the polish of his instruments, that they may enter the easier, and pierce the deeper.

'My brother, if you would be successful in your present station, it is essential that you should unite the character of a pastor with that of the preacher. The pulpit indeed claims your first attention. Making sermons will be your principle business. It is by preaching that God is pleased to save them that believe. Such is his chosen instrumentality for the conversion of the world. Other means of usefulness, therefore, must be viewed only as secondary and subordinate to this. Still the work of a pastor is an important, nay, an indispensable auxiliary. He must be the shepherd of the flock. Let him visit the people at their own homes, and converse with the children; let him sympathize with the sick and the afflicted, and show that like the great Shepherd he can be touched with a feeling of their infirmities, and he will find himself invested with new power in the pulpit. There is no one to whose preaching I listen with more pleasure and under whose ministry I am more profited, than that of the man who is my personal friend, and my affectionate brother, and of whom I can say, there is no one who so naturally cares for my state. My brother, I trust that as such you will be known by every member of this church and congregation; that you will be able to call them all by their names; that being affectionately desirous of them, you will be willing to impart not the gospel of God only, but

your own soul also; exhorting, comforting and charging every one of them, as a father doth his children.

'My brother, yours is a peculiar and most important position. You stand here as the first pastor of this church. The influence of your character as a preacher, and a pastor, will essentially modify their future history. It is with a church as with individuals. Their character in maturer years depends upon the impressions received in youth. You are called to give the first impressions. To touch a chord which shall vibrate long after you and they who attend upon your ministry, shall have gone to their graves.

'I charge thee, therefore, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, — who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom, preach the Word. Be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, and exhort with all long suffering and doctrine. For the time may come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall heap up to themselves teachers having itching ears. But watch thou in all things. Do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.'

HAND OF FELLOWSHIP.

BY REV. MR. STOW.

'MY DEAR BROTHER,- Since we completed our academic course, and parted with our endeared associates and with each other on the commencement platform, years have intervened; our separated spheres of activity have kept us remote from each other, and very seldom have we been permitted to exchange an affectionate greeting. Happy am I, on this bright and joyous occasion, to meet you here, and to give you the hand of personal friendship the hand of a class-mate-the hand that has within it a heart.

'It is an interesting fact, that of the little band which clustered about the bosom of our Alma Mater* in her palmy days, not less than four should have been called to the pastoral office in this city. Three of us, brothers indeed, are now present; one, having finished his work sooner and better than we, has gone to his final reward. Possibly his glorified spirit is now with us, contemplating with seraphic delight, the scene in which we who loved him are at this moment actors.

'Were it appropriate, I should be pleased to take you back across those intervening years of which I have spoken, and stand with you upon that emi

*The Columbian College, at Washington.

† Rev. James D. Knowles.

nence in our early history from which we surveyed together the promised land of our future profession, and there recollect the hopes we nurtured, the purposes we formed, the anticipations we indulged. Perhaps you have not forgotten that evening conversation in the hickory grove, some sixteen years ago, in which you playfully remarked that we might, at some future day, be pastors together in the metropolis of New England. Improbable as the event then appeared, and little as we really expected its occurrence, it so happens in the providence of God, that we are pastors together in this city of the pilgrims; and here let us live in holy friendship; here let us labor in affectionate coöperation; and here, when our work is done, let our spiritual children lay us side by side in some green, quiet restingplace.

'But I should not dwell upon merely personal considerations. In bidding you a fervent welcome among us, I am far from being alone. In anticipation of your arrival my beloved associates in the ministry have said: 'When brother Cushman comes, let us give him a warm reception, and take him at once to our hearts;' and they have charged me, by this significant emblem, to convey to you in full the assurance of their united, fraternal welcome. They know and you know that the man does not live who could perform this service with more of pleasure or more of heart.

'You are now assuming, my dear brother, a post

of great importance, and of uncommon responsibility. But you take your place here under very favorable circumstances. You come not a green, crude, inexperienced novice, with no knowledge of the practical part of your profession, or with limited theological resources; but you come with great ripeness of intellectual and religious character, with extended observation of human nature, and with advanced discipline of mind, manners and moral feelings, such as the situation peculiarly demands. And the church of which you now take the oversight is one of which none of us are ashamed. It has not originated in party feud. It is not the product of alienated affection, or of factious discontent. These constituent elements, which it will be yours, with the hand of skilful kindness, to melt, assimilate, combine and mould into one homogeneous body, were recently parts and parcels of ourselves, and as they ever have been, so they still are dear to us as the disciples of Jesus.

'Be not surprised or grieved if you should find your members cherishing for a little while some lingering attachment for the pastors they have left. Reasoning rightly, you could not wish it to be otherwise. If you prove yourself worthy of their love, they will soon come to love you as much as they ought; and in their love to us you have the best possible guarantee of the estimation in which you yourself will in due season be held. Remember this, my brother; they who have been our best