"Every denomination naturally feels that it must be strong in the centres of population; and so, without asking whether the Church of Christ needs so many congregations there, we crowd our six separate enterprises, of as many rival names, into a little place where two churches would do more good than the half dozen. "The evils that result from this course are many and various. One consequence of it is a weakening of the unity and the moral force of the Church as a whole. Another is the diminution of the numbers and the strength of the several local societies, so that an amount of assistance many times greater is needed, and this need is prolonged for years, when often its period should have been reckoned in months. But a third consequence of this overcrowding of one portion of the missionary field is the _destitution_ of other portions. While many villages are so well supplied as to leave pastors and churches leisure to quarrel, many rural districts and young communities are almost totally neglected. If all the preachers in the United States were evangelical men, well educated and devoted to their work, they would no more than supply the real wants of the country, upon a system of wise distribution. On a system, then, so unfortunate as this, its destitutions are not supplied; and we hear from all quarters the cry, Send more laborers into the harvest. "_A Cause of Unwillingness to enter the Ministry._ "Again, a fourth consequence of our denominational divisions, and another cause of destitution, is seen in the difficulty of persuading young men of enterprise to enter the ministry. When we consider how the field of ministerial labor is cut up into small parishes, affording to men of superior capacity but a limited scope for some of their best qualities--with scarcely the possibility of much improvement--promising, also, only a meagre support and a moderate usefulness, we can not wonder that young men who are conscious of the ability to occupy a larger sphere, and whose nature thirsts after something stirring and an opportunity for a hopeful struggle and for achievement, should often shrink from the seeming narrowness and hopelessness of the work which is here offered them. We need not praise the truthfulness of their appreciation in all particulars, but have we, on the whole, a right to anticipate a different decision? No. The result is manifestly one that must be _expected_. There is not the least doubt that this diminution in the size of parishes is also a diminution in the attractiveness of the pastoral office. And so this very multitude of denominations, which has increased the want of ministers, operates, in more ways than one, to diminish the supply. "_A Discouragement and a Weariness._