a real improvement of the state of religion, but the public mind is vitiated: an unnatural appetite for spurious excitements, all tending to fanaticism, and not a little of it the essence of fanaticism, is created and nourished. The interests of religion in the land are actually thrown backward. It is a fever, a disease which nothing but time, pains, and a change of system can cure. A great body of the most talented, best educated, most zealous, most pious, and purest Christian ministers in the country-not to disparage any others-a body which in all respects will bear an advantageous comparison with any of their class in the world, is threatened to be enervated, to become sickly, to have their minds wasted, and their lives sacrificed out of season, and with real loss to the public, by the very means which prostrates them, even though we should leave out of the reckoning the premature end to which they are brought. This spectacle, at this moment

before the eyes of the wide community, is enough to fill the mind of an enlightened Christian with dismay. I have myself been thrown ten years out of the stated use of the ministry by this very course, and may, therefore, be entitled to feel and to speak on the subject. And when I see my brethren fallen and falling around me, like the slain in battle, the plains of our land literally covered with these unfortunate victims, I am constrained to express a most earnest desire, that some adequate remedy may be applied."

It is no matter of surprise, then, that I heard the ministers at the camp meeting complain of the excess of their labours, and the difficulty of obtaining young men to enter the church:* who, indeed, unless actuated by a holy zeal,

* The Rev. Mr. Reid observes, speaking of the Congregationalists, "When I rose to support his resolution, as requested, all were generously attentive. At the close I alluded emphatically to one fact in the report, which was, that out of 4,500 churches there were 2,000 not only void of educated pastors, but void of pastors; and I insisted that, literally, they ought not to sleep on such a state of things."-Reid and Matheson's Tour.

would submit to such a life of degradation? what man of intellect and education could submit to be schooled by shoemakers and mechanics, to live poor, and at the mercy of tyrants, and drop down dead like the jaded and over-laden beast from excess of fatigue and exertion? Let me again quote the same author: :

"It is these excessive, multitudinous, and often long protracted religious occasions, together with the spirit that is in them, which have been for some years breaking up and breaking down the clergy of this land. It has been breaking them up. It is commonly observed, that a new era has lately come over the Christian congregations of our country in regard to the permanence of the pastoral relation. Time was in the memory of those now living when the settlement of a minister was considered of course a settlement for life. But now, as everybody knows, this state of things is entirely broken up; and it is, perhaps, true that, on an average, the clergy of this country do not remain more than five years

in the same place.* And it is impossible they should, in the present state of things. They could not stand it. So numerous are their engagements; so full of anxiety is their condition in a fevered state of the public mind acting upon them from all directions; so consuming are their labours in the study and in public, pressed and urged upon them by the demands of the time; and, withal, so fickle has the popular mind become under a system that it is for ever demanding some new and still more exciting measure-some new society-some new monthly or weekly meeting, which perhaps soon grows into a religious holiday-some special effort running through many days, sometimes lasting for weeks, calling for public labours of ministers, of the most exciting kind throughout each day from

* "I was sorry to find that, in this part of the State, the ministers are so frequently changing the scene of their pastoral labours. The fault may sometimes be in themselves; but, from conversations I have heard on the subject, I am inclined to believe that the people are fond of change."-Rev. Mr. Reid.

the earliest hour of the morning to a late hour of night;-for reasons and facts of this kind, so abundant, and now so obvious to the public that they need only to be referred to to be seen and appreciated, it is impossible that ministers should remain long in the same place. Their mental and physical energies become exhausted, and they are compelled to change; first, because it is not in the power of man to satisfy the appetite for novelties which is continually and from all quarters making its insatiate demands upon them; and next, that, if possible, they may purchase a breathing time and a transient relief from the overwhelming pressure of their cares and labours.

"But, alas! there is no relief: they are not only broken up, but they find themselves fast breaking down. Wherever they go, there is the same demand for the same scene to be acted over. There is-there can be-no stability in the pastoral relation, in such a state of the public mind; and, what is still more melancholy and