In conclusion, on the whole, the operations of the Board, in both departments, are in an encouraging state; and, with the blessing of God upon the faithful efforts of his people, a constant advance in our work is to be expected.

The Rev. Dr. Baker arose with reluctance, as the time of the Assembly is precious, and he felt unqualified-but in this subject he felt a special interest. We need more ministers, and he had a right to speak on this point. He had travelled through Georgia, his native, and Texas, his adopted State. The want of the people is ministers. From every point he heard the call as he travelled "Come over and help us." We have lost one thousand members in Texas for want of suitable ministers. If the proper efforts were made, we might increase our ministers tenfold. He had done something himself to add to the ministry. He would mention a fact or two. One gentleman in Texas, a ruling elder, by name Miller, had made a very impressive speech in Presbytery. Dr. Baker urged the duty of studying for the ministry. This revived a previous but abandoned impression, and he acceded. He made application to be received as a candidate, and was received. Thus a simple hint had done the work, and added an efficient helper to the ministerial ranks. He also related other similar instances. He thought therefore, that, with a little attention, from older ministers especially, the number of ministers might be greatly increased. He was himself converted at fourteen years of age. At nineteen, he sighed in silence to be a minister. A friend encouraged him, and though feeling his feebleness, he thought of the spiritual necessities of the negroes, and he gave himself to this work. He has now been preaching forty years, but it was only this kind special encouragement that led him into the work. There are many modest youths through the land that needed encouragement. They ought to have it, and if every minister would turn attention to this subject, great would be the increase of the ministerial host. He had been a missionary, and also a settled pastor. On one occasion he had made an appointment in a small settlement. To his astonishment, a large attendance was present. He preached a long sermon-was invited to preach again. He did so; the people would not disperse. Three times successively the congregation listened. to the preaching of the Gospel, without adjourning, and then plead with earnestness-"O, sir! for God's sake come and preach the Gospel again to us, or send some one to preach it to us." In Texas he had again and again met with men who, on hearing that he was a Presbyterian minister, grasped his hand with fervour, and besought him to preach to them. One man had not heard the Gospel from a minister of his own denomination for nineteen years. We need men, therefore, of the right stamp. We must have them. Other denominations are all awake. He concluded by expressing the hope that the Assembly would be earnest in this matter. We are passing away. Where are the Greens and the Cuylers, and others of a former day? The locks of many here are growing white. O, that we might see a holy host arising before we sink to the grave, whose souls shall be full of the love of Christ, to carry on gloriously this noble work!

Dr. Marshall of Pittsburg had served this Board as an agent. At that time it had met with much opposition and prejudice. He had been struck with the fact mentioned in the Report on Foreign Missions, that there are only 12 ministers among the 350,000,000 of China.

And

further, that the Report of our Domestic Board shows so few ministers in our land, where yet many of our people hear the Gospel in certain places only once in many months. How is this difficulty to be met? Surely, by means of this Board. Our people must get over their prejudices against the Board. They are utterly unfounded. This plan does not make young men proud and helpless, as is imagined. Our people must be made to see that this cause lies at the very foundation of our benevolent plans to spread the Gospel. He believed that in every congregation there were young men suitable for the work, and if our ministers would only seek them out, and our churches would only aid the Board liberally, the number of candidates for the ministry would be greatly increased. Dr. McDonald was much pleased with the prominence given in the Report to the necessity of prayer. He had observed the connection between prayer and the revival of religion among the students in the College of New Jersey. The fruit of this revival had been to turn the thoughts of the converts to the ministry. He referred to particular cases. There are, therefore, young men ready to come forward, and, as has been said, they only need prayer and encouragement to bring them out.

Dr. Junkin accorded with the thought that prayer is so necessary to the success of this Board. Results in our colleges during the past year show it. We have, therefore, encouragement to pray. He would, however, specially refer to the existing prejudices against this Board. They had greatly prevailed at one time in his own section. We are too much in the habit of walking by sight, and not by faith. The labourers that are elevating the stones of the temple on Mount Moriah attract great attention, while the labourers in the quarries, shaping the stones, or lifting the axe in the forests of Lebanon, are hidden from view, and fail to attract the Church's regard. Now this Board is just as worthy of regard as the other Boards whose results are more conspicuous. There is no doubt that in the early years of its existence too little attention was paid to the character of the candidates. Hence the prejudice had arisen. But this had been now obviated by experience. It belonged, then, to the ministry to meet and rectify this prejudice. Another prejudice is, that we ought not to have an eleemosynary ministry. It is a shame that such an idea should exist in the Church. Were not the Apostles poor, uneducated men? Perhaps Paul was the only exception, and his case was peculiar. Besides, there are two other reasons:-1. The sons of our wealthy men are generally not fit to be ministers. They have not the bodily strength, and also they often cannot meet the sore trials and perplexities incident to this profession. It takes more grace to draw one from the bright attractions of wealth into the ministry than it does to bring a man from the ranks of the poor. 2. In the next place, none consider it a disgrace to be educated by the State for civil service. Who esteems it a disgrace to be educated at West Point? And why should it be a disgrace that the sons of the Church should be educated by the Church for her service. It is time that the veil was torn from the Church's eyes on this subject, and that she should see it in its true glory.

Dr. Dabney said, While I would not be understood as indicating here whether I approve or not all the doctrines of your committee just read, I wish to speak especially to their third resolution, in which they ask the Assembly to urge upon all Churches and Presbyteries, all proper measures for increasing the numbers and the efficiency of our ministry. It

cannot be denied that there are causes at work in our denomination which hinder their hearty interest in the work of training and assisting candidates for the ministry. The indisputable proof of this painful truth is in the fact, that while our other Boards report from fourteen hundred to seventeen hundred contributing churches among the three thousand in our denomination, the Board of Education has never received the aid of more than nine hundred annually. There must be distrust to account for this. The ground of that distrust is most probably to be sought in certain objections which are popularly urged against this work. The most operative of these is the assertion, that there is a large proportion of failures among those who are trained for the ministry. Some turn aside before they actually enter upon the work. Many more, it is asserted, might as well not have entered it, for they are found lounging about our towns and other pleasant places of resort, or occupied as teachers, or in short, in almost every reputable business except their proper one. The Board of Education, it is said, is a partial failure, and as to all the means employed to increase the number of ministers, why push those means when there are so many men unemployed.

Now I meet all these depreciating views, in the first place, with the fact, which the statistics of the Board will prove, that the proportion of failures among its beneficiaries is no larger than among those who make their way into the ministry unaided. This is demonstrative, as to the supposed inefficiency of that Board.

Again, if we remember how rare a combination of good qualities is required for a successful ministry, we shall wonder that failures are so few, comparing this with other professions. To make a useful ministry you must have a more high union of knowledge, good sense, experience, temper, tact, and industry, in addition to spiritual graces, than is required for success in any other path of life. And yet for every Presbyterian minister whose professional life has been a failure, I will show you far more retired lawyers and physicians, who have done nothing worth notice in their professions.

And besides, if you cannot deny the Church's need for an adequate number of true ministers (and who can deny this?), this cry against inefficient and unemployed preachers only strengthens the case. If the matter is so bad as is asserted, then all these useless men are nothing in the count; they are as though they were not; and our real number must be reduced by the subtraction of all of them. Then is our need for more ministers, men who will work, all the more crying.

But the matter is not so bad. All who have turned aside seemingly from the direct pastoral work, are not lost to the Church and Christian society, and the expense of their training is not lost. Let me borrow an illustration from an incident related by our brother, the well-known T. Hunt of Pennsylvania. He saw the process for making sword blades at the armory in Springfield. After every process the piece of metal was subjected to a test which became increasingly severe at every repetition. If it stood these, it was finally finished and polished with the greatest possible perfection, and then it was subjected to the severest test of all, under which they not seldom broke, and the loss fell upon the workman. The foreman was asked if it was not a wasteful and injudicious system which broke so many after the whole expense had been incurred. He answered: "No; for we must have swords on which we can rely; and

besides, those which are broken are not lost, for they make most excellent carving knives, as you will find, if you will accept this one from me." So, when our young ministers fail under that last and sternest test, the trial of the actual responsibilities of their calling, the expense of their long and careful training is not lost to the Church, it makes them all the more useful as Christian teachers, colporters, editors, and members of society.

But once more; if there is a portion of failures in this plan for rearing ministers, does that prove that the plan should be relinquished? Then, in consistency, men ought to relinquish everything, for is not partial failure the condition under which weak and imperfect man is compelled to carry on all his exertions? What merchant expects to sell at a clear profit, every article which he buys? What farmer expects a productive stock from every grain of corn which he sows? None; and if we are wise, we will act like the merchant and farmer; instead of cavilling at partial successes, we will so enlarge our plans and extend our energies, as to secure such results, as we need after subtracting our necessary failures.

In speaking to the second point, the means for increasing the efficiency of our ministry, I rejoice that I stand before such a body as this General Assembly. Here, every Presbytery in our denomination is in theory represented, and to all these Presbyteries I would now earnestly speak through their representatives. For they are the Church courts who must carry out the proper means for raising up an efficient ministry; no one else can do it without them. And let me say in passing, that so far as there is inefficiency among ministers able to labour, giving any just ground to the objections considered above, it might be removed by a little firmness on the part of the Presbyteries at the outset. When a new licentiate shows a disposition too soft, shrinks from the rough places of the vineyard, and begins to wait for a place agreeable and eligible, the Presbytery under whose care he is, should point him to his work, such work as the Church and Divine Providence offer him. It should command him to do it, and at the same time promise him in its performance that modest maintenance which is due to all faithful ministers. Thus the softness of disposition might be overcome in the outset, which, long indulged, makes the man a dilettanti.

But the means which, I am persuaded, the Presbyteries have most within their power, to increase the efficiency of our new ministers, is to apply more faithfully the standards of qualification appointed in our Book of Government. I would fain urge this upon all our brethren, speaking on behalf of those, who, like myself, are charged with the business of theological education. There is deplorable, and we fear, growing laxity in many places in the trials for licensure and ordination. Need a word be said to show how directly this tends to introduce inefficient men into the ministry, and to perpetuate indolence in those who might and would have been efficient if properly stimulated? But more; apply those standards of qualification rigidly, and you will not only have better men, but more of them. I am convinced that one of the most potent of those unfavourable influences which keep the more intelligent and spirited of our young men away from the sacred office, is the unseemly facility with which they see it bestowed on the unworthy. And here permit me to express my fears that we are not now getting the best men for the mi

nistry. I cannot speak for other sections than my own; and I thankfully acknowledge that there are many striking exceptions to the assertion. But it is to be feared that we are not now, on the average, getting the men of best natural parts and most spirited character. They go too often into other professions. The cause is to be sought largely in the laxity of our trials for the ministry. Does it seem paradoxical to say that by making it harder to enter we shall get in larger numbers? Sir, paradoxes are not always false; and reflection will show that this one is true. When we make any honour or function so attainable that everybody can get it, men are too apt to suppose that it is not valuable. This has been found peculiarly true of literary honours. The University of Oxford has several times set on foot honorary literary degrees for which an examination must be undergone, such as that of doctor of divinity. At first some qualification was required to obtain it; and it was sought. But gradually the authorities of the University were induced by high connections and similar influences, to relax their examinations till they became a form, and in every case, as soon as this position was reached, men ceased wholly to apply for the honours. That which everybody can get, nobody wants. But tell a man who indeed has in him the mettle and stomach of a man, that the proposed honour is hard to obtain, that every lazy or stupid person cannot win it, that therefore, when won, it will be a real mark of merit, and he will forthwith desire it. There is a Christian trial, which we may call a sanctified ambition, most desirable, yea, necessary in a minister of the Gospel, which will be stimulated in the same way by elevating the grade of qualification.

Let us suppose a case which will evince the truth of this opinion. There is a young Christian of just the character most desirable in a candidate for the ministry, modest, distrustful of self, with a keen sense of honour, proposing to himself an elevated standard of conscientiousness, of diligence and of acquirement, and regarding the ministry with a profound and sacred awe. He has also that sanctified ambition and that noble aim, which would do much for God. He hesitates whether he shall preach, being drawn to the office by his zeal, but repelled from it by his awful sense of its solemnities and difficulties. Just at this stage his pastor tries that expedient which all of you would suggest as the most plausible. He proposes to the young man to accompany him to a meeting of Presbytery, in the hope that associations with clerical persons, and familiarity with their functions will decide the question. He goes, and there he witnesses one of those scenes so often, alas, repeated in our Presbyteries. A candidate is examined for licensure or ordination. His defects reveal a painful amount of indolence and neglect of precious means of instruction. It is too evident that either he is incapable of improvement, or that there has been deadness of conscience and unscrupulousness in wasting time and talents. The young Christian looks on amazed; and in spite of his own modesty, he cannot but see that there is neither learning nor strict Christian principle. But, after the examination has been carried far enough to reveal that the candidate does not know his Hebrew, Greek, Theology, and Christian History, the Presbytery very solemnly votes that he does, and he gets his license. Now what effect must not this have on the timid and noble young Christian? Must he not leave that meeting repelled, disgusted, mortified, as to the whole aspects of the cause, instead of attracted and stimulated? Believe me, this influence