preach, that worship will be little more than a ceremonial routine of forms. And for the effect of such worship, observe the glaring matter of fact! Many of you have seen the state of the people's minds in places where the preaching has long been performed as a brief but heavy trifle in the service.

There is another advantage of this administration of religious instruction to a great number together. It makes all be witnesses to all that they have heard it. Each one hears all the assembly told the same truths, and put under the same obligations. The individual has a certain indistinct sense that a great number can testify what he ought to be, how solemnly he has been warned. Sometimes he may encounter the direct expression of this testimony, from some one. "This is not as we have been taught—you and I." Sometimes the solemn idea will strike the mind of a hearer, while he happens to look over the assembly,—“ We shall all at the Last Day be witnesses against one another, that all of us heard these things." There is some good influence we think from the kind of moral check which the hearing part of the community have upon one another. Each knows what the conscience of each of the others says to him. And thus all are, in some small degree, prompters to the consciences of all. Each has a kind of power to set each one's conscience in action.

A preaching ministry is an advantageous thing, again, as something for the popular mind to lean upon, in respect to opinion on religious subjects. We are for having all men to exert their own independent judgment in religion, as much as ever they can. But after all, a great number absolutely will lean to something as naturally as some plants wili; partly from indolence;-partly from being sensible that they have neither the time nor the other requisites for deeply examining. They would, therefore, sink into either uerplexity or indifference. Now then, it is a convenient

thing, and we think a beneficial thing, on the whole, that an intelligent, thinking public teacher should-not be regarded as an oracle, but as a guide, a support. Many really cannot examine all the things which yet is very desirable they should admit in their judgment.

It is still another advantage of the institution of preaching, that it tends to secure that religion shall be made a subject of regular study, of deep and prolonged thought, in some part of the community. What would be the consequence, if none had to think of religious truth more studiously, with harder exertion, than would be required in such easy reading and talking as most would be apt to be content with? It is an important thing, then, that there should be a good number of men, constrained by their office and duty as teachers, to apply their minds much more intensely and assiduously to the subject; an important advantage, we mean, for the community. The subject is thus kept before men's minds in a fuller, clearer, larger form; it is not suffered to dwindle, in men's view, to a slight, scanty, superficial thing. The general state of religious thinking cannot be kept moderately high, but by there being a considerable number of persons very high. And if some attain conspicuous eminence in this capacity, will it not be a good thing to have some of the human eminence in this bad world thus strictly combined with religion? Why, men are pleased that some of their race should attain a more eminent ground by excellence in science and learning, by devising works of temporal advantage, and even by war! Is it not a better thing still, that here and there a man should excel those around him by this distinction-the wisdom of religion? As mankind do and will delight to look up at men somewhat above the general level, it surely were well there should be some that could not be looked up to, but Religion must be so too?

For many reasons, then, there should be preachers. How are the properly qualified ones to be obtained? To many nothing would appear more ridiculous than to make a question about this. To them we should seem like men gravely thinking, deliberating, planning, for means to get over a river when there is a great wide bridge just before their faces. The method has been settled, throughout the whole Christian world, as it is denominated, for a great many ages; an established Church, a hierarchy, a priesthood. The powers of this world have judged our Master too arrogant or too humble, in saying, "My kingdom is not of this world;"―too arrogant if he meant it was quite above alliance with, or dependence on, temporal power;-too humble, if he meant it should not aspire to such high patronage and alliance. They have decided that his kingdom should be a part of theirs, regulated by their will, and having its authority in their strength; nay, having even its very principles, its doctrines, in their appointment and sanction.

It would be little to our present purpose to go at all into the controversy. We only observe generally that that which is essentially secular and political, cannot be essentially religious. A national Hierarchy (that is, a system of Priesthood,) constituted by the temporal government,—would, mainly and necessarily, be constituted by men that knew nothing about real Christianity, cared nothing about it, and had a direct preponderating interest to make the Institution subservient to the purposes of State. The system would be naturally and necessarily, a scene for the excitement and fullest exercise of the great secular passions; the thirst for emolument, the ambition, and a long gradation higher and higher to keep it perpetually in action; thence competition and homage to temporal power. And then in the conducting of the system; that is, in the patronage, and the course of the appointments, what could be expected, but that

worldly claims and merits should have the habitual preference? Rank, high connections, political weight, and talents devoted in their exercise, to the service of the State authorities ? And then, for the effect:—look to the effect of all this through many centuries of the History of Europe;the despotism over conscience, the profound ignorance of all Christendom,-the non-existence nearly of the Christian Religion on earth,-and the horrible persecutions.

But not to dwell on these gloomy distant visions, look back to a comparatively recent period-(say one age of man, seventy years since)-and see what such an institution of preachers had by that time done for the people of England. Within the recollection of our immediate ancestors, what was the state of the people, in regard to Christian knowledge? Yet they were all within the charge and jurisdiction of the Hierarchy. And if now happily a certain portion—a small section comparatively, of that vast Hierarchy is working in a very different manner, and to a very noble effect, in what light are those persons regarded by the great body of that Priesthood? They are deliberately regarded and solemnly pronounced fanatics, and the most pernicious schismatics. And again, how has this very partial reformation arisen? Has it not arisen from without? from an invasion of the influence of the prodigious activity and increase of religious persons in the region outside the consecrated ground? And yet, all this while, that Hierarchy has been invested with a most mighty combination of powers and means; the power of the state has been in them and with them; the main stream of the learning, and vast wealth.

Now we think, that as we asserted before, there should be many Preachers; we may aver, next, that there should be many Dissenting Preachers. They would be required, even though that Hierarchy really did what it is professedly designed for. It could but very imperfectly even then,

extend its operation to the whole national mass, unless it greatly altered its regulations. And then there are all our settled congregations and Christian societies, the Preachers to which are continually becoming silent by death. "How

shall they hear without a Preacher ?" Could we be content for them to disperse hither and thither, to scatter and disappear? the meeting-houses be surrendered to secular uses, or to the ivy and the owls ?

But then, how to furnish forth these required Preachers? The Dissenters have one very great disadvantage attendant on the right principles of their system. The men brought to the ecclesiastical service in the Establishment are educated for it from their early youth, as being for the most part destined for it at that period. They can be consistently so destined, because any proofs of personal piety are not considered as an essential prerequisite, nor of abilities in any manner above the most common. It is quite evident there is no such rule of selection. Now, both these, we trust will always be held indispensable by the Dissenters. But then, the young persons coming forward with both these requisites, will often not have enjoyed, in the desirable degree, the advantages of early cultivation. Especially while the state of Education is so lamentably and disgracefully low as it is among the Dissenters. How clearly necessary then these Institutions which we call Academies, to enable the hopeful spirits which are rising here and there in our religious societies to redeem past time, and make a strenuous rise of the present. It is a sign of improving sense among us that the prejudices against them are passing away. We do not so often hear the language, “Give me a man with the grace of God, and then give the book-learning, if you will, to the Apostles of Satan." There is some hope the people will become wise when they are not content for iororance to teach them. It is now generally comprehended