the really useful and beneficial luminaries: they are prodigies; but, like all prodigies, great only in detail; of little importance as a combined whole. To make effectual progress, general Science, (like all her subordinate departments) requires a regular body of men, whose situation will permit habits of devotion to her interests. These are her true efficient force, her standing army; to whose energy and skill she looks for her triumph and her glories.

In applying these remarks to the order of men I call a “Religious Ministry," I do not forget a semblance of an objection to its propriety, founded on the circumstance, that though elevated indeed above the common impediments to mental exertion, yet so far from being the regular soldiers of literature, their studies and habits are directed to a specifically different object. This is in a measure certainly true: all, therefore, we contend for is, that the two objects are so intimately and necessarily connected that the uninterrupted pursuit of the one cannot but influence most favourably the prosecution of the other.

To evince this is an easy task, and a single glance is equal to a long series of argumentation. For what is the official duty of the ministers of reli

gion? To this question their very name furnishes an answer. They are to investigate the perfections of the great First Cause; unfold the principles of his moral government; explore the whole field of relation between him and his creatures; declare the requisitions of law; point out its foundations; announce its sanctions; and after promulging the whole system, to defend it, part by part; and by every argument demonstrate its reasonableness, beauty, and consistency: above all, they are the chosen keepers of that Revelation which the great God has, in his infinite mercy, communicated to man; and must consider themselves under imperious obligations to guard the sacred deposit with the utmost diligence, the intensest care, by all the weapons the world above, the world around, the world below, can furnish to their hands. To meet the vast variety of assaults, what mental resources, what powers of reference, what skill in intellectual warfare are not necessary! Each disputant is to be confronted on his own vantage ground, each cavil to supply its own refutation. Now the cursed fiend of Infidelity is to be driven through the ten thousand mazes of metaphysical sophistry-now to be detected in the garb of a philosophical sage poring

in seeming adoration o'er the astronomic annals of the Hindoo. Whatever be his shape, like the malignant Genii of Oriental Fable, he is to be met by his enemy in a similar form, and has the privilege moreover of choosing his own measures, arms, and opportunities. Are then the studies of human science in no way connected with the employments and duties of a religious ministry? Nay, let a solitary department be specified, of which it can be said, "It is useless, unprofitable lumber."

All this I grant is very far from proving, that the class of men I am speaking of are learned men, or promoters of learning; but I beg leave to say, Brethren, it does prove that their professional employment is calculated to make them both; and why they are not to be supposed so honest as men in other professions in improving their advantages, must be explained not by me, but by those who deny them that honesty, and are accustomed to connect with the very name of Priesthood the idea of every thing base, little, and degrading.

consideration

There is another which ought by no means to be overlooked in estimating the influence of an order of men on intellectual im

provement. I allude to the standing

they occupy and the opportunities they enjoy of intercourse with the body of the people. It is not enough for a nation to have her sages and philosophers: these have been found in countries comparatively low in the scale of civilization, and whose very names would have been sunk long ere now in obliv. ion's gulf, had they not been happily attached to individual fame. This however is not a situation of things to be desired or sought after. It is only when universally diffused through the diversified classes of society, when found in the thatched cottage of the peasant, as well as gilded palace of his lord, that literature is a rich and invaluable boon.

But how is this great object to be attained? By what means are habits of thinking and refinement to be impressed on the vast body of a people; a body composed of so many heterogeneous elements, and confessedly indisposed to admit such impression? What is in the first place to interest the feelings of the community? If the maxim be correct, that man in a state of nature acts only from views of present or future interest, that it is vain to think of exciting him to any difficult enterprise without presenting at the same time a distinct and tangible object, then Literature, though in her hum

blest form, must come to him in another garb beside her own; and great as are her charms to all who know her, must borrow other charms to catch his favourable notice. You may talk to him indeed of the "pleasures of investiga, tion, the dignity of science, its possible benefits to society;" he hears you! he assents! but does he feel? "Ay, there's the rub!" Alas! not a syllable of your fine-spun declamation comes home to his "business or bosom," awakes his sympathy, or affects the heart!

But introduce your guest as the favourite handmaid of Religion: now you rouse the sleeping energies of the man, and see him rushing forward to her embrace. He now sees her value ; she is no more that abstract, useless, unintelligible phantom he once imagined her, but a useful, nay, necessary friend. Accordingly I have no hesitation in affirming, that all the polish and improvement, all the habits of thinking and reasoning prevailing among the lower and more numerous classes of society, are primarily derived from considerations purely religious.

And here, Brethren, is the pre-eminent advantage of the Ministers of religion. Invested with the venerable character of Heralds of the Most High, they enjoy the peculiar prerogative of communicating the only intellectual