faith, love, zeal, self-devotion, and prayerful spirit of the primitive Christians, how soon would these millions be subdued to the obedience of Christ!

III. The demand for Ministers.

Next to a universal and continual effusion of the Holy Spirit upon our churches, and the necessary result of such an effusion, what is needed, first of all, to the achievement of this glorious result, is an adequate supply of competent and faithful pastors and teachers, the ascension gift of Christ. It is needed now, to maintain the ground already occupied. Our thirty thousand Presbyterians are organized into six hundred and three churches. To meet their spiritual wants we have only three hundred and seventythree ministers in the field, some sixty of whom are without charge,aged, agents, school teachers, &c.; leaving just half as many pastors as there are churches. Sometimes two or more churches are united under one pastor; and still one hundred and eighty churches, or nearly one-third of our whole number, are reported in the Assembly's statistical tables as vacant. Nor are these vacant churches, generally small and insignificant, devoid of promise, incapable of increase and an early self-support. The aggregate membership of the one hundred and fifty-two reported, is five thousand one hundred and eighty-four; showing an average membership of thirtyfour. Seven of these vacancies have an average of one hundred and fifty-three members, and include some of the most important churches in the West. To supply these destitutions, therefore, we need to-day at least one hundred additional ministers. Had we even all these, we should still be, relatively to the millions of the Northwest, but as a drop in a bucket.

IV. The men we need must be sought among our own sons; maintained and educated on our own soil.

"By whom shall Jacob arise? for he is small?" From what quarter shall this indispensable increase of ministerial force be furnished? Do you look to our seminaries? From those of Virginia, South Carolina, and Kentucky, you never have received, and never can receive, important numerical accessions; their students find ample room for labor among the destitutions of the South and Southwest, more deplorable, if possible, than our own. Do you turn to Alleghany and to Princeton, "the mother of" not a few of us? A woe was long since pronounced upon the house of Jacob, "because they be replenished from the East;" and,—in a different sense, we grant, from that of the prophet,-it might still be uttered. against us, were we to look abroad for that which we should provide at home. What would a business man say of a proposition to work the machinery of Cannelton, or Galena, with an engine fixed at Lowell? or to run the cars on our Western railways with a locomotive stationed on the Alleghany Mountains? Who would entertain a suggestion to abandon our struggling, half-developed Western colleges, and leave the education of our sons to Harvard, and Yale,

and Union, and Princeton, and Jefferson? Common sense, experience, and Scripture, unite to condemn those who depend on others, when they are able to help themselves. We thankfully admit that many most excellent brethren have come from Princeton and Alleghany to labor in the West; just as many faithful preachers came, in former years, from the old world to spread the Gospel in the new world; and time was when a Davies and a Mason even visited Great Britain to obtain ministers for America. But that day of colonial dependence on the mother country has long since passed; and even then a Davies and a Mason had in hand the nobler service of endowing institutions among ourselves, which should supply our future necessities. Has not the time fully come when Western Presbyterianism should cease its colonial dependence upon the mother churches of the East? Or, rather, are we not fully able, and therefore under obligation, to maintain all the needful instrumentalities of the Church among ourselves? Let us consider this matter carefully.

1. In 1810, our General Assembly, having in view the establishment of our first theological seminary, adopted the following resolution, which might well be re-adopted by our own Synods: "Resolved, That the state of our churches, the loud and affecting calls of destitute frontier settlements, and the laudable exertions of various Christian denominations around us, all demand that the collected wisdom, piety, and zeal of the Presbyterian Church be, without delay, called into action for furnishing the Church with a large supply of able and faithful ministers." Let it be remembered, now, that the entire Presbyterian organization of that day, under the Assembly, consisted of seven Synods, thirty-six Presbyteries, four hundred and thirty-four ministers, seven hundred and seventy-two churches, and twenty-eight thousand nine hundred and one members, while our own organization, in these six Northwestern States, west of the Scioto, comprises seven Synods, thirty Presbyteries, three hundred and seventy-three ministers, six hundred and three churches, and twenty-nine thousand nine hundred and five members. In other words, Presbyterianism in the Northwest, in 1855, was almost as strong, numerically, as the whole Presbyterian Church in these United States when the foundations of Princeton Seminary was laid in 1810. As to the relative wealth of the two bodies, there are no sufficient data for a comparison; but he must know nothing of Western Presbyterians who can doubt their abundant ability, pecuniarily, to perform all that the interests of religion demand of us in this matter.

2. To send our young men to the foot of the Alleghanies, or beyond the Alleghanies, in search of theological education, is to diminish seriously the number of our home supplies, and this in various ways. In the first place, we feel assured that the existence of a well-endowed and flourishing theological school among

The Minutes of 1856 have not yet come to hand.

us, will tend, under the Divine blessing, to increase the number of candidates for the holy ministry. As the multiplication of common schools enlarges the number of readers, and the multiplication of colleges augments the number of those who seek and obtain a higher education; so does the increase of theological seminaries (within reasonable bounds) attract increasing numbers to theological studies and ministerial labours. It places the means of ministerial education within the reach of many who would otherwise be debarred. So evident is this, that when, in 1809, our Assembly requested the judgment of the several Presbyteries in regard to theological schools, nearly one-third of the number expressed themselves in favor of a seminary in each Synod. The seminary, which the pastor and parents are directly interested in as a home concern, which they aid by their contributions, which they commend to God in the prayers of the family and the sanctuary, leads the mind of Christian youth to the duty of serving God in the Gospel.

Again: it is not unworthy of observation, that a considerable number, and some of the best of our Western ministers, educated in the East, labor among us only until their rising reputation attracts attention, and secures an effectual call from Eastern churches. We intend no insinuation of unworthy motives to any parties. We speak of the fact, which it would be easy to confirm by examples, that our churches are thus called to part with excellent and efficient pastors, whose dawning promise had awakened the hope of extensive future usefulness among us.

3. We might add, that an Eastern education is not in all respects best adapted to promote usefulness in the West; but as it may be deemed indelicate, if not invidious, in some of us, we forbear to press this consideration.

4. The fact that we already have, and have long had, a seminary of our own in the Northwest, is a sufficient reason why we should not expect others to do our work.

Princeton Seminary, as has been said, was founded by the General Assembly for the whole Church, and was opened in 1812. In 1826, the Assembly adopted incipient measures to establish a Seminary for the West, which was subsequently located in Alle ghany City. In the same year, the Presbytery of Hanover, Virginia, which had already founded a Seminary at Prince Edward, Va., overtured the Assembly to take charge of it; but in the following year the Synods of Virginia and North Carolina having adopted it as theirs, the Assembly recognized it as such in 1827. In 1828, the Synod of South Carolina and Georgia founded the Seminary at Columbia, S. C. In the same year, the Synod of Kentucky established a seminary under the charter of Centre College, at Danville, and requested the Assembly to accept the superintendence. Subsequently, however, this experiment was abandoned.

These historical facts are recited to show the fixed opinion of our

Church in the West, Southwest, and South, that a single Seminary was insufficient; and that a multiplication of theological schools, each adapted to the circumstances of a given region, was preferable, and indeed indispensable. Sharing in this universal conviction, the Synod of Indiana, which had been organized in 1826, and which then included within its bounds nearly all the Northwest lying west of the Ohio, together with the State of Missouri, during its sessions at Salem, Ind., Oct. 1827, "appointed a committee to take into consideration the expediency of establishing a literary and theological seminary under the care of Synod." The subject was discussed in Oct. 1828, on the report of the committee; and in Oct. 1829, while in session at the Shoal Creek Church, Illinois, within forty miles of St. Louis, Synod established its Seminary at Hanover, Indiana, a point nearly central, east and west, to the existing Presbyterian population. It is worthy of remark, that the whole body of communicants, under care of Synod when the Seminary was founded, scarcely exceeded three thousand; viz., 2200 in the Presbyteries of Madison, Salem, and Wabash; 444 in that of Central Illinois, and 402 in Missouri Presbytery.

It were needless to recount the various fortunes of this Seminary, or the circumstances which procured its removal to New Albany. It is sufficient to say it has never been adequately endowed, nor provided with suitable buildings and library, nor furnished with a full corps of professors; and yet one hundred and eighty ministers, the greater part of whom are labouring acceptably in the vineyard of Christ, among us, or in heathen lands, have received their theological education wholly, or chiefly, in this institution.

You are all informed that at one time seven synods were nominally united in the support of this Seminary. Before its removal from Hanover, the Synod of Cincinnati pledged its co-operation. In 1841, the year after its removal, the Synod of Missouri promised its support, and appointed directors. In 1842, the same thing was done by the Synod of Illinois; in 1844, by the Synod of Northern Indiana, which had been organized in the previous year, and in 1846, by the Synods of Kentucky and West Tennessee. Unhappily for the interests and usefulness of the Seminary, this union was merely nominal. Whatever may have been the cause, or causes, it would be out of place to investigate them here,—a cordial, earnest, and effective co-operation was never secured. Three years ago, our brethren of Kentucky terminated their connection with the Seminary. The Synods of West Tennessee (now Nashville) and Missouri, are understood to have relinquished whatever interest they may have had in it. The Synods of Cincinnati, Indiana, and Northern Indiana, alone, expressed their determination to maintain it, and they have, for three successive years, renewed the expression of their unabated confidence and attachment. Experiment has demonstrated that, notwithstanding the withdrawal of these Synods, and even with its present limited basis, the

Seminary can be sustained, and can contribute, as it has contributed, something towards supplying the destitutions of the West; but it is equally true that under present conditions, it cannot fulfil the hopes of its founders and friends, that it cannot perform the great and good and indispensable work, which the wants of our Church and territory, our covenant obligation as Christians and ministers, the welfare of souls, and the honour of our Divine Master, imperatively demand. We are but one one-hundred-and-fiftieth part of the millions who share with us this noble northwestern country. Nearly one-third of our six hundred churches are vacant. Some of our largest, wealthiest congregations, amid fields of labour every way desirable, lie desolate for months, and even years, for want of an adequate supply of ministers. Other denominations are rapidly pre-occupying the ground; yet all together fail to meet the urgent and increasing spiritual necessities of our land. Error, infidelity, and vice stalk abroad unabashed, unrebuked, and "the ways of Zion mourn, her gates are desolate." "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land; not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord and they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it." (Amos 8:11, 12.)

And yet we have abundant resources, if we would but combine and employ them. Did the fathers, with three thousand communicants, scattered from Ohio to Missouri, lay the foundations of a seminary for the Northwest; and shall the sons with thirty thousand communicants, and far more than a tenfold augmentation of wealth, and facilities for co-operation, refuse to build the superstructure? Your Seminary has property already in possession to the amount of about $40,000, and outstanding obligations to the amount of $20,000, besides a valuable library of almost four thousand volumes. How easy a thing it would be for the Synods we address to double, or quadruple, this sum, and at once enable the Seminary to perform a service commensurate with the demands of the field! Where there is a will there is a way. When the Lord opened the heart of Robert Haldane to pity the desolations of Scotland, single-handed and out of his private resources, he established three or four theological schools, sought out and supported students, and in nine years sent forth nearly three hundred preachers, having expended in this and similar labours about $300,000. Is there no Robert Haldane among us? His particular measures might not be in all respects commendable; but would to God that the spirit which animated him were more abundantly diffused among us!

Do you object to the present location, at New Albany, as not central to the proposed field, and therefore unlikely to combine the interests and efforts of these Synods? We answer, the Seminary is the property of the Synods concurring in its support. Five of