to a little church-canal.  Even in this great Babel of commerce one day in seven is given up to the minister.  The world may have the other six; this is for the Church;—­for so have Abram and Lot divided the field of Time, that there be no strife between the rival herdsmen of the Church and the World.  Sunday morning, Time rings the bell.  At the familiar sound, by long habit born in them, and older than memory, men assemble at the meeting-house, nestle themselves devoutly in their snug pews, and button themselves in with wonted care.  There is the shepherd, and here is the flock, fenced off into so many little private pens.  With dumb, yet eloquent patience, they look up listless, perhaps longing, for such fodder as he may pull out from his spiritual mow and shake down before them.  What he gives they gather.

Other speakers must have some magnetism of personal power or public reputation to attract men; but the minister can dispense with that; to him men answer before he calls, and even when they are not sent by others are drawn by him.  Twice a week, nay, three times, if he will, do they lend him their ears to be filled with his words.  No man of science or letters has such access to men.  Besides, he is to speak on the grandest of all themes,—­of Man, of God, of Religion, man’s deepest desires, his loftiest aspirings.  Before him the rich and the poor meet together, conscious of the one God, Master of them all, who is no respecter of persons.  To the minister the children look up, and their pliant faces are moulded by his plastic hand.  The young men and maidens are there,—­such possibility of life and character before them, such hope is there, such faith in man and God, as comes instinctively to those who have youth on their side.  There are the old:  men and women with white crowns on their heads; faces which warn and scare with the ice and storm of eighty winters, or guide and charm with the beauty of four-score summers,—­rich in promise once, in harvest now.  Very beautiful is the presence of old men, and of that venerable sisterhood whose experienced temples are turbaned with the raiment of such as have come out of much tribulation, and now shine as white stars foretelling an eternal day.  Young men all around, a young man in the pulpit, the old men’s look of experienced life says “Amen” to the best word, and their countenance is a benediction.

The minister is not expected to appeal to the selfish motives which are addressed by the market, the forum, or the bar, but to the eternal principle of Right.  He must not be guided by the statutes of men, changeable as the clouds, but must fix his eye on the bright particular star of Justice, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.  To him, office, money, social rank, and fame are but toys or counters which the game of life is played withal; while wisdom, integrity, benevolence, piety are the prizes the game is for.  He digs through the dazzling sand, and bids men build on the rock of ages.