part of truth will be learnt together; but, still, St. Paul distinguishes between "milk," which is suitable for babes" in religion, and strong meat," which belongs to those who are "of full age;" and our Saviour taught his disciples " as they were able to bear it." If, therefore, we would make advances in the way of God, we must see what instruction the Bible gives to persons of our particular character.

Thus, if a Christian be diligent and humble, the consolations of the Gospel will greatly increase his faith, and love, and activity; but if the same comforts are given to him who has become negligent and confident, they will add to his disease,and become to him, not food, but poison.

So, again, to urge the established Christian to grow in humiliation, in sincerity, in holy affections, in a regard to every personal and relative duty, is of the highest importance. With the trembling, brokenhearted penitent, a somewhat different course will be necessary. His whole soul is full of terror on account of his sin. His heart fails him. He despairs almost of divine mercy. He needs therefore to be directed to the Saviour, to his righteousness and grace.

In like manner, if an inexperienced Christian at once adopts the language and affects the feelings of a very advanced one; if he begin to talk of the full assurance of his faith, and settle it with himself that his state is safe for eternity: or if he place his religion in strong emotions and elevated joys; or, if he perplex himself with such mysterious points as the origin of evil, the union of divine and human agency, or the decrees of God; his real growth in holiness will be fatally hindered. He may, indeed, be wrought up to a lively joy for a time; he may learn to be familiar with certain terms; he may decide positively upon points which the most wise and holy men in every age have spoken of with trembling;

but the effect will be pride of spiritual knowledge. This is a most dangerous evil: it eats out that most essential grace in the religion of a sinner, genuine humiliation of soul. It leads to conceit, self-confidence, and censoriousness, and to a neglect of watchfulness and good works. And, afterwards, when trials and temptations come on, and the conflict of duty begins to press; when inward corruptions arise, and the real battle is to be waged; these hasty joys, like a land flood, sink down; and such persons either fall into despair, or are carried away by some plausible heresy, or manage to quiet their consciences, notwithstanding many habitual defects in their spirit, temper, and conduct. Their case may be compared to that of a general who should eagerly push forward, with an insufficient force, into the heart of an enemy's country. He may seem, for a time, to have gained his point; the enemy may disappear; and he may think. he shall carry all before him. But soon the hostile troops advance on all hands; the posts in his rear are seized; his dangers multiply; and he discovers that the further he has advanced, the greater has been his rashness, and the more signal will be his disgrace.

VI. Avoid what the generality of Christians have found to hinder them! in running their spiritual race.---The racer in the Olympic games was "temperate in all things." He" laid aside every weight." I speak now, not of things in themselves sinful, but of those which are generally inexpedient and hurtful.

Religious controversy inflames the passions, and very seldom convinces the judgment or mends the heart. Men become anxious for victory more than for truth. We are to "avoid foolish questions and contentions, for they are unprofitable: and vain." Those who "dote about questions and strifes of words, fall into envy, strife, railings, and evil surmisings;" and are in danger of turning out" men of corrupt minds,

The taste of the present day is not favourable to established order. Under a false notion of candour and charity, men are unstable in their ways. They do not prize enough the discipline and sacraments of the church; they are not content with the means of instruction afforded them in it; they have little fear of the sin of schism, which St. Paul describes as so grievous. Thus many acquire a fickleness and fastidiousness of mind; they wander from place to place; and make very slow advances in holiness. Pastoral instruction cannot be properly supplied by occasional ministrations, however excellent. The true Christian will sincerely love all who belong to God, though they differ from him in various matters; but the prosperity of his own soul will oblige him to be consistent and steady as a conscientious member of his own church.

I mention lastly, Politics. The Christian, undoubtedly, has various social and civil duties to fulfil; and in a country like that in which we have the happiness to live, the subject of politics is one which may fairly claim a share of his attention. But, then, those who busy themselves in matters which their station in the community does not obviously make it their duty to attend to, are too often of a discontented spirit, and thus greatly disgrace the Gospel. When men unhappily go on in this course, they decline in spirituality and humility; they are drawn into public; they aim at applause as speakers; they are led to countenance measures which they would at first have started at; they proceed from bad to worse; family duties are neglected; till perhaps, at last, they make shipwreck of faith and a good conscience."

In my next sermon, I shall finish these directions; and then close the whole by suitable addresses.

- May God grant that all who read or hear this discourse, may be established in the doctrines of the Gospel, and warmed with holy and

devout affections. May they clearly see what the nature of growth in grace is; may they be diligent in the use of the appointed means of grace; may they study those parts of truth, which best suit their state; and avoid whatever they find to hinder them in their race; and thus, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, 66 press towards the mark for the prize of their high calling of God in Christ Jesus!" Amen.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer.

Ir is a common and a just observation, that the number of clergymen who occupy themselves in the education of youth has largely increased, and is continually augmenting. The fact cannot reasonably excite surprise. Admit to the fullest extent the value of some of the higher stations of preferment in the Established Church; calculate to the last unit the sum of those individuals possessing inferior dignities, whom either reason, or even ordinary prejudice, could pronounce to be recompensed beyond their deserts; and still the truth will remain incontrovertible, that there is no class of society, no body of men in' these kingdoms, which, on the whole, receives so small, so inadequate a remuneration for its labours, as the mass of the clergy of the Church of England. In consequence of different circumstances-particularly of the expense, the odium, the difficulties, with which a clergyman has to contend, if he seeks to raise his revenue in fair proportion to the general rise in the worth of land and its productions, and to the cost of the necessary articles of domestic expenditure-there are many rectories which do not furnish to the incumbents in the present day, incomes nearly equivalent to those which were enjoyed by the rectors a century backward.-In vicarages the relative defalcation is very general, and very much greater in degree.-In curacies the case is, on the

average, still worse. The common salary of a curate is now rendered, partly through the pressure of the times on rectors and vicars, far less removed above the gains of a daylabourer, or the emoluments of a lower servant, than formerly. Yet even the curate is expected to rank himself, and ought unquestionably to be ranked by every man, among the cultivated orders of society. He has been trained in habits of life and in mental acquisitions befitting that estimation. His influence over the people committed to his ministerial care is rightly deemed, in some measure, to depend on the respect which he receives from the upper and middle classes in his vicinity respect which will not be widely manifested if his deportment and his garb be analogous to those of the lower class-and on his ability "to give to him that needeth" among his flock. Then, the inferior clergy are not to be debarred, more than other men, from matrimonial life. Family expenses press upon them. The number of their children increases; and the charges attendant on each child increase with its years. Sickness in the parents, or in the children, brings new and inevitable demands. The income, which was at first barely a competence, becomes deficient, becomes more deficient, becomes grievously deficient. Something must be done, most be done speedily; must be done, not merely to maintain ground now occupied, but to provide for subsistence, to escape a jail. But what is to be done? From worldly professions the clergyman is excluded, properly excluded, by his sacred vocation. No line appears open to him except that of tuition. That line is recognized by the public as consistent with his ministerial functions. Various circumstances concur to give him encouragement in resorting to it. In addition to the recommendations, whatever be their amount, which result from his own character and attainments, the aid of CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 112.

his connections and acquaintance has scope for exertion. The friend who could not lend any assistance, to procure for him a living, may procure for him a pupil. Other friends may win him other pupils. Then the pupil, and consequently the proportionate relief to the tutor's embarrassments, may possibly be gained, and, as hope whispers, will be gained immediately. Then a growing predilection in the minds of many parents and guardians for private tuition during a part, at least, of the education of the children under their superintendance, promises him facility in filling up his intended number of scholars. The quantity of tutors also not yet being such as to have overstocked the market, the salary to be obtained is at present very ample. And he may secretly be flattered in his expectations, by observing, that through the existing demand for tutors, and from other incidental causes, individuals whom he knows to be very indifferently qualified for the office have experienced no difficulty in obtaining pupils, nor in obtaining them on high terms. Harassed by actual distress, cheered by animating prospects, he devises and circulates his proposals.

Let me not be understood as implying any general censure on the decision. How could I imply such a censure? Beyond all doubt, there is no description of men to whom it is so desirable that the instruction of our youth should be consigned, as to the order of clergy. Were I in search of a tutor, to whom I should coufide my sons, that they might be trained in sound doctrine, in holy practice, in knowledge, and science, and learning; in the pursuits and the habits calculated to form real Christians, faithful subjects, useful citizens, ornaments to society and to their country; I should search for him among the clergy of the establishment. That particular persons unfit for the task have obtruded themselves on the world as instruc2 G

tors of youth; that particular persons, fitted or unfit for the station, have been led to engage in it by motives, or under circumstances, which ought not to have been regarded, in the specific cases, as justifying the risk of a diminution of ministerial exertion by the addition of the avocations of a tutor: these facts do not in any degree warrant a general conclusion hostile to the union of the two employments; and are not to be alleged without ample inquiry and information as bearing hard upon any clergyman who

unites them.

But a mode of life to which it may be a warrantable act, or even an act of duty, to resort, may be necessarily accompanied with special and powerful temptations. This character, I apprehend, most evidently belongs to the union of the offices of parochial clergyman and tutor. As no man can have fair ground for hope that he shall be enabled to withstand the temptations attached to his employment, unless he renders himself conversant with their nature and their extent beforehand, bears them habitually in mind, and day by day watches and prays against them, I purpose to notice, with some particularity, the principal of those which appear to be inseparable from the situation of a parish minister who embarks in tuition. When two offices, of whatever kind, are combined in the same person, there will constantly be hazard that one of them may be preferred at the expense of the other. The man has, as it were two masters;" and is in danger of hating the one and loving the other, or of holding to the one and despising the other. Allow that the two masters are not, like those of whom our Saviour speaks, irreconcilably adverse, invariably demanding diametrically opposite service. Allow them to be two whom it is possible and lawful to serve in conjunction. Still there will always remain cause for apprehension, that the one or the

other does not receive his just proportion of service; that the one has a more efficacious hold on the inclinations than the other; that the concerns of the master less beloved, are in a greater or in a less degree sacrificed to those of him for whom a more warm or more interested regard is entertained.

In the case before us, the disadvantage may be thrown on the side of the pupils. The tutor, it may happen, has undertaken the employment with reluctance. His heart, be it assumed, was much in his ministry. He has superadded the new occupation from necessity, for the sake of his family, for bread. He feels it an oppressive and irksome burden. He dislikes it as unwonted, wearisome, in itself unpleasant, interfering with favourite habits, and pursuits, and studies. The time which he assigns to it he pares down within the narrowest limits, in which he can persuade his conscience to acquiesce. The time which he does give he seldom gives otherwise than grudgingly. Even the time which he does give, he does not give thoroughly. His mind, during the hours of lesson, is continually wandering, and he often knows that it is taking opportunities of wandering, among foreign objects. While the scholar is sticking fast in a passage of Virgil, or stammering out a rule in the Grammar, the master is scribbling the skeleton of a sermon, or pondering the import of a controverted text. And it is not until a long pause of silence on the part of the disconsolate pupil has taken place, that the instructor is roused from his reverie, or calls back his attention. Out of school-hours, there is a similar remissness. Thus, while the igno- . rance of some parents discovers no ground of complaint; while the negligence or the easiness of others is well satisfied; and while the lurking dissatisfaction of others more observant and more quicksighted is expended in ruminating on the dif