is exactly suited to the circumstances of one, might be very inappropriate to the condition of another. And how are you to find out what your people most need? As but few of them will call on you at first, it can be done only by visiting their families. And when you have once entered upon the task, you will not find it so arduous, nor that it takes you off so much from your studies, as you may anticipate. You will commonly find, by dinner time, that you need the remainder of the day, either for relaxation, or for a change of employment; and you will often be rested in the afternoon and evening, by making those friendly calls, which people love to receive as soon as they can from their new pastor.

When you begin, take a memorandum along with you in your side pocket. Enquire after all the members of the family, and speak a few words, at least, to every one you find in the house, as well in the kitchen as the parlor. Put down the names and the number of the children. If anything uncommon arrests your attention, note it down for reference and for enquiry or action, as the case may be. If you adopt the course which I have recommended, and ever show me your book, I shall expect to find memoranda of this sort. "A. B., in such a poor family, is a remarkable boy. I must keep my eye on him. If here is a gem, as I think there is, it must be picked out of the rubbish and polished."

"D. N. appears to be pious, but to need instruction upon essential points. I must call again soon."

"I have seen a family to-day extremely poor, deplorably ignorant and I am afraid vicious. The fath

er never attends church, though nominally with us, and the children have never been in a sabbath school in their lives. Something must be done at once. Such heathenism is a disgrace to a christian community."

"There is an aged widow in a garret, in such a street, waiting to be called home. I found her in my visits to-day, and it made my heart ache. Why is she there? Or at any rate why is she not made more comfortable? I find she is a member of our church. Her case must be immediately attended to.”

"I have been greatly refreshed to-day, in conversing with an invalid in humble circumstances. Such patience, such humility, such faith, such consolations, such a hope! O it was good to be there, and I shall esteem it a great privilege to go often."

"D. A. is intelligent and accomplished and extremely friendly; but opposed to evangelical religion. He has been under bad influences, and has prejudices which must if possible be removed. The case demands prayer and effort."

I hope your first pastoral note book, will abound with such memoranda, whether I ever have the pleasure of looking it over or not. As your congregation is rather large, it may take you six months, or more, to visit every family; and when you commence, you will be apt, under the pressure of nameless other calls and duties, to be discouraged; but if you go by system, "redeeming the time," doing a little to day and a little to-morrow; and if you persevere from week to week and month to month, you will get round sooner than you expect. And when you have

completed this parochial census, you will not only be much better prepared to instruct and watch over your flock, but will feel yourself more than compensated for all your toil. When I settled in P―, where there had been a most unhappy division for seven years, and the two societies were just re-united, I spent the greater part of the first year, in making myself as thoroughly acquainted as I could with nearly the whole population; and I found the advantage of it at every step and turn. It is true I was not a young man. I had spent ten years in another field of labor, and could of course command more time without endangering my public performances than you can. You will find no very serious difficulty, however, provided your health is good, in adopting and carrying out the plan which I have recommended, and having once gone over the whole ground, and taken all the important bearings and altitudes of things, you will feel a satisfaction and confidence in your subsequent labors, which no other beginning could impart. Those pastors, (I hope there are but few such,) who let the first year pass, and perhaps the second, without visiting all the families of their respective charges, lose vastly more in comfort and usefulness, than they are commonly aware of. It would trouble me exceedingly to hear that you are one of the number.

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I am affectionately, &c.

MY DEAR E.

LETTER XXII.

HAVING in my last letter urged you to adopt a course of pastoral visiting, for the purpose of becoming personally acquainted with your congregation, within the shortest convenient time after your settlement, I may perhaps as well finish what I wish further to say upon this branch of duty, before I pass to other topics. However prompt you may be,, in calling at every house in the beginning of your ministry, your people will not be satisfied with a single visit, and why should they? That acquaintance which ought to subsist between a pastor and all the members of his flock, cannot be forced in an interview of a few moments. If he makes the right impression on their minds, they will want to see him a second time more than they did the first. They may demand too much. This is not uncommon. But they have a right to expect, that besides visiting them in sickness and affliction, he will come to see them without being sent for, more or less frequently, as his health and other duties permit.

I will not undertake to say how often it may be a pastor's duty to make the circuit of his parish; for I do not think any general rule can be given. It must depend upon a great many circumstances, which are alike beyond human foresight and control. Undoubtedly it is very desirable that you should see all the

families of your charge, at least once a year; and if you rightly estimate the good which you may do in this way, you will repeat your visits as often as you can. It would be unreasonable however, to require or to expect you to keep a register, and check every house you enter, and not to enter it again till you have gone round. Some are so near that you can drop in at any leisure moment, while it will require the best part of a day to visit others. It would be absurd to say, that a minister ought not to see his nearest neighbors any oftener than he does those who live many miles off. But if you are constrained to pass by any, for a much longer time than you could wish, let it be the rich, rather than the poor. The latter will lay anything like seeming neglect to heart, much more than the former. They need your sympathy vastly more; and your advice too, on a great variety of subjects, which though not always strictly religious, are highly interesting and important to them.

In regard to the best mode of conducting pastoral visits, as I have already intimated, something like a plan or system has many advantages. If you content yourself with forming a general resolution to visit your people, whenever it shall be convenient, I am afraid you will make but little progress. There are so many petty thieves of time, that the convenient season will rarely come. You will be astonished to hear one and another say, "it is now a year and a half, or two years, since we had the pleasure of seeing you at our house." At first you will think it a mistake; but a little reflection and enquiry will constrain you to admit, that if it is, the miscalcula