the truth, they seem also to have hidden it in part. And there are some things regarding it, which it appears very desirable to put into a clearer light.

In the first place, we generally fail to see fairly the secular and political character of the New-England parish of half a century ago. Any one, it is true, well read in history or taught by experience, was aware of the fact; but the arguments we have oftenest heard kept the fact out of sight, and ran in another line of observation. In particular, the great visible prosperity of religious institutions in New England, and the great influence they have had in shaping the character and guiding the culture of our community, have constantly been quoted as triumphs of the Voluntary principle; and, on the ground of them, comparisons have constantly been drawn, to the disadvantage of the Anglican, the Roman, and other secularized State Churches. But this view might have been dispelled, not only by an hour's study of the first colo nial annals, of a time when Church was more closely identified with State than ever perhaps anywhere, unless among the pilgrim colonists who rebuilt Jerusalem from the Babylonian exile; not only from the later colonial history, with its accounts of the banishment of Quakers or Baptists, and its persecutions of witchcraft, that faith might be defended in its purity by the State, but by a moment's consideration of the tenure by which every New-England minister of fifty years ago held his office. It was an elective office, and to that extent voluntary and republican. But it was created by the same constituency, and sustained by the same funds, that provided for highways, schools, and constables. It was neither more nor less voluntary than either of these indispensable secular institutions. What gave it the appearance of a purely voluntary system, was simply that degree of homogeneousness, sobriety, and neighborly feeling, which made it possible; nay, that very absence of strong individual conviction, that preference of secular to religious considerations, that worldly, practical, and common-sense habit of mind, so strongly characteristic of our New-England country population, unless when its latent beliefs are challenged and pro

voked. It was in one sense voluntary; because there was, as yet, no open refusal, and no powerful protest. It was voluntary, in the same sense as the Catholic Church of the Middle Age was voluntary, when it embodied the only methods of culture and the only sentiment of unity known to a feudal time; as the English Church was voluntary, when it embodied and symbolized the national pride and strength in the deadly conflict against the aggressions of Rome. Its title was as good as those; but theoretically no better, except from the more uniform type of character, and the greater simplicity of doctrinal belief it represented. As regarded the individual citizen or the individual dissenter, it was as far as either of its predecessors in ecclesiastical history from making the claims or assuming the merit of a voluntary character, which a moment's examination must have dispelled.

Accordingly, when we consider the changes that time has brought about, and the degradation of the ancient Parish with its fifty-years' ministry, to the modern Society with its aver age of five-years' service,—we ought first of all, if we can, to fix our mind on some definite point which marks the moment of visible transition from the old order of things to the new, — which marks when the old order was no longer possible under the changed condition of the public mind; when the diversities of interest and discrepancies of opinion made it inevitable that an institution should give way, which had been at the very heart of all that was strongest, wisest, and noblest in the ancient Commonwealth.

Now, we find such a moment of transition in a phrase familiar enough to our boyhood, but which we do not remember ever to have seen employed in the discussions of this subject; namely, the abolition of the Third Article of the Bill of Rights, in the Constitution of Massachusetts, in 1833. That year definitely marks the passing away of the old dispensation and the beginning of the new. In order to show how radical was the change then made in the direction of religious liberty, and how strictly it may be regarded as the introduction of the voluntary system, we copy the following. phrases from the original Bill of Rights, which embodied the

political theory and experience of the Commonwealth down to the period of the Revolution :

"The Legislature shall, from time to time, authorize and require the several Towns, Parishes, Precincts, and other Bodies Politic or Religious Societies, to make suitable provision, at their own expense, for the institution of the public worship of God, and for the support and maintenance of public Protestant teachers of piety, religion, and morality, in all cases where such provision shall not be made voluntarily.

"And the people of this Commonwealth have also a right to, and do, invest their Legislature with authority to enjoin upon all the subjects an attendance upon the instructions of the public teachers aforesaid, at stated times and seasons, if there be any on whose instructions they can conscientiously and conveniently attend.

"Provided, notwithstanding, That the several Towns, Parishes, Precincts, and other Bodies Politic or Religious Societies, shall at all times have the exclusive right of electing their public teachers, and of contracting with them for their support and maintenance."

Thus, as we see, the parish minister was a civil officer of the State, appointed by the primary source of political power, or free popular election; maintained from the same public fund with all the secular institutions of the State, and holding office by a tenure whose permanence and dignity were shared by the Judiciary alone, since at once custom and common law made it a life-tenure, to be abolished only on trial and conviction of unfitness, before a peculiarly constituted ecclesiastical court. We have drifted, in a single generation, so far from this condition of things, that it is necessary thus to recite the simplest facts of it, if we would understand the position of the New-England country minister of fifty years ago. It was an office in the State, standing, in point of dignity, wholly apart from every other. It constituted a permanent order of about two hundred men; claiming, on the average, a far higher education and wider social experience than any other in the rural communities. By culture, habit of thought, community of interest, professional sympathy, and permanence of position, they made up a political estate nearly as peculiar, and fully as powerful in its way,

as an order of nobility in Europe. It included, at one time, even immunity from taxation, with its necessary counterpart in a republic, of a virtual if not legal disfranchisement. Even to this day, a country minister of the old school will abstain from voting on town matters; and it was a common thing once to have no direct voice in State or national elections, however positive the views and however weighty the influence they might bring to bear in political controversies. That the immense social preponderance given to this class of men was regarded with so little jealousy on the whole, and was so rarely abused, was due partly to its dependence on public opinion and popular election in the last resort; partly to the instincts of an order keenly sensitive to the conditions of its own existence; partly to the moderation and practical sense characteristic of the community at large, fortified by the constant intimate neighborly relations brought about with all sorts and conditions of men.

Such was the purely secular and political basis of the elder New-England parish ministry. We have besides to consider the actual work required of it. This was very far from being that special, peculiar, and narrow professional line of service by which a preacher's duties are now defined, and very far from requiring a corresponding eminence in particular (so called) professional gifts. The very fact that it rested on a political republican foundation, and was maintained by the average sense and conscience of the community at large, kept it from being the representative of any one idea or interest, or any one circle of ideas and interests, however precious and sacred. It was an office to which a man of strongly marked character would of course give his own stamp, which a man of eminent gifts would make the field to exercise those gifts; but it was also an office which any modest, respectable, and faithful man could fill with honor and success. Its duties were very miscellaneous, and many of them purely secular: reminding us of what Guizot says of the duties of the Catholic clergy in the early centuries, of St. Hilary, who "received at rising whoever wished to speak with him, heard complaints, settled disputes, and was

in short a justice of the peace; who worked with his own hands, carding wool for the poor, or cultivating his glebe, and continued his pious toils till quite worn down with sickness and old age; " or of St. Lupus, "of austerer manners and industry less varied, strict of morals and assiduous in devotion, who did his work more by force of character than by detail of service, and was a patron and defender of the culture which stood in so great danger of perishing."—"It was through such lives and labors," he adds, "that Christianity became a practical thing, instead of a scientific or speculative reform." A similar service was done by this institution, in the early period of our history, in setting a man of liberal education in every country town, charged with all its higher intellectual and spiritual interests. But, besides these, it had daily, homely, practical, secular tasks, which gave it a position of dignity and usefulness not inferior to any form in which the Christian ministry has ever been held.

All this rested, as we have seen, not on the voluntary consent of each particular constituency, but on the political constitution of the State. How complete a change in the theory of our religious bodies was effected when the purely voluntary system was adopted, could hardly be seen at first, and is even now concealed from many by the habits and opinions that grew up before the change was made. Even now the minister is probably ex-officio member of the school committee, and is looked to first as the agent of a needed charity, or as the spokesman on a town occasion: though all these offices are what he shares with others, perhaps under the direction and control of others; and in them all he is watched and criticised freely, if not jealously, — his shortcomings but scantly covered by his cloth. It may be, too, that his costume and his manner are far more secular than two generations ago; while his work is narrowed and specialized, and far more exclusively ecclesiastical. The work may be as good a work, and as faithfully done: the life may be even more strictly devoted to the moral and religious interests of the community. But the profession, and the