turns pale at the thought; but I do know that my heart quakes as I cry out with Isaiah, "Who among us can dwell in devouring fire? Who of us can lie down in eternal burnings?"

Men and women! there is only one name given under heaven among men whereby you may be saved, and that is Jesus. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Depend upon it, if you are lost it will not be God's fault. He has done every thing to save you. It will not be Christ's fault. He has pleaded with blood-red earnestness for your salvation. It will not be the Holy Spirit's fault. He has this day stirred. and entreated you mightily. If you are lost, it will be your own fault. You will forge your own chains. You will write your own death- warrant. You will bolt and bar the door of heaven, and doubly bolt it and doubly bar it against your own soul; and you might as well this day, if that is your determination, make your valedictory, saying: "Farewell, O Church of God! I don't want the comfort of your sacraments. Farewell, O Holy Bible! I don't want your illumination. Farewell, O Holy Ghost! bother me no more about the great future. Farewell, O heaven! I don't want to hear thy clapping cymbals, nor to mingle in thy hallelujahs. Farewell, O my glorified kindred! father, mother, sister, brother, and my dear children who broke my heart when they went away from me. Farewell! Keep no longer a seat for me by your side at the heavenly banquet. I am not coming. I take another road. I make another choice. Across these spaces I fling this kiss of everlasting separation. Good-bye, good-bye. This is my eternal valedictory!"

WHAT KILLS MINISTERS.*

"Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone."-Exodus xviii., 18.

ETHRO was paying a visit to his son in-law, Moses.

JET

The tent is lighted, and swarming with a glad levee. Until very late at night I see the swinging of the lanterns, and the glancing in and out of the guests. Good cheer, recital of stirring experiences, accounts of what they have done and what God has done, and innocent conviviality characterize the occasion. In the morning Moses sits down to listen to all the people have to say by way of complaint or appeal. He stands between them and God. It is talk, talk, talk all day long. From morning till night Moses is listening, planning, counseling, praying, preaching. Jethro gets alarmed about his son-in-law's health. "Why," he says, "this thing will wear you out. These people and this work will exhaust you. Why don't you divide up the labors and the burdens among other people? Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee." Moses takes the advice of his father-in-law, and calls around him some of the best men he can find as assistants, and, instead of being worn out with his labors, lives one hundred and twenty years as long as any man ought to want to live

* Sixth anniversary sermon.

in this world, which was intended only as a stepping-stone to something brighter.

Jethro's warning to his son-in-law is just as appropriate now for all religious pastors, teachers, and Christian workers. You know very well that all Christendom is strewed with worn-out ministers of the Gospel. Some of them went down under brain-softening, others under throat disease, others under paralysis, others under nervous derangement and disorganization.

What is killing so many ministers? Sometimes they are destroyed through excessive use of tobacco, sometimes through culpable neglect of physical exercise, sometimes through reckless exposure; but I think that, in the vast majority of cases, it is through lack of sympathy and help on the part of their congregations. Thousands of these pastors are worried to death by insufficient salary, and pulled apart by unreasonable demands, and rung out of life by the tintinnabulation of their door-bell, and exhausted with perpetual interruptions. Now, my text suggests that no man can do every thing. If a minister of the Gospel has on one shoulder the spiritual affairs of a church, and on the other shoulder the financial affairs of a church, his feet are on the margin of an open grave, clear to the bottom of which he can look without moving. Let all ministers of the Gospel, so far as possible, gather around them sympathetic men and women upon whom they can throw much of the care and responsibility and trouble. "Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone."

Standing before you this morning, preaching my sixth anniversary sermon as your pastor-a style of sermon in

which the preacher is generally expected to be more than usually personal-I have to tell you that the burdens of life are getting to me less and less, and that as the years pass on I have fewer and still fewer anxieties. In beautiful Belleville, on the banks of the Passaic, where I began my Christian ministry, it seemed as if all the work came down on my young shoulders. Going to the West, the field was larger and the care less. Going to Philadelphia, the field was still larger and the care still less. And standing to-day, as I do, among hundreds of warm personal friends, whose hands and feet and hearts are all willing to help, I have less anxiety than I ever had. I have taken the advice of Jethro in the text, and have gathered around me a great many with whom I expect to divide all the care and the responsibility; and though sometimes, what with the conduct of this church, where we have a perpetual religious awakening, and the conduct of a religious weekly newspaper, and the conduct of the Lay College, people have often addressed me in words similar to those of my text, saying, "Thou wilt surely wear away: this thing is too heavy for thee," I am glad to know that this morning I am in perfect health, and ready to recount to you what the Lord has been doing in all these days of our sojourn together, between 1869 and 1875.

It is now six years since I preached to you my opening sermon, on the text, "God is love." I wish I could pour out my soul this morning in a doxology of praise to God, and of gratitude to this people. The difference between these years has been that the second was to me happier than the first, and the third than the second, and the fourth than the third, and the fifth than the fourth, and the sixth than the fifth. God has led us through many vicissitudes.

We are in the third church in six years. Crowded out of the first, burned out of the second, by the mercy of God led into the third.

We look back to the solitary service six years ago in the old chapel, with a congregation that almost could be accommodated on this platform. For many years the church had been in strife, until the three or four parties had exterminated each other, leaving an expanse of empty pews, a wheezy organ, a cramped-up pulpit, and a steeple the laughing-stock of the town. My personal friends applied to me an emphatic word of four letters, and two letters alike, in expressing my folly in undertaking this enterprise. Indeed, it seemed heavier than to start entirely new, for there were wide-spread prejudices in regard to the church. Still we went on. By the blessing of God, in three or four weeks our church was full; and it is astonishing how well an old building looks when it is all occupied, for there is no power in graceful arch, or in carved pillar, or in exquisite fresco to adorn a place like an audience of beaming countenances. I had rather preach in a full barn than in a sparsely attended cathedral. Empty pews are non-conductors of Gospel electricity. People came in from all ranks and conditions; and, looking over the audience to-day, I can not see more than four or five families who were with us six years ago.. Some of them have been advanced into the better society of heaven, while some of them dropped off because they thought we were going too fast, and they could not keep up. We went on gathering the people in from all directions, until we have here to-day the rich and the poor, the wise and the ignorant; those who toil with pen, with printing - press, with yard-stick, and with hammer. Enough physicians—