"But, what is yet worse, it tends to _injure_ the ministry. No preacher but has felt, at times, the depressing influence of a small audience. A large proportion of the missionaries at the West feel this at all times; and often the intellect is jaded, and the heart is wearied out, from the want of that natural stimulus which the presence of a multitude and the pressure of an important occasion alone can afford. If it is discouraging to find your people coming out in small numbers on rainy Sabbaths, what is it to have nothing but small numbers the year through, and year after year? How must this tend to check youthful enthusiasm, and to dull the fires of intellectual and moral energy. If our brethren of the West have not fallen behind themselves, it certainly is not due to the inspiration of large audiences or of populous and able parishes; for, with so many divisions in such sparse and unstable communities, these can not be otherwise than small. Good men will labor on, indeed, under all these discouragements; and the greatness of their faith will make their work and achievement great. They may triumph over these difficulties, but they contend at disadvantage; and the difficulties are _real_, notwithstanding the highest fidelity. "_Number and Policy of Denominations._ "There are more than _forty_ religious denominations in the United States. Four of these--the N. S. Presbyterians, the O. S. Presbyterians, the Congregationalists and Baptists, together with the Methodists and Episcopalians--habitually esteem it a matter of obligation to be represented in every community where it is possible to gather a church of their name, and, in establishing these churches, deem it no part of their duty to consider, in the least, the welfare of any congregation of a different name that may have been previously gathered. We have six great evangelical churches, each one of whom feels bound to push forward its own growth, with a disregard of the interests of all other churches, which is equivalent to an ignoring of their existence, and, in practical effect, identifies the Kingdom of God with the denomination. It is very much as though each one had laid it down as the fundamental principle of its procedure--WE are the saints. "_Waste of Resources._