the members of the church at the various places of worship
established on the circuit. Every year, he attends the annual
conference of preachers, at which one of the bishops presides, and
is liable to be assigned a new circuit, in the selection of which,
as a general thing, he has no choice--the bishop making all the
appointments; and so, term after term, he goes to a new place, among
strangers. Before any strong attachments can be formed, the relation
between him and his people is severed; and he begins, as it were,
life anew, hundreds of miles away, it may be, from any former field
of labour. To a married man, this system is one involving great
self-denial and sacrifice, assuming often a painful character.

In those circuits that embrace wealthy and populous sections of the
country, the Methodist minister is well taken care of; but there are
many other sections, where the people are not only very poor, but
indifferent to matters of religion, ignorant in the extreme, and not
over-burdened with kind or generous feelings. On circuits of this
character, the preacher meets sometimes with pretty rough treatment;
and if, for his year's service, he is able to get, being, we will
suppose, a single man, fifty or sixty dollars in money, he may think
himself pretty well off.

To one of these hard circuits, a preacher, whom we shall call the
Rev. Mr. Odell, of the New Jersey conference, found himself assigned
by the bishop who presided at the annual conference. The change was
felt as pretty severe, he having been on a comfortable station for
two years; but as he must take the evil with the good, he
conscientiously repressed all natural regrets and murmurings, and,
as in duty bound, started, at the close of the conference, for his
new field of labour. A day or two before leaving, and after the
appointments were announced, Mr. Odell said to the brother who had
ridden that circuit during the previous year--"So, I am to follow in
your footsteps?"

"It appears so," was the brief reply.

"How did you like the circuit?"

"I am very well pleased to change."

"Not much encouragement in that answer."

"We can't all have good places. Some of us must take our turn in the
highways and byways of the land."

"True; I am not disposed to complain. I have taken up the cross, and
mean to bear it to the end, if possible, without a murmur."

"As we all should. Well, brother Odell, if you pass the year on the
circuit without a murmur, your