every man to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience, and compel him to pay only for the support of the Gospel in his own denomination. The practical effect has been to liberate all conscientious dissenters from supporting a worship which they did not approve, which the law intended; and to liberate a much greater number, without conscience, from paying for the support of the Gospel anywhere, and progressively to diminish the amount of religious instruction and moral influence in the State,-a thing which the law did not intend. While it accommodates the conscientious feelings of ten, it accommodates the angry, revengeful, avaricious, and irreligious feelings of fifty; and threatens, by a silent, constant operation, to undermine the deep-laid foundations of our civil and religious order.

The vital principle of our system, that every man shall pay according to his property for the support of religious instruction, as a public civil benefit, and for the preservation of morals and good order in the State, is gone. Every man who chooses to do it withdraws, by a little management, his whole tax from the support of the Gospel; and the result is lamentably manifest, in the multiplication of feeble societies and

of avaricious savings, how little is thought of the importance of truth! O! 't is enough to make angels weep, to see whole families of precious, immortal children, unconscious of their doom, cut off at once, by this rash act of a father, from the hearing of the truth, to famish by hearing nothing, or to be poisoned by hearing error. O! how will such rash deeds appear in the day of judgment, when the wretched father, undone by his folly, shall find himself surrounded by his family, ruined by his anger, or destroyed by his parsimony! How must their agony torture him, and their cries harrow up his soul! What imprecations, from a long line of descendants, will assail his ears, and what anguish wring his heart, while he goes away with them into everlasting punishment, "where their worm dieth not and their fire is not quenched!"

waste places. It has taught also the malicious and the irreligious the art of breaking down societies, and multiplying, by design, our desolations.

The last cause which I shall mention is the remedy which has too often been applied to rescue declining congregations, and raise waste places. The common policy has been, to settle a minister upon an incompetent salary, with the expectation that he will support himself, in part, by his own exertions; and the consequence, which might have been anticipated, has usually been, that the habit of worldly care, which necessity began, becomes a habit of worldliness which, in some cases, renders the ministry a secondary consideration. Gain is substituted for godliness, and preaching the Gospel becomes a convenient auxiliary in the system of accumulating money. The man has become a thriving farmer, an able schoolmaster, a sagacious speculator, but has long since ceased to be a faithful minister of Jesus Christ. His thoughts, his heart, his time, are devoted to secular pursuits, while, with his lips only, he deals out, one day in seven, cold commendations of that religion whose interests he betrays. But the more common effect is, that his ministry embarrasses his worldly enterprise, and his worldly enterprise his ministry, so much, that both become comparatively unfruitful. He cannot pursue his worldly business to the best advantage, because he is a minister; and he cannot pursue the work of the ministry to advantage, because he is a farmer. The combined result is, a bare support, with a double tax of care; few books, and no leisure to read them; little time for study, and that of little value, from the impossibility of putting in requisition, at a moment's warning, the resources of a mind vexed with ceaseless perplexities, and long since a stranger to habits of study. laments his situation, longs to devote himself to his work,

He

hopes for better days, while every year brings new conviction that they will never come. In this unequal struggle, his days of improvement pass away; his mind is undisciplined, his heart cold and formal, his sermons unpopular abroad, and irksome at home. He neglects to visit his people, for he has no time; he neglects meetings for prayer, and the main-spring being removed, all the movements which are the life of religion stop. In proportion, also, as he does less for his people, he loves them less, and their affection for him declines in the same degree; and now sectarians, with flaming zeal, break in upon his charge, and preach, and pray, and visit, and do just those things to alienate his people which ought to have been done to attach them to himself, and to one another. Alarmed at this furious onset, he hurls from the pulpit unavailing invectives against the foe, and makes some feeble exertions to prevent a defection, which hard names will only extend. But it is all too late; the kind attention, by which he might once have bound his people to himself forever, has been exhibited by a stranger, who has stolen away their hearts by an irretrievable delusion. And, now, his little salary presses hard upon the diminished number of his people, is poorly paid, and operates as a constant temptation to increased defection. Alarmed at their danger, his people complain that he does not visit them, and take pains to hold the congregation together; and he, in return, complains that they have not enabled him to do it, by providing for him a competent support, or even by the punctual payment of the pittance stipulated. Complaint begets complaint, and crimination begets crimination, until, at length, the crisis arrives; his people, weakened by defections, can no longer raise his little salary; and he, by the most strenuous exertions, cannot do without it. Of course, a council is called, and the pastoral relation is dissolved. The

pastor, in the decline of life, with a large family, goes an exile to the wilderness, or settles in some other declining church, to repeat the same experiment, and, unless death prevents, to witness the same result. The society, which, by a trifling additional effort, might have commanded the whole time of their pastor, and become yearly stronger, have, by their injudicious parsimony, frittered away their strength, and brought themselves to desolation; have dug their own grave, and lie down in it to awake no more. One-half the time of a minister who devotes his whole time to his appropriate. work would be more efficacious, to build up a declining society, than all the scraps of time which any man, compelled to support himself in part, can possibly rescue from the toils and cares of worldly avocations. The success of a minister depends much, under God, upon the state of his mind and his heart; a mind disciplined by study, and a heart warmed by action in his blessed work; a state of mind and heart which cannot be preserved amid the distractions of care, and the din of business, and which cannot be commanded for immediate use, the moment he sits down in his study, or steps from the world into his pulpit.

It would be far better, where it can be done, that two feeble societies should unite in the competent support of one man,— commanding, between them, the whole time and all the talents of their pastor,—than to prolong, in both, a ministry without its appropriate duties and blessings, until both are brought to desolation.

We are to consider,

II. The means by which the wastes in this State may be built.

And here suffer me to suggest, as a measure of great utility, not to the desolate merely, but to all the churches, the

occasional itineration of the stated pastors within the limits of each association, and by exchanges into other associations, and in different parts of the State. A ministry entirely migratory, though it possess some advantages, is defective; and so also is a ministry wholly stationary. A system which should retain all the benefits of stability, and at the same time avail itself of the peculiar advantages of itinerancy, would approach, it is believed, nearest to perfection. But such a

system might, with the utmost ease, be established in this State. Partial experiments have been made already, and always with singularly happy effects. A religious enterprise of this kind breaks in upon the lethargy which is apt to invade the mind, too long conversant with the same place, objects, and duties. It creates a more minute and yet extended knowledge of the state of the churches, and a stronger interest in their welfare; while it awakens to new zeal and enterprise, among their own people, both those who itinerate and those who are cheered by their coming.*

* Itinerations of the above description have been repeatedly practised in both the associations of Litchfield county, and in every instance have been attended by the happiest effects. The revivals which prevailed in this county, from the year 1798 to 1800, were, in many instances, begun, and in all happily promoted, by the blessing of God upon such itinerations. In the State of New Jersey, also, two seasons of extensive revivals were begun by the blessing of God upon a similar system of special enterprise. Two ministers have, in all cases, been united in the same tour; and latterly, the churches have had previous notice of the commencement and continuance of the tour, and have devoted a portion of time each evening, between the hours of seven and eight, to a concert of secret prayer to God, for his blessing upon the enterprise; and not unfrequently, while they have been yet speaking, the answer has been granted. In all cases

the churches have been refreshed and animated by such visits, and a more extensive attention produced than would have been commanded by ordinary lectures.