e remembered, after study and
reflection, with advancing years, shall have brought him to a clearer
discernment of the truth, and better judgment in the application of it.

It must be acknowledged that, among the regulations of ecclesiastical
polity, none at first view are more attractive than that which
prescribes for every parish a resident incumbent. How agreeable to
picture to one's self, as has been done by poets and romance writers,
from Chaucer down to Goldsmith, a man devoted to his ministerial office,
with not a wish or a thought ranging beyond the circuit of its cares!
Nor is it in poetry and fiction only that such characters are found;
they are scattered, it is hoped not sparingly, over real life,
especially in sequestered and rural districts, where there is but small
influx of new inhabitants, and little change of occupation. The spirit
of the Gospel, unaided by acquisitions of profane learning and
experience in the world,--that spirit and the obligations of the sacred
office may, in such situations, suffice to effect most of what is
needful. But for the complex state of society that prevails in England,
much more is required, both in large towns, and in many extensive
districts of the country. A minister should not only be irreproachable
in manners and morals, but accomplished in learning, as far as is
possible without sacrifice of the least of his pastoral duties. As
necessary, perhaps more so, is it that he should be a citizen as well as
a scholar; thoroughly acquainted with the structure of society and the
constitution of civil government, and able to reason upon both with the
most expert; all ultimately in order to support the truths of
Christianity, and to diffuse its blessings.

A young man coming fresh from the place of his education, cannot have
brought with him these accomplishments; and if the scheme of equalising
Church incomes, which many advisers are much bent upon, be realised, so
that there should be little or no secular inducement for a clergyman to
desire a removal from the spot where he may chance to have been first
set down: surely not only opportunities for obtaining the requisite
qualifications would be diminished, but the motives for desiring to
obtain them would be proportionably weakened. And yet these
qualifications are indispensable for the diffusion of that knowledge, by
which alone the political philosophy of the New Testament can be rightly
expounded, and its precepts adequatel