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    vised equally common to the great family of the Church ? Anrt if common to all , whefe is the intolerable £ rievanee of substituting it on admission to offices of trust ? It is not my

    intention to vindicate , much less to support the measures of our governors in this case of arbitrary enactment ; it is only to submit , that one of less encroachment to a liberally-informed mind could not well have been

    demised . . We have often had to witness and deplore the taunt and reviling manifested , when gentlemen of true Dissenting principles and education have found it necessary , as a qualification for magisterial or other public duties ,

    to submit to this test of Christianity . I so denominate it , because common to . all the Christian world ;* instituted without any prescribed rule or form , and therefore , as discretion mav point

    out , liable to the regulation and form best adapted to its usefulness and perpetuity . . Did our Lord sit with the Pharisee at meat , and shall we refuse to sit down with any of his followers at his table ? When will sectarianism

    manifest its strength without schism to support it ? When will Cliristian-Hy so far prevail that men shall only recognize them as a friend and a brother ? If this rite has practical influence , does it consist in the

    brotherhood of participation , or in the form in which it is administered ? If in the forrner , how subordinate and insignificant the form of its celebration ; if in the latter , to what importance * is the rite itself diminished ! \ Y . H .

    * Our correspondent means , we presume , how little importance . Eo .

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    40 Thoughts on some Difficulties in the Christian Ministry .

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    Thoughts on some Difficulties in the Ch ristian Ministry . ALL real Christians must hail with satisfaction the increase among their ministers of a disposition

    to regard with great seriousness the difficulties which present themselves in < ionnexion with the important office they have taken upon them . For their own sakes and for the sake of the congregations to which they minister , it may be wished that their individual responsibility should not i

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    fee over-rat 6 d ; yet is is easy to see that they are little likely ta do pood in the world unlesd themselves deeply impressed by a seose of what they have to do and what they ought to be . We have no hope of the minister who is not in youth zealous , perhaps enthusiastic , in his notions of the

    important part he has to perform . Let him also have a quick , perhaps exaggerated notion of the difficulties before him . It is of some consequence , however , that he should

    neither be misled by other people nor blind , kim& ^ r , to the real nature of the principal among * those difficulties * If his vigilance be turned into a wrong channel ; if he hears , for instance , chiefly of the enmity , bigotry and intolerance with which he will be

    regarded by other sects , where it is his business . as a young man and a minister of the gospel of peace , to begin his career with kindness in his heart and conciliation on his tongue , he will not be likely to give himself the

    opportunity of forming correct notions respecting the characters of individuals with whom he will be brought too soon , perhaps , by the very nature of his office , into , a state of polemical warfare . If he comes rather with the

    feelings of a soldier than a shepherd , an appointed leader destined to head his people in a contest with other sects , the principal difficulty will still be kept out of view . He may fight well—nay % may conquer—but he will not have advanced in that knowledge of human nature , in a variety of situations and under the influence of a

    variety of opinions , which is essential to his being an effective preacher for the people . It must ever be lamented that the general expediency of choosing a profession early in . life , tends to multiply the number of young men who enter the ministry

    without having had any previous opportunity of acquiring that branch of knowledge of which we have just spoken . We know not how it should be otherwise ; but so it is . Let not , however , so completely optional an

    evil as wilful prejudice and blindness be added to this original disadvantage * Let the world , by all means , be viewed in a just light by the young minister * We wish not to see hiin imbued with any poetical ideas of the victories he will achieve , the benevolence with

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1826, page 40, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2544/page/40/