accept it for once, though every thing is not so regular as your could wish. But it will not do. You are answerable to God for a strait forward course. He expects you to guard the door of your pulpit against all intruders. If you are unable to occupy it and no good brother can help you, shut it up. If you are but poorly prepared, do as well as you can; but give no countenance to any one who would "climb up some other way."

Without taking back any thing which I have said in regard to ministerial exchanges, I am now prepared, my dear E., to relieve your mind by expressing my approbation of every reasonable and necessary indulgence. I would not shut you up from the beginning of the year to the end of it, if you could sustain the labor just as well as not. It is right and proper, that you should occasionally preach to other congregations, and that your brethren should come and preach to yours. It promotes good feeling, and strengthens the bonds of christian fellowship. Kept within due bounds, exchanges are no doubt profitable both to ministers and people. And then young

pastors must have occasional relief, in one way or another, from their studies. They cannot prepare two good sermons every week, year in and year out. Here and there a highly gifted preacher might do it perhaps; but the majority would break down under the labor. When they find themselves exhausted, they must relax and help one another. This they can do by exchanges, and so far as it is necessary, their people ought to be satisfied, and even to encourage it. How frequently you may need the indulgence

you become more Something will decongregation. If

now in the commencement of your ministry, it is impossible for me to say, and no universal rule can be given. I should hope not more than once or twice in a month and less frequently, as accustomed to writing sermons. pend upon the demands of your they set up a very high standard, and are not willing to hear some plain and ordinary discourses, and you think it a duty to yield to their wishes, you must exchange the oftener. But if they leave the matter with you to do the best you can, as I presume they will so long as they see that you are active and laborious in your sacred calling, you will in the course of three or four years find it about as easy to preach at home as to go abroad upon exchanges.

But when, after long experience and habit, should God be pleased to spare your life, you find yourself quite at ease, and rather averse to going from home, do not forget your younger brethren. They will need the same assistance and indulgences which you do now. Deem it no hardship to put yourself to considerable inconvenience, if need be, for their accommodation. It is brotherly. It is required by the golden rule. It will be remembered with gratitude, when you are in your grave. I am sure, I shall always remember the kindness of a venerable father in the neighborhood of my first parish. It was no accommodation to him to exchange, but the contrary. He loved his home and his own pulpit better than any other place. But when I got into trouble, as I sometimes did, and felt that I had nothing to say to my own people which was worth their hearing, I

always knew where to go for help. I was sure of being received as a son "in the gospel," and that he would make the desired exchange, whatever personal inconvenience it might cost him.

Before closing this letter, I have a word to say about exchanging with men, whose avowed sentiments you regard as fundamentally erroneous, or who studiously conceal their real sentiments from motives of policy. Exchanging pulpits is an act of ministerial fellowship. Whenever you invite a preacher to occupy your place, you virtually say to your church and congregation, that you have confidence in him as a man of correct theological opinions, and a true servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. For the time being, you confide their immortal interests to his keeping. You, as it were, endorse for him. You bid him "God speed." If he teaches error, you are answerable for it. And if his discourses amount to nothing one way or the other, you are answerable. Life is too short, every soul commended to your pastoral care is too precious, to lose a single sabbath. That identical sabbath may be the last, that some anxious or careless sinner has to spend on earth.

It would alter the case very little, were the known errorist, who solicits an exchange, to stipulate, that he would not touch at all upon points, in which you disagree, nor say anything against which you could object. Suppose he should not; suppose he should deliver as excellent moral discourses, as any one could wish to hear. Still you know him to hold sentiments which you look upon as fatal. Your church knows it; your congregation knows it, and will

they not infer, that there cannot after all be any essential difference between your opinions and his. "Surely," they will say, "surely our pastor who is so watchful over our religious interests, would never have made the exchange, had he believed this man to be a heretic."

Nor, finally, would it mend the matter to say, that the man, with whom you exchange, has never come out and declared himself. Strange as it may seem to you, this plea has been used by ministers of high standing in professedly evangelical churches. I do not know that it is used now. I hope the day is past. They were not sure, they said, that the preachers, with whom they sometimes exchanged, had embraced what they considered fundamental errors, because they had no proof of an explicit avowal. But they did know, that these preachers were generally understood to have repudiated some of the essential doctrines of the gospel, and yet they continued to extend to them the right hand of fellowship. If you have any reason to suspect that your neighbor, who solicits an exchange of ministerial labors, is not sound in the faith, pause and let that doubt be removed before you give an affirmative answer.

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I am very affectionately, &c.

MY DEAR E.

LETTER XX.

I have a few more things to say on the subject of exchanges, which I could not find room for in my last letter. Whenever you go into a brother's pulpit, let it be your great aim to do all the good you can. Ministers are apt to be tempted, when they exchange, to select and preach their ablest and most popular sermons. Were it right for the servants of Christ to have a supreme regard to their own reputation as scholars, or theologians, they might be commended for their good judgment in these selections. But if it ought to be their grand object to" win souls by their preaching, abroad as well as at home, then this governing motive should determine them in the choice of subjects. Every preacher knows, or ought to know, that the discourses, which have cost him the most study, and show the most logical acumen or literary taste, are not always best adapted to the apprehension and spiritual wants of a common audience. By preparing a few sermons with great care for exchanges, you might perhaps raise yourself, in the estimation of cultivated minds abroad, somewhat higher than by plain exhibitions of the truth, and direct appeals to the conscience. But if you intend not to preach yourself, but "Jesus Christ and him crucified;" if your "heart's desire" is, "to save them that hear you," as well in another's congregation as