ith real loss to the public, by the very means which prostrates them,
even though we should leave out of the reckoning the premature end to
which they are brought. This spectacle, at this moment before the eyes
of the wide community, is enough to fill the mind of an enlightened
Christian with dismay. I have myself been thrown ten years out of the
stated use of the ministry by this very course, and may, therefore, be
entitled to feel and to speak on the subject. And when I see my
brethren fallen and falling around me, like the slain in battle, the
plains of our land literally covered with these unfortunate victims, I
am constrained to express a most earnest desire, that some adequate
remedy may be applied."

It is no matter of surprise, then, that I heard the ministers at the
camp meeting complain of the excess of their labours, and the difficulty
of obtaining young men to enter the church; [The Rev Mr Reid
observes, speaking of the Congregationalists, "When I rose to support
his resolution, as requested, all were generously attentive. At the
close I alluded emphatically to one fact in the report, which was, That
out of 4,500 churches there were 2,000 not only void of educated
pastors, but void of pastors, and I insisted that, literally, they ought
not to sleep on such a state of things."--_Reid and Matheson's Tour_]
who, indeed, unless actuated by a holy zeal, would submit to such a life
of degradation? what man of intellect and education could submit to be
schooled by shoemakers and mechanics, to live poor, and at the mercy of
tyrants, and drop down dead like the jaded and over laden beast from
excess of fatigue and exertion? Let me again quote the same author:

"It is these excessive, multitudinous, and often long _protracted_
religious occasions, together with the spirit that is in them, which
have been for some years breaking up and breaking down the clergy of
this land? It has been breaking them _up_. It is commonly observed,
that a new era has lately come over the Christian congregations of our
country in regard to the permanence of the pastoral relation. Times
was, in the memory of those now living, when the settlement of a
minister was considered of course a settlement for life. But now, as
every body knows, this state of things is entirely broken up; and it is,
perhaps, true that, on an average, the clergy of this country do not
remain more than five years in the same place." ["I was sorry to find
t