the more work they have to do (provided their strength be equal to it), the more desirable and interesting they hold their charge to be.  And I believe that the earnest pastor, settled in some light and pleasant country charge, will oftentimes, even amid his simple enjoyment of that pleasant life, think that perhaps he would be more in the path of duty, if, while the best years of his life are passing on, he were placed where he might serve his Master in a larger sphere.

And thinking now and then in this fashion, I was all of a sudden asked to undertake a charge such as would once have been my very ideal:  and in that noble city where my work began, and so which has always been very dear.  But I felt that everything was changed.  Before these years of growing experience, I dare say I should not have feared to set myself even to work as hard; but now I doubted greatly whether I should prove equal to it.  That time in the country had made me sadly lose confidence.  And I thought it would be very painful and discouraging to go to preach to a large congregation, and to see it Sunday by Sunday growing less, as people got discontented and dropped away.

But happily, those on whom I leant for guidance and advice, were more hopeful than myself; and so I came away from my beautiful country parish.  You know, my friends, who have passed through the like, the sorrow to look for the last time at each kind homely face:  the sorrow to turn away from the little church where you have often preached to very small congregations:  the sorrow to leave each tree you have planted, and the evergreens whose growth you have watched, year by year.  Soon, you are in all the worry of what in Scotland we call a flitting:  the house and all its belongings are turned upside down.  The kindness of the people comes out with tenfold strength when they know how soon you are to part.  And some, to whom you had tried to do little favours, and who had somewhat disappointed you by the slight sense of them they had shown, now testify by their tears a hearty regard which you never can forget.

The Sunday comes when you enter your old pulpit for the last time.  You had prepared your sermon in a room from which the carpet had been removed, and amid a general confusion and noise of packing.  The church is crowded in a fashion never seen before.  You go through the service, I think, with a sense of being somewhat stunned and bewildered.  And in the closing sentences of your sermon, you say little of yourself; but in a few words, very hard to speak, you thank your old friends for their kindness to you through the years you have passed together; and you give them your parting advice, in some sentence which seems to contain the essence of all you meant to teach in all these Sundays; and you say farewell, farewell.