which are still encumbered with the same disadvantage in a less degree. There are churches in which a talent for exhortation or for leading in prayer, is readily enough called into exercise, but a talent for counsel, a cool judgment, skill in the adjustment of difficulties, and activity and accuracy in the details of business, are of no use, save as the possessor happens to be invested with some official character. In a church, for example, which puts all its affairs into the hands of a pastor and three or four elders, what is the need of intelligence and wisdom, or of deliberate and independent thought, or of any thing but obedience on the part of the brethren. But in the churches of which we now speak, as all affairs are left in the hands of the brotherhood, so every member of the brotherhood is sure to have calls enough for the exercise of whatever gifts he possesses. Nay so much de

pends on the diligence, the faithfulness, and the wisdom of the brethren, so obvious is the necessity for an intelligent and efficient laity, that nothing can tend, more effectually than this constant demand, to secure a constant supply of the requisite activity and knowledge. As the result, it may be stated without boasting, that so numerous a body of churches, better instructed in respect to the great doctrines of the christian faith, or better prepared and trained for active usefulness in the kingdom of God, cannot

be found in all the world.* Thus these churches are all, save here and there a case of lamentable delinquency, so many schools for the cultivation and employment of all those gifts by which believers can benefit each other, or promote the kingdom of God. Thus the churches of New England may naturally be expected to embody, always, a great amount of disciplined and practiced moral power-power which may be wielded to vast effect for the universal advancement of the cause of holiness.

Thirdly, the power and of course the responsibility of these churches is augmented by their mutual communion and intercourse. While they acknowledge no common authority over them, other than the authority of common sense and of the word of God; they are not, as is sometimes thought, so many independent and isolated bodies, with no bond of union, and no perception of common interests and duties. This has been shown already. All the acts of the communion of churches, are mutually rendered at least as truly and faithfully, as in any other community of churches whatever. They are really and truly united-one spirit circulates through the whole communion-the prosperity of one portion is felt by all-the zeal of one tends to awaken every other--opinion, thought, feeling, pass from one to another with no obstruction.

* Note D. ↑ Note E.

What facilities does this afford for the exertion of a combined and resistless moral influence. What responsibility does it throw upon these churches. Fourthly, these churches are blessed with a ministry, evangelical, enlightened, and united. A few indeed of the churches built by our fathers, on the foundation of the prophets and apostles, Jesus Christ being the chief cornerstone, have departed from the faith and have ceased to be numbered among the churches. We speak not of them but of the thousand that remain, and that acknowledge each other as the depositaries of the precious faith which has made New England what it is; and we say that these churches are blessed with a ministry eminently evangelical. Hardly a pulpit can be found, in which the great doctrines of the gospel are not exhibited with a clearness and consistency not often known in other countries. Among the thousand congregational pastors of New England, how rarely can one be found, who preaches either an antinomian or an Arminian gospel-who either covers up the obligations of the sinner, or obscures and hides the sovereignty of the Creator,-who either extenuates man's guilt and administers opiates to his slumbering conscience, by denying his ability as an agent, or neglects to teach him his dependence on the Lord Jesus alone, for righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. How rarely can

one be found, to whose ministry God does not set the seal of his approbation, in the conversion and sanctification of souls.

At the same time, the pastors of these churches, to a greater extent than can be affirmed of any equal body of churches in the world, are enlightened and well instructed. While we are tied up by no rules which forbid the calling of any man to the pastoral office, whom God has endowed with such gifts and graces as give good promise of success, yet, such is the force of public opinion, so favorable are the arrangements of God's providence, that hardly any are set to feed the flock of God, whose minds are not cultivated and disciplined by general study, and none at all who have not given serious attention, to gain a thorough, comprehensive and consistent knowledge of the system of truth contained in the Bible. Theology is more studied, and from the beginning has been more studied, in New England than any where else in the world. The result is that the divines of New England, the Edwardses, and Bellamys, and Dwights of former days, not to mention the names of others who adorn and enlighten the present generation, are at this hour giving lessons in the knowledge of the word of God to the churches of all protestant christendom.

There is a reason for this. The very constitution of these churches is such that they can

not live without an enlightened and able ministry. If other churches have their imposing liturgies and magnificent ceremonies, their towering hierarchies, their sacerdotal garments, their ministers whose mysterious functions open and shut the kingdom of heaven; it is not so with these. If other churches have their strong systems of ecclesiastical government, putting every thing into the hands of a combined and associated clergy, and making the power of that clergy so strong that the people cannot resist it without convulsive revolution; it is not so with these. In these churches the minister has no power but the power which grows out of the confidence of the people in his personal character, and the power of the truth which he preaches; and therefore if he is to be any thing, he must be not only a man of unimpeachable integrity and purity, but a man of intelligence, and especially of intelligence on the subject of theology. Such, to a happy extent, are the pastors of these churches.

Nor is this all; the ministers of the New England churches are, and with few exceptions always have been, eminently harmonious in their views, and united in action. Freedom of thought they have always held to be their privilege as men, and their duty as teachers of religion; and of course they have always entertained some diversity of views, respecting various explana