And a further evil of the town parish is, that a great part of your work is done by the utmost stretch of body and mind.  Much of it is work of that nature, that when you are not actually doing it, you wonder how you can do it at all.  When you think of it, it is a very great trial and effort to preach each Sunday to a thousand or fifteen hundred human beings.  And by longer experience, and that humbler self-estimate which longer experience brings, the trial is ever becoming greater.  It is the utmost strain of human energy, to do that duty fittingly.  You know how easily some men go through their work.  It is constant and protracted; but not a very great strain at any one time:  there is no overwhelming nervous tension.  I suppose even the Chief Justice, or the Lord Chancellor, when in the morning he walks into Court and takes his seat on the bench, does so without a trace of nervous tremour.  He is thoroughly cool.  He has a perfect conviction that he is equal to his work; that he is master of it.  But preaching is to many men an unceasing nervous excitement.  There is great wear in it.  And this is so, I am persuaded, even with the most eminent men.  Preaching is a thing by itself.  When you properly reflect upon it, it is very solemn, responsible, and awful work.  Not long since, I heard the Bishop of Oxford preach to a very great congregation.  I was sitting very near him, and watched him with the professional interest.  I am much mistaken if that great man was not as nervous as a young parson, preaching for the first time.  Pie had a number of little things in the pulpit to look after:  his cap, gloves, handkerchief, sermon-case:  I remember the nervous way in which he was twitching them about, and arranging them.  No doubt that tremour wore off when he began to speak; and he gave a most admirable sermon.  Still, the strain had been there, and had been felt.  And I do not think that the like can recur week by week, without considerable wear of the principle of life within.  Now, in preaching to a little country congregation, there is much less of that wear:  to say nothing of the increased physical effort of addressing many hundreds of people, as compared with that of addressing eighty or ninety.  It is quite possible that out of the many hundreds, there may not be very many individuals of whom, intellectually, you stand in very overwhelming awe:  and the height of a crowd of a thousand people is no more than the height of the tallest man in it.  Still, there is always something very imposing and awe-striking in the presence of a multitude of human beings.

And yet, if you have physical strength equal to your work, I do not think that for all the nervous anxiety which attends your charge, or for all its constant pressure, you would ever wish to leave it.  There is a happiness in such sacred duty which only those who have experienced it know.  And without (so far as you are aware) a shade of self-conceit, but in entire humility and deep thankfulness, you will rejoice that God makes you the means of comfort and advantage to many of your fellow-men.  It is a delightful thing to think that you are of use:  and, whether in town or country, the diligent clergyman may always hope that he is so, less or more.