left us some of the best of these performances : ON A PALE LADY WITH A RED-NOSED HUS- "Whence comes it that, in Clara's face, Has gone to paint her husband's nose?" A very pompous overdrawn compliment is that upon Pope's translation of Homer : "So much, dear Pope, thy English Homer charms, As pity melts us, or as passion warms, That after ages will with wonder seek Who 't was translated Homer into Greek." "Averse to pamper'd and high-mettled steeds, In our own days, Punch and other satirical publications have been the outlet for epigrammatic writers, and some of these productions have been of the most brilliant and forcible kind. But a feeling has gradually arisen that the versified epigram is old-fashioned, and therefore the prose style is now more indulged in than before. In this, Douglas Jerrold is unrivaled; and one of the most beautiful in the language by this author is to be found in "The Hermit of Bellyfulle," the finest and most philosophic of this writer's works; a writer, by the way, whose wit is too fine ever to reach extreme popularity. The Hermit is preaching patience. "Do you know," said he, "what patience did?" "Patience wanted a nightingale, patience waited and the egg sang!" The ellipsis is there perfect; the space between the small egg and the singing-bird charming; the silence of the listening night is something of the sublime. But from even an essay short as our own, upon this subject, one should not omit the name of that poet, dear to all lovers of humor as of poetry, Thomas Hood. We have but space for one of his productions; but that is a good one; neither has it a melancholy cadence. Our sparkles shall not be touched with a lurid light; let, therefore, even the German tourist who, accompanying Prince Albert from "Vaterland," made this mistake, laugh at the epigram : "Charm'd with the drink which Highlanders compose, A German traveler exclaim'd with glee, Potztausend! sare, if this be Athol Brose, How good de Athol Boetry must be !" So ends our Gallop: we must pull up now, and let the reins hang upon the neck of our tired steed. We have seen that these small darts of wit can be serious or jocose, inimical or friendly; that they can give us a hint upon love, upon war, or even upon religion. Connected with this we shall find, that even in the small space definition of the most sublime idea which of an epigram we have perhaps the best ever entered the brain of man-need we say, ETERNITY? "Reason does but one quaint solution lend This is from the pen of the author of "Alethea;" verily, after reading it, let us hope that the general reader will say, that, even from our imperfect sketch, "there is much in an epigram." A YOUNG ZOUAVE, who had entered the army as a volunteer, excited the greatest astonishment and admiration among the English officers by his gymnastic powers. He attempted the most extraordinary feats, and always succeeded. An English captain asked him one day why he had entered the army voluntarily, when in a circus he could earn ten times as much as in the army. The Zouave, in a tone of wounded pride, replied, "Because I hope to die a French general, and not a ridingmaster: the French soldier looks to something besides money." Then, plunging his hands into his pockets, he took his departure; but from that day nothing would tempt him to give any specimen of his powers before an English officer. The National Magazine. SEPTEMBER, 1855. EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE. LETTER TO BISHOP SIMPSON. CONDITION OF THE MINISTRY-WANT OF ABLE MENTHE DEMAND FOR THEM-WHAT DOES IT INDICATE? -HOW SHALL THE WANT BE MET?-WHAT IS THE RANK OF THE METHODIST MINISTRY?-MINISTERIAL SUPPORT-LOCATIONS-MINISTERIAL EDUCATION— VARIOUS SCHEMES-IMPORTANCE OF THE LOCAL MINISTRY. Reverend and DEAR SIR,-In the conversation, alluded to in my first letter, I replied to your question respecting the condition and prospects of Methodism in the United States, that its greatest difficulty seemed to be, at present, the want of able men. The city appointments are clamoring for "men of talent;" country appointments, in thriving villages, join in the demand. The academies, colleges, Biblical schools, and new "special agencies" repeat it. You well know that it rings in the ears of your cabinets everywhere. It is a natural demand; and it is an old one in some form or other; but it is peculiar in its present form-a result of the circumstances of our times. We evidently are not working our system up to its maximum capacity, and the fact is owing largely to the want of able men. The presiding eldership, as I have shown, is an example, though in this respect we are fast improving. Our laymen, in the cities especially, complain of the difficulty of getting able men-men who can place their Churches abreast of those of other denominations. Excuse the apparent invidiousness of the remark-it is too well known to be evaded. And yet it is not really invidious. It is far, too, from being discouraging. On the contrary, it is to me a very gratifying indication; for what is the real origin of the fact? Is it not manifestly owing to the rapid prosperity of the denomination? We have, in our popular success, outgrown our official capacity. It is easier to gather and to train popular societies, than to gather and train professional bodies of men. I repeat that the evil, if such it can be called, is an encouraging one: we have no right to croak over it; our Churches must jog along as well as they can, under it, giving thanks to God that it is so fortunate a difficulty, and feeling assured that it shall, from its peculiar nature, cure itself, if they will have a little patience, and adopt the improvements that offer themselves. But let us understand the matter more fully. You know my estimation of the Methodist ministry too well to suppose that I admit that it is inferior to any other clerical body in the country. Were I compelled to answer categorically the question, What is the rank of Methodist preachers? I should not hesitate a moment to say the first, "take them as a whole." I know the disadvantage of overstrained language, but so I should characterize them. I know of no ministerial body that excels them in natural talent, or in that sort of educaVOL. VII.-19 tion which circumstances give. The fathers of the ministry were the legio fulminea of the new world; and their sons are not unworthy of them, Original talent, effective habits of preaching and of pastoral labor, sensible and forcible presentations of the word of God, skill in the management of human nature,-who denies these talents to them?-who denies them preeminence in these respects? But the progress of popular intelligence has raised a demand for something more. Original talent will not nowa-days satisfy the congregations of cities and large towns, unless it comes with the additional recommendation of education. Take the most original genius you can find, and put him in a "respectable" city pulpit, and let him there, with his brilliant traits, mix up outré qualities, rhetorical defects, grammatical blunders, &c., and you will not find him clamored for the next year; or if he is not such a genius, with such marked defects, but a sound, sensible man, with sound, ordinary talents, still will he not be thought to compare with the neighboring clergyman of another denomination, who, with no really greater intellect, has the general style and bearing of an educated man. In other words, not merely talent, but talent with "respectability"-that's the word-is the great demand. Education itself will not meet itsome of your educated men are the least acceptable-nor talent without education, unless it be in those cases, not now unfrequent among us, in which men who have never seen the inside of a college, have, by self-culture, acquired the strength and bearing of educated men. It is marvelous how many of this class of real intellectual noblemen stand now in the ranks of Methodism. They bear its banner in the very first rank of the Protestantism of some of our large communities. But the difficulty is, that they are not half numerous enough for the actual wants of our overgrown cause. Besides them, we have hosts of substantial, good preachers; but how often, at the end of their first year, do you bishops hear their "official men" say, on the thresholds of your cabinets, that they are "good, but not superior,"-that "superior" men must be sent to them-that they have built a new church, and must have a commanding man, or sink under their new burdens-that many new and intelligent families have moved into the place, and will sustain Methodism if a "superior man" can be sent them-that such and such denominations have such and such strong men in the neighborhood, and we must fail if we cannot compete with them? Such reasonings, doubtless, exist in other sects, but they have become clamors in ours; for the fact is, that we, who were in the lowly vale of contentment a little while ago, and allowed them all to look down upon us there, have wrought our way up to them, and have become desperately impatient, not only because we cannot compete with them in some things as well as in others, but because we cannot leave them out of sight in all things. Let us be careful that we lose not our breath in the egotistical chase! Now the question is, not whether this sort of "respectability "-growing out of a given sort of popular intelligence, and demanding a given combination of education and original talent is a good thing. I have my own opinion on that point, but it is irrelevant here. The question is, How, seeing it does exist, shall we adapt the really great resources of talent which we possess, as a Church, to the necessity of the case? It will not do to say that it is false or whimsical, and, therefore, we may defy it. That was not St. Paul's maxim of "becoming all things to all men that he might save some.' It will defy you, if you defy it. In not a few important communities our responsible laymen complain (whether rightly or wrongly) that the Church suffers continually for want of suitable men to meet the difficulty; that many of our converts sooner or later retreat to the more "respectable" ministries; that where we originally prepossessed the ground, other Churches, coming in, take from us the lead of the public mind, &c., &c. In all other denominations the complaint is made that the low compensation of clergymen is diminishing the ministry. The late Protestant Episcopal convention passed emphatic resolutions on the subject; it looked upon the evil as threatening the ministry with alarming peril. Other religious communities have spoken a similar language. Can we affect that our moral superiority lifts us above the same adversity? Is it not probable that we have, and are suffering at this moment, vast loss by it? And if we are disposed to condemn the men who are kept out of the ministry by it, should we not be first disposed to remove the temptation out of their way? We do not average the salaries of most other denominations. Is it probable that we suffer less, then? In many of the states we cannot find men for our annual wants; the evil is becoming almost unmanageable in some conferences-conferences, too, in which we have abundance of educated families and capable young men-how far does the silent influence of the fact now before us affect the case? The average salary of clergymen in these northern states is less than four hundred dollars per annum-the average salary of Methodist preachers is less than three hundred-the deficit on what they should receive, in comparison with men in other business, makes them the largest charitable contributors for the welfare of the Church that the nation possesses. The compensation of men of similar, if not inferior rank, is far beneath theirs. Here are some ascertained examples Doubtless a little more patience is one of the most necessary things for us under these circumstances. Our social position, as a Church, has changed greatly; we have not been able to reach all the necessities of our rapid advancement, but we are meeting them fast. The prospect is anything but discouraging. You recollect, sir, (I do, at least, though there are but few gray hairs on my head,) when there was not an institution of learning within our pale? I recall the time when my feet, now in but midmanhood, crossed the threshold of the first academy belonging to the Church-when there was not a single D. D. in our ranks (but never the worse were we for that)-when there were but two collegiate graduates in all our ministry. Now our academies are almost in danger Lieutenant in the Navy. of casting their shadows upon each other, and our multiplied colleges of eating each other up. Since that day hundreds of graduates have entered our ministry; our whole system of chapels has been renovated and better placed; the social status of our people revolutionized; and the finances of our cause-may we not say created? Let us give thanks, then, and have patience. But can we do nothing else? One means of improving our ministry will be to improve its support. I state this opinion with emphasis, because I think it has been a somewhat unpopular one among us. "The laborer is worthy of his hire;" our ministry has never got its legitimate hire, and in this respect the Church has (until late years, at least) been unworthy of it. God has a controversy with us for the sufferings of our fathers, and we should make haste to settle it. Until within a few years our strongest men were continually stepping aside into the local ranks to provide for their families. Of six hundred and fifty who had been on the Minutes by the end of the last century, about five hundred died located, and many of the remainder had to retire temporarily. The evil has existed ever since; it prevails largely even at this day in sections of our work. And even in its most prospered portions, our ministerial support is so meager as doubtless to be a serious drawback on the increase of men of talent among us. It is easy to say that men called to preach ought to brave such drawbacks; they ought, when it is practicable, but they remind themselves that it is said, on divine authority, that he "who provides not for his own, 000 hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." Professors in Colleges.. Captain in the Army. Clerk in a Department (U. S. Government).. $1,500 1,500 1,500 1,500 2.700 8,000 800 I have not compared them, here, with doctors, lawyers, and men of other pursuits, considered however erroneously-somewhat above them as professions, but with a class of occupations which certainly ought not to be better supported. How does the comparison look? What a sacrifice-what a contribution from his support does the Methodist preacher give annually to the public in behalf of religion! The male school teachers of the country average full five hundred dollars-two-fifths more! The Methodist preacher annually contributes at least an average of five hundred dollars to the religious public in this manner! We must reform this evil-we must reform it, or be assured our ministry will show its disastrous effects more and more. Were our people poor, as they once were, it would be endured heroically; but it cannot possibly be borne under their present circumstances. We have much ground for hope in this respect; but we have need that the subject be presented before the Church with the sternest urgency. Another thing to be done, according to many among us, is the better education of the ministry. There can be no doubt that (whether for good or ill) we are destined to have, as an essential part of our denominational system of education, theological or Biblical schools. Already the far East and the far West salute each other on this ground. The seminary at Concord, N. H., has had notable prosperity, and promises, it is said, soon to become the first institution of the kind (numerically) in the Union. The one at Chicago starts, it is reported, with a financial foundation of a hundred thousand dollars from a single patron. I do not propose to argue here the question of the propriety of such institutions. The following summary, from the Methodist Quarterly Review, shows in brief the ground taken by their advocates. They complain that they have hardly had a fair hearing through our organs; we allow them to speak in this extract, in their most ardent terms:- "Such institutions were not considered by the founder of Methodism to be foreign to its genius and interests. In the very first conference he ever held, he himself proposed such a measure; the proposition was repeated in the second session, and was never lost sight of by the Wesleyan connection during the long interval that elapsed before its resources enabled it to embody the design in its present noble seminaries. The success of the measure has demonstrated its wisdom. ness. He Have not our circumstances as a Church changed? Are we not able to afford our ministry the intellectual qualifications which once they could not obtain but by special endowment? And is it not clear, from the whole history of Providence, that when such ability exists, its special interposition ceases? It would be a curse on the world for Divine Providence to supersede the necessity of our self-dependence as individuals, or as communities. Our fathers are passing away. Providence supplies us no more with such men, and thereby clearly indicates our duty to qualify our ministry according to the means which he gives us. will still call men to his work, but we must open the way for them. We propose not to make preachers of his word, but only to aid those whom he has evidently called to preach it. Who dares object to such a proposal? Providence has led us along from one improvement to another, until now this great want stands in our way like a mountain, with its summit glorious with light. We cannot pass round it; let us, then, go over it, that our ministry may, like Moses, come down to the people with their brows radiant with its brightUnder our old system the repetition of a few well-studied subjects could take the place of fifty under the present arrangement. This is no detraction from the old system-it was one of its best points of adaptation to an uneducated ministry. But now we fix untrained men in small stations, amid the closest competition, where they are overburdened with pastoral duties, which were unknown to our fathers, and expect them to maintain our cause with success among a population the most enlightened on the globe. How is it possible for a young man without discipline, without a knowledge of books or of men, to furnish instruction for two years under such circumstances? A few of our most vigorous minds may nerve themselves for the necessities of such a position, but the mass of the ministry must necessarily fall into the rear of the educated ministries of other sects. It is objected that education will pervert our young men. This is one of those vandal sentiments which I hardly know how to discuss. Is it a question, in this day, whether education is favorable or injurious to virtue? Why, then, have we not waited for its decision before establishing our academies and colleges? Are we afraid that Methodism in particular cannot consist with intelligence? Then it cannot be true, and the sooner we discover our delusion the better. Methodism is compatible with intelligence. Some of the greatest intellects have grown up under its influence; its glorious theology and mighty system are suited to the highest minds, and in no other Church can a great mind have freer scope for its powers. But how does this objection agree with fact? Have our learned men been perverted? Have they not been among the holiest and most useful men in our Church? Did learning corrupt Wesley, Fletcher, Coke, or Benson? Whose memory is more sacred among us than Fisk's? And was he perverted by learning? Was Ruter, who left the presidency of a college for the sufferings of a missionary, one of the examples from which this objection is drawn? Was Emory another? Our most learned men have been our holiest men. They have been the staunchest friends of our doctrines and our discipline, because their capacious minds have the better compre hended their excellence. And is not this the case with the young men who come into the ministry from our learned institutions? Where do you find better pastors ing that Methodism should still be trammeled and and more devoted preachers than they? It is mortifyenervated by such petty prejudices. We Methodists do not yet comprehend the sublimity and promise of our cause. We have been deluded by the impression that ours is a particular, and not a general systemthat it is applicable to a particular class, but not to all classes. Methodism is universal in its adaptation. We ensigns of the Millennium. Our doctrines and measare bearing up unconsciously before the world the ures have been transforming other sects; they are to reach the savage and the sage, the slave and the soythe truth. Give, then, to Methodism a free action. ereign. We believe it, because we believe they are Let it appropriate to itself all auxiliaries, especially learning. Its gigantic plans are suited for gigantic powers. Throw the energies of a sanctified and educated ministry into its potent system, and it will produce results which we have not yet imagined. Once more: it is asserted that the history of theological schools, in all ages, shows their influence to be corrupting. If we object to theological schools because they have been abused, we may also object to nearly every other great measure. Episcopacy was abused in the early Church as much as theological schools; must we abandon it on that account? The press has been foully abused; are we therefore to turn it out of our Book Concern? Religion has been perverted in every detail; shall we therefore turn atheists? The reason of the corruption of theological schools was the corruption of all knowledge. Theological, like all other schools, will, of course, be affected by the intellectual state of the age in which they exist. It was the general prevalence of the New Platonism that introduced error into the Alexandrian school. But it introduced it everywhere else also. It infected Philo the Jew, and Longinus the Pagan, as well as Origen the Christian. It was the introduction of the Aristotelian dialectics that produced the metaphysical absurdities of the schools of the middle ages; but they infected every other department of knowledge, alike with theology. They were the intellectual characteristics of the times, deluding the monk in his secluded meditations, as well as the student in the school. But we live in a different age; science is now more thoroughly verified; a new mode of inquiry has been introduced, which will never allow a similar confusion of knowledge. There may be new corruptions in theology, but they cannot originate as did those upon which the objection is founded; they will be such as will be more likely to be prevented than favored by knowledge. Theological schools have, indeed, like all other good institutions of religion, been corrupt; but, like all others, they have also been blessed. It would seem, from history, that Providence has wedded religion and knowledge, and signalized their union in most of the great events of the Church. The first rays of returning daylight, after the dark ages, streamed forth upon the world from the cloisters of the University of Wittemberg. It was from its gates that Martin Luther came forth, with the Bible in his hands, to summon the world to its moral resurrection. It was from the University of Geneva that Calvin, at the same time, was sounding the alarm among the Alps. And where did the next great revival of Christianity take place? It was among the theological students of Oxford. Yes! Methodism, now so fearful of ministerial education, first awoke in the cradle of English learning. It sounded its first trump, and commenced its march over the world, from the gates of a university. Where did the first conception of foreign missions from the American Churches, originate? Within the walls of a theological school; and from that school have gone to the pagan world a greater number of devoted men than from any other source in our land. one at Geneva is now the chief instrumentality in restoring the principles of the Reformation to Switzerland and France. The great defenders of religion have nearly all been educated theologians." The After this long insertion, we hope there will be no charge of timid partiality on the question, against this journal at least. The extract certainly has ardor enough, if it has not an excess of argument. We leave our readers to judge of the latter. They are as competent as ourselves to distinguish between its logic and its rhetoric. It is due to the advocates of this measure to say, that they are of various opinions respecting it. Some of them think that departments of theological instruction, suitable for the preparation of ministerial candidates, can be connected with our academies and colleges. Others, and doubtless the greatest number, propose separate seminaries, on the plan of the "Wesleyan Theological Institutions," which shall be adapted to the actual wants of the student, whatever may be the deficiencies of his education, and shall combine with their intellectual advantages thorough training in such social and pastoral habits as may especially befit his future office: they would have them be "schools of the prophets," ministerial households, maintained under a strictly-religious regimen, and excluding the perverting influences and invidious prejudices which they allege would affect our young candidates in common academies or colleges. Such is the experiment now being made among our brethren of the Eastern States. Others, though very few, we suppose, advocate a high theological seminary, modeled after the best in other Churches, and requiring considerable preparatory, if not collegiate, training—a proposition which appears to us practically absurd in the present circumstances of our ministry. Against this last project we should all protest. It must exclude the largest proportion of our ministry for generations. It would provide education only for the educated-those who least need it. I am astonished at the singularity of the proposition in view of the actual circumstances of the Church. Do not its advocates know whence come most of our young preachers -that they enter the ministry from the workshop, the farm, the counting-house? Do they not know that for generations its extending ranks must necessarily be thus recruited-if, indeed, the time can ever come in which they can all be graduated at college, as with the English national Church? What, then, can be the reason for advocating an institution of such high character that none but already educated men can enter it what but the affectation of being like other sects, whose circumstances quite distinguish them from us? Let us be above this folly. Let the value of such measures, as of all others, with us, be their practical utility. And if we find extant models unsuited to our wants, let us bend them to us, not bend ourselves to them. One thing especially should we guard against in our zeal for education, viz., such an exaltation of it as may discourage uneducated but capable men, who have not the means or the time for it, from entering the ministry. Let us be assured it can never be a sine qua non with us, without the overthrow of our very mission as a Church. Our destiny is too urgent for delay; we are in the mêlée of the world's moral battle-field, and must fight as best we can, with such forces as we can command. While we can train some of our most favorably situated men-unquestionably we must, for an indefinite time, recruit our ranks as we have heretofore. It is feared by many that the interest for education, now so rife among us, is discouraging men who cannot obtain it, and who have begun to think that without it they cannot succeed in the ministry. This is the abuse of a good thing. Let such young men throw the fallacy to the winds and rally to the field where, often, the great Captain of our salvation "chooses the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty." I am prolonging this letter; but admit one view more. We are erring, I fear perilously, in the disuse of our old method of preparing, of graduating preachers, through the grades of exhorters and local preachers up to the itinerancy. It was in this manner that we recruited our ministerial forces in those days when "there were giants" among us. In some sections of our work, such a thing as a License to Exhort is hardly known any more. In some sections a pernicious prejudice is deepening against Local Preachers. How are we to obtain our preachers, then, hereafter? Are they to spring up and appear at once in the conference ranks, without any previous training whatever? Are we to find out their capacity by intuition? or by the slight indications of a class-meeting "testimony," or a little familiar religious talk in the prayer-meeting? Be assured, dear sir, this subject is vital to us; be assured that the arrangement which has so wonderfully recruited our pulpits heretofore cannot be dispensed with in this urgent day. We should be on the constant look-out for the evidences of youthful talent; we should encourage it, and train it in the licensed offices of Exhorter and Local Preacher, and urge it thence along into the higher work. Independently of this preparatory character of the local ministry, I deem it capable of being made a mighty arm of service in our great field. It is so in England, where it is worked systemati cally and continually among Churches older and maturer than ours. Why, then, can it not be so here? Where is it more needed than just here, where it is most discouraged, amid the accumulating moral desolations of New-York? I wish I could speak with a trumpet-tone to the Church on this subject. I would remind it of what I have proved at another time in these columns-the utter impossibility of meeting the prospective moral wants of the country by the usual ministerial provisions of the necessity of pressing into the service of the Church all available lay talent-of the advantages of our local ministry as a recruiting process for the itinerancy, and of the special advantage of early enlisting our young men into it, that they may be the better prepared for those special demands of which I have spoken in this letter. One thing I am assured of, that whatever may be the value of Biblical seminaries, the local ministry must be for ages, if not till the end of time, the great theological school of Methodism. I would even venture to be a little personal here and say that our bishops are somewhat responsible for the almost general declension of this part of our Church agency. They might remove much of its unpopularity in the Annual Conferences. They could rally and lead on the local laborers of our larger communities by occasionally assembling, addressing, and organizing them. The bishop who shall perseveringly attempt to restore the efficiency of our local ministry will do a work which the future historian of the Church will distinguish above any other achievement of the Episcopal administration. Yours, &c., A. STEVENS.. |