well-doing, nor turn away in disgust, though your advances be repelled and your benevolence be requited with the eye of scorn and the viper's tooth.

But there remains what is harder still. Your whole deportment is to be the living form of your doctrine. It should offer no weak side to malicious adversaries, and no blemishes of which half-hearted Christians may take advantage to excuse their own inconsistencies; but you should be "examples of the believers," as was enjoined on Timothy-"In word in conversation, in charity in spirit, in faith in purity.

Such, brethren, is the standard of ministerial competency that our holy mother approves. She would fain have none in her service who are content with reaching a lower mark : and to provide her with labourers of this stamp, is the aim of the Pastoral Aid Society. For indeed she can do little more herself with respect to a large proportion of her numerous family than lift up her voice to God in their behalf, and call upon those who have enough and to spare, to save their brethren from the worst description of famine. Her heart yearns over them, but how to satisfy their wants she knows not,

So much has been laid before the public of late years concerning the dearth of a religious provision for the majority of our large towns, that few educated people are unacquainted with the leading facts. At the period of the birth of our parochial system, what are now great manufacturing towns were paltry hamlets for the most part, or were not in existence. Accordingly no provision was made for a demand that could not be anticipated, or none that is commensurate with their present necessities. Arrived at a giant's size, their allowance of food is the stint of an infant. I need not point your attention to distant places. Only look at parts of Westminster, at the borough of Southwark, and other suburbs of the metropolis, and say whether these statements are not fully borne out. higher authority can I allege than that of our revered diocesan, who in calling for aid from the wealthy and the pious to erect fifty new churches, has not put forth a demand, considerable as it may appear, that comes up to the actual exigency. But suppose churches and chapels called into

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existence sufficient for the wants of this vast people, the question arises how are these places of worship to be supplied? How are the inhabitants of the districts ecclesiastically connected with them to obtain pastoral care? The present number of clergymen pastorally employed, has been computed at 14,000; these, however, are very unequally distributed with respect to the population. Nor can it be otherwise, since every parish, be it ever so thinly peopled, is entitled (and I bless God for that feature of our system) to the ministerial care of a clergyman. What then is the result of this unequal distribution? Why, that to nearly 1,400 places, comprising a population of nine millions and a half, no more than 2,300 clergymen are assigned. Now those who know something of the multifarious duties that lie upon the conscience of a parochial minister, will admit that the care of 2,000 souls is enough for any one pastor, except in rare cases. But owing to the enormous growth of many of our towns and villages, it is a most appalling fact, that in many instances 10,000, 15,000, and even 30,000 souls are dependent for spiritual teaching, consolation, and supervision, on a solitary pastor. How incompetent any man, be his mental and bodily vigour what they may, to the duties of such a post, I shall hardly be required to demonstrate.

[The reverend gentleman then read extracts from the occasional papers of the Society, containing letters from clergymen, stating the want of spiritual instruction in their different parishes; which may be obtained gratis at the Society's office, and to which we would beg to refer our readers. After which he said]

Now I put it to you, brethren, whether, in so deplorable a scarcity of pastoral superintendence, and even of public teaching I put it to you, whether the brutal licentiousness, and the reckless infidelity with which the humbler classes of the community are infected, can be matter of astonishment? Either they are deplorably ignorant, or their school knowledge, not being duly tempered with scriptural principles, only turns them further away from God-from virtue and happiness. Great numbers have no church within a reasonable distance of their dwellings, or can obtain no sitting in the parish church; which was built per

haps for a place containing but a thousand souls, that has since become twenty, thirty, or even a hundred times more populous. In such a case it is manifest that the incumbent singly, or only one assistant, must be engrossed with the ordinary duties of his charge; and is in no situation to carry the Gospel to the thresholds and hearths of such of his parishioners as are precluded by want of church room from attending his public ministrations, or wilfully neglect them.

What wonder, then, if lewdness, wickedness, fraud, violence, and profaneness abound in districts in which large masses of people are congregated, and then left to corrupt for want of that divine salt which counteracts moral putrefaction! What wonder if darkness, a darkness that may be felt, overspread our towns and cities, which have each but a single lamp to light them, whereas twenty would be too few.

It is for the purpose of doing somewhat to obviate this great calamity, and to rescue the souls of our brethren in this Christian land from a state little better than heathen, that the society so appropriately named the Church Pastoral Aid has recently been formed; and much am I deceived if the birth of this association be not a token for good to our land. Its name declares its object. It comes in aid of the pastoral insufficiency of the church of England. It proposes, with God's help, to raise funds for the supply of clerical or lay assistants to such of the clergy as are sinking under the pressure of exertions; which, after all, fall very short of the wants of their respective cures. To desire men circumstanced as are most of these incumbents, with a pittance barely adequate to their own support, to defray the charge of whatever subsidiary force they may require, would be to insult their poverty. It is to their relief, accordingly, or rather to the help of their starving parishes, that our Society steps forward. It is to facilitate the opening of new places of worship, to provide additional services on Sundays and other days, to secure more abundant pastoral visitation, with particular attention to parochial, national, infant, and other schools. To these sacred objects has the Society pledged itself as a dutiful servant of the Establishment. How long, alas, shall the

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hungry sheep be indebted to strangers, for the food there are not enough commissioned hands to supply! From my heart I respect those zealous volunteers, who, at the pure impulse of Christian love, have rushed forth to the rescue of souls that must otherwise, humanly speaking, have perished. But surely a Christian people should not be left dependant on casual and irregular teaching. The church should be enabled to protect and feed her own. She ought to be endued with an expansive power, to keep pace with the spiritual necessities of the country; and she ought not to be upbraided because its population has outgrown her wealth and resources. Indeed, it sounds like an ungenerous scoff, to demand of the church of England, that out of her impaired dowery she should found and endow new places. The demand is about as reasonable as it would be to call upon our sailors to build and equip new ships, when an augmentation of the navy was required for the good of the empire at large. It is no good omen for a state, that it treats the ministers of religion as traders for their own emolument, instead of regarding them as public functionaries of the highest value. To confound the importance of the Church to the welfare of mankind, with the pecuniary interest which the clergy have in its prosperity, is the artifice of ungodly men. Do the common people regard the safety of the British constitution as a matter of small concern to them, and important only to the statesman by whom it is administered? And can the laity account themselves less interested than the clergy in the security and well being of that Church which is to all of us alike the hallowed sanctuary from death-the ark of eternal salvation?

I am persuaded, brethren, that the Church is the greatest blessing to the people. She is the channel of all other blessings. Herself embraced of God, she embraces the whole community, and sanctifies it, and maintains it in a covenant relation with the Father and the Saviour. To protect her from spoliation and wrong, to secure her in her temporal powers, and in the rightful exercise of her functions, and to see that she has her complement of servants to execute the duties of her lofty vocation, is the course prescribed by real wisdom. For is it not to keep

open that channel through which the mercies of Heaven flow down upon ourselves? We may not be prepared to go the length of affirming with an eminent Christian philosopher, that political aggrandisement is the proper fruit of national godliness; but we must surely concur in the sentiment of the sagacious Machiavel, that "there is no surer prognostic of impending ruin to any state than for public worship to be neglected and despised." Neither can I forbear to add, that no judicious friend to our Church would divest her of those symbols of majesty which impress the senses of beholders; and render her venerable even in the eyes of persons who have not yet learnt to appreciate her intrinsic worth and grandeur. Is there any thing, I ask, in the structure of the human mind,—is there any thing in the history of past times to warrant an expectation, that religion, if stripped of her beautiful attire, and newly clad to the taste of infidel or puritanical economists, would command more respect, or be embraced with livelier affection, and a purer spirituality?

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But to return to our subject. How does this Society proceed in furnishing assistants to distressed parishes? By rules which appear strongly marked with judgment, delicacy, deference to ecclesiastical order, and a religious solicitude to fulfil exactly a sacred duty. The applicant for help is requested to name the individual he wishes to engage, at the same time forwarding such testimonials and references as may satisfy the committee that, in acceding to the nomination, they shall not betray their trust. documents are submitted not to the acting committee indiscriminately, but to its clerical secretary, in conjunction with the other clerical members; and the result of their investigation is final, unless the nominee should think fit to appeal from an unfavourable decision. It would seem barely possible for a more unexceptionable plan to be devised; the committee not interfering with the incumbent in his choice one tittle, beyond what is requisite to satisfy the body of subscribers that no part of its funds is bestowed unworthily; but that for every 80l. or 901. cast into its treasury, a man of God, a devoted servant of the cross, a clergymen not in name only, but in spirit, is sent forth to labour in some field of extensive usefulness. Yet