Then let me go. It is high time I were away. I have stayed too long
already." Such should be the speech of the minister, knowing he is
not tempted to be a partisan, and is possessed with but an over-kind
sensibility to dread any ruffling of others' feelings or discord with
those that are dear.
In the first year of a young minister's service, Dr. Channing besought
him to let no possible independence of parochial support relax his
industry: a needless caution to one not constituted to feel seductions
of sloth, in whom active energy is no merit, and who can have no
motive but the people's good. What else is there for him to seek?
There is no by-end open, and no virtue in a devotedness there is no
lure to forego. There is no position he can covet, as politicians are
said to bid for the Presidency. But one thing is indispensable: he
must tell what he thinks; he is strong only in his convictions; the
sacrifice of them he cannot make; it were but his debility, if he did;
and the treasury of all the fortunes of the richest parish were no
more than a cipher to purchase it from any one who, quick as he may
be to human kindness, may have a more tremulous rapture for the
approbation of God.
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