As I come to the subject, let me say on the threshold that I am sure to be writing for many readers who little need the discourse, at least at present. You are working under a Vicar or a Rector whose example and also whose friendship is one of the greatest blessings of your life. You see in him a man perhaps much older than yourself, perhaps nearly your coeval, but however a leader, who is also, in the Lord Jesus Christ, your brother, and your most considerate while stimulating friend. He consults you, without forgetting his responsibility of ultimate direction. He gladly and fully recognizes and honours your work done under his organization. He has not the slightest wish to come between you and the affections of his parishioners among whom you move. He cultivates, in his busy life, Christian fellowship with you in private; you pray together, and talk together, not only about the parish but about the Lord, and the Word, and your own souls. He lets you find in him, as he is glad to find in you, just a man, a friend, a Christian, with trials and blessings of inner experience on which it is sometimes good to speak to one another; a living soul, companionable and human, while in it Christ dwells by faith. You have experienced with happy uniformity your Incumbent's patience, sympathy, fairness, trustworthiness. You have seen in him one who is himself always at work, always watching for the flock; who does not put on you this duty or that merely because it is irksome to himself, but whose whole purposes are in the cause of God, and who distributes labour in any and every interest but his own. And perhaps you see this man honoured and loved by all around you, as they too see and know him to be what he is. You move about in the parish, and you are quite sure to hear allusions to the Vicar. And as a rule, perhaps, they are all friendly, all loyal, all grateful. You find yourself, in short, under no appreciable present temptation, being (as of course you are) a true man yourself, to do anything but identify yourself very gladly with him. YET EVEN HE IS NOT PERFECT.