during the same period, about 2800, and less than 100 members to each of them. Their net gain for that time was less than one member to each; and the statistical records of the churches of other denominations for that period do not indicate greater success. But the records show that churches that made "extra efforts " during that time added scores and hundreds to their own membership, besides many to other churches; and, but for these, the average losses would probably have exceeded the gains, or have fallen very little below them. Statistics of the years since 1866 do not probably essentially differ as to comparative losses and gains, and the results of making or not making "extra efforts"; but it is plain that, at the rate of increase of membership during those seven years, including that from extra efforts, it would take 100 years for the churches to double their present numbers, making them 8,000,000; while the population of the country will probably become in that period 150,000,000. We have taken these statements and estimates from a document furnished us, without verifying them ourselves; but we believe them substantially reliable; and, if they are near the actual facts, is it not certain that the people will never be reached and converted, to any great extent, by what are called the ordinary or regular ministrations of settled and acting pastors?

No, an experiment most ample, both from the length of its continuance and from the great number of churches which have made it, so ample that its extension could add nothing to its completeness and only extend its results, has been made; and it demonstrates conclusively that, as a rule, those pastors and churches which have not made extra or special efforts for revivals, without or with the aid of evangelists or other pastors, have, with few exceptions, either not had revivals at all, or very rare and meagre ones, or no, or very few, conversions; have failed to reach and bring in the people around them; have added few or none above their losses to their membership, or lost in it from year to year, some to extinction; and that the results would be substantially the same, if the same course were pursued for any number of years or hundred

years to come. Nor can these results be accounted for, so as to shift the responsibility for them in the least from those which have not, to those which have, used such means and men, by charging that the use of them by the latter has induced them by producing "a withdrawal of confidence from the stated ministry, and a putting it in these "; for they were the same before these were used by the latter, and have continued the same in great numbers of churches, Congregational and others, so secluded from the influence of their use in others that they could not be essentially affected by it. It was, in fact, the perception of these and other involved results, all over the land, of an exclusive pastoral system, restricted to what are called ordinary services, that led men to recognize an absolute necessity for other modes of working and other ministries, having direct aim at the supreme end in this world, next to that of the pleasure and glory of God, the conversion of the people to Christ as rapidly as possible. Nor did they mistake. The pastorship is only a part of the Lord's ministerial provision for the Church and the world; and, when made the exclusive whole of it, it must prove defective, specially as a converting agency; and this, for reasons both in the pastors and in their relations to their churches and communities. As to those in themselves, it is a matter of fact, that, either from defect of natural endowment, or of proper training, or of both these, in respect to public speaking, very many, well qualified to instruct, and really good in their spheres, can not so preach as to secure, to any great extent, the conversion of those around them. Are these to be allowed to hear no others from the pulpits of these pastors, whose preaching might convert them? Then, as to the reasons in their relations, their knowledge of the views, feelings, wishes and criticisms of the impenitent and others in their congregations and communities, and their own desire to secure their favor and attendance on their ministry, which may not be blamable, constantly tend to induce them to give a character to their ministrations, not adapted to secure conversions to any great extent · to refrain from such thorough presentations and pressures of the great truths and

claims of the gospel as are necessary to this end, or to exhibit them in such a manner that they produce comparatively but little effect. The necessity of wisdom, which is created by relations, and eminently by those of pastors, we fully concede; and also that generally they aim to be wise in the true sense, in their office, and do more service and good to the people for vastly less pay and consideration, than any other class of men. But great pastoral wisdom often leaves out that to convert men; and who does not know that very many pastors, full of wisdom as teachers and guides of their flocks, are not wise to win souls to Christ, and that many of them become so restrained, so cautious, so politic, that they can not but fail to win them to Him? Then, on the contrary, the people under and around them become familiar with them and their characteristics as preachers, and, as a rule, if not somehow identified with their churches, are not drawn to attend their ministrations; or, if identified, remain unchanged under them. Very commonly, too, some become prejudiced against them, or their doctrines, or their churches, or their denominations, and either will not hear them at all, or without any susceptibility of profit from them. In view of all this, we see no ground to believe that pastors will ever accomplish much more than they have in securing conversions among those in their congregations or around them. As a rule, they can not wisely be as unrestrained, free and urgent in their preaching as is necessary, and as preachers, not related as they are, can be; nor can they sufficiently attract the attendance and attention of the impenitent. The tendency has always been the other way; and again and again have large sections of the Church, under the exclusive pastoral system, sunk down so far in declension as to be fearfully dead and well-nigh, if not wholly, apostate. In such extremities, all would have been lost, if the Lord had not raised up and given some to be evangelists, to proclaim the gospel anew for the arousing of the churches and the conversion of sinners. It was thus that He gave Luther and others, who in the Great Reformation, preached much, as evangelists, in churches and out of them. Whitefield, John

Wesley, and many others, stirred up through them, in a time of great declension in England, Scotland, Wales, and this country, of whom the former preached much in churches, as well as in the open air, as the others also did more or less; Edwards and the Tennents in this country, who, though pastors, often did the work of evangelists in the pulpits of others; Summerfield, who went through the churches in Great Britain and this country, a flaming evangelist; Nettleton, who preached as an evangelist in so many churches in New England with so much success; Finney, who has excelled them all in doing the work of an evangelist in the churches and as a pastor, in the great numbers converted under his preaching, and in his influence to stimulate pastors and churches in this country and Europe to work for the conversion of souls; and many others since he began to preach. These have always chiefly labored in churches, as their successors must, and as we believe it is best for the churches and the cause, in every way, that they should. As they must be men of power to influence the people to come to hear them, they need edifices sufficiently large to hold them, which can not be found apart from those of the churches. They need the prayers and efforts of churches and pastors to aid them; and it is best for them to be roused up and brought into this labor. It binds them to the converts, and these to them. Far more can be accomplished in this way than by efforts apart from the churches; and the converts can be far better looked after; and it is plainly the Lord's plan, that wherever churches have been established, salvation should go out from them to those around them, and will, when effective means are used. Nor is there a single reason in the office of evangelists, why they should not labor in connection with pastors and churches, as they always have done, to counterpoise these why they should.

We have thus, as we believe, shown that there is an absolute necessity for evangelists, if the people are to be converted that neither the churches nor the world can do without such preachers; and it surely ought to be deeply pondered, that the Lord has always so signally set the seal of

his approval upon their labors. It is certainly unaccountable that he should have blessed them so uniformly and wonderfully, if they were not authorized and sent by him to work in his vineyard. The judgment alone will disclose what multitudes have been converted through their agency, and what pastors and churches have been aroused and led by it to do, and to achieve in the same direction. A vast proportion, if not a majority, of those now in the churches, have thus been brought in, who, according to what we have shown, would probably not have been; and, in general, instead of being of superficial piety, they have been, and are among the best, if not the best, Christians in them, the most prompt to every good work. Many of them are among our most faithful and efficient ministers. Nor have any greater proportion of them gone back, or proved questionable, than of those brought in in the ordinary pastoral way; although, if it were so, and even a majority on the average, proved bad fish in the gospel net, the gain over the gatherings in that way would still be immense. Besides, it ought to be expected of course, that many of them from the world, on account of previous bad training and habits, will prove defective or worse, stony place, and thorny ground hearers. When we consider the prevailing character of the members of the Corinthian, Galatian, Cretan, and probably all the churches formed by the Apostles and their helpers, and that nevertheless they were recognized and treated by these as Christians; and when, to the records of these, we add our Lord's parables of The Sower, the Tares, The Drag-net, and other kindred instructions, we ought certainly to cast away all Docetic notions as to who should be received into churches, and how they should be regarded and treated. Those of whom we are speaking, have certainly been vastly superior comparatively to those early converts. We believe they have been as good on the whole, as any ever brought into them, and that all disparagements of them are unjust and evil. As to evangelists, we here add, that we deem it very remarkable, and no slight evidence that, as a class, they have been given by the Lord, that, so far as we