Rev. A. D. Mayo delivered the fourth lecture of his series on "Our New Teachers," at Union Hall, Y. M. C. Union, last evening. The subject was, "The Preacher." He said: The story goes that, once upon a time, the promising son of an old radical New Hampshire farmer who, in his theory of life, had thrown everything overboard except his family and town meeting, informed the old gentleman that "he had a call to be a minister of the gospel." "Well, John," said the old philosopher, "let's look at this thing a few minutes. In that case you must go three years to the academy and that's $300. Then four years in college, $400 more. Then three years in a divinity school, another $300. Outside expenses for the ten years $500 more. Then you'll be 25 years old, I shall be $1500 out of pocket and, between you and me, John, by that time preaching will be out of fashion, our investment in it gone, and you afloat to pick up a living as you can."
Whether John's "call to preach" was loud enough to prevail over this dismal prophecy, we are not informed. But John's father put into homely words an opinion that to-day is at the bottom of more uncertainty and absolute loss of faith in religious affairs than all the theological heresies that vex the church.
There was a time within the memory of some of us, when the foremost students in the colleges were looking to the ministry; when the daughters of the first families of Boston were as eager to marry the most promising young Unitarian minister as now to consort with a title over the sea; when the great sermon of John Pierpont, Dr. Beecher, Dr. Putnam, even Theodore Parker or Starr King, set the "old corner book store" in a buzz every Monday morning, and, by common consent, the clerical profession stood at the head — "the Brahmin class" in American society. . .
