You have lately entered on the work of the ministry: my solemn advice to you is, that you devote yourself to it wholly. You remember the expression, [En toutois isthi]: 1 Tim. iv. 15. The complaint is becoming common, respecting young men entering the ministry, in every part of the Church, that many of them lack that devotion to their work, which was frequently manifested twenty or thirty years ago. It is vain to attribute the alleged change to any particular mode of education. In this there has been no such alteration as will account for the loss of zeal. The cause must be sought in something more widely operative. The effect, if really existing, is visible beyond the circle of candidates and probationers. Nor need we go further for an explanation, than to the almost universal declension of vital piety in our Churches, which will abide under every form of training, until the Spirit be poured out from on high. The fact, however, remains. Here and there are young ministers, visiting among vacancies, and ready to be employed in any promising place, who are often well educated persons, of good manners, and irreproachable character: but what a want of fire! There can be no remedy for this evil, but a spiritual one; yet it is of high importance that the young man should know what it is he needs. He has perhaps come lately from his studies, in the solitude of a country parish, or from some school in the mountains; or from some sound but frigid preceptor, who, amidst parochial cares, has afforded him few means of stimulation. His thoughts are more about the heads of divinity, the partitions of a discourse, the polish of style, the newest publications, or even the gathering of a library, than about the great, unspeakable, impending work of saving souls. He has no consuming zeal with regard to the conversion of men, as an immediate business. Let us not be too severe in our judgments. It cannot well be otherwise. None but a visionary would expect the enthusiasm of the battle in the soldier who, as yet, has seen nothing but the drill. Yet this enthusiasm there must be, in order to any greatness of ministerial character, and any success; and he is most likely to attain it, who is earliest persuaded that he is nothing without it. It is encouraging to observe, that some of the most useful and energetic preachers are the very men whose youthful zeal was chiefly for learning, but who, under providential guidance, were brought at once into positions where they were called upon to grapple with difficulties, and exert all their strength in the main work. Such were Legh Richmond and Dr Duncan.

In the sequel, you will be fully relieved of any apprehensions that I mean to deter you from study, or even from elegant literature; but this must be subordinated to the principal aim; its place must be secondary. Some who have been most successful in winning souls have been men of learning; Augustine, Calvin, Baxter, Doddridge, Martyn; but they laid all their attainments at the foot of the cross. As Leighton said, to a friend who admired his books, "One devout thought outweighs them all!" This is not peculiar to matters of religion. No man can reach the highest degrees in any calling or profession, who does not admire and love it, and give himself to it - have his mind full of it, day by day. No great painter ever became such, who had it only as a collateral pursuit, or who did not reckon it the greatest of arts, or who did not sacrifice everything else to it. Great commanders have not risen from among dilettante soldiers, who only amused themselves with the art of war. The young minister, who is evidently concentrating his chief thoughts on something other than his ministry, will be a drone, if not a Demas. Look at the books on his table, examine his last ten letters, listen to his conversation, survey his companions: thus you will learn what is uppermost in his heart. And if you find it to be poetry, aesthetics, classics, literary appointments, snug settlement, European travel, proximity to the great; be not surprised if you find him ten years hence philandering at soirees, distilling verse among the weaker vessels of small literature, operating in stocks, or growing silent and wealthy upon a plantation. It is a source of deep regret to many in review of life, that they have scattered themselves over too many fields; let me entreat of you to spend your strength on one. When we call up in memory the men whose ministerial image is most lovely, and whom we would resemble, they are such as have been true to their profession, and who have lived for nothing else. Some there are, indeed, who have had a clear vocation to the work of teaching, which is really a branch of the ministry, and one of its most indispensable branches, and who have served Christ as faithfully in the school-room or the university, as in the pulpit; such were Melancthon, Turrettine, Witsius, Witherspoon, Dwight, Livingston, Rice, and Graham. But our concern is with ordinary ministers, called to no other public station; and of these it is unquestionable, that the most successful are those who have lived in and for their spiritual work. Call to mind the chief Nonconformists; also of later date, Newton, Cecil, Brown, Waugh, Simeon; the Tennants, Rodgers, M'Millan, M'Cheyne, and of our own acquaintance the "greatly beloved" William Nevins. In these men, the prominent purpose was ministerial work. If at any time they wrote and published, it was on matters subservient to the gospel. This accounts for the holy glow which, even amidst human imperfections, was manifest in their daily conversation. They might have been eminent in other pursuits, but they had given themselves to the work of Christ.

In another letter, the subject may be more appropriately discussed, but I cannot forbear calling your attention to the bearing of this on the tone of preaching. Suppose a man has been all the week with Goethe and de Beranger, or with Sue and Heine, or even with the Mathematicians or Zoologists, not to speak of prices-current, stock quotations, or tables of interest; how can he be expected, by the mere putting on of a black gown or a white neckcloth, and entering the pulpit, to be all on fire with Divine love! No wonder we preach so coldly on the Sabbath, when we are so little moved on week-days, about what we preach. You have perhaps met two or three clergymen lately; what did their conversation turn upon? The coming glory of the Church? the power of the Word? the best means of arousing sinners? even the most desirable method of preparation? or some high point of doctrine? Or were they upon the last election, the last land speculation, the last poem, or the price of cotton and tobacco? According to your answer, will be the conclusion as to the temperature of their preaching. There is indeed a sort of pulpit fire which is rhetorical - proceeds from no warmth within, and diffuses no warmth without; the less of it the better. But genuine ardour must arise from the habitual thought and temper of the life. He with whom the ministry is a secondary thing, may be a correct, a learned, an elegant, even an oratorical, but will never be a powerful preacher.

You must allow me to give prominence to this devotion of heart to your work, here at the threshold, because it is my desire hereafter to enlarge more on your theological studies; and I earnestly charge you to hold all studies as only means to this end, the glory of God in the salvation of souls. The day is near when your whole ministerial life will seem to you very short in retrospect. Let our prayer be that of the sweet psalmist of early Methodism:

"I would the precious time redeem,
And longer live for this, alone,
To spend, and to be spent for them
Who have not yet my Saviour known;
Fully on these my mission prove,
And only breathe to breathe thy love.
My talents, gifts, and graces, Lord,
Into thy blessed hands receive;
And let me live to preach thy word,
And let me for thy glory live,
My every sacred moment spend,
In publishing the sinner's Friend."