means, as others can be by ecclesiastical law, in the selection of their pastors. The more feeble the church, the smaller their chance of getting the very man they want, and the smaller the probability of their keeping him after they have succeeded in getting him "settled" among them. The system of the Methodist Episcopal Church does not forbid the expression of preferences, either among ministers or people; nor does it forbid that these preferences shall have all the weight to which they are entitled. Still, as our system places in the hands of the episcopacy powers which would otherwise belong to ministers and people generally, and as restriction in Church or state is unpopular, we concede that this feature of the itinerancy is, on the surface, an objection to it.

2. The itinerant system, at certain fixed intervals, removes the pastor with whom the people have become acquainted, and substitutes a stranger in his place.

Where the pastor remains many years in the same location, he becomes familiar with the names, the faces, the history of all who attend his ministrations. He is acquainted with the religious state of each of them, and is prepared to warn, encourage, rebuke, exhort, not at random, but understandingly, just as an old physician knows the constitutional peculiarities of his patients, and how to prescribe for them. Long-continued kindness and friendly intercourse, enforced by holy living, give power to his words. Year after year he is with them amid life's changing scenes. He officiates at marriages and funerals; he is the family friend and adviser, who has long shared in their joys and their sorrows, and whose very presence suggests a thousand tender memories, even the saddest of which only strengthen his hold upon their

hearts.

But among us, every three years, as the law now stands, the minister is assigned a new field of labor, where he is partially or altogether a stranger. New faces surround him; and months, at least, must elapse before he can establish that friendship and mutual confidence which are so desirable both for his usefulness and the good of his people, or even call them by name. This feature of the itinerancy is certainly not one of the elements of its strength.

3. This continual changing of pastors is liable to make the

labors and plans of the Church a thing of fits and starts and changes.

One pastor considers the condition of the church where he is located, looks around upon the community, and proceeds to lay his plans for doing good. He has his convictions in regard to the Sabbath-school, the teachers' Bible-class, the class-meetings, the circulation of tracts, and he convinces his people of the soundness of his views, and puts them in operation. Interest is created, good is done, and greater good promised. But his three years expire; he goes his way and his successor comes. He, too, has his convictions and his plans. The arrangements made by his predecessor do not suit him; and he lays them aside for other plans and agencies, which are no longer-lived than those which they supplant. Thus the church suffers, because nothing lasts long enough to do its work. The changes in the pastorate are not favorable to the success of measures which require time to develop their results.

4. Another evil incidental to the itinerant system is, that, under it, societies and congregations have less cohesive force than their own good demands.

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Our ecclesiastical loyalty regards the whole Church, rather than the particular society to which we are attached. In towns and cities where there are several churches of our own denomination, they fear each other more than any other rivals. When the official brethren are considering whom they would like to have for their next pastor, the thought uppermost in their minds is, the necessity of securing a preacher at least equal in attractive power to their neighbors', that their congregations may not scatter. A Methodist church half a mile away, disturbs them more than half a dozen churches of any other name on the same square. If three or four Methodist churches are within easy reach of each other, the competition is almost too strong for good fellowship. If one of them secures a preacher of uncommon popularity, the others undergo a depleting process. Some members of the church, and many more of the congregation, drift about very much as the tide carries them. If those who are entitled to certificates of membership would take them, and, enlisting under their new leader, be good and faithful co-workers with him, the injury

which they inflict, and the loss which they sustain, would be less. But just in the degree in which they form the habit of wandering about from Sabbath to Sabbath, they are useless in the church to which they belong, and valueless everywhere else. They form no settled religious habits. They are available for no important work. Having no root anywhere they have no more chance for spiritual life and growth than a tree would have of living and growing if it were dug up and set out in a new place every three days.

This, we are persuaded, is one cause of the fearful amount of apostasy among us. If every one of our professed converts could be made to see clearly and feel deeply that he is in duty bound to be an active, steady worker in the society whose register bears his name-that in the house of God, whenever opened for worship-in the Sunday school, the class room and prayer meeting, there is a place which God and the church expect him to fill-that in the path of faithful, habitual obedience lie peace and safety, "glory, honor and immortality," and there alone-there would be fewer cases of religious failure among us. They who would prosper spiritually, must have a spiritual home. The Psalmist compares the ungodly to chaff blown about with every wind, while the true servant of God is as a tree whose leaf never withers, because it is "planted by the rivers of water." There are plants which float upon the surface of our ponds, and have no hold upon the soil. There is also a rootless Chinese plant which draws its sustenance from the air alone; but neither the native production nor the foreign curiosity ever becomes a tree.

Just in proportion to the number of those members who have no root, no feeling of local responsibility, a society lacks solid strength. Where they are numerous, the Church is unsteady and unreliable. Within the space of a few months, or even weeks, it will pass from a comparative solitude to a crowd, from apathy to enthusiasm, from the freezing point to fever heat, and back again. This is the sin which doth so easily beset the Methodist Churches in the cities. The plan of renting the pews, whatever may be its disadvantages in other directions, tends, in a degree, to remedy the evil. The recent lengthening of the term of pastoral service will also, we think, lessen it. But the best remedy for it would be a deep

and general conviction among the members of our churches that their peace and safety, their usefulness, their duty to God, to themselves, to their families, demand that they have a church home, a deep and general conviction that the "living stones" of God's great temple are hewn, squared, laid in their place, and cemented there, not like the pebbles that lie in the bed of the mountain stream, one day whirling along amid the flood and the foam, and the next buried out of sight in the mud. In regard to the stability of the society and congregation, we admit that systems more local and less denominational in their spirit have some advantage over us.

5. The changes of our system sometimes come inopportunely.

God pours out his Spirit, and many are gathered into the fold. These regard with great respect and affection the minister who led them to Christ. If they fall into doubt and temptation they can tell him of their conflicts more readily than any one else. If they wander from the way, a word from him seems to have more weight than admonition from any other source. He is their counsellor, their guide, their spiritual father. A few months pass on, and they reach a critical period in their religious history. The sudden emotions which attended the first part of their experience have subsided, as they needs must. They are no longer swept onward by a tumultuous tide of new joys and hopes. They begin to find that there are currents that set against them, and that only by hard toiling they can make their way. The discovery discourages them. Their great enemy, once defeated, rallies his forces, and returns to the assault, hurling upon them fiery arrows of unbelief and fear. Suppose just at this point the pastor is removed and a new ones comes. They know him not. They cannot approach him as they were accustomed to approach the other. Weeks, perhaps months, elapse before some of them become acquainted with him: and meanwhile, like a little company of soldiers separated from the main body, they may be attacked and defeated by the watchful and crafty foe.

It may be replied that those who fall away at such times have felt no gracious influence; that they were converted to the man, and not to the truth. We are not so sure of that. God's modes of dealing with us take into the account every affection

of our hearts, and press into the service every element of our nature. That the convert should care nothing for him who has warned and entreated him, and finally through divine grace, led him to the fountain of life, would be unnatural. If love and brotherhood belong at all to the Christian character, surely here is a fitting place for their manifestation. And if the communion of saints is a good thing, cheering, strengthening, this peculiar bond of union must be powerful to hold men to their duty; and, humanly speaking, its rupture under the circumstances named must be to some dangerous, if not disastrous.

6. The brief pastorates of our system are liable to create an unwise love of novelty and excitement.

When a man of only average ability occupies the same pulpit for a long term of years, his ministry will not interest his hearers, nor wield the same power over them that it would were he a new man among them. He becomes a book which the congregation have read and reviewed-a "thrice-told tale." The tendency is to dullness and deadness. The itinerant system, on the contrary, by its periodic changes, rouses curiosity, and draws the people to the house God by the force of novelty. Hence there is danger in an opposite direction, the danger of creating a restless, feverish demand for novelty and excitement. The hearer may unconsciously fall into the habit of estimating the sermon in proportion to its power to please for the moment, and pay more attention to the messenger than to the good tidings which he proclaims. There is a possibility that the mind may be entertained while the heart is not reached; that we watch so closely for eloquence that we forget worship, and in the very temple of the Lord, become more thoughtful than prayerful, and critical rather than devout.

It seems clear that a congregation seeking a new pastor among scores of candidates, and hearing one stranger after another every sabbath, will run down in the spirituality of worship. And under the continual changes of the itinerancy, the same tendency is strong enough in some minds to justify our being on our guard against it. How our people prick up their ears at the sound of a new name! How ready some of them are to run from one church to another, when they hear the announcement of some unusual theme! They may not