THE CHRISTIAN MINISTER’S PRIVATE PRAYER.

ONE OF A COURSE OF LECTURES TO STUDENTS AND YOUNG PASTORS.

BY C. H SPURGEON.

OF course the preacher is above all others distinguished as a man of prayer.

He prays as an ordinary Christian, else he were a hypocrite. He prays more than ordinary Christians, else he were disqualified for the office which he has under- taken. “It would be wholly monstrous,” says Bernard, “for a man to be highest in office and lowest in soul; first in station and last in life.” Over all his other relationships the pre-eminence of the pastor’s responsibility casts a halo, and if true to his Master, he becomes distinguished for his prayerfulness in them all. As a citizen, his country has the advantage of his intercession; as a neighbor, those under his shadow are remembered in supplication. He prays as a husband and as a father; he strives to make his family devotions a model for his flock; and if the fire on the altar of God should burn low anywhere else, it is well tended in the house of the Lord’s chosen servant — for he takes care that the morning and evening sacrifice shall sanctify his dwelling. But there are some of his prayers which concern his office, and of those our plan in these lectures leads us to speak most. He offers peculiar supplications as a minister, and he draws near to God in this respect, over and above all his approaches in his other relationships.

I take it that as a minister he is always praying. Whenever his mind turns to his work, whether he is in it or out of it, he ejaculates a petition, sending up his holy desires as well-directed arrows to the skies. He is not always in the act of prayer, but he lives in the spirit of it. If his heart be in his work, he cannot eat or drink, or take recreation, or go to his bed, or rise in the morning, without evermore feeling a fervency of desire, a weight of anxiety, and a simplicity of dependence upon God; thus, in one form or other he continues in prayer. If there be any man under heaven, who is compelled to carry out the precept — “ Pray without ceasing,” surely it is the Christian minister. He has peculiar temptations, special trials, singular difficulties, and remarkable duties, he has to deal with God in awful relationships, and with men in mysterious interests; he therefore needs much more grace than common men, and as he knows this, he is led constantly to cry to the strong for strength, and say, “I will lift up mine eves unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” Alleine once wrote to a dear friend, “Though I am apt to be unsettled and quickly set off the hinges, yet, methinks, I am like a bird out of the nest, I am never quiet till I am in ray old way of communion with God; like the needle in the compass, that is restless till it be turned towards the pole. I can say, through grace with the church, ‘ With my soul have I desired thee in the night, and with my spirit within me have I sought thee early.’ My heart is early and late with God; ‘tis the business and delight of my ]ire to seek him.” Such must be the even tenor of your way, O men of God. If you as ministers are not very prayerful, you are much to be pitied. If, in the future, you shall be called to sustain pastorates, large or small, if you become lax in secret devotion, not only will you need to be pitied, but your people also; and, in addition to that, you shall be blamed, and the day cometh in which you shall be ashamed and confounded.

It may scarcely be needful to commend to you the sweet uses of private devotion, and yet I cannot forbear. 2?o you, as the ambassadors of God, the mercy-seat has a virtue beyond all estimate; the more familiar you are with the court of heaven the better shall you discharge your heavenly trust.

Among all the formative influences which go to make up a man honored of God in the ministry, I know of none more mighty than his own familiarity with the mercy-seat. All that a college course can do for a student is coarse and external compared with the spiritual and delicate refinement obtained by communion with God. While the unformed minister is revolving upon the wheel of preparation, prayer is the tool of the great potter by which he molds the vessel. All our libraries and studies are mere emptiness compared with our closets. We grow, we wax mighty, we prevail in private prayer.

That we may be strong to labor, tender to sympathize, and wise to direct, let us pray. If study makes men of us, prayer will make saints of us. Our sacred furniture for our holy office can only be found in the arsenal of supplication; and after we have entered upon our consecrated warfare, prayer alone can keep our armor bright.

Among other most notable uses of supplication, your prayers will be your tender assistants while your discourses are yet upon the anvil. While other men, like Esau, are hunting for their portion, you by the aid of prayer, will find the savory meat near at home, and may say in truth what Jacob said so falsely, “The Lord brought it to me.” If you can dip your pens into your hearts, appealing in earnestness to the Lord, you will write well; and if you can gather your matter on your knees at the gate of heaven, you will not fail to speak well. Prayer, as a mental exercise, will bring many subjects before the mind, and so help in the selection of a topic; white as a high spiritual engagement; it will cleanse your inner eye that you may see truth in the light of God. Texts will often refuse to reveal their treasures till you open them with the key of prayer. How wonderfully were the books opened to Daniel when he was in supplication’. How much Peter learned upon the housetop! The closet is the best study. The commentators are good instructors, but the author himself is far better, and prayer makes a direct appeal to him and enlists him in our cause. It is a great thing to pray one’s self into the spirit and marrow of a text; working into it by sacred feeding thereon, even as the woven bores its way into the kernel of the nut.

Prayer supplies a leverage for the uplifting of ponderous truths. One marvels how the stones of Stonehenge could have been set in their places; it is even more to be inquired after whence some men obtained such admirable knowledge of mysterious doctrines: was not prayer the potent machinery which wrought the wonder? Waiting upon God often rufus darkness into light. Persevering inquiry at the sacred oracle uplifts the veil and gives grace to look into the deep things of God. A certain Puritan divine at a debate was observed frequently to write upon the paper before him; upon others curiously seeking to read his notes, they found nothing upon the page but the words, “More light, Lord,” “More light, Lord,” repeated scores of times: a most suitable prayer for the student of the Word when preparing his discourse.

You will frequently find fresh streams of thought; leaping up from the passage before you, as if the rock had been struck by Moses’ rod; new reins of precious ore will be revealed to your astonished gaze as you quarry God’s Word, and use diligently the hammer of prayer. You will sometimes feel as if you were entirely shut up, and then suddenly a new road will open before you. He who hath the key of David openeth, and no man shutteth. If you have ever sailed down the Rhine, the water-scenery of that majestic river will have struck you as being- very like in effect to a series of lakes.

Before and behind, the vessel appears to be enclosed in massive walls of rock, or circles of vine-clad terraces, till on a sudden you turn a corner, and before you the rejoicing and abounding river flows onward in its strength.

So the laborious student often finds it with a text; it appears to be fast closed against you, but prayer propels your vessel, and turns its prow into fresh waters, and you behold the broad and deep stream of sacred truth flowing in its fullness, and you feel that it is bearing you with it. Is not this a convincing reason four abiding in supplication? Use prayer as a boring rod, and wells of living water will leap up from the bowels of the Word.

Who will be content to thirst when living waters are so readily to be obtained?

The best; and holiest men have ever made prayer the most important; part Of pulpit preparation. It is said of M’Cheyne, “Anxious to give his people on the Sabbath what bad cost him somewhat, he never, without an urgent reason, went before them without; much previous meditation and prayer.

His principle on this subject was embodied in a remark he made to some of us who were conversing on the matter. Being asked his view of diligent preparation for the pulpit, he reminded us of Exodus 27:20: ‘Beaten oil — healed oil for the lamps of the sane-using/.’ and yet his prayerfulness was greater still. Indeed, he could not neglect fellowship with God before entering the congregation. He needed to be bathed in the love of God. His ministry was so much a bringing out of views that had first sanctified his own soul, that the healthiness of his soul was absolutely needful to the vigor and power of his ministrations.” “With him the commencement of all labor invariably consisted in the preparation of his own soul. The walls of his chamber were witnesses of his prayerfulness and of his tears, as well as of his cries.” Prayer will singularly assist you in the delivery of your sermon; in fact, nothing can so gloriously fit you to preach as descending fresh from the mount of communion with God to speak with men. None are so able to plead with men as those who have been wrestling with God on their behalf. It is said of Alleine, “He poured out his very heart in prayer and preaching, His supplications and his exhortations were so affectionate, so full of holy zeal, life and vigor, that they quite overcame his hearers; he melted over them, so that he thawed and mollified, and sometimes dissolved the hardest hearts.” There could have been none of this sacred dissolving of heart if his mind had not been previously exposed to the tropical rays of the Sun of Righteousness by private fellowship with the risen Lord. A truly pathetic delivery, in which there is no affectation, but much affection, can only be the offspring of prayer. There is no rhetoric like that of the heart, and no school for learning it like the foot of the cross. It were better that you never learned a rule of human oratory, but were fall of the power of heavenborn love, than that you should master Quintilian, Cicero, and Aristotle, and remain without the apostolic anointing.

Prayer may not make you eloquent after the human mode, but it will make you truly so, for you will speak out of the heart; and is not that the meaning of the word eloquence? It will bring fire from heaven upon your sacrifice, and thus prove it to be accepted of the Lord.

As fresh springs of thought will frequently break up during preparation in answer to prayer, so will it be in the delivery of the sermon. Most preachers who depend upon God’s Spirit will tell you that their freshest and best thoughts are not those which are premeditated, but ideas which come to them, flying as on the wings of angels; unexpected treasures brought on a sudden by celestial hands, seeds of the flowers of paradise wafted from the mountains of myrrh. Often and often when I have felt hampered both in thought and expression, my secret groaning of heart has brought me relief, and I have enjoyed more than usual liberty. But how dare we pray in the battle if we never cried to the Lord while buckling on the harness. The remembrance of his wrestlings at home comforts the fettered preacher when in the pulpit: God will not desert us unless we have deserted him. You, brethren, will find that prayer before preaching will ensure you strength equal to your day.

As the tongues of fire came upon the apostles, when they sat watching and praying, even so will they come upon you. You will find yourselves, when you might perhaps have flagged, suddenly upborne, as by a seraph’s power. Wheels of fire will be fastened to your chariot, which had begun to drag right heavily, and steeds angelic will be in a moment harnessed to your fiery ear, till you climb the heavens like Elijah, in a rapture of flaming inspiration. After the sermon, how would a conscientious preacher give vent to his feelings, and find solace for his soul, if access to the mercy-seat were denied him? Elevated to the highest pitch of excitement, how can we relieve our souls but in importunate pleadings. Or depressed by a fear of failure, how shall we be comforted but in moaning out our complaint before our God? How often have some of us tossed to and fro upon our couch half the night because of conscious shortcomings in our testimony!

How frequently have we longed to rush back to the pulpit again to say over again more vehemently, what we have uttered in so cold a manner!

Where could we find rest for our spirits but in confession of sin, and passionate entreaty that our infirmity or folly might in no way hinder the Spirit of God! It is not possible in a public assembly to pour out all our heart’s love to our flock. Like Joseph, the affectionate minister will seek where to weep; his emotions, however freely he may express himself, will be pent up in the pulpit, and only in private prayer can he draw up the sluices and bid them flow forth. If we cannot prevail with men for God, we will, at least, endeavor to prevail with God for men. We cannot save;hem, or even persuade them to be saved, but we can at least bewail their madness and entreat the interference of the Lord. Like Jeremiah, we can make it our resolve, “If ye will not hear, it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride, and mine eyes shall weep sore and run down with tears.” To such pathetic appeals the Lord’s heart can never be indifferent; in due time the weeping intercessor will become the rejoicing winner of souls. There is a distinct connection between importunate agonizing and true success, even as between the travail and the birth, the sowing in tears and the reaping in joy. “How is it that your seed comes up so soon?” said one gardener to another. “Because I steep it,” was the reply. We must steep all our teachings in tear’s, “when none but God is nigh,” and their growth will surprise and delight us. Could any one wonder at Brainerd’s success, when his diary contains such notes as this: “Lord’s Day, April 25th. — This morning spent about two hours in sacred duties, and was enabled, more than ordinarily to agonize for immortal souls; though it was carry in the morning, and the sun scarcely shone at all, yet my body was quite wet with sweat”? The secret of Luther’s power lay in the same direction. Theodorus said of him: “I overheard him in prayer, but, good God, with what life and spirit did he pray! It was with so much reverence, as if he were speaking to God, yet with so much confidence as if he were speaking to his friend.” My brethren, let me beseech you to be men of prayer. Great talents you may never have, but you will do well enough without them if you abound in intercession. If you do not pray over what you have sown, God’s sovereignty may possibly ordain that it may be blessed, but. you have no right to expect it, and if it comes it will bring no comfort to your own heart. I was reading yesterday a book by Father Faber, late of the Oratory, at Brompton, a marvelous compound of truth and error. In it he relates a legend to this effect. A certain preacher, whose sermons converted men by scores, received a revelation from heaven that not one of the conversions was owing to his talents or eloquence, but all to the prayers of an illiterate lay brother, who sat on the pulpit steps, pleading all the time for the success of the sermon. It may in the all-revealing day be so with us. We may discover, after having labored long and wearily in preaching, that all the honor belongs to another builder, whose prayers were gold, silver, and precious stones, while our sermonizing being apart from prayer, were but hay and stubble.

When we have done with preaching, we shall not, if we are true ministers of God, have done with praying, because the whole church, with many tongues, will be crying, in the language of the Macedonian, “Come over and help us” in prayer. If you are enabled to prevail in prayer you will have many requests to offer for others who will flock to you, and beg a share in your intercessions, and so you will find yourselves commissioned with errands to the mercy-seat for friends and hearers. Such is always my lot, and I feel it a pleasure to have such requests to present before my Lord.

Never can you be short of themes for prayer, even if no one should suggest them to you. Look at your congregation. There are always sick folk among them, and many more who are soul-sick. Some are unsaved, others are seeking and cannot find. Many are desponding, and not a few believers are backsliding or mourning. There are widows’ tears and orphans’ sighs to be put into our bottle, and poured out before the Lord. If you are a genuine minister of God, you will stand as a priest before the Lord, spiritually wearing the ephod and the breastplate whereon you bear the names of the children of Israel, pleading for them within the veil. I have known brethren who have kept a list of persons for whom they felt bound especially to pray, and I doubt not such a record often reminded them of what might otherwise have slipped their memory. Nor will your people wholly engross you; the nation and the world will claim their share. The man who is mighty in prayer may be a wall of fire around his country, her guardian angel and her shield. We have all heard how the enemies of the Protestant cause dreaded the prayers of Knox more than they feared armies of ten thousand men. The Greens Welch was also a great intercessor for his country; he used to say, “he wondered how a Christian could lie in his bed all night and not rise to pray.” When his wife, fearing that he would take cold, followed him into the room to which he had withdrawn, she heard him pleading in broken sentences, “Lord, wilt thou not grant me Scotland?” O that we were thus wrestling at midnight, crying, “Lord, wilt thou not grant us our hearers’ souls?”

The minister who does not earnestly pray over his work must surely be a vain and conceited man. He acts as if he thought himself sufficient of himself, and therefore needed not to appeal to God. Yet what a baseless pride to conceive that our preaching can ever be in itself so powerful that it can turn men from their sins, and bring them to God without the working of the Holy Ghost! If we are truly humble-minded we shall not venture down to the fight until the Lord of Hosts has clothed us with all power, and said to us, “Go in this thy might.” Satan’s kingdom fears not our rhetoric, our literature, or our orthodoxy; prayer is the master weapon, and the enemy quails before it. Vain are our words till the word of the King comes with power to the con, science in answer to Our prayers.

The preacher who neglects to pray much as an habitual practice, must be very careless about his ministry. He cannot have comprehended his calling.

He cannot have computed the value of a soul, or estimated the meaning of eternity. He must be a mere official, tempted into a pulpit because the piece of bread which belongs to the priest’s office is very necessary to him, or a detestable hypocrite who loves the praise of men, and cares not for the praise of God. He will surely become a more superficial talker, best approved where grace is least valued and a vain show most admired. He cannot be one of those who plough deep and reap abundant harvests. He is a mere loiterer, not a laborer. As a preacher he has a name to live and is dead. He limps in his life like the lame man in the Proverbs, whose legs were not equal, for his praying is shorter than his preaching.

I am afraid that, more or less, most of us need self-examination as to this matter. If there be a man here who dares say that he prays as much as he ought as a student, I shall gravely question his .statement; and if there be a minister, deacon, or elder present who can declare that he is occupied with Goal ill prayer to the full extent to which he might be and ought to be, I should be pleased to know him. I can only say, that if he can claim this excellence, he leaves me far behind, for I can make no such affirmation: I wish I could. I make the confession with no small degree of shameneedness and confusion, but I am obliged to make it. If we are not more negligent than others, this is no consolation to us; the shortcomings of others are no excuses for ourselves. How few of us could compare ourselves with Mr. Joseph Alleine, whose character I have mentioned before? “‘ At the time of his health,’ writes his wife, ‘ he did rise constantly at or before four of the clock, and would be much troubled if he heard smiths or other craftsmen at their trades before he was at communion with God; saying to me often, ‘How this noise shames me! Does not my Master deserve more than theirs? ‘ From four till eight he spent in prayer, holy contemplation, and singing of psalms, in which he much delighted, and did daily practise alone, as well as in the family.’ Sometimes he would suspend the routine of parochial engagements, and devote whole days to these secret exercises, in order to which, he would contrive to be alone in some void house, or else in some sequestered spot in the open valley. Here there would be much prayer and medication on God and heaven.” F9 Could we read Jonathan Edwards’ description of David Brainerd and not blush? “His life,” says Edwards, “shows the right way to success in the works of the ministry. He sought it as a resolute soldier seeks victory in a siege or battle; or as a man that runs a race for a great prize. Animated with love to Christ and souls, how did he labor always fervently, not only in word and doctrine, in public and private, but in prayers day and night, wrestling with God in secret, and travailing in birth, with unutterable groans and agonies, until Christ were formed in the hearts of the people, to whom he was sent!

How did he thirst for a blessing upon his ministry; and watch for souls as one that must give account! How did he go forth in the strength of the Lord God, seeking and depending on the special influence of the Spirit to assist and. succeed him! And what was the happy fruit at last, after long waiting and many dark and discouraging appearances? Like a true son of Jacob, he persevered in wrestling through all the darkness of the night, until the breaking of the day.” F10 Might not Henry Martyn’s journal shame us, where we find such entries as these: “Sept. 24th. — The determination with which I went to bed last night, of devoting this day to prayer and fasting, I was enabled to put into execution. In my first prayer for deliverance from worldly thoughts, depending on the power and promises of God, for fixing my soul while I prayed, I was helped to enjoy much abstinence from the world, for nearly an hour. Then read the history of Abraham, to see how familiarly God had revealed himself to mortal men of old. Afterwards, in prayer for my own sanctification, my soul breathed freely and ardently after the holiness of God, and this was the best season of the day”? We might perhaps more truly join with him in his lament after the first year of his ministry, that “he judged he had dedicated too much time to public ministrations, and too little to private communion with God.”

How much of blessing we may have missed through remissness in supplication we can scarcely guess, and none of us can know how poor we are in comparison with what we might have been if we had lived habitually nearer to God in prayer. Vain regrets and surmises are useless, but an earnest determination to amend will be far more useful. We not only ought to pray more, but we must. The fact is, the secret of all ministerial success lies in prevalence at the mercy-seat.

One bright benison which private prayer brings down upon the ministry is an indescribable and inimitable something, better under- stood than named; it is a dew from the Lord, a divine presence which you will recognize at once when I say it is “an unction from the holy One.” What is it? I wonder how long we might beat our brains before we could plainly lint into words what is meant by preaching unction! yet h e who preaches knows its presence, and he who hears, soon detects its absence; Samaria, in famine, typifies a discourse without it; Jerusalem, with her feasts of fat things, full of marrow, may represent a sermon enriched with it. Everyone knows what the freshness of the morning is when orient pearls abound on every blade of grass, but who can describe it. much less produce it of himself? Such is the mystery of spiritual anointing; we know but we cannot tell to others what it is. It is as easy as it is foolish to counterfeit it, as some do who use expressions which are meant to betoken fervent love, but oftener indicate sickly sentimentalism or mere cant. “Dear Lord! Sweet Jesus! Precious Christ!” are by them poured out wholesale, till one is nauseated. These familiarities may have been not only tolerable, but even beautiful when they first fell from a saint of God, speaking as it were, out of the excellent glory, but when repeated flippantly they are not only intolerable, but indecent, if not profane. Some have tried to imitate unction by unnatural tones and whines; by turning up the whites of their eyes, and lifting their hands in a most ridiculous manner. M’Cheyne’s tone and rhythm one hears from Scotchmen continually: we-much prefer his spirit to his mannerism; and all mere mannerism without power is as foul carrion of all life bereft, obnoxious, mischievous. Certain brethren aim at inspiration through exertion and loud shouting; but it does not come: stone we have known to stop the discourse and exclaim, “God bless you,” and others gesticulate wildly, and drive their finger nails into the palms of their hands as if they were in convulsions of celestial ardor. Bah! The whole thing smells of the green-room and the stage. The getting-up of fervor in hearers by the simulation of it in the preacher is a loathsome deceit, to be scorned by honest men. “To affect feeling’,” says Richard Cecil, “is nauseous and soon detected, but to feel is the readiest way to the hearts of others.” Unction is a thing which you cannot manufacture, and its counterfeits are worse than worthless; yet it is in itself priceless, and beyond measure needful if you would edify believers and bring sinners to Jesus. To the secret pleader with God this secret is committed; upon him rests the dew of the Lord, about him is the perfume which makes glad the heart. If the anointing which we bear come not from the Lord of Hosts we are deceivers; and since only in prayer can we obtain it, let us continue instant., constant, fervent in supplication. Let your fleece lie on the threshing-floor of supplication, till it is wet with the dew of heaven. Go not to minister in the temple till You have washed in the laver. Think not to be a messenger of grace to others till you have seen the God of grace for yourselves, and received the word from his mouth.

Time spent in quiet prostration of soul before the Lord is most invigorating. David “sat before the Lord;” it is a great thing to hold these sacred sittings; the mind being receptive, like an open flower drinking in the sunbeams, or the sensitive photographic plate accepting the image before it. Quietude, which some men cannot abide, because it reveals their inward poverty, is as a palace of cedar to the wise, for along its hallowed courts the King in his beauty deigns to walk. “Sacred silence! thou that art Floodgate of the deeper heart, Offspring of a heavenly kind; Frost o’ the mouth, and thaw o’ the mind.”

Priceless as the gift of utterance may be, the practice of silence in some aspects far excels it. Do you think me a Quaker? Well, be it so. Herein I follow George Fox most lovingly; for I am persuaded that we most of us think too much of speech, which after all is but the shell of thought. Quiet contemplation, still worship, unuttered rapture, these are mine when my best jewels are before me. Brethren, rob not your heart of the deep-sea joys; miss not the far-down life by for ever Dabbling among the broken shells and foaming surges of the shore.

I would seriously recommend to you, when settled in the ministry, the celebration of extraordinary seasons of devotion. If your ordinary prayers do not keep up the freshness and vigor of your souls, and you feel that you are flagging, get alone for a week, or even a month, if possible. We have occasional holidays, why not frequent holy days? We hear of our richer brethren finding time for a journey to Jerusalem; could we not spare time for the less difficult and far more profitable journey to the heavenly city?

Isaac Ambrose, once pastor at Preston, who wrote that famous book, “Looking unto Jesus,” always set apart one month in the .year for seclusion in a hut in a wood at Garstang. No wonder that he was so mighty a divine, when he could regularly spend so long a time in the mount with God. I notice that the Romanists have what they call “Retreats,” where a number of priests will retire for a season into perfect quietude, to spend the whole of the time in fasting and prayer, so as to inflame their souls with ardor.

We may learn from our adversaries. It would be a great thing every now and then for brethren to spend a day or two with each other in real burning agony of prayer. Our seasons of fasting and prayer at the Tabernacle have been high days indeed; never has heaven-gate stood wider; never have our hearts been nearer the central glory. Even if our public work were laid aside to give us the space for special prayer, it might be a great gain to our churches. Our silence might be better than our voices if our solitude were spent with God. That was a grand action of old Jerome, when he laid all his pressing engagements aside to achieve a purpose to which he felt a call from heaven. He had a large congregation, as large a one as any of us need want; but he said to his people, “Now, it is of necessity that the New Testament should be translated:you must find another preacher — the translation must be made; I am bound for the wilderness, and shall not return till my task is finished.” Away he went with his manuscripts, and prayed and labored, and produced a work — the Latin Vulgate — which will last as long as the world stands; on the whole, a most wonderful translation of Holy Scripture. If learning and prayerful retirement together could thus produce an immortal work, if we also were sometimes to say to our people when we felt moved to do so, “Dear friends, we really must be gone for a little while to refresh our souls in solitude,” our profiting’ would soon be apparent, and if we did not write Latin Vulgates, yet we should accomplish enduring work, such as would abide the fire.

BE JUST AND FEAR NOT.

A TRACT FOR THE ELECTIONS.

THE question in debate at the forthcoming election lies in a nutshell. It is a question of right and wrong which any honest man may decide without the help of lawyers, orators, or divines. Ought not every man to support his own religion? Has any church a right to tax those who hate it, or to compel its opponents to support it? In Ireland, nine persons of one religion are forced to pay their share towards the support of the religion of the tenth man, whose faith they detest. Is this just? Whether the nine men are Mahometans or Jews does not enter into the essence of the question, and if the tenth man be or be not the most orthodox of Christians, the inquiry is not at all affected, for it stands thus: — Ought the tenth man to force the other nine to ease him in the personal duty of supporting his religion, and has he any right to make them submit to the establishment of his church as the church of the whole ten? In the present case, the nine (who are mostly poor men) first support their own clergyman, and then are required to pay their quota towards the minister of the tenth, who is usually rich. Is this justice? If the nine were Protestants, and the tenth a Romanist, what would Protestants think of the case? Candid Protestants will own that they would not deliberate for a moment, but would be most resolute in sweeping away so glaring an oppression without a moment’s needless delay. But if the victims in this case are Romanists, is it any the less wrong to do them an injustice? Is it more right for a Protestant to be an oppressor titan for any other man? Does our superior light entitle us to do wrong? Ought it not rather to forbid our dealing ungenerously? Honorable minds would rather be oppressed than oppressing, and candid persons think a wrong done by Protestants, who boast their love of liberty, to be more lamentable than one perpetrated by Catholics prejudiced by long ages of superstition. Better far to be persecuted for righteousness’ sake than to do violence to other men’s consciences under the notion of upholding the truth. In the name of our reformed faith, let no Romanist suffer injustice at our hands, lest our good cause be defiled.

The case is too simple for our opponents to meet it on its own merits, they therefore try to bamboozle the public mind by raising party cries and agitating other questions. We are told that Protestantism will be endangered by disendowing the Irish church! As if Episcopalianism and Protestantism were one and the same thing. Look around, electors, and see if the Episcopal Church is not doing more to bring back Popery into England than any other agency in existence. What are these Ritualists but Papists almost undisguised? Are they not all but avowed Romanists? The cry of “No Popery” ill becomes the mouth of a Church of England clergyman, when it is by men of his cloth that the ceremonies of Rome are being forced upon us: the fox, with the hen in his mouth, might almost as well cry out, “No robbing of hen roosts!’ Are not the Dissenting churches the most thorough Protestant communities in the land? Is it not a fact that very few of their ministers, or members, ever go over to Rome? Do they not, almost without a single exception advocate justice to Ireland? Are not these sound Protestants very well able to judge what will injure Protestantism? Are they not quite as much in earnest to maintain religious liberty and the reformed faith as any set of men living? They have suffered long; their roll of martyrs is all but endless; depend upon it they are not the men to lift; a finger to bring back Popery or even to aid its growth. Yet they all demand the disestablishment of the Irish Church, because they believe that injustice weakens the cause which is guilty of it, and that error is strengthened by oppression. They believe that it is for the best interests of Protestantism that everything like religious ascendancy should vanish.

Truth they conceive to be most likely to conquer when unattended by anything like force and injustice. They hope that the day’ when religious equality is fully established will be the beginning of the end in which superstitions of all sorts will be utterly vanquished amid the songs of an educated and Christian people. Even if this hope did not cheer the honest man, even if he felt that his true faith might for awhile suffer loss, he dares not do evil that good may come; he leaves results with the eternal Patron of right, and commands that justice be done if the heavens fall.

The extreme age of the endowments of the Irish church is urged in their defense, but no lapse of time can make wrong right, or give immunity to robbery. Slavery was an ancient system, but it was right to abolish it, and the same holds good of state-churchism. The government has in past ages transferred ecclesiastical property from one sect to another by the same paramount right which now justifies it, while respecting all existing interests, in using church property for the general good. No one proposes to touch the private property of any church, it is only with its public endowments that the State will deal; they are now the source of continual irritation and abiding injustice. That noble statesman, Mr. Gladstone, is to be honored for proclaiming that funds so long a curse to Ireland shall henceforth be employed for the benefit of the commonwealth.

Let every Christian vote for the proposed deed of justice as devoutly as he would pray, and feel as earnest in promoting it as in living righteously in his private life. Let Churchmen rise to disinterested nobility, as some of their clergy have done, and think more of right and of the national good than of party and power. Let Dissenters remember how long their fathers were oppressed, and show their gratitude to God for their present liberties by demanding the same justice for others which they hope to receive themselves. The sin of a national establishment founded in wrong belongs to us all as citizens until by voice and vote we have protested against its continuance. We must not be partakers of other men’s sins, as .we shall be if our inaction gives assent to them. We must do to others as we would that they should do to us; and as we would ourselves be free from oppression, we must aid our fellow subjects in dashing to the ground the galling yoke. Even if we avoid political discussions at other times, on this occasion we must act vigorously and promptly, and MAY GOD DEFEND THE RIGHT!

SPECIAL TRACT.