"Slavery and anti-slavery are now the exciting subjects which bid fair to produce great commotion and some division in the church. It is said this subject was among the causes which led to the division of the Presbyterian assembly. Some good brethren always have their powder dry and ready to blow up by every spark that falls near them. Such have no medium in which they rest, have no principles by which they are bounded; but they drive ahead upon the excitement of the moment, regardless of that moderation and charity which the Gospel enjoins. They make their point the sun, and call on the Gospel to exert its influence to accomplish their favorite object. Here is the difficulty. Men will be partial and limited in the view they take of subjects, and will, more or less, be governed by human passions in their pursuits; hence coercive measures are resorted to, and division and ruin follow." THE MINISTRY.--In the views already given in this book, it is plain that Mr. Badger believed in a Gospel ministry, that, besides the human qualifications of learning and culture, had a vital, living union with God, with Christ, with the perpetual region of light in the heavens. This view, which appears in the earliest ideas cherished in his youth, pervaded all his ordination sermons and addresses; and he pleaded that such a ministry should be supported in a manner to elevate it above the necessity of worldly cares and of temporal privation. Though very much of his own ministry through life was unrewarded by adequate returns of temporal aid, he firmly held to the two apparently conflicting ideas, that he to whom God gives this spiritual mission should go forward and preach for life, nor be dissuaded by poverty, calumny or persecution; and that the people are not justly entitled to any man's services in the ministry any longer than they continue to render the proof of their appreciation in the form of earthly support, according to their ability and the reasonable wants of the minister. Gracefully and practically did he know how to develop the meaning of that apostolical saying, "The laborer is worthy of his hire." Though, like John Milton, he disliked to have the minister occupy a position in which community may justly regard him as a feed attorney for the cause he advocates, he also disdained to foster a covetous, money-worshipping community under the name of a Christian church. He was once heard to say, that the true minister would live on browse before he would abandon the cause of God.