CHAPTER III.

ITS DIRECT RESULTS, CONTINUED.

NEXT to the question of church accommodation is that of religious teachers, both as to number and qualification. With respect to this matter, also, we shall avail ourselves of Reed and Matheson's statistics, as showing how the relative supply of ministers stood at the period of their visit, in 1835.

The following account of the number of ministers in some principal protestant denominations in 1850, is made up partly from the American Almanac for 1851, and partly from Dr. Baird's statistical paper read to the Conference of the Evangelical Alliance:--

We have thus in 27,408 churches 18,021 ministers.

Additional light is thrown on the point now before us by a view of a single denomination, but one of the largest in the United States-the baptists—which we find in a letter from the Rev. Baron Stow, D.D., of Boston, in the Baptist Manual for 1850. This letter includes a general summary of the baptists in the United States, prepared by the Rev. T. S. Malcom, of Philadelphia, according to the latest returns which it had then been possible to collect. We give the relevant portion of this valuable document without abridgment, for the value of the light it collaterally throws on the distribution of religious agency, under the voluntary system, throughout the several states and territories of the union :

According to these figures, the excess of churches above ministers is considerably larger in 1850 than it was in 1835 ; that is to say, the congregations have increased more rapidly than the supply of ministers required for their instruction. Dr. Stow, in his letter to the secretaries of the Baptist Union, notices this aspect of the case in the following terms: "Your attention will be arrested by the fact, that the number of churches so far exceeds the number of ministers. The greater disparity appears in the southern and western parts of the union, where the population is more sparse, and the churches are less able, or less disposed, to maintain the stated ministry of the word. It is not uncommon in

those sections of the country for one preacher to serve three, four, or five churches in rotation. In the eastern and middle states, most of the churches are supplied each with its own pastor."

It appears, however, that, in addition to the “ordained ministers," there exists, in the baptist denomination at least --and we should scarcely think that this is an exceptional case—a large body of teachers under the name of “licensed ministers." Of these Dr. Stow says:-" Those who are noted as licensed ministers' are not all to be regarded as young men just entering the service. Many of them are brethren in middle life, who have received the approbation of the churches to which they respectively belong, to 'preach the word,' and whose labours are often very acceptable as itinerants in destitute districts, or in the occasional supply of vacant pulpits."

Dr. Baird, in his statistical paper, gives the following condensed view of the relative numbers of churches (or congregations) and ministers. We take the doctrinal distinctions as he gives them, without attaching any importance to them in relation to our present argument :—

This statement affords a total of 61,467 churches (or congregations) and 27,054 ministers. It should be observed that this large deficiency lies principally with the methodist body, and that among them it is largely compensated by the employment of local preachers, estimated by Dr. Baird at 9000; so that the gross number of ministers of religion may be taken as exceeding 36,000.

From this view of the number of religious teachers in the United States, we now turn to a consideration of their qualifications. Upon this subject we must be understood as limiting our remarks to protestant evangelical communions, in the sense in which the word "evangelical" would be currently understood in this country.

With respect to the qualifications of religious teachers in the United States, it is obvious that a hasty or what we may call an English-judgment, will be sure to be an erroneous one. We must not carry to such a region the long-established modes of thinking and habits of action characteristic of our own country. There are, on the contrary, two important respects in which we should dispossess ourselves of them. On the one hand, we must entirely have done with the supposition, that education alone is a sufficient qualification for the ministry: we must rather set it down as a first principle, that the antecedent and far more important qualification is religion itself, that is to say, the personal religious character of the teacher. On the other hand, we must be ready to admit that a course of religious teaching may, under many circumstances, be beneficially carried on without any specific education at all; that is, without what is ordinarily called an education for the ministry. There ought to be no difficulty, we think, in admitting these two positions, which are, in our judgment, of obvious truth, and may be amply supported by a large induction of fact and experience. By these principles alone can the ministerial bodies of the United States be fairly tested.