Would that I could lift up my voice this morning in every academy, college and university on this broad continent.  I would say to every gifted Christian youth, “God and humanity have need of you.”  He who redeemed you by His precious blood has a sovereign right to the best brains and the most persuasive tongues and the highest culture.  Why crowd into the already over-crowded professions?  The only occupation in America that is not overdone is the occupation of serving Jesus Christ and saving souls.  I do not affirm that a Christian cannot serve his Master in any other sphere or calling than the Gospel ministry, but I do affirm that the ambition for worldly gains and worldly honors is sluicing the very heart of God’s Church, and drawing out to-day much of the Church’s best blood in their greedy outlets.  And I fearlessly declare that when the most splendid talent has reached the loftiest round on the ladder of promotion, that round is many rungs lower than a pulpit in which a consecrated tongue proclaims a living Christianity to a dying world.  What Lord Eldon from the bar, what Webster from the Senate-chamber, what Sir Walter Scott from the realms of romance, what Darwin from the field of science, what monarch from Wall Street or Lombard Street can carry his laurels or his gold up to the judgment seat and say, “These are my joy and crown?” The laurels and the gold will be dust—­ashes.  But if so humble a servant of Jesus Christ as your pastor can ever point to the gathered flock arrayed in white before the celestial throne, then he may say, “What is my hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing.  Are not even ye in the presence of Christ at His coming?”

Good friends, I have told you what aspirations led me to the pulpit as a place in which to serve my Master; and I thank Christ, the Lord, for putting me into the ministry.  The forty-four years I have spent in that office have been unspeakably happy.  Many a far better man has not been as happy from causes beyond control.  He may have had to contend with feeble health as I never have; or a despondent temperament, as I never have; or have struggled to maintain a large household on a slender purse; he may have been placed in a stubborn field, where the Gospel was shattered to pieces on flinty hearts.  From all such trials a kind Providence has delivered your pastor.

My ministry began in a very small church.  For that I am thankful.  Let no young minister covet a large parish at the outset.  The clock that is not content to strike one will never strike twelve.  In that little parish at Burlington, N.J., I had opportunity for the two most valuable studies for any minister—­God’s Book and individual hearts.  My next call was to organize and serve an infant church in Trenton, N.J., and for that I am thankful.  Laying the foundation of a new church affords capital tuition in spiritual masonry, and the walls of that church have stood firm and solid for forty years.  The crowning mercy of my Trenton ministry was this, that one Sunday while I was watering the flock, a goodlier vision than that of Rebecca appeared at the well’s mouth, and the sweet sunshine of that presence has never departed from the pathway of my life.  To this hour the prosaic old capital of New Jersey has a halo of poetry floating over it, and I never go through it without waving a benediction from the passing train.