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or "supported" pastoral ministry. Even in cases where the pulpit might be supplied gratuitously, the congregation gladly sustain a man whose sole business it is to look after the spiritual interests of his flock. But if the interests of one congregation, composed of a few hundreds of persons, residing in the same vicinity, demand all the energies of a superintendent, what must be said of the benevolent undertakings of the Church, with their vast importance, the number of labourers employed in various ways, and their business intricacies? These considerations have induced the authorities to create a new Book-Room officer,-the Corresponding Secretary of the Tract Society,-and in their judgment the Church will undoubtedly acquiesce. The Report mentions the labours of the present secretary, by which it appears that in less than one year he travelled over fourteen thousand miles, attended twenty-seven annual conferences, and delivered two hundred and twenty-eight addresses and sermons, besides editing books and tracts, and looking after the interests of the society in general.

In addition to the general superintendent of the society, the plan contemplates the appointment, wherever practicable, of conference agents. It is true that the pastors of the individual congregations are men of ability as well as the agent, and as capable of representing the abstract cause to the people of their respective charges. But more than this: we will take it for granted that the pastor will take hold of the subject so earnestly, that his appeals elicit the same interest and the same pecuniary results, as would the labours of the conference agent; yet there remain other considerations in favour of the appointment of the agent. He must gather a band of colporteurs, assign them their several fields of labour, and oversee their operations generally. So important is this superintendency, that some of the publication societies have in the service two classes of officers, one to address Churches and collect funds, and the other to marshal the hosts of colportage, explore the fields to be won, and plan the campaign against ignorance and irreligion. Our report thus describes the work of the conference agent:

"The agents are labourers. They visit promptly every district, to organize the work, and as rapidly as possible the several charges, to present to the people the subject of reading in all its varied aspects. They are bound to inform themselves upon the power of the press, the peculiarities of current literature, to point out its dangerous tendencies, put our people upon their guard, exhibit faithfully the excellence of our own publications, create or stimulate an interest in Methodist books, and prepare the way for their sale. They are to exhibit faithfully the various benevolent demands of the Tract Society, in connexion with the pastor take up the annual collections and subscriptions, and see to the appointment of tract stewards in all the charges and tract distributers in all the classes. They are to carry out the orders of the Board, in appointing

colporteurs, purchasing books and tracts, and appropriating funds. They are to supervise and stimulate the whole work in their respective conferences They are to keep strict and accurate business accounts, write to the corresponding secretary an informal statement of their own labours every month and transmit complete official quarterly and annual reports according to instructions, and form a strong bond of union between the parent and auxiliary societies." Page 42.

The colporteurs are in fact the rank and file of the army, or as the Baptist Report styles them, "the right arm of the service." We had constructed a brief argument to show the great efficiency of this class of workers; but we find the thing so well done in the Report of the Dutch Reformed Society, that we prefer to quote; merely observing that what colporteurs have accomplished for others they will accomplish for us:

"The experience of every religious Board of Publication has been that, in order to diffuse their publications and expand their influence, they were compelled to adopt a system of agencies which has received the approved cognomen of colportage. However valuable and desirable the publications of a Board may be, their sale and distribution, if dependent upon retail custom, must necessarily be too limited to pay even expenses, and as you restrict the field of circulation, you also narrow down, to a very small compass, the sphere of influence exerted, and lessen the good aimed to be accomplished. This your Board has already felt, and that to such an extent as to prompt them to the preparation of a plan for colportage, to be appended to their operations, which is herewith submitted to General Synod for its consideration and adoption.

"If the publications of your Board are to be widely circulated, and the peculiar features of our own Church more extensively known, we must have our own colporteurs traversing the land, visiting our people, scattering the light, instructing the ignorant, and leaving behind them, as they go from house to house and from field to field, that which will arouse the conscience, convict the sinner, comfort the saint, and, at the same time, that which will teach the Christian public the true nature, the admirable features, the Christian spirit, and the prospective destiny of the Reformed Dutch Church. By this means seed will be sown which will produce an abundant harvest of good, both to the souls of men, and also to the Church we honour and love. The Presbyterian Church owes much of its church-extension under God to the faithful labours of the colporteurs of its Board of Publication, who have carried their works into distant places, which would never have been reached but through this instrumentality. And we are firmly of the opinion that such would be our experience as a Church, if the same means were employed under a similar restrictive system."

The efficiency of the system is demonstrated by the Presbyterian Board of Publication, who adopted it in 1848, and in six years nearly trebled the business of the society.

Several of the publication societies employ students in theological and other schools, during vacation. The American Tract Society, in 1854, employed eighty-eight, and the Baptist Society thirteen, in this way. The Dutch Reformed Society has made provision for the same kind of labourers. This seems to us a judicious arrangement.

Young men looking forward to usefulness in the Church, are brought in contact with the people, and thus the abstractions of the books become realities; the future pastor learns men as they are, and how to approach them, in order to do them good. Before a colporteur can be commissioned in the Dutch Reformed Society, he must present a certificate from his pastor, giving information on the following points, which will present an idea of the proper qualifications:

"1st. His age. 2d. The fact of his Church membership and its duration. 3d. His occupation. 4th. Whether single or married. If married, the number and circumstances of his family. 5th. That his Christian experience, education, tact, judgment, and energy are such as will render him both efficient as a colporteur and acceptable to the people. 6th. Whether he possesses sufficiently accurate business habits, as to enable him to keep his accounts correctly, and also properly to report the same to the committee. 7th. That his character for integrity is such as to warrant the committee in intrusting their publications in his hands. 8th. The length of time he proposes to engage in the service of the Board as colporteur. 9th. The field he desires to occupy."

The report of our own society thus describes their peculiar province :

"The colporteurs are labourers. They are to make themselves thoroughly acquainted with the plans and policy of the parent and auxiliary societies, and with Methodist literature especially; to offer the books from house to house; to search out the poor, the sick, and the neglected everywhere; distribute tracts, offer kind religious instruction and prayers, especially wherever the people are under no evangelical pastoral charge; gather the people into the churches, and the children into Sunday schools; hold meetings whenever practicable; to collect funds when instructed to do so; to keep accurate business accounts; make full monthly reports according to instructions; to put themselves into communication with the pastors, act under their advice, and constitute a strong bond of union between all the districts and the conference societies." Page 42.

In comparing the financial systems of the different societies, we find various modes of fixing the compensation of colporteurs. The American Tract Society, as well as most of the others, pays each man two hundred dollars per year and his travelling expenses. The entire expense, salary included, is about two hundred and eighty dollars a year. In the operations of the Presbyterian Board the entire expense reaches nearly one dollar and fifty cents per day of actual service. The society of the M. E. Church, South, furnishes books at prime cost, and allows the colporteur, in selling them, to charge a small advance, to remunerate himself. Our own society adopts in some cases the percentage plan, in others the fixed salary. The American Tract Society prefers the salary system, because there is then "no pecuniary inducement for turning aside from destitute households. Benevolent sympathy is left to its fullest exercise, and

the book-bearer may plead with immortal souls, to 'buy the truth and sell it not,' without the possible suspicion of interested motives."

In the Methodist organization another wheel is added to the machinery, the tract steward in each charge. He is to the corps of tract distributers in his congregation, or neighbourhood, what the conference agent is to his brigade of colporteurs. He is to superintend the work generally, "see that distributers are appointed in all the classes, that the collections are taken, and the supply and distribution of tracts are judicious, regular, and thorough." The tract distributers go through the community, endeavouring, in a quiet, unobtrusive way, to adapt to its work the tract left at a house, or put into the hands of an individual; ofttimes giving therewith a word of pious counsel. They watch the seed with interest, and if it germinates, are ready to cultivate it, till it ripens into the good fruit of personal salvation.

This, then, is a hasty sketch of a movement which is at the same time a noble monument and the fitting exponent of the intellectual progress and the enlightened benevolence of the age. Like other benevolent enterprises it appeals to the people for men and money. It points to the thick darkness brooding over millions; it points to the souls that grope in the gloom; and asks for help in the work of leading them to the light. It points to the souls saved, as an earnest of what may be accomplished; the first sheaves, which are at once a pledge that the harvest is surely approaching, and an example of its rich fruits. It points to the treasures of the Church, and declares that the gold and the silver, and the cattle on a thousand hills, are the Lord's. It appeals to our love of God, of souls, of our native land, of all that is desirable in a national or personal point of view. One of the most powerful and the most successful of the agencies of the Church, it demands the prayers, the sympathies, the support, and the active cooperation of the friends of true progress, and of all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.

ART. II.-MEMOIRS OF DUPIN.

L Mémoires de M. Dupin. 2. Souvenirs du Barreau.

Tome 1er et 2ème.

Par M. Dupin, avocat, ancien batonnier. Paris, 1855.

THE French, it has been often noted, are a memoir-writing people; but the cause of the peculiarity is less agreed upon than the fact. The explanation of the French themselves is, that their nation is the most enlightened, the best prepared for observation, the best provided with things worth writing; while the opinion of foreign countries imputes the tendency to national vanity.

There is some truth in each account, but not the complete truth in both together. The French undoubtedly pursue parade, not alone in toilet and in table, but even up to the dress and display of typography: indeed, the latter is a mere extension of the ostentatious practice from the exterior and the corporeal to the spiritual personality. But in the leaning to this sort of authorship, wherein the writer plays the hero, the French motive is much less selfish than it is social. A Frenchman publishes his memoirs not quite to glorify himself; he often makes the publication anonymously, or even posthumously; nay, he occasionally gives memorials that are discreditable to himself, as for example the Confessions of JeanJacques Rousseau: all which cases are scarce consistent with the predominance of mere vanity.

Again, the French are, of all civilized nations, possessed of the least individuality. But we should consequently find among them the least propensity to memoir-writing, either as a means of notoriety or an effect of self-importance. The self-important man, that is, the man of individuality, is not inclined, in fact, to give his memoirs to the public; not that he does not set a higher value on his reminiscences or observations, but that he sets a lower than common on the approbation of others; it is precisely the distinction between vanity and pride. The French propensity to writing memoirs cannot then proceed from either, compatibly with the defective individuality of this people-not even from the source of vanity, in at least the ordinary selfish sense.

The main motive is effectually social. It is in fact the same yearning for self-communication which inspires the conversational and public habits of the French. The French people, male and female, talk, eat, and live in common; and if they do not also sleep so, it is because of the impossibility. A Frenchman, therefore, who

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