MINISTERS' SONS.

My attention was recently turned to the fact that a few, and but a few, of the sons of the clergy, in the city, had become ministers of the gospel. The means of making a precisely accurate statement of the facts are not in my possession, and the memory of others will doubtless retain the names of some that I have forgotten. Within the last thirty-five years I have known the sons of Potts, Bangs, Alexander, Skinner, Tyng, Hutton, Chambers, Newell, Knox, Vermilye, who have entered the ministry. But what are these, added to those not mentioned, compared with the multitude of fathers in the Church, whose sons have not entered into their labors, or the service of God in the same calling?

Then I wrote to Princeton and asked Dr. McGill to give me the number of students in the Theological Seminary there, whose fathers are or were ministers, and he wrote me: 'As nearly as I can ascertain, we have 24 sons of ministers among the 120 on our roll at present, about one in five, a smaller proportion than usual here.”

A similar inquiry in the New York Union Theological Seminary, brought to me about the same report. To some it may appear that this is as large a number as might be reasonably expected. The proportion of ministers to the whole population is so small, that a school of one hundred should not perhaps be expected to contain more than one-fifth of its members of the families of one profession. And it is not impossible that we would find it equally true of the legal and medical professions, that the sons do not generally follow the calling of their fathers. But it is also worthy of note that the work of the ministry has an element in it that does not touch the call to any other profession. While it is very true that the hand of God is to be acknowledged in every man's destiny, and He appoints to one man his place, and to another his; still we, who believe in a divine and specific call as part of the evidence that a man should go into the ministry, do

not ask for such an indication to decide that a young man shall go into trade or any other secular calling.

Nor is it true that every man whom God calls obeys. As Jonah fled from his duty, so thousands now-a-days shirk theirs. God does not send a whale to swallow and save them, as he did in the case of Jonah; but we have known many cases in which they who have run away from the work to which they were called of God, have fallen into worse fates, and have bitterly repented their disobedience.

If I were required to name two reasons for the few recruits the ministry gets from its own children, I would venture upon the facts that the sons of some are tempted by the chances of worldly success, and the sons of others are discouraged by the trials they suffer with their fathers.

The temptation is presented by the facilities which business offers to the well-educated sons of pastors. Every department of prosperous trade in the hands of a parishioner is an opening for a promising young man who comes with the prestige of his own and his father's good name, so that a pastor is not under the necessity of seeking long and anxiously for a place into which to introduce his son, but places are always open and ready for him.

The trials that discourage the minister's son from walking in the ways of his father, are common to the lot of the larger part of the families whose head is a preacher of the gospel. With the many, life is just a struggle to make the two ends of the year meet: old things must not be done away, but all things must be made as good as new, if possible: and to take no thought for the morrow when a flock of children are to be clothed and fed, requires an amount of grace greatly to be prized, if it can be had. Human nature is very imperfect, and it is not wonderful that a bright, observant and thoughtful boy should, even with the approbation of his father, turn away from the service that seems so hard, when it ought to be more abundantly alleviated by those who enjoy it.

It was never designed of Christ that his ministry should be a life of ease, profit and worldly recompense: but that is no apology for the meanness of those who keep their pastors on

the shortest possible allowance. I have known the children of ministers to put out, like birds unfledged from the nest, and, before they were fit for it, to try to earn their own living, because they saw their parents unable to provide for them suitable food and clothing. I have had, as a guest in my own house, a rural pastor seeking his runaway son, who had left home for no reason in the world but to cease being a tax upon his overtaxed parents. We may say, with truth, there is no calling that, on the whole, yields more peace and joy than the service of God in the pastoral work: but it is also true that its peace and joy come not from the reward that is seen, but altogether from the unseen and eternal. The boys cannot see it, and they seek another sort.

It is said and proved and felt that there are too many ministers, but it is not shown that there are too many of the stamp the Church needs and desires to have. Perhaps there has been a back-set to the tide that once flowed in upon the ministry, and just now there may be a reluctance to go into the service. But there is not now, never was, never will be a time when a youth of fine promise should be turned away from this work by the glitter of any crown within the reach of a human arm. It is the prize of the highest calling. The rich and the noble of the earth may not be often called. But the mother who dedicates her son to the ministry and gives him to Christ, prays with and for him that he may be called, and sees him pressing through hardships and suffering into the pulpit as a minister of the gospel of the grace of God, seeks for him and gains for him, a crown that fadeth not, and will one day outshine the stars.

That is a miserable lie which says that ministers' sons are the worst in the parish. One prodigal from the pastor's own fold makes more talk than ninety and nine apostates from the rest of the church. Because ministers' sons, as a rule, are good, the badness of some is a wonder and the town's talk. The promise is to the believing parent. After the fathers shall be the children. The sons of David shall sit on his throne. It is a kingly honor to be servant of the Most High. And blessed is that minister whose sons are kings.

A MINISTER WHO WAS HUNG.

William Dodd was an English clergyman, born in May, 1729, and educated at the University of Cambridge. He married a woman of extravagant tastes, and in this respect, as in many others, their tastes were alike.

After being ordained he was made rector of the parish of West Ham, near London. There he proved to be so eloquent that he was soon called into the city and became one of its celebrities. With his popularity and prosperity he was more and more extravagant and reckless in his style of living. To meet his expenses he engaged in literary work outside of his clerical duties; he was made tutor of young Philip Stanhope, afterwards Lord Chesterfield: and at length was appointed chaplain to the King. Chesterfield became his best friend: or worst: got him through many troubles, helped him to money, and to his ruin, of course: for, when he wanted more than his patron would give him, he committed a forgery upon Lord Chesterfield for $20,000, was tried, convicted and executed. Great efforts were made

to save him. The jury recommended him to mercy. Noblemen, clergymen, and 23,000 citizens of London petitioned the King to interfere, but the government declined to do so and the reverend criminal, under the law of the times, was hanged at Tyburn, June 27, 1777.

Then, as now, commercial business, that exchange which requires the constant use of paper and signatures, was the life blood of social and national prosperity. To tamper with public confidence in the bonds of individuals or corporations was to taint the blood of the community, poison the springs of wealth, derange the circulation, and damage irreparably the laws of healthful trade. A forger might have personal friends to intercede for him, but government and society looked upon him as a pirate, an outlaw, a thief of the meanest kind, justly meriting the heaviest punishment the laws inflict. It was therefore held to be the duty of the King to interpose no obstacle, but to let the law take

its course. The condemned clergyman became very penitent. His "Thoughts in Prison" and "Reflections on Death" are still extant and indicate the sentiments of an educated clergyman in view of the scaffold. And so he died.

Even more emphatically now, than a hundred years ago, the business of men is carried on by the means of paper, and the confidence felt in the genuineness of signatures and the honesty of transactions, is at the basis of daily and hourly intercourse. We give and receive promises to pay, we make our deposits in bank, we take certificates, bonds, mortgages, relying on the honesty of somebody, for not in one case out of a hundred, in the affairs of every-day life, is a man able to go back to the original parties, and know that it is all right. He takes it for granted, because of his confidence in human nature generally, and certain men in particular. And this confidence has become so large and business habits so loose in consequence of it, and greed has grown with the ease of getting, and money has cheapened by its adulteration, as rags take the place of precious metals, until it has now come to pass that crimes like that of Mr. Dodd and crimes in the same line with his, are of daily occurrence to the ruin of individuals and of that trust which society has a right to feel in its representative men. I do not say that all bankruptcies are criminal, though they are always failures to pay obligations honestly due. They are oftentimes the result of misfortunes, the crimes of others, and events that no human foresight could anticipate. But, so far as they come from imprudence, recklessness, greed, haste to be rich, improvidence, inattention, extravagance, speculation, or an over-sanguine temperament, they are criminal and merit punishment by law.

All defalcations are crimes. All breaches of trust are crimes. All uses of other people's money without their consent, are crimes.

Yet it is not unusual, in our times, to look upon a defaulter in a bank or counting room, as a generous fellow, who intended to put back the money he stole, so soon as he had made enough by gambling to warrant him in turning