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SPEECH
OP THE
REV. WILLIAM ELDER, A. M.,
AT THE MEETING OF THE NEW BRUNSWICK AUXILIARY TO THE BRITISH
AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY, HELD IN ST. ,fOHN ON THE llth DAY OF
JANUARY, 1853k
[RE-PRINTED FROM THE OBSIIBrJSS.]
The Rev. William Elder, in seconding the second resolution,
spoke as follows : —
Sir,— Before speaking to the Resolution which I have the honour to
second, I cannot but express the satisfaction which I feel on casting my
eyes around this influential and crowded assembly. This meeting must
be held as pledged to the principles involved in the Constitution of the
British and Foreign Bible Society ; and these principles rebuke some of
the leading errors of the age, and assert some of the dearest rights of men.
It is a principle involved in the Constitution of this Society that the
Bible contains in itself a perfect rule of faith ; a rule to which nothing
may be added, and from which nothing should be taken away : and this
meeting protests against any such perilous addition, or ruinous subtraction.
It is a principle involved in the constitution of this Society, that this rule
of faith is inspired, and authoritative ; and this meeting is a protest
against rationalism, and infidelity, in whatever forms they may appear. It
is, I trust, a pledge that the Evangelical Christianity of the City of St.
John will neither directly, nor indirectly, countenance, encourage, or
support those, who, either through the press, or on the platform, in the
lecture-room, or in the pulpit, speak slightingly of the volume which we
love, or of institutions which we venerate. It is a principle involved in
the Constitution of this Society, that it is the right of every human being
to possess, and to read the word of God, without human note or comment ;
and that with this right arising as it does out of the relation of the creature
to the Creator, no law of man should dare^to intermeddle. Were it necessary
to say a single word in defence of a principle so self-evident, this defence
might readily be found in the very nature of law. The sphere of human
law, strictly speaking, is merely declarative, and the declarations which it
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deems it expedient to make— or if it pleases better so to call thera.—iti
enactmentB, and the means by which it seeks to give effect to them, ought
ever to be in the strictest harmony with the relations of things. These
relations are to be sought in the book of Nature, and the teachings of
inspiration. If any human law contravenes any of these inexorable rela-
tions, it is at best worthless ; and at worst, injurious, or cruel, or impious,
as the case may be,— or all three united. Such a law may be harmless as
the papal bull against the motion of the earth, of which Pascal said, " it is
all in vain ;" or it may be cruel as the " tender mercies" of the Grand
Duke of Tuscr.ny, or the dark dungeons of the King of Naples. It may
be so impious as, by prohibiting men from reading the word lof God, to
interdict the King of kings, from speaking to his own subjects : and to this
impiety, insulting the common sense of mankind, it may add the enor-
mous absurdity of alleging in its justification a warrant from God himself!
Now, Sir, the law, or usage or custom, or by whatsoever name, or names
it is called, which prohibits the reading of God's word, ignores and contra-
venes the relation between God and man— it implicitly, if not explicitly,
interdicts their intercourse ; and against this law, interdict or prohibition,
in the face of the Duke of Tuscany, in the face of the King of Naples, in
the face of all the civil and ecclesiastical despotisms of the continent of
Europe, this meeting protests in the name of mankind, in the face ot the
world, and in the presence of God. Looking then, Sir, to the importance
of those principles, I cannot but congratulate this meeting on their asser-
tion ; and I cannot more appropriately congratulate it than in the words
of the motto of your own City ; —
O fortunati ! qnornm jam moei ia sargnnt.
The year of the Parent Society's operations r^,ferred to in the resolution,
has been one of singular interest to the Christian philanthropist. The
Industrial Exhibition of 18i)l, with which the Society's year commenced,
must be regarded as one of the most important events which mark the
openingof the second half of the 19th century. Then for the first time
from the period of their separation on the Plains of Shinar, gr*- tly more
than three thousand years before, the nations of the earth mcv ygether in
love and friendship. They met in a little island utterly unknown to the old
aristocratic nations of the East ; one of a group, which the Greeks and
Romans called by no honourable name. They met on the happy soil of
that land which its children fondly call " Old England." They met,
welcomed by the smiles of the good Queen Victoria, and aided by the
active co-operation of the Prince- Consort. Tliey met, and beneath the
ampleroof of the Crystal Palace, they mingled their voices together ia
thanksgiving to Him who of " one blood" had made them all ; and whose
widely-opened hand had liberally supplied all their wants. Thus, the
genius of Industry having assembled the nations, Christianity cheerfully
t
recognised, and blest their meeting. The occasion was eminently favour-
able to the objects contemplated by the British and Foreign Bible Society,
and T can testify to the fact that it did not allow it to pass unimproved. It
exhibited the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, or portions of
them, in 130 languages; and need I say, that if this Society sought no prize,
it met no competitor ? One reward it did indeed seek, and obtain. It
experienced the luxury of doing good. Through these various languages,
as through so many pipes or channels, it sought to convey the waters of
life to the parched lips of the perishing millions. It offered to every man
an opportunity of hearing in hia own tongue, wherein he was born, the
wonderful works of God. The intellect of man had often asked, but never
rightly answered that tremendous question in which we are all more deeply
interested than in any other : It had asked—" Eow shall a man be just
before God ?" and to this question— of the answer to which science said,
it is not in me, an*' philosophy said, it is not in me— the Society, through
the Book which it circulated, undertook to supply an infallible solution.
The good effected by means of the copies of the sacred scriptures issued by
the Society on that occasion— or the good to be yet effected by their instru-
mentality, and the accompanying influences of the Spirit of God, it is not
easy to estimate, and it would perhaps be difficult to overrate. When it is
remembered that many of the copies of the Scriptures then either sold, or
gratuitously distributed, were carried away to cities on the Continent of
Europe, in which, while professed ministers of religion are very numerous,
and lives of the Saints are every where to be had, and missals and prayer-
books abound, not a single copy of that word which alone can make wise
unto salvation can be purchased, or obtained : and when it is remembered
that the version of the Old Testament made by Wycliffe— and by means of
which those seeds of Divine truth were sown which afterwards produced
the British Reformation— Acw never yet been printed, it may not unwarant-
ably be hoped that under the more favorable circumstances under which
those distributions were made, and accompanied as they were by the prayers
of many of God's people, we may again soon hear of a Uke honour
being put upon the Divine Word. Thus, Sir, the past year of the Society's
operations opened well : but its end was better than its beginning. It
may be remembered that not many years ago the possibility of opening up
China to the influence of the Gospel, or to any foreign influence whatever,
was frequently discussed. It was referred to in the pulpit. It was brought
forward at missionary associations. It was handled by men of widely
different opinions, political and religious. It engaged the lively pen of
Sydney Smith. It exercised the mind of Isaac Taylor. By most persona
it was conjectured that the aperient influence must come from within—
by a few that it might come from without. But even if it did come,
what, it was inquired could be done for a people who had no mind in which
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ideas might float ; no mediam of communication which could take ap a
single atom of knowledge or of sentiment of foreign growth. " Were it
not as well," asks the last mentioned writer, " to attempt to inform and
persuade the sculptures of Elephanta, or the glazed images of their own
pottery?" And, in answer to his own question, he could do no more than
fall back on scripture statement, without being at all clear as to the manner
i I which the promised consummation might be realized. The last few
months of the Society's year brought with them a solution of this difficult
problem During that period, forgetting their celestial origin, and
their absurd chronology, and the intolerable vulgarity of other ordinary
mortals, no less than ten thousand Chinese actually crossed the Pacific,
ur positively landed on barbarian shores. The event was not due
to JO enlightened policy of "a native prince." It arose neither from
" poi^ular commotion nor revolutions of dynasty." It did not justify the
prophetio wisdom of the Edinburgh Keviewer, nor alford additional
evidence of the penetration of the author of the " Natural History of
Enthusiasm." The event, destined as we believe in the counsel of Him —
— Who works in a mj-BteriouB way
His wonders to perform,
to rend the swaddling bands in which China had been wrapped for millen-
nial ages ; to develop into manhood the prolonged childhood of the churlish
Empire of Japan ; to bring about in due time the freedom of the unhappy
republics of South America ; to provide a home for those teeming popula-
tions, for which Malthus and his followers could suggest no suitable pro-
vision ; to found a centre of Commerce, perhaps ot empire, such as the
world has never yet seen, was the apparently fortuitous discovery of gold
in California. The maxim
" Coelum non auimnm mutant, qui trans mare currant, "
never rigidly true, was soon found to be sadly at fault in the case of the
Transpacific Chinamen. With a change of climate which was inconsider-
able, their minds were revolutionized. Their "petrifactions of ancient
usages," their fossilated ideas were speedly shattered into countless frag-
ments ; they fell to pieces with a crash, — sudden, violent, and destructive
as the fall of the Derby- ©'Israeli Ministry. Witness the reply of the San
Franciscan Chinese to the spirit of national exclusiveness discovered by
the American governor— a reply which Vattel would have commended, and
Grotius approved. It is now certain that by personal and epistolary inter-
course with the parent country, aided by the new commerce to be thus
produced, these nowly acquired ideas in all theur fresh vitality must be
disseminated over the whole slumbering East ; and its myriads of millions
being thus made to think, must speedily seek for a reply to the questions
which thinking men must ask, and which the Bible alone can answer. It is
evident, in short, that a very large and hitherto inaccessible portion of
the human race may speedily be annexed to the already extended domin-
ions of the British and Foreign Bible Society. Huppy if we shall tind
ourselves in a position to avail ourselves of these openings ; then will com-
merce, fulfilling the •' chief end" of its existence, become Christianity's
I'rime Minister of Progress ; then will Commerce be itself more blest ; the
favouring breezes bearing the good ships across the no longer treacherous
deep with unwonted safety, and unusal speed — more than fulfilling the
words in which a Roman Poet complimented a Christian Emperor : —
" O nimium dilecto Deo I Cai funtiit ab antris
jEolua armatna byetnes, Cui militat (ether,
Et conjurati veniunt ad claeBica venti."
Let me now. Sir, leaving the foreign aspect of this Society's operations,
say a word or two on the probable results of British Bible circulation. And
not to enter upon ground already occupied, I shall merely in a very few sen-
tences refer to the influence of the Bible as affecting our national existence.
The enquiry has frequently been made, shall Britain fall, as fell all the
great Empires of former times, and as Turkey is now falling ? and who is
it that does not feel interested in the answer to this enquiry ? Who is
it that is not ready to ask, shall another Scipio weep over Britain's ruined
capital, another Botto or a second Layard disinter the buried city or
another Gibbon sitting on some of its broken columns or mouldering arches,
meditate the story of our National Decline and Fall ? Or, if patriotism
would fondly answer in the negative, on what grounds, it may be asked, is
exemption claimed from the common fate of Empires? Wherein do we dif-
fer from those already fallen? Sir, it appears to me that we differ very much ;
in this chiefly, " that unto us has been committed the oracles of God,"
and in thid difference, if we avail ourselves of it, I see grounds on which
we may hope for perpetuated empire. If one were to set out with affirm-
ing the proposition that a nation ignorant of the religion which the Bible
teaches must experience premature destruction, then an analysis of the
causes which led to the overthrow of the ancient monarchies would establish
its truth ; or if any one will analyze these causes, without any foregone con-
clusion, he must reach the same result. Tried by their recognition of those
relations which God has impressed upon society, the Constitutions of those
Empires were utterly unconstitutional ; and hence, in obedience to a law
as imperative as that which causes the bankruptcy of an insurance office,
whose rates of premium have been framed in defiance of the warnings of
the bills of mortality, such Empires must sooner or later have fallen.
Much more must they have fallen, when besides being unacquainted with
those principles of civil and religious liberty, of the knowledge of which
the Bible is a primary source, tbey wanted also the conservative influence
of that religion which the Bible alone teaches, and the want of which
mast eventually overturn any Empire, however perfect its Constitution,
Now then, Sir, applying these principles to our own case, it in clear that
we possess, or may possess both those advantages. Guided by the prin-
ciples which the Bible inculcates, wo may avoid all those evils which make
a nation weak, and enhance the power of all those influences which make
a nation strong. We possess a Constitution elaborated byjmen whom
Christianity had taught how to make a Constitution, and which has perhaps
almost arrived at perfection ; and in toe religion which the Bible teaches, a
catholic religion— a religion addressed to all that is in man, and to
every relation of life— " which is the highest style of man," and must
consequently produce the highest style of nations, we have the means of
removing all moral and internal causes of decay. It is the sin and imper-
fection of man which mainly conspire to make civil govennent at once
necessary and difficult ; and Catholic Christianity by elevating and perfect-
ing men's moral condition, and thus making the strain upon government
less, must virtually give government more power without the necessity of
using it ; and the governed more freedom without the danger of abusing
it. Possessing a Constitution recognizing those great principles of civil
and religious liberty, which as yet men have never been able to work out
for themselves, and have only learned from the Bible, and possessing in
the great mass of its subjects men regenerated by Bible Christianity, our
Empire could not fall from within— and it could not readily fall from
without. No Empire imbued with like principles would attempt its
overthrow ; and no Empire not so imbued could succeed in such
an attempt. Forces vastly superior in numbers might bo led
against it in vain,' for unike debates, the great decisive battles of the
world have seldom been won by majorities. The very name of such an
Empire would be to it a tower of strength ; its smile would be universally
courted ; its frown universally deprecated ; and its duration would be in-
definitely prolonged. And this, Sir, is the destiny which I fondly hope
awaits the British Empire — this is the unprecedented destiny to which it
may attain— if thv? masses in its large cities, and if the people generally,
are but brought under the influences of Bible Christianity. I know indeed.
Sir, that men to whose genius and learning we are much indebted have
frequently reasoned upon the progress, and retrogression of mankind,
upon civirzation and barbarism, without either estimating the destructive
force of vice, or the conservative influence of true religion — a religion made
for man, and adequate to all his wants. Thus reasons Gibbon, and thus
reasons Adam Smith ; and while our brilliant historian, Mr. Macaulay, inform-
ed by the events of 1848, corrects these writers for omitting to take any notice
of the former, he does not himself take any notice of the latter. Hence it is
to the British Constitution that he refers our safety on that critical occas.
ion, and hence it was, that in 1848 he despaired of the prospects of man-
kind, and feared that tho barbarism of the ^th might take the place of the
oiviiizatioD of the 19th century. If, Sir, I ecu' J for a moment admit that
it was to our Constitution hat we owed our safety, I could only do so by
finding in it those qualities which Mr. Macaulay denies to it. In his spark-
ling paper on Jewish disabilitieiL', he ridicules the idea of " the Constita*
tion" being " essentially Christian," and affirms that; to speak of an
essentially Christian Government,i8 to use words which moan just as much
as essentially Christian horsemanship." Our 8afety,thcn,i8 not to be referred
to the fact that we possessed a Constitution, and a Government founded
upon it — which Christianity could alone teach men to make — a Constitu-
tion under which in the Coronation oath— which is of tho essence of every
Constitution — the Sovereign with all possible solemnities binds himself to
uphold Protestant Christianity ; our safety is not to be referred to the
fact that tho great bulk of the subjects of the Britieh Empire had felt the
regenerating and conservative influence of Bible Christianity, preventing
or removing tho *' vice and ignorance, and misery," by which Constitu-
tions are overthrown, and barbarism produced, or prevented only at the
expense of liberty. If the principles already stated be well founded, such
representations must be pronounced exceedingly defeative. They are
defective in not accrediting the Constitution with those principles to which
it is indebted for being what it is. They are also inconsistent with the
causes, which as Mr. Macaulay himself admits, produce barbarism. Will
*' vice" cease to be vicious, and "ignorance" become metamorphosed
into enlightenment, and " misery" wipe away its tears, in view of the
excellence of a Constitution ? Will the barbarian hordes, generated by
an ungodly civilisation, unbought by gold, and unchecked by a nation
which by vice has become degenerate, halt in their destructive march,—
in reverent admiration of Magna Charta, or the Revolution Settlement,
the Reform Bill, or the Coronation Oath ? I leave the question to be
answered by thinking men : I leave to them to decide whether the imagin-
ation that such unclean spirits may be thus cast out, may not hopefully com-
pete for the palm of absurdity, with Mr. Walpole's Militia Bill,— if that Bill
involved, as Mr.Macauly asserts it did, the absurdity " of measuring a man
for the franchise." It was equally unphilosophical to despair of the pros-
pects of mankind— and the panic arose from the fact that the conservative
influence of Bible Christianity was one of those things which did not enter
into Mr. Macaulay' s philosphy. This great force directed by one who is
Governor among the nations, and the Prince of the kings of the earth
must continue to operate ; — it must cause vice and ignorance and misery
to flee before it, and it must produce a civilisation which shall not gener*
ate barbarians. Bible Christianity must go foi ward, though its march
should be over tottering thrones, and ruined dynasties ; though it should
make the revolutions of empires its chariot wheels of progress ; and in
foing fonrard it must ameliorate the condition of mankind. I .>1ade,
then, the authority of aome groat namea notwithstanding, that we may
hopofally look to Biblo circulation, an a moan" of national oonaervation ; I
ooDOlude that if we seek firat tlio kingdom of Ood and his righteonsneBi*,
all these thingB ihalt be added unto us. And if bo, how grand the object
to which Patriotiftm and Piety may, and should aspire ! It 'a nobler than
that .whfob fired the heart of Alexander. At the tomb of Achilles, he
enyied the fortune ol the hero whose deeds were imortalized in Mseonian
■ong ; but to us it is given, to make a perpetuated Empire the monumental
record of our works of faith, and labours of love ; an Empire whose destruc-
tive doom the recording angel shall never register ; and the story of whoso
Decline and Fall, the muse of History shall never trace upon the scroll of
Time ; an Empire which, in a good old age, its energies unspent, and its
natural force unabated, shall hear the Toice of the descending Saviour
recognize its wor^, and pronounce its reward ; and of which it shall be told
in the court of Heaven :— This is that Empire that founded by the nation to
which was committed the second keeping of the sacred oracles, in trust for
mankind, saved itself by ^ratefully submitting to their teaching, and bless,
ed the world by their propagation.
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8191
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