Here let me bespeak for my successor the most kind and reasonable allowance as to pastoral labors.  Do not expect too much from him.  Very few ministers have the peculiar passion for pastoral service that I have had; and if Christ’s ambassador who shall occupy this pulpit proclaims faithfully the whole Gospel of God and brings a sympathetic heart to your houses, do not criticize him unjustly because he may not attempt to make twenty-five thousand pastoral visits in thirty years.  House to house visitation has only been one hemisphere of the pastor’s work.  I have accordingly endeavored to guard the door of yonder study so that I might give undivided energy to preparation for this pulpit.

You know, my dear people, how I have preached and what I have preached.  In spite of many interruptions, I have honestly handled each topic as best I could.  The minister that foolishly runs races with himself is doomed to an early suicide.  All that I claim for my sermons is that they have been true to God’s Book and the cross of Jesus Christ—­have been simple enough for a child to understand, and have been preached in full view of the judgment seat.  I have aimed to keep this pulpit abreast of all great moral reforms and human progress, and the majestic marchings of the kingdom of King Jesus.  The preparation of my sermons has been an unspeakable delight.  The manna fell fresh every morning, and it had to me the sweetness of angels’ food.  Ah, there are many sharp pangs before me.  None will be sharper than the hour that bids farewell to yonder blessed and beloved study.  For twenty-eight years it has been my daily home—­one of the dearest spots this side of Heaven.  From its walls have looked down upon me the inspiring faces of Chalmers, Charles Wesley, Spurgeon, Lincoln and Gladstone; Adams, Storrs, Guthrie, Newman Hall, and my beloved teachers, Charles Hodge and the Alexanders of Princeton.  Thither your infant children have been brought on Sabbath mornings, awaiting their baptism.  Thither your older children have come by hundreds to converse with me about the welfare of their souls.  Thither have come all the candidates for admission to the fellowship of this church, and have made there their confession of faith and their allegiance to Christ.  Oh, what blessed interviews with inquirers have been held there!  What sweet and happy fellowship with my successive bands of helpers, some of whom have joined the general assembly of the redeemed in glory.  That hallowed study has been to me sometimes a Bochim of tears, and sometimes a Hermon, when the vision was of no man save Jesus only.  And the work there has been a wider one for a far wider multitude than these walls contain this morning.  I have written there nearly all the hundreds of articles which have gone out through the religious press, over this country, over Great Britain, over Europe, over Australia, Canada, India, and New Zealand.  During my ministry I have published about 3,200 of these articles.