gested discourses a minister of fair average health and talents can ordinarily preach, without encroaching upon his other duties, and I will tell you how many it is ordinarily profitable for his people to hear. Or on the other hand, tell me how many they need, and I will tell you about how many he can preach.

I am now prepared to answer your first question, "Ought I, in the regular discharge of my ministerial duties, to preach more than twice on the sabbath?" No, my son, I cannot advise you to do it; and on this point I speak from a good deal of experience and observation. As you are in the prime of life, and have a good constitution, and a pretty thorough theological education, I do not doubt that you might for a few months, or even longer, preach three times, to the edification of your hearers, and without any great personal exposure. You have not, however, entered the ministry for a few months, but for life; and it should be an object with you, to husband your strength so as to live and preach as many years as you can. You ought, by no means, to begin on a higher key, than you have reason to think you can hold out; for by so doing, you will create demands and expectations, which it may cost you your life to meet. Even if I thought you would be able to deliver three good discourses every Lord's day, after three or five years' experience in the ministry, I would, by no means, advise you to begin with more than two. But I do not think you ever will. I do not believe, that one pastor in a hundred can do it, year after year, without serious injury to his health; and I will add, to his usefulness also. The undermining

process may be slow, and for a long time imperceptible, and yet health be sacrificed and life shortened.

When I say, that in my judgment, it would be unsafe for you to preach more than twice a sabbath, I include the labor of careful preparation. Undoubtedly, with your training, you might take your texts and deliver three such discourses as are often heard from the pulpit, without much more draft upon your strength, than the bare fatigue of speaking so many hours; but they would not be such sermons as I wish you to preach, or as it would be profitable for your people to hear. What they want, I mean, what they ought to have in a sermon, is not words, but thought; clear, condensed and consecutive thought a discourse which has cost the preacher many hours of hard study, and which has a beginning, a middle and an end. More than two such, you cannot prepare, from sabbath to sabbath, whether written or unwritten; and of course, you cannot preach but twice. There will be exceptions, as I have already intimated. Now and then, where there seems to be a special call for it, a third sermon may be added. So a minister may preach three times abroad with less fatigue, than it would cost him to preach twice at home. In like manner, when God pours out his spirit, and sinners are asking what they must do to be saved, that must be a slothful servant indeed, who will not increase his labors, at almost any exposure. But these are the exceptions, and not the general rule.

The plea which I have oftenest heard urged, for a third public service on the Lord's day, is, that other denominations will open their houses and draw off

the people; and that there is no other way to maintain your own ground, but to "out-preach and outpray them." If by out-preaching them is meant, that you must preach as often, or oftener than they do, are you sure of doing it, by adding a third sermon on sabbath evening? What if those, with whom you thus feel obliged to enter into competition, should choose to come and preach under the windows of your church every day in the week? Could you outpreach them? Could you keep up with them? No, my son. You might break down your health. You might sacrifice your life in this unprofitable, if not unholy emulation; but how could you expect to succeed where, as is commonly the case, these noisy itinerant "troublers of Israel," take no time for preparation, and where, as soon as one pair of lungs is worn out, another is ready to take up and prolong the sound? A settled pastor, who thinks it his duty to "feed the people with knowledge and understanding," cannot count discourses, with those who have "no certain dwelling place," but who come to "beat the air," for a few days, and then give way to others; and it is idle to attempt it.

But does the preacher, who regularly exhausts himself with a third service, to keep his people from running after "new lights," reason correctly? Is he more likely to hold his congregation together, by preaching a great many indifferent sermons, than by preaching a less number of good ones? Does everything depend upon the quantity, and nothing on the quality? A minister who has been in the habit of instructing his people with well studied discourses,

gives them much less credit for discrimination than they deserve, if he supposes they will not see the difference, between such sermons, and the most impassioned empty harangues. Some who have “itching ears," may be drawn aside and "wander" after the new sect or preacher, for a time; but let the pastor hold on the even tenor of his way, preaching with zeal and power as many sermons as he can well prepare, and nearly all who have wandered will presently return, and be more attached to him than ever. My own opportunities for observation on this point have not been very limited; and I do not recollect ever to have known a minister lose the confidence of his flock, and see them scattered from him, because he spent so much labor on two sermons for the sabbath, that he had neither time to make, nor strength to deliver another. But it would be easy on the other hand, to refer to cases, where pastors have both ruined their health and lost the esteem of their congregations, by attempting too much in the way of self-defence, by adding to the number of their public discourses and diminishing the weight. He is the preacher to grow and wear well, to have a full house and an attentive audience, and to pass safely through every storm, who brings out two well-wrought discourses a week, and attempts no more, in the ordinary course of his ministry. Some few may be able to add a third, for the evening of the Lord's day, but they are the exceptions. The great body of pastors cannot safely preach more than twice.

The next question is, can a congregation ordinarily hear and well digest more than two public discourses

in one day? As the only object of preaching is the benefit of the hearers, if two are enough for them, why should a third be required? Here I expect to be set down, and by some of your own excellent friends and supporters, perhaps, as quite behind the times. This is a bustling and hearing, rather than a thinking age. I question whether there was ever a more restless running after sermons, than there has been in this country, for the last twenty years. To hear, hear, hear, seems to be the all important concern, in the estimation of one half the christians in the land. Multitudes would be glad to hear three or four discourses, every sabbath in the year, and as many more on the intervening days of the week. But is this a healthy appetite for "the sincere milk of the word,” or is it a morbid craving for excitement, which leaves the soul as empty as Pharaoh's lean kine, after they had eaten up the seven fat ones? I have no hesitation in giving it as my deliberate opinion, that demanding and hearing too many sermons, is one of the prominent religious faults of the present age. A moderate meal of substantial food strengthens the body more than would thrice the quantity of any kind, which money could purchase, or the culinary art serve up.

The two sermons, which a preacher of correct views and respectable talents brings forward on the sabbath, as the product of his week's labor, not only contain a good deal of important instruction, but afford matter for serious meditation, self-application and prayer; I am perfectly satisfied, that nine out of ten of your church and congregation may derive