them. If God has promised His especial blessing on His own ordinance, the priesthood and ministry of His Word, our plans will prosper, as they are blended into, and subordinate to this. Our steps must be retraced; and as the evil has arisen from the neglect of our ancient parochial system, the remedy must be its restoration. We must supply to the dwellers in every street and lane and cottage of our land, efficient pastoral superintendence, and the public ordinances of the Church; and having done this, we shall still find abundant scope for the labours of every layman. "He that gathereth most shall have nothing over."
And the work by God's blessing is already begun. New churches have arisen in every part of our land, and are everywhere rising; so that a consecration is sure to meet our eyes in every periodical report of our ecclesiastical proceedings. The augmentation again of the number of the labourers in God's vineyard is at this moment the object of the most strenuous exertions. What we have already done is invaluable as a pledge of greater things, although in any other view it would no more deserve mention than a drop taken from the ocean. For instead of absorbing the multitudes which had outgrown the capabilities of our old churches, we have not yet succeeded in providing fully for the annual increase of our population. After all our exertions, our church room, and our parochial ministry are less adequate than they
