stance to all the various classes of our people, according to their spiritual character and circumstances, taking all possible pains to acquire exact information in regard to these, and, according to the information we procure, arranging and distributing our pastoral attentions,-" bringing forth things new and old," according to the case, from the Holy Word's exhaustless treasury, so rich in appropriate advice, example, warning, motive, consolation,—in the materials for our use of conviction to the careless, conversion to the unbeliever, reproof to the presumptuous, direction to the doubtful, strength to the weak, support to the fainting, comfort to the sorrowful, to the dying hope, and edification to all. In the exercise of this particular superintendence,—to which we are so solemnly obliged, for the purpose at once of ascertaining the spiritual condition of our flock, and of making to their several cases the spiritual applications which they severally require,-nothing, of course, can more directly contribute than the personal visitation and inspection of families, which has always, in the estimation of our Church, held so high a place among the branches of the pastoral care. May I venture to suggest, with all humility, my strong persuasion, that a certain mode of discharging this part of our function which has lately come into use is calculated greatly to dilute and enfeeble its effect, the mode, I mean, of making merely an or VOL. II. 2 E dinary call from house to house, and afterwards delivering the exhortations and the petitions of the service in a little congregation collected from them all? Men have a fatal facility, we must be all aware, of escaping the point of admonitions addressed to them in company with others. They hear for those others more than for themselves,-seated, as it were, in the centre of the crowd, where the arrow can reach them only through another's side; and so what is suitable to many is often effective with none,what is addressed to all is powerless with each. And hence a distinguished master of our profession has well observed, that "the preacher who wishes to do good will labour above all things to insulate his hearers, to place each of them apart, and render it impossible for him to escape among the crowd." Exactly the reverse is the character of that mode of ministerial visitation of which we speak, whose direct tendency is obviously to facilitate escape, to render the exhortations of the house as general as those of the church, and to give scope to that subtle delusion which so often blunts and turns the edge of that "quick and powerful word" which in itself is "sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart." Nor will you fail to remember, on this part of our subject, that, as ministers, not only of a Church, but of an Establishment, we have the charge, not merely of congregations, but of parishes, and that, in these circumstances, we are bound to consider as not without a direct and personal claim upon our pastoral concern that else unprovided and outcast population who, in our larger parishes, are to be found living without even a profession of religion,-heathens in a Christian land. They are not now, indeed, even nominally of the flock,-yet even from among them, by God's blessing on our cares, the flock may be replenished. Even from the darkest shades of ignorance and the lowest depths of profligacy,-from the gloomiest and most savage recesses of the wilderness, the seemingly abandoned and hopeless waif may be brought back,-for him may Christ's blessed fold of purity and rest and joy unfold its gates,―for him may the harps of angels sound in jubilation,—for him may the Father himself bid heaven rejoice, for he was lost, and he is found." Such, fathers and brethren, is some part of what is included in "taking heed to all the flock." He, my brethren, has enough to care for,-he has enough to answer for, who, stationed in some rural hamlet or some sequestered valley, keeps watch over scarce a thousand souls. How, then, should those of us feel who are the appointed overseers not of a thousand souls, but of a thousand and a thousand more of families! But be the charge in number what it may, whoso shall judge of the function ministerial, not by the opinions of men, but by the standard of Scripture, from the bottom of his heart will join in the exclamation which the contemplation wrung even from our graced and gifted Apostle,-" Who is sufficient for these things?" and breathe the earnest petition, that Christ himself would fulfil his promise to his servants," My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness." And while we feel that only by his grace can our energies be duly stimulated, so let us keep in mind that only by his blessing can they prove eventually successful. "Paul may plant and Apollos water, but God giveth the increase." Yet while our Saviour-God requires that this momentous truth, humbling to man and glorifying to himself, should be deeply felt and ever kept in mind by those who undertake the charge of souls, he does not therefore exempt them from the duty of using all possible means, and making all possible exertions, which are by him appointed, or are in their nature calculated for promoting the spiritual improvement and the final salvation of mankind. He has, on the other hand, enjoined it by precepts the most express, and motives the most solemn, commanding us to give ourselves "wholly to these things,”-in these things to exist. And if there ever were a time in which God's provi dence distinctly united its voice with his word, this is the time,-when the demand, the loud demand of the country and the age, is for efficiency in every public functionary, when all established institutions are about to be tried by their efficiency, and when, before the rushing tendency of things, every establishment that is not found efficiently doing its work must be swept away. To our present position, fathers and brethren, may well be applied the striking language in which Chrysostom enforced on the clergy of his age the necessity of watchfulness and of exertion,-Χαλεπος ὁ καιρος οἱ επιβουλευοντες πολλοι εκ μέσω παγίδων διαβαινομεν· επι επάλξεων περιπατούμεν, circumstances these to which no advice surely can be more appropriate than that of the text, "Take heed, take heed to yourselves,-take heed to your work." God grant to each of us that we may fully learn the lesson which Scripture and events are thus combined in teaching! God grant to each of us the grace to be faithful,-the happiness, the present and eternal happiness, to be successful! For O the blessedness of him who, having in his generation "turned many unto righteousness, shall shine" among them in the heavenly firmament,—a radiant constellation's most radiant star! O the surpassing splendour of that celestial crown, brightest among the bright coronets of glory, and worthiest to be laid at the Re |