minister uniting with himself the best disposed and the most competent portion of his parishioners, and superintending counsels, and directing plans which have God for their object, and the eternal welfare of his people for their end; seizing every opportunity of general and individual good, correcting mischiefs at their first rising, providing for the spiritual wants of every different age and class, and thus striving, as far as may be allowed, to ‘present every man perfect in Christ Jesus?’”—“Nor is this any visionary notion; pleasing in idea, but impracticable in reality. Numerous parishes, of different degrees of population, have been brought under such discipline with more or less success. And I feel convinced that whoever is anxious to promote the glory of God, to assist the most important interests of his fellow-creatures, to confirm the security of his country, or maintain the stability of his Church, can ensure none of those great objects more effectively than by means like these. Without them, in some of our crowded districts of dense and extended population, the Church is lost sight of, parochial distinctions are obliterated, and the reciprocal charities and duties of the pastor and the flock are forgotten by the people, because it is physically impossible that they should be satisfactorily discharged.” The awful visitation which has fallen upon the country renders such societies at this time of increased value and importance. They are calculated powerfully to assist the labours of the Clergy in endeavouring to improve, to the religious advantage of their flocks, the apprehension which is so general. Seasons of alarm and affliction are often peculiarly favourable for the reception of Christian instruction: “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;” and when men look around them and see or hear of death under its most terrible forms, and discover the insufficiency of human means to prevent or remedy the evil they dread, they may “fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell;” {188a} and thus be led to flee to Him who is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him. {188b} Immense might be the benefit, which would, through the blessing of God on their labours, accrue to the cause of religion, if parochial visiting associations were established generally throughout the kingdom, under the direction of the Clergy. They might form channels through which the valuable tracts against vice and infidelity, which the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge is now circulating, might be more widely distributed; through which short addresses, and strong appeals to the conscience, and earnest calls to repentance, in direct reference to the pestilence, might be brought home to every family. They might constitute a medium through which the parochial Clergy might communicate with every part of the most populous and extensive parishes regularly and frequently; through which