ve thousand or more evangelical
ministers in the United States? Can it be his will that they should all
quietly remain where they are?

Again, God in early times made known his mind on this point, not only by
the express admonition of the Holy Ghost, but also by the _overrulings
of his Providence_. Take the account of the first dispersion. The
Saviour ascended from the Mount of Olives, and the disciples returned to
Jerusalem. The day of Pentecost arrived, and three thousand converts
were added to their number. This multitude of believers was daily and
rapidly increased. Here, then, was a very large city, the capital and
pride of the nation, and a place of immense resort from all the nations
round about. And in this city were many thousands of Christians, who
were in peculiar need of constant care and faithful instruction, and had
they been divided out to the pastoral care of the twelve apostles, would
have made perhaps as large churches as any twelve in the city of
New-York. Jerusalem then presented to the apostles a vast amount of
pastoral care, and a field of labor unequalled perhaps in religious
influence, considering the world as it then was, by any city that can be
named within the limits of Christendom. The apostles were inclined to
remain in Jerusalem, and considering the call for labor there, it is not
wonderful that they were thus inclined. They seemed for a time to have
forgotten the last command of their ascended Lord, and to have chosen a
work more resembling that of settled pastors. But the Saviour allowed a
persecution to rage in the city, till first the great body of the
church, and afterwards all the apostles, except James, were scattered
abroad. So the great Jerusalem was left with but one apostle. Eleven of
the twelve, who had become in a measure settled there, were driven
abroad; and not from Jerusalem only, but without the limits of
Palestine. Such is evidently the _fact_. Let every one draw from it the
instruction it affords. To my mind it clashes irreconcilably with the
present distribution of ministers.

Take another case. Paul had been laboring at Ephesus two whole years,
and had collected a very large church in that city. This city was the
emporium of Asia Minor; a place of much resort, and greatly celebrated
throughout the known world. The large number of disciples there, who
needed a pastor to warn them day and night with tears, and the wide door
which was there opened for preaching the Gospe