PRESENTED TO THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 PRINCETON THEOLOGICHL SEMINARY 
 
 BY 
 
 f/lps. Alexandep Ppoudfit. 
 
 sec 
 
THE 
 
 PAROCHIAL SYSTEM 
 
 WITHOUT A POOR KATE. 
 
 V 
 
 WITH TWO ESSAYS ON CONNATE SUBJECTS. 
 
 LV riii: i.M'ii 
 
 THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D. LL.D. 
 
 KDINBURGH : THOMAS CONSTABLE AND CO. 
 LONDON : HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. 
 
 MDCCCLII. 
 
i:din-iiiiboh: printed ht tuomas constadi.b, 
 i'kixtrr to hrs majestv. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The substance of the following treatise was delivered 
 in occasional lectures to students of Theology, for 
 their instruction in one branch of parochial manage- 
 ment — on which should they proceed in after life, 
 it will exempt them from those secularities where- 
 with the office of a clergyman is too often overladen; 
 and enable them to give themselves wholly to the 
 ministry of the word, and to such other duties as 
 are strictly ecclesiastical. 
 
 This will account in part for that style of per- 
 sonal address, from which it will appear that the 
 work has not been wholly delivered, in its transi- 
 tion from the chair to the press. 
 
 But there is another species of personality which 
 requires an explanation, if not an apology; and for 
 which I must throw myself on the indulgence of 
 the candid reader. I mean the egotism which per- 
 vades the whole narrative of the operations that 
 took place in the parish of St John's. This, in 
 some respects, was plainly unavoidable ; but might 
 perhaps have been forborne in the treatment of 
 certain objections and on which many resist to this 
 hour, the important lesson to be drawn from the 
 success of our experiment in Glasgow — now become 
 experience ; and capable, with the most perfect 
 certainty and ease, of being realized in all other 
 places. The only defence which I can offer is, 
 
\\ 
 
 \ 
 \ 
 
 Vi PREFACE. \ 
 
 \ 
 
 that one should be willing to incur many hazards— \, 
 even that of appearing ridiculous — rather thanv 
 omit whatever might conduce to the estabUshment 
 of a principle, which, if carried into effect, will be 
 found charged with the most beneficial influences 
 both on the character and comfort of the great 
 bulk of mankind. 
 
 We owe an apology to the purchasers of om 
 Series for presenting them anew with a number of 
 extracts from its former volumes. But as the com- 
 pilation of these has been framed on the principle 
 of bringing them together from the places where 
 they lay distant and dissociated with each other, 
 and making all to bear on the one great argument 
 of the following work — we think it better, that our 
 reader should be saved the trouble of following 
 out all the references for himself, by setting the 
 most important in an Appendix before him within 
 a small and manageable compass. 
 
 We were induced to publish the first of the two 
 subjoined essays, because of the obvious connec- 
 tion which it suggests between the Extension of 
 the Church and the Extinction of Pauperism. 
 
 We should not have ventured on the publica- 
 tion of the second, had it not been signified to me 
 by M.Mignet, one of the Secretaries of the Royal 
 Institute of France, that the republication from 
 their Transactions of a work so obviously phi- 
 lanthropic in its design, would be viewed with 
 indulgence by that Honourable Body. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Section I. On the encouragements for holding intercourse 
 with the connmon people, and the various ways of doing 
 them good, - - . . - 9 
 
 Section II. On the Difficulties and Duties of him who 
 
 undertakes the office of Almoner to a given Population, 33 
 Section III. Supposition that the Visitor of a District 
 enters on the walk which we have assigned to him, 
 and appears before its population in the Capacity of an 
 Office-bearer in the Church, . - - 64 
 
 Section IV. Narrative of Eighteen Years' Experience in 
 
 the Parish of St. John's, Glasgow, - - 92 
 
 Section V. Ethical view of the Question, - - 149 
 
 Section VI. Scriptural view of the Question, - 163 
 
 Section VII. Medical view of the Question, - 176 
 
 Section VIII. Historical view of tlie Question, - 188 
 
 Section IX. Political Economy of the Question, - 202 
 
 Section X. Politics of the Question, - - 215 
 
 Section XI. Statistics of the Question, - - 226 
 
 Section XII. Recent Authorship of the Question, - 238 
 Section Xlll. Application of the whole Argument, and 
 more particularly to Scotland, - . - 260 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 I. Moral Benefit of Parochial Associations, - - 273 
 
 II. Influence of Juxtaposition on the imitative propensity, 273' 
 
 III. Accumulation of small efforts, - - - 276 
 
 IV. Delicacy of the Lower Orders, when rightly and 
 judiciously dealt with, . - - - 278 
 
 V. Strength of Popular Sympathy, - - - 280 
 VI. 'Distinction between the two cases of Disease and 
 
 Indigence as objects of Public Charity, - - 282 
 
 VII. The Gradations and Inequalities of Humble Life, 283 
 
 VIII. Importance of devolving the Temporal Ministra- 
 tions of a Church on a separate order of Office-bearers, 283 
 
 IX. Distinction between the Natural and Political Dif- 
 ficulties of the Problem of Pauperism, - - 289 
 
 X. Letter to the Lord Provost of Glasgow, - 291 
 
 XI. Directory of procedure for the Deacons of St. John's, 293 
 
 XII. Utopiaiiism of Practical Men, - - 293 
 
 XIII. One Example (referring for others to the work 
 specified in page 112) of the Parochial Management of 
 
 St. John's, - - ... 294 
 
nu CONTENTS. 
 
 I-AUB 
 
 XIV. Three Testimonies (of toe Twenty-two printed at 
 
 the place referred to in page 113) from the Deacons of 
 
 St. John's, each deponing to the perfect facility of his 
 
 management, . - - . - 295 
 
 ^ XV. Rationale of the Success attending the St. John's 
 
 Experiment, .... - 299 
 
 XVI. Laudable efforts of the Common People, when 
 their self-respect is not unduly tampered with, - 800' 
 
 XVII. Testimony of Dr. M'Farlan, - . 301 
 ' XVIII. Discouragements under which the St. John's 
 
 System laboured, and in virtue of which its discon- 
 tinuance was anticipated as far back as 1830, - 302 
 
 XIX. Extracts from Mr. Tuffnel's Report, - . 303 
 
 XX. Summary Reflection on the Experience of St John's, 305 
 
 XXI. Process of Extrication from the Compulsory Sys- 
 tem for the Assessed Parishes of Scotland, - 306 
 
 XXII. Replacement of the Artificial by the Natural 
 Charity, ... - - 307 
 
 XXIII. Wisdom and Safety of Public Charities for the 
 Relief of Disease ; and their Distinction in this respect 
 from a Public Charity for the Relief of Indigence, 308 
 
 XXIV. The practice of Malthusianism long anterior to 
 
 the promulgation of its philosophy, . . 311 
 
 XXV. The effect of Christianity in raising the Standard 
 
 of Enjoyment, - - - - -312 
 
 XXVI. The effect of a well-administered Parochial Sys- 
 tem in Scotland, - - - - 314 
 
 XXVII. Effect of a Poor Rate in Reducing Wages to the 
 level of a Charity Allowance, ... 316 
 
 XXVIII. Proposition between the Price of Labour and 
 
 the Number of Labourers, . . . 317 
 
 XXIX. Necessity for the Preventive Check long anterior 
 
 to a perfect cultivation of the Earth, - . 319 
 
 XXX. Distinction between a National Provision for In. 
 digence, and a National Provision for Instruction, 321 
 
 XXXI. Testimony of a Scottish Clergyman on the Intro- 
 duction of a Poor Rate into his Parish, - - 321 
 
 XXXII. Testimony of an English Gentleman on the Poor 
 Law System of his Country, ... 326 
 
 XXXIII. Incompatibility of a General Poor Rate with a 
 General System of Education, ... 334 
 
 On the Application of Statistics to Moral and Econo- 
 mical questions, . - - . . 337 
 
 Distinction both in Principal and Effect between a Legal 
 Charity for the Relief of Indigence, and a Legal Cha- 
 rity for the Relief of Disease, ... 360 
 
THE SUFPICIENOY 
 
 THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 
 
 Section I. On the encouragements for holding 
 intercourse ivith the common people, and the 
 various ways of doing them good. 
 
 1. There is a certain political antipathy, the 
 'characteristic of a whole class, which disposes 
 many to look coldly and adversely on the differ- 
 ences.of rank in the world; and which has also mis- 
 led them into a wrong philosophy, when speculating 
 on the principles and the mechanism of human 
 society. The homage which is generally if not 
 universally felt towards men simply as the holders 
 of wealth, or station, or family distinction, is treated 
 by such, not merely as a pusillanimous affection, 
 but as a prejudice — an illusion of the fancy which it 
 is the prerogative of reason to expose and to dissi- 
 pate — an arbitrary or factitious sentiment, which, in 
 the progress of light and of larger views in the world, 
 will at length be extirpated from all breasts by a 
 sounder and better education than that which now 
 
10 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 enthrals the spirits of our race, and holds it in still 
 remaining bondage to the senilities of an older 
 period at length wearing fast away. It is thus 
 that deference to rank is held by them to be rather 
 a conventional feeling than an attribute of the 
 species — having no place of stability either as a 
 primary law, or even as a necessary result of 
 laws in the constitution of our nature. 
 
 2. This is fortunately one of those speculations 
 which Nature is too strong for — who asserts her 
 own supremacy, and visits the transgressor with 
 her obvious displeasure, when the wayward resis- 
 tance is made to any instinct or tendency which 
 her own hand has implanted. This is never done 
 with impunity ; and so all history demonstrates 
 the evils and sufferings, which, in the shape of so 
 many chastisements, come upon society — when, 
 broken loose from her ancient holds, the distinc- 
 tions of social order are set at nought; and a 
 universal lawlessness of spirit becomes the precur- 
 sor of a universal anarchy. It is with political 
 as with physical theories when the lessons of ex- 
 perience are disregarded, that experience always 
 steadfast and true to her own processes gives forth 
 a practical refutation of both. But when the 
 hypothesis is of inanimate matter, all the harm of 
 the disappointment might be the mockery of a 
 confident anticipation. Not so when the hypo- 
 thesis is of men, to be acted on or carried into 
 effect by a change in the framework of human 
 society — the misgiving of which might be followed 
 up by a general derangement and distress in the 
 unfortunate community that has been made the 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 1 1 
 
 subject of some headlong adventure, some rash and 
 reckless experiment. Such is the invariable re- 
 sult, when any of the special affections of humanity- 
 are uprooted, or rather when in some period of 
 epidemic frenzy, they for the time are kept in 
 abeyance. The inequalities of condition in life 
 are often spoken of as artificial. But in truth they 
 are most thoroughly natural; and it would require 
 the violence of a perpetual stress on the spontane- 
 ous tendencies of every society in the world to 
 repress or overbear them. The superiority of 
 one man to another in certain outward circum- 
 stances of his state is not artificial but natural; 
 and the consideration in which the occupiers of the 
 higher state are held is natural also — insomuch 
 that the public feeling of reverence for the grandee 
 of a neighbourhood has an ingredient of nature in 
 it, as well as the domestic feeling of reverence for 
 the father of a family. Now what we affirm is, 
 that neither of these afi*ections can with impunity 
 be violated, or without injury being done — in the 
 one instance to the good order of a household, in 
 the other to the good order of a commonwealth. 
 More especially of the social affection do we aver 
 — that when superseded in its operation, one main 
 buttress of the social and political edifice is there- 
 by damaged or destroyed — a lesson which the 
 finger of history has often recorded in characters 
 of blood ; and chiefly in those seasons of revolu- 
 tionary uproar, when, in the absence of this whole- 
 some and balancing restraint, society vibrates 
 between the fitful excesses of popular tumult and 
 the severities of a grinding despotism. 
 
12 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 3. There is a very general foreboding in our 
 day — that, even now, we are fast ripening for such 
 a catastrophe ; and we will not say that they are 
 the common people of our land who are altogether 
 to blame for it. It is true that on their part 
 there might be a criminal dislike and defiance to 
 superiors ; but it is just as true that these superiors, 
 on the other hand, might deserve the forfeiture of 
 all that influence and respect, which their place 
 and their circumstances could otherwise have both 
 gotten and maintained for them. For though a 
 reverence towards the holders of rank be natural, 
 the resentment of their oppression is also natural ; 
 and so even would be the return of this pained and 
 irritated feeling, though there were no higher pro- 
 vocative than their mere indiiference or neglect. 
 The very distance at which the rich keep themselves 
 from the poor, were enough of itself to engender a 
 hostile feeling in the bosoms of the latter, and to fill 
 them with all rankling and suspicious imaginations. 
 The alienation becomes mutual ; and even though 
 on the one side, there should be nothing more or 
 nothing worse than the habitual inattention of 
 minds otherwise taken up, this might bear to the 
 general eye the aspect of a lordly or aristocratic 
 scorn ; and if so interpreted, will separate by a 
 still wider moral interval the patrician and plebeian 
 orders of the community from each other. It is 
 true that this reverence of which we have spoken 
 forms part of man's nature. But his is a com- 
 pound nature, made up not of a single but of vari- 
 ous affections — any one of which, ,as the aifection 
 of rank, might be neutralized, even prevailed 
 
THE FAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 13 
 
 against, by the operation of the rest. The defer- 
 ence for rank is by itself so strong, that, when 
 not overborne by other influences, it mightily con- 
 duces to the stability of our social system; and 
 for this beneficial end is inserted, we have no 
 doubt, as a principle in the human constitution, by 
 the author of our frame. Yet it is not so strong, 
 but that it might be nullified, nay reversed, by pas- 
 sions stronger than itself; and it is of vast account 
 therefore to the peace and well-being of society, 
 whether a tendency so wholesome shall be thwarted 
 by conflicting or aided by conspiring forces — a 
 ditference this, for which the upper classes them- 
 selves are deeply responsible. Were all great 
 men good men — were the natural respect for station 
 at all times harmonized with by the natural respect 
 for virtue — were the homage spontaneously given 
 to every holder of superior rank strengthened by 
 the homage given as spontaneously to the intelli- 
 gence or the accomplishments of superior educa- 
 tion, and still more by the gratitude which sub- 
 stantial kindness, or even but the passing attentions 
 of frank and honest affability never fail to awaken — 
 With such a concurrence of the natural influences 
 all on the side of order and good will, there might 
 still by a series of pacific changes, be the progres- 
 sive amelioration of human society ; so as that all 
 anarchy and tumult might be banished from the 
 land, and a revolution become a moral impossi- 
 bility. 
 
 4. Should there ensue such a crisis then, it 
 will not be the multitude who are alone to blame for 
 it ; but the holders of fortune and rank will have 
 
14 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 their full share of responsibility for its atrocities 
 and its horrors. The truth is, that people of 
 humble estate are most feelingly and gratefully 
 alive to the notice of those whom Providence has 
 placed in a more elevated station than their own ; 
 and never does this principle stand more demon- 
 strably forth as a real ingredient in the constitution 
 of our nature, than in the superior charm of those 
 recognitions or personal kindnesses which descend 
 from the occupiers of a higher sphere on the chil- 
 dren of poverty and toil. Even a passing smile 
 of courtesy on the street is not thrown away, but 
 has in it a certain influence or power of gracious- 
 hess ; and this is enhanced tenfold, when any son 
 or daughter of affluence enters the houses of the 
 poor, and is sure to find in consequence a readier 
 access into their hearts. It is in the power of any 
 to make the trial and satisfy himself of the truth 
 of this averment. Let him go at random to the 
 lowliest of their tenements, though with nothing 
 but a question on which he wants to be resolved, 
 and therefore not to serve them but to serve himself 
 with the information which he is seeking at their 
 hands ; and see whether his interrogation, if but 
 put in the language of courtesy, is not followed up 
 by the language of respect and of kindness back 
 again. This, however, is but a first and faint 
 intimation, the outset signal as it were of a dis- 
 position which might afterwards be cultivated into 
 a most close and beneficial alliance. Instead of 
 a question of indifference let it be a question of 
 family interest — relating for example to the educa- 
 tion of children, and bespeaking a kind desirous- 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 15 
 
 ness on your part to ascertain their scholarship 
 and stimulate them onward to a higher proficiency 
 than heretofore — we say there is not one in a 
 hundred who would not welcome, and that most 
 cordially, such an approximation for such an ob- 
 ject ; and with whom it might not ripen into an 
 intercourse of charity or mutual good will, between 
 them of the lower and you of the middle or higher 
 classes of society. On their part there is an open 
 door. It is for us to make it a " great and effec- 
 tual door" * of usefulness. If our commonwealth 
 is to fall by the dark and angry passions of the 
 multitude, there will be something more in that 
 coming tempest than the ferocity of a misguided, 
 there will be also in it the vengeance of a neglected 
 population. 
 
 5. One fears to indulge so far as to give, though 
 no more than an adequate description, of this in- 
 tercourse with the common people and its attendant 
 results — lest he should be charged with luxuriat- 
 ing in the picturesque ; and carrying his readers 
 through a sort of moral fairy-land greatly too 
 beautiful for this our rough and actual world. It 
 is all the more fortunate that the means and 
 materials for observation are within our reach — 
 so that any man may test and ascertain for him- 
 self what, in sober earnest, the experimental truth 
 of the thing in question really is. Let him assume 
 then for the enterprise on which we would set him, 
 a given population, say of the worst and poorest 
 — for the lower down, both in the moral and the 
 economical scale, the better for the purpose of a 
 
 • 1 Cor. xvi, 9. 
 
16 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 substantial verification. Let the number not ex- 
 ceed what any lay office-bearer of the church 
 might easily and beneficially overtake. Let him 
 however not be afraid of three hundred as too 
 many for either the strength or time he may have 
 to bestow on this undertaking. But we must 
 provide him with an errand which might explain 
 and justify his entrance into every house of this 
 his special and selected territory ; and we shall 
 only at present single out one from the many, 
 wherewith, in the course of his growing intimacy 
 with the people, he might afterwards charge him- 
 self. Let us suppose it then to be his resolute 
 aim, so to influence and control the habit of all 
 the families, as that each boy within its limits shall 
 learn to read, and each girl to sew. For carry- 
 ing this benevolent purpose into effect, let him 
 look out the best and nearest seminaries which 
 might suit the convenience of the children ; and 
 then let him try all which can be effected by 
 counsel and persuasion for gaining the consent of 
 parents — and never desisting from the prosecution 
 of his self-imposed task, so long as there remained 
 any exceptions in his district to a universal atten- 
 dance on the means of education. He will be 
 astonished to find how near he shall have gotten 
 to a full accomplishment of his object ; and it will 
 greatly expedite his success, if he make a study 
 of the best and most judicious methods for helping 
 it forward. A little personal trouble on his part 
 will be of prevailing force with the parents in the 
 way of securing their co-operation. In particular 
 it is not to be told how kindly It will be taken, 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 17 
 
 should he give an occasional half hour of an even- 
 mg to inspect and examine the scholarship of his 
 juvenile clients — whether in single families, or in 
 little groupes from a few of the contiguous house- 
 holds. I will say nothing now of pecuniary ad- 
 vances — whether in presents of books, or prizes, 
 or the payment of fees. One of the most pleas- 
 ing discoveries perhaps which awaits him, is to 
 find how marvellously little he need be called 
 upon for any sacrifice of this kind ; and what I 
 want you to understand, is the influence for good 
 that might be obtained by nothing more than a 
 series of cheap and easy attentions — involving the 
 occasional appearance of himself in the dwelling- 
 places, and occasional acts of converse and com- 
 panionship with the inmates. Let any man who 
 delights in doing good, and has a taste for the 
 cordialities of human intercourse, but embark in 
 the walk which I have now pointed out for him ; 
 and he will not miss, even of a present reward, in 
 the reciprocations of confidence and kindness 
 w^iich meet him on his path. But on this we 
 must not expatiate — else we shall provoke the in- 
 credulity of those hard and heartless utilitarians 
 who imagine that nothing can be true which is 
 beautiful, and that nothing can be beautiful which 
 is true. They will suspect us of dealing in fancy 
 pictures ; and, merely because they are realities 
 which are pleasing to look at, or admit of being 
 feelingly told — would they repudiate them as so 
 many glittering imaginations fit only for the poet's 
 pen — instead of being, what in plain earnest they 
 are, the realities of truth and soberness. 
 21 u 
 
18 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 6. In this question, the experimental is all on 
 our side ; and the ideal all on the side of our anta- 
 gonists. When they think of the plebeian swarms 
 who are huddled together in wretched tenements, 
 throughout the lanes and alleys, the dark and 
 dismal and putrid recesses of a large city, there is 
 the apprehension in their minds of something so 
 thoroughly outlandish, that they are positively 
 afraid of entering these unexplored habitations — 
 standing in the same terror of their inmates, that 
 they would of unknown animals. It was in 1822 
 that I made a round among the poorest houses 
 which we took at random in the parish of St Giles, 
 London, along with Mr Joseph Butterworth, of 
 llussel Square, who told me, that it was only a few 
 months before since they had made the discovery of 
 the movement being safe. We met the same recep- 
 tion that we should experience everywhere — one 
 of perfect civility, even though on our part we had 
 nothing more substantial than civility to offer — a 
 mere question respecting the state of their health, 
 the comfort of their houses, or the scholarship ^of 
 their children. Instead of ours being the imagina- 
 tions of poetry, theirs are the imaginations of fear 
 — the great difference in point of authority be- 
 wixt us being, that theirs are the fancies of men 
 ^vho keep at a distance; ours the findings of men 
 A\ ho have come close to the subject of contempla- 
 tion, and, on our repeated and personal encounter 
 therewith, tell what we have seen with our eyes 
 and heard with our ears. We affirm nothing so 
 fantastic or sentimental, as that our first appear- 
 ance is to operate like a spell on the affections of 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 19 
 
 the natives ; or with something like the instant 
 force of love at first sight, to bind us together by 
 an affinity of trusty and sworn companionship. 
 We speak not yet of their companionable virtues, 
 but of their companionable manners ; and that 
 what is kindly meant on our part, will be kindly 
 taken upon theirs. It is to the initial facilities 
 that we are now attending, by which the common 
 people encourage and open up a way for our future 
 household intercourse with themselves and their 
 families — leading to an acquaintanceship converti- 
 ble, if made to overspread the whole community, 
 into the best results, both on the economics and 
 the morals of the general population. In other 
 words, the barrier in the way of this hopeful and 
 beneficial interchange, does not lie in any unwill- 
 ingness or in aught that is ungainly and repulsive 
 on their part ; but in our own selfish indolence, 
 our own callous insensibility to the considerations 
 and the calls of Christian patriotism. And we 
 repeat, that, should the fearful crisis of a sweeping 
 and destructive anarchy be now awaiting us, it 
 will lie as much, we think culpably and inexcusably 
 more so, at the door of the higher as of the 
 lower orders in the commonwealth. 
 
 7. Having now said enough of the access which 
 there is to familiar converse with the common 
 people, and that in virtue of a welcome and will- 
 ingness from themselves — having we trust con- 
 vinced the reader that this is not a romance of 
 Arcadia, but a thing of as firm and home-bred 
 staple as any of the every-day occurrences in human 
 life— let us now, with all plainness and brevity. 
 
20 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 unfold our own views of the account to which this 
 intimacy, strengthening by every new visit to a 
 family, or every new movement through an ap- 
 pointed district of families, might be turned. We 
 suppose our philanthropist to have charged him- 
 self with a population of from two to three hundred, 
 or somewhere about fifty families; and we shall 
 now specify what a few of the various concerns 
 are, on which, with a very little personal trouble 
 and with almost no perceptible expense of time 
 or money he might prove of substantial use tc 
 them. 
 
 8. We have already instanced the topic of edu- 
 cation, as forming one of the most profitable occa- 
 sions for this sort of intercourse. It branches into 
 a great variety of distinct objects, all of which 
 might be advocated on the same principle ; and 
 which, with certain precautions to be explained 
 afterwards, might be presented without alloy, to 
 the unmingled good of the people among whom 
 you expatiate. We have already spoken of the 
 w^eek-day scholarship, both in reading and sewing, 
 which it were well to foster till the habit had be- 
 come universal. This applies chiefly to the young 
 — among whom I have recommended it as your 
 endeavour to promote a general school-going. 
 But there is another and higher scholarship appli- 
 cable to the men and women of all ages — where- 
 with even the secular philanthropist, who leaves 
 the higher department of spiritual usefulness to 
 others, might properly and beneficially charge 
 himself. We mean the scholarship of Christian 
 instruction ; and for the advancement of w hich. 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 21 
 
 he might at least do all that in him lies to promote 
 a habit of universal church-going. He will find 
 at the outset of his connexion with such a territory 
 as that in which we have placed him, that the 
 great majority of the people go nowhere ; and 
 should there be a preaching station or a new 
 church provided for their vicinity, he will find, 
 that the same influential suasion which told on the 
 attendance of the children at school, will not be 
 altogether inoperative when brought to bear on 
 the adult population, with a view to their Sabbath 
 attendance on the lessons of Christianity. It is 
 true that the subject of our present argument is on 
 the best and likeliest means for helping forward 
 the interest of the common people in things tem- 
 poral — the well-being of their present life. But 
 aware of the prodigious efficacy, even for these 
 secular objects, which lies in the operation of 
 moral causes — we should say of the functionary 
 who hath chosen this, the secular good of the 
 people, for his appropriate walk — that he is not 
 out of place, when he lends a helping hand, both 
 toward the erection of a church for the people of 
 his charge, and the forming of a congregation out 
 of their families. And on the same principle of 
 its being quite in character, that he should help 
 forward a church though he does not preach in it, 
 might he help forward a Sabbath-school though he 
 should not teach it. He might set the little insti- 
 tute agoing. He might provide the services of a 
 teacher. He might stimulate the attendance of the 
 young ; or even of the parents, should the readings 
 and the addresses promise to be of wholesome effect 
 
22 ON THE SUFFICIENCY CF 
 
 on their own consciences and the order of their house- 
 holds. And many are the nameless other services, 
 of object akin to education; and by which, through 
 the medium of books, he might raise the standard 
 of intelligence and worth throughout the families of 
 his vineyard. If he be not enough of an ecclesi- 
 astical functionary to press home the lessons of 
 the Bible on their hearts, he may at least see that 
 in every house there shall be a Bible. He may 
 circulate tracts, whether or not he should expound 
 and urge the subject of them. Nor is it necessary 
 that the humble literature in which he deals should 
 be all of a sacred character. He might, and by 
 the instrumentality of popular authorship, be most 
 usefully employed in adding to the resources and 
 enjoyments of the life that now is — as by means of 
 a district library, in which 1 should rejoice to find 
 works of household and cottage economy, w orks of 
 civil and natural history, works explanatory of the 
 various processes of artisanship, works of travel and 
 miscellaneous information purified of all that was fit- 
 ted to vitiate either the principles or the taste, even 
 works of science as far as it could be made palpa- 
 ble and that was fitted to enlarge and elevate the 
 plebeian understanding. An increasing demand 
 for such as these would afford the pleasing evidence 
 of an increasing sobriety — a substitution for the 
 concourse of evening parties in haunts of low and 
 sordid indulgence, of a better habitude among the 
 people — a growing taste for the rational and social 
 firesides of their now more virtuous and happier 
 homes. 
 
 9. We know not, we shall not say a more 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 23 
 
 proud, but a more pleasing triumph, or one that 
 gives truer delight to the feelings and well exer- 
 cised faculties of a benevolent mind, than v/hat 
 may be called the prosperous management of 
 human nature. We before spoke of a school for 
 sewing. A humble seminary of this sort might 
 be taught by one of the female householders, and 
 held in her own apartment. A most beautiful 
 supplement to this education, is that each scholar 
 in her turn should have the care and keeping of 
 this apartment, and with the special object that. 
 the home of h^r own parents should have the 
 benefit of those habits in respect of cleanliness and 
 good order which she had herself acquired. I had 
 this management introduced into little institutes of 
 my own within my city parish in Glasgow, and 
 with the effect of a great and visible improvement 
 in the interior of many of its plebeian habitations. 
 Now this is a service which if he but lay himself 
 out for it could be efficiently done by our visitor 
 of a district. He could take cognizance of every 
 such amelioration in the economy of his households, 
 and give it the encouragement of his applause. 
 His habitual calls might give rise to a habitual 
 preparation for receiving him ; and in this way 
 may he be the instrument of raising the taste and 
 comfort of the families. And whatever made for 
 the health as well as comfort of the inmates 
 might come most properly within the scope of his 
 benevolent consideration. By his influence with 
 landlords, or a little outlay on his own part, or the 
 aid and co-operation of a medical friend, he might 
 carry useful alterations into effect at the doors of 
 
24 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 the houses or in the tenements themselves — or by 
 some such signal service as helping on the drainage 
 of a street, or the removal of obstructions and 
 nuisances, may earn for himself throughout the 
 little vicinity the credit of a public benefactor. A 
 deal of substantive good might be done in this 
 way — which, as being the manifestation and evi- 
 dence of his undoubted good-will, will place him 
 on vantage-ground for a still higher good, and arm 
 his future persuasions with a moral force which in 
 many instances will prove irresistible. 
 
 10. What as yet we have mainly required of our 
 philanthropist is the sacrifice of his time and trouble 
 — for with one slight exception, that of a pecuniary 
 advance for the public health of his district, we 
 have not yet spoken of his liberalities in money. 
 Now then, it may be said, is the first time in which 
 this element makes its appearance ; and it may 
 perhaps awaken your surprise — it may seem to your 
 eyes like a reversal of the ordinary process — that 
 1 introduce it to your notice, not as passing from 
 the pocket of the visitor into the hands of the 
 people, but as passing in the opposite direction or 
 from the pockets of the people into the hands of 
 the visitor. It may not perhaps be the first thing 
 he does ; but the first thing we tell him to do, is not 
 to give, but to get from them — an advice which we 
 could offer fearlessly and unblushingly, even in the 
 poorest districts to which we have ever had access, 
 whether in town or country. We shall explain 
 afterwards wherein it is that the great healthful- 
 ness of our process lies ; but meanwhile we may 
 give a few instances, in which, while devising to 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 25 
 
 the best of our judgment for their good, we, in- 
 stead of lavishing upon them from our own means, 
 draw on the capabiUties of the people themselves. 
 We do so, when we exact a payment, it may be in 
 small monthly or weekly pittances, for their educa- 
 tion. We do so, when we collect at Sabbath- 
 schools for the expenses of the concern. We do 
 so when we seek their contributions in pennies or 
 halfpennies a-week for the formation and mainte- 
 nance of a library which we make their own. But 
 this is only teaching them to help themselves — a 
 most useful lesson however — though we need not 
 stop at this, for by right management, we shall 
 find in them an equal readiness, and not only a 
 prompt but productive liberality in helping others 
 also. For example, we can make an effective 
 appeal to them in behalf of missions, in behalf of 
 church or school extension, or any other of the 
 best and likeliest schemes of Christian philanthropy 
 which are now afloat in the world. We shall have 
 no difficulty in obtaining their consent to organize 
 an association amongst them, which, on the system 
 of small and frequent payments, will, from the 
 number of individual contributions, yield a far 
 larger amount than is generally counted on. Their 
 interest in these things could easily be kept up 
 and extended by monthly meetings, at which might 
 be read in their hearing all the information of chief 
 moment which comes out periodically ; and this, 
 of itself, is eminently fitted to beget a higher cast 
 of sentiment, and altogether to exalt the popular 
 intelligence — by supplying it with larger and loftier 
 contemplations than befoi*e. One mos^ precious 
 
26 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 effect of such arrangements is, that, instead of re- 
 cipients, the people become donors and dispensers 
 of charity — and that too in the highest of its walks 
 — an invaluable habit, not only as a moral barrier 
 against certain degeneracies, but as the guarantee 
 of other habits, in themselves the main ingredients 
 of plebeian virtue, and which powerfully subserve 
 the blessed result of a well-principled and well- 
 conditioned population.* 
 
 11. It may be felt that we are now going be- 
 yond the limits of a strict secular philanthropy ; 
 and, doubtless, such is the close alliance between 
 the moral and the economical — such the intimate 
 dependence which the comfort of a people has 
 upon their character — that we cannot bestow a 
 full entertainment on the one topic, without trench- 
 ing upon the other, and so as to establish a line 
 of continuity in our argument from things earthly 
 to things spiritual. Nevertheless, as there is a 
 real distinction between the two services — so is it of 
 great importance to the well-being of a people, 
 that, in their behalf they should be undertaken by 
 separate and distinct agents ; or, that in the ar- 
 rangements of a benevolent association, as of a 
 church devising for the whole good of the families 
 in a given neighbourhood — they should be vested 
 in distinct office-bearers. But this is a matter 
 which will fall to be adjusted afterwards ; and, 
 meanwhile, we can confidently aver of the philan- 
 thropist who limits himself to the services which we 
 
 * See the Influence of Parochial Associations, ^ 22-25, in 
 my volume of " Tracts and Essays," being \o\, XII. of the 
 
 series. 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 27 
 
 have now assigned for him, or who even acquits 
 himself well and in the spirit of kindness of greatly 
 fewer than these — that he will earn by it a mighty 
 influence for good over the people whom he has 
 thus selected as the objects of his care. They 
 will not look unmoved on these his labours of love. 
 It is not in nature that they should ; for there is a 
 spell and a sway in human kindness, if it but give 
 the unequivocal tokens of its reality, which even 
 the hardiest and most ungainly of our race feel to 
 be irresistible. This is a law which has been 
 mainly lost sight of in the innumerable projects of 
 our day for the amelioration of society — the sweet- 
 ening effect of mere acquaintanceship, though it 
 should amount to no more than courtesy, between 
 the men of higher and men of humbler rank in the 
 commonwealth ; and still more should it rise to 
 cordiality, when it will be found that there are a 
 moral action and reaction in the world of spirits, 
 which, like the reciprocities of the material system, 
 have been established by an all-wise Creator, to 
 maintain the harmony and stability of the whole. 
 
 12. But we were going to omit one of the best 
 services, at least of the secular class, which our 
 little community could possibly receive at the hands 
 of a benefactor — a service too in which money is 
 concerned — not yet however money passing from 
 tlie philanthropists to the people, but money be- 
 longing to the people and passing from them ^to 
 the keeping and care of philanthropists. We 
 mean the help and encouragement which should 
 be given to a habit of accumulation, and more 
 especially by providing for all its little proceeds a 
 
28 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 place of secure custody in a savings' bank. We 
 may afterwards state, though it must be in the 
 briefest possible manner, the effect of this habit, 
 should it become general, in elevating and that 
 permanently the condition of labourers, by its sure 
 iniSiuence on the wages of labour. Its moral bene- 
 fits, are palpable both as a counteractive to dissi- 
 pation and connected with the high qualities of 
 foresight sobriety and self-command -, and also as 
 begetting a sense of property, and so giving them 
 to feel a stake and an interest in the cause of 
 social order, in the peace and stability of the com- 
 monwealth — thereby providing for their good citi- 
 zenship, as well as for the respectability and com- 
 fort of their families. Certain it is that notwith- 
 standing the absolute amount of such deposits 
 over the whole empire, if one inquire piecemeal, 
 whether among workmen congregated in villages 
 or in the streets of our larger towns, he will find 
 that the habit is very far from general ; and can 
 only be made so by the attentions of the benevo- 
 lent being given piecemeal, each to his own separate 
 groupe of contiguous families. It were no difficult 
 achievement for each to make it general within 
 the limits of his own selected walk— and to spread 
 it from household to household, by making the 
 example of one neighbour tell in argument on the 
 practice of another. As it is, we have but rare 
 an(f scattered instances of such economy among 
 the common people. They have been too much 
 left to find their own way to these most useful 
 depositories for their humble savings. The district 
 visitor could bring the aggressive principle to bear 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 29 
 
 on the habit of repairing to a savings' bank, as well 
 as on the habit of attendance on schools or churches 
 — and we are sure with a tenfold greater result 
 than before, so as to make it nearly universal within 
 his own portion of the territory. 
 
 13. But let us now resume the consideration 
 of that in which after all the great power of our 
 philanthropist lies. There is immense material 
 benefit rendered to the people by the various ser- 
 vices which we have now specified; but these he 
 could not have done without their own co-opera- 
 tion, and this it had been impossible to carry 
 without a certain mastery over their affections. 
 He had no authority to force, save that moral 
 authority, which has gained for itself a willing 
 obedience, at once spontaneous and sure. It is 
 his good will which has earned for him their good 
 will. His attentions, the time and trouble which 
 he takes, are the simple expedients, by which he 
 gets his ascendancy over them. They indicate 
 his kind feeling toward themselves and their fami- 
 lies ; and herein lies the great secret of his power. 
 It may be difficult to explain, but easy to perceive, 
 how this power should become tenfold more effec- 
 tive, by the concentration of these various good 
 offices on the contiguous households of one and the 
 same locality. There is in it somewhat like the 
 strength of an epidemic influence, which spreads 
 by infection, and more amalgamates the people 
 both with him and with each other.* We wonder 
 
 * On ttie effect of this influence see the " Chrisliiin and Eco- 
 nomic Polity of a Nation," in Vol. I , p. 76, beini^- Vol. XIV. of 
 the series; and in my volnme on Church Extension, p. 50', be- 
 in-' Vol. XVIII. of the series. 
 
30 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 not that Lord Melbourne in one of his speeches 
 should have expressed such jealousy of these 
 household visitations — for though he misconceived 
 the object of them, as if it had been to poison the 
 inmates with a feeling of hostility to government, 
 he did not in the least overrate their power — the 
 power not by which a demagogue, whose element 
 is agitation, inflames the passions of a restless and 
 excited multitude whom he has lured from their 
 occupations and their homes, but the power of 
 Christian charity over human hearts ; and which if 
 once made to pervade, by the assumption of district 
 after district, the great bulk and body of a popula- 
 tion, would, in the privacies of domestic life, lay a 
 deep foundation of peace and righteousness, not to 
 be unsettled by those fiery spirits who now live by 
 the impostures which they practise on a deluded and 
 misled because a neglected commonalty — who are 
 an easy prey to the bad, only because the good have 
 not yet found their way to them. And it is in- 
 calculable by how little a sacrifice each may ac- 
 quire for himself a lordship for good, and the best 
 of all, because over the hearts of his own little 
 community. I will not tell him beforehand, but 
 leave him to the surprise of his own experience, 
 when he finds by how few hours in the w'cek, or 
 such odd half hours of the time as he may have at 
 his own disposal, he may obtain that mastery, which 
 will open a way for him to the fulfilment of all his 
 Welshes. The passing run even of a few minutes 
 among the households is not without its efficacy. 
 Let him ever and anon be making' presentation of 
 himself to the. same eyes; and he will be the talk 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 31 
 
 of people on the same stair — the object of a com- 
 mon reference and recognition among the inmates 
 of his own locality. And a common object does 
 beget a common sympathy. It is thus that the 
 same numerical amount of attentions and good 
 offices done to fifty families far apart from each 
 other does not tell with half the influence they 
 have, when discharged upon them in a state of 
 juxtaposition — concentrated, as it were, within the 
 limits of one and the same territory. It is mar- 
 vellous how soon at this rate he might become the 
 familiar of all, and even the friend, the intimate 
 and confidential friend of a few, and these the best 
 among the families of this little neighbourhood ; 
 and so it is that all the bland and beneficent in- 
 fluences of a village economy can be most easily 
 set up in the moral wilderness of a city, in the very 
 heart and deepest interior of a crowded metropolis. 
 14. What we most desiderate in an agent of 
 charity, is to have one with the taste and the in- 
 clinations of a thorough localist — one who rejoices 
 in a home-walk, and would like better that it should 
 be pervaded thoroughly, than that he should scat- 
 ter his regards among the thousand objects of a 
 wide and distant philanthropy. I would rather 
 that he restrained his ambition for what is great, 
 so as that he might give himself wholly to the little 
 which he can fully overtake. Better* do one 
 thing completely and well, than a hundred things 
 partially and superficially. It is not to the magni- 
 ficent survey of him, whose eyes like those of 
 Solomon's fool arc on all the ends of the earth, 
 that I would look for anv solid contribution to the 
 
3'i ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 amelioration of our species ; but to tiie humble 
 pains-taking of many single labourers, each giving 
 himself duteously and devotedly to his own man- 
 ageable sphere, and satisfied that he has not lived 
 in vain, if he have raised the tone of character, or 
 added to the comfort by rectifying and improving 
 the habits of fifty families. The result universal 
 is made up of many items, and can only be arrived 
 at by a summation of particulars. For the book 
 of philanthropy, like that of philosophy, is a book 
 of many pages ; and it is not to universalists that 
 we look for the completion of either, but to the 
 manifold assiduities of those, who, whether by 
 patient study on the one field or persevering action 
 on the other, each fill up a single leaf or a single 
 line of them. It is not by one great simultaneous 
 effort, that even a single city is to be overtaken ; 
 but by the piece-meal and successive efforts of 
 men engaged in the humbler but more practicable 
 task of making out one district after another, and 
 one parish after another — each labouring unseen 
 by the general eye on his own little domain ; but 
 where the want of eclat and magnitude is amply 
 repaired by the nearer approach which can be 
 made to the objects of our benevolence, and so the 
 more intense because the less divided affection — 
 like that which plays hi secret within the bosom of 
 families and homes. We read in the New Testa- 
 ment parables, that each possessor of so many 
 talents who turned them to full account was re 
 warded by the charge of as many cities. Certain 
 it is, as we have already said, that there is a de- 
 light, one of the best and purest we can enjoy, in 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 33 
 
 the prosperous management of human nature ; and 
 it looks as if this, one of the pleasures of the good 
 here, were followed up by a larger enjoyment of 
 the same in the realms of light and blessedness 
 hereafter. We know that there will be service 
 there.* And if they who turn others into righte- 
 ousness shall shine as the stars in the firmament, 
 we may guess from this their sightlier elevation, 
 that there will be superintendence there — as if the 
 little that was well done on earth were to be fol- 
 lowed up by larger powers and opportunities of 
 well-doing in that region on high where charity 
 never faileth.f 
 
 Section II On the Difficulties and Duties of 
 
 him who undertakes the office oj" Almoner to a 
 given Population. 
 
 1. Hitherto, and in our description of the good 
 offices which might be rendered to a people, when 
 we introduced the element of money, it was not of 
 money given to, but received from themselves — 
 either as contributors for their own behoof to a 
 savings' bank, or as the helpers in small and frequent 
 offerings of a charitable scheme. But the phi- 
 lanthropist when he becomes an almoner, reverses 
 this process. He gives, instead of takes ; an<l 
 one should like to know the duties, and as well 
 
 * Rev. xxii. 3. 
 f We liave spoken at greater lenicth on the sjeneral and masni- 
 ficent reMilt Iji'iiiij only to be obtained by tbe accumulation of 
 littles in our Cliristian and Economic Polity of a Nation, \o\. I., 
 or Vol, XIV. of the series, p. IO-2-I04. 
 
 21 
 
34 ON THE SUKFICIENCY OF 
 
 the difficulties attendant on his ministrations in 
 this capacity. 
 
 2. But first let me premise the obligation which 
 lies upon all, of giving according to their means — 
 either to relieve the want, or help forward in any 
 other way the well-being of their fellows. I^et 
 us speculate on plans of benevolence as we may, 
 benevolence itself will ever abide a stable cate- 
 gory in the ethical system, and maintain its own 
 place as the highest of the virtues. The great 
 use of wealth is to do good with it ; and though 
 in the spirit of a practical atheism we may call it 
 our own, every thought of the original fountain 
 whence it comes, of the Parent and the Governor 
 above who put it into our hands, should remind 
 us that it is not a property but a stewardship. It 
 is true that when compassion is given way to as a 
 heedless and headlong impulse, it often does mis- 
 chief. But to regulate is not to destroy ; and 
 when told that it is blessed to consider the poor, 
 we are not to interpret this into a call upon the 
 understanding to overbear the heart — but a call 
 to bethink ourselves, not how to do little — but 
 now to do the most, or how to do the best for 
 them. And it will sometimes turn out that the 
 best thing is to give, and with an unsparing hand — 
 when benevolence may take to itself a free and 
 full indulgence. In matters of philanthropy, it is 
 not the office of consideration to damp the bene- 
 volence, but of benevolence to prompt the consid- 
 eration. Some are jealous of all thought in the 
 business of charity, as if it savoured of the cold- 
 ness and rigidity of calculation ; but let us remind 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 35 
 
 them, that it is the part of the liberal man, not 
 only to do, but to devise liberal things — and that 
 in the very soul or actuating spirit of liberality 
 — not the spirit of that avarice which withholds, 
 but of that wisdom which can devise the way that 
 is most prolific of blessings to the poor — and which 
 rejoices therein, not because the least expensive, 
 but because the most effective method of well- 
 doing. His guiding principle, whatever may be 
 the aspect of his proceedings, or the interpreta- 
 tion put upon them, is not to give the least but to 
 do the most for the happiness of the species — and 
 it is thus, when performing his little rounds of 
 humanity in the sphere that we have imagined for 
 him, that he exemplifies in miniature the virtue of 
 his great master, who went about doing good con- 
 tinually. 
 
 3. We believe that the surest method of avoid- 
 ing all practical inconvenience in the conduct of 
 life, and most of all in the conduct of charity, is a 
 fearless committal of ourselves to the guidance, or 
 a compliance as literal as may be with the coun- 
 sels and commands of Scripture. That its moral- 
 ity is on the side of giving, and that too in the 
 spirit of a most liberal and unsparing generosity, 
 is a lesson which stands forth upon its pages in clear 
 and uneffaceable characters, for the admonition of 
 all ages — not to be explained away by the pre- 
 tended discoveries of any science ; and, in parti- 
 cular, not to be overborne or froze into utter 
 heartlessness by the demonstrations and maxims of 
 political economy. Let us in particular take the 
 Bible for our directorv in the matter of alms- 
 
36 ON THE SUFJC'ICIENCY OP 
 
 giving, with all the terms and qualifications which 
 it annexes to the precept, and with all the light 
 thrown upon it by the examples and other precepts 
 of the sacred volume. More especially, let us 
 not forget the secrecy wherewith it tells that our 
 alms should be performed — not with the sound of 
 a trumpet — not to be seen of men; but that our 
 left hand should not know what our right hand 
 doeth, or they on our left should not know what 
 we are doing to those on our right. Now all this 
 is violated, or at least virtually disregarded by him 
 who goes forth on his district, the territory of his 
 benevolent operations, in the ostensible capacity 
 of an almoner. He may acquit himself as such, 
 without showing himself as such — that is, be a 
 giver of alms to such needy as he meets on his 
 progress through the families of his charge, with- 
 out its being known beyond their dwelling-places, 
 without if possible its being anywhere guessed at 
 throughout the main body and bulk of his popu- 
 lation. On the principle of a readiness unto all 
 good works, he may act incidentally as an almoner 
 with the few who require or would be the better 
 of such a ministration. But this need not be the 
 general and far less the avowed character in which 
 he appears amongst them. His moving principle 
 we have all along supposed to be, the doing of 
 that which is best for the good of his fellows — that 
 ni particular which is most for the real happi- 
 ness and well-being of the little community within 
 v/hich he expatiates. At this rate, he is not called 
 upon to stand forth in the genefal aspect of an 
 almoner, but rather iu the general aspect of a 
 
THE farocihal system. 37 
 
 friend — and so coming under the notice and recog- 
 nition of the families, at one time in the character 
 of an educationist who has to do with schools, at 
 another as an economist who has to do with popu- 
 lar banks, at a third of a moral or even medical 
 overseer who concerns himself with the health and 
 habits of the people. These are doings out of 
 doors, and in v/hich he cannot avoid being seen of 
 men ; but alms like prayers should be done in 
 secret, when doors are shut, and the two or three 
 who are met together are only seen by their 
 Father who is in heaven. 
 
 4. As there is a present reward in the keeping 
 of the commandments, so often is there a present 
 chastisement in the breaking of them ; and never 
 is this more strikingly exemplified, than when the 
 law of secrecy in our alms is violated. Our phi- 
 lanthropist would be making a most injudicious 
 outset, did he go forth on the field of his opera- 
 tions in the avowed or generally known capacity 
 of a dispenser of money. We are not inquiring 
 whether it be in the spirit of ostentation, or from 
 the imprudent neglect of certain precautions for 
 the concealment of his benevolence, that he should 
 have become a recognised almoner among the 
 families. We are but reasoning on the conse- 
 quence ; and feel assured that if this be their gene- 
 ral understanding, it will give an altogether dif- 
 ferent result to his progress, and land him in diffi- 
 culties which he will soon find to be inextricable. 
 When once the secret of his liberalities breaks out, 
 it will lead to a sudden expansion throughout his 
 district, of a desire or an expectation to share in 
 
38 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 them ; and many are the families who should have 
 welcomed his visits on any of the errands which 
 we have already specified, and never once ob- 
 truded their necessities upon him, who, on this 
 new errand of relief for indigence, will become the 
 keen competitors for his bounty. It would have 
 been altogether different, had he gone forth in 
 another character, or given forth to the people 
 another understanding of his object — as, for ex- 
 ample, that his main design was to promote the 
 education of their children, or their own Christian 
 good, or the health and cleanliness of their con- 
 fined and perhaps overcrowded streets, or the in- 
 ternal comfort and right order of their own spe- 
 cial domiciles, or the accumulation of their little 
 savings in a provident bank ; or, lastly, to receive 
 at their hands their own little contributions to 
 some scheme of usefulness whether in the cause of 
 religion or humanity. Did he but restrict him- 
 self at least visibly and avowedly to some one or 
 other of these objects, or rather did he charge 
 himself with them all put together, he might have 
 sped satisfactorily with every one of them, and 
 had the gratification of seeing that each of these 
 benevolent designs prospered and made' distinct 
 progress under him. We do not say, that no 
 poverty, whether real or pretended, would ever 
 cross his path. Among his fifty families, there 
 might be applications from some two or three per 
 cent, of his whole number — landing him in a far 
 more manageable task truly, than as if by open 
 proclamation he had summoned one-third or half 
 around him to make their endless draughts upon 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 39 
 
 his liberality. lie has himself to blame for the 
 consequent difficulties which will surely come 
 upon him, and the heartless discouraging em- 
 barrassments which will multiply around him, and 
 will probably overset his experiment altogether. 
 It is he, not the people, who is responsible for all 
 the clamour and confusion which now beset his 
 person, and perhaps lay daily and regular siege 
 to his dwelling-place. It was he who by his 
 trumpet-call, or money-giving errand made as 
 patent to every eye by the whole style of his pro- 
 ceedings as if it had been placarded upon his fore- 
 head, who first set their rapacity agoing; and 
 which may in all probability grow into such 
 strength, and rise in such a flood upon him as to 
 drive him from the field. It is he and not they 
 who should be reckoned with, for the irrepressible 
 host of sordid and mercenary expectations, now 
 sure to be lighted up by every movement which 
 he makes amongst them. Instead of calling it 
 their fault, I would call it a most natural reaction 
 on his own folly. 
 
 5. We utterly mistake the common people, and 
 are led to think of them most ungenerously, just 
 from the absurd way in which we ourselves deal 
 with them. Let any man place himself in a con- 
 spicuous station on a street or on a highway, and 
 thence scatter money for half an hour among the 
 passengers — we are not to wonder, though in a 
 few minutes many hundreds should throng around 
 him, and join in the scramble or uproar which he 
 has himself created. And the very same exhibi- 
 tion will be made of our nature, should a district 
 
40 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 visitor virtually though not directly or literally 
 announce himself as a scatterer — whether of money, 
 or of things purchased by money, among the habi- 
 tations. There are many ways in which the in- 
 telligence can be given ; and if once given it will 
 soon spread. A distribution of coals will do it — 
 laid down in visible deposits, by carts or half-carts, 
 here and there at the doors of certain selected 
 householders. Or a general parting of old clothes 
 will do it — made up of cast-ofF suits from the bene- 
 volent in all parts of the town, and piled together 
 in some well-known rendezvous for one of its 
 destitute parishes. Or the notification sometimes 
 made from a shop window will do it — of ladies' 
 work taken in here, and hence given forth in 
 behalf of the poor. Or the local missionary will 
 do it, whom some wealthy philanthropist be it 
 male or female has intrusted with money for any 
 necessitous he might meet with in his rounds, and 
 who for the credit of his employers lets out the 
 secret of their liberality. We are not to marvel, 
 if, in the train of such indiscretions, there should 
 ensue among the people a general restlessness — 
 an appetency and demand which never would have 
 arisen spontaneously from among themselves, and 
 which owe all their urgency to the cause ab extra 
 that has excited them — a disturbing force that has 
 unsettled many of the families, who, now agog 
 from their wonted quiescence, are plying such 
 claims and applications for relief, as otherwise 
 they never should have dreamed of. It is not to 
 be told how much this new element, of agitation 
 it may well be called, is fitted to embarrass the 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 41 
 
 operations of the philanthropist. In all the other 
 ways of well-doing which we have ventured to pre- 
 scribe for him, he could have made satisfactory 
 progress — progress in the number of deposits made 
 to his savings' bank — progress in the number of 
 juvenile attendants upon his schools — progress in 
 the number of contributors to his benevolent 
 associations and the yearly amount of their offer- 
 ings- -progress in the style and keeping of their 
 dress and houses and furniture; and as the gene- 
 ral result of the whole, even though not one 
 farthing had been bestowed on indigence, a more 
 plentiful enjoyment among the families than here- 
 tofore of the comforts and necessaries of life. If 
 such a result have never been known to arise from 
 the operations of the mere money-giver — if he have 
 taken a district in hand, and is mortified to find, 
 that, with all his liberalities, he has utterly failed 
 to spread over it the face of a larger sufficiency 
 or contentment than before — if envy and ingrati- 
 tude and clamour and rapacity insatiable, be all 
 the returns he has met with, and without any 
 sensible abatement of the raggedness and filth 
 and other symptoms of penury which first lured 
 him to this enterprise — then let him be made to 
 understand, that, for the purpose of doing ought 
 like substantial or permanent good, something 
 more is necessary than to compassionate the poor, 
 he must also consider them ; and let him learn at 
 length that thpre is indeed a more excellent way 
 of charity, than that to which his own headlong 
 sensibilities liave impelled him. 
 
 6. But we were speaking in vindication of the 
 
42 ON TH2 SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 common people, and to the higher points of their 
 character if they were but rightly dealt with. 
 The envy, the ingratitude, the clamour of which 
 we have just made mention are not so chargeable 
 on them, as on the unwise friends who have done 
 all they could to tempt and to evoke the worst 
 feelings or phases of our nature. Another treat- 
 ment would have called forth another and finer 
 exhibition of those whom, distinctively and not 
 disparagingly, we designate the lower orders — by 
 which we assuredly mean nothing else than that 
 they are of humbler condition, or that Providence 
 has assigned to them an inferior place in the scale 
 of income or society to ourselves. They are 
 fully our equals in all the essential characteristics 
 of humanity ; and more especially, on the subject 
 of their wants, may we often observe a high-toned 
 delicacy for which they do not receive the credit 
 that rightfully belongs to them. It all depends on 
 the style of our approach, or the character in 
 which we hold converse with them. If we do not, 
 by our offers and inquiries, obtrude the topic of 
 their necessities upon them — the household visitor 
 will be astonished to find how seldom, or in how 
 small a number of cases, they will obtrude the 
 topic upon us. If we on entering into talk with 
 them, but place ourselves on the level of that 
 equal and reciprocal courtesy which should pass 
 between man and man, they will not often, not 
 generally, step beneath that level, by descending 
 to the attitude of a supplicant for our bounty. 
 Most sensible we are, that we"" are not speaking 
 the experience of a distributor or agent for an 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 43 
 
 almsgiving society — whether it be in the shape of 
 money or fuel or soup or clothing. But we 
 speak the experience of those who go forth on 
 other and we will say higher grounds than those of 
 common-place charity — some of which we have al- 
 ready specified, though for the most full and decisive 
 verification of what we now affirm respecting the 
 common people, we should look most of all to the 
 experience of him who goes forth among them on 
 the best and highest of all errands, orin the capacity 
 of a religionist, and who at the *^ame time has the 
 good sense not to mix up the two ministrations — 
 that on the one hand for their temporal, and that 
 on the other for their spiritual necessities. If 
 there be one topic more than another which puts 
 the distinctions of rank out of view, and places 
 high and low on the s-^me even platform, it is that 
 Christianity which tells of the common guilt and 
 the common salvation, of the death which awaits 
 all, and the glorious immortality alike held forth 
 in the gospel for the acceptance of all. The man, 
 who, intent on the souls of the people, plies them 
 with arguments such as these, is upon high vantage- 
 ground for testing the position that we now seek 
 to establish. So long as they mistake him for an 
 almoner, and if they have been much tampered 
 with beforehand l)y ill-timed or uncalled for appli- 
 ances, it is not in nature but that he will hear of 
 their necessities^and more especially, if they 
 have the imagination, either of his own unbounded 
 wealth, or, which were still more fitted to excite 
 their appetency, if they conceived, that, without a 
 personal sacrifice on his part, he could give inde- 
 
44 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 finitely to them, because he could draw indefinitely 
 on the wealth and liberality of employers whose 
 agent he was. But once that this under- 
 standing is dissipated, he will be in fair circum- 
 stances for verifying the truth of our principle ; 
 and it will astonish him to find, the almost instant 
 subsidency of those hints and importunities which 
 assailed the outset of his path. The truth is, that 
 he who speaks religion to them, lets himself down 
 to their own level, or rather brings them up to his 
 — where they meet on the equal footing of the 
 same hopes, the same liabilities, the same inte- 
 rests, as fellow-travellers to the same inheritance 
 beyond the grave, and with the high preferments 
 of eternity alike open to them. When two parties 
 thus come together on the ground of their com- 
 mon humanity, neither will make the voluntary 
 descent which is implied in the act of becoming a 
 petitioner or dependant upon the other. The 
 influence of which we now speak might perhaps 
 appear of too shadowy or ethereal a character for 
 the mere statist ; and certain it is, that it does not 
 admit of being expressed in arithmetic, or in that 
 form of numerical registration, which he most 
 relishes, and by which the results of experience 
 become most palpable to his understanding. It 
 is a matter of plain reality notwithstanding, and 
 for this we could make a confident appeal to all 
 who have made full trial of it. Let any friend 
 of the common people go forth on the errand of 
 Christianizing them, and even with the disadvan- 
 tage of a reputed affluence, \e\ him but keep by 
 his topic, and urge on them the consideration of 
 
THE PAHOCHIAL SYSTEM. 45 
 
 their spiritual wants ; and but for his own mis- 
 management, what we affirm is, that seldom or 
 never will they in return urge upon him the con- 
 sideration of their temporal wants, back again. 
 For example, we would ask Lord lloden, whether 
 he was exposed to any ungenerous reaction of this 
 sort, in virtue of the Sabbath morning addresses 
 which he was in the habit of delivering to an as- 
 sembled peasantry ? And Mr Cuninghame of 
 Lainshaw, if the sabbath-school which he insti- 
 tuted and himself taught in the populous village 
 at his door, laid him open, though lord of the 
 manor, to that host of applications for the relief 
 of their temporal wants which his appearance 
 amongst them in another character would infallibly 
 have called forth, and to which his simple juxta- 
 position had before exposed him ? We know what 
 their delightful experience was, and it taUied fully 
 with my own. On my first movements through 
 the poorest parish in Glasgow, I was thronged by 
 urgencies innumerable, because of my official con- 
 nexion with the secular charities of the place, and 
 which did invest me with the character of an 
 almoner in the eyes of the general population. It 
 was a connexion therefore, which, when I had 
 nude the discovery, I resolved to abandon ; and 
 I will not forget the instant effect of this proceed- 
 ing when it came to be understood — the complete 
 exemption which it gave me from the claims and 
 competitions of a whole host of aspirants, who 
 crowded around me for a share in the dispensations 
 of some one or other benevolent trustor endowment 
 of other days ; and yet the cordial welcomes I 
 
46' ON THE SUFFlCfENCY OF 
 
 continued to meet with, when after 1 had shaken 
 loose of all these, 1 was received and recognised by 
 the people on the simple footing of their Christian 
 friend, who took cognizance of their souls, and 
 gave himself chiefly to do with the scholarship of 
 tlieir young and the religious state of their sick 
 and their aged and their dying. This was an 
 experience which impressed me with the profound 
 wisdom of the saying, " Who made me a judge 
 and a divider over you ?" and let me add with a 
 profound respect for the delicacy and correct feel- 
 ing of the common people. And this will be found 
 even on lower walks of philanthropy, than pro- 
 fessionally and by office belongs to a clergyman. 
 The mere economist who busies himself with but 
 the matters of secondary improvement or comfort, 
 will find an open field in any aggregate of plebeian 
 households, for the accomplishment of all that his 
 heart is set upon ; and, if he go rightly about it, 
 without any of those distractions or perplexities 
 which annoy the path, and are sure at length to 
 upset the enterprise of a mere almoner, who, if 
 he will treat the people as paupers, must not be 
 surprised at the noise and confusion and often 
 the outcries both of unreasonable demand and as 
 unreasonable disappointment which they have 
 brought about his ears.* 
 
 7. But are there not cases of real necessity, 
 which, without the utmost hardihood, even cruelty, 
 it were impossible to pass by ? Because there is 
 much of counterfeit, is there no actual distress ? 
 
 * Cliristian iin'l Economic Polity of a Niition, Vol. I. p 273, 
 416, being Vol. XIV. of the Series. 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 47 
 
 When we read the denunciations of Scripture upon 
 the one hand on those who shut up their bowels 
 of compassion against the needy, and on the other 
 are certified by the same Scripture that the poor 
 shall never cease out of the land — are we, in the 
 face of these authoritative testimonies, are we to 
 give forth an interdict, not on the virtue of bene- 
 volence, but on that special modification of it, the. 
 virtue of almsgiving? And does not the Bible 
 expressly tell us, to give to him that asketh, to 
 give even to the evil and the unthankful — nay, 
 most specific of all, to give alms of such things 
 as w'e have ? We are aware that to enjoin secret 
 almsgiving is not to proscribe all almsgiving, and 
 we accept of this qualification ; but there is such 
 an aspect of cold-bloodedness in the whole specu- 
 lation of these foes to public charity, that we should 
 like a distinct statement from themselves of what 
 that is which we owe to humanity, when a case of 
 distinct undeniable sutFering and want comes in 
 authentic exhibition before us. 
 
 8. There should be no blinking of this question; 
 and it were the symptom of a weak or a worthless 
 cause, did we seek to evade it. We desire no ex- 
 emption for our philanthropist from any of those 
 moral obligations, which, whether morally or 
 Christianly, are alike binding upon all ; and all we 
 claim for him is the privilege of ascertaining the 
 real state of every applicant, who lays the case of 
 his necessities before him. It is surely no unfair 
 demand that when one man places himself in the 
 relation of a supplicant to another, that other 
 should be entitled to place himself in the relation 
 
48 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 of an inquisitor over him ; and when we make use 
 of this term, we do not mean that the inquiry 
 should be conducted with harshness or insolence, 
 for, on the principle of rendering honour to all 
 men, it ought to be conducted with the most per- 
 fect kindness and courteousness and delicacy. All 
 that we insist for is, that he who seeks of another's 
 bounty, shall also submit to another's scrutiny. 
 In the denunciation just quoted upon him who 
 steels himself against a brother's imploring cry, 
 it is presupposed that he knows the cry to be a 
 true one — " If he seeth his brother have need." 
 Give him then a sight of the necessity, that he 
 may know what he is doing ; and when once it is 
 made to stand unquestionably and unequivocally 
 before him, it were a violence to every principle 
 whether of humanity or religion, should we deny, 
 that if he indeed have of this world's good, it is 
 his duty, his clearly imperative and incumbent 
 duty, not to stifle the impulses of compassion, but 
 freely and fully to give way to them — to clothe the 
 naked, and feed the hungry, and provide accom- 
 modation for the houseless and homeless wanderer. 
 9. It may be thought that by these concessions, 
 we beset our philanthropist, that is our district visi- 
 tor, with difliculties inextricable ; but in truth we 
 have placed him on firm and high vantage-ground. 
 He of all the adventurers in charity is in circum- 
 stances for knowing best what he is doing; and 
 thereby escapes the discomfort of those, who, in 
 almost every application that is made to them, are 
 exposed to the necessity of giving in the dark. In- 
 stead of lying open to the solicitations whether of 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 49 
 
 real or pretended poverty, from all points of the 
 compass and at all distances, he has assumed a de- 
 finite and manageable field of observation, and can 
 make himself daily more familiar with the habits and 
 condition of the families who occupy his own home- 
 walk— approximating almost to certainty regarding 
 the etfect of his operations — either as to the risk 
 of evil, or the real good that might be done by 
 them. Surely he who gives of his own substance, 
 of that which belongs to himself, has at least the 
 right of knowing what he is about ; and it is by 
 becoming the cultivator of a district, and making 
 it his chief and special charity to be the benefactor 
 of its families, that he takes the best way of mak- 
 ing it good. Once let him be possessed of their 
 confidence and good will, which he may soon 
 acquire, and he will be at no loss for the guidance 
 of his proceedings, on every tale of distress which 
 he may be called upon to aid or to sympathise 
 with. All we ask for him is that he shall have 
 time to verify before that he shall be expected to 
 relieve it. And he has means and opportunities 
 without which the mere general philanthropist finds 
 himself altogether helpless. He can inquire at 
 the mouth of the most respectable next-door neigh- 
 bours whose favour even whose friendship we 
 might well suppose that he has already gained, 
 and who would be as much scandalized as himself 
 by an expenditure of that money on imposture and 
 worthlessness which should be reserved for the alle- 
 viation of genuine distress. It is thus that in each 
 instance of application from his district he can ob- 
 tain a full and intelligent view of the case ; and 
 21 D 
 
50 ON THE SUFFICIENCY Of 
 
 should he authenticate it as a case of real unequi- 
 vocal necessity, still more if merit and misfortune 
 stand conjoined in the same individual or the same 
 family — we would divest him of neither the feel- 
 ings of a man nor the duties of a Christian — it will 
 be at once his obligation and his pleasure to be 
 liberal up to his power, to give according to the 
 ability which God hath given him. 
 
 10. We should hope that this our household 
 visitor is a Bible Christian, and if so he must be 
 willing to distribute, ready to communicate. Yet 
 to be the agent of substantial and enduring good 
 among his people, he must not be hurried into acts 
 of almsgiving, but have the privilege first of a 
 searching scrutiny into the state of every asker, 
 and then of a full consideration of what is best as 
 well for his moral as his economic well-being. 
 We have already said that if he avoid the error of 
 going forth at the outset as a professed almoner, 
 he will be exposed to vastly fewer applications, 
 than if he made this the known errand of his 
 search and entry into the habitations. And as a 
 further experience he will have fewer still, if it be 
 his determined habit to follow up each application 
 by the inquiries which we now recommend to him. 
 This will be the fruit of his nearer inspection, and 
 growing acquaintance with the real circumstances 
 of the people. His first impressions of their 
 helpless and hopeless indigence will be greatly 
 reduced by it. Let him fearlessly enter on the 
 task — in the steadfast prosecution of it, let him 
 face all its difficulties and imaginary dangers — let 
 him not blink a single application or hide himself 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 51 
 
 from his own flesh, but from hhn that would either 
 ask. or borrow, let him not turn away — And the 
 exaggerations, whether of a vice or a misery irreme- 
 diable, which haunted his outset, will soon be dissi- 
 pated. He will be astonished to find, as the effect 
 of a proper wisdom and wariness on his part, that 
 one or two simple and manageable cases are all which 
 are left to him. Indeed one of the greatest beauties 
 and benefits of this district system is, that it gives 
 such advantage for a thorough discrimination ; and 
 so, while it reUeves from the counterfeit, it enables 
 one more and more to concentrate his attentions on 
 the actual and the deserving poor — in beneficence 
 to whom, there is enjoyment of the highest sort, 
 the happiness and exquisite luxury of doing good. 
 And, beside the enjoyment, we promise that he 
 will be astonished at the lightness and facility of 
 his task — so as at the end of the year, and after 
 having rightly acquitted himself among two or 
 three hundred human beings, and that in the most 
 unlikely and outlandish territory which he chooses 
 to select, he will realize in the little history of his 
 proceedings Hannah More's exclamation — " O 
 how cheap is charity, O how expensive is vanity." 
 II. And it follows not, even though, as the 
 fruit of a previous discretion, his task as an almoner 
 should have been reduced to the needful supply 
 of one or two families — it follows not that the 
 whole burden of these should fall upon himself. It 
 is his duty, as their friend and consulting for their 
 best interest, to point out the other resources ou 
 which they should draw, apart from and if possible an- 
 terior to his own liberality — as, first and foremost, 
 
52 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 to stimulate their own industry, or suggest how 
 they might abridge their own expenditure — thus 
 teaching them how far they can help themselves ; 
 and secondly, if this be insufficient, to seek alter 
 their relatives, and with all proper delicacy on the 
 )ne hand yet frankness and fidelity on the other 
 recommend the case to them — telling them how 
 right it is that one should help those of his own 
 kindred ; and thirdly, if there be a shortness and 
 insufficiency still, and so as yet to exceed either 
 the means or inclination of our visitor fully to pro- 
 vide for, to seek for aid in this work of charity 
 from the benevolence of neighbours, and specially 
 from those whose confidence he has won, and whose 
 moral weight in their own little vicinity might secure 
 a general approval and willing co-operation for all 
 his views. By these few and simple expedients, he 
 v/ill achieve, and that chiefly from the home capa- 
 bilities and resources of his own little territory, 
 a conquest over all the difficulties of its right and 
 prosperous management. So soon as he has en- 
 listed on his side the kind regard of its families, and 
 earned the credit of being their friend, the experi- 
 ment is carried. There is not a case of distress 
 or helplessness that he will find too much for him. 
 Should he offer to head a little subscription for 
 any casualty that might have occurred within his 
 borders, it needs but the nearness and so the known 
 certainty of the event to obtain a large concurrence 
 throughout his population both of sympathies and 
 substantial offerings ; and should it be a case of 
 recognised merit, as well as signal misfortune, 
 should he be a reputable and well-liked neighbour 
 
THE PAROCIHAL SYSTEM. 53 
 
 whom some visitation of calamity has befallen, the 
 impulse could easily be given by which through the 
 medium of a universal feeling to provide for the 
 calamity and even to overpass it. It is thus that 
 even though not able of his own means to relieve a 
 tithe of the necessities in his district, there are both 
 able and willing helpers within its limits by whose 
 aid he will succeed in overtaking them. Their num- 
 ber makes up for the smallness of their individual 
 offerings — by which I mean, not merely the formal 
 contributions which are sometimes made in money, 
 but the nameless daily unreckoned supplies of 
 food and service which pass and repass between 
 next-door neighbours by an internal process of 
 charity among themselves. The amount no doubt 
 is incalculable of these little unseen gifts and 
 liberalities ; but, as the fruit of very general ob- 
 servation, we can with all confidence affirm that it 
 is incalculably great. It of course varies with 
 the popularity of the individual sufferer, or in right 
 proportion to the estimation in which he is held by 
 the vigilant and sharp-sighted observers who are 
 immediately around him — of those who have known 
 him perhaps intimately and long, and are therefore 
 capable of a far more wholesome and effectual sur- 
 veillance, than can possibly be exercised by the 
 paid inspectors of a poor's house. The degree of 
 this spontaneous charity, kept up among the con- 
 tiguous householders of every neighbourhood, may 
 be regarded as a test of the reality of that distress 
 which calls it forth, — a charity to which belongs 
 the invaluable property of suiting itself, as if by a 
 sort, of self-regulating power, at once to the wants 
 
54 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 and the merits of its object. Under its efficient 
 guardianship, and more especially in a district 
 organized as we would have it, there is the moral 
 certainty that none would be left to starve,* and 
 all would experience as the day came that the pro- 
 vision of the day came along with it. 
 
 12. Such is our confidence in these various ex- 
 pedients of anticipation as they may be termed, 
 that we should deem it no marvellous achievement, 
 if, in any aggregate of human beings in any town 
 of Scotland, the formal allowances of public charity 
 were in virtue of their operation, wholly super- 
 seded. And it marks at least our own sense of 
 the internal capabilities which are to be found 
 within the limits of such a district, that we should 
 feel surer of a prosperous result were it in the 
 hands of an intelligent pious and well-principlod 
 overseer, conversant in the habitudes of the work- 
 ing classes and himself scarcely if at all elevated 
 above them — than if it were in the hands of one 
 known to be wealthy, and so far removed from the 
 common people, as to be without the experience 
 either of their wants or their ways. For the pur- 
 pose of bringing the people into a right economic 
 condition, we should rather that the management 
 of the former than that the opulence of the latter 
 were brought to bear upon them. It was our own 
 experience in the poorest and most populous parish 
 of Glasgow, that the applications for public relief 
 were fewer from sections under the superinten- 
 dence of a clerk or even a mechanic, than from 
 
 * Christian iind Economic Polity of a Nation, Vol. I. p. 409, 
 bein^ the \1V. of the series. 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 55 
 
 some that were under the superintendence of an 
 affluent and prosperous citizen — the former inter- 
 cepting such appUcations by finding a way to those 
 internal and surely better resources which he 
 knew how to draw upon, the latter finding it easier 
 to meet the alleged necessity by liberalities of his 
 own. It was instructive to observe that the public 
 or sessional fund was not the better but the worse 
 of such liberality — being exposed thereby to the 
 demands of that still unsatiated rapacity which 
 itself had excited and set agoing, and which but 
 for it had never been called forth. Yet we should 
 be unwilling to dissociate the rich from these un- 
 dertakings, from such works and labours of love 
 as we have now been specifying. There is a right 
 style of management by which even they might 
 neutralize the evil which often springs from the 
 imagination of their unbounded affluence. In the 
 first place it is the more special duty of a visitor 
 in this condition of life, when he does give, to give 
 in secret. But in the second place, it were well 
 to let the object of his bounty know that what he 
 does give is at his own expense, therefore with a 
 personal sacrifice on his part, and not as the agent 
 of a society or an almoner for others. They 
 utterly misconceive the poor, who do not under- 
 stand how this simple revelation should call forth 
 a delicacy on their part, which operates as a check 
 on their else indefinite demands and expectations. 
 And there are other and most legitimate expedients 
 by which still further to strengthen this barrier of 
 protection against that rapacity, which, whetted 
 by every new success that its extortions meet with, 
 
56 ON THE SUFFICIENCY Of 
 
 is never satiated. He should tell them frankly 
 and fearlessly both of their duty and of his own — 
 and that it is as much their part to be moderate 
 in their demands, as it is his to be liberal in his 
 dispensations of charity. He should lecture them 
 well on the virtue of not being burdensome to 
 others ; and not be sparing of his most serious 
 remonstrances, when he comes to observe that 
 they have been practising on the simplicity of the 
 benevolent, that they have been making a trade of 
 their alleged poverty, and that the ill-gotten 
 money thus obtained by them they have spent 
 worthlessly or even carelessly. Let them know 
 that you will not by your heedless and indiscrimi- 
 nate giving counteract the wholesome discipline of 
 nature ; and that if they will persist in being lazy 
 epicures or irreclaimable drunkards, they must 
 just be left to the fruit of their own ways, or to 
 feel the weight of those chastisements which both 
 indolence and dissipation are sure to meet with, 
 and rightly, at the school of experience. Proclaim 
 in their hearing, that while you wish yours to be a 
 beneficent, you wish still more anxiously that it 
 should be a moral administration ; and that seeing 
 the great use of money is to do good with it, it 
 shall be one of your prime concerns, that you 
 shan't do evil with it, by ministering to the vicious 
 habits or propensities of those whose part it 
 is, ere they draw on the help of others, to 
 strive how much they can help themselves by do- 
 ing their uttermost to labour diligently and live 
 soberly. They know nothing at^all of the com- 
 mon people, who think that they will not bear to 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 57 
 
 be told of these things ; nay, that they do not look 
 approvingly on, when they see one of their sup» 
 pliant but rather ill-doing neiglibours thus treated 
 by the visitor of their district vt'ith the freedom and 
 fidelity of an honest friend. The man who deals 
 in this peculiar, but certainly most rational and 
 healthful style of philanthropy, is sure to carry in 
 full the popular conscience and sense of right along 
 with him ; and there is one way in which he might 
 earn golden opinions, even from those whose ap- 
 plications he may feel it his duty to set aside. He 
 might crave their indulgence. He might repre- 
 sent the other and more urgent demands upon 
 him. He might state what the objects of general 
 utility are which he should like to provide for, and 
 what the cases which are greatly more helpless 
 and destitute than their own. He might point to 
 a poorer family beside them, with its dumb or 
 deranged or otherwise impotent and disabled chil- 
 dren ; and make it palpable, that the less they 
 draw upon him, the more will he have to bestow 
 on the children of a still heavier misfortune than 
 themselves — and so, that by their forbearance, in- 
 steadj^ of dependents upon charity, they become 
 fellow-helpers in its cause,* — noble-hearted contri- 
 butors for the relief of a poverty more abject and 
 pitiable than any which has yet visited their own 
 habitations. Such an appeal he will have the hap- 
 piness of finding to be often irresistible ; and that 
 many under the force of it will not only forego 
 their own complaints and claims upon his liberality, 
 but even in the shape of positive otFerings out of 
 
 * S«e a Sermon on Cliaiily in Vol. XI. nf rny series, at p. -119. 
 
58 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 their own scanty means will evince a willingness 
 to be his auxiliaries in the cause of humanity, in- 
 stead of being drawbacks or obstacles in his way. 
 There is no saying how far this principle of most 
 beautiful as well as beneficent operation could be 
 carried downward. We are sure it could be car- 
 ried so far as not only to arrest the tide but .to 
 turn it — and so as to get more from the people of 
 our district for the purposes of benevolence, than 
 we should be called upon to give for the relief of 
 all the indigence that is within its borders. 
 
 13. It is of the utmostpractical importance, how- 
 ever — essential indeed to the maintenance of his 
 ascendancy for good amongst them — that our phi- 
 lanthropist should stand accredited for consistency 
 and truth of character in the eyes of his popula 
 tion ; and that, for this purpose, he should make 
 full and satisfying acquittal of his Christianity in 
 the midst of them. More particularly, if he want 
 to preserve that moral weight, and that hold on 
 their confidence and good opinion which form the 
 real secret of his power, it must be his care not to 
 incur the character of a selfish narrow close-fisted 
 pretender to benevolence, and who belies all his 
 professions of it, whenever he is brought to the 
 trial, and any surrender of money is required at 
 his hands — an impression this which even the 
 most liberal almsgiving, if conducted, with invio- 
 lable secrecy, is not fitted to dissipate. Accord- 
 ing to the policy that we have recommended, his re- 
 fusals may be greatly more manifest than his com- 
 pliances ; and therefore unless it C£fn be made to ap- 
 pear that there is a principle in his refusals, he may 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 59 
 
 suffer greatly in estimation — a thing to be chiefly 
 deprecated, because he would proportionally sufl'er 
 in his hifluence over them, and so as to bereave of 
 all their virtue his most honest and disinterested 
 attempts for the well-being of his families. It is 
 therefore well that the same Bible which enjoins a 
 secret almsgiving, also bids us make our light so 
 shine before men that they may see our good 
 works, not however for the sake of our own glory, 
 but for the glory of our Father in Heaven. While 
 then there are occasions on which the strictest 
 concealment of our beneficence is called for, there 
 must be occasions too on which it is desirable that 
 it should become manifest to all men — not of 
 course for the purpose of display, but at least for 
 the purpose of vindication. And it is fortunate 
 that we need be at no loss for such opportunities 
 of well-doing as might admirably serve this latter 
 purpose. The education of some dumb boy it 
 may be in one or other of his famiUes, — the promise, 
 and that by purchase if necessary, of a place in 
 an asylum for one of their blind — the pensioning, 
 when there is no such asylum to receive them, of 
 a poor cripple or idiot or in any way helpless vic- 
 tim of accident or disease — the generous subscrip- 
 tion, which if it meet not the whole necessity, 
 might lead the way to others and so enlist the 
 charity of the little neighbourhood for the mitiga- 
 tion of some disaster, that, in the shape of a burn- 
 ing, or the fall of a crazy tenement, or the death 
 of his horse, may have befallen one of the poorest 
 of the householders — We say it is well that our 
 philanthropist can in these various ways make full 
 
60 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OP 
 
 proof of his liberality, and without the mischief 
 attendant on the pubhcity of every scheme which 
 is set on foot for the reUef of general indigence.* 
 And there are countless other occasions of a bene- 
 ficence at once prolific of good and harmless, so 
 as to be without alloy — and in which if he can 
 afford it our visitor might indulge in a large- 
 hearted munificence, which even though charged 
 with prodigality, at least brings no corruption 
 along with it, nay, might subserve the direct and 
 unquestionable good of all in his locality — As in 
 the erection and endowment of a church, or district 
 school, or hall for a library and savings' bank and 
 well regulated News room, where lectures toa 
 might occasionally be given, and social meetings 
 be held free of all that can repel the attendance of 
 the virtuous, but rather such as to invite the fre- 
 quent presence of the best and wisest in the parish. 
 A thousand other things might be specified — a 
 well, a pavement, a sewer: if in the country a little 
 commodious bridge for the benefit of the lieges, or 
 the opening of a play-ground for their young, and 
 many other sorts of liberal devices,! which would 
 
 * See my Examination before a Committee of the House of 
 Commons, in Vol. XVI. of my series at p. 373, &c. and 377, &c., 
 also Vol. I. of my Political Economy, p. 419, Ijein;,^ Vol. XIX. of 
 my series, anil most fully and particularly of all, a Sermon written 
 in 1819, on the Example of our Saviour as a Guide to Charity, 
 in Vol. XII. of the Series, p. 39-44. See also Vol. II. p, 
 128 — 13l,oftheCh. and Ec. Pol., being Vol. XV. of the Series. 
 
 ■j- We have one of the best exampie.s of this in the felicitous 
 conception of a liberal and lar<,'e-hearted friend of mv own, 
 who, on a winter-day of bitter cold, sent for a lilazier, and com- 
 missioned him to go aloui,' both sides' of tiie Canoiiifate, and 
 replace every broken pane that he found in any of the houses — 
 a measure by which, at the expense of a few pounds, he tempered 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 61 
 
 soon dissipate every mistake among the people as 
 to the character and views of the humane christian 
 and kind-hearted gentleman who had assumed the 
 benevolent charge of them ; and at the same time 
 invest him with authority to resist and rebuke 
 that spirit of sordidness which is sure to get up 
 amongst them, and be fostered into greater strength 
 of appetency every day, by a profuse and patent 
 and hidiscriminate almsgiving. 
 
 14. With these cautions, we should think that 
 a poor district might be safe even in the hands of 
 a rich man. In the hands of a superintendent 
 much poorer than he, as of a decent tradesman 
 or clerk or even well-conditioned and intelligent 
 mechanic, we should not only feel no doubt of its 
 safety — but firmly believe, that, out of its own 
 home capabilities alone, he could with a man- 
 agement conducted on the principles that we 
 have now explained, bring it into a state of 
 economic independence, nay of growing comfort, 
 so as that it should gradually rise from year to 
 year to greater heights than before above the 
 level of the destitution in which he found it. 
 Yet in subjecting a whole parish to this sort of 
 secular superintendence, we should like a mixture 
 of all the classes of society in the agency among 
 whom we parcelled out its various districts — with 
 a preference most certainly in favour of the more 
 plebeian office-bearer who resided within or near to 
 his assigned locality, always supposing him a per- 
 son of good sense as well as Christian piety. There 
 
 the pelting of the pitiless blas,t on the tenement of many a poor 
 family. 
 
62 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 are many respects in which he could acquit him- 
 self better than the wealthy patrician at a dis- 
 tance, who, beside being extra-parochial, is yet 
 devoid of all experience or habits of converse with 
 the common people. Still we desiderate a few 
 such, though not, it is our earnest assurance to 
 each, for the sake of his money wherewith to 
 relieve the general indigence of their families; but 
 for the moral effects of his presence in the midst 
 of them, and for our desire to see a closer and 
 kindlier amalgamation among the various ranks 
 and orders of our commonwealth. His money in 
 fact will make a right management in his hands an 
 affair of altogether greater wisdom and difficulty; 
 and instead of facilitating, as vulgar thinkers ap- 
 prehend, may, if not given with care and consid- 
 eration, endanger the success of his benevolent 
 enterprise. Let him lavish it as he may on edu- 
 cational and medical institutes, and so as that the 
 people under his charge may have the full benefit 
 of both ; but let there be selection and secrecy 
 and strenuous investigation of cases in all the 
 measures which he adopts for the relief of poverty. 
 Its chief danger at the outset will arise from a 
 tacit comparison in his mind between his own 
 standard of comfort and theirs, and whence he may 
 be precipitated into a strong and exaggerated 
 view of the destitution or even positive wretched- 
 ness of the people. He must just take this gene- 
 ral standard of comfort as he finds it, and never 
 once think of the herculean attempt, an attempt 
 which never could succeed in that way, to raise the 
 standard by the profusion of his largesses for better 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 63 
 
 food or furniture or dress than that to which they 
 have been habituated. It is not thus that we 
 shall ever elevate the style or enjoyments of the 
 common people — a consummation only to be gained 
 by the gradual rise and refinement of their tastes, 
 which nothing can more eifectually speed forward, 
 than — not the money of their wealthy visitor, but 
 — his frequent converse with them, and the moral- 
 izing influence of those schools and churches, 
 wliich his money might help to set a-going. We 
 would therefore cordially invite his co-operatioi) in 
 this good work. We promise him a rich harvest 
 of gratification in this precious walk of home 
 charity ; the comfort of knowing what he is about; 
 and a perfect contrast in point of satisfaction, be- 
 tween the certainty of that good which is sure to 
 spring up under a system of safe and wise minis- 
 trations conducted on a field of benevolent exertion 
 subject to his own immediate eye, and the doubtful 
 or with far greater likelihood the pernicious effects 
 of a miscellaneous liberality called forth at random 
 by applications from all points and all distances. 
 And let him not be alarmed at the amount of time 
 or trouble, far more formidable to his imagination 
 than the amount of money, which it may require 
 at his hands. We hope to satisfy him afterwards 
 that by the sacrifice of a very few hours in the 
 week or even in the month, he may rid his terri- 
 tory of all its wretched pauperism, and establish a 
 far more kindly and beneficent system in its place. 
 Or if this time don't satisfy himself, if he find 
 tliat pleasure in the work which we have no doubt 
 he will, he may by his various devices of liberality 
 
64 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 be the instrument of a great progressive advance- 
 ment in the habits and condition of his families. 
 We should not wonder, though it became at length 
 to him the most grateful, as it will be the cheapest 
 of all his amusements — a new method opened up 
 to him, by which to purchase the greatest enjoy- 
 ment for the least money. He will doubly rejoice 
 in it, that it is an operation twice blest — blessing 
 him who gives and him who takes. 
 
 Sect. III. — Supposition that the Visitor of a Dis- 
 trict enters on the walk which we have assigned 
 to him, and appears before its population in 
 the capacity of an OJice-Bearer in the Church. 
 
 1. But before we proceed further with our argu- 
 ment, we must remove a serious impediment in its 
 way, from the minds of those who may be thinking 
 all the while, that as we spoke of the people in a 
 district being taught to help themselves, or to 
 help each other — we presumed an aggregate suflB- 
 cieney within its limits which does not exist, and 
 so have reasoned on a nonentity. And certain it 
 is, that when we do propose to commit an appli- 
 cant for relief — either to his own economy, this 
 should imply that he has something to save ; or 
 to his relatives, that they have something to give; 
 or to the kindness of neighbours, that the means 
 and materials are in their hands, wherewith to 
 feed the hungry and clothe the naked. But is 
 this true in fact ? We have selected as the field 
 of our enterprise a congeries of the poorest house- 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 65 
 
 holds in town, and then tell of its own capabilities 
 for a surplus there by which a process of internal 
 charity might be kept agoing. Now, where in 
 the name of wonder, and of all that is incredible, 
 is this surplus to be found ? Can it have any 
 real substantive being among these very poorest of 
 the poor ? We admit them to be possessors of 
 the same humanity with ourselves, and as such 
 must be subject to the working of its various laws 
 — the law of self-preservation, and of relative 
 affection, and of sympathy between man and man. 
 There are hearts to feel amongst them ; and we 
 should gladly add hands to give, if, while we see the 
 hands, we could also see as palpably where or how 
 it is, that they can have ought to give away. We 
 dispute not the existence of the requisite morale 
 amongst them. But the materiel is indispensable 
 also ; and, wanting this, it is poetry and nothing 
 more to talk of a healthful interior circulation, 
 with its ducts of conveyance running along in 
 fancied lines of beauty, from household to house- 
 hold as well as from heart to heart, or from kin- 
 dred to kindred, to children and parents and sisters 
 and brothers and uncles and as far on as to remotest 
 cousinship. One might be made in this way to 
 figure a system of empty tubes ; but the inconceiv- 
 able thing is a stream to fill them, and without 
 this a process of home charity in such a mass of 
 destitution is but an aerial speculation. And 
 whence it is asked is the aliment to be had by 
 which alone a body or a substance can be given to 
 it ; and apart from which we but listen to a dream, 
 21 ^ 
 
66 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 ov look on a gaudy picture drawn by a man of 
 glowing imagination. 
 
 2. And yet it will be found that the imagination 
 is all on the side of our incredulous objector. 
 The first, the capital illusion into which they have 
 fallen, is that there exists, in this country at least, 
 or we could almost venture to say in the civilized 
 world, an aggregate of two or three hundred 
 human beings living in their own habitations and 
 presenting to view a dead level of tlie alike help- 
 less and irremediable poverty. There is no such 
 thing. There is a gradation and an inequality 
 everywhere, 1 know of magnates in the Cowgate 
 of Edinburgh ; and scarcely an assemblage of 
 fifty contiguous tenements in the poorest region of 
 Glasgow, where along with operatives who earned 
 for the time but five shillings a week, there were 
 not others intermingled who were earning from 
 twenty to sometimes fifty shillings a week. If 
 these our contemptuous judges, instead of re- 
 proaching others with theory, would but enter on 
 the work of exploration and become observers 
 themselves, they would soon find that they too 
 had imaginations to be corrected, certain spectral 
 notions of their own which a little experience, if 
 they but knew how to profit by its lessons, would 
 speedily dissipate.* But to come at once to our 
 proof, it can, not only be grasped at conjecturally, 
 but ascertained and stated arithmetically, how 
 
 * This I have spoken to at greater length in my work on 
 " tlie Impoi taiice ot ii Kiu'lit Mi)ral to a Kight Ecouora)Cal State," 
 at p. 19o — 201. Vol. XX. ot this Series." 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 67 
 
 much the people of any given town, or even with 
 a sufficient approximation to the truth, how much 
 the people of any given parish or district in it, 
 annually expend on intoxicating liquors ; and to 
 make it nnore applicable for our argument, on such 
 liquors as are used in greatest proportion by the 
 common people. For example, Sheriff Alison of 
 Glasgow, in his recent work on Population, cal- 
 culates on certain specific data that in that 
 town and suburbs of about 250,000 inhabitants, 
 there is spent no less a sum on whisky than 
 twelve hundred thousand pounds annually.* We 
 suspect a possible, nay a likely exaggeration 
 in his reckoning, and were ourselves in the habit, 
 on very moderate data however, of reasoning on 
 the consumption of a yearly half million — which in 
 deference to the judgment of Mr Alison we shall 
 now assume to be eight hundred thousand, or fully 
 three pounds a-head for each unit of the popula- 
 tion. This accords with the experience of many 
 other places. In our Cowgate alone there are 
 upwards of thirty public houses upheld chiefly by 
 the demand of ne:it-door customers, and implying 
 a consumption of more than six thousand a year. 
 It would keep our argument entire, though the 
 yearly expenditure were taken at half of this sum 
 — more especially as it seems agreed on all hands, 
 that the consumption of spirits increases with the 
 descent in the scale of society — so as to be pro- 
 portionally far greater among the lower than 
 among the upper or middle classes. But this is 
 not the only article of indulgence on which the 
 
 * Alison on Population, Vol. II. p. 119 
 
68 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 means of the people might be economized or 
 diverted to other and better objects. We are 
 authoritatively told of the enormous profits of 
 })av^nbrokers — amounting it is said to half a mil- 
 lion a-year in Glasgow ; and which with a little 
 benevolent care and attention might all be com-- 
 mitted back again to the parties from whom it had 
 been extracted — another mighty enlargement then 
 to the comfort and sufficiency of the common 
 people. But there are many other items of ex- 
 travagance and mismanagement beside these ; and 
 which all taken together bespeak an immense in- 
 ternal fund the real and rightful property of the 
 people themselves ; and which if recalled from its 
 present useless, or even pernicious direction, 
 would mightily conduce — not to the present com- 
 fort alone, but to the independence and future 
 elevation of the working classes in society. The 
 largest sum yet specified for a poor-rate in Scot- 
 land is eight hundred thousand a year, being 
 nearly six hundred a year for each two thousand 
 of the population. But if, instead of this relief 
 coming to them from without, we can find no less 
 a sum than six thousand a year amongst them- 
 selves, now squandered to their hurt but capable 
 of being recovered for a better and happier desti- 
 nation — the achievement of this latter enterprise 
 were surely a far greater boon to the families, and 
 a truer benevolence on the part of their friends. 
 
 3. And here it may be felt, that, in thus laying 
 open so large and worthless an expenditure, we 
 speak harshly of the common people. To this we 
 reply that we know of no exemption for any class 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. G9 
 
 of society from honest and fearless remonstrance, 
 when the members of it, be they few or many, call 
 it forth, by glaring misconduct, or the degeneracy 
 of their habits. It is not by flattery or falsehood 
 that any cause of righteousness can be carried ; 
 and we shall never achieve a general good for the 
 working classes, if restrained from telling them the 
 truth or laying on our merited rebuke — whether 
 by the dread of popular hatred, or by a sickly 
 tenderness of feeling towards them. " Ye shall do 
 no unrighteousness in judgment; thou shalt not 
 respect the person of the poor, nor honour the 
 person of the mighty ; but in righteousness shalt 
 thou judge thy neighbour."* These are times 
 which call for the intrepidity of an old prophet ; 
 and whether in dealing with high or low, it should 
 be alike freely and alike fearlessly with both. 
 The poor, on the one hand, must bear to be told 
 that they do very very ill — but not without telling 
 the rich on the other that they have done much 
 worse. The truth is that the greatest palliation 
 for the misconduct of the poor, for their reckless- 
 ness, their ruinous squanderings, their low and 
 loathsome dissipations, is the cruel neglect and 
 abandonment of them by the upper ranks of society. 
 It is chiefly in towns where the greatest moral in- 
 justice has been done to them — abandoned whole- 
 sale to ignorance and vice — dispossessed of all 
 their moral privileges, whether in schools for their 
 young or in churches for their general population 
 — spoiled of their parochial inheritance which had 
 come down from their forefathers by a griping 
 
 • Leviticus xi.v. 13. 
 
70 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 magistracy who have seized on their places in the 
 house of God, and thus made merchandise of their 
 souls to the highest bidder — the most monstrous 
 and, with all deference to our demagogues and 
 political declaimers, far the worst encroachment 
 ever made by lordly aristocrats on the rights and 
 immunities of the people. No wonder, that, thus 
 driven from the ordinances of the gospel and 
 abandoned to Sabbath profanation, a general 
 week-day profligacy should have followed in its 
 train ; and that families thus made worthless should 
 have soon become wretched ; and that filth and 
 poverty and all moral and physical abominations 
 should have accumulated in all plebeian quarters 
 of the town, whose inhabitants, literally cast off by 
 their superiors with whom they wont to have asso- 
 ciated as fellow-worshippers in the temple of their 
 God, have sunk beneath the level of our common 
 humanity — with every wild and outlandish habit 
 of gypsies, and only without their locomotion. 
 And to stem the tide of this degeneracy, or rather, 
 for a moral and christian reform of our people is 
 scarcely in all their thoughts, to lay an arrest on 
 the growing and gathering destitution which must 
 keep pace with it — it is thought enough by many 
 to scatter among their habitations the wretched pit- 
 tances of an aims-house — As if the hurried inquiries 
 or cursory surveillance of a few paid inspectors 
 could reach the deeply seated mischief, which 
 festers like a moral gangrene in the hearts and 
 habits of the people, and can only be met by 
 moral remedies alone. There is a more excellent 
 way, of surer efficacy and far nobler results. 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 71 
 
 There is a sore and inveterate disease — let not tlie 
 healing of it be gone about superficially. It is 
 not a slight medicine that will suffice ; nor must 
 we think it an adequate compensation for the in- 
 jury done by us to the common people, that we 
 dole out the allowances of public charity among a 
 few of their most conspicuous sufferers, or of those 
 who in virtue of long neglect have sunk the lowest 
 and sustained the greatest degradation and misery 
 at our hands. It is not enough that we appease 
 the cry of distress where it is loudest, or produce 
 for ourselves a momentary respite by dealing with 
 it in shreds and scantlings. The whole head 
 is sick, the whole heart is sore. The malady 
 against which we have to contend is not that of 
 particular cases, to be ti'eated or disposed of piece- 
 meal and individually as they occur. It is the 
 malady of a system — a radical and generating virus, 
 which we have to go forth and work hard against 
 — only to be counterworked and extirpated by a 
 searching and sanative influence, which shall reach 
 to the inner depths of the popular mind, and per-c 
 vade the whole bulk and body of the population. 
 
 4. We have already explained how it is that 
 even one individual might undertake for fifty 
 families ; and by what footsteps he could with the 
 utmost facility to himself, and far greater success 
 than many have the least notion of, so raise the 
 habit and condition of the whole, as mightily to 
 improve the economics of his district. It were well 
 if this experiment were multiplied by the spontane- 
 ous enterprises of the benevolent; and that too in 
 all various localities — more especially where the 
 
72 ON THE SUFFICIENCY CF 
 
 poverty was most extreme ; and the population, 
 both in character and circumstances, were the 
 most unpromising and unlikely. The result, and 
 were the right methods taken and persevered in 
 we can have no doubt of its prosperity, would 
 furnish a body of experience and experience too 
 at first hand — which might at length open the 
 eyes of the most incredulous to the only solution 
 of a problem, that has hitherto exercised and baffled 
 the ingenuity of many speculators — especially those 
 most egregious of all speculators, who, under the 
 title of practical men and with a professed abjura- 
 tion of all theory, have precipitated a legislation 
 that traverses all the lights of history, and all the 
 laws and tendencies of that nature which God hath 
 given to us. 
 
 5. What a single philanthropist could do on a 
 small, a single church with its parish of two thou- 
 sand people, and there ought never to be more 
 even in towns, might do on a larger scale. And 
 this were no novelty in Scotland. It would be a 
 recurrence in fact to the practice and usage of the 
 olden time — when each church had a distinct body 
 of office-bearers, whose special duty it was to 
 manage for the relief of the poor. These were 
 the deacons* of other days, who laboured in their 
 more secular vocation apart from the elders whose 
 higher office it was to minister in holy things, and 
 be the spiritual assistants of the clergyman, in car- 
 ing for the souls of the people. Such a parish, if 
 divided into six or ten parts, would furnish the 
 very objects and occupations which we have beeu 
 
 * See the First auJ Setoiid Books of Discipline. 
 
THE PAUOCUIAL SYSTEM. f3 
 
 employed in describing, to as many members of 
 the congregation. Our visitor of whom we have 
 hitherto supposed that he worked on his own 
 account, or for the gratification of his own taste 
 and benevolence, now becomes the functionary or 
 office-bearer of a church. He appears in a new 
 character before the eyes of the people — clothed 
 in that certain authority, which ever stands asso- 
 ciated in the imaginations of men, with the place 
 which one holds in any corporate system of man- 
 agement that is sanctioned by law ; and more 
 especially if it receive the designation of a court, 
 whether civil or ecclesiastical. The very title 
 which he now wears makes him a ditferent person 
 from before ; and at all events, he is now in dif- 
 ferent circumstances, which might either be of 
 favourable or adverse operation, depending on the 
 style and policy of his administration. What these 
 new circumstaiices are, and what the consequent 
 policy or peculiar conduct and method of acting 
 is which they demand of him, we now proceed to 
 explain. 
 
 6. There is one very obvious respect in which 
 a parish deaco^ differs from a private volunteer in 
 the work of ' enevolence. We have spoken oi 
 the secrecy wherewith the latter sliould conduct 
 his alms-giving ; and that this ought not to be hii 
 ostensible, not even his chief errand, when he goes 
 forth among the householders of his district. But 
 a deacon has no choice in this particular. By 
 office and designation he stands out as the dis- 
 penser of the alms of the church. This is his 
 krown business; and he cannot thouirli he wouli 
 
74 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OP 
 
 disguise it, whatever the sordid or mercenary 
 expectations might be which the very sight of him 
 shall awaken, either among the poorer or more 
 worthless families of his charge. His therefore 
 is a position of all the greater difficulty ; and yet it 
 is a difficulty far from insuperable — nay which 
 might be more than countervailed by other influ- 
 ences not at the command of the spontaneous and 
 unofficial philanthropist. 
 
 7. Let him therefore make no mystery of his 
 profession as administrator of the church alms 
 among the families of his district ; but openly pro- 
 claim the system on which he means to acquit 
 himself of its duties. Let there be a full under- 
 standing on this matter between him and them ; 
 and he will feel no difficulty in soon carrying the 
 consent and approval of his little community, as 
 well as their intelligence along with him. Every 
 thing must at length command the willing homage 
 and concurrence of a population which has a basis 
 of right to rest upon. He will speedily enlist 
 their consciences upon his side ; and once that 
 this is done, he will feel no difficulty in carrying 
 his views into effect. The people themselves will 
 prove his best auxiliaries ; and that too with a help 
 so powerful and so productive, as to astonish even 
 himself — when he comes to perceive how smoothly 
 and prosperously, and at how moderate a public 
 expense withal, he can meet and dispose as he 
 ought of all the real and thoroughly ascertained 
 necessities on account of which application has 
 been made to him. It is true that he stands out 
 amongst them in the known capacity of an almoner; 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 75 
 
 and this forms one great distinction between tlie 
 deacon and the visitor — exposing him it may be 
 thought to a greater force and frequency of appli- 
 cations. And it is also true that what is thus 
 sought, will, if granted, be not at his own personal 
 expense ; and so he loses the protection of a cer- 
 tain delicacy, which only they who are profoundly 
 ignorant of the common people give them no credit 
 for. But along with this certain delicacy there is 
 a certain sense of dignity too ; and which is capable 
 of being fostered into a strong repugnance to 
 aught like a visible dependence on the ministra- 
 tions of a poor's fund. It is furthermore true, 
 that the popular imagination of this fund is often 
 greatly beyond its real amount ; but even this false 
 arithmetic can be rectified by explanation. In a 
 word, let there be a full and friendly communion 
 between the deacon and his families, and a com- 
 mon feeling between him and them will speedily 
 be the result of it. He will find that by frequent 
 household intercourse, or in the bland and intimate 
 converse of private acquaintanceship, tlie people 
 are vastly more pliant and malleable, as if of dif- 
 ferent temper altogether, than when sisted before 
 the tribunal and called to take a part in the argu- 
 mentations of a parish vestry — often fierce and in- 
 solent, and charged as in angry litigation with the 
 spirit of mutual disdain and defiance. In the 
 amenities of social companionship at their own 
 houses, he will breathe amongst them a far milder 
 yet clearer atmosphere — for as the fruit of his 
 nearer and narrower inspection, his will be a ten- 
 fold more thorough knowledge and discernment of 
 
76 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 every particular case, than is at all attainable by 
 the formal inquiries, and columnar specifications, 
 set forth with goodly order and array in the sche- 
 dules of public charity — the administrators of which, 
 albeit they think, not so, have a greatly more superfi- 
 cial acquaintance with the subject of their unwieldy 
 management, than the visitor of a little district, 
 even after he has become a deacon, and so is trans- 
 formed into an official personage like themselves. 
 In very truth, there is from the place where they 
 sit a wide gulf, a mighty distance between them and 
 the population — and this too filled by a medium 
 not only cold and unkindly, but dark and often 
 turbid, so as both to obscure and distort their 
 vision^-a disadvantage this which they cannot 
 repair or get the better of — even with the help of 
 their inspectors, whose office it is to radiate across 
 the interval and reconnoitre the case and circum- 
 stances of every applicant, and bring their formulary 
 of particulars, all in right place and arrangement 
 back again. With all their pains and all their 
 possible regulations, let us assure these adminis- 
 trators of charity for a whole city, that they will 
 never reach not even approximate to our deacon, 
 in that minute and thorough intelligence of every 
 case which his frequent visits, and the constantly 
 growing familiarity of months perhaps years with 
 the families of his own little vineyard, enable him 
 to acquire — far less in the tact and adaptation and 
 flexibility wherewith he can tit himself, precisely 
 as is best in the ever varying circumstances, to the 
 necessities and the condition of every new appli- 
 cant. The starch uniformity of procedure which 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 77 
 
 is characteristic, because unavoidable, in the 
 affairs of a large superintendence, does not and 
 cannot admit of those manifold adjustments to each 
 individual peculiarity, which the member of a 
 small parochial court, within the limits of his own 
 subdivision, can so easily practise, in the exercise 
 of a discretion becoming sounder with the experi- 
 ence of every day — who, on the other hand, will 
 be delighted to find, that wdiat looks so formidable 
 in the bulk, and when seen from a distance, 
 vanishes like any other bugbear, when we enter 
 upon immediate contact wich it ; and that when 
 encountered by littles, or in separate and small 
 enough localities, it indeed becomes a very facile 
 and practicable affair ' 
 
 8. But let us descend more into particulars. 
 And first let it be a settled maxim, that, while 
 every case of want and suffering must be attended 
 to, of all the expedients for its relief it shall come 
 the last, and only be resorted to after that all the 
 other and better expedients have failed — to pro- 
 vide for it from the poor's money of the parish. 
 This should in every instance of mere poverty be 
 looked on as the "dernier ressort" — asortof neces- 
 sary evil, which one submits to because he cannot 
 otherwise help it, and not till every right method 
 has failed by which to anticipate and avoid it. 
 What the shifts are which ought to be tried, ere the 
 descent is made, or the name of the applicant goes 
 down on the list of dependents on the public charity, 
 we have already in part explained. First, having 
 ascertained a destitution, if possible to stimulate 
 the industry of the applicant, and see what more 
 
78 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 he might earn — Second, or to improve his eco- 
 nomy, and see what the things are upon which he 
 might save — Thirdly, to seek after his relatives, 
 and see what they will give — Fourthly, to make the 
 case known among neighbours, and see whether 
 the necessity might not be got over by one joint 
 effort of liberality ; or even whether there is not a wil- 
 lingness amongst them, to keep off for an indefinite 
 time the stigma of pauperism from one, who is so 
 far a favourite throughout his little vicinity that 
 hearts and hands may yet be open to him. It is 
 not known how effectual these shifts might be 
 made, how prolific of relief are these natural and 
 spontaneous resources — all of which ought cer- 
 tainly' to be attempted and drawn upon, ere the 
 case shall be suffered to appear in court, or sub- 
 mitted to the board of parochial administrators. 
 It should be the distinct aim of each deacon to 
 provide for the wants of his district in a more ex- 
 cellent way, and so as to intercept if he can every 
 application before it reaches the door of the parish 
 vestry. That deacon in fact, does his duty best, 
 who gives his court of deacons the lease to do. 
 Such ought to be the reigning principle, the esprit 
 de corps, among the members of the body. And 
 what is better still, it were a possible nay an easy 
 thing, for each deacon to awaken an esprit de corps 
 akin to this, among the families of his own district 
 or his own deaconry — insomuch that each might 
 collectively feel it as their distinction and their glory, 
 to h^ve few or even no paupers within their borders 
 — and either because the hands of all have minister- 
 ed to their own necessities, or because through the 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 79 
 
 ready and generous help of all, every child of mis- 
 fortune in the midst of them has been saved from the 
 humiliations of public charity. Whatever quadrates 
 with the natural conscience, can practically be 
 carried or made to take effect in any comnmnity ; 
 and more especially if enforced and exemplified by 
 him who is vested with an official direction over it. 
 It speaks so home to their own sense of right, that 
 each man should work and save for himself rather 
 than be burdensome to others, and that relatives 
 and neighbours should be helpful to each other — 
 as to make it impossible for any management 
 founded on these principles to be either unpopular, 
 or to fail in the accomplishment of its own high 
 and virtuous objects. And there is one advantage 
 which the deacon has over the visitor, when labour- 
 ing to dispose of any case or application in the 
 way that we recommend. The money thereby 
 saved is not saved to himself — it is only saved to 
 the poor's fund of which he is the guardian and the 
 administrator. His proceedings do not expose 
 him to the suspicion of his own personal avarice. 
 Nay he may at any time repel, even reverse this 
 suspicion, by taking the ostensible lead in any joint 
 enterprise of good either for his district at large, or 
 for some one of its more unfortunate families. It 
 is incalculable how few and how light the cheap and 
 simple attentions are, by which any deacon, if but 
 a creditable and companionable man, might carry 
 the fellow-feeling and confidence of all along with 
 him. 
 
 , 9. But there is still another advantage which 
 the deacon has over the visitor. His walk is dis- 
 
80 ON THE SUiFICIENCY OI" 
 
 tinct from that of the clergyman or elder ; but still 
 in that walk, he is the office-bearer and so the re- 
 presentative of a church — in which capacity it not 
 only becomes him, but he will speak with all the 
 greater authority, when, called to the work of argu- 
 ment with his people and sometimes of remon- 
 strance or rebuke, he deals forth among them the 
 sacred lessons of the gospel. It is peculiarly his 
 part to yield at all times an incorrupt moral testi- 
 mony — nor ever to flinch, when the occasion requires 
 that he should act as the fearless reprover of their 
 indolence, or their vicious habits, or their beggarly 
 meanness of spirit ; or, if able, but unwilling to 
 interpose in behalf of some helpless relative, to 
 lift his indignant protest against the unfeeling 
 selfishness that is shut to the distress or degradation 
 even of one's own kindred, of those who are flesh 
 of his own flesh and bone of his own bone. It is 
 not to be endured that we should have to succumb 
 to the clamours or even to the claims of alleged 
 want, when they can be clearly made out to be the 
 claims of worthlessness, which should ever be met^ 
 not by a different testimony alone but a different 
 treatment, from that bestowed on those deserving 
 {)oor whom it is both the duty and delight of all who 
 feel as they ought to sympathize with and succour 
 to the uttermost. Let these be cherished and 
 cared for with all liberality and tenderness, while 
 the others are kept at bay — and so as to make it 
 manifest that the regimen of our parochial charity 
 is at tiie same time a regimen of virtue. They 
 utterly mistake the common people who apprehend 
 of this style of administration that it must be un- 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 81 
 
 popular. In the long run it will be quite the re- 
 verse. It will find an echo in their own con- 
 sciences. They will know how to discriminate be- 
 tween on the one hand an injurious harshness, and 
 on the other the firm and consistent procedure of 
 him, who, armed with intrepidity and force of prin- 
 ciple, acquits himself in the midst of them as the 
 declared enemy of imposture and worthlessness. 
 Such a man will be sure to elevate the tone of his 
 families, and to enlist them upon his side ; and 
 though his should be one of the poorest districts 
 in town, even he himself will be astonished at the 
 number of months perhaps of years which may 
 elapse ere the necessity lies upon him, of making a 
 single draught on the parish fund for the relief of 
 any of his people. 
 
 10. For prior to this, and even after he has 
 found the stimulated industry and economy of the 
 applicant, and the stimulated duty of his relatives, 
 and the stimulated sympathy of his neighbours, to 
 be all inadequate for the necessities of the case — 
 there still remains another expedient, which we 
 mention the last because really the least in the 
 order of importance ; and of which we should 
 never wish to avail ourselves, save on the tried 
 and found insufficiency of all the previous expe- 
 dients, each of which we hold preferable to the 
 one that we are now to propose, though it again 
 be preferable to the final and conclusive step in 
 the series — we mean the entry of a new and 
 another name or person on the lists of the public 
 and parochial charity. As the last, if it should be 
 the only remaining effort to save him from this, 
 21 F 
 
82 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 we recommend that his circumstances should be 
 made known to one or more v/ealthy friends, 
 though not of the parish, vviio, whether by a small 
 and regular pension, or by a single gratuity, might 
 interpose for the rescue of some struggling family 
 from the fall of their visible descent on a platform 
 humbler than any which they have yet occupied — . 
 we mean that of a recorded pauperism. And in 
 the great bulk of instances, this, we affirm can be 
 done with a facility that is quite marvellous — often 
 by a timely guinea or half guinea given but once, 
 say to help out a deficient rent or meet some other 
 occasion of embarrassment, through which if the 
 applicant be carried and so. as to weather it for the 
 coming week or fortnight, you may never hear 
 afterwards or at least for years of the necessities 
 or hardships of his condition — thereby warding 
 off a permanent burden from the poor's fund ; 
 and what is of far more importance, warding off a 
 permanent deterioration of habit and principle 
 from the man himself, who starts anew on the walk 
 of industry and honest independence. We should 
 indeed wonder if in any well-managed parish, after 
 the full introduction and establishment of our 
 system — half-a-dozen such examples of a resort to 
 gentlemen for some slight pecuniary aid were re- 
 (piired or called for in the course of a twelve- 
 month. And when we compare the small number 
 of such cases, with the great number of such gen- 
 tlemen in every large town, all most liberally dis- 
 posed for the public good, if they but knew how 
 to go about it — we, in the name of public virtue 
 and of the people's best interests, would put the 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTSM. 83 
 
 question — whether it is not better that our domes- 
 tic and parochial treatment of the poor should not 
 first be tried and have full experimental justice 
 done to it, ere Scotland shall be precipitated into 
 that economy of general and legalized pauperism, 
 which cannot fulfil its own promises without beg- 
 garing the whole population ; and cannot regulate 
 or restrain its allowances, without mocking the 
 expectations which itself had awakened; and so by- 
 placing the two great divisions of society, the 
 payers and receivers in hostile array against each 
 other, spreading dissatisfaction, even to the danger 
 of tumults and popular outbreaks, all over the land. 
 11. And it were further well, if what we have 
 recommended as the last step in favour of the 
 applicant, before his ease is submitted to the 
 parochial court, should, in every fit instance, be 
 their first step ; and so as to precede, nay if possi- 
 ble to prevent, the introduction of his name into 
 their record, as forming one of the regular paupers 
 on the roll. When any application must be de- 
 ferred to, it is good policy to consider — whether 
 it may not be treated as a casualty to be provided 
 for by a single donation, and recorded under the 
 general head of casualties, without the name of the 
 person who is relieved by it. The spirit that 
 shrinks from such an exposure ought to be upheld 
 as long as possible ; and we again repeat with all 
 confidence, that the deacon who acts on such a 
 system will be astonished to find at the end of the 
 year, with what perfect facility and cheapness he 
 can dispose of all his cases, even the most seem- 
 ingly formidable amongst them. That bugbear, 
 
84 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 which looks a gigantic hydra, when seen in the 
 bulk or from a distance, vanishes into nothing, 
 when dealt with at close quarters, or piecemeal, 
 and in small separate sections. We ourselves 
 should not marvel, though under such a regimen, 
 not one farthing was drawn lor years from the 
 parish fund for the relief of mere indigence ; and 
 it is our firm unbroken confidence that the smallest 
 public fund of the poorest parish in Scotland, 
 would in ordinary times form a sufficient landing 
 place for every application that could not be 
 otherwise and better disposed of, than by an allow- 
 ance from either a kirk-session or a charity work- 
 house. And we count on such a result. — First, 
 because we look for a resuscitation and increase of 
 private charity, as the sure effect of every abridg- 
 ment in the legal or visible displays of it ; and, 
 secondly, because we look to the dormant capa- 
 bilities of the people themselves, by which a wise 
 and experienced deaconship could indefinitely raise 
 the standard both of comfort and character, 
 througliout the community at large. 
 
 12. And to obtain the services of such a deacon- 
 ship, we have only to repair a breach which has 
 been made in the original constitution of the 
 Church of Scotland — to replace a dilapidation 
 which its venerable fabric has suffered in the course 
 of ages. The framers of our ecclesiastical polity, 
 those wisest and most enlightened of all modern 
 reformers, who knew well how to discriminate 
 things secular from sacred, and how best to pro- 
 vide for both — they instituted a" special and dis- 
 tinct order, whose office it should be to look after 
 
THE FAROCHIAl. SYSTEM. 85 
 
 the collection and distribution of all the needful 
 temporalities, whether for the maintenance of 
 churches and schools or for the relief and suste- 
 nance of the poor.* A national provision for the 
 first objects has so far superseded the necessity 
 for the former of these services, save in those 
 
 * The Fifth Hi^ad of the First Book of Discipline, treats of the 
 provision for ministers, and distribution of the rents and posses- 
 sions justly belonufing- to tlie church. The elders and deacons 
 had the superintendance in this matter. Under the Sixth Head, 
 which treats of the renis and patrimony of the church, it is said 
 — " We require tlie deacons and treasurers rather to receive the 
 rents, than the ministers themselves, because that off the teinds 
 not onlv must the ministers be sustained, but also the poor and 
 schools." To tl»ese purposes deacons were appointed. The 
 deacons were under the control of the ministers and elders. 
 
 Tiie second cliapter of the Second Book of Discipline treats of 
 the policy of the kirk and persons and office-bearers to whom the 
 
 administration is committed " Tlie whole policy of the kirk 
 
 consists of three thinsjs, doctrine, discipline and distribution." 
 Heuce " arisetli a sort of threefold office-beareis in the kirk, viz. 
 of ministers, preachers — elders, governors —and deacons, distri- 
 butors." " There is in the New Testament times of the Evan- 
 gel, the ministry of the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, 
 and doctors in the administration of tlie word ; the eldership for 
 the order and administration of the discipline ; the deaconship to 
 have the care of the ecclesiastical goods." " There are four 
 ordinary functions or offices in tlie kirk of God— the office of 
 pastor, minister, or bishop — the doctor — presbyter or elder — and 
 the deacon." The eighth chapter treats of the deacons and their 
 office, the last ordinary function in the church. " To whom the 
 administration of the alms of the faithful, and ecclesiastical goods 
 do belong." " The office of the deacon is an ordinary and per- 
 petual ecclesiastical function in the kirk of Christ." After enu- 
 merating the destinations of the church patrimony, it proceeds 
 
 " We add hereto the schools anil schoolmasters also." The tenth 
 chapter is enlituled — " Certain special heads of reformation 
 which we crave." One of thi'se heads of reformation is — " We 
 desire therefore the ecclesiastical goods to be uplifted and distri- 
 buted faithfully to whom they appertain, and that by the ministry 
 of the deacons — to whose office properly, the collection and dis- 
 tribution tliereof belongs, that the poor mav be answered of their 
 portion thereof, and they of the ministry live without care and 
 solicitude, as also tlie rest of the treasury of the kirk may be 
 received and bestowed to their ris^ht uses." 
 
86 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 towns and parishes where church or school ex- 
 tension is required ; and whenever the order shall 
 come to be revived, the best methods by which a 
 further provision might be obtained for these great 
 public blessings, would fall most appropriately 
 under the cognizance and care of the newly set 
 up deacons in our modern day. On the other 
 hand, the latter of these services, the official 
 management of the poor, should be all their care 
 — when by the few simple steps which we have 
 tried to explain, they will find that what they have 
 to give as office-bearers, might be indefinitely les- 
 sened by the working of those natural principles 
 which only require being appealed to and guided 
 to right objects, that each parochial community 
 might be brought to the best economic state of 
 which it is capable. We know of no other expe- 
 dient for the right solution of this great problem. 
 We have no faith in a national board that under- 
 takes for the pauperism of a whole empire, or in a 
 provincial board that undertakes for the pauper- 
 ism of a whole county, or in a city board that un- 
 dertakes for the pauperism of a whole township, 
 or in a union with its arrangements however skilful 
 for the pauperism of a whole cluster of parishes. 
 But with all our helplessness in these, we have 
 the greatest confidence in the perfect facility and 
 success wherewith every deacon possessed of kindly 
 feelings and common sense could manage aright 
 the pauperism of fifty families ; and on this step- 
 ping-stone, not by adventuring on what is new 
 but by a simple recurrence to 'what is old — we 
 mean by a system of deaconship, comprising six 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 87 
 
 or eight or ten members, we can see our way to 
 a right economy of pauperism for a whole parish. 
 We shall not meddle with matters too high for 
 us ; nor do we profess to understand by what 
 mechanism it is, that one body of general adminis- 
 tration and surveillance can achieve aught so mag- 
 nificent, as the right apportionment of relief for all 
 the manifold varieties of want and wretchedness in 
 the thousand homes that lie scattered in a terri- 
 tory, where tens of thousands of human beings are 
 congregated — whether in large cities or extended 
 provinces. But we do understand, how an intel- 
 ligent and well-principled man can, in a given 
 locality, of some few hundred people, so operate 
 on the springs or principles of human feeling and 
 human action, as to maintain in that economic 
 condition which is the best possible all the fami- 
 lies who are within its confines. We do not 
 know what the one process is by which the result 
 universal can be reached, of a right economy of 
 pauperism for the millions of a whole nation. But 
 we do know what the one process is by which the 
 result particular can be reached, of a right eco- 
 nomy of pauperism for the as many scores or 
 fifties of a whole district. And as we have some- 
 where said already, our result universal is arrived 
 at by the summation of these particulars. Give 
 us a sufficient number of deaconries for each parish, 
 and a sufficient number of parishes for an empire; 
 and by the cheap and simple attentions of as many 
 men, each performing a most light and practi- 
 cable task within his own little sphere, shall we 
 make good piecemeal and in items, the full accom- 
 
88 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 plishraent of that object, which dealt with as an 
 unwieldy whole, has hitherto exercised and baffled 
 the ingenuity of all our statesmen. 
 
 13. In nothing have the fathers of the Scottish 
 church evinced a profounder discernment of our 
 nature, than in the separation which they made be- 
 tween the deaconship and the eldership — assign- 
 ing respectively the duties of each to two distinct 
 classes of functionaries. It is true that in so do- 
 ing they acted on their own views of the scriptural 
 model as set before us more particularly in the 
 Acts of the Apostles ; but it is furthermore evi- 
 dent that they also saw the fitness of the separa- 
 tion, and that too on the principle sanctioned by 
 the Saviour Himself, when, on being applied for 
 to arbitrate and decide in a matter of secular in- 
 terest, He replied " Who made me a judge and a 
 divider over you?" The truth is, that though 
 the duties of the deaconship have now in practice 
 been generally merged into those of the eldership 
 — the two together make the most incongruous of 
 all pluralities. We can only aiford one or two 
 brief sentences for the explanation of what that is 
 wherein the incongruity lies.* For a right acquittal 
 of the deaconship there ought to be a wholesome 
 rigour of investigation in every case that is brought 
 before the secular functionary, and also a whole- 
 some rigour of treatment when the worthless and 
 undeserving come forth to urge in our hearing 
 their necessities or their claims. But the spiritual 
 
 * Dr Miller on Iho Office of a Ruling Elder, Chap. X. p. 181 
 — :ilso the Christian and Ecouoniu- Polity of a Nation, Vol. I. 
 Chap. VII. p. 2iti — 267, being Vol. XIV. of the series. 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM 89 
 
 functionary, the elder, whose office it is to deal 
 with the people in things spiritual, should never 
 thus be brought into conflict with them, on any 
 question which relates to their merely secular in- 
 terests and concerns. It is not for elders, if they 
 wish to maintain their ecclesiastical character, or 
 to preserve their ecclesiastical usefulness among 
 the families — it is not for the elders, and far less 
 for the clergyman, to be implicated with a manage- 
 ment, in which the exhibition of a quality so 
 alienating and unpopular as that of rigour, is at 
 all called for — we mean, of course, not the rigour 
 of church discipline, but the rigour which first 
 scrutinizes, and then when it finds cause with- 
 stands, the solicitations of alleged poverty for a 
 share in church allowances, or, as they have been 
 sometimes termed, in the charities of the faithful. 
 Such an exhibition on their part must create at 
 least a strong initial barrier in the way of any good 
 effect, from their spiritual ministrations ; and if 
 for the purpose of removing this barrier — while 
 still having to do with the administration of the 
 poor's money — they choose to make an opposite 
 exhibition, to substitute facility in place of rigour, 
 to be yielding and blindly profuse in the style of 
 their dispensations — then from another quarter 
 comes there a vitiating blight on that christian 
 and moralizing influence which should ever be 
 kept intact and unviolated in their hands. The 
 people are thus tempted to make a gain of godli- 
 ness ; to play the hypocrite with the man who 
 thus deals at one and the same time in prayers 
 and payments; to chime in with the spiritual for 
 
90 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 the sake of a readier admittance into the benefits 
 of the temporal ministration ; and so altogether to 
 lose that singleness of eye which is so essential 
 to the clearness of one's christian intelligence,* as 
 well as to the simplicity and godly sincerity of his 
 christian character. It were infinitely better that 
 such a contest of adverse and heterogeneous influ- 
 ences should be conclusively put an end to ; and 
 for this purpose, or to maintain in its own full and 
 proper weight the moral ascendancy both of minis- 
 ters and elders, it is truly most desirable, that any 
 official management of pauperism should be alto- 
 gether out of their hands — Yet not therefore out 
 of the hands of the church's office-bearers ; but 
 placed, as far as all personal dealing with the 
 applicants is concerned, entirely and exclusively 
 with the deacons composing another and a distinct 
 class of functionaries. The elders for obvious 
 reasons, which we have elsewhere stated at length, 
 ought never, we mean officially, to descend among 
 things secular. But there is no necessary or per- 
 manent obstacle in the way of deacons ascending 
 to things spiritual.f The barrier of which we 
 have spoken may only be temporary, and in the 
 course of experience, will, under the right acquittal 
 of the duties of the office, at length give way. 
 The families perhaps revolted at the first by a 
 certain sternness of administration, will at last dis- 
 
 * Matt. vi. 22, 23. 
 f See Dr Miller where above quoted on the argument that the 
 seven of whose appointment we read in the 6th chapter of the 
 Acts were the first deacons ot the christian church ; and then see 
 the lOlh verse of that chapter for tlie competency of deaconti to 
 minibter and be of use in things spirilual. 
 
THE PAROCHrAL SYSTEM. 91 
 
 cover both its moral tendencies, and the moral 
 principle in which it originates ; and after the 
 deacon has made full manifestation of himself, as 
 the substantial friend of the poor, while the unfal- 
 tering enemy of their vices and the consistent 
 patron of truth and sobriety and all righteousness 
 in the midst of them, will then speak influentially 
 and with an authoritative voice when he presses 
 home upon them the lessons of the gospel. The 
 truth is that if a christian man, he is in the best 
 possible school for the qualifications of a higher 
 christian office than the one which he at present 
 occupies. It is thus that the court of deacons 
 might become the best and most prolific nursery 
 from which to supply the vacancies, or still fur- 
 ther extend the court of elders — in beautiful ac- 
 cordance with the apostolic saying, that " they 
 who have used the office of a deacon well, pur- 
 chase to themselves a good degree, and great bold- 
 ness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus." 
 
 14. But in conclusion we must not omit to men- 
 tion the vast importance to a deacon, should he 
 have a taste and ability for the services which in 
 our second section we have recommended to the 
 private or voluntary philanthropist. If he but 
 give himself up to the general good of his district, 
 and take an interest in all that can advance the 
 health and the education and the moral well-being 
 and the economic improvement of its families, he 
 will soon annihilate, not its poverty it may be, but 
 at least its pauperism. The poverty may still 
 exist, but it will be met and mitigated in a far 
 kindUer way than i)y the ministrations of public 
 
92 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 charity. The people themselves will at length 
 take it off his hands ; and his friendly attentions, 
 in the various ways that we have pointed out, will 
 earn for him such a confidence and ascendency in 
 the midst of them — that his official dispensations 
 will be well nigh superseded by their own thrift 
 and good management on the one hand ; and, on 
 the other, when unavoidable misfortune has made 
 inroad upon any of the households, by the timely 
 forthgivings of aid and sympathy from that neigh- 
 bourhood, within which all the bland and benefi- 
 cent habits of a village economy have been fostered 
 and grown up under his care. 
 
 Section IV Narrative of Eighteen Years' Ex- 
 perience in the Parish of St Johns, Glasgow. 
 
 1 . It may be thought that hitherto our argu- 
 ments have been altogether of an hypothetical char- 
 acter ; or that, as yet, we have only reasoned on the 
 assumptions of theory, and not on the findings of 
 experience. This is not exactly true. The prin- 
 ciples on which we found the anticipations that we 
 have expressed of a certain desirable result, from a 
 certain procedure that we have ventured to recom- 
 mend, are not so many assumptions, but so many 
 general facts, denominated laws no doubt because 
 of their generality — laws of human nature; but still 
 accredited as facts, and throughout the whole 
 tjxtent too of this generahty, by' daily and innume- 
 ral)le observations. It is essential to the validity 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 93 
 
 of our inference, that it be true — first, that very 
 generally men will work or save rather than starve ; 
 second, that generally relatives will help those 
 of their own kindred rather than see them starve; 
 third, that pretty generally too neighbours when 
 told of the distress of a family within a few steps 
 of them, will lend a hand to any generous proposal 
 which might be set on foot for relieving them ; and 
 fourthly, should all these expedients fail, that many 
 very many are the gentlemen, especially in or 
 about towns, who would most gladly meet by their 
 handsome donations any urgent or crying neces- 
 sity which has been brought authentically to their 
 knowledge. These surely are not assumptions, 
 but general facts, each resting on a basis of mani- 
 fold experience. When reasoning on the strength 
 of the law of self-preservation, or the law of rela- 
 tive affection, or the law of sympathy between 
 man and man — there may be a flaw in our deduc- 
 tive process, but certainly no flaw in the premises 
 of our argument, which are of the same firm and 
 experimental texture with the basis of all induc- 
 tive sciences. The senseless outcry of those who 
 repudiate all theory, confounding it with hypo- 
 thesis, and who profess that they have no value 
 for aught but experience, and will therefore listen 
 to nothing else — just demonstrates that this said 
 experience would be of no use to them even though 
 they had it — for no sooner turned to its legitimate 
 application, than it gets beyond their sight and 
 comprehension altogether — unable as they are to 
 discriminate between the generalities of actually 
 ascertahied phenomena, and the generalities of 
 
94 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 unauthorized speculation. They will keep by 
 experience so long as she confines herself to the 
 office of a collector, but abandon her when she be- 
 comes a classifier : And still more, when, rising to 
 the higlier functions of a school-mistress, she gives 
 forth no other utterance than what is prompted by 
 the wisdom of history and the wisdom of observa- 
 tion — will these chance-medley statists, whose only 
 delight is in the accumulation not in the right dis- 
 tribution or direction of their stores, prove how 
 incapable they are of profiting by her lessons. 
 
 2. Yet there is one demand which all men have 
 a right to insist upon. However firmly our anti- 
 cipations may rest on certain generalities, and 
 these of the surest and soundest description as 
 verified by the experience of ages — still what is 
 true in the general must be true in every particu- 
 lar case which is fully and fairly included in it; 
 oi', in other words, what is true in the abstract 
 must be true also in the concrete : And, should 
 the opportunity ever come within our reach, we 
 are bound, in confirmation of any doctrine pro- 
 pounded by us in the hearing of all men, to place 
 before their eyes the actual and living exemphfica- 
 tion of it. We have had the good fortune to be 
 favoured with such an opportunity. The experi- 
 ment that we were permitted to make was made in 
 such adverse circumstances, that we have ever 
 regarded it as an experimejitum cruets; and there- 
 fore on its actual and triumphant success do we 
 feel ourselves entitled to found an argumentwn a 
 fortiori. It was strongly resisted at the outset, 
 vilified and maligned throughout the progress of it, 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 95 
 
 and still after its fulfilment most grievously misin- 
 terpreted and roisunderstood. Notwithstanding 
 these discouragements, however, we stiil perse- 
 vere in our appeal to it, as being in truth demon- 
 strative of the principle and philosophy of the 
 whole problem — persuaded as we are, that, should 
 the public ever be at leisure to give their close and 
 candid attention to us, we shall obtain a favourable 
 verdict at their hands ; and persuaded further, 
 such is our confidence in the uniformity of human 
 nature, that, should all obstructions be cleared 
 away for a repetition of the same experiment, it 
 would, if fairly conducted and carried out, land in 
 the same result all the world over. 
 
 3. But it will be right to explain what these 
 obstructions are. They do not lie between the 
 commencement of the experiment after it is fairly 
 set agoing, and the termination of it. They are 
 met with and encountered and have to be over- 
 come previous to its commencement. They do 
 not lie in our way to the final success of the ex- 
 periment when once set afloat. They lie in the 
 way of a permission to make the experiment at all. 
 The difficulty does not consist in makijig out to 
 do the thing. The difficulty consists in making it 
 out that we shall be allowed to do the thing. And 
 it lies with the men in place and in power, with 
 the functionaries or the officials of that system 
 which is already established, either to give or to 
 withhold this allowance. Our whole contest was 
 with them, and never with the population — with 
 the quondam managers of the poor, not with the 
 poor themselves. 1 was successivelv the minister 
 
96 ON THE SUFFTCIENCY OF 
 
 of two parishes in Glasgow — four years minister 
 of the first, and somewhat more than four years 
 minister of the second. In the former, or Tron- 
 church parish, the puhlie aUment given to the poor 
 was made up partly of a fund raised by legal or 
 compulsory assessment, and partly of a fund 
 raised by voluntary collections at the church-doors. 
 In the latter or St John's-church parish, we stipu- 
 lated for a separate and independent management 
 of our own collections ; and undertook in return, 
 that we should send no more paupers to the fund 
 by assessment — but that we should provide for 
 every new applicant, with no other public aliment 
 at our disposal than the collections alone. We 
 succeeded in extricating the one fund from the 
 Jther ; or rather we succeeded in extricating oui 
 jwn parish from the general system of administra- 
 cion for the poor of the city at large ; and our 
 whole struggle or difficulty lay in effecting that 
 extrication. For the accomplishment of this we had 
 to obtain the consent, or prevail over the resistance 
 of different parties. The newly formed parish of 
 St John's was at that time but one of the nine 
 parishes in Glasgow, all whose collections accord- 
 ing to the actual system behoved to be thrown 
 into one general fund, and distributed by one body 
 of management for the whole. It was no easy 
 matter to break up this combination, or even to 
 detacli from it but one of its members. For the 
 accomplishment of this I had to obtain the con- 
 sent, and what greatly enhances the difficulty, the 
 corporate consent of so many and such different 
 parties. I had the good fortune, from a rare 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 97 
 
 ronjunction of circumstances, to secure at the out- 
 set of my connexion with St John's parish, the 
 countenance of the magistrates for the time being 
 on our proposed experiment. But, over and above 
 this, I had to deal with an adverse General Session, 
 and an adverse Town Hospital, and if not an 
 adverse Presbytery what was just as troublesome, 
 some adverse members of it who summoned me 
 to a public defence of my enterprise at the bar of 
 their inferior church judicatory, and then carried 
 the cause by appeal to the General Assembly or 
 supreme ecclesiastical court where I had also to 
 appear, and from whom, but not till after much 
 and strenuous argumentation, I obtained the privi- 
 lege of being let alone. We state these things, 
 because we hold it all important to the principle 
 and philosophy of this question, that the distinction 
 be clearly apprehended between the political and 
 the natural, or to express it otherwise, between 
 the factitious and the inherent difficulties which 
 lie in the solution of it. We repeat that our only 
 contest was with the former, and never with the 
 latter difficulties — and that when, instead of the 
 old managers for the poor, we had but the poor 
 themselves to deal with, all went on smoothly and 
 prosperously. The first warfare with the old 
 established notions on the subject of poverty was 
 far more arduous, than the second warfare with the 
 poverty itself. To proceed and be successful in 
 our actual treatment of the poor, after the matter 
 was once set for us on the footing of things as we 
 felt they ought to be — was a perfect bagatelle in 
 point of lightness and facility, wheu compared to 
 
 21 G 
 
98 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 the severe encounter that we had with the preju- 
 dices, even the passions of those, whose fond and 
 rooted partiaUties were on the footing of things as 
 they are. In one brief sentence, our great our only 
 struggle in this enterprise was with the patricians, 
 never with the plebeians of the commonwealth. 
 And we urge this consideration with the greater 
 earnestness, because we believe our own experi- 
 ence will prove to be the experience of all who 
 shall attempt to reform and remodel the pauperism, 
 whether of separate parishes or of the country at 
 large. The great struggle is not with the essen- 
 tial difficulties of the problem itself — but with the 
 prejudices of those from whom we must have per- 
 mission and a free space ere we can attempt the 
 solution of it — as the heritors and kirk-sessions of 
 rural parishes — or the magistrates and various 
 corporate bodies in towns : Or finally, and if our 
 aim be not a local but universal reform, the 
 weighty or well nigh hopeless achievement must 
 first be carried, of gaining over or at least neu- 
 tralizing the constituencies and county meetings 
 of more than half the empire, and this as but a 
 preliminary to the positive sanction and support 
 of more than half the legislature. But we are sup- 
 posing that a nation is to cast off its abuses in the 
 progress of light and by a pacific series of changes. 
 Whereas the far greater likelihood is, that, in the 
 conflict both of interests and opinions, the evils of 
 our social condition will remain unredressed ; and 
 vital disease will every year become more invete- 
 rate, till deeply and irremovably seated in the 
 heart of the commonwealth ; and the elements of 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 99 
 
 a coming anarchy will at length ripen for the ex- 
 plosion and overthrow of all old institutions, whe- 
 ther sound or faulty ; and then on the thus deso- 
 lated void, these may chance to be replaced by 
 new ones — when another Code Napoleon shall, not 
 by argument but power, obtain the unquestioned 
 sway over the destinies of a now passive and sorely 
 chastened population. It may so happen that he 
 who is strongest in battle shall also prove the wisest 
 in legislation, and thus the law of a compulsory 
 provision for indigence might come to be cancelled 
 from the statute-book by tlie hand of power — when 
 the men of a new age, living in a new era, will be 
 astonished at the perverseness and pertinacity of 
 former days — in the experience they shall then 
 have of the perfect fulness and facility, wherewith 
 the charity of law is replaced by the charity both 
 of principle and nature.* 
 
 4. To give a full narrative of our proceedings 
 for the management of the pauperism in the parish 
 of St John's, we should have to engross in this 
 place the various publications on this subject of 
 some twenty years ago.j But to these we shall 
 merely refer, and with all possible brevity describe 
 anew our process and the results of it. 
 
 5. The population of our parish, the most 
 
 * See Vol. I. p. 371, of the Christian and Economic Polity of 
 a Nation, beini,' Vol. XIV. of the series. 
 
 f Speech with its appendix before the General Assembly of 
 May 1822 on the suliject, to be found in Vol. III. p. 145, of the 
 Christian and P'conomic Polity of a Nation, beint,' Vol. XVI. of 
 the series — Statement of Kif,'ht Years' Experience of the Pauper- 
 ism of Glasgow — Evidence before the Committee of the House 
 of Commons in 1830 — These tracts av^ all contained within the 
 Same volume. 
 
100 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 eastern in Glasgow, when we first undertook the 
 charge of it in September 1819, was 10,304; and 
 since that time, from the multitude of new houses 
 in the large vacant spaces not yet nearly filled up 
 of that part of the royalty, must have increased 
 to at least somewhere about 14,000. From two 
 decisive criteria, both of them verified by Mr Cle- 
 land — that is its smallest number of household ser- 
 vants, and its smallest proportion of the general 
 assessment, it was and is still the poorest as well 
 as most populous parish in the city. The expen- 
 diture on the poor of Glasgow fluctuates of course 
 from year to year, but had at times exceeded 
 £14,000 annually previous to our connexion with 
 St John's, from which we may conclude what the 
 charges of its pauperism might have amounted to 
 under the general system and with an average 
 style of management. 
 
 6. The expense of part of its existing pauper- 
 ism, as well as the whole expense of whatever new 
 pauperism might afterwards be formed, we under- 
 took to meet and to provide for from the produce of 
 our church-door collections alone. These had 
 during my four years' incumbency in another parish 
 averaged about £400 in the year. With this 
 yearly sum, subject of course to variations whether 
 of increase or diminution, I agreed to meet the 
 applications of every future claimant for parochial 
 relief, beside the immediate outlay of £225 annu- 
 ally on so much of the actual pauperism that had 
 been already formed — this happening at the time 
 to be the sum of all the allowances then made to our 
 sessional poor. There was thus the surrender of 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 101 
 
 £175 a-year into my hands on the part of the 
 Town Hospital, the great central institute for the 
 pauperism of all Glasgow, but for which I under- 
 took on certain understood conditions to protect 
 its managers from the influx of all the new pauper- 
 ism which might arise in our part of the city, or 
 to send them no new cases from the parish of St 
 John's. 
 
 7. These conditions were three. 1. That in 
 those rarely occurring seasons of depression or dis- 
 tress, which called forth measures of relief for the 
 whole of Glasgow additional to the common and 
 established methods of supply, such as a general 
 subscription to eke out defective wages or obtain 
 employment for operatives out of work, our parish 
 should participate in the benefit of these — it being 
 deemed enough for deciding the question between 
 the systems of legal and spontaneous charity, that 
 we should be left to provide for our own necessi- 
 ties from our own peculiar resources in ordinary 
 times ; and this was all tlie more reasonable, that 
 the charity which makes these occasional stretches 
 in periods of scarcity or commercial embarrass- 
 ment is entirely spontaneous. 2. That we should 
 be protected from the expense of those paupers 
 who should come in upon us from other parts of 
 the city, taking care that in general Glasgow should 
 be alike protected from the expense of our paupers 
 should they leave us to reside in any of its other 
 parishes. 3. That when those paupers of St 
 John's who at the outset of our enterprise received 
 direct supplies from the Town Hospital, should 
 have either died ofl^, or ceased in any other v.ay to 
 
102 ON THE SUFFICIENCY CF 
 
 be chargeable on that institution, our parish when 
 thus no longer burdensome on the compulsory 
 fund should be exempted from the assessment ; or, 
 in other words, should cease contributing to what it 
 ceased to draw from — a most advantageous bargain 
 truly for the administrators of the old system with 
 the poorest parish in the city. None of these con- 
 ditions were implemented. We ourselves forbore 
 the first of them — for in 1820, under one of the 
 most trying visitations which Glasgow ever expe- 
 rienced, when an immense central soup-kitchen 
 was set up for the whole city, we set up a minia- 
 ture soup-kitchen for our own people ; and if be- 
 side this extraordinary supply any of the money 
 raised by general subscription, and that for gene- 
 ral distribution, reached any of the families in St 
 John's — it must have been in a few rare instances 
 which escaped the vigilance of our own deacons, 
 intent as we all were on weathering even this 
 most adverse crisis in our history by independent 
 efforts of our own.* Thus much for our first 
 condition. The second and third were never 
 even by approximation made good to us. 
 
 8. But when we speak of conditions, let it not 
 be supposed that we charge any party in this 
 negotiation, with the violation of aught like fixed 
 or express articles of agreement. The three articles 
 now specified were understandings rather than 
 conditions.f The third must at once recommend 
 
 * See statement of Eight Years Experience in the volume re- 
 ferred to, p. 223. 
 
 t See my Letter to the Lord Provost of Glasgow of August 
 .3d, 1819, previous to my entrance on St John's — wliere it will be 
 observed that there is no express reference to the third condition, 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 103 
 
 its own equity to the reader. And it is of great 
 importance that he should attend to the second 
 — as proving what our apprehension was when we 
 entered on the execution of our task — not that we 
 should drive the poor out of St John's by the 
 rigour of our administration, but that the poor 
 from other parts of Glasgow would flock into it 
 because of its more genial spirit and character, and 
 so as to make us stand in dread of its inconvenient 
 popularity. We therefore felt the importance 
 of these diflferent precautions, and gave warning 
 of them beforehand, but without insisting on an 
 absolute engagement for their being carried into 
 effect. The truth is that placed as we were in the 
 midst of jealous adversaries, we were fearful lest 
 the arrangement should be frustrated, did we hold 
 out too strenuously on these preliminary exactions. 
 We were anxious to begin, confident of a prosper- 
 ous issue ; and hopeful, that, after the full exhibi- 
 tion of our success — all further opposition to our 
 management would cease, and every facility be 
 granted in order to perpetuate and extend it. 
 
 9. For let it well be remarked that our own ex- 
 pectations, so far from being at one, were in utter 
 dissonance and contrariety from the general expec- 
 tations whether of the public or of public men in 
 Glasgow. By very many our scheme was viewed 
 with an hostility which proved to be relentless and 
 persevering. And by many more, who looked to 
 it with good-natured complacency, it was regarded 
 as at best an airy perhaps a beautiful idealism — 
 
 ihe necessity for this being I felt superseded by its obvious equity, 
 in the same Vol. p. 314. 
 
104 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 the fond and sanguine speculation of a mere stu- 
 dent, whose closet abstractions would never stand 
 ground, when brought into collision on the same 
 tapis with the practical wisdom of practical men. 
 It was tolerated nevertheless by the authorities of 
 the place, but just as any harmless crotchet would 
 be, or piece of innocent Utopianism. And hence it 
 was thought better, thac, instead of crushing it by 
 the rude hand of power, it should be suffered to 
 go into gentle dissipation at the touch of time and 
 of experience. And hence it was resolved to give 
 it line, when it would soon make proof of its own 
 Quixotism. We appeal to the still abiding recol- 
 lection of more than twenty years back — if, mixed 
 with no little derision and disdain, our proposal was 
 not met with an incredulity which was all but uni- 
 versal. And it is worthy of all observation — not 
 the confident and general anticipation of a failure, 
 but the specific ground on which this coming cer- 
 tainty was looked for. This was that we should 
 soon have to give in for want of funds. We had 
 separated ourselves from the assessment — and it 
 was predicted that no collections however liberal 
 could replace such a privation. The money in 
 fact the palpable money, with the direct and ob- 
 vious arithmetic founded thereupon, was the only 
 element of their computation. And so the only 
 alternative which ever came within their field of 
 contemplation was — either that we should speedily 
 repair anew to the old fountain-head of supply, 
 whence to replenish our exhausted treasury ; or, 
 if reduced to make our two ends meet, that this 
 could only be done by such a system of spare and 
 
THE PAROCHIAI- SYSTEM. 105 
 
 wretched allowances, as would starve out our poor, 
 and force them to take refuge in the other parishes 
 of Glasgow. 
 
 10. But it is high time to enter on the descrip- 
 tion of our process. We divided the parish into 
 twenty-five parts ; and, having succeeded in ob- 
 taining as many deacons, we assigned one part to 
 each — thus placing under his management towards 
 fifty families, or at an average about four hundred 
 of a gross population. We constructed also a 
 familiar or brief directory which we put into their 
 hands.* It laid down the procedure which should 
 be observed on every application that was made 
 for relief. It was our perfect determination that 
 every applicant of ours should be at least as well 
 off as he would have been in any other parish of 
 Glasgow, had his circumstances there been as well 
 known — so that, surrounded though we were by 
 hostile and vigilant observers, no case of scandalous 
 allowance, or still le=s of scandalous neglect, was 
 ever made out against us. The only distinction 
 between us and our neighbours lay in this — that 
 these circumstances were by us most thoroughly 
 scrutinized, and that with the view of being tho- 
 roughly ascertained — and that very generally in 
 th6 progress of the investigation, we came in sight 
 of opportunities or openings for some one or other 
 of those preventive expedients by which any act 
 of public charity was made all the less necessary, 
 or very often superseded altogether. These expe- 
 dients must now be quite familiar to the reader. 
 
 • Vol. II. of the Christian and Economic Polity of a Nation, 
 p. 65, 01 Vol. XV. of the series. 
 
I 06 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 There was no case brought before the deacons as 
 a court, till each deacon to whom it individually be- 
 longed had first made sure what each applicant 
 could do for himself, and what his relatives or 
 neighbours were either doing or would do for him ; 
 and we certainly at all times held it the better, 
 the more excellent way, when a sufficiency could 
 be made out from the person's own industry, or 
 from the kindness of those about him, than that he 
 should be admitted as a pensioner on the charity 
 of the parish. This was very soon understood 
 by the people themselves to be the system on 
 which we acted. Let me add that each deacon 
 was perfectly known to the families of his own 
 district, was perfectly accessible to every com- 
 plaint or tale of necessity ; and never, that I knew, 
 blinked or evaded a single application. No 
 doubt he claimed the privilege of a strict search 
 and entry upon the question of every man's state, 
 who should claim through him relief from the 
 parish fund. But it is possible to conduct an in- 
 vestigation of this sort with all gentleness and 
 civility ; and it was this union I believe of firm- 
 ness with kindness, which formed the great secret, 
 both of our popularity and our success. 
 
 11. But it has been alleged against us, that, if 
 our success was extraordinary, our means for the 
 accomplishment of it were alike extraordinary — 
 that is a Sabbath collection which amounted to 
 £600 a-year. To obviate this, and demonstrate 
 of our process how imitable it was in other par- 
 ishes — we suffered the whole of this collection to 
 remain in the hands of the elders, and tliat in the 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 107 
 
 first instance for defraying the expenses of the old 
 pauperism with which by our bargain with the 
 Town Hospital we had agreed to charge ourselves. 
 The business of the deacons lay exclusively 
 with the new pauperism, it being their part to deal 
 with every application which might be made by 
 any one for the first time to obtain relief from the 
 parish. And the only fund placed at their dis- 
 posal out of which they could meet these applica- 
 tions — was the produce of a small evening collec- 
 tion, made up of the humble halfpence gathered at 
 the church-doors from a poor parochial congrega- 
 tion, altogether distinct from the wealthier congre- 
 gation which assembled through the day from all 
 parts of the town. This little collection fell short 
 of £100 a-year ; and from it alone the deacons 
 were expected to provide, for a time at least, for 
 all the new applicants whom it should be found 
 necessary to admit on the charity of the parish. 
 It v;ill at once be seen that the essence of the 
 problem lay in the treatment of these new cases; 
 and that if they could be met from our evening 
 collection, then might they have been met in other 
 parishes from the produce of their day collections, 
 in all instances superior to the one wherewith our 
 deacons were intrusted. We must confess that 
 we had another reason for restricting our deacons 
 at the first to the use of these evening collections 
 alone. We were fearful of a laser and less 
 careful management even from them, had the 
 whole collection been placed at their disposal. It 
 was never on the abundance of our means, but 
 
108 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 solely on the vigour and care of our management, 
 that we coimted for a prosperous issue to our 
 experiment ; and we did apprehend that with a 
 large sum in their hands, they would not have 
 been so strenuous in their inquiries, or gone so 
 Dusily in quest of other and previous expedients 
 for the relief of the cases before them, as when 
 actuated by the stimulating consideration of the 
 little they had to bestow. As it was they did 
 their part admirably, and in a way that rivetted 
 all my former convictions on the subject — super- 
 adding the verification of a particular example to 
 the assurance, not of a previous theory, but of a 
 previous general experience on the laws and ten- 
 dencies of human nature. 
 
 12. The reason will now be seen why we have 
 denominated that process by which a parish finds 
 its way back from the compulsory system to the 
 old gratuitous economy for the relief of its poor — 
 why we have termed it a retracing process. For 
 the work even of most salutary reforms, we have 
 no liking for a movement that is at all violent or 
 desultory. We have the greatest admiration for 
 what in physics, Leibnitz has termed the law of 
 continuity ; a law which it were well to respect in 
 the accomplishment of political or economic 
 changes. It was not by an act of dismissal, even 
 though warranted by a fair scrutiny, that we 
 sought to get rid of the old pauperism. We 
 cared not though in every case, he who had been 
 already admitted upon its roll should be seen to 
 his grave in the full sufficiency of his present al- 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 109 
 
 lowances. It was obvious that in the course of 
 nature, or by the operation of death on the pau- 
 perism that had been formed under the compulsory- 
 system, we should be soon freed from it, nor had 
 we any wish to be freed from it sooner. It was 
 quite enough that while at the one end the old 
 pauperism was melting gradually away, the whole 
 success of the experiment hinged on the rate at 
 which the new pauperism was admitted at the 
 other end — a rate we affirm which might be 
 lessened indefinitely, and that without the harsh 
 or unfeeling rejection of any applicant, but with 
 the bestowal of a most kind and patient and con- 
 siderate attention on all his circumstances ; and 
 finally, in far the greater majority of instances, a 
 better disposal of him than that of finding or forcing 
 a way for him to the charity of the parish. It 
 was our confident anticipation that by tlie time 
 the old pauperism had died out, the collection at 
 the church doors would be found an ample land- 
 ing-place for all the new pauperism that should 
 meanwhile have been formed — a transition this we 
 confess of that progressive character, which one 
 feels or gropes his way to as if by a tentative or 
 experimental process — that is vastly more to our 
 taste, than any large or sudden innovation effected 
 at once and per saltum on an actual system of 
 things. This we are sensible does not suit an 
 age that is impatient of slow processes, it being 
 alike distasteful indeed to two very different classes 
 of society — those who, averse to all change, would 
 resolutely keep by things as they are ; and those 
 who, bent on things as they should be, must have 
 
110 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 them now or never. In action they would l;e 
 anarchists, in speculation they are Utopians.* 
 
 13. But let us resume our narrative. There 
 was an inconvenient yet very natural reaction to 
 which we were exposed at the very outset of this 
 our undertaking. It was known among the people, 
 that ours was to be some new and peculiar method 
 for the management of our poor. With many, a 
 better management was construed into a more 
 liberal distribution. This in the first instance 
 had all the etiect which we have been in the habit 
 of ascribing to the known existence of a compul- 
 sory provision — the effect of a disturbing force 
 upon the families, and so subjected us to an excess 
 of applications, which had each to be disposed of 
 according to the principles of our system, but 
 which speedily subsided when the system came to 
 be understood. Ours was a strict, though in 
 every case a friendly investigation — the object of 
 which was to ascertain all the previous means and 
 resources of which we should avail ourselves, ere 
 we drew on the public charity at all. All who 
 were conscious of possessing such means simply 
 ceased to apply ; and the number of applications 
 fell in a month or two to about one-tifth of the 
 number made under the old system. Such was 
 one of the earliest fruits of our greater painstaking 
 at the first — that it obtained for us in all time 
 coming, greater liberty and leisure for a thorough 
 inquiry into the merits of every future application. 
 
 14. The result at the end of the first four years 
 
 * Vol. II. of the Christi;in and Economic Polity of a Nation, 
 or Vol. XV. of the series, \>. ISO. 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. Ill 
 
 greatly exceeded even our own anticipations. In 
 a parish of at that time about ten thousand people, 
 rapidly on the increase and the poorest in Glas- 
 gow, there was only formed during the whole of 
 that period a new pauperism the cost of which 
 amounted to the annual sum of £66 : 6s. Deduct 
 certain cases of immorality which ought not to be 
 provided for in this way, and the cases of lunacy 
 or other institutional disease which ought to be 
 provided for at the public expense ; and the whole 
 of our yearly charge for general indigence amount- 
 ed to £32. The number of paupers which had 
 been taken on was thirteen. 
 
 15. Such a result might well be as astonishing 
 as if no paupers had been taken on at all. And 
 indeed it would have required but a small effort to 
 have drawn a little more largely on our previous 
 expedients, and so as to have prevented even 
 these thirteen from coming on the roll. The 
 management of our deacons, however admi- 
 rable when looked to collectively and in the gross, 
 cannot be imagined to have been out and out so 
 absolutely perfect and faultless, that no one in- 
 stance of relaxation can be alleged against it. I 
 recollect when one of their number quitted his 
 office for the higher degree of the eldership. 
 There was an aged female in his district of great 
 Christian worth, and who beside being a great 
 favourite among her neighbours had a number of 
 visitors from a distance. Thus surrounded, there 
 was the moral certainty of her being well looked 
 after ; and therefore though we would not resist, 
 could not sympathize with the proposal of her 
 
] 12 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 being admitted as one of our pensioners. An 
 allowance of ijs. a month was granted to her, 
 which accounts for at least £3 of the £32 that 
 formed our whole annual expenditure. My only 
 hope is, that it might have been unknown to neigh- 
 bours and acquaintances — else there were the hazard 
 of its being followed up by the abandonment of a 
 sympathy on their part prolific of a far larger 
 relief and sustenance to this aged worthy, than 
 the pompous yet after all paltry allowance of our 
 parochial court.* 
 
 16. But more than the half remains to be told — 
 and that is, beside the smallness of the expendi- 
 ture, the perfect facility of the management. On 
 this latter subject too, there is a deep, I had al- 
 most said, a hopeless misunderstanding, and which 
 after the weary reiteration of twenty years, I still 
 find to be well nigh incurable. One would have 
 thought, that, could anything have opened the 
 eyes of the public to the lightness of the task 
 which they had taken in hand, it should have been 
 the recorded testimony of the deacons themselves. 
 On leaving St John's, I sent a circular amongst 
 them bearing a few queries, the object of which was 
 to ascertain the exact amount of time and labour 
 which they had expended on their respective un- 
 dertakings, and that had been brought to so tri- 
 umphant an issue. Their replies have been before 
 the world more than seventeen years ; and though 
 
 * See examples of our parochial management in St John's, in 
 the Appendix to our Speech on Pauperism, delivered before the 
 Genenil Assembly of 1821, to be found jtt p. 189—192, of Vol. 
 III., of the Christian and Economic Polity of a Nation, which 
 forms Vol. XVI. of our series. 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 113 
 
 I say it, I am aware of nothing more valuable in 
 the annals of pauperism — nothing which comes 
 nearer to the very essence and philosophy of the 
 question, than the simple unvarnished statements 
 of these eminently practical men, who had been 
 engaged at close quarters with the subject for so 
 many years — each in charge of a district with from 
 three to four hundred people, and altogether of a 
 parish that latterly grew in population to about 
 twelve thousand. If theirs be not experience, I 
 have yet to learn what is meant by the term; nor 
 would I know to what quarter I should turn in 
 quest of the place where truth is to be found. 
 Theirs is experience, and what alone is deserving 
 of the name — experience charged with principle — - 
 truth at first hand. 
 
 17. There may have been some initial labour 
 at the comm.encement of each deaconship, in 
 making surveys and first visits for the purpose of 
 obtaining an acquaintance both with the state of 
 the families, and with the families themselves ; 
 and we hope also many genial visits paid in friendly 
 intercourse, and with a view both to the economic 
 and educational good of the districts. What I 
 wanted to know was the time currently spent in 
 the affairs of pauperism alone ; and I now know 
 on striking an average of all the replies, that 
 it certainly did not exceed three hours a-month.* 
 
 18. Such is the fact — a most important one 
 truly — for after the first objection to our scheme 
 
 * See the replies of my deacons at pp. 240 — 2G1, of Vol. HI. 
 of tlie Christian and Economic Polity o( ii Nation, being Vol 
 XVI. of the series. 
 
 21 n 
 
114 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 had been dissipated, that it required means which 
 no ordinary church collection could supply, a 
 second in full confidence and force was ready to 
 take its place, that it required a management 
 which no man in ordinary business could possibly 
 have time for. It was as indispensable to meet this 
 latter difficulty as to meet the former, for the pur- 
 pose of making out the perfect imitableness of our 
 system in all other parishes. But the extreme 
 facility of this management looks a thing so mar- 
 vellous as to demand an explanation — an explana- 
 tion we have so often given, that an utter weariness 
 comes upon our spirits when required from us 
 anew. To be satisfied with, or even perhaps to 
 understand it, one must have seized on the prin- 
 ciple whereon the success of our undertaking 
 hinges. It was not we in fact who executed 
 or resolved the problem. The people did it for 
 us. At the very time that we were complimented 
 on the exceeding skill and strenuousness of our 
 administration, we were lying on our oars and 
 doing nothing — we mean nothing in the matter 
 of pauperism, and for this good reason that nothing 
 or next to nothing was required of us. The result 
 did not come forth of the administrative energies 
 of our system — for excepting in first cases or first 
 applications, such energy was seldom or never 
 afterwards required of any of our deacons. It 
 came from the reflex influence of our system on 
 the families themselves. They knew that each 
 proposal of theirs for relief would be met on our 
 part by a strict investigation of all their resources, 
 whether these lay in their own capabilities or in 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. I 15 
 
 the help of others ; and all who were conscious 
 of such resources forbore to apply. The know- 
 ledge of a compulsory provision operated as a dis- 
 turbing force both on the self-care and on the 
 sympathies of Nature. Remove that provision : 
 and these principles were restored to their proper 
 force or original play. The body politic of our 
 parish was put into a better condition, and all its 
 evolutions went on more prosperously than before 
 — not by any skilful mechanism of ours, but by 
 the spontaneous working of Nature's previous and 
 better mechanism.* 
 
 19. But let it not be imagined that though our 
 deacons had little left for them to do in the mat- 
 ter of pauperism, they therefore did little for the 
 good of the parish or the well-being of its inhabi- 
 tants. It is not conceivable of any well princi- 
 pled man, whose heart was in its right place, that 
 he should take the charge of a district, and yet 
 take no interest in the state of its families. It 
 were of the utmost moral importance to every 
 cluster of our plebeian households, that we at- 
 tached to each the visits and the acquaintanceship 
 of a functionary — even though he should stand in 
 no other relationship to its inmates than that of 
 their general wellwisher and friend. We cannot 
 doubt that by the influence of these men, much 
 was done for the people — that in virtue of their 
 surveillance, our sewing and Sabbath and week- 
 day schools were all better attended — that their 
 frequent presence told on the comfort and cleanli- 
 
 * Vol. III. p. 340 of Christian and Economic Polity^ kc^t be- 
 ing Vol. XVI. of tlie series. 
 
116 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 ness and whole interior economy of the houses — 
 and that altogether there was a certain elevation 
 of tone and habit in the little communities over 
 which they severally expatiated. We have the 
 most perfect assurance of such an arrangement, 
 simple as it was, that it issued in the goodly re- 
 sult of a blander and better and more humanized 
 population ; and that, wholly apart from the distri- 
 bution of money, there was not only a greater 
 contentment, and not only a greater felt but a 
 greater actual sufficiency than before. By the 
 converse of our deacons, they were not only 
 cheered in the midst of their difficulties, but occa- 
 sionally without question were helped out of them 
 — far more however by advice than pecuniary aid, 
 better taught how to husband their own resources 
 and make their own hands minister to their own 
 necessities. Over and above, the wholesome pro- 
 cesses that we have so often described of rela- 
 tive and internal charity among themselves, though 
 not certainly originated by our deacons, would at 
 the least not be slackened or suspended— when 
 calling forth as they invariably would, the homage 
 of their grateful acknowledgments, the encourage- 
 ment of their approving testimony. 
 
 20. But this general statement will not suflBce 
 against the oft repeated charge, that we starved 
 our poor and so drove them out oi the parish. 
 Had we counted on this expedient for getting rid 
 of our pauperism, we should never have solicited 
 a law of mutual protection between ourselves and 
 the other parishes of Glasgow.' But our still more 
 decisive reply is, that a register was kept both of 
 
THE PAKOCHIAL SYSTEM. 117 
 
 the paupers who left, and the paupers who flowed 
 in upon us ; and that our imports exceeded our 
 exports — thereby exposing us to the charge, not 
 merely of the poor admitted to parochial charity 
 by ourselves, but of tl:e whole surplus poor that 
 were so admitted under the laxer administration 
 that obtained in the rest of the city. In ?^arch 
 1823, or three years and a half after the com- 
 mencement of our system, fifteen of our own pau- 
 pers had left and 29 of the other Glasgow paupers 
 had come to reside in our parish, the maintenance 
 of whom fell under the charge of our deacons. In 
 1837, the whole efflux amounted to 29, the influx to 
 61. The truth is, that our system, parsimonious 
 as it was in the distribution of parish money, was 
 exceedingly popular ; and to those who have any 
 understanding of human nature this fact will not 
 be inexplicable. We have only to think of the 
 charm which lies in personal attention, and in the 
 intercourse that we hold with the too often ne- 
 glected poor, who after all stand much oftener in 
 need of advice than they do of alms ; and who, 
 though they received less from us than in other 
 parishes, received a great deal more, and especi- 
 ally if we include their own better management of 
 their own affairs, from the other sources that we 
 had opened up for them. We had no doubt greatly 
 fewer applicants ; but though less money was 
 given, more trouble was taken with each of 
 them ; and we either ascertained their circum- 
 stances to be such, or placed them in such circum- 
 stances — that had they been any where else in 
 Glasgow, and as well known as we knew them, no 
 
118 ON THE SUiFiClKNCY OF 
 
 further care or cognizance of their state would 
 have been deemed necessary. But in some shape 
 or other we never ceased that cognizance or care ; 
 and hence, though pauperism was the least of our 
 concerns, there was altogether a blandness in the 
 atmosphere of St John's, which made it the best 
 liked, and most genial of any to the feeling of our 
 general population. 
 
 21. But these resolute adversaries of ours are 
 not yet fully or finally disposed of — for, bent on 
 finding some vulnerable place, if they do not suc- 
 ceed at one part, they in quest of an opening will 
 go round to another. And accordingly they have 
 made discovery that our deacons were all men of 
 unbounded wealth, the gentlemen of our day's 
 congregation — who scattered liberally of their 
 means among the people, and practised a sort of 
 juggle on the public eye, by causing the same 
 amount of money which must otherwise have come 
 to the poor out of the church-door plates, by 
 causing it come out of their own pockets. This 
 looks a very dii'ect and literal explanation of the 
 thing — an explanation quite in keeping with the 
 ])lain arithmetical understandings of those who 
 offer it, as also with the mental calibre of those 
 whom it satisfies. And if called to the bar of 
 account, and there to confess the liberality of our 
 deacons as if it were a crime, there were times 
 and occasions, we fear, on which it could be 
 brought home — so that, unable to prove either an 
 alias or an alibi, we must plead guilty. Tliey 
 were men of various fortune— ^some of them in 
 re^^pectable business, and others having little or 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 1 19 
 
 nothing to spare. It was a most improving ex- 
 perience to observe how they severally sped in 
 their respective districts. There was one very 
 poor outskirt of the parish, between Marlborough 
 and Abercromby streets, placed under the care 
 of a merchant's clerk, and whose house was on the 
 very margin of his deaconry. There was another 
 from Hill street and eastward, whose deacon was 
 journeyman to a house-wright; and we can vouch 
 of both these localities, that, with greatly more 
 than the average natural poverty, there was almost 
 no pauperism — and this, not most certainly from 
 the personal outgivings of our oflBce-bearers, but 
 altogether from the wholesome effect of our sys- 
 tem on the people themselves. In contrast with 
 these, we cannot place the imprudence of our 
 wealthier deacons, who were too well inoculated 
 in the principles of our management to do mischief 
 by a profuse and indiscriminate liberality. But 
 we can state our recollections of two elders, them- 
 selves in prosperous circumstances, and who stood 
 signalized amongst us, by a somewhat generous 
 and free, but withal not very discriminating charity. 
 The effect of this, especially in one of the districts, 
 was quite notorious.* Some of its people, thrown 
 
 * One of tliese elders let me know that he spent ^'40 a-vear on 
 the population of his district — no great expenditure after all amon^ 
 a population of four or rive hundred, and sufficiently evincing 
 that under a judicious system of maniig-ement a very little monev 
 might go an immense way in satisfying the fair demands of all 
 the familie<i. Tlie other elder alarmed me by his favourite scheme 
 of a Sabbath -8011001 clothing society for the whole parish. From 
 this I succeedeii in dissuading him, and had the comfort in a few 
 months of preaching to 1200 parochial children all most respects 
 ably attired i)y tlieir owi\ parents or natural superiors. See a 
 •pecimea of the etfect, when, instead of luring them to education 
 
120 ON THE SUFFfCIENCY OF 
 
 restless and agog, by the facility and open-handed- 
 ness of the eider, flowed over upon the deacon, 
 and gave us more trouble than half the parish be- 
 sides—making it quite palpable to us all, that it 
 was in management not in money tliat the great 
 strength of our system lay — or more even than in 
 management, that the success of our peculiar 
 economy was mainly owing to its natural but 
 withal most beneficial reaction on the general habit 
 of the families. 
 
 22. At the same time ours was any thing but a 
 system of neglect. Our deacons did not shut 
 their doors against the poor ; and, even though it 
 should be absurdly triumphed over as if it were 
 the detection of a fallacy, we most willingly admit 
 it as our hope and our persuasion, that they did 
 not shut their hearts against them. They were 
 men of principle ; and it would neither have con- 
 sisted with their nature nor with their Christianity, 
 to have treated as so many nullities the virtues of 
 that gospel which tells us to open our bowels of 
 compassion when the needy stand before us, and 
 that we should be willing to distribute and ready 
 to communicate. Were we asked to define their 
 peculiar vocation, we should say that it was to 
 discriminate between the deserving and the unde- 
 serving poor ; and while the latter were kept at 
 bay, or shamed out of their importunities, the 
 former we have no doubt were peculiarly cared 
 for. It was certainly quite to be looked for that 
 
 by the bribery of our {(ifts, we directly interest both parents and 
 children in the object itself. — Chri^^tian and Economic Polity of ^ 
 Nation, Vol. I. p. UO, beinjj Vol. XIV. of the series. 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 121 
 
 their own private charities would take a direction 
 towards the poor of their own district, with whom 
 they wc"" most in contact, and whom they visited 
 frequently. But that their charities were in the 
 least romantic or oppressive, I most positively 
 deny ; and it remains therefore a great discovery, 
 open at all times to the verification of those who 
 choose to make the trial — that a single philan- 
 thropist may undertake the office of counsellor 
 and friend to some hundreds of any contiguous 
 population, however poor; and, without any incon- 
 venient sacrifice either of time or money, may put 
 them, and that chiefly out of their own capabilities, 
 into a far better economic state, than any legal or 
 compulsory system of relief ever has, and we 
 shall add ever can do.* 
 
 * Tlie follovvini^ is a letter from Mr Wm. Buchanan, Treasurei 
 of the Deacons' Fund, and liiniself one of the Deacons: — 
 
 Glasgow, llh January, 1841. 
 
 Rkv. and Dear Sui, — 1 received your much esteemed letter 
 of the 2nd on 'iuesday, and in answer to what you mention is 
 said (and I have otten heard it said), that the St John's experiment 
 succeeded through tlie immense private expenditure of tiie 
 Deacons on the poor, I liave just to repeat, what I am sure I 
 have stated a hundred times, that the private relief afforded to 
 the poor in the Parish has been immensely overrated — lor, in 
 truth, had ail tlie givings of a private kind, by all the Deacons, 
 been adiied together at the end of any year, the amount would 
 have been found to be a very trifle. Many of the cases that 
 received this aid were strangers, wlio ha<l no claim upon Glasgow, 
 or parties who had no liking to accept of public charity, but to 
 whom a shilling or two now and then afforded a little temporary 
 aid. 
 
 We have all a little private chanty to give ; and surely there is 
 no way in which it can be better bestowed, than upon those with 
 whose wants and habits we are well ac(iuamted. 
 
 Had the Deacons of St Jolm s opened ihcir purses and been so 
 liberal as the opponents of our system say they were, then I consider 
 that tiiey would iiave been doing the system a very great injury 
 and the people no pennaneut good — as our great aim was to 
 
122 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 23. That our success was the result, not of 
 liberality from without, but mainly of the home 
 capabilities now more largely drawn upon, when 
 the compulsory provision ceased to be an object of 
 dependence or desire, is palpable from this — 
 that in those districts the experiment prospered as 
 much, we think more so, where the deacons had 
 the least to give out of tlieir own resources. 
 And we certainly are not aware of a dozen in- 
 stances, in which the benevolence of the wealthy 
 beyond the parish was called to interpose on behalf 
 of any of our families. 
 
 24. The general anticipation of our adversaries, 
 that our means would be speedily exhausted and 
 we should soon have to give in, not only failed of 
 accomplishment, but was strikingly reversed. We 
 did feel embarrassment, but from a cause the 
 opposite of that which our enemies were counting 
 on — not from the deficiency of our supplies, but 
 
 encourage the people in industrious hubits, and to get their chil- 
 dren taught to read tlie word of God ; and if ever the poor of 
 our land are provided for as they ought, it is to be through a. 
 system such as was so triumphantly carried on in St John's fur 
 nineteen years. 
 
 I cannot help addinsf, that n<)t^^ithstanding all the plans at pre- 
 sent in operation for the support of the poor generally, as retreats 
 for the neglected are jusi so many allurements to vice and idleness, 
 if a system of sound Scriptural education and Pastoral superinten- 
 dence is not adopted throughout the parishes of our land, it re- 
 quires no great foresight to perceive that the day will come when 
 our Jails, Bridewells, and Houses of Refu!.'e, will all require to be 
 enlari^ed and their number increased. A friend of ours lias a short 
 but truly pithy and sound saying, "the People will cost us" 
 either for e<lucation or jails. 
 
 I hope \ou will excu.->e tliese brief statements. 1 am not given 
 to amplify, nor can I, but to state matters of fact and truth. 
 
 Yours most sincerely, 
 
 Wu. Buchanan. 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 123 
 
 in truth from the redundance of them. The pro- 
 duce of the evening collection was in the hands of 
 the deacons fully equal to the new pauperism, — 
 while the day collection, more than equal to the 
 old sessional pauperism, left an accumulating 
 surplus of which I confess that I stood in dread, 
 lest the superabundance of our means should tempt 
 to a relaxation of our management. On this 
 account I all the more readily consented to the 
 proposal, that we should go beyond the original 
 tenor of our bargain with the Town Hospital, and 
 relieve that institution immediately of all the old 
 cases from St John's that were still upon their 
 funds, so as in about two years to rid our parish 
 altogether of its compulsory pauperism. The fact 
 of such a redundancy in our means as enabled us to 
 give the Town Hospital a large yearly allowance — 
 the very opposite of their own prediction that such 
 would be the deficiency as should speedily force 
 us to draw from that institution — might well have 
 opened the eyes of our adversaries to the truth, 
 that in something else than the arithmetical element 
 of money did the secret of our strength lie. 
 
 25. After upwards of four years' connexion 
 with the parish of St John's, I left Glasgow in 
 November, 1823, and it was well I did. By this 
 time the enemies of our system had changed their 
 argument. Baffled in their first anticipation that 
 our means would fall short of the achievement, 
 they had recourse to an hypothesis by which to 
 cover the mortification of a defeated prophecy, 
 uttered with all confidence a few years before, 
 but which had been most signally reversed. They 
 
124 ON THE SUFFICIENCY CF 
 
 could no longer withstand the palpable fact, that, 
 instead of coming for aid to the Town Hospital, 
 we had gone beyond our first contract and relieved 
 them of all our poor ; beside lodging from the pro- 
 duce of our day's collection the sum of £500 with 
 the city Corporation for a perpetual salary to a 
 schoolmaster, and expending from the same source 
 upwards of £100 a-year for the cheaper scholar- 
 ship of our families. And the argument that we 
 starved and drove out our poor on the other 
 parishes could no longer serve them, seeing that 
 our imports were far more numerous than our 
 exports. Neither could the argument of our 
 large collection, seeing that our new pauperism 
 was all met from the scanty offerings of our 
 evening or plebeian congregation. But resolute 
 in their hostility, they had recourse to another and 
 desperate fetch, and of which the adversaries to 
 our method still avail themselves. Determined 
 at all hazards to get rid of the system, yet driven 
 from one plea and position to another, they at 
 length fell on a very original way of fastening 
 discredit upon it ; and that was under the guise of 
 a compliment to its author. At the outset of our 
 enterprise nothing was heard of but the utter folly 
 and weakness of the project; and when it did suc- 
 ceed, they managed to keep up its discredit by 
 ascribing the whole success to the marvellous and 
 preternatural strength of the projector. And so 
 the conclusion was thai it would not do in ordinary 
 hands. The fact of our having fully and abso- 
 lutely accomplished all, and more than all, that we 
 undertook to do, they could not disguise from 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 125 
 
 themselves; and this was the way in which they dis- 
 posed of it — if not by an express, at least by a 
 tacit reference in their imagination, to a sort of 
 wizard power which they were pleased to ascribe 
 to the great Katterfelto or wonder-worker that 
 had come amongst them from the east. And so 
 the whole effect on their minds was a kind of 
 gaping astonishment, the same that any feat of 
 magic or necromancy has on a multitnde of spec- 
 tators — without one ray of hght to penetrate their 
 understandings ; or enable them to discern what 
 that was which really effectuated the result, or 
 wherein it was that the success of our operation 
 lay. There was obviously no method by which to 
 disabuse them of this strange impression, but by 
 turning my back on the whole concern ; and thus 
 testing the inherent soundness and efficacy of the 
 system itself by leaving it in other hands. Re- 
 solved as they were to account for it in no other 
 way, than by the supposition of some dexterous 
 juggle or legerdemain on my part, nay in several 
 instances I was told, by the allegation of a colossal 
 or gigantic superiority over all other men — the 
 only way in which 1 could dissipate the illusion, 
 was by the disseveration of myself from Glasgow 
 and all its controversies : And, in the hope that I 
 might be succeeded by some plain gospel minister, 
 I did flatter myself that the truth would at length 
 break in upon them, when they came to see of our 
 parochial economy that it would stand its ground 
 — even with every-day instruments operating on 
 every day materials. 
 
 2(). 1 accordingly left the parish iu November, 
 
126 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 1823, and had there been any flaw or failure in 
 our scheme it would soon have bewrayed itseif* — 
 for never, we venture to say, without a principle of 
 native vigour and vitality in itself, could it have 
 survived for a single year the amount of rough 
 handling to which it was exposed. There was 
 first a lengthened vacancy of near a twelvemonth, 
 during which the deacons had it all to themselves — 
 then the brief incumbency of my first successor — 
 then another vacancy also of unusual duration — then 
 a second successor of whom it may emphatically be 
 said, that, in the apostolic spirit of the first founders 
 of Christianity who gave themselves wholly to the 
 ministry of the word and to prayer, he left the 
 secular ministration exclusively to its own proper 
 oflBce-bearers. Beside all this, there was a rapidly 
 increasing population, the persevering discounte- 
 nance if not hostility of almost all public men and 
 public bodies to our enterprise, a most unprosper- 
 ous chapel which ought to have been an auxiliary 
 but proved a burden upon the cause; and last, 
 but most overwhelming of all, the entire neglect 
 and non-performance of the condition which we 
 announcedfromthe first as indispensable to our suc- 
 cess — there having been no exemption of our Parish 
 from an assessment to which it contributed its full 
 proportion as before, and without for years drawing 
 from it a single farthing for any of its families. 
 Never was any mechanism of human contrivance 
 more severely tried, or brought more closely to the 
 
 * Si'fi Cliristiaii and Economic Polityv&c. Vol. III. pp. 270 — 
 276, l>eing Vol. XV^I. ol the series. Also in the same Volume, 
 pp. 2(57— 2«i9. 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 127 
 
 touchstone ; and yet, in the midst of all these dis- 
 couragements, let us hear the testimonies of my 
 two successors — the first Dr M'Farlane now of 
 Greenock, the second Dr Brown still the vener- 
 able minister of St John's in Glasgow.* 
 
 27. When examined before a Committee of the 
 House of Commons in 1830, I detailed the whole 
 of these proceedings ; and the state of the Parish 
 at that time or seven years after I had left it. I 
 even then spoke of it no longer as an experiment, 
 but as an experience — regarding the trial as com- 
 pleted, and the lesson to be drawn from it as fully 
 and conclusively given. The experiment in fact 
 was as good as repeated and with perfect success 
 three times over — for so shortlived is a generation 
 of Scottish pauperism, from averagely speaking 
 the more advanced age of entry than in England, 
 that I would scarcely rate it at so much as four 
 years. Now the system had been in operation 
 about eleven years ; and with every promise of 
 stability so far as the fitness and power of its own 
 mechanism were concerned, if the agents would 
 only keep by their posts, and continue to work it 
 as heretofore. But of this I felt and confessed 
 my apprehensions ; and in the evidence which I 
 then gave I told my examinators, that I could not 
 look for the perseverance of my Deacons under the 
 discountenance and apathy of a public who seemed 
 wholly insensible to the value of their services.! 
 
 * See Nos. ir..'' and 134 of my Evidenrw before the Commons* 
 Commitlfe, in Vol. Ill, of the Ctiiisii.iu and Economic Polity, 
 being Vol. XVI. ot tiie series, 
 t See l^.e last punigrapli of No. 134, and 150 of luy Evidence; 
 
128 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 It is true 1 stood in need of no further trial to 
 satisfy myself; and, after what I had seen of the 
 obstinate incredulity or rather utter listlessness of 
 the official men in Glasgow, 1 had given up all 
 hope of ever opening their eyes. Still, of the two 
 alternatives, I felt it better that they should keep 
 together in the face of every discouragement, and 
 1 will add of every provocation, rather than that 
 they should suffer the parish to merge again into 
 that system of the surrounding parishes from which 
 they had so nobly reclaimed it. But though I 
 wished this of them I could not ask it of them ; 
 but left the matter to proceed as it might seem 
 good unto themselves. It was therefore all the 
 more grateful tome, that, after having served eleven 
 thankless years from the time I left them to 1830 
 when I stood the examination of a Parliamentary 
 Committee, they added other seven years of 
 service as thankless as the former. It was during 
 this last period that they were visited by MrTuffnell, 
 one of the Assistant Poor-law Commissioners from 
 England in 1833. In his Report he tells both of 
 the completeness of our experiment, and the fla- 
 grant injustice under which it was suffering. Of 
 the experiment 1 had no fear. That I felt to be 
 already settled, and settled it has been four times 
 over. My fear was not for the experiment, but 
 for the experimentalists. I certainly snould not 
 have made the attempt, could I have anticipated 
 such a relentless hostility and prejudice, or if not 
 this, such downright obtuseness and perversity of 
 intellect among the spectators of its success — and 
 if I would not have begun the enterprise had 1 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 129 
 
 thus anticipated, how could I expect that my 
 Deacons would persevere in it after it was thus 
 realized ? I was disappointed, and make open 
 avowal of it — not in the result of the experiment 
 itself, which was all I could have wished, but in its 
 utter powerlessness of effect on the minds of the 
 public functionaries in Glasgow — men who de- 
 nounced it as theory at the first, and who, after 
 it had become experience, would not receive, 
 would not even read the lesson which had been so 
 palpably set before their eyes. Our readers will 
 again be reminded of the distinction already made, 
 between the natural and the political difficulties of 
 our problem. The former have all been conquered. 
 The latter have stood the assault, alike impreg- 
 nable to facts and to reasonings, and so abide 
 as stoutly invincible as before. This has long 
 awakened my bitterest regret; but it cannot shake 
 my confidence. Even one decisive experiment in 
 chemistry will establish a principle, that shall 
 remain an enduring certainty in science — even 
 though an edict of power, in the spirit of that 
 blind and haughty Pontiff who denounced the 
 Copernican system, should forbid the repetition of 
 it. My experiment has been made, and given 
 forth its indelible lesson, although my experimen- 
 talists have been disheartened and scared away. 
 This no more invalidates the great truth which 
 they have exemplified so well, than a mandate of 
 intolerance can repeal a law of physical nature, or 
 change the economy of the universe. 
 
 28. But we must explain what it was that laid 
 our parochial economy under so heavy a discour- 
 21 I 
 
130 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 agement, and which at once calls forth my grati- 
 tude and my wonder that the Deacons of St John i 
 should have kept together so long in the suppor' 
 of it. First then all the while that they were 
 employed, and with such great and signal success, 
 in keeping down the pauperism of their own parish, 
 they lay open to the importation of all the pauper- 
 ism that was manufactured so readily and abun- 
 dantly in the other parishes of Glasgow. It is 
 true that in virtue of this intercommunion, they 
 might have been relieved of somewhat of their own 
 pauperism ; and so they were, but how stood the 
 balance between these two processes ? The whole 
 number of imports during the management of our 
 Deacons amounted to sixty-one, the whole number 
 of exports only to twenty-nine — leaving an excess of 
 thirty-two, to be supported by our funds though 
 not admitted into the roll under our examination. 
 This was a grievous exposure, to be thus saddled 
 ab extra with an expense not of our own bringing 
 on, and for which we were not in the least respon- 
 sible — a disadvantage this that we never could get 
 rid of, and which indeed, in their conversation with 
 the proper functionaries of the place previous to 
 the resignation of their peculiar charge, our people 
 were told was impossible. J3ut there was the 
 evil of a far greater injustice than this, and from 
 which all redress was in like manner denied to 
 them. Nothing could be more obviously equitable 
 than that a poor parish, the poorest in Glasgow, 
 which had thus struggled its way to its own eman- 
 cipation from pauperism, and had not for sixteen 
 years drawn a single farthing from the compulsory 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 131 
 
 fund, should itself have been exempted from any 
 further contributions to it. But no. During the 
 whole of that period it cost the Town Hospital 
 nothing — yet during the whole of that period con- 
 tinued to pay the Town Hospital as before, main- 
 taining their own poor, yet subject to all their 
 wonted exactions for the general maintenance of 
 the poor in Glasgow. Just figure the encourage- 
 ment to imitation in other parishes — had we earned 
 as the fruit of our achievement, an immunity from 
 the assessment for all who were connected either 
 by residence or property with St John's ; and 
 how it would have animated^ afresh our Deacons, 
 had they thus become the guides and examples of 
 a process, by which to liberate, not only Glasgow, 
 but the other towns and assessed parishes of 
 Scotland, from that incubus which they had so 
 conclusively and fully shaken off from their own 
 territory. But instead of this, not one voice, save 
 that of an impartial stranger* from a distance, was 
 lifted up in the acknowledgment of their great 
 service — nor one helping hand to move aside the 
 obstructions, for relief from which our men of 
 local authority at home, but also of local partiality 
 and prejudice, were solicited in vain. We never 
 could anticipate of our Deacons, that they would 
 stand out for ever, under the burden of that 
 heavy discountenance which lay upon them. Nor 
 could aught else be looked for but at length an 
 tnert and spiritless ministration, on the part of men 
 
 * Mr Tuffnel, an extract from whose Report will be found at 
 the end of Vol. III. of Cliristian and Economic Polity — bein^f 
 Vol. XVI. of the series. 
 
132 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 who were fairly wearied out, and could no longer 
 be expected to maintain the vigilance and strict 
 guardianship of other years, after all hope of a 
 general reformation was extinguished, and no other 
 purpose was now to be served than that of uphold- 
 ing a mere spectacle — a thing not to be copied, 
 but only to be stared at — an oasis in the desert, 
 which men could point to as a sort of marvel or 
 mystery, but would not take a single lesson from 
 — an object to wonder at, but not to be taught by. 
 And accordingly in 1837, or eighteen years after the 
 commencement of our enterprise, it was at length 
 desisted from — not by any infirmity of the process 
 itself in virtue of which the experiment failed ; but, 
 which is truly a dilFerent thing, by a voluntary 
 determination on the part of the operators in virtue 
 of which the experiment was given up. 
 
 29. We certainly did calculate, that, on the 
 event of its success, we should have had many 
 imitators ; and that thus the old system, with all 
 its disturbing and contagious influences, might 
 have been speedily cleared away from the neigh- 
 bourhood of our experiment. Had the infection 
 of all the contiguous territory been removed, we 
 should have had still less of importunity than we 
 had actually to combat ; and much less vigilance in 
 the treatment of particular cases would have been 
 called for. Our task was obviously all the more 
 difficult, that it had to be performed in the midst 
 of an assessed instead of an unassessed region. 
 This difficulty we did expect to be relieved from, 
 after that we had completed the exemplification of 
 our own pecuhar method ; and its practical sound- 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 133 
 
 ness had come to be recognised and acted on by 
 followers around us. It was not in possibility, or 
 2a nature, but that our Deacons should lose heart 
 — when they found that a general reform, the 
 great object which at first set the enterprise 
 agoing, and for which alone it was felt worth while 
 to persevere, was every day becoming more hope- 
 less and unlikely. And let it be observed, that a 
 very slight relaxation, a more listless and perfunc- 
 tory management on the part of a very few — of 
 four, five, or six, out of the twenty-five — would 
 of itself suffice to overset the whole system — . 
 not to be sure, when a compulsory provision is 
 done away from the country at large — but when it 
 is still at hand, and open to be resorted to as before. 
 I cannot therefore but repeat the expression of 
 my astonishment that the Deacons, notwithstand- 
 ing their many discouragements, resisted this temp- 
 tation so long ; and that, holding out for the 
 long period of eighteen years, they have stamped 
 a verification on the system of gratuitous charity, 
 which all the skill and sophistry of its opponents 
 will never do away. 
 
 30. And that the verification was complete, let 
 us take for evidence the final pecuniary account of 
 the whole undertakino^. 
 
134 
 
 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 ABSTRACT OF THE 
 
 Treasurer' s Account of Receipts and Disbursements of the Funds 
 of St John's Parish, Glasgovj, as applicable to the Mainten- 
 ance of the Poor, Educational Purposes, 8fc.,from 26th Sept., 
 1819, till 30ih Sept., 1837. 
 
 RECEIPTS. 
 
 To Collections at Church and Chapel Doors... 
 „ Do. at Church Doors from Evening Congregation 
 „ Seat Kents from Evening Congregation.., 
 
 ,, J^egacies and Donations 
 
 „ Town's Hospital, for the Support of Poor found in 
 
 the Hospital in September, 1819 
 
 ,, Collections for Religious and Charitable Purposes 
 
 not Parochial 
 
 „ Interest on Bank Account,and fromCity of Glasgow 
 
 „ Kent of Mortcloth 
 
 „ General Session Fund for Education 
 
 „ Collections for St John's Chapel Funds 
 
 „ Do. for St John's Parochial Schools , 
 
 „ Stirling Session on Account of a Lunatic Pauper 
 
 ,, Lockharl's Mortification for Sabbath Schools , 
 
 „ Collection for forming New Road through College 
 
 Ground 
 
 „ Share of Ur Bell's Legacy 
 
 „ Collections for Sabbath Evening Schools... 
 „ Pensioners, Allowance to their Families .., 
 „ Balance due to the Treasurer 
 
 
 
 1..7350 
 
 18 
 
 4U1 
 
 \> 
 
 im 
 
 8 
 
 '^i\ 
 
 6 
 
 461 
 
 17 
 
 1994 
 
 11 
 
 357 
 
 2 
 
 60 
 
 9 
 
 389 
 
 6 
 
 4(in 
 
 7 
 
 m-i 
 
 1 
 
 5iJl 
 
 10 
 
 Ui 
 
 \> 
 
 m 
 
 
 
 39 
 
 
 
 
 \-> 
 
 28- 
 
 5 
 
 2i9 
 
 8 
 
 L.13,(i91 
 
 11 
 
 DISBURSEMENTS. 
 
 By Paupers, Lunatics.Orphans, Foundlings, Coffins,&c 
 Religious and Charitable Purposes, not Parochial 
 
 Cost of Mortcloth 
 
 Precentor and Beadle for Evening Congregation 
 
 Door-keepers, Lighting, &c 
 
 Soup Kitchen and Coals for Poor 
 
 Prizes for Parochial Schools, Stationery, &c 
 
 Salary to the Kev. Mr Irving as Assistant 
 
 Sacramental Elements for St John's Chapel and 
 
 Evening Congregation 
 
 Teachers' Salaries, Education of Poor, Insurance, 
 
 and Repairs on Schools 
 
 Lent to City of Glasgow for Endowment of one 
 
 Parochial School 
 
 St John's Chapel Funds 
 
 Support of a .Stirling Lunatic Pauper 
 
 Sabbath Evening Schools from Lockharl's Mor- 
 
 tification 
 
 Making New Road through College Ground . 
 
 Interest 
 
 Alterations on School for Dr Bell's System 
 
 St John's Sabbath Evening Schools , 
 
 Families of Pensioners from Allowance ..,.'... 
 
 L.6o51 
 
 199+ 
 8 
 
 634 
 44 
 
 183 
 
 4UU 
 
 .500 
 401 
 263 
 
 40 
 10 
 10 
 
 f.8 
 
 282 
 
 L. 13,691 11 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 135 
 
 31. Looking to the respective items, and con- 
 fining ourselves to those which have strictly to do 
 with parochial pauperism, we find that the collec- 
 tions of 18 years (day and evening) amounted to 
 £7752 : 11 : 4i; and that the expenditure for the 
 same period on paupers, lunatics, orphans, found- 
 lings, coffins, &c., (along with soup kitchen and 
 coals for the poor) amounted to £6595 : 18 : 10|- 
 — leaving therefore a balance in favour of our 
 experiment, and an arithmetical proof of its effi- 
 cacy, amounting to £1156 : 12 : 6. Whence then 
 came the total deficiency of £229 : 8 : Oi ? From 
 the excess of our expenditure for religious or edu- 
 cational objects above our income for these — hav- 
 ing in fact given out nearly £1400 more on pur- 
 poses of christian philanthropy, distinct from pau- 
 perism, than was collected or received for these 
 objects. The success was complete, if you restrict 
 the attention to the affairs of pauperism alone — 
 the income for this exceeding the expenditure for 
 this by £1 156 : 12:6. And had we not exceeded 
 'our original proposal, and undertaken, some time 
 after the system was begun, the support of the 
 old St John's poor still lying on the funds of the 
 Town Hospital — this expenditure, it appears from 
 the account, would have been less on the whole 
 by £461 : 17 : 10 — So that the income of St John's 
 from collections alone, and that for 18 years, ex- 
 ceeded the expenditure on its neiv pauperism for 
 the same period by £1618:10:4. True its 
 whole expenditure went beyond its whole income 
 by £229 : 8 : Oi — But this, as we have already 
 seen, was because of its outlays for education and 
 
136 ON THE SUFFICIFNCY OF 
 
 other purposes distinct from the relief of poverty. 
 Taking an average of all the years, its annual in- 
 come for the poor was £430 • 13:1 H — its annual 
 expenditure £366 : 8 : 9^. 
 
 32. But on a further analysis it will be found, 
 that our expense for general indigence was con- 
 siderably less than we have yet stated it. The 
 whole charge for lunatics ought to be deducted, 
 amounting to £35 1:1:4; and also the enormous 
 outlay for foundlings, illegitimates, and the families 
 of runaway parents, amounting to £702 : 6 : Q^-. 
 The former ought on every right principle to be 
 supported in proper institutions, by a legal pro- 
 vision if necessary ; and the latter, however other- 
 wise disposed of, ought not to be supported or coun- 
 tenanced by an ecclesiastical charity. The two 
 together amount to £1053 : 8 : 1^ — and this sum 
 deducted from £6595 : 18 : lOi, formerly given as 
 for the relief of our poor, leaves as the precise 
 'sum expended for general indigence £5542 : 10:9. 
 But the income for the poor amounted to £7752 : 
 11 : 41 — leaving therefore a balance in favour of 
 the experiment, had we dealt with general indigence 
 alone, of £2210 : : 7^. To which if we add the 
 £461 : 17 : 10 expended on old pauperism, we shall 
 find that the excess of our church- door collections, 
 over the amount of our expenditure on the new 
 pauperism of all the general indigence that had 
 been taken on for 18 years, came exactly to the 
 sum of £2671: 18:5^. The adequacy of the 
 means to the enterprise is thus fully made out ; 
 and though such an experience of the capabilities 
 of our system might well have encouraged tho 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 137 
 
 perseverance of its supporters — yet that; in the 
 midst of universal apathy and neglect, they should 
 have at length given up their thankless services, 
 we do not wonder and most certainly cannot blame 
 them. 
 
 33. I not only have no fault to find with my old 
 friends of St John's ; but can scarcely even regret 
 the determination they came to. Certain it is, if the 
 perseverance of 18 years had no effect on the 
 municipalists of Glasgow, they would have re- 
 mained as heedless and as insensible at this hour, 
 though the system had been still in as full and 
 vigorous operation as before. During the long 
 period of its continuance, the lesson given forth 
 was never looked at, never listened to — the main 
 reason why our deacons gave up repeating it any 
 longer — for sure it is, that though to this moment 
 presented as visibly and sounded forth as audibly, 
 it would have been as little looked as little listened 
 to as ever. And yet in the face of this considera- 
 tion, even the most sincere friends of our system 
 will profess to mourn over its abandonment as an 
 event injurious to the cause. We feel it very 
 hard, that if the spectacle of its full and decisive 
 success has done nothing for it, the spectacle sim- 
 ply of its cessation should do every thing against 
 it. It was far easier practically to do the thing — 
 to rid that parish of its pauperism — than to con- 
 vince a single creature that the thing was practi- 
 cable. So long as our system was in operation, 
 the voice given forth by it was unheeded and un- 
 heard, as if it acted the part of a soporific by lull- 
 ing all men into a dead slumber. It is the cessa- 
 
138 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 tion of the voice which seems to have awakened 
 or startled them into a state of activity ; and we 
 are glad of it, though it be a state of active hos- 
 tility to our cause. Men had gone to sleep on the 
 subject; and it is well if anyhow they have been 
 made to open their eyes. The truth when pre- 
 sented had no effect upon senses steeped all the 
 while in dull forgetfulness. The same truth when 
 reflected on may perhaps tell on understandings 
 now somewhat alive, and work that conviction, 
 which, at the time of its palpable and living exhi- 
 bition, it failed to effectuate.* 
 
 34. But when I thus speak of the citizens of 
 Glasgow, and complain that their minds were her- 
 metically sealed against the whole truth and evi- 
 dence of the question, I must not forget that if not 
 exclusively, at least mainly, theirs is a mercantile 
 society ; and that with all the talent and practical 
 sagacity by which they are distinguished in the 
 matters of ordinary business, it was perhaps not to 
 be expected, that they should bring these faculties 
 to bear on a question which called for no imme- 
 diate solution at their hands, and which did not lie 
 within the range of their every-day experience. 
 Assuredly there was no want of capacity for the 
 subject, had we succeeded in gaining their patient 
 and sustained attention to it; and we have no 
 quarrel with them, but for their want of a felt or 
 vivid interest in a topic, which, though admitting 
 of no urgent application to their own personal 
 affairs, possesses a high claim on the earnest and 
 
 * Christian and Economic Polity of a Nation, V^ol. III. p. 
 434, being Vol. XVI. of the series. 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 139 
 
 benevolent eonsideration of every patriot, from its 
 intimate connexion with the well-being of humanity. 
 But we cannot offer the same apology for the 
 Poor-law Commissioners of England who sent 
 one of their own number, Mr Tutfnell, to investi- 
 gate the state of pauperism in Scotland ; and who 
 though presented by him with a full and enlight- 
 ened report on the nature and effects of our pro- 
 cess in St John's, were pleased to pass it over 
 without the slightest allusion, in the volume of 
 extracts which they gave to the public — as con- 
 taining, of course, the substance and pith of that 
 evidence which they had collected from all parts 
 of the country. Not that they did not make a 
 distinct head of their information from Scotland ; 
 but, suppressing all which Mr Tuffnell had told 
 them of Glasgow, they satisfied themselves with a 
 few of the veriest scraps of his report on minor 
 places, and of course thought it enough that these 
 alone should be given to the world.* The best 
 which can be said of their last and greatest reform, 
 is that in some of its sterner, though in none of its 
 kindlier features, it does somewhat approximate 
 to the right and wholesome charity of principle — 
 being still in fact but the superficial modification 
 of what in its very nature is radically and essen- 
 tially evil. But it possesses none of those gra- 
 
 * When utterance was made of this complaint at the meeting 
 of the British Association, held in Glasgow; and it was replied 
 that a separate account of these doings in St John's had been 
 circulated throughout England to the extent of 16,000 copies; 
 we still felt that it would have been more satisfactory, had the 
 Commissioners so far accredited the process as to have admitted 
 BOine notice of it into their own official compend of the informa- 
 tions which they had gathered on the subject of pauperism. 
 
140 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 cious characteristics, and can exert none of those 
 bland and benignant influences, which might all 
 be realized in ordinary times under a gratuitous 
 economy ; and indeed are still exemplified through- 
 out the majority of our Scottish parishes. If 
 England will so idolize her own institutions, as be 
 unwilling to part even with their worst vices, she 
 must be let alone since she will have it so. But 
 let her not inoculate with the virus of her own 
 moral gangrene, those countries which have the 
 misfortune to border on her territory, and be 
 subject to her sway ; and, more especially, let 
 not the simple and venerated parochial system of 
 our own land lie open to the crudities, or be placed 
 at the disposal of a few cockney legislators.* 
 
 35. If I have been in aught too severe, when 
 commenting on the apathy of the public in Glas- 
 gow to our question, and their various annoying 
 misconceptions of our system in St John's — they 
 have been abundantly kept in countenance by one, 
 who, high in literature, and setting himself down to 
 the formal task of instructing his countrymen and 
 fellow-citizens by authorship on the subject, thus 
 writes of it, and under the article too in his table 
 of contents, " Of the total failure of the Volun- 
 tary System in Glasgow." 
 
 " All projects of relieving the miseries of the labouring cliisses 
 in great cities, hy voluntary contributions collected at church doors, 
 are equally visionary and hopeless. In individual instances, un- 
 der the nian.igeincuit of enthusiastic benevolence, or with the aid 
 of popular eloquence, sufficient funds may be raised in this way 
 for the relief of liie poor in city parishes. But not only are sucli 
 talents or enthusiasm not genernlly to be looked for, bui if they 
 
 * See our Political Economy, Vol. I. p. 413, being" Vol. XIX. 
 of the series. 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 141 
 
 existed generally they woiilil fail in tiieir effects. If all the 
 cler;£V in a populous city possessed the .(euius or eiilhusiasin of a 
 Chalmers, the contrilmtions of tlie benevolent being- distracted 
 in so many quarteis, wouM nowhere be adequate to their object. 
 Tli.it distinifuisheil individual succeeded in his own parish in 
 Glasgow, by attracting- the religious and enthusiastic from every 
 part of tliat opulent city. It was the contrast between his genius 
 and the monotonous uniformity of many of the clergy which 
 occasioned his success. What he gained was lost in other quar- 
 ters, where it was not less needed: in his own parisli parochial 
 a-isessment was not required, but it was only by rendering it the 
 more necessary in those that surrounded if." 
 
 "It is a mistake to suppose that the eloquence of a popular 
 preacher or benevolent phihinthropist alwavs creates the charity 
 which is collected at his orations. He often rather collects jf 
 from otlier quarters, and exhibits in one united stream, what 
 would otherwise have flowed unnoticed in a thousand rills. 
 Under the impulse of the moment, indeed, larger sums may often 
 V»o obtained from congregations affected by such thrilling efforts, 
 than they would be disposed to give at ordinary times ; but the 
 reaction is frequently as powerful as the impulse, and what is 
 gained to the cause of humanity in a moment of ent"hu-5iasm, is 
 lost in the periods of calculation that succeed it. True benevo- 
 lence does not require such excitation, nor is it subject to such 
 irregular movements, but at all times seeks the relief of distress 
 from no otlier motive but the desire to alleviate human suffering. 
 
 " It is in vain to found any general or permanent system for 
 the relief of the poor upon any exertions of talent or philan- 
 thropy beyond the average experience of our nature. Indivi- 
 duals may be endowed with splendid abilities or warm benevo- 
 lence, and by their exertions much may be done to mitigate the 
 distress that surrounds ihem ; but it is in vain to found any 
 general measures upon the achievement of such rare ability. 
 Generally speaking, the clergy will continue much the same as 
 they have been, numbering among their members many persons 
 distinguished both for their virtues and their learning, but, at 
 the same time, composed of a vast majority of ordinary men. 
 Persons relieved from the necessity of exertion to earn their 
 daily fooil, of midille age, and enjoying for the most part a decent 
 competence, cannot be expected to be always distinguished by 
 extraordinary efforts. The permanent and extensive evils of 
 pauperism must be relieved from some other source than that 
 which is dependent upon their exertions.'' — Alison on Population, 
 Vol. U. pp. 86, 88—90. 
 
 If an author of Sheriff Alison's eminence could 
 so glaringly misstate, of course because he wholly 
 misunderstood nor thought it worth while to in- 
 
142 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 quire, the nature of a process that had been going 
 on for years within a mile or two of his own dwell- 
 ing-place — and that too in the face of publications 
 given in my own name to the world long before 
 the appearance of his work — I may well cease to 
 wonder, in the midst of their secular pursuits and 
 habits uncongenial to study, at the deep apathy, 
 or, if they ever ^bought on the subject at all, at 
 the unintelligent regards cast on our doings in the 
 parish of St John's by the citizens of Glasgow. 
 
 36. In regard to the nauseous eulogies where- 
 with they are pleased to accompany the condem- 
 nation, which they pronounce on a system that they 
 palpably do not understand — the phosphoric 
 eloquence — the high-sounding oratory — the gor- 
 geous imagination — the benevolent enthusiasm — 
 in short the all but judgment and common sense 
 which they so plentifully heap upon its author — 
 We shall only say, that, whether their purpose be 
 to gratify or to insult me, I shall never cease to la- 
 ment, on a question so pregnant with weal or woe 
 to the common people of Scotland, that such should 
 be my unfortunate habits of phraseology, as, in the 
 narration of an experiment the most testing and 
 decisive ever made for the establishment of a great 
 principle, the words I have employed should by so 
 many have been otherwise regarded than as the 
 words of truth and soberness. 
 
 37. One knows not well how to dispose of the 
 utterly ridiculous and grotesque hypothesis, on 
 which many would account for the success of our 
 experiment in the parish of St John's — as if due to 
 some mysterious and unapproachable power or 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 143 
 
 greatness on the part of the man who had devised 
 it. Will they not believe the assertion of the man 
 himself, that from the first month of its operation, 
 after the system had been fairly set agoing, he 
 had never once to do with the management of a 
 single case of pauperism — but left it altogether in 
 the hands of the Deacons, during the four years he 
 was amongst them, so as to enable him to give his 
 whole attention to such duties and preparations as 
 were exclusively and altogether ecclesiastical ? 
 But if this make no impression upon them, what 
 have they to say for the continuance of the system 
 during the fourteen years between his removal 
 and the termination of it, and when the office- 
 bearers of the parish had nothing but the ghost of 
 a departed greatness to deal with ? Most assur- 
 edly I never was consulted, nor did I ever pen a 
 single letter on any of the details or doings that 
 were transacted throughout the whole of thatperiod. 
 But it would appear that the magical influence, 
 which never in a single instance acted in the shape 
 of a reality on the proceedings of those who actually 
 conducted our system in Glasgow — still continues 
 to haunt the imagination of its objectors. And 
 accordingly in a recent public meeting, held in 
 Edinburgh on the subject of pauperism when my 
 system was brought into notice, it was treated as 
 an inapplicable theory — which could not possibly 
 be carried into effect, unless there was a Dr 
 Chalmers in every parish to preside over and help 
 forward the execution of it. And at a still more 
 recent meeting of the British Association in Glas- 
 gow, where I appeared for no other purpose, than, 
 
144 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 if possible, to repress the mischief which the viewa 
 of Sherift" and Dr AUson on the one hand, along 
 with those of Poor-law Commissioners from Eng- 
 land on the other, had they met with no resistance, 
 might have entailed on the much-loved people and 
 peasantry of Scotland — the only possible way in 
 which they could parry the stubborn experience of 
 the parish of St John's, was by laying the whole 
 burden of it on the shoulders of the same mighty 
 and marvellous operator. Kow^ really, if they will 
 thus persist in magnifying the projector at the ex- 
 pense of his project, let me frankly tell them what 
 the sort of greatness i^ which I am willing to accept 
 at their hands — and I am sure you will allow it to 
 be enough in all conscience, when I state that it is 
 the same in kind, though immeasurably short in 
 degree, of the greatness earned by the physician 
 Harvey when he discovered the circulation of the 
 blood. And yet when 1 think how very palpable 
 the thing is, I cannot surely be said to have dis- 
 covered before all other men, that internal action, 
 or internal circulation as it may be called, which 
 takes place witlun the body politic of a parish — 
 either when a man's own wants tell on his own 
 strenuousness, whether to prevent or to provide 
 for them ; or when the wants of others tell on the 
 urgent sympathy both of relatives and friends, to 
 the effect of calling forth a spontaneous flow of 
 charity for the object of relieving them. It is 
 quite impossible that I could have been the first to 
 see these things ; but I will admit it possible that 
 I may have been the first to place such firm reli- 
 ance on the working of these natural principles, 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 145 
 
 nnd to count upon them or reason upon them so 
 confidently as I have done, in this question of 
 pauperism. I would scarcely have ventured on 
 claiming even thus much, had it not been for the 
 obvious necessity under which the adversaries of 
 our system have placed me, of partitioning the 
 matter fairly and aright between the scheme itself 
 and the inventor of the scheme. For mark the 
 egregious folly of that most egregious misconception 
 into which they have fallen, in their eagerness to 
 account for the success of our experiment. Why 
 they accredit me with agreat deal more, than even the 
 fondest worshippers of genius ever dreamed of as- 
 cribing to the celebrated Harvey — not only that I 
 discovered the circulation, but that, somehow or 
 other, to me belongs the secret virtue of upholding 
 the circulation — having set it agoing at the first ; 
 and afterwards when I had consigned my patient 
 into other hands, having by some spell or sorcery 
 before unheard of, kept it agoing for no less 
 than fourteen years — five of which I spent in 
 St Andrews, and nine in Edinburgh, unknowing 
 all the while of every case that occurred in the 
 pauperism of St John's, or of the treatment be- 
 stowed by my Deacons on any one of them. 1 
 knew that with them the concern was safe — satis- 
 fied with the experience they had already given, 
 and sure that the system would go on prosperously 
 and well so long as they kept it in their hands. 
 But neither I nor they were the efficient causes of 
 this prosperity. It was due to the working of an 
 inner mechanism implanted by the hand of nature 
 within every aggregate of human beings, the move- 
 21 K 
 
146 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OP 
 
 ment of which was no more due to us, than it was a 
 touch from the finger of Harvey which gave im- 
 pulse to the circulation of the blood. Our Dea- 
 conship formed more a corps of observation than 
 of positive agency. Doubtless, they warded off 
 an influence which disturbed, and even did some- 
 what to stimulate, the healthful operation of those 
 internal processes, which naturally and of them- 
 selves, take place within the body politic of every 
 parish — just as a physician might withhold the 
 food which impedes, or apply the medicine which 
 promotes the healthful circulation that takes place 
 in the body personal of every human creature. 
 But the processes themselves were neither origi- 
 nated nor sustained by us. The contrary allega- 
 tion implies a homage to our powers, which, 
 knowing it to be untrue, we must in all honesty 
 reject — and without any great mortification of 
 natural vanity ; for, considering the gross unintel- 
 ligence of the quarter whence it comes, it is impos- 
 sible that either they or I can be in the least 
 flattered by it. 
 
 38. It is with satisfaction that I reflect on the 
 offer publicly made by me, at the last meeting of 
 the British Association, and in the hearing I 
 understand of some of the highest civic function- 
 aries in Glasgow. I engaged to resume the pro- 
 cess either in St John's or in any other parish, 
 where I might be permitted to set up the requisite 
 arrangement — provided that the conditions were 
 granted which I asked and were denied me on behalf 
 of the former undertaking — thatis, the same protec- 
 tion from the poor of Glasgow, which is secured 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 147 
 
 by law against the poor of all other parishes ; and 
 a deliverance from the general assessment, so soon 
 as we supported all our own poor upon our own 
 resources. This offer I now reiterate ; and, if 
 not accepted by the public and official men of 
 Glasgow, will I trust be accepted by all others as 
 a sufficient practical reply to any objections against 
 our scheme which may ever proceed from that 
 quarter in all time coming. Nothing can exceed 
 the confidence, up in fact to moral certainty, 
 wherewith I should look on such a retracing 
 process set up in any of the Extension Parishes of 
 that city — on the peculiar condition, however, to 
 meet the peculiarity of its circumstances, that 
 the minister should be so endowed as to be at 
 liberty for acting on the parochial system of seat- 
 letting ; and be enabled to admit into his church all 
 the parishioners either rent-free, or at such a rent 
 as would not exclude the humblest of his families. 
 It is not saying enough for the perfect facility of 
 such an enterprise when compared with that of 
 St John's, to speak of the two thousand instead of 
 twelve thousand people, and, of course, the six 
 times fewer cases of pauperism. Neither is it 
 enough to speak of the perfect facility, wherewith 
 an adequate ecclesiastical staff, both of elders and 
 deacons, could be found, for a so much smaller 
 number of families. Of immensely greater conse- 
 quence is it than either of these, that the ministei 
 is provided not with a general but a local congre- 
 gation, so as to have hearers of his own in every 
 street and alley, perhaps in every house of his 
 parish — and so as to obtain both for himself and 
 
148 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 his oflBce-bearers a moral ascendancy in his own 
 quarter of the town, which, with not one per cent, 
 of parishioners in my day's congregation, I 
 never could acquire. Its success were infallible ; 
 and the achievement done by him might be done 
 piecemeal in every other territory — so as at length 
 to clear away the legal and compulsory provision 
 of charity from our borders. In other words, by 
 the energies of our parochial system alone, the 
 extension of our church might soon be followed 
 up by the extinction of our pauperism. This is 
 the moral administration wherewith I would con- 
 front, and would set in opposition to, the pecuniary 
 administration of Dr Alison. Even though the 
 requisite schools and churches under our system 
 should require two hundred thousand pounds a-year 
 for their support, this is but a fourth part of the 
 sum demanded for upholding the expenditure of the 
 other system. But the merit of these rivals should 
 not be estimated in money. The one, of itself, 
 will not raise the people in the scale of comfort, 
 while in the scale of character it will immeasurably 
 degrade them. The other by the omnipotence of 
 moral causes alone, will enlarge the sufficiency of the 
 working classes, and give the nation her best and 
 cheapest safeguard in a well-trained, virtuous and 
 orderly population to the bargain. 
 
 39. But the offer which I gave some months 
 ago, and have repeated now, will still be unheard. 
 1 have had too long experience of the stubborn 
 incredulity of men hackneyed in the usages of an old 
 system, to be sanguine either of their acceptance 
 or co-operation in behalf of a new one. My last 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 149 
 
 and only hope, gentlemen, lies with yourselves — 
 the present expectants and future ministers of the 
 parishes of Scotland. I had fondly calculated that 
 my departure from Glasgow might have dissipated 
 an illusion, which my presence there only served 
 to foster every year into greater strength and in- 
 veteracy. I now believe that my views will not 
 be carried into practical fulfilment till after my 
 departure from the world — when, perhaps, in the 
 vigour of your manhood, and amid the labours of 
 an unwearied.well-doing, the testimony I have now 
 given may not be forgotten by you.* 
 
 Section V — Ethical View of the Question. 
 
 1. The brevity, which I now feel to be impera- 
 tive, will compel me to limit myself greatly in the 
 remaining heads of this argument, so as to present 
 but a slight and synoptical view of certain topics, 
 each of which to be fully handled would require a 
 .arge and laborious dissertation. 
 
 2. The fundamental question in the ethics of 
 this subject is, whether every man has a right to 
 subsistence — whether, in virtue of his bare exist- 
 ence, he has a claim in equity against all his fellows' 
 
 * Spp Cliristian and Economic Polity, Vol. II. p. 47, bein;,' 
 Vol. XV. of the series — for a description of the process by which 
 any assessed parish of Scotland may trace its way out from the 
 Compulsory System, and be reconducted to that old method of 
 Eupporting the poor which still obtaitis in the majority of our 
 Scottish parishes. 
 
150 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 for the necessaries of life, should he from any 
 cause stand in want of them. At present we dare 
 not enter upon this question, but will simply refer 
 to what we have already written on it.* All I 
 shall say now is, that I hold the allegation of such 
 a right to be at variance with what is felt by all 
 men at the first dawning of a natural jurispru- 
 dence within them — and more particularly, that it 
 is incongruous with that which takes place at the 
 origin of property, and when the feeling of pro- 
 perty is first formed. It proceeds on the radical 
 error of confounding two virtues which are sub- 
 stantively and specifically distinct from each other — 
 the virtues of justice and humanity ; and devolves 
 on the first of these that office which God and 
 Nature designed for the second of them. The 
 appropriate remedy for the evils of want is to be 
 found, not in the justice of men, but in the com- 
 passion of men. Law, by traversing this economy, 
 has over-stepped her own limits ; and the violence 
 •thus inflicted by her, both on the ethical system and 
 on the constitution of human nature, does not stop 
 there, but works derangement and disorder on the 
 outer field of human society. 
 
 3. And let it here be remarked, that there is a 
 strong and palpable inconsistency between Eng- 
 land's doctrine and England's practice upon this 
 subject. If a pauper really have the same claim 
 in right and equity to relief that a servant has to 
 
 • See our view of the orijjin of Property in Cliapter III. 
 Book IV. of our Natural Theoloj^v, and more especially a> 
 extract from Cliapter IV. of the same book, at pp. 117—120. 
 and pp. 131 — 134 of the volume, being Volume II. of tlieseries. 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 151 
 
 wages, why treat the two claims so differently ? 
 It seems a strange way of meeting a demand for 
 justice, that, when a man prefers it, he must be 
 put into confinement, separated from his home, 
 subjected to the irksome and galling restraints of 
 a prison discipline. Such are the correctives, by 
 which, under their reformed Poor-law, it is attempted 
 to redress the evils of its former administration. 
 The assertion of what their own statute-book de- 
 clares to be a right is followed up by the same 
 treatment, in kind at least if not in degree, with 
 the commission of what the same statute-book 
 declares to be a wrong. In other words, their 
 paupers are met by the same treatment with their 
 felons. The same terrors and penalties have been 
 devised to prevent the undue multiplication of the 
 one class, as to prevent the undue multiplication of 
 the other. Lest men should perpetrate crimes with 
 an inconvenient frequency, jails and gibbets have 
 been erected in all parts of the country ; and lest 
 men should put forth claims (and of that class 
 too which they acknowledge to be rightful) with 
 inconvenient frequency — not gibbets, but at least 
 houses nearly as repulsive as jails have been erected 
 in all parts of the country. The truth is, they 
 have been made as repulsive as possible for the 
 very purpose of scaring applicants away. It was 
 found of the law in its old state, that it tended to 
 agrarianism, and would have at length obliterated 
 all the fences by which property is guarded. And 
 hence a new law which retained the old principle, 
 but changed the old practice — the principle being 
 that every human creature in want has a right to 
 
152 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 relief; and the practice being as if though this be 
 a right, it were a very wrong thing in either man 
 or woman to assert it. And so they attempt to 
 steer evenly in this matter, by what mathematicians 
 would term a compensation of errors. Meanwhile 
 a vehement, but most natural outcry, has arisen 
 in many parts of England — provoked we have no 
 doubt, in the contemplation of this new system, 
 by the utter incongruity between its character and 
 its name — a system of harshness, in the guise or 
 at least with the title of a system of charity. 
 How far the asperities between the higher and 
 lower classes, consequent on such a state of things, 
 may endanger the stability of the commonwealth, 
 it is impossible to say. But we should rejoice, if 
 our sister country were to get out of this her false 
 position as speedily as possible ; and, for this pur- 
 pose, that she abated somewhat of her confidence 
 and pride in the wisdom of her own legislation. 
 It might even not be undesirable, that she let down 
 a little of that contempt, which both her public and 
 literary men have so often expressed for Scottish 
 metaphysics — and that, learning to discriminate 
 between the things wliich differ, she might hence- 
 forth give unto justice the things of justice, and 
 unto humanity the things of humanity. 
 
 4. What calls forth the honest indignation of Eng- 
 lishmen against their new Poor-law, is, not that Ik 
 repels the undeserving — that may be a real im- 
 provement — but that it will far more surely repel 
 the deserving poor, who are either forced to accept 
 of its provisions with all the accompanying humi- 
 hations and restraints ; or if deterred by these, fall 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 153 
 
 back on a society where the natural, if not wholly 
 dried up, is at least very much withered and en- 
 feebled by the legal charity — the very existence of 
 which lessens the felt obligation of relatives and 
 friends to look after either their distressed neigh- 
 bours or their unfortunate kinsfolk. It is a sense of 
 this which has led to the benevolent proposal of the 
 Rev. Herbert Smith,* that, for the latter descrip- 
 tion of poor, alms-houses should be erected, with 
 more of comfort and liberty and decent respect, 
 than can possibly be awarded in work-houses open 
 to the destitute of all kinds and all characters ; and 
 far more likely to be occupied by desperadoes and 
 drunkards, than by the children of a legitimate 
 and virtuous poverty who possess an unqualified 
 claim on the sympathies of all. I think that this 
 excellent person — an able and discerning as well as 
 generous philanthropist — must admit of our pa- 
 rochial system, that it effects that very discrimina- 
 tion between the deserving and undeserving poor, 
 the want of which he so justly and feelingly de- 
 plores, as being the greatest defect of the English 
 Poor-law. I wish I could persuade him of the all 
 but perfect security which there is, that, in every 
 parish constituted as we would have it, no case of 
 genuine suffering can escape observation ; and, 
 when made known, will unlock effectual sympathies 
 for the relief and right disposal of it. And on this 
 subject we are glad to perceive a breaking of 
 light in England — not only from the publications 
 
 * See the Poor Miin's Advocate, witli an account of his Chap- 
 liiinrv, and otlicr Tracts hy the Rev. Herbert Smith, Cliaplain to 
 the New Forest Union Worlchouse, ll.inlb. 
 
154 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 and tracts of Mr Smith, but still more decisively, 
 from two recent articles in the British Critic fur- 
 nished by Mr Bosanquet of London, and who I 
 trust will both prosecute his argument further and 
 present it with his name to the world.* We look 
 on the latter of his articles in No. LVI. of the 
 British Critic, as altogether a masterly exposure of 
 the evils of that legal and artificial system of charity 
 which obtains in England. The administra- 
 tion of relief from a church fund, placed under 
 the management of district visitors, is the very 
 system that we want to see restored in Scotland ; 
 and which, if established in England, would work 
 out the same deliverance there from the necessity 
 of resorting to any compulsory fund for the relief 
 of indigence. Would that the eyes of a British 
 Parliament were at length opened to the necessity 
 of such a radical change in their management of the 
 poor ; and, in particular, that every obstacle were 
 removed, which, in the present state of the law, lies 
 in the way of its introduction to such parishes as 
 might desire a separate and independent economy 
 of their own.f Our only fear is, that the first ad- 
 ministrators of such a parochial fund might for a 
 time at least misconceive wherein it is that the vir- 
 tue of it lies — not most assuredly in its own magni- 
 tude, thereby enabling its dispensers to give largely 
 and liberally throughout the parish ; but far more 
 
 * Mr Bosanquet lias since done this, in a work entituled " liiglits 
 of the Poor." 
 
 t For my views on the Parliamentary treatment of this ques- 
 tion see Christian and Economic Polity, Vol. II. chap. XV. or 
 Vol. XV. of the series. 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 155 
 
 in the effect of their right moral suasion through- 
 out the Uttle communities over which they severally 
 expatiate, and in the lessons given fearlessly yet in a 
 friendly spirit both of self-respect and of mutual 
 kindness — so chat by the labour of their own hands, 
 along with their helpfulness to each other, all may 
 be as little burdensome as possible. It is not to 
 a large fund in the hands of careless, but to a 
 small fund in the hands of wise and vigilant office- 
 bearers, that we should look for a general eleva- 
 tion in the comfort as well as habits of our parish 
 families — under the guidance of men walking 
 among their fellows in the spirit of a genuine and 
 heart-felt, yet considerate philanthropy ; and who 
 would rejoice in it as their best achievement, that 
 nil the poverty of their districts had been either an- 
 ticipated or met, because, under their surveillance, 
 industry had been restored to its healthful play, 
 and the fountains of natural charity had been 
 opened. 
 
 5. And this is the right place for again saying, 
 though it has been already said and proved a 
 thousand times over, that the ethics of our system 
 are grievously misunderstood by those who would 
 so represent it, as if we expunged benevolence 
 from the list of virtues. This is not only not the 
 truth. It is the converse of the truth. It is only 
 under such an economy as ours that benevolence 
 is restored to scope and liberty; and again breaks 
 forth in ways manifold though unseen throughout 
 the countless ramifications of human society. But 
 though it be a process, which, as lying in the deep 
 interior of every mass and aggi*egate of human 
 
156 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 families, does not force itself on observation, nay 
 has escaped altogether the view of the cursory 
 and superficial — yet is it capable of being traced, 
 and has been, when, in consequence of any outcry 
 raised against our system, a strict reckoning and 
 inquisition were called for, in order to its vindica- 
 tion — when it will be found, that, on cases of distress 
 and destitution being made authentically known, 
 the want or withdrawment of the public allowance 
 is greatly more than replaced by the forthgoings of 
 a spontaneoushumanity.* Insomuchthatitliesopen 
 to objections, and has actually been assailed by 
 these, from a quarter directly opposite to the former 
 — that in such instances, benevolence is generally 
 too exuberant, and its supplies are often overdone. 
 It is a little hard to be thus placed between two 
 fires — a weeping sentimentalism on the one hand, 
 which pleads for a legal and compulsory provision 
 on the ground that without it the poor would 
 starve ; and then, after we had experimentally 
 proved that in virtue of its abolition the poor are 
 better off, there comes in a heartless utilitarian- 
 ism, which pleads for the same compulsory provi- 
 sion, on the ground, that of the two systems of 
 charity, the legal and the natural, the former is 
 the less expensive. Nevertheless we hold this 
 more copious breaking forth of the natural foun- 
 tains, on the extinction of the great artificial reser- 
 voir, when there is the setting up of a right 
 parochial economy, to be one of its most beautiful 
 
 * See No. I. in oiir list of instancps Vol. TIT. p. 189, of Chris- 
 tiiin Riiil Economic Polity, or Vol. XVI. of llie scries. 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 157 
 
 effects ; nor can we in the least defer either to the 
 misplaced indignation or to the hlind though honest 
 sympathy of those, who are now arguing for the 
 extension of a system that supersedes or at least 
 relaxes far better securities for the relief of human 
 wretchedness than itself can substitute in their 
 room — and of which it may be emphatically said, 
 that, but follow out its principles to their final 
 landing-place, and it will make all rich men poor 
 and all poor men poorer than before. 
 
 6. We most freely admit of the spontaneous, 
 that it is more expensive than the legal system of 
 charity; and this we hold to be, not its shame, but 
 its glory. It is our clear and confident assurance, 
 that, could the now unseen charities which pass 
 and repass throughout even the humblest vicinities 
 of our land, be all ascertained and counted up, 
 they would present an aggregate, which might well 
 put to the blush the pretension and pomp of all 
 our institutes. We speak of the charity which 
 reciprocates within, amongst next-door neighbours 
 — not of that which comes from without, and, 
 though administered by the hands of the affluent, 
 is but an insignificant fraction of the other. And 
 here we are met by a distinct objection, as if we 
 burdened the poor by leaving them to support each 
 other, and let off the wealthy. We would not 
 burden the poor ; but neither would we wrest from 
 them the high moral prerogative of having a share, 
 and a truly noble and important share it is, in the 
 great work of beneficence. And neither would we 
 let off the wealthy ; but urge upon each in his own 
 
158 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 sphere wisely and liberally to provide for the objects 
 which lie within his reach, even as God has given 
 him the ability. There is a certain Quixotic 
 almonry, by which an occasional philanthropist 
 from the higher classes has been known at times 
 to make invasion on the sphere of others ; and, by 
 seducing the poor from their proper duties, might 
 scatter among their dwelling-places the elements 
 of moral deterioration. This we should certainly 
 repress. Yet could we find abundant use for 
 him notwithstanding. It were not beyond his 
 province for example, were he qualified for the 
 task, to assume a deaconry — or to become the 
 moral and economical superintendent of a district. 
 We could even draw a little upon his wealth, when 
 some extreme cases of misfortune in a parish re- 
 quire extreme efforts to be made for them ; and 
 not a little, but fully as much as would fully equal- 
 ise the amount between him and all who are poorer 
 than himself — when the largest sums and subscrip- 
 tions which can be realized are needed, for the ob- 
 jects whether of health or education. Still we 
 have the utmost affection, as well as utmost value, 
 for the benevolence of littles, for the humble olfer- 
 ings of the common people ; and we hold that to 
 be a false humanity, which, in order to spare them 
 a sacrifice, would forego the spectacle of that 
 moral worth and moral greatness, which even a 
 widow's mite cast into the treasury might suffice to 
 indicate. Of however little account their un- 
 noticed contributions, whether in the shape of suc- 
 cour or service, may hitherto have been, we must 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 159 
 
 ever contend — that, in losing these, we should, as 
 might be demonstrated in various ways,* lose our 
 very best auxiUaries to the cause of benevolence. 
 Yet most assuredly when we thus speak, it is not 
 for the exoneration of the wealthy, who, we doubt 
 not, in the circle of their own immediate depen- 
 dants, have high claims upon them — openings for 
 a liberality as unbounded as their means, and 
 which form the special and befitting opportunities 
 for them to acquit themselves of their own full 
 proportion in the work of charity. Let us never 
 fear a want of adequate objects and occasions for 
 their discipline too in the school of self-denial ; or 
 that there is any lack of sufficient calls upon their 
 munificence, whether as landlords or masters or 
 the grandees of their respective vicinities, or the 
 natural patrons both of expectant relatives and 
 friends — -in whose reverses of various fortune Pro- 
 vidence will bring innumerable applications to their 
 door, and devolve upon them the large and onerous 
 duties of a stewardship, all the more responsible 
 the greater the property is, which may have been 
 confided by the hand of God to ^heir administra- 
 tion. Let it not be said then, that we would exact 
 from the poor in order to excuse or exempt the 
 opulent. We rejoice alike in the contributions of 
 both ; and when in the same subscription-paper, 
 we see blended the halfpennies of the one and 
 the golden donatives of the other, we cannot but 
 regard it as the precious record of a comraou 
 
 * See our Tracts and Eissays in Vol. XII. of the series — and 
 more especially the one entituled — On tlie Influence of Parochial 
 Associations. 
 
160 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 effort and common understanding between hi^h 
 and low — which, if enough brought into exercise, 
 would prove the best guarantee of a harmonious 
 and happy commonwealth. 
 
 7. On benevolence, genuine heartfelt benevo- 
 lence, having for its object the greatest good of 
 the poor, and willing for every sacrifice to attain 
 it — on such benevolence if under the guidance of 
 wisdom and principle, and, did it but consider as 
 well as compassionate — we should lay no restraint 
 whatever. And here, with respect to the alleged 
 liberality of our deacons in St John's, let me notice 
 the artificial restraint by which it was necessarily 
 limited and kept down. It might have been in- 
 dulged to a ten-fold greater degree ; but it was 
 not safe, while we lay open to the inroads of all 
 the poor in Glasgow. Had we obtained the pro- 
 tection we were so earnestly set upon — the same 
 protection from the parishes in the royalty, that 
 we had by law from all other parishes beyond it — 
 we could have been greatly more free-handed both 
 to our paupers and our poor — to those already on 
 the roll, as v.ell as to those who had not yet in- 
 curred the degradation. Even as it was, we did 
 stimulate the importation from other places to an 
 extent that was very inconvenient. But for this, 
 we should have felt ourselves at large for the 
 work and labour of love in all its varieties ; and 
 even, under all our disadvantages, we had enough 
 of experience to convince us how possible nay 
 easy it were, for the ecclesiastical office-bearers of 
 a parish, if only emancipated from law and put into 
 a state of nature and liberty — how practicable it 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 161 
 
 were, by a series of cheap attentions and without 
 any romantic surrender either of time or money, 
 to raise the economic condition of its famiUes. 
 
 8. The deacons of our small localities, it must 
 be obvious, can discriminate far better among 
 their well-known families, between the deserving 
 and undeserving poor — than can the guardians of 
 the extended unions in England. But what is far 
 more decisive, mark the effect of the two discrimi- 
 nations. With our system, when fully carried out, 
 the practical result were a full measure of relief 
 for the deserving, with a leaving out of the unde- 
 serving poor. With their system when fully car- 
 ried out, the practical result is that the undeserv- 
 ing, the men of hardihood, who can brook the 
 indignities of a work-house and the violence there 
 done to the feelings of relationship, are all taken 
 in — while the deserving are revolted and scared 
 away. This is the unavoidable consequence of 
 their system — from the very nature of their discri- 
 minating test — a system of repulsion rather than of 
 relief; and no wonder at the strong and general feel- 
 ing among the benevolent in England of some 
 grievous want, as if the business of charity were 
 undone — when, in fact, all the proper objects and 
 characteristics of charity have been totally reversed. 
 We are quite aware, that, along with this, there 
 have been innumerable testimonies of satisfaction 
 with their new Poor-law — but distinction ought to 
 be made between satisfaction with it as a measure 
 of protection and police, and satisfaction with it as 
 a measure of genuine effectual and productive 
 philanthropy. They have certainly fallen on a 
 21 L 
 
162 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 better way of disposing of those worthless self- 
 created and immoral poor, who were so patronised 
 and multiplied under their old system ; and their 
 houses of confinement and isolation may serve well 
 for the correction of these — thus occupying a sort 
 of intermediate place between alms-houses and 
 gaols. In other words, as prisons are the befitting 
 receptacles for English criminals — so these poor- 
 houses seem to have been constituted as the most 
 befitting receptacles for English blackguards, for 
 those whose offences are not cognoscible nor punish- 
 able by law, yet whose habits render them at once 
 a burden and a nuisance to society. And perhaps 
 they accomplish this end, but then let them not be 
 styled houses of charity ; nor, by the usurpation 
 of this sacred name, let the generous and large- 
 hearted people of England be deluded into the 
 imagination, that such a scare-crow economy as 
 this can be at all a substitute (we fear it is too 
 often pled as an apology) for one of the best and 
 greatest of the christian virtues — which is kindness 
 to the poor. At all events, let not Scotland be 
 visited by an infliction so fearful. All we require 
 for our people is an adequate ecclesiastical with 
 an adequate educational system. Having this, we 
 shall stand in no need of those pauper bastiles — 
 or any half-way houses whatever between on. 
 churches and schools on the one hand, and our 
 bridewells or places of correction on the other. 
 With a sufficiently thick-set parochial apparatus, 
 whether in town or country — all our deserving 
 poor w ill be carefully provided-for ; and the unde- 
 serving more etFectually shamed out of their habits 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 163 
 
 by the remonstrances of church oflBce-bearers, and 
 the natural mdignation of neighbours in their 
 respective locaUties, than by all the terrors and 
 penalties which the most rigorous of Poor-law 
 Commissioners can devise. 
 
 Section VI — Scriptural view of the Question. 
 
 1. Over and above two distinct tithes — one for 
 the maintenance of ecclesiastical persons, and an- 
 other for the support of certain religious festivals 
 — the Jews had a third tithe (hzvnoov iTrihzKarov) 
 levied however only every third year,* for the 
 Levites and strangers and widows and fatherless. 
 It does not appear that the poor of all classes were 
 admitted to the benefit of this latter provision ; or 
 that mere general indigence, however come by, 
 was sustained as being a sufficient title or qualifi- 
 cation for a share in it. Certain it is, that in the 
 case of their ordinary poor, whether they had been 
 reduced to this state by misfortune or by impro- 
 vidence, we read of no other compulsory provision 
 than the third tithe now mentioned, and which 
 seems to have been expended for the maintenance 
 of that more limited destitution, which arises from 
 the specific causes of widowhood or orphanage — 
 while, on the other hand, we read of their being 
 subjected to a compulsory service, should they 
 have fallen into debt — liable even to be sold by 
 their creditors, and to undergo both in their own 
 
 • Dout. xiv. 22—29; xxvi, 12 — 14. 
 
164 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 persons and those of their children, the degrada- 
 tion and hardships of a state of slavery, for a 
 period of longer or shorter duration. 
 
 2. But even though it could be made out, that 
 the produce of this Hebrew tithe for the poor 
 lay open to the claims and applications of all, 
 who might have fallen anyhow into a state of indi- 
 gence — it deserves well to be remarked, how little 
 in common there is between such an institute and 
 the modern Poor-law of England. To lay aside a 
 certain fixed sum, a definite fraction of the coun- 
 try's wealth, which shall lie open to the claims of 
 its existing destitution whatever that may chance 
 to be — is to place things on a footing truly differ- 
 ent, from that of laying open the whole property to 
 the encroachments of a destitution which the sys- 
 tem itself is fitted to encourage ; and which en- 
 croachments can only be repressed by a discipline 
 of vigilance and vigour, whereby these two great 
 parties in the commonwealth, the payers and the 
 receivers, are brought into the state of natural 
 enemies to each other. We do not wonder at the 
 rigours of the English Poor-law, because were its 
 principle of a compulsory provision left free to 
 work out its natural effects, the poverty of the 
 country would run a race upon its property and 
 speedily overtake it. It was not thus under the 
 Hebrew economy — which diifered as widely from 
 the one under consideration, as did the old com- 
 mons of England from the system of its pauperism. 
 A certain given amount of ])roperty, whether in 
 the land itself or in a stated proportion of its pro- 
 duce, set apart for the common good of the poor — 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 165 
 
 differs toto ccelo in operation and effect, from that 
 system which turns the whole land into a common 
 object of competition and demand for the population, 
 who, in order to make perpetual advances on it, have 
 (mly to relax all their own better habits, and be- 
 come indefinitely more reckless or more profligate 
 than before. Under the one system, there is a 
 certain given possession for the poor, but along 
 with this as certain and secure a possession for the 
 owners of all other property. Under the other 
 system, there is no such defence against the wide 
 and general exposure of all the wealth in the 
 country to demands that are quite indefinite, which 
 is thus placed in a state of fearful precariousness 
 — either laid at the mercy of the general popula- 
 tion, or so protected from their inroads as to fire 
 their hearts with a sense of injustice. And cer- 
 tain it is, that if the real good of the community 
 could be so provided for, the interest of the middle 
 and higher classes is but as dust in the balance, 
 when put into competition with the well-being of 
 a commonalty that greatly outnumbers both. Yet 
 when we turn to the contemplation of the Jewish 
 polity, we cannot but recognise there the mani- 
 festations of that superior wisdom which provides 
 best, and without clashing or competition between 
 them, for the interest and security of all the 
 classes. To realize the conception of what this 
 policy was, we might figure one of our modern 
 ])arishes whether in England or Scotland, with a 
 thirtieth part of its annual wealth allocated to the 
 paupers specified by the Mosaic law — the chief of 
 which was the support of the widow and the father- 
 
166 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 less. The temptation to improvidence is incal- 
 culably less in such a state of things, than when 
 all the current poverty, however it may have been 
 contracted, and simply if it exist, meets and by 
 right of law with its immediate relief. Nay 
 though by the law of Judea, all other poor beside 
 the widow and the fatherless, had been vested 
 with a right of participation in the thirtieth of 
 the produce — there are certain wholesome influ- 
 ences brought into play under such an economy, 
 which the law of England, that extends this right 
 over the whole land and houses of a parish, is 
 utterly fitted to extinguish. In the latter case, it 
 is a competition of the poor against the rich — in 
 the former, a competition of the poor against each 
 other. There might be no remorse felt by the 
 common people in drawing indefinitely on the 
 opulent above them. But there would be remorse, 
 there would be a strong moral restraint, there 
 would be a fellow-feeling and generous considera- 
 tion for the children of a heavier misfortune than 
 their own, could it be made palpable to their senses, 
 that, in virtue of their forbearance, all cases of 
 extreme helplessness would be more amply pro- 
 vided for. What we contend for is, that, under 
 such a regimen, the popular sympathy and con- 
 sent could most easily be enlisted on the side of a 
 right and equitable administration. Let this bible 
 provision be only administered in each separate 
 parish on bible principles ; and the business even 
 of public charity might be conducted without any 
 of the deleterious influences of our modern pau- 
 perism. The governors and governed might be 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 167 
 
 made both fully to understand and fully to co-ope- 
 rate with each other. Throughout the great bulk 
 and body of the parish, tiie families would, by a 
 spontaneous principle of their own, keep aloof 
 from the parochial fund — and that for the sake of 
 a more abundant ministration to those preeminent 
 in distress, whose signal and undoubted calamity 
 all men saw and all sympathized with. They 
 utterly misconceive human nature, who think it 
 were a diflScult or Utopian achievement, to inocu- 
 late the community of every manageable district 
 with the esprit de corps that we have now been 
 describing — in which case, the widows, the father- 
 less, the needy and deserving wanderers, the 
 teachers of youth now in place of the Levites in 
 Judea, might be sufficiently cared for — in other 
 words, all the special objects designed in the Old 
 Testament for this special provision, might be fully 
 secured. Nay we can imagine a surplus expended 
 on such uses, as would make it still more a point 
 of emulation and honour among the families, so to 
 strive on the one hand and so to save on the 
 other — that they might be as little burdensome, 
 and the surplus for good and public objects be 
 left as large and entire as possible — the objects, 
 for example, of drainage, or ventilation, or a spa- 
 cious play-ground for children, or walks and 
 gardens for the community at large, or the privi- 
 lege of admission to the best medical institutes — 
 all which things ought to be provided for, and may 
 be provided for, with no relaxation of self-depen- 
 dence, and no risk of moral deterioration among 
 the people, nay, with the very opposite etfects: 
 
168 ON THE SUFflCIEXCY OF 
 
 And who can deny that the objects now specified, 
 are those on which a thirtieth part of the country's 
 annual wealth might be most beneficially expend- 
 ed? What a blessed commutation for England, 
 did she exchange her present system for a pohty 
 so bland and so free from the alloy of every hurt- 
 ful influence as this. And in its beneficent opera- 
 tion, what a practical and living testimony should 
 we obtain for that word which is the repository of 
 all wisdom — after that the blunders of modern 
 legislation, and even the speculations of modern 
 science, had come to be alike superseded by the 
 political economy of the bible. 
 
 3. But for doing full justice to the scriptural 
 view of our question, it will be necessary that we 
 should come down to the methods and maxims of 
 the New Testament. A public provision for the 
 poor is coeval with the first institution of a chris- 
 tian church — for we no sooner read of the great 
 conversion that took place on the day of Pentecost, 
 than we are told of them who believed, that " they 
 had all things common, and sold their possessions 
 and goods, and parted them to all men as every 
 man had need." It is true that the persecutions 
 which afterwards arose soon created a special ne- 
 cessity for the continuance of such a fund. But 
 we must not therefore regard it as a thing of local 
 and temporary obligation, thus to collect the alms 
 of the faithful, and make distribution of the pro- 
 duce amongst the poor members of the congrega- 
 tion. We cannot disguise it, that a strong sanction 
 is given by the practice of apostolic times, to at 
 least one system or form of public charity. It is 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 169 
 
 an important lesson, that a visible though a volun- 
 tary fund for the relief of the destitute is as old as 
 Christianity itself; and other lessons no less im- 
 portant may be gathered, by attending to the 
 principles on which the administration of it was 
 conducted. 
 
 4. The next notice vv^hich occurs of this fund is 
 in the sixth chapter of the Acts. The apostles, it 
 would appear, had, up to this time, been person- 
 ally engaged in the ministration of it. This they 
 at length felt to be an undue encroachment, on the 
 time and strength which should be wholly given 
 by them to the higher labours of the sanctuary — to 
 " prayer and to the ministry of the word." They 
 complained of it as unreasonable, that they should 
 continue to be implicated with a management which 
 forced them " to leave the word of God " — not, 
 however, that they wished this business of public 
 charity to be left undone, but that it should be 
 devolved upon others. And accordingly " seven 
 men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and 
 wisdom," were, at their own suggestion, appointed 
 to the charge of it. What an impressive rebuke 
 lies in this simple narrative on those clergymen of 
 our modern day, who, in attendance on various 
 benevolent institutes — the offices of which should 
 all be filled and the duties executed by others — 
 consume that precious time which should be given 
 altogether to the work of their own more appro- 
 priate ministry, to the care and culture of their 
 neglected parishes. By the latest census of which 
 we read, previous to this resignation of the apostles, 
 the number of Christians amounted to five thousand 
 
170 ON THE SUFFICIENCY 07 
 
 — in the spiritual guidance and guardianship of 
 whom, did these twelve gifted and inspired men 
 find enough of scope for all their energies. Place 
 in contrast with this, the way in which the moral 
 surveillance of our city multitudes is now provided 
 for — when an equal, often a larger number, than 
 the whole congregation of the apostles, is devolved 
 on one helpless individual, overwhelmed to the 
 bargain with countless secularities and secondary 
 duties, for the performance of which other men 
 than ministers of the gospel ought to be found. 
 But the lesson does not stop here. If the spiritual 
 charge of a few thousands formed a commensurate 
 task for twelve apostles, who rejected all other 
 work that they might " give themselves continu- 
 ally" to the execution of it — surely the spiritual 
 charge of a few hundreds might well suffice for one 
 of those assistant church office-bearers, whose busi- 
 ness it is to second and supplement the labours of 
 the minister ; and who, generally, can spare but a 
 few fragments of his time for the families of his 
 assigned district. In other words, there ought 
 too to be a disseverance of all secularities from the 
 eldership ; and in this remarkable passage do we 
 not only find a scriptural warrant for an order of 
 deacons to look after the poor — but the strongest 
 possible argument, backed by all modern experi- 
 ence, for the practical necessity of that separation 
 among duties and offices for which we have all 
 along contended. 
 
 5. But a still greater lesson may yet be learned. 
 If the procedure of the twelve apostles in resigning 
 the management of the poor's fund, and that in 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. l/l 
 
 order to keep their time entire for spiritual labours, 
 be pregnant with inference — still more pregnant 
 with inference is a reverse procedure of the apostle 
 Paul's. Though the most varied and the most 
 abundant in the work of the apostleship amongst 
 all the first teachers of Christianity, the care of all 
 the churches being upon him — yet did he give up 
 a large portion of his apostolic time to other em- 
 ployments, and so far abstract himself from the 
 peculiar work of the ministry — not to assist the 
 office-bearers of the church in the distribution of 
 its public charity, for thus would he have contra- 
 dicted the principle on which his colleagues had 
 acted before him — but for the very opposite pur- 
 pose of teaching by his own example the members 
 of the church, that to the uttermost of their power 
 they should abstain from making demand on its 
 public charity. And so he set himself down to the 
 occupation of a tent-maker (Acts xviii. 3); and 
 this he himself tells us, for the enforcement of a 
 gi-eat moral lesson — even that men should by their 
 own hands minister to their own necessities, and 
 to those who are with them, striving to be givers 
 rather than receivers, (Acts xx. 34, 35.) " For your- 
 selves know how ye ought to follow us ; for we 
 behaved not ourselves disorderly among you ; 
 neither did we eat any man's bread for nought ; 
 but wrought with labour and travail night and day, 
 that we might not be chargeable to any of you : 
 not because we have not power, but to make our- 
 selves an ensample unto you to follow us. For 
 even when we were with you, this we commanded 
 you, that if any would not work, neither should he 
 
172 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 eat. For we hear that there are some which walk 
 among you disorderly, working not at all, but are 
 busybodies. Now them that are such we com- 
 mand and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that 
 with quietness they work, and eat their own bread," 
 (2 Thess. iii. 7 — 12.) It is certainly a most em- 
 phatic testimony to the worth of this lesson — That 
 whereas the twelve apostles withdrew from the 
 work of distributing the liberalities of the rich — the 
 one apostle more burdened than them all under 
 the multitude and weight of his ministerial engage- 
 ments, yet at the expense of a far heavier encroach- 
 ment both on his strength and his time, did he 
 betake himself to the drudgeries of a common 
 artizan, and that with the express design to enforce 
 and exemplify a principle of virtuous and honour- 
 able independence among the poor. It shows most 
 strikingly, that, with every effort then made for the 
 relief of the necessitous, yet far dearer to the en- 
 lightened christian philanthropists of that age, was 
 the moral integrity than the physical comfort of 
 their disciples. Accordingly we find the most 
 anxious directions given to exclude from all parti- 
 cipation in this fund those sordid aspirants, who 
 made a gain of godliness ; and those lovers of their 
 own ease, who would luxuriate in idleness at the 
 expense of the society (1 Tim. v. 13) ; and those 
 unnatural relatives who would exonerate them- 
 selves from the support of their own kindred, 
 (I Tim. V. 16.) And, last of all, let us hear the 
 fell denunciation of the apostle, M'ho would excom- 
 municate from the name and privileges of a Chris- 
 tian, the man who would relieve himself from the 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 173 
 
 care of his family by drawing out of the general 
 stock that maintenance which he was able but not 
 willing to work for — " If any man provide not for 
 his own, and specially for those of his own house, 
 he hath denied the faith and is worse than an 
 infidel," (1 Tim. v. 8.) 
 
 6. It thus appears, that, while in those days, 
 the largest sacrifices were made by christian men 
 for the relief of the poor, the chief anxiety of their 
 inspired teacher was to provide against the risk of 
 their moral deterioration. He knew them to be 
 aUke capable of moral greatness with those, who, 
 in the scale of rank or wealth, were immeasurably 
 above them ; and we cannot figure a nobler exhi- 
 bition than that of Paul's — when, for the avowed 
 purpose of building up a virtuous heroism of 
 character amongst the poor, he became a work- 
 man himself ; and that in order to show to others 
 of the same class, not only how to exempt them- 
 selves from the necessity of being receivers, but 
 how, by the labour of their own hands, to support 
 the weak and the indigent around them, (Acts 
 XX. 35.) But with all this devotion to their truest 
 interests, his sympathies and feelings had none of 
 that sickly hue, which tinges the effusions, as well 
 as sits on the visages of our modern sentimentalists. 
 If a man would not work, he could leave him to 
 the inflictions of nature and necessity ; and with a 
 just confidence in the wisdom of Nature's own dis- 
 cipline, thought it better not to interfere with those 
 correctives and chastisements of hers, whereby she 
 schools, and by means so severe as the agonies of 
 hunger and the felt urgencies of self-preservation, 
 
174 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 the otherwise wholly reckless votaries of dissipa- 
 tion and indolence. It is obvious, that, in the 
 mind of our great apostle, character was all in all. 
 With him it formed a main element of guidance 
 in the rule which he prescribes for the distribution 
 of the church's charity, (I Tim. v. 9 — 16.) The 
 efforts of the poor to ward off a dependence for the 
 support of themselves and their families on aught 
 but their own industry and good conduct, evidently 
 rank in his estimation with the highest duties and 
 obligations of the New Testament.* 
 
 7. Now thus armed, or under the direction of 
 such principles as these, nothing I apprehend 
 would be easier than a sound and beneficial man- 
 agement of the poor in every separate congrega- 
 tion — and that from the church offerings alone. 
 But ours is a territorial establishment ; and, with 
 but a sufficient number of labourers, nothing we 
 are confident would so prosper or be more practi- 
 cable than a like management of the poor, and 
 with the same description of fund too, in every 
 separate parish. With a free discretion to regu- 
 late our allowances by the character of the appli- 
 cant, and with a power of exclusionf on the prin- 
 ciples of a right ecclesiastical discipline — we again 
 
 * See the following sermons upon this subject — Commercial 
 Discourses v. and xi. in volume vi. of our series ; and Sermons 
 ix. and xii. of Volume XI. of the series, being of those delivered 
 on Public Occasions. 
 
 f This is wholly overlooked by Dr Alison — else he would 
 never have given us the argument of his Quaker correspondent, 
 that security against starvation brings with it no improvidence — 
 seeing that the members of his denomination are perfectly 
 secured against lliis, and yet form tlie most provident and so 
 the most prosperous class in societv. 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 175 
 
 affirm, first, that it were impossible for any deserv- 
 ing poor to be neglected ; and, secondly, that the 
 undeserving will ultimately come to be better off, 
 when made to feel the weight of those severities 
 which are intended by the God of Nature to follow 
 in the train of idleness, improvidence, and vice. 
 Whether there shall be placed at our disposal a 
 thirtieth part of the annual wealth of the parish, 
 as under the Jewish economy ; or the free-will 
 offerings of the faithful collected once a-week,* as 
 under the Christian economy — it should be no 
 difficult achievement to make the liberalities of 
 the rich and the necessities of the poor not only 
 meet but greatly overlap each other. Only it is 
 indispensable to this result, that the administra- 
 tors of the parochial charity shall fear neither of 
 these parties, and as little flatter either of them — , 
 but be at all times ready to make a firm and in- 
 trepid representation to both of the duties which 
 respectively belong to them ; and so as that the 
 wealthy on the one hand shall in their dispensa- 
 tions be brought up to the pitch of a right liberality, 
 and the poor on the other shall in their demands 
 be brought down to the level of a right modera- 
 tion. The genuine effect of Christianity is at 
 length to workout this blissful consummation; and 
 even now were the ecclesiastical system but re- 
 stored to its wonted energies in Scotland, we 
 should only be doing again what has been done 
 already, did we in less than half a generation 
 
 * 1 Cor. xvi. 1, 2. It is of mighty advantage to habituate 
 the f^eiitiral pupuhition to these wet-kly contributions. See the 
 reason of this in our Tract, in Volunne XII. of the series, Oa 
 the Influence of Parochial Associations. 
 
176 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 realize the spectacle of happy and well-conditioned 
 parishes all over the land. 
 
 Section VII — Medical View of the Question. 
 
 1. We are not yet done with the political eco- 
 nomy of the New Testament. On this subject 
 there is a profoundness of wisdom in the doings of 
 our Saviour as well as in the sayings of His 
 apostles. We refer more especially to the differ- 
 ence of procedure observed by Him in His 
 treatment of want and His treatment of disease. 
 We read twice of a miracle of loaves for the pur- 
 pose of feeding a multitude overtaken with hunger; 
 but that when the people ran after Him a third 
 time in the hope of another such miracle, He 
 rebuked the sordid expectation and refused to 
 perform it.* Now we can perceive no such re- 
 serve when application was made to Him, not for 
 food but for health. We read of no instance in 
 which He sent a diseased petitioner uncured or 
 disappointed away from Him ; but that when the 
 maimed and the impotent folk and the blind and 
 the dumb and the palsied and the lunatic came to 
 Him, the invariable result is, that He looked at 
 them, and had compassion on them, and healed 
 them all. While so sparing in the exercise of 
 
 * See my Sermon, On tlie Example nf oar Saviour a Guide 
 and an Authority in tiie EstablisiiiniMit of Cliaritable Institutions, 
 whicli now occupies tlie place of tlie First Tract in my Toiume 
 of Tracts and Essiiys, being Volume Xll. of the series. 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 177 
 
 His supernatural powers, when called to put them 
 forth in the capacity of an almoner — we know of 
 no such limitation on their exercise in the capacity 
 of a physician. Now it is (juite obvious, that,* 
 after the commencement of His public ministry, 
 the proceedings of our Saviour in the land of 
 Judea must have had all the notoriety, and would, 
 when the style and methods of His Benevolence 
 came to be understood, have all the effect of a 
 public charity. And, accordingly, the lesson 
 which we have elsewhere attempted to draw from 
 this part of His exiimple is — that while it dis- 
 countenances all public institutions for the relief 
 of want, it affords us an encouragement and a 
 sanction, when we propose that for the cure or the 
 alleviation of disease, such pubhc institutions 
 might be multiplied to the uttermost. 
 
 2. Nor is it difficult to apprehend the principle 
 of this distinction. A known provision for want, 
 if it be want irrespective of character, is sure to 
 create and multiply its own objects in every neigh- 
 bourhood where it happens to be established — 
 seeing that all who choose might make their way 
 to it, by the accessible and inviting path of a little 
 more indolence or a little more dissipation. It is 
 not so with an asylum of disease, for which men 
 will not qualify voluntarily — save in those cases 
 of self-infliction, which are too rare and too mon- 
 strous, to be of any significancy in a practical 
 argument upon the question. We cannot image 
 therefore a more glaring violation of sound princi- 
 ple, than when heedless altogether of this discri- 
 inination, there is a loud and incessant call for 
 21 M 
 
178 ON THE SUmClENCY OF 
 
 almshouses and places of refuge and other elee- 
 mosynary institutions in behalf of mere indigence; 
 and along with this the most shameful abandon- 
 ment and neglect of our medical charities. 
 
 3. Had this distinction been proceeded on, it 
 might have saved England in the days of Eliza- 
 beth, and Ireland now, from what I cannot but 
 regard as a great national calamity. We cannot 
 wonder at the earlier of these two inflictions — 
 perpetrated at a time when the principles of pub- 
 lic charity were ill understood, or rather had not 
 been studied or attended to at all. But it is 
 ever to be regretted that the Government should 
 have been precipitated into an Irish Poor-law, 
 which has made no separation of what is noxious 
 from what is innoxious in a legal provision, whether 
 to mitigate or do away the ills of suffering huma- 
 nity. In conversing with one of the most stren- 
 uous advocates for a national system of relief in 
 Ireland, I made full explanation of what I would 
 and what I would not do for the establishment of 
 such a system — that is provide to the uttermost 
 for all the disease which can best be treated in 
 public institutions — such as infirmaries, and fever 
 hospitals, and asylums for the dumb and the blind 
 and the lunatic, and that not only as places of 
 cure, but as places of comfort and perpetual har- 
 bourage to the incurable — leaving out at the same 
 tune the care of general indigence, not from the 
 sympathies of the benevolent in private life, but 
 from the interference of the legislature. My 
 friend, one of the most eloquent and forcible 
 writers on the side of a poor-law, assured ine 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 179 
 
 that were full provision made for the objects 1 
 specified, it would be enough for Ireland. But 
 his vigorous appeals and representations on the 
 subject had been already penned, and of course 
 without any reference to a principle of selection 
 which he had never before heard of — though when 
 once stated, its extreme obviousness carried his 
 instant approbation. We have no doubt, that the 
 influence of his testimony and his name gave addi- 
 tional momentum to the swell of tliat indiscrimi- 
 nate outcry, which at length extorted from Parlia- 
 ment a wholesale measure, charged with all the 
 mischief of a grievous oversight. A commen- 
 surate system of medical charity would have 
 proved a boon and unalloyed blessing to the popu- 
 lation. But this vain attempt to provide a main- 
 tenance by law, will, by relaxing the better secu- 
 rities of Nature, but disorganize society the more, 
 and so aggravate the distempers of that unhappy 
 land.* 
 
 4. What we have now stated is but introduc- 
 tory to the further statement of the fears we at 
 one time had for Scotland, and which are not yet 
 wholly set at rest. A bill was lately in progress 
 through Parliament, having for its single design 
 the promotion of the public health, and especially 
 among the lower classes of society — those, in par- 
 ticular, who are congregated together in the deep 
 and dark and densely peopled recesses of our 
 larger towns. We trust that it will fully compre- 
 
 * See our whole evidence on the Question of an Irish Poor 
 Law, iiiven before a Committee of the House of Commons, and 
 printed in Vol. III. of our Christian and Economic Polity of h 
 Million, being Vol. XVI, of our series. 
 
180 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 hend, at whatever expense, all the provisions which 
 might contribute to the success of so beneficent a 
 measure — as drainage, and ventilation, and the 
 minimum size of houses, and the proper width of 
 streets and alleys ; and withal the establishment 
 of a medical police for the removal of nuisances, 
 and even a cheap if not rather a gratuitous supply 
 of professional services for the general population. 
 The object is truly admirable and free of all ex- 
 ception ; and I therefore regretted all the more, 
 when at first the proposed legislation was confined 
 to England and Wales — leaving out Scotland. 
 Yet it was then our firm belief that something was 
 intended and in reserve for Scotland ; and our 
 question was, why not immediately instead of 
 afterwards ? There was an answer suggested by 
 our fears, but which I hope now may be altogether 
 visionary. England and Wales have their Poor- 
 law already ; and any further legislation for the 
 poor of these countries, without touching on the 
 indigence already provided for, might well confine 
 itself to the article of health alone. And what 
 we apprehended as forthcoming for Scotland, was, 
 instead of a measure for health singly, a general 
 measure of assimilation, by which to bring both 
 parts of the island under one and the same regi- 
 men — at least so far as to insinuate the principle 
 of an assessment for mere poverty, along with an 
 assessment for health which shall extend to all our 
 parishes ; and thus in company with or under the 
 cover of what is excellent, expose our beloved 
 people to an admixti.re of the vile with the preci- 
 ous, or the importation of a hurtful ingredient, 
 
THIC PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 181 
 
 that would prove the germ of an interminable and 
 fcver-growing mischief. Should in the further pro- 
 gress of our philanthropic legislation this calamity 
 ever again stare us in the face, we trust that it 
 will be arrested by the vigilance of an enlightened 
 Scottish patriotism.* 
 
 5. This apprehension of ours was grounded on 
 the effect which certain recent attempted demon 
 strations for what may be termed the medical 
 necessity of a poor-rate, have had on the public 
 imagination.! We choose to call it tiiis rather 
 than the pubHc understanding — and that because 
 of an egregious logical fallacy, which, under the 
 disturbing influence of their fears, seems to have 
 been wholly overlooked by the alarmists upon this 
 question. We are not in the least qualified for 
 any deliverance whatever on the exclusively medi- 
 cal part of this argument — though it cannot escape 
 our notice, that professional and eminently scien- 
 tific men, the only proper arbiters at this stage of 
 the controversy, are nevertheless most widely and 
 as yet most hopelessly at variance among them- 
 selves. It looks to us precipitate, and as savour- 
 ing more of impulse than of sober judgment, to 
 ground the portentous conclusion of a universal 
 poor-rate on premises which are still disputed and 
 therefore still doubtful. But although the pre- 
 mises were not doubtful, though we had a unani- 
 
 * After the weHry and ineffectual contest of 23 years with 
 public functionaries. I have no inclination for the renewal of it in 
 my own person. Would tliat the warning now given told effec- 
 tually upon younger ami ahler men. 
 
 + Chiefly Dr Alison's painphh-ts, and Mr Cowan's Vital Statis- 
 tics of Glasgow — also a pamplilet by Dr Alison oi Traueut. 
 
182 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 mous medical verdict in favour of Dr Alison'a 
 theory — even that destitution was not only the 
 chief originator, but the chief propagator of fever, 
 by laying the human frame more open to its con- 
 tagion — we are not therefore obliged to acquiesce 
 in any conclusion which speculative men might 
 choose to graft upon thera. Verily the premises 
 may be altogether sound — yet a faulty syllogism 
 may be constructed thereupon ; and so a vicious 
 conclusion be drawn out of it. Even though the 
 major proposition in the reasonings of Dr Alison 
 and his friends could be affirmed universally, it 
 would not of itself form a sufficient basis for that 
 inference, which he is now pressing with so much 
 earnestness and zeal on the public acceptation. For 
 when put into the syllogistic form it would run thus, 
 All fever originates in and is multiplied by destitu- 
 tion, but destitution is lessened by a poor-rate, 
 therefore fever would be lessened by a poor-rate. 
 Now to arrive in safety at this conclusion, there 
 must not only be a firm initial footing in the truth 
 and goodness of the first or major proposition ; but 
 there must also be a warrantable soundness in the 
 minor proposition or middle term, in order to have 
 a safe stepping-stone. Now it is precisely here 
 where the failure of these reasoners lies ; and it is 
 a failure for the repair or rectification of which all 
 their medical science can be of no possible avail 
 to them. For let it be observed, that, brief as the 
 above syllogism is, it draws upon no less than two 
 distinct sciences ; and, ere it can be sustained, it 
 must pass through the ordeal and have the sanc- 
 tion or consent of each of them. It is medical 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 183 
 
 science, and that alone, which has to do with tl»e 
 major proposition. But it is poUtical economy, anci 
 that alone which has to do with the minor proposi- 
 tion ; and ere we give ourselves up to the authority 
 of these new advocates, and upon this new ground, 
 for a poor-rate — we must make sure, not only 
 that they are able physicians, but sound economists 
 also. Truly it is not enough, to get safely and 
 well at a landing-place on the other side, that we 
 have a fair point of departure, a hard and unyield- 
 ing bank on this side of the stream — should there 
 be a precarious stepping-stone between them. 
 There may be a confident outset, but withal a 
 most lamentable non sequitur — a frail support, 
 which, on their next movement gives way under 
 them, when our hardy adventurers, instead of 
 finding themselves on the opposite shore, are left 
 floundering in the water. 
 
 6. It is always thus, when, with but the author- 
 ity earned in one science, men step forth of its 
 legitimate boundaries, and make unwarrantable 
 invasion on another. The professors of the art 
 medical did right, when they repelled the inroad 
 of the old astrologers, who, skilled in the motions 
 of the fuKiament, and assuming that the health as 
 well as fortunes of men on the surface of this 
 planet were somehow dependent on the relative 
 positions and conjunctions of the planets which 
 roll above us, regulated the treatment of their 
 patients by the computations and reasonings which 
 they made of certain mystic influences from on 
 high. Yet they may have been good astronomers 
 for all that, though very unsafe physicians. And 
 
184 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 it is just as possible that good and able physicians 
 may be very unsafe economists. They did well 
 in warding off the incursion made upon their own 
 territory. But let them not in turn, and by a sort 
 of reverse astrology, make incursion on other 
 sciences and other territories than their own. 
 Their doctrine may be right or wrong, that desti- 
 tution is both the origin and the active propagator 
 of contagion ; and that therefore its removal would 
 operate as a preventive of fever. This is alto- 
 gether their question, as lying within the province 
 which rightfully belongs to them. But another 
 question remains behind — whether the imposition 
 of a poor-rate would operate as a preventive of 
 destitution ; and they, in taking this for granted, 
 may be guilty of as egregious an assumption, as 
 any ever made by a scholastic or visionary of the 
 middle ages. We dispute not that Dr Alison of 
 Edinburgh, and Dr Alison of Tranent, and Dr 
 Cowan of Glasgow, and Dr Roberton of Man- 
 chester, may, one and all of them, be talented 
 professional men, and among the highest of their 
 order. And we as little dispute the possibility, 
 that persons of their education and powers might 
 become qualified for being as good judges and 
 reasoners upon the one question as the other. We 
 can only say that we perceive no symptoms of 
 their having thus studied and thus prepared them- 
 selves in any of their writings. And on the con- 
 trary we have known physicians on their side of 
 the controversy — that is calling out for a poor- 
 rate — and who yet allow, that wi'th all the atten- 
 tion thev have bestowed on the causes of fever. 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 185 
 
 they have never so much as entertained, and that 
 on grounds and considerations proper to the ques- 
 tion, the causes or cure of pauperism. Now 
 really and in good earnest, it is astrology come 
 back again, if men, because of their proficiency in 
 one science, are thus to be vested with a mastery 
 and a jurisdiction over two. It is a subject which 
 must be treated economically as well as medically, 
 else — even though the verdict may have been en- 
 trusted to the best and ablest of our physicians — 
 there is no security whatever against a lame and 
 impotent conclusion at their hands. Meanwhile 
 let not the public be hurried, by the impulse 
 either of fears or feelings, into the same lame and 
 impotent conclusion along with them. For even 
 though it should be established, which it is far 
 from being, that poverty is the specific cause of 
 those large and frequent epidemical visitations of 
 typhus which take place in towns, the question 
 remains still unresolved, and I may add as far as 
 they are medical controversialists who have taken 
 part in the argument, still untouched upon — 
 whether a poor-rate be indeed a specific cure foi 
 poverty.* 
 
 7. At the last meeting of the British Association 
 held ill Glasgow, Dr Alison gave a full exposition 
 of his views ; and his address on that occasion has 
 been since published by him. Among the addi- 
 tional matters which he has there interspersed, there 
 is a notice of myself, where he is pleased to express 
 
 * See the admirable discrimination and sound judicial sense of 
 Mr Monypenny's observations on this subjoct in his Reply to Dr 
 Alison. 
 
186 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 his satisfaction at certain admissions made by me 
 in favour of medical charities. If he conceive 
 that these are recent admissions drawn forth for the 
 first time, and in consequence perhaps of the new 
 light then shed upon the argument, I have only to 
 put him right by referring to various passages in 
 certain works — some of them published as far back 
 as twenty years ago.* But I cannot wonder at his 
 ignorance of these, as it is obvious from what he 
 has written formerly, that, like his brother who with 
 himself utterly misconceives the working of the 
 parochial system in St John's — that neitherof these 
 strenuous advocates for a poor-rate had ever read 
 them. Nor is this to be marvelled at either — 
 seeing that both of these truly excellent men have 
 settled it between them, that, on the question of 
 pauperism, the lights neither of reason nor experi- 
 ence have ever been consulted by me ; and accor- 
 dingly the one tells his readers that all I have done 
 
 * See the Cliristian and Economic Polity of a Nation, Vol. IF. 
 pp. 128 — 132. beinsf Vol. XV. of the series— the first Tract of 
 Vol. XII. of the series, written twenty-two years ago — Vol. I. of 
 Political Economy, being Vol. XIX. of the series, p. 419 — and 
 more especially my printed KviiJence before a Commons' Com- 
 mittee in 1830, in Vol. III. of the Cliristian and Economic Polity, 
 pp. 373 — 376, being Vol. XVI. of the series. 
 
 I may here refer to a sermon published by the Archbishop of 
 Dublin on Christ as a Guide anil E.xample tons in mattersof Public 
 Charity, where the same principles are advocated which I iiave 
 ventured to advance in the various works now specified. I beg 
 to take this public opportunity of acknowleilging to have received 
 from the Arciibishop a copy of this Sermon, with a note in his 
 own hand-writing of thanks for having suggested the topic to 
 him — a suggestion which came to him, I imagine, through the 
 medium of lliis printed Evidence. I should not liave adverted at 
 present to the circumstance, but for the purpose of bringing be- 
 fore the minds of the Mr Alisons an authority in favour of my 
 views whom perhaps they will have some respect for. 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 187 
 
 on this question has been under the impulse of an 
 enthusiastic imagination, while the other tells them 
 that in all I have said or written thereupon 1 have 
 emitted nothing but flashes of oratory. 
 
 8. Nevertheless, and at tlie hazard of again call- 
 ing forth these appellations, I must still persevere 
 and continue to lift my warning voice against the 
 fearful visitation which these gentlemen, in the 
 eagerness of their miscalculating benevolence, so 
 eagerly desire ; and which, in conjunction with 
 certain London associates the lovers of centraliza- 
 tion, and its whole train of commissionerships and 
 secretaryships and guardianships and directorships 
 and assistantships, they in good earnest design for 
 Scotland. I may well term theirs a miscalculat- 
 ing benevolence — for while the one brother tells 
 us, and tells us truly, that, in every aggregate popu- 
 lation of two thousand in the city of Glasgow, at the 
 very least six thousand a-year is spent on intoxicat- 
 ing liquors alone ; the specific remedy of the other 
 for the distress and destitution of the lower classes 
 in Scotland, is, that the annual sum of eighthundred 
 thousand pounds should be raised, which would just 
 atford six hundred a-year ab extra for the families of 
 a locality, where the fund ab intra thrown away 
 upon low dissipation is of ten-fold greater amount. 
 The obvious question is, Whether the moral admi- 
 nistration that would give a better direction to the 
 expenditure of the latter and larger fund of Sheriff 
 Alison, which exists within the parish, would not 
 do more for the destitution and consequent disease 
 of our cities, than the pecuniary administration 
 from withont of the former and far the lesser fund 
 
188 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 of Dr Alison — but a humble fraction of the other. 
 When this question was put, the reply it elicited 
 from this truly estimable person, and which at 
 once marked a heart teeming with sympathy, but a 
 mind withal in which the lights of reflection and 
 arithmetic were for the time suspended, was, that 
 by thus dispensing with the fund ab extra, and 
 drawing on the fund ab intra, I was making a 
 proposition which when translated into plainer 
 language was just that the poor should support the 
 poor. This brings us to the ne plus ultra of rea- 
 soning; but while I henceforth must forego the 
 hope of ever being able to satisfy this most amiable 
 of men, or to silence his unfortunate advocacy of a 
 measure fraught with a thousand evils to the 
 people of our land, I will not forego the hope that 
 under a better regimen they will yet emerge into a 
 state of greater sufficiency and far more secure 
 independence — and that, not at the expense of 
 each other, but at the expense of the harpies and 
 oppressors who now so cruelly tyrannize over 
 them — pawnbrokers, and more especially those 
 destroyers of all fulness and comfort in families, 
 the keepers whether of whisky-shops or of gin- 
 palaces. 
 
 Section VIll Historical Vieic of the (Question. 
 
 1. There is nothing which stands forth more 
 patently to the eye of an observant traveller, than 
 the different states of dilferent j^opulations, in re- 
 
/ 
 
 "^AiE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 189 
 
 / 
 
 garci to tb:;^ir sufficiency and style of living, or the 
 coramac^d which they have respectively over the 
 necei=j'saries and comforts of human existence. How 
 wid^ the Interval for example, whether it respect 
 ^heir food or dress or lodging, between the well- 
 conditioned peasantry of Norway and the hordes 
 of Kamtschatka — or between these last and most 
 wretched of men the stragglers of Terra del Fuego, 
 and the villagers of a Protestant canton in Switzer- 
 land. Within these extremes there are manifold 
 varieties in the various countries of the world ; and 
 often is the diversity most palpable when they lie 
 nearest to each other — as between the common 
 people of England and Ireland. 
 
 2. There is one very obvious connexion, in the 
 way of cause and consequence, which affords a sort 
 of proximate or first explanation of this difference 
 t)etween one commonalty and another ; and which 
 is all the more easily given, that the general state 
 of a people, in respect to comfort and style of liv- 
 ing, admits of being illustrated by one particular 
 instance. It is obvious, then, that the general 
 habit of a family throughout the years of its future 
 history, in regard of well or ill-conditionedness, will 
 dt'pend very much on its outset, or on the state of 
 matters when it first took its commencement. Let 
 us imagine of the parents, that, ere they would 
 enter on the marriage union, they made it indis- 
 pensable to have the means of a certain decent suffi- 
 ciency — waiting perhaps till they had made sure of 
 a given income, or till they had amassed a given 
 adequate amount of materials and furniture to 
 ensure there being dressed respectably and lodged 
 
190 ON THE SUFFICIENCY O f 
 
 respectably. It is not difficult to perv.';eive that 
 the same demand for comfort, the same deU'^rmina- 
 tion to make good a certain seemly and beco-\ming 
 status in society, the same right and respecta.ble 
 taste for the decencies as well as comforts of gooo.' 
 living — in a word, the same reach of calculation and 
 foresight, and the same resolute industry and good 
 management, which enabled them to gain the level 
 they had set their hearts upon — form altogether 
 the best guarantees for their being able to main- 
 tain it. Now who does not see that such a style 
 of comfort reached and realized in this particular 
 way, necessarily implies a previous and corre- 
 sponding style of taste or character on the part of 
 those who make it good ? If, speaking averagely 
 of a population, they will not marry till they have 
 won a certain command, by actual possession or 
 the ability to purchase, over those various articles 
 which compose the maintenance and accommodation 
 of a family — this is tantamount to saying, that, on a 
 certain mental habitude or affection, there histori- 
 cally depends in each individual case the economic 
 state of one person or one household; and that, in 
 proportion to the generality of this habit, be it 
 high or low, shall we behold in the commonalty of 
 any given land, an aggregate whether of well-con- 
 ditioned or ill-conditioned families. Hence the 
 importance of an element which now enters largely 
 into the reasonings and views of Political Econo- 
 mists — we mean the standard of enjoyment in any 
 country or nation. The standard of enjoyment is 
 low in a country, if, as in Ireland, the people are 
 willing to marry with nought but potatoes to feed, 
 
} 
 / 
 
 "T/tlE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM 19'! 
 
 and the ro/erest hovel to shelter them ; and high, 
 on the ^either hand, if, as an indispensable prelimi- 
 nary /CO such a step, there must be the outfit of 
 a s'nug and well-furnished tenement — with the pos- 
 f^ssion of such an income, and the fair prospect of 
 its continuance, as might warrant the reasonable 
 hope of being able, and that on a respectable foot- 
 ing both as to food and clothing and even the oc- 
 casional use of little luxuries, to meet the expenses 
 of a coming family. 
 
 3. All this seems very obvious, whether the 
 economists shall step forward to construct any 
 speculation upon it or not. But, in point of fact, 
 they have looked to this process, in the connexions 
 and bearings of its various footsteps, and endea- 
 voured to philosophize it. More particularly is 
 their reasoning directed to the influence which a 
 higher taste and more providential habit among 
 the people must have on the postponement of 
 their marriages ; and then, availing themselves of 
 the connexion between later marriages and smaller 
 families, do they tell us of the dependence that 
 obtains between the two elements — a higher 
 standard of enjoyment, and a less excessive popu- 
 lation. And indeed it must be obvious that this 
 is a mutual dependence. If, on the one hand, a 
 growing taste for the comforts and decencies of 
 life must lead to fewer and less prolific marriages 
 — on the other, the consequently smaller number 
 of labourers, must, by lightening the competition 
 for employment, tell beneficially on the labour 
 market, in keeping up a higher rate of wages ; 
 and so enabling a population to make good that 
 
192 ON THE SUFFICIENCY T F 
 
 larger sufficiency after which they aspere. Jt ij 
 truly a matter of profound interest, thus''?«o mark 
 how a commonalty can through the medil^rn of 
 their own collective will elevate their own statd^s • 
 and by force of character alone, or in virtue of ki 
 certain fixed determination, the result of their 
 average inclinations and habits, can realize the 
 very economic condition which generally and on 
 the whole they have set their hearts upon. This 
 at once points out the connexion (expressing it 
 very generally) between the mental and the econo- 
 mical state of a country — or, in other words, tells 
 us, that by operating a certain change upon the 
 minds, we may operate a like change on the cir- 
 cumstances of the general population. 
 
 4. Now the all important question, with the 
 view to a practical and beneficial result, is, What 
 might this change be ? There is one imagination 
 which has grievously misled a number of reasoners 
 — beside fastening a discredit on the whole of this 
 argument by making it ridiculous ; and this is 
 that the requisite change on the minds of the peo- 
 ple, and so as to enlist them in the cause of their 
 own amelioration, is to put into their minds the 
 philosophy of Malthus, or expound to them the 
 evil of precipitate and the good of postponed mar- 
 riages, and that on these depends either an exces- 
 sive or a moderate papulation, and so a low or a 
 high rate of wages. Now however sound, and 
 however accordant with all experience, this theory 
 might be — it is an utter misconception that it is a 
 theory which must be studied and understood by 
 the people, ere the process which it contemplates 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 193 
 
 can be entered on, and its effect on the national 
 well-being can be exemplified or realized. In 
 order to set it prosperously and efficiently agoing, 
 it is not needed that a Malthus should arise to 
 look reflexly on the process, and that with the 
 view of philosophizing it. It has been exempli- 
 fied in time past, and with a blissful effect on the 
 state of the peasantry, long before he was ever 
 heard of;* and, on the strength of other forces and 
 other considerations than those fetched from any 
 speculation of his, will it again be exemplified in 
 future generations. For this purpose it is not 
 necessary, that they who are to be the fathers and 
 mothers of families, should read economic tracts 
 or give attendance on economic lectures. If we 
 want to introduce a new habit among the common 
 people of a land, it were truly a most absurd and 
 grotesque way of going about it — to tell them 
 either of its result universal throughout society at 
 large, or of the result to which it is ripening, and 
 will at length be perfected in distant ages. It is 
 not by generalities, or by far ulterior prospects of 
 this kind that man is put into motion ; but by 
 the palpable and besetting realities, which minis- 
 ter direct to the gratification of his own individual 
 taste, or which visibly and immediately tell on his 
 own individual condition. We may accomplish 
 the desirable change by shifting the personal 
 tastes and inclinations of the people — for we may 
 count with all safety on each man doing what he 
 would like best for himself. But it were the ex_ 
 
 * See the Cliristinn ami Economic Polity of a Nation, Vol. I, 
 pp 36 — 38. bciii^ Vol. XIV. ot tlie series, 
 
 2i • N 
 
194 ON THE SUFFICIENCY ()P 
 
 cess of Utopianism to attempt such a change, by 
 presenting them with any compreliensive survey, 
 however just and well-founded, on the doctrine of 
 population and the doctrine of wages — for we 
 shall indeed be wholly out of our reckoning, if we 
 count on each man doing what he would like best 
 for the species. 
 
 5. How then is the desired change in the tastes 
 and habits of the commonalty to be brought about ? 
 There can be no mistaking the fact of a higher 
 style of living, a higher standard of enjoyment in 
 one country than in another — in virtue of which 
 there obtains a stronger preventive check, in the 
 way of too early or too frequent marriages — which 
 last in its turn (and that whether the people ever 
 anticipate such a consequence or not), by its effect 
 on population and wages, ensures a favourable state 
 of the labour market, and so upholds from age to 
 age the spectacle of a well-paid and well-condi- 
 tioned peasantry — who, without one idea of the 
 economic law ever entering their heads, may 
 nevertheless be themselves the means or instru- 
 ments for keeping it in operation. Their larger 
 demand for the comforts and respectabilities of 
 life tells as a restraint on improvident marriages, 
 and so as to postpone them in a greater or less 
 degree ; and, on the other hand, this elevation in 
 their demand proceeds from circumstances which 
 can be assigned as having palpably and immedi- 
 ately to do with it. For example, should com- 
 merce arise and increase in any nation, then, by 
 the very presentation of its new articles, does it 
 create new tastes among the people ; and so varies 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 1<J5 
 
 >or extends their appetite for enjoyment.* And 
 then when, along with commerce, there springs 
 up a stronger sense of justice between man and 
 man, till there come to be firmly established 
 among chem the regimen of equitable law, and 
 full security for each in the possession and use ot 
 the rightful fruits of his own industry — then this 
 new desire for property combines with their larger 
 desire for the direct enjoyments of life, to extend 
 still more the reach of foresight among the people ; 
 and make their entry upon the family state, that 
 greatest event in the personal history of their 
 lives, still more the subject of calculation and 
 delay than it might otherwise have been. And 
 the condition of each man, even in humble life, to 
 be on a level with his neighbour, is of powerful 
 influence in spreading emulously and rapidly that 
 higher taste which has been once introduced 
 amongst them : And so, under the civilizing influ- 
 ences alone of wealth and good government, there 
 might come to be a higher collective style through- 
 out the families of a general population — or, in 
 other words, we shall behold them more respec- 
 tably attired, and lodged in better houses, with a 
 better quality both of food and furniture than in 
 the days of their forefathers. Such influences go 
 a great way to account for the palpable difl"erence 
 in these respects between England and Ireland — 
 between the country where law, and protection, 
 and full liberty of thought, and constantly advau- 
 
 * See Dr Smith's account iu his Wealth of Nations, of the 
 effect vvhicli commerce had on the tastes and habits of the lainl* 
 owiiois in Europe. It was an etfect which reached the whui» 
 population. 
 
11)(3 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 ciag trade and agriculture have flourished for so 
 many generations ; and the country where to the 
 bondage of a degrading superstition, there must 
 be added the oppression and misrule of centuries, 
 to frighten both commerce and capital from its 
 shores. And beside the other civilizing influences 
 which tend to elevate a people, and place them 
 on a higher platform of decency and dignity than 
 before, we might have instanced the power of edu- 
 cation — had it not been for a distinction to be 
 made between the education of letters and the 
 education of principle — the former of itself being 
 comparatively of slight operation, and so far as it 
 goes tending only somewhat to civihze ; while the 
 latter is of mighty and pervading effect over the 
 whole man, whom it tends to Christianize, and so 
 to furnish with new habits — the result of that 
 higher wisdom and principle, which are only to be 
 learned at the schools of an enlightened faith. It 
 is this latter element which predominates, and 
 gives its own characteristic and complexional 
 variety to the state of Scotland — whose people 
 have not been so powerfully operated upon by the 
 same merely civilizing influences of luxury and 
 commerce as those of England ; but who have had 
 a larger share of the Christianizing influence 
 than either of the neighbouring nations — so as in 
 some respects to have reached a higher standard 
 than that of England, and in all respects than that 
 of Ireland whose people are behind in both.* 
 
 * See Chri^ian and Economic Polity of a Nation, Vol. I. pp. 
 32 — 36, being Vol. XIV. of the series, and Printed Evidence in 
 \'ol. IIL ot the same work, or XVI. of the series, pp. 370—372. 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 197 
 
 6. It is tlius that while the observant historian 
 could not fail to notice the difference in their stan- 
 dards of comfort which obtained among the people 
 of different countries — it is thus that the philoso- 
 phical historian would assign the causes of it. In 
 the great elements of religion, and scholarship, and 
 liberty, and secure property, and civil justice, and 
 commerce with its numerous articles of enjoyment 
 to widen the range of human desires — in these 
 would he find enough to account for all the varie- 
 ties in the economic state of different nations, 
 from the savage tribes of earth's primeval forests 
 to the best-conditioned peasantry in our civilized 
 world. It is only of late, and for the purpose of 
 sustaining an argument in the controversy of the 
 question, that we have heard of a compulsory and 
 legal provision for the poor, as having a place 
 among the other influences which tend to humanize 
 and elevate a population — as if the widest possible 
 diversity in this respect had not been exhibited, 
 and between countries that were alike strangers 
 to the economy of an artificial pauperism. It is 
 very true that England, perhaps the foremost in 
 the race of civilization, has further signalized her- 
 self by the device of a poor-rate. But it were 
 somewhat precipitate to assert because of this, that 
 the poor-rate is therefore the cause of her civiliza- 
 tion. It implies no doubt the nation to have been 
 so far in progress as to have had disposable wealth 
 for the maintenance of a great public charity ; and 
 a government so far humanized, as, in benevolent 
 consideration for the sufferings of the poor, to 
 have enacted in their behalf a levy and distribu- 
 
198 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OP \ 
 
 tion throughout all its parishes. But th/^^^aves 
 the question wholly untouched, Whether, ati*^^^'' ^^K 
 this was a wise or a wayward legislation ? — whether 
 it gave an impulse or laid a drag on the ascendin^?,? 
 movement of a people, now in rapid transition by 
 other and prior causes, to a state of greater suffi- 
 ciency than had ever been enjoyed by their fore- 
 fathers? This question perhaps had best be met, 
 and the subject of it be best illustrated by a distinct 
 and definite example. No one can doubt the pro- 
 gress which Edinburgh has made in wealth during 
 the last two centuries ; and that notwithstanding 
 the scenes of wretchedness which have been laid 
 open in those parts of the city where dwell the 
 lowest of the people, whose sunken morality is far 
 more the disgrace of their superiors than their own 
 — the melancholy outcasts as they have been of ail 
 christian surveillance for two or three generations. 
 —Yet who can doubt, that on the whole, there has 
 been a great and general elevation in the style of 
 comfort which obtains even among the working 
 classes of our Scottish metropolis ? They have 
 shared in the advancing prosperity both of the town 
 and country at large — a prosperity which began 
 at that period when the turbulence of the feudal 
 times had so far subsided, as both to ensure iur 
 each man the fruits of his own toil, and to j)ernut 
 a free development of the resources of tlie nation. 
 Our own town early led the way in this advauciiig 
 movement; and we might quote, as a part and 
 specimen of its growing sutliciency, the capital 
 ealized by old Geoi'ge ileriot, and destined by 
 him for the erection and endowment of that magni- 
 
TlilE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 11)9 
 
 ficent Hospital which bears his name — in behalf of 
 the decayed citizens of Edinburgh. Now it were 
 in every way as rational, did we ascribe the pro- 
 gressive comfort which obtains among the families 
 of Edinburgh to the institution of this said charity, 
 as if we ascribed the better economical state of 
 the commonalty in England to the institution of 
 its poor-rate — the former of which charities we owe 
 to the will and ordination of a well-meaning man, 
 the latter to the will and ordination of a well- 
 meaning parliament. But it follows not that they 
 owe to either the larger prosperity which they 
 now enjoy, and which has arisen from the opera- 
 tion of distinct and anterior causes altogether. 
 Each of these benevolent institutions may have 
 been the effect or luxuriant off-shot of this pros- 
 perity ''though in no way the cause of it) ; and yet 
 may it h. ve been a rank and pernicious luxuriance 
 notwithstanding. For it is a truly possible thing, 
 that as there may be injudicious bequests, so may 
 there be injudicious laws; or, in other words, that 
 the legacy of George Heriot may on the one hand 
 have done little good to Edinburgh, and on the 
 other the legacy of Elizabeth may have done great 
 evil to England. The same crudities which ope- 
 rate within the heart and come forth in the deeds 
 of an individual, may also obtain a lodgement in 
 the minds of senators, and find vent in the acts 
 which proceed from a hall of legislation. 
 
 7. And it is thus that our political speculators, 
 confounding causes with consequents and essen- 
 tials with mere accessories, have been misled in 
 their reasonings on Ireland — when tliey inferred 
 
200 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 from the absence of a poor-rate there, in conjunc- 
 tion with the extreme misery of its people, that it 
 would prove a remedy for all their wretchedness ; 
 and, on the other hand, from the presence of a 
 poor-rate in England, that to it the prosperity of 
 the nation, and more especially the superior com- 
 fort of the working classes was owing — though, 
 in fact, no more owing to its poor-rate than to its 
 national debt. The way to disentangle a ques- 
 tion which relates to the state and habits of a 
 population, when complicated with a foreign influ- 
 ence which has nothing to do with it, is to take a 
 view of diverse populations alike to each other, 
 either in being both under that influence or both 
 free from it — as one part of England with another, 
 all under the operation of a poor-rate ; or one part 
 of Ireland with another, when altogether free from 
 it. It is well known that the peasantry of Eng- 
 land, in its northern counties, were not only of a 
 more elevated cast but in a state of greater suflB- 
 ciency than those in the south — both under poor- 
 rate, but with this only difference, that the 
 allowances were most sparing in the former ; and, 
 in the latter, the most lavish and indiscriminate. 
 But, what is still more decisive, in comparing one 
 part of Ireland with another, the province of Ul- 
 ster with the more exclusively catholic provinces, 
 nothing can be more palpable than the superior 
 condition of the common people in the north — a 
 superiority which can by no possibility be ascribed 
 to a legal provision for the destitute, unknown till 
 of late over the whole country, but which is due to 
 the operation of moral causes alone. Would that 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 201 
 
 our statesmen had been wise enough, to read the 
 true lesson from an exhibition so distinctly set forth 
 to them. Never was there a grosser delusion, 
 than that the body of a people can be raised from 
 degradation and want by this wretched expedient 
 of a poor-rate. On this question the experience 
 of Ireland will prove an echo to the oracular deliv- 
 erance of the wisest of Irishmen,* who, in reason- 
 ing on the distempers of his unhappy land, called 
 on its rulers, to give his countrymen religion, to 
 give them education, to give them moral and indus- 
 trious habits, to give them the fostering influences 
 of liberty and protection upon mind and character 
 and principle — for that everything else, (but the 
 semblance of a boon without its reality,) was down- 
 right fraud. 
 
 8. And the same lesson may be drawn, not from 
 the comparison of two, but from the history of one 
 country, or the comparison of that country with 
 itself. We speak of Scotland at the end of the 
 seventeenth century, and of the same Scotland 
 after an interval of nineteen years at the beginning 
 of the 18th century — the former as described by 
 Fletcher of Salton, in 1698, the latter by De Foe 
 in 1717.t There cannot be imagined a wider 
 contrast, or a greater and more rapid improvement, 
 in the moral and economic state of any people — 
 and all due to the energies of that moral adminis- 
 tration, which, commencing with the Revolution 
 
 * Edmund Burke, 
 f See the extracts from these two writers in Vol. III. pp. 289, 
 290. of tlie Cliristinn and Ecouomic Polity of a Nation, being 
 Vol. XVI. of the series. 
 
202 ON THE SUFFICIENCY Oi' 
 
 ■when our present parochial system was restored to 
 us after the persecutions and rehgious wars of one 
 generation, seems to have taken full effect before 
 the lapse of another generation. And they were 
 our zealous and hard-working clergy, with the in- 
 strumentality of a well-disciplined church and well- 
 ordered schools, who worked out this great ameli- 
 oration. In the period to which we now refer a 
 compulsory provision for the poor was unknown, 
 save at most in two or three parishes. Every- 
 where else the parochial charity was altogether 
 gratuitous — a mighty lesson we do think to the 
 speculators of our day, if they would but learn at 
 the sciiool of experience and history ; and a most 
 decisive intimation to our rulers, whether it is 
 the importation of an English poor-rate, or the 
 extension of our ecclesiastical and educational 
 economy, that promises best for the well-being of 
 the common people of Scotland.* 
 
 Sect. IX Political Economy of the Question. 
 
 I. It is only since Malthus gave his views to the 
 world, that the subject of pauperism has come 
 under the full cognizance of political economy, or 
 taken a formal place as one of the themes or argu- 
 ments of tills science. Yet Dr Smith — the great 
 author of the still prevalent theory of wealth, even 
 as the other is author of the theory of population — 
 
 * For the few remiirks we can afford to make on the Foreign 
 Poor-laws, see a future section. 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM, 201} 
 
 does advert in some of his reasonings to the gene- 
 ral state and standard of enjoyment among the 
 common people, as affected by the riches of a 
 country, whether as progressive or declining or 
 stationary. It is obvious at the same time, that, 
 had he been as conversant with the more recent of 
 these two doctrines — with the doctrine of popula- 
 tion, as with his own doctrine of wealth — it would 
 have greatly modified the conclusions to which he 
 came on the condition of the lower classes at large. 
 But this, at all events, is a distinct topic from that 
 of pauperism, which repects not the lower but the 
 lowest class in society, or the state and number of 
 those who depend for their subsistence in whole or 
 in part on a legal and compulsory provision, raised 
 for the express object of relieving the destitute. 
 It is to this more special department that we refer, 
 when we say of pauperism, that it has only of late 
 become the article of an economical creed, or had 
 a regular place assigned to it among the dogmata 
 and demonstrations of economical science. 
 
 2. And we are not sure that the preferment of 
 our theme to the higher region of philosophy has 
 been at all favourable to the progress of sounder 
 views on the question of pauperism, or to its 
 sounder practical treatment than before. This 
 has laid upon it the servitude, as it were, of a dis- 
 puted and to many a doubtful theory — in virtue of 
 which many adverse prejudices have been excited ; 
 and the whole subject has been distorted, simply 
 from being looked to through the mists of contro- 
 versy. It is thus that the veriest truisms of plain 
 snd everyday experience are made to appear as 
 
204 ON THF4 SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 the pre^^rious conclusions of a precarious, if not 
 a wholly untenable hypothesis ; and which yet 
 detached from that hypothesis or anterior to the 
 promulgation of it, were as implicitly received as 
 are any the most incontrovertible maxims of com- 
 mon prudence or common housewifery. Tliat 
 marriage should be delayed till there is the fair 
 prospect of a sufficiency both for its present and 
 subsequent expenses, and that it is all the more 
 respectable to have a high notion of this sufficiency 
 rather than a low one — these are propositions, 
 which, apart from science or speculation altogether, 
 will be recognised in the immediate light of their 
 own evidence, and not only recognised but acted 
 on by every well-trained and well-educated popu- 
 lation, whether by the members of a household or 
 the families of a parish. There is no need of any 
 larger surveys to warrant or to guide the only pro- 
 ceedings by which the riglit and desirable result 
 can alone be realized. The patent way is to train 
 and educate the people ; and the economical bles- 
 sings which follow this process will be equally sure, 
 whether we take account or not of a whole country 
 or a whole world's population. 
 
 3. But whatever opmion may be held on the 
 philosophy of Malthus, (in our view as irrefragable 
 as the most rigid demonstration,) and whether the 
 law of pauperism tend to an undue increase of the 
 population or not — there are certain other of its 
 tendencies from which it may be shown, on the 
 surest and clearest principles of i-*olitical Economy, 
 that the strictly unavoidable consequences of the 
 law, w earing though it does an aspect of benignity 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 205 
 
 to the poor, must be to lower the remuneration of 
 labour; and so to depress the general condition of 
 the lower orders, while it raises a permanent and 
 invincible barrier in the way of their reascent from 
 the degradation into which it has brought them. 
 
 4. Nothing can be more natural, and we may 
 add more patent to observation, wherever there 
 exists a large public and certain provision for the 
 poor, than that the care thus taken of each man 
 by the legislature should lessen his own care of 
 himself. Generally or at least frequently speak- 
 ing, he will be greatly less careful to provide 
 against future contingencies — when thus made to 
 believe, that, under whatever contingencies, he 
 will not be permitted to starve. We do not say 
 that a poor-rate will extinguish the habit of accu- 
 mulation, for innumerable instances can be alleged 
 of the contrary. But it is enough for our argu- 
 ment, that it powerfully tends to weaken and 
 reduce the habit ; and accordingly there are thou- 
 sands and thousands more of the working classes 
 in England, who have a perfect scorn for Savings' 
 Banks — and that on tlie express ground of their 
 being institutions set up by the rich, not for the 
 benefit of the lower orders, but to save their own 
 pockets. We have elsewhere explained,* and 
 must here satisfy ourselves with a very brief re- 
 statement of the efficacy which lies in these insti- 
 
 * See my chapter on Saving's Banks in Vol. II. of tlie Chris- 
 tian and Economic Polity of a Nation, or Vol. XV. of the 
 series; and my article in the Edinburt^h Review, of May 1820, 
 entituled " State and Prospects of Manufactures," republished 
 m Vol. II. of my Polilica) Economy, at p. 371, &c., being \ ol. 
 XX. of the series. 
 
206 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OT 
 
 tutions to elevate the status of labourers- — so that 
 if by their means, a habit of economy were to be- 
 come general amongst the common people, it vv^ould 
 not only secure them against the extreme distress 
 incident to those seasons of periodical depression 
 which so often occur in the commercial world ; 
 but would place the average and permanent wages 
 of labour on a higher level than before. 
 
 5. It is on the occasion of what are called gluts, 
 or when the market happens to be overstocked 
 with a particular commodity, that a fall takes 
 place in the wages of the men who are engaged 
 in its preparation; and which wages may continue 
 wretchedly low fer months together, even beneath 
 the starving point till the glut be cleared away. 
 Now if there have been no previous economy 
 among these workmen, if they have nothing to live 
 upon but the immediate produce of their current 
 day's labour — the temptation is to overstrain and 
 exceed to the uttermost, so as to make up by the 
 quantity of work for the miserably deficient wages 
 now bestowed upon it. And, accordingly it has 
 been known among the hand-loom weavers, that, 
 in such times of calamity, to eke out a scanty pit- 
 tance for themselves and their famishing children, 
 the loom was kept constantly agoing by the man 
 and wife taking their turns and sharing it between 
 them during all the four and twenty hours — a 
 direct method by which both to increase and 
 lengthen out the glut ; or, in other words, not 
 only to deepen but indefinitely to protract the 
 fieavy distress to which the 'adverse state of 
 markets had brouf?ht them. Now when once the 
 
THE PAflOCHIAL SYSTEM. 207 
 
 opposite habit, the habit of providentially, laying 
 up in store as God has prospered them, shall have 
 become general among labourers, this process 
 would be most beautifully reversed. Men having 
 other resources would not work on such miserable 
 wages ; or, at all events, would not overwork, but 
 rather take it easily — and, if they worked at all, 
 would work a great deal less than usual. Many 
 in possession of a small accumulated capital, 
 would betake themselves for the time to other 
 employments — nay some of them might aiFord to 
 rise up to play ; and turn what wont to be a season 
 of utter helplessness and despair, into a season of 
 holiday enjoyment. And they would make of it 
 a brief while brilliant interval — for this slackening 
 of work would not only alleviate the glut, but 
 shorten the duration of it. It is thus that by dint 
 of accumulation in good times, the inconveniences 
 of the transition period in bad times could easily 
 be weathered and got over in as many weeks, 
 as now takes months — ere the market could be 
 sufficiently lightened of its supplies, and the price 
 both of the commodity and of the labour which 
 gives it birth were again restored to their custom- 
 ary level. 
 
 G. But more than this. Were such the general 
 habit of labourers, the customary rate of wages 
 would undergo a gradual elevation ; and not only 
 in times of emergency, but at all times, should we 
 behold the common people in a far higher state of 
 sufficiency than they have ever yet attained. The 
 truth is, that, with each or the greater number ia 
 
208 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 the possession of a small capital, they would have 
 a far more effective control over the labour 
 market, than men in a condition of helpless de- 
 pendence, or from hand to mouth for their daily 
 subsistence, could possibly realize. The collec- 
 tive will of men having something might command 
 a doubly greater remuneration for their labour, 
 than the collective will of men having nothing. 
 They are not so entirely at the dictation of their 
 employers — because, able to hold for a time the 
 propositions of the other party at abeyance, they 
 are in a measure the arbiters of their own state ; 
 and, virtually, the question of their wages lies all 
 the more at their own determination. Some look 
 with jealousy to this result — while to me it affords 
 a perspective of brightest and most cheering 
 anticipation. I long to see the day when the 
 wages of labour shall bear a far greater proportion 
 than they do now either to the rent of land or to 
 the profits of capital. On every question between 
 masters and servants, as for example that of the 
 combination laws, I must confess that all my par- 
 tialities and wishes are on the side of the latter — 
 for even though in the competition of rival inter- 
 ests, the scale were to turn more than hitherto on 
 the side of labourers, and so the upper classes 
 perhaps be shorn somewhat of their splendour — 
 this were better than a hundred-fold compensated 
 by the result of a better and happier population, 
 regaling both the heart and the eye of every real 
 philanthropist by the spectacle of their well-sub- 
 sisted well-clad and in every way well-conditioned 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 209 
 
 families.* This will at length be effected, not by 
 the strong hand of legislation — not by any violence 
 done to the laws of Political Economy, which are 
 as much beyond the reach of human power as the 
 laws of Nature — but rather by the silent yet re- 
 sistless operation of these laws, when, as certainly 
 while as quietly as if by hydrostatic pressure, 
 wages are borne up to a higher level, simply be- 
 cause in the negotiations of the market, labourers, 
 on the strength of their own accumulated savings 
 can treat more independently than heretofore with 
 the hirers of labour. 
 
 7. The same principle which leads us so to advo- 
 cate and befriend Savings' Banks, leads us also to 
 deprecate a poor-rate. The one is the antagonist 
 of the other. The self-denial which foregoes oi 
 gives up a present enjoyment, must, to become 
 general, be palpably for the sake of one's own 
 future benefit — and not, as under the economy of 
 a compulsory pauperism, for the relief or benefit 
 of rate-payers, who are viewed by the common 
 people of England in the light of natural enemies. 
 It is thus that the system of legal charity has 
 proved an incubus on the rising energies of those 
 who live by labour — because it has lured them 
 from a dependence on themselves ; and from the 
 free use of those inherent capabilities, by dint of 
 which and on the strength alone of their own 
 economy and virtuous habits, the whole platform 
 of humble life could be lifted above the mire and 
 
 * See my chapters on Combinations, in Vol. II. of the Chris 
 tian and Economic Polity of a Nation, being Vol. XV. of tha 
 series. 21 O 
 
210 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 sordidness of its present degradation. It is the 
 direct operation of a poor-rate to keep them in 
 the mire. The labourer who spends all he earns 
 is at the perpetual mercy of his employers, who 
 can bring him to the very margin of pauperism — 
 next to which, and on the slightest further depres- 
 sion, he is forced to enter its territory, where all 
 his allowances are fixed and regulated by the 
 guardians and administrators of a poor's-house. 
 It is woeful to think of a noble peasantry, who, 
 under another management, could have won for 
 themselves a secure and impregnable position, 
 whence they might at all times have commanded a 
 decent sufficiency as the remuneration of their 
 toils — that so many of them, ranged as it were 
 along the limit which divides the pauper from the 
 independent labourer, should alternate on either 
 side of it ; and thus at one time have a mainte- 
 nance rigidly awarded to them by parish overseers 
 and at another a maintenance some hair-breadths 
 larger in the shape of wages, when some favour- 
 able change, however slight, in the tremulous 
 labour market, again releases them from imprison- 
 ment. It is thus that the condition of the lowest 
 orders is virtually at the arbitration of parish- 
 officers and vestry-men on the one hand who will 
 allow as little, and of capitalists or farmers on the 
 other who will pay as little more than these as 
 they possibly can. This is the unfailing effect of 
 a legal charity for the relief of indigence ; and, in 
 as far as the people themselves have been beguiled 
 into a desire or a demand for siich an economy, 
 tliey have become parties to their own degradation. 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 211 
 
 It is all the more provoking of this system, that, 
 like Satan transformed into an angel of light, it 
 wears an aspect of benignity to the poor — while it 
 diverts them from the alone pathway to comfort 
 and independence, by holding forth a seeming 
 guarantee against destitution which it never can 
 make good, even a promise of suflBciency to all 
 which it can never realize. 
 
 8. One specimen of its operation might make 
 this palpable. Conceive a decline in some branch 
 of employment which had given occupation to a 
 certain number of workmen in a parish, and just 
 such a wage as kept them out of the work-house. 
 In the absence of all providential habits, they will 
 have no resources of their own to fall back upon ; 
 and thus there seems no other alternative than 
 that so many of them shall be received as in-door 
 paupers, to remain such till the return of better 
 times when the price of labour again rises, and 
 comes back to that minimum point at which it is 
 judged that men and their families might live. It 
 is then that discharged from confinement, they re- 
 enter the open field of competition with their fel- 
 low-workmen ; when certain it is that their pre- 
 sence there must operate either in keeping down 
 wages at the minimum, or at least retarding if not 
 altogether preventing their further elevation. Cer- 
 tain it is that the wages must settle at a lower 
 point in the scale, in virtue of the presence of 
 these discharged workmen — who, kept as a corps 
 de reserve, fulfil the part of a dead weight on the 
 labour market, to the great convenience we hav^ 
 no doubt, at times, of master tradesmen and mas« 
 
212 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 ter manui'aciurers. Had they been otherwise 
 disposed of — instead, for example, of being detained 
 by an unfortunate Poor-law at home — had they 
 availed themselves of public facilities held out for 
 emigration, the adverse consequences • of their 
 return to the overstocked department of their 
 former industry would not have followed. But so 
 it is that a Poor-law, which many eulogize as the 
 grand specific for all the economical distempers of 
 our land, has just the effect of plunging the work- 
 ing classes into an abyss, from which, so long as 
 its deadly operation is permitted to continue, it is 
 impossible to raise them.* 
 
 9. The difference that we have now stated, in 
 point of effect, between the emigration of our able- 
 bodied labourers and a legal provision for them 
 however temporary at home, should at once decide 
 our preference for the former. There are reasons, 
 which at present we refrain from expounding, for 
 distrusting even the efficacy of emigration, as be- 
 ing of itself or if not accompanied with certain 
 other measures, a remedy of unfailing operation 
 for the miseries of an over-peopled land. But it 
 is worthy of remark, how readily and how confi- 
 dently our common-place speculators on this ques- 
 tion, will advance and advocate their expedients of 
 all sorts for the alleviation of the economic pres- 
 sure, if it have but the semblance of a tendency that 
 way — without once considering — whether, if adopt- 
 ed in the lump^ they would not conflict with and 
 
 * See a striking instance of this operatjon in Vol. 11. pp. 323, 
 324, of the Christiitn and Economic Polity of a Nation, beinif 
 Vol. XV. of the series. 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 213 
 
 neutralize each other. They are not arrested for a 
 moment by this consideration ; and will call out 
 strenuously for Savings' Banks, and as strenuously 
 for a Poor-law, and again as strenuously for emi- 
 gration, and for the contemporaneous operation of 
 these and all other devices which can be thought 
 of, the more the better — as if their number would 
 add to their momentum, till at length the result 
 was made sure of all destitution being met and 
 provided for. It does not occur that a poor-rate 
 hinders the beneficial operation of a Savings' Bank 
 — because many will not accumulate a provision 
 there, for what they conceive has been already 
 provided by the laws of their country ; and also 
 that thousands, under the same system, will refuse 
 to emigrate — because unwilling to exchange for 
 the hazards of such an enterprise, the patrimonial 
 right to a subsistence which law has secured for 
 them at home. 
 
 10. There is one prognostication we have often 
 made,* and do it still with unabated confidence— 
 which is, that when once the right expedient is 
 fallen upon for lightening a population of its re- 
 dundancy, it must tell with a certainty and a speed 
 far greater than men ever think of anticipating, on 
 the rise of wages, and so on the general elevation 
 of the working classes. We have elsewhere ex- 
 plained the principle on which a very small excess 
 in the number of labourers must operate a very 
 great reduction in the price of labour; and hence 
 the equal power of a very small diminution in their 
 
 * See Vol. II. p. 254, &c., of the Christian and Economic 
 Polity of a Naticu, being Vol. XV. of the series. 
 
214 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 number in restoring wages to their wonted level, or 
 even raising them indefinitely above it. Emigra- 
 tion, if on a scale of sufficient magnitude, would, 
 for once at least, or at rare and long intervals, 
 have this effect temporarily. And the moral pre- 
 ventive check of Malthus, which nothing can put 
 into general operation but the adoption of right 
 methods for the establishment of a higher taste 
 and character among the people, would have the 
 same effect permanently. In other words, it is 
 mainly — for every thing else is of a subordinate 
 and subsidiary operation — it is mainly to moral 
 causes that we must look for the only effectual 
 solution of this great problem ; and the people 
 themselves, when once placed under a wholesome 
 moral regimen, will be found to have the remedy 
 in their own hands. The deacon who patronized 
 a local Savings' Bank, and provided for the edu- 
 cation of all the young at well-conducted schools, 
 and stimulated the attendance of his families on 
 church, and did all that could be effected by the 
 conversation and personal intercourse of his ever 
 recurring visits to humanize nnd dignify the peo- 
 ple committed to his charge — l)o could do much to 
 speed forward the desired result in his own dis- 
 trict: And this is just tantamount to saying, that 
 a right parochial system could generalize the same 
 result, and realize its benefits and its blessings for 
 the country at large. 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 215 
 
 Section X. — Politics of the Question 
 
 1. For our least and lowest specimen of the in- 
 fluence of politics on this question, we might refer 
 to those Commissioners of Inquiry, whose obvious 
 aim "it is to make out a case. We are far from 
 affirming this to be universal, though we fear it is 
 too frequent— more especially when the inquiry, if 
 made to terminate in one way, is to issue in the 
 establishment of a Board, with an apparatus of 
 constituent and dependent and withal well-paid 
 offices. When under the influence of such an an- 
 ticipation, the whole business, more especially if 
 in the hands of a sordid government and of the 
 alike sordid hirelings whom they employ, is very 
 apt to degenerate into what is familiarly termed a 
 job — and that because of the much-longed-for and 
 much-laboured-after result, which is to swell the 
 patronage of the one party, and to provide salaries 
 for the other. It is grievous to think of such 
 wretched influences as these, presiding over the 
 determination of a great moral as well as econo- 
 mical question ; and pauperism is pre-eminently of 
 this description — afl^eeting not the comfort alone, 
 but the character and habits of a whole population. 
 This is a great evil ; and it is one to which our 
 question of all others stands peculiarly exposed, 
 from the semblances and plausibilities which it fur- 
 nishes to one, who without much skill or discern- 
 ment, might avail himself of the facilities which they 
 give to him, for making an appeal to popular sym* 
 
216 ON THE SUFFICIENCY 0*F 
 
 pathy, and so hurrying onward, as if b'-v impulse, 
 the public mind to a precipitate and wrd.ng con- 
 clusion. It is by a woeful perversion of diX that 
 is just and sound in the pliilosophy of human af- 
 fairs — that a question like this should have beeti 
 submitted to the arbitration of mere statists and 
 surveyors. All they can do, in that capacity, is 
 to ascertain the facts of a case — of a population, 
 it may be in a state of what they would call 
 extreme destitution ; and if not of extreme misery, 
 it is because the only standard of comfort where- 
 of they have any experimental knowledge, is so 
 immeasurably beneath that of the more civilized 
 countries around them. But thus to ascertain 
 the facts of a case is truly a distinct matter, 
 from that of providing for the case. But this 
 seems well-nigh forgotten in the work of legislation 
 as practised now-a-days. If, in former times, the 
 tendency waS||to proceed on principles without 
 facts — as if to keep at the greatest possible dis- 
 tance from this error, the incessant demand now is 
 for facts without principles. And so our empirical 
 statesmen would commit questions of the most 
 momentous import, into the hands of mere collec- 
 tors and empirics like themselves. 
 
 2. The evil is much aggravated, when the temp- 
 tation thus to pervert and mismanage out of doors is 
 followed up by another temptation, which we fear is 
 powerfully felt, and has a most misleading influence 
 within the walls of Parliament. The greatest 
 danger of this is when the two great parties in the 
 state are almost equally poised ; and with a readi- 
 ness in each to lay hold of any element which 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 217 
 
 might give it an advantage over the other, there 
 ensues between them a rivalship for popularity — 
 a bidding for the good opinion of the multitude, 
 which, in these days when the constitution has 
 been so greatly popularized, is of so much more 
 importance than ever for the attainment of power. 
 And the question of pauperism is precisely the one 
 which stands most in danger of being thus tam- 
 pered with ; and accordingly there is perhaps none 
 which has been so frequently made a stalking- 
 horse for the objects of political men. This is 
 truly a sore evil ; and we fear has told most mis- 
 chievously on the question first of general educa- 
 tion for England, and then of religious instruction 
 in Scotland — when the ruling party found it neces 
 sary, in order to conciliate the dissenters, to keep 
 both of these vital questions at abeyance. This 
 too, we believe, is tlie secret reason why Ireland 
 has been precipitated into a Poor-law, as well as 
 England been arrested on her way to the eradica- 
 tion of her own pernicious system of charity. It 
 is because men of both parties make on this par- 
 ticular question a sacrificeof their own convictions; 
 and will rather join in the perpetration of a griev- 
 ous injury to the common people, than incur the 
 odium of a seeming hostility against them. It is 
 thus that the questions of most urgent importance 
 to the good of society are disposed of — decided, 
 not on their own merits, but so as to subserve 
 for the time being, the ever shifting objects of a 
 wretched partizanship. 
 
 3. Yet in justification of measures, though pal- 
 pably hastened forward by the corrupt influences 
 
218 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 which we have now specified, we sometimes hear 
 a principle alleged — we mean, a principle in the 
 science of government ; and perhaps the one most 
 frequently quoted is centralization, which aims at 
 the establishment of a uniform regime for the 
 whole empire, and has all the greater charms to 
 an administration which seeks to strengthen and 
 perpetuate its own power, that it so often makes 
 room for the multiplication of offices, and for the 
 consequent increase of patronage in its own hands. 
 This is what we have most to dread in the pro- 
 jected changes which are said to be now in con- 
 templation on the pauperism of Scotland, and that 
 for the purpose of harmonizing it with the system 
 of pauperism in England — to prepare the way for 
 which, it is rumoured that Commissioners from 
 that country will be appointed, to inquire and 
 sit in judgment, both on our methods of parochial 
 charity and on the state of our population. Should 
 this design be ever carried into effect, we may lay 
 our account with the most ludicrous mistakes on 
 the part of these official visitors from England. 
 They will come in among a people who have a 
 different standard or rather a different style of 
 enjoyment from their own,* each deviation from 
 which will in their eyes appear to be a deficiency, 
 and so an argument for a levy on the parish to 
 make it up. Our bare-feeted children and earth- 
 en-floored tenements will be to them the indica- 
 tions of an extreme wretchedness; and so also per- 
 haps may be the houses of our peasantry — not, it 
 
 * See Vol. III. of the Christian and Economic Polity of a 
 Nation, beiiijj Vol. XVI. of the series. 
 
THE FAIIOCHIAL SYSTEM. 219 
 
 is certain, so tastefully fitted up, or kept in the 
 comfort and cleanliness which so regale the eye in 
 the picturesque cottages and rural hamlets of 
 England. We are gradually it is certain, and in 
 the natural progress of civilization, making upon 
 our southern neighbours ; and the progress is to 
 the full as striking, if not more so, in the unasses- 
 sed as in the assessed parishes of Scotland. We 
 hope therefore that the project of repeating in this 
 country the experiment which has just been set up 
 in Ireland will be forthwith abandoned; and that 
 the preposterous attempt will not be made here to 
 raise the general economic condition of a people, 
 or put them into a state of greater sufficiency by 
 means of a poor-rate. There is certainly some 
 danger of such being the result — if the question 
 of our national pauperism, is first to be looked at 
 by English eyes, and then submitted to the arbi- 
 tration of Englishmen. This is the very conclu- 
 sion which they of all others will be most apt to 
 land in — more especially when comparing what 
 they will interpret into glaring evidences of wretch- 
 edness among the people, with what they will be 
 astonished at as the glaring deficiency of our parish 
 allowances. The palpable way, it may be thought, 
 of making these two ends meet, were just to pro- 
 vide for the one by enlarging the other — a method 
 however, it is most certain, which will not allevi- 
 ate the sufferings of our poor ; but will only anni- 
 hilate the last remnants of that noble and virtuous 
 habit, which was in full and fresh because then 
 undisturbed operation, among the Scottish peas- 
 antry in the days of our grandfathers. We can 
 
220 . ON THE SUFFICIENCY OP 
 
 figure its effect on these our inspectors from the 
 south, when they find so many of our paupers who 
 have no visible means of subsistence — such as they 
 can state numerically, or registrate in one of their 
 official schedules — when they find on their exami- 
 nation of our sessional records, that the sums cur- 
 rently given to these may be such as eighteen- 
 pence a-week, or half-a-crown in the month, or 
 even but twenty shillings in the year to eke out a 
 house-rent, nay perhaps so little in a whole twelve- 
 month as the money that will purchase a pair of 
 shoes. It is forgotten that the parochial charity 
 of Scotland does not profess — save in those raro 
 instances where there is an absolute necessity — tu 
 provide an entire maintenance for its paupers. All 
 which it undertakes or professes is to give in aid. 
 The methods of its administration are founded on 
 the principle — First, that if any pensioner have a 
 remainder of strength for working, that strength 
 should be put forth; for it is his duty to be as little 
 burdensome as possible — Second, that if he have 
 relatives who have the means of contributing to 
 his relief, it is their duty to help him — 'i'hird, that 
 if surrounded by neighbours, their sympathy and 
 succour will not be wanting, and that to supersede 
 these is not for the virtue or substantial well-being 
 of any parish — Fourth, that if any affluent and kind- 
 hearted gentleman or lady be within reach, it is 
 proper that a representation of the case should be 
 made to them, either by the clergyman or any of 
 his elders; and that it is greatly better when the 
 exigence is met by a secret donatwe from an indi- 
 vidual than by an allowance from a Kirk Session. 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 22] 
 
 There is gre.at confidence felt amongst us in tiie 
 efficacy of these preventive expedients ; and we 
 utterly deprecate the system which would put an 
 end to them. And we may well add, that, save 
 in transition periods or times of extraordinary dis- 
 tress, it is a confidence that never fails us. We 
 stand in dread of any assimilation to the Poor-law 
 of England, because sure that it would undermine 
 the operation of all those principles on which 
 hitherto we have placed our reliance — the fore- 
 sight and industry of our labourers, the mutual 
 obligations of kindred, the duties and affinities of 
 social life, the spontaneous benevolence of our 
 upper classes. There may be too much of the 
 ethereal and too little of the tangible in all this for 
 the common run of our Parliamentary Commis- 
 sioners. Nevertheless we do entreat them to spare 
 us ; and would humbly suggest it were better, it 
 they first ascertained of tlieir own system that it 
 gave satisfaction to their people at home, ere they 
 offered to palm it upon us. It were time for them 
 to look abroad, after they had settled all controversy 
 on the subject among themselves. The rumour of 
 their movement northward has spread great alarm 
 amongst us ; and there is a rising spirit in our 
 land to ward off from it the invasion of English 
 ideas and English practices. With every disposi- 
 tion therefore to be courteous, we would earnestly 
 implore them to keep within their own borders ; 
 and reserve any experiments vvhiv^h they are anxi- 
 ous to make, whether in legislation or economics 
 tor the people of their own territory. 
 
 4. But under this head there still remains some- 
 
222 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 thing further to be said — for it would now appear, 
 that it is not from English politics alone, that danger 
 is to be apprehended ; but that the cause of a right 
 settlement for the poor lies open to the utmost 
 jeopardy from the state of our politics at home. 
 It is not many weeks since there came forth upon 
 this subject a very sound and able Report by a 
 Committee of Landed Proprietors from various 
 parts of Scotland, followed up however by a series 
 of most unfortunate Remarks by one of their own 
 number, and printed with the knowledge and under 
 the sanction of the Committee. We can imagine 
 nothing more singularly untoward, than that, at a 
 time when a cordial and common understanding 
 between the church and heritors of Scotland is so 
 indispensable to the right settlement of this ques- 
 tion, such a mediator as the author of these re- 
 marks should have risen up between them ; and so 
 managed as in the course of his observations, to 
 have positively said nothing that is not directly 
 fitted to stir up acerbity of feeling between the 
 two parties, and put them into a state of hopeless 
 misunderstanding and alienation from each other. 
 Certain it is that both the clergy and the land- 
 owners take the strongest possible interest in the 
 projected changes on the pauperism of Scotland ; 
 but that of the former is chiefly a moral interest 
 felt by them as guardians of the national virtue, 
 and apprehensive of a system that carries in it a 
 deteriorating influence on the principles and habits 
 of the common people. And without detracting 
 in the least from the philanthropy of the latter, or 
 casting the slightest discredit on the patriotic 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 22:5 
 
 regard which they bear both to the comfort and 
 character of the lower orders, they^ over and above 
 this, have of all classes the strongest monied inte- 
 rest in the determination of this question — seeing 
 that mainly upon them, or upon the rental of their 
 estates, the great burden of the proposed expen- 
 diture would fall. Now if that view of pauperism 
 be admitted which is advocated in these pages, 
 and which we are glad to observe is the prevalent 
 view and opinion of churchmen in Scotland — then 
 is there a most happy coincidence between that 
 moral interest which the clergy should have most 
 at heart; and that monied interest, which, not 
 denying their full sympathy with the latter and 
 higher object, the heritors must have much at 
 heart also. What Burke said of education, and it 
 holds pre-eminently true of the education of princi- 
 ple, that it is the cheap defence of nations, applies 
 with peculiar force and emphasis to the question 
 of pauperism — the best and far the cheapest pro- 
 vision for which is the Christian instruction of the 
 people. Behold then the solid foundation, because 
 a foundation of truth and principle, of the strongest 
 natural alliance between the church and the heri- 
 tors of Scotland — or rather, because the very oppo- 
 site of a joint conspiracy against the good of the 
 lower orders, the foundation of a firm triple alli- 
 ance between the church, the heritors, and the 
 people — who, if each party but understood their 
 own interests, might enter with most friendly co-^ 
 operation on the prosecution of this great cause. 
 We cannot imagine therefore a more untoward 
 event, a more grievous raalconvenance, than that 
 
224 ON THE SUFFICIENCY' OF 
 
 when on the eve of stepping upon this common 
 ground, so rich in the promises of a most fruitful 
 and enduring fellowship, this representative of the 
 landed interest and professed expounder of their 
 views and feelings, should, at the very commence- 
 ment of negotiations so hopeful, have come forth 
 to cast a firebrand in the midst of us — and such a 
 firebrand too, as that in the very attempt to ex- 
 tinguish it, there is danger of still farther collision, 
 and that between parties whose imperative policy 
 as well as duty it is, to act in peace and cordiality 
 together.* 
 
 5. Nevertheless the truth, for once at least, (we 
 have no desire to harp on it) must be told. He 
 accuses us first of contempt and contumely to the 
 Government, for having received with coldness a 
 proposition of theirs, which cast us on the land- 
 owners of Scotland for the endowment of our New- 
 Churches; and thenof distrust in these landowners, 
 to whose liberality and willingness we should have 
 confided all that was required for supplying the 
 Lack of Christian education among the people. 
 Our brief reply to this is, that from the time when 
 the property of the church was first seized on by 
 the landlords, down to the present hour, we have 
 with a few splendid exceptions, experienced nothing 
 but the most tenacious resistance at their hands, 
 to every claim preferred by us on that fund which 
 was once ours but is now theirs, for the extension 
 of the means of religious instruction, whether by 
 
 * This w;is stronj,'ly felt by me in drawing up the last Report 
 on Cl>iirch Extension to the General .' ssenibly, it being the 
 JSeVentli Report, and to whi* li I beu to refer the reader. 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 225 
 
 the erection of new churches or in the shape of a 
 necessary provision for additional clergymen. This 
 is our vindication — nor do we mean to repeat it — - 
 both of the disappointment we felt in the pro|)osal 
 of Government, and of our diffidence in the neces- 
 sary consent to it of the Heritors of Scotland. 
 
 6. We are glad to make our escape from this 
 painful reckoning — feeling as we do, not the desir- 
 ableness only but the duty — and that for the chance 
 of securing a great moral boon to the poorer fami- 
 lies of our land — of making every sacrifice that is 
 consistent with truth and honour, in this question 
 between the church and the heritors of Scotland. 
 And for this purpose we are willing to abjure all 
 the historical recollections of former years — to dis- 
 charge from our memory — First, the Act of 1 706, by 
 which the consent of three- fourths of the heritors was 
 required, ere the disjunction of too large or popu- 
 lous parishes could be effected — Second, the almost 
 impracticable barrier which this has raised in the way 
 of church extension — Third, the frequent annexa- 
 tion of parishes, when the increasing population of 
 the country imperiously required a movement in 
 the opposite direction — Fourth, the general oppo- 
 sition and alarm even of a few years back on the 
 part of the landed proprietors, as indicated bv fhc 
 resolutions of county meetings in all parts of Scot- 
 land, when a bill which threatened to facilitate the 
 erection of new churches passed through Parlia- 
 ment — where it would infallibly have been stopped 
 had not the patrimonial interests of the tithe-holdors 
 been protected by clauses of greater stringency 
 than ever — And lastly, the exceeding rarit\' (we 
 21 ' p 
 
226 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 remember only one example) of any allocation to 
 our extension churches of the unexhausted teinds — 
 notwithstanding the moral certainty that there is 
 not a congregation in our scheme by whom it would 
 not have been most thankfully received; and not a 
 presbytery in Scotland, where the boon would not 
 have been acknowledged with the utmost cordiality 
 and respect — These facts — now that we are re- 
 proached by this advocate for Scotland's land- 
 owners in not having trusted to their liberality — 
 we shall willingly cast into the deep sea of oblivion ; 
 or, if we cannot altogether extinguish the recollec- 
 tion of them, we shall at least acknowledge the 
 error into which we have fallen, in grounding what 
 we are now told was a mistaken conclusion on all 
 our bygone experience : and, now that the means 
 have been thus placed within our sight, and we 
 hope within our reach, of an ample provision in 
 behalf of our overgrown parishes for a century to 
 come— we shall make all the reparation we can to 
 the landed proprietors for the injustice we have 
 done them, by our instant and most grateful 
 acceptance of the proffer ; and the as instant dis- 
 missal from our thoughts of the acerbities and the 
 wrongs of former generations. 
 
 Section S.\.-^ Statistics of the Question. 
 
 1. We confess that the prevalent notion of statis- 
 tics differs essentially from the view that we have 
 ever entertained of it. To express our idea gene- 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 227 
 
 rally, we should say that to learn the statistics of 
 any given subject is to acquire that knowledge of 
 it in its several parts, which, as may be shown by 
 specific instances, is quite a distinct thing from the 
 knowledge that we may have of it on the whole. 
 Take for an illustrative example the statistics of 
 British agriculture. We might know generally 
 of the millions of quarters of various sorts of 
 grain produced annually in the whole island ; 
 or we might know statistically of the thousands 
 of quarters produced in each separate county; 
 and it were a still more thorough statistics, did 
 we know of the hundreds or tens of quarters pro- 
 duced in each parish. And so might there be 
 a general description of the mineralogy of the 
 British isles, or a statistical description of the 
 mineralogy of each small district. In like manner 
 we might have a British Flora ; and from the 
 study of such a work, we might pass on to the 
 statistics of Botany, by entering on the study of its 
 provincial or even its parochial Floras. And so 
 the magnificent sketches of Humboldt could be 
 broken down into an atlas of successive landscapes, 
 which would present us with what may be called 
 the statistics of scenery. Statistics in short stands 
 in the same relation to general science that topo- 
 graphy does to geography. As our last illustra- 
 tion, we might perhaps distinguish between a 
 general view of the moon as seen by the naked 
 eye, and that more particular view of its several 
 telescoi)ic fields of vision, which, if each laid be- 
 fore us in a descriptive paragraph of its own, would 
 furnish the statistics of the moon's surface. The 
 
228 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 word is comparatively recent ; and we always un- 
 derstood it as the sub-diminutive of state — so that 
 while we spoke of the state of a country, when 
 described as a whole, we speak of its statistics, 
 when described by its shires or towns or parishes. 
 We are not sure that the term was at all in use 
 amongst us, before Sir John Sinclair undertook 
 the Statistical Account of Scotland. It is obvious 
 that if our view or definition of statistics were 
 adopted and proceeded on, the assiduous cultiva- 
 tion of it would mightily contribute, not to the 
 facts only, but to the philosophy of all the sciences 
 — securing a far more deep and thorough insight 
 into any given matter of contemplation ; and bring- 
 ing up to view more both of the inner structure 
 and hidden principle of things. It would advan- 
 tage human knowledge by all the difference be- 
 tween a superficial and a profound acquaintance 
 w ith Nature in its various departments ; and l)e 
 the parent of great discoveries — just as the treat- 
 ment of a small bit of chalk opened up a new 
 store-house of wonders in chemistry, and unravelled 
 secrets to which no general survey of all the cliffs 
 and strata on the face of the earth could have ever 
 led the way. 
 
 2. Such might be the high achievement of 
 statistics as thus understood — but not as tied down 
 by the definitions and rules of a society in whose 
 hands the whole subject has been so fettered and 
 restricted, that, viewed as an instrument of in- 
 quiry, little or nothing has yet been done by it. 
 For, first, they propose " to confine their atten- 
 tion rigorously to facts — and, as far as it may be 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 229 
 
 found possible, to facts which can be stated 
 numerically and arranged in tables." Now by 
 this exclusion of all which cannot be stated nume- 
 rically, we venture to affirm that an interdict is 
 laid on our attention to those very facts which are 
 of the greatest scientific importance, and therefore 
 possess the highest claims to the recognition of 
 inquirers. If this demand for numbers must on 
 all occasions be deferred to, if ere facts can be 
 admitted to a place in the estimation or regard of 
 this new race of philosophers, it be their para- 
 mount condition that they must be stated arithme- 
 tically — then we see not how any acceptance can 
 be found for many of the greatest and most preg- 
 nant facts in all philosophy ; and which, but for 
 this arbitrary dictation of a recent school, would 
 have possessed a high rank, in the statistics of one 
 or other of the sciences. And then, under the 
 cover of this conventional aphorism of theirs, how 
 many are the solemn insignificancies which might 
 be palmed on the notice of the public. In botany, 
 for example, it might be of importance to know^, 
 that certain species had been found in higher lati- 
 tudes, than where they had ever been even thought 
 capable of living or propagating before ; but of no 
 earthly importance to know that there were seven 
 rather than six specimens of one sort, twelve of 
 another, and seventeen of a third. It is this latter 
 information, however — the how many — the cate- 
 gory of number — which, in the eyes of our modern 
 statisio, stamps all its value on the facts now spe- 
 cified — as if truths were of no worth, unless they 
 were such as could be scheduled, and placed in an 
 
230 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 imposing array of figures, before the disciples of 
 this new science, which has fashions of its own. 
 At this rate we can no more wonder at the im- 
 mense store of downright puerihties, which have 
 been suffered to accumulate on their hands — as 
 meaningless and effete as any of those into which my 
 excellent friend Mr Cleland ever permitted himself 
 to run, when giving way occasionally to an indiscri- 
 minate passion for statistics of any kind, if they only 
 admitted o^ being put into a tabular form. His 
 statement, for example, of the weights and prices 
 of all the church-bells in the city of Glasgow, will 
 satisfy all the conditions on which these associated 
 savans have of late shown themselves to be so 
 determined and peremptory — for it can both be 
 expressed in arithmetical ciphers, and set forth in 
 parallel columns, to the great delight and edifica- 
 tion of these devoted amateurs. Verily there is 
 some room for the classification, on which a news- 
 paper editor proceeded lately, when, for a title or 
 heading to one of his paragraphs, he prefixed the 
 very significant and necessary warning of " Statis- 
 tics worth knowing." 
 
 3. But a,bsolutely to ensure that, in the great 
 mass and majority of what has been piled together 
 in the lumbering and voluminous collections of the 
 last few years, the statistics shall not be worth 
 knowing — behold another rule or maxim of one of 
 their most celebrated societies — even that " The 
 Statistical Society (of London) will consider it the 
 first and most essential rule of its conduct, to ex- 
 clude carefully all opinions from its transaction3 
 and publications." Jf it be meant by this, that 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 231 
 
 no preconceived opinions shall be suffered to inter- 
 fere with the most scrupulously faithful registra- 
 tion of well observed facts — nothing can be more 
 philosophical or more Baconian than this. But 
 if it be meant that all opinions are to be excluded, 
 not merely as matters of belief, but as matters 
 even of consideration — so as not to be entertained, 
 even as objects of thought — then have the society, 
 and in homage too to what they think the induc- 
 tive philosophy, cast away from them what in truth 
 is both the directing and the animating principle 
 of all inductive inquiries. It is very true that a 
 much loved hypothesis might operate with a dis- 
 turbing bias on the work of observation : But that 
 the observer should take up an hypothesis from 
 others, or even frame one for himself, and then 
 place it upon its trial — why this is the very pro- 
 cess to which modern science is indebted for 
 almost every footstep of the sure and rapid advance- 
 ment which she has made in these latter days. 
 There is all the difference in the world between 
 two questions — the first put by a mind unconscious 
 of all opinions whatever on the subject at issue, 
 and then casting itself abroad among the thousand 
 likelihoods of speculation, on the chance or possi- 
 bility of its lighting upon the one and only truth 
 which can abide the test of all experience ; and 
 the second put by a mind which has got hold of a 
 distinct opinion, and then sets itself forward to the 
 distinct object of prosecuting such experiments or 
 observations as might serve either to verify or dis- 
 prove it. The former, or the indefinite question, 
 may be put thus, What is the truth? — and the 
 
232 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 latter, or the definite question thus, Is this the 
 truth ? It is in the latter way, or by a tentative 
 process — each term in the series being a distinct 
 and definite attempt to dispose of a given some- 
 thing, and that by a verdict of proven or not pro- 
 ven — it is thus that truth is far more quickly and 
 certainly arrived at : And, should this process be 
 discarded, then the united labours of all the 
 statists in the world will not make out one great 
 or valuable discovery, will not even prepare the 
 way for it. 
 
 4. Let the statical essayist, then, be permitted 
 without rebuke to state from the outset, what the 
 opinions are which his proposed induction is fitted 
 to determine — and if in the course of his informa- 
 tions, be they few or many, one of these should 
 brighten towards certainty, let it be competent 
 for him to point out the growing evidence, and 
 even to proclaim the consequent beUef — nay, though 
 the doctrine in question should rest but on the 
 authority of one observation, an instantia crucis, 
 let not a fact so pregnant be despised by our 
 assembled savans because of its singleness, even 
 albeit a solitary unit, requiring for its accommo- 
 dation no table to meet the definition of their 
 learned committee, no parallel columns wherewith 
 to regale their eye-sight. We are aware of the 
 fashionable contempt for theory ; but a sound 
 theory is one thing, and ought not to be confounded 
 with an untried hypothesis which is another. A 
 theory is a general proposition, which may be true 
 in spite of its generality ; and in this case it be- 
 comes a general fact — ail the more important iu 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 233 
 
 proportion to its generality, because embracing 
 then a larger portion of truth, or comprehending 
 all the larger number of facts and phenomena. 
 Theory, now-a-days, has become the object of an 
 adverse popular cry, hooted at as a stigmatized 
 outcast ; and so put forth of the camp, to make 
 room for the empirical and chance-medley collec- 
 tions of the present day. It is thus that our 
 statists, professed worshippers though they be of 
 the inductive philosophy, have utterly mistaken 
 wherein it is that the great strength of this philo- 
 sophy lies. Their intellectual tactics have accord- 
 ingly become the worst possible, of paltry achieve- 
 ment, and leading to no permanent or general 
 results — justasbadas if in military tactics one should 
 prefer being at the head of a miscellaneous rabble, 
 rather than of a well-marshalled regiment. Verily 
 it may be said of this town-made philosophy of 
 theirs, that there is an urgent call for the revisal 
 of its principles and rules, or rather for the aboli- 
 tion of its perversities and its errors. 
 
 5. We migiit have gone into a further exposition 
 of these; but we shall hold this task to be superseded 
 by referring, once for all, to an article of extraor- 
 dinary merit, which appeared in the 31st volume, 
 page 45, or 60th number, for April 1838, of the 
 London and Westminster Review. We have re- 
 cently learned that its author is John Robertson, 
 Esq., the former editor of that periodical — a native 
 of Aberdeen, and now a resident in London. We 
 earnestly advise the republication of that paper in 
 a separate form — exposing, as it does with great 
 felicity and force, the fundamental errors in the 
 
234 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 procedure of that society on which he animadverts. 
 He has fully made good all his four objections to 
 their rule for the exclusion of opinions. 1. That 
 " It prevents the discovery of new truths. 2. It 
 deprives the labours of the society of definite pur- 
 poses. 3. The facts of which it causes the collection 
 and arrangement are those which are useless and irre- 
 levant as evidence. 4. The observance of this rule 
 is irreconcilable not merely with the progress of 
 science and knowledge, but with the actions and 
 operations of the society itself." Perhaps Mr 
 Robertson would do well to expand somewhat his 
 views and illustrations — though every intelligent 
 reader must recognise in the following pregnant 
 expressions, the whole principle and philosophy of 
 the subject. " Theories, be it ever remembered, 
 are facts viewed by the most powerful minds ; what 
 are called facts are details and particulars as con- 
 ceived by the most ordinary minds." " Opinion 
 is most wanted where truth is the object, it is the 
 parent and precursor of truth." " The exclusion 
 of opinions is the exclusion of the only guides which 
 can conduct their researches to any useful end." 
 " The ay or no of any distinct proposition is the 
 only object of inquiry." " Before you can inquire 
 you must have something that you seek." " The 
 more distinct the end the greater the chances of 
 success ; the absen':e of an end is futility." " The 
 rule of the council, by forbidding the proposal of 
 the affirmative or negative of a distinct proposition 
 as an object of their researches, vitiates the re- 
 searches themselves in proportion as their object is 
 made vague." " When men go to seek they know 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 235 
 
 not what, they become puzzled how to set about 
 it, and the most common effect is, that they do 
 nothing." " The uncertainty about the objects 
 they have to seek, caused by the exclusion of 
 opinions, will prevent them from acting to any 
 purpose." " The exclusive principle acts in two 
 ways — it causes the collection of useless details, 
 and prevents the value of those which are useful 
 from being ascertained." " Their whole labour 
 consists in sowing figures and reaping sums." It 
 is possible, that to a reader of second-rate intelli- 
 gence, the singular beauty of some passages in this 
 composition, and the occasional pleasantries where- 
 with it is enlivened, may cast a shade over the just 
 and profound logic, by which it is throughout 
 characterized. 
 
 6. We close this section with the briefest pos- 
 sible application of its subject to pauperism. Had 
 so many informations of its amount in various coun- 
 tries, such as the few statements given by Mr 
 Alison in his book on Population, of the expendi- 
 ture in various cities and nations of the Continent — 
 had these been formed into a table, and so extended 
 we shall imagine as to embrace all the states in the 
 world, this, as satisfying the two conditions of the 
 numerical and the columnar, would have been ac- 
 cepted we presume. by all the statists as of an 
 eminently kindred and appropriate character, and 
 laid before them in the very form now demanded 
 by their science. Yet, however desirable to be 
 presented with a general view of this sort, we can- 
 not help thinking — that, because of its very gene- 
 
236 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 i 
 
 rality, so far from being thereby identified, it rather 
 stands contrasted with the true nature and design 
 of statistical inquiries — being a bare sketch or 
 outUne, and as naked of details, as if in geography 
 there was laid before us a map of the world, with 
 but the names and boundaries of its continents and 
 islands and kingdoms. The proper object of 
 statistics surely is to fill up these larger divisions ; 
 and so to get at the real statistics of pauperism, 
 we should deal with it, not in states or provinces, 
 but should deal with it in parishes. The former, 
 some may think, is the way of obtaining a com- 
 prehensive, when in truth it is but a slender and 
 superficial view of the whole matter. It is only in 
 the latter way of it, that we shall ever obtain the 
 revelation of its essence, of what may be termed 
 the internal structure and physiology of pauper- 
 ism. It is thus, and thus alone, that we come at 
 the sight of its inner mechanism ; or can possibly 
 attain, either to the true philosophy, or right 
 practical treatment of the question. It is only by 
 coming into converse with the men and women and 
 families of a parish, that we are in fit circumstances 
 for studying the human nature of the subject, or 
 its living principles — which are of far more import- 
 ance, than either its laws or its general history ; 
 and as much more promising, both of scientific and 
 practical results — as the treatment of a small bit 
 of chalk in a crucible is a likelier way of eUciting 
 the chemistry of this material, than the construc- 
 tion of a geological map of all the chalk formations 
 in the world. This we hold to be the alone true 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 237 
 
 and right investigation — the only way hy which to 
 probe into the inner depths of the subject, and so 
 get hold of its moving springs of operation. 
 
 7. On these grounds we were led into the belief, 
 that our experience of St John's, Glasgow, was 
 eminently statistical, whether with or without 
 tabular views. The only thing indeed we had to 
 offer in that way, was the schedule of our fourth 
 section, where the receipts and expenditure might 
 have been given in vertical columns, and with hori- 
 zontal lines of numbers. We fondly think that this 
 might have been accepted in full of all such de- 
 mands — more especially as we furnished the arith- 
 metical criteria of ours being the poorest parish in 
 Glasgow ; and told of the five-and-twenty sections 
 into which it was divided, with a deacon for the man- 
 agement of the pauperism in each ; and detailed 
 as the experience of the greater number of these 
 in their own words, that with almost no sacrifice of 
 time and a perfect bagatelle of money which might 
 be raised by voluntary contributions anywhere, 
 they met for eighteen years all the demands of 
 parochial charity ; that the average expenditure 
 fell short of £40 a-year for each thousand of the 
 population ; and yet, most decisive of all, that 
 ours — as proved by the excess of imports over 
 exports was the best served and best satisfied 
 parish in Glasgow — These matters, we reckon, 
 niight have told somewhat on the Statistical Sec- 
 tion of the British Association ; but, whatever 
 impression they may have made on others, they 
 made none whatever on the mind of my excellent 
 friend Dr Alison — who stated more than once in 
 
238 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 his replies, that the kind of information which I 
 dealt in, was not such as that Section could 
 receive — and that nothing would serve for their 
 entertainment but statistics, and such facts as 
 could be given statistically. In other words, they 
 would have been better pleased, had I brought 
 lists or inventories of all the chairs and pans and 
 tables, and other articles whether of food or furni- 
 ture, that I could lay my hands upon in the dwel- 
 lings of my common people. Enough, one might 
 imagine, the resistless evidence that a people with- 
 out, were better off than a people with the com- 
 pulsory provision raised by assessment for the city 
 at large ; and how the information called for could 
 in the least supplement or confirm this evidence 
 we are at a loss to comprehend. The statists, we 
 again repeat, must revise their principles and 
 methods — else they will be perpetually incurring 
 the sacrifice of a solid experience to an idle form. 
 
 Sect. XII. — Recent Authorship of the Question. 
 
 1. A full review of any work is out of the ques- 
 tion. At the most, we can only give a few brief 
 notices, and on those points which chiefly concern 
 our own argument. 
 
 2. The first of these is Mr Alison's book on 
 Population. We must pass over the strangely 
 mistaken inferences of his second chapter grounded 
 on the palpable and well-known truth, that a great 
 proportion of tlie soil upon the earth is capable of 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 239 
 
 subsisting a greater number of human beings, 
 than are employed to labour it. But this may be 
 true, and yet the limit on which Malthus and 
 others so legitimately reason may in fact be arrived 
 at. Enough for this that the land last entered on 
 can yield no greater produce than will suffice for 
 the maintenance of its agricultural labourers. 
 Should it have come to this, it signifies nothing to 
 be told of the capabilities of the superior soils, in 
 virtue of which the food of Britain might be raised 
 by only a fraction of those workmen who are sus- 
 tained by it. It might both be true that the agri- 
 cultural produce of Britain is raised by less than 
 a fourth or fifth of the people who are subsisted 
 by it ; and it yet be true that no more produce 
 could be raised, but by an additional labour which 
 would require for its support more than all the 
 additional food that was raised by it. This is a 
 limit which cannot be forced, but at the expense 
 of landlords ; and which if pushed indefinitely 
 forward would strip them of all their property. 
 The other proposal of this author to break up 
 grass-lands; and alter the existing distribution of 
 the ground, or, which is tantamount to this, the 
 existing taste and demand of its proprietors — were 
 the admission of a principle, which, if fully and 
 consistently carried out, would terminate in the 
 abolition altogether of an ownership in the soil. 
 But we must forbear. Indeed to reply any longer 
 to this, would be to repeat our own first chapter 
 on Political Economy, which we should be glad if 
 any reader would take the trouble to peruse, imme- 
 diately after that he had finished tlie second chapter 
 
240 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 of Mr Alison. This would at least give him the 
 advantage of comparing together two distinct out- 
 sets to two distinct processes of thought and rea- 
 soning, and landing in certain conclusions wholly 
 different from each other. At all events, we 
 would earnestly request the attention of the in- 
 quirer to an article in the Appendix of our Politi- 
 cal Economy, entituled, " Home Colonization" — 
 in which we endeavour to trace the effects that 
 would ensue, were the attempt to push agriculture 
 beyond its own spontaneous rate of progress car- 
 ried into operation. 
 
 3. Mr Alison in the twelfth chapter of his work, 
 insists much on the effect of extreme poverty to 
 induce a general despair and recklessness ; and 
 so, by weakenhig the operation of the preventive 
 check, to increase the frequency of marriages. 
 Thero is undoubted truth in all this ; and the only 
 error which accompanies the observation, per- 
 fectly just in itself, is that he brings it forward,, 
 not merely in the shape of a novelty, but in the 
 shape of a correction on the theory of Mr Malthus. 
 Now it is what Mr Malthus himself fully admits ; 
 and, so far from being of adverse operation against 
 his theory, it forms a constituent part of it. He 
 who could describe so well the considerations 
 which told in restraining marriages among the 
 higher classes of England (Book II. Chap, vii.) 
 was not likely to overlook the influence of exces- 
 sive destitution in so enfeebling, or rather nulli- 
 fying the force of these considerations, as to de- 
 stroy the preventive check altogether among the 
 poorest of the poor. Accordingly he tells us 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 241 
 
 (Book III. C. xi.) of a wretchedness "that had no 
 tendency to destroy the passion which prompts to 
 increase, but which eiFectually destroyed the 
 checks to it ". om reason and foresight." " Poverty, 
 when it has once passed certain limits, almost 
 ceases to operate." " The most constant and 
 best directed efforts will almost invariably be 
 found among a class abo'^e the class of the wretch- 
 edly poor." " The desire of immediate gratifi^ 
 cation, and the removal of the restraints to it from 
 prudence, may perhaps in such countries (where 
 extreme wretchedness prevails) prompt universally 
 to early marriages." These general conclusions of 
 Mr Malthus are in perfect keeping with the facts of 
 that very extensive induction on which his doctrine 
 is based. And accordingly we scarcely ever read of 
 the moral and intelligent preventive check, save 
 in modern Christendom, as in Norway, Switzer- 
 land, and Britain — though it seems to have ope-» 
 rated somewhat among the free citizens of Greece, 
 It is on the failure of this check, that the theory 
 of Malthus — true in all its parts to them who will 
 look at it comprehensively — finds its dread verifi- 
 cation, in the other checks and influences, which 
 are of positive and all-powerful operation in keep^ 
 ing down the population of the world to the level 
 of its food. It is an undeniable truth that extreme 
 want stifles and extinguishes the preventive check; 
 but it is a truth propounded by Malthus as well as 
 by Alison — and it is scarcely consistent with lite- 
 rary justice to bring it forward in disparagement, 
 or in seeming refutation of a theory, by which it 
 is not only recognised ; but by which express pro- 
 
242 ON THE bUFl'ICIENCV OF 
 
 vision IS made, or rather an account is rendered, 
 for all the consequences that follow in its train. 
 
 4. But though Mr Alison incurs no error, so 
 long as he abides by Malthus even while in form 
 he is opposing him, when he affirms that extreme 
 poverty and extreme improvidence go hand in 
 hand — on the moment of his departing from this 
 great authority, he falls into a most egregious 
 error in the application he makes of the truth thus 
 alike promulgated by both. He tells us that the 
 way to cure the people of their improvidence, is 
 first to raise them out of their destitution ; and 
 this he proposes should be done by a poor-rate. 
 This expedient is just as true to human nature, as 
 if, in order to increase still further the preventive 
 check now so powerful among the younger sons of 
 noble families, it were proposed to give each of 
 ihem a pension of a thousand pounds a-year — the 
 infallible result of which would be to increase the 
 marriages, not to diminish them. And certain it 
 is, on the very same principle —let the indepen- 
 dent labourer who struggles to keep his head above 
 water, not yet too low to have cast all prospective 
 considerations away from him — let him have a 
 vestry pension, though of but a thousand pence a- 
 year; and certain it is that such a measure, if 
 generally carried into effect, would, pro tanto, in- 
 crease the number of marriages in this class also. 
 But if it be said that the provision in question is 
 only designed for a class still lower than these, we 
 are here met by the undoubted principle — that 
 though the man, who struggles to better his condi- 
 tion, may be all the more inclined to economize 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 243 
 
 that which he has painfully made his own ; it fol- 
 lows not that the man, whose condition we attempt 
 to better by a helping hand from without, shall be 
 equally careful of that the acquisition of which 
 costs him no care. Experience is painfully the 
 reverse of this ; and besides were it otherwise, 
 were it the tendency of pauperism to encourage 
 sobriety instead of dissipation among its nurselings 
 — then would it bring them indefinitely near to the 
 condition of independent labourers ; and it were 
 exceedingly difficult, we think it impracticable, so 
 to manage as that the supplies of parochial charity 
 should cease on the moment that this higher degree 
 of comfort were attained, when the influence which 
 we have now ascribed to a pension, whether from 
 the state in favour of one class, or from the parish 
 in favour of another, would come into play. Be- 
 tween these two categories, it is impossible to 
 avoid the conclusion, that a poor-rate is on the 
 whole an incentive to population ; and the prog- 
 nostications of Mr Malthus evince a deeper insight 
 into our nature than do those of Mr Alison* — as 
 
 * Yet Mr Alison when not misled by his partiality for a Poor- 
 law, discerns the whole truth of this matter — as when he tells us 
 that '' Property is a threat advantage when it i.i the fruit of honest 
 induxtrff." It admits of a more extensive application than he 
 makes of it, when he so well observes that — " It is not tlie mere 
 possession of money, but the habits by which money has been 
 earned, which constitutes the lasting benefit." Vol. II. p. 73. 
 But more applicable still — " To give them property (workmen) 
 wiihout the course of life by which it has been acquired, is only 
 to give them more extended means of licentiousness. It is not 
 so much the possession of capital, as the habits by which it has 
 lieen acquired, and the desire wiiich those habits produce for its 
 increase, which is of importance to the lower orders." Vol. II. 
 p. 153. Yet this is the writer who can contend for a poor-rate 
 on the new argument that it raises the general standard of 
 enjoyment. 
 
244 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 experimentally verified by the supernumeraries of 
 all those English counties which were most pau- 
 perized ; and by the consequent reaction which, 
 w^hether well directed or not, was at least called 
 forth by the pressure of evils actually felt, and 
 fostering every year into greater magnitude and 
 strength within the bosom of their overcrowded 
 parishes. 
 
 5. Having these views it is quite to be expected, 
 that he should make the economical take prece- 
 dency of the moral. Of these two things, the 
 comfort and character of the people, he would 
 begin with the wrong term first. With that aspi- 
 ring and enlarged philanthropy which does him 
 honour, and which dissociates him altogether from 
 the class of heartless and merely secular utilita- 
 rians, his whole aim is the re-establishment of both; 
 but he seeks the restoration of character through 
 the medium of comfort as the preliminary, instead 
 of seeking their comfort through the medium of 
 character as the preliminary. The whole ques- 
 tion lies in this, which of these is the stepping- 
 stone ? He tells us that " A working-man who 
 puts on a good coat on Sunday, has mounted one 
 step on the ladder of improvement. The next 
 may take him to church." He mistakes the order 
 here. It is not the coat, furnished perhaps by a 
 clothing society, which gives the impulse to church- 
 going. It is the conscience operated on by a 
 moral agency, and so enlisted on the side of church- 
 going, which leads him to find the coat. If asked, 
 how can he find one ? — we reply, it is strange 
 that he who calculates, and truly we believe, the 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 245 
 
 expenditure of the lower classes on whisky alone 
 to be upwards ot' six thousand pounds a-year for 
 each two thousand of the population — it is strange 
 that Mr Alison who thus calculates should, of all 
 others, put such a question. With the exception of 
 a small centage whom our district visitors would 
 he sure to fall in with, this whole number of two 
 thousand people might be fearlessly thrown upon 
 themselves. The experimental order will be 
 found at one with the scriptural order. " Seek 
 first," in behalf of these people, " the kingdom of 
 God and his righteousness, and all other things 
 shall be added unto them." Under the moral 
 influence of a parochial agency, with its church 
 and schools, and a commensurate staff" not of 
 teachers only but of elders and deacons — a new 
 face of comfort and sufiiciency, a new economical 
 aspect, might be spread over this aggregate of 
 vice and wretchedness in the course of a very few 
 years. 
 
 6. We cannot even enumerate the various errors 
 in political economy which may be pointed out in 
 this work — as First, that machinery by superseding 
 the work of human hands should lay an arrest on 
 population — Second, that the potential fertility of 
 the earth should absolve us from all alarm about 
 the undue excess of population — as if it were prac- 
 tically of any more consequence to the starving 
 operatives in this country, that they shot Id be told 
 either of the far future capabilities of a_,rlculture, 
 or the far distant lands in parts of the world to 
 them inaccessible, than that they should be tol(i of 
 the harvests that wave on the face of Jupiter — ■ 
 
246 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 Thirdly, that the argument for a compulsory pro- 
 vision in behalf of indigence is at one with the 
 argument for a system of religious instruction at 
 the expense of the nation — when the total dissimi- 
 larity between them both in principle and effect can 
 be fully made out on the clearest principles — Fourth, 
 the glaring traversal he makes of his own principle 
 in reasoning for the Corn-laws, when he does not 
 fail to tell us (Vol. II. p. 488.) how soon the in- 
 crease of population would follow up the importa- 
 tion of food, and so land us in as straitened a con- 
 dition as befoi'e — Fifth, of the utter mal-adjustment 
 that obtains between his various specifics for the 
 well-being of the people, in that they would con- 
 flict with and so neutralize or mutually exterminate 
 the influences for good of each other — as when he 
 argues for emigration along with a poor-rate, though 
 a poor-rate operates powerfully as a restraint on 
 emigration ; or argues for a poor-rate along with 
 Savings' Banks, though there be not a deadlier foe 
 than a poor-rate is to the economy that would lay 
 up and accumulate; or tells us of the sums squan- 
 dered on dissipation by the working classes, and 
 then calculates in thousands of pounds on the 
 amount which they might subscribe for beneficent 
 objects, or reserve for building up an indepen- 
 dence to themselves, and yet contends most zeal- 
 ously for a system that would confirm all their 
 habits of improvidence, and prove an effectual 
 barrier in the way of his own glorious anticipations 
 being ever realized.* 
 
 * One great antipalliy I feel to a lari;er expoisition of the vari- 
 ous topics adverted to in this paragraph is that I could not entrr 
 
THE PAllOCHIAL SYSTEM. 247 
 
 7. But we forget that it is not our special task 
 to review this work — yet, after what we have said, 
 we should deem it an injustice not to speak of its 
 great and various excellence. Though meagre in 
 its theological views, we feel thankful for its recog- 
 nitions, however general, on the importance of re- 
 ligious education. It is chiefly when warped by 
 his predilection for a legal charity that its accom- 
 plished author goes wrong ; but, apart from these, 
 nothing can be sounder than many of his views on 
 the prospects of society. The whole of his tenth 
 chapter on the acquisition of landed property by 
 workmen and mechanics is of pre-eminent value ; 
 and one principal reason of our dislike to a poor- 
 rate is our belief that it would establish an impas- 
 sable barrier in the way of this noble perspective 
 being to any extent realized. We think that there 
 are capabilities in the world for a mighty enlarge- 
 ment in the state of our labouring classes ; but 
 
 hat v/'iprever a poor-rate obtains it is that which 
 letteth and must be taken out of the way. 
 
 8. The only cause which I can assign for his 
 flagrant misunderstanding of what took place in his 
 own immediate neighbourhood, when he tells of the 
 proceedings in St John's and of the total failure of 
 the voluntary system in Glasgow — so very flagrant, 
 that Mr Bosanquet, the most enlightened of all 
 
 jpon them without repeiUing myself. I shall theret'orc simply 
 refer to my articles on Machinery and the Corn-laws in the Ap- 
 pendix to my Political Economy, in Vol. XX. of the series ; to 
 chap. i. ^ 18 of the same work, which is in Vol. XIX ; and 
 above all, on the dustinction between a National Provision for 
 Indigence and a N.'tional Provision for Instruction, to the foot- 
 note in p. 414 of t<ie latter volume. 
 
248 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 the English authors who have written on pau- 
 perism, speaks of it as a most ludicrous incon- 
 gruity — the most probable explanation is that 
 he never read me. Perhaps he thinks with his 
 brother Dr Alison, that on this subject I deal in 
 nothing but mere generalisations and flashes of 
 oratory. 
 
 9. We must now advert, but with all possible 
 brevity, to a few of the remaining authors who have 
 ■written very recently upon this question. 
 
 10. In Dr Alison's pamphlets, with certain dif- 
 ferences of principle between him and his brother, 
 we recognise the same practical errors which are 
 to be found in the larger work on Population, but 
 with some additional and peculiar errors of his 
 own. We shall only notice two of these, which 
 relate not to the law or the history, but to what 
 may be termed the human nature of the question. 
 I. He tells us that if legal charity be objected to, 
 because it induces a hurtful dependence on the 
 part of its receivers, the same objection lies against 
 private benevolence, which is liable to be alike 
 counted on, and therefore to have a like mischiev- 
 ous and relaxing effect on the industry and good 
 habits of those who are relieved by it. Experi- 
 mentally, and in effect, there is the widest possible 
 difference between the two cases — between depen- 
 dence on a felt or fancied right, constituted by law 
 and regularly administered ; and dependence on the 
 good will of others. It is true that there is a facile 
 indiscriminate and glaringly ostensible'benevolence, 
 which, in a measure and within the sphere of its 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM* 249 
 
 operation, works the same mischief as a legahzed 
 charity. But there ensues altogether another 
 result, when it is a benevolence which considers as 
 well as compassionates, which times and suits its 
 ministrations to the fully ascertained exigences of 
 each distinct case, which remonstrates and refuses 
 when it judges this best for the well-being of its 
 object — in short, that benevolence which an intelli- 
 gent and well-principled deacon can at all times 
 bring to bear on his district of well-known families. 
 When thus dealt with, the very delicacy and moral 
 sense of the poor themselves, for which they get 
 too little credit, will prove the best guarantees 
 both for the wisdom and superior effect of such a 
 benevolence as this. But 2. Dr Alison seems to 
 deny in toto, that charity can ever be hurtful to 
 the poor themselves by undermining the industry 
 or the carefulness which are the true sources 
 of prosperity — else the Quakers, who supp.^rt 
 all the poor or unfortunate members of their own 
 body, would be the most unprosperous, instead of 
 being what they are, the most thriving and well- 
 conditioned society of men in England. And he 
 quotes a letter to this effect from a worthy corre- 
 spondent of that denomination, who obviously, 
 along with himself, holds it to be decisive in 
 favour of the establishment of a universal poor- 
 rate. It is certainly a most important fact to 
 which he depones ; but there is a strange oversight 
 on the part of both these benevolent gentlemen, 
 when they convert it into an argum .-at for a legal 
 charity — it being one of the very strongest which 
 can be alleged for the superior efficacy of a moral 
 
250 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 and ecclesiastical administration. The rule of an 
 unexcepted aliment to tiieir needy might be quite 
 a safe one for Quakers, who, in the exercise of a 
 corrective discipline, can reform all misconduct, 
 or if they fail, can expel the irreclaimable from 
 their society ; and yet may prove a most unsafe 
 one for all and sundry of a population, who, on the 
 ground of right alone, and irrespective of character, 
 are empowered to compel the relief of all destitu- 
 tion, however it may have originated. There is 
 no well-regulated congregation which might not 
 repeat over again the experience of the Quakers ; 
 and no well-worked territorial establishment with 
 parishes, each small enough for single congrega- 
 tions, that might not compass the same achieve- 
 ment for the country at large. 
 
 i I. I should fill a volume did I attempt to fol- 
 low out all the notanda which I have made on the 
 various publications of Dr Alison. I will there- 
 fore satisfy myself with the general remark, that 
 such is the intentness of his benevolent desire for 
 the one object of a Scottish poor-rate, as to have 
 confined and concentrated his regards on one class 
 of testimonies. I will say nothing of the perfect 
 facility and off-handedness, wherewith he has 
 thrown off from him the experience of St John's ;* 
 
 * Let me only notice the footnote at p. 56 of Dr Alison's Re- 
 ply to Mr Monypeiiny. The topic is of runaway husbands, of 
 wliich he nrlmits in his text, that such cases are cliiefly observed 
 in the assessed districts ; and tlieii subjoins, " That it is not ex- 
 clutively in these, appears from the statement, that during tiie 
 time when the poor of St John's parish in Glasgow were sup- 
 ported witliout assessment, an expense of 1702 was incurred for 
 toundlings, illegitimates, and children of runaway parents." — Our 
 tirst exi)liination is th.il the habi*s of a funiierly ubsussed district 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 251 
 
 but I must speak of the eagerness wherewith ha 
 has seized on all the adverse statements of unac- 
 
 are not to l)e extirpated all at once by the abolition of assess- 
 ments ; anrl more especially, if it continue to be surrounded by 
 parishes where the assessment still remains in full force. But in 
 point of fact the expense of this particular item formed a very 
 small fractioii of the C702. There was a great abridgement in 
 the desertion of the poor by their relatives in St Joiin's ; and if 
 the reader will peruse the testimony of one of my deacons in p. 
 242 of Vol. XVI. of the series, he will find that of three such 
 cases which occurred in less than four years within his proportion 
 of 335 inhabitants, in two of them ti>e husbands were led to re- 
 turn without any expense to the parish — yet in virtue of that 
 peculiar economy by which it stood distinguished from the other 
 parishes in Glasifow. 
 
 But if the expense of runaways formed a smuU item of the 
 ■C702, this leaves all the u;reater sum for the expense of the other 
 immoralities which Dr Alison tries and seems not unwilling to 
 fasten on our unassessed parish. But this too admits of explana- 
 tion. The truth is that, to our great misfortune, the treasurer 
 of the Barony parish (the most populous in Scotland) happened 
 to live witliin the limits of our parish ; and a very great proportion 
 of tlie exposed children were laid at his door, of course by people 
 of the Barony, and on the idea that the maintenance of the in- 
 f.ints fell to be provided for by that parish ; and so they were 
 placed on tlie treasurer s thresiiold, by way of helping them ibr- 
 ward to the kirk session of the Baron v. 
 
 Now wliat were tiie proper etfect of this whole matter on the 
 mind of one who lookeil to it with a fair, not to say a friendly 
 eve? Here was tlie heavv addition of t702 laid on our collec- 
 tions for cases wiiich should not be provided for out of any eccle- 
 siastical fund at all. Add to ths the sum of 1351 for lunatics, 
 who ought also to be otherwise provided for; and from these ex.. 
 traneous sources alone, t!ie still heavier addition of more than a 
 thousand pounds had to be sustained, and that by a fund which 
 accomplished to the full all that was promised from it, if it but 
 met the general indigence of the parish. We have already proved 
 that it did so, and expended upwards of a thousand pounds on 
 education to the bargain. But arid these other expenses ; and it 
 will be found that, so far from operating to the discredit of our 
 system, they supply us with an argumenturn a fortiore upon its 
 side — and demonstrate that we not only did all we undertook to 
 do, but did it with a surplus of more than two thousand pounds 
 which were disposed of on other purposes besides. 
 
 So different are the conclusions come to from the same facts, 
 accordinii to the previous bias of the observer, or to the mediuic 
 through which he views them. 
 
252 ON TtlE SbfFICIENCY OF 
 
 credited and unofficial informers. We trust that 
 the replies by Dr Haldane of St Andrew's, and 
 the Rev. Mr Elliot of Peebles, have not been 
 thrown away upon him ; and we would further 
 recommend for his perusal, the last Annual Re- 
 port of Dr Easton of Kirriemuir on the pauperism 
 of that parish.* But this exclusiveness, or one- 
 sidedness if it may be so termed, is observable in 
 the use he makes of books as well as men — as of 
 the government volume on Foreign Poor-laws, 
 from which he has extracted the various testimonies 
 which were capable of being forced or compounded 
 into an argument in favour of a legal charity — 
 while from the very same volume Mr Bosanquet 
 presents us with a series of most impressive ex- 
 tracts against a Poor-law, and in favour of the 
 voluntary system. Yet in all this special plead- 
 ing, there is not, we fully and honestly believe, 
 one taint of disingenuousness. We ascribe it alto- 
 gether, and certainly it is a marvellous example of 
 it, to the distorting and darkening influence of a 
 most amiable predilection on the optics of one who 
 is under its power — for who can dispute the per- 
 fect honour and integrity of Dr Alison ; or refrain 
 from doing homage to the ardent and unwearied 
 benevolence, which prompted the authorship that 
 has flowed from his pen, and given birth to pub- 
 lications that,, full of errors as they are, have 
 awakened a spirit of inquiry, and will we fondly 
 hope lead to such results as may entitle him to rank 
 among the great public benefactors of Scotland. 
 
 • It is entitulod " Statements relative to the Pauperism of 
 Kirriemuir" (^for 1840.) 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 253 
 
 12. The next very recent work on pauperism 
 which we shall proceed to notice is that of Mr 
 Bosanquet.* We hail the appearance of such a 
 publication from the south of the Tweed — replete 
 as it is with sound principle ; and while breathing 
 the very soul of charity, deprecating and making 
 fearless exposure of the evils which attend the 
 legal administration of it in England. He is one of 
 those very few Englishmen, who can expressly say 
 that a voluntary almsgiving might and ought to 
 supersede the compulsory assessment for the poor 
 — so that, instead of seeking for improvement in 
 any modification of a system that is radically and 
 essentially evil, he would rather that christian 
 feeling and a sense of duty were to operate so 
 powerfully in the hearts of individuals as to per- 
 mit of its entire abrogation. And he seems 
 throughout to have a just and refreshing confi- 
 dence in the actual strength of these purer and 
 better elements — so that, on the whole, we have 
 not met a writer who approximates more closely 
 to the view which we ourselves have entertained and 
 cherished for more than a quarter of a century. 
 It will indeed be strange, if this country shall per- 
 mit herself to be hurried into the adoption of that 
 poor-rate and work-house economy that is so much 
 controverted, or rather so much decried, by the 
 best and ablest thinkers of the very land which it 
 occupies, and is filled with the outcries of resent- 
 ment against the cruelty of its tender mercies. 
 Were it for no other purpose than to avert this 
 
 * On the Riirlits of the Poor and Christian Almsgiving, by Q. 
 H Bosanquet, Estu 
 
254 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 sore evil from our borders, we should hope that 
 Mr Bosanquet's work might become well known 
 and be much read in Scotland. 
 
 13, He has been pleased to give a pretty full 
 account of our procedure in St John's. The dif- 
 ferences betwixt us are more apparent than real. 
 For example when he says (p. 411) that "the 
 fault of the St John's system was that it vvas too 
 economical and mercenary ; it was too much tested 
 and examined upon the principle of saving" — this 
 admits of an easy rectification. In point of effect 
 the St John's system was upheld at a far less ex- 
 pense for its public and visible distributions than 
 the system which it was meant to supersede ; and 
 the exhibition of this fact was fitted to conciliate 
 those who had the power either to discourage or 
 to extend it. But it was not instituted for the 
 purpose of saving ; or, in the language of Bosan- 
 quet, on the principle of saving. It vvas instituted 
 for the sake chiefly of its moral, and through these, 
 of its economical benefits to the population — in 
 that it removed temptations to improvidence on 
 the one hand ; and on the other reawakened, to 
 the degree at least of their own natural vigour, 
 the duties and affections both of relatives and 
 neighbours when any distress occurred within 
 the sphere of their respective operations. It was 
 a matter of deepest interest and gratification to 
 ourselves, when we found that the internal charity 
 of so large a plebeian mass left room for such few 
 applications to the wealthy beyond its limits — not 
 that we hold them discharged from the obligations 
 of benevolence, or have the least desire that they 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 255 
 
 should be exempted from sacrifices large in pro- 
 portion to their means. We have the fullest sym- 
 pathy with all the principles, both ethical and 
 scriptural, of Mr Bosanquet, on the subject of 
 this virtue; and the only semblance which I can 
 perceive of a distinction betwixt us is — that whereas 
 he perhaps would make it his first and most strenu- 
 ous aim to enforce the duties of the rich, I confess 
 it my chief earnestness to press home the duties oi 
 the poor — thinking, as I do, that their best in- 
 terests, as well as truest dignity, lie in the right 
 observation of them. But I would spare neither 
 class— though not so anxious for the shillings of 
 the rich to expend on almsgiving among the com- 
 mon people, as I am for their pounds, and that in 
 goodly number too, to erect and maintain the in- 
 stitutes, by which the health and the morals and 
 tlie christian education of all might be provided 
 for. It is likely that a deacon cast in the one 
 mould would look more intently to the state of 
 tiie parochial collections, and so stimulate the 
 givers to a greater liberality in their offerings — 
 while, if cast in the other mould, he would look 
 more intently to the state of the parochial demand; 
 and, after he had inculcated on receivers the duty 
 of a right moderation, would try as much as pos- 
 sible to anticipate the necessity of a public relief 
 by stimulating both neighbours and kinsfolk to 
 the exercise of a larger charity than before — there- 
 by earning the praise and pre-eminence of that 
 deacon who did his duty best, in that he gave the 
 court of deaconship the least to do. Nor would 
 he discourage the generosity oi" the rich, howevot' 
 
256 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 much he may like that it should be unseen and 
 untalked of — in which case, he would vastly prefer 
 it to any organic or visible dispensation of poor's 
 money. This generosity, in fact, we could have 
 easily drawn upon to a ten-fold greater amount ; 
 but were restrained by the impulse it would give 
 to a movement from the contiguous parishes, and 
 by the unfortunate necessity from which we never 
 were relieved of providing for the incomers from 
 all other parts of the city. After this explanation, 
 it should not be diflficult to perceive, that, sub- 
 stantially and in principle, we are at one. At all 
 events we have read this little work with unbounded 
 satisfaction ; and trust it may be the happy pre- 
 sage of that deep radical and thorough reform 
 which is still awanting for the pauperism of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 14. But there is still another work which might 
 well claim a high and important place in this enume- 
 ration — Carlyle on Chartism — abounding in flashes 
 of light as well as flashes of humour ; and, albeit 
 of quaint and parti-coloured garb, in which we can 
 discern both the antique and the exotic and withal 
 the fresh and strikingly original — yet charged 
 throughout not only with the deep feeling, but 
 bating a few slight exceptions with the deepest 
 philosophy of this subject. I. He is right in his 
 denunciation of the ' Let alone' maxim (Laissez- 
 faire) as a universal principle ; but his remarks 
 tend to the universal abjuration of it — whereas it 
 were about the highest political wisdom to make 
 discrimination between the things, as commerce, 
 ro which it is applicable ; and the things, as edu- 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 2 J / 
 
 cation or public health, to which it is not applica- 
 ble. 2. He is right in holding up for the amuse- 
 ment of his reader the imagination that our common 
 people, the Toms and Sallys whether of town or 
 country, are to be enlisted on the side of Malthu- 
 sianism, by their being taught the lessons of Mal- 
 thus themselves ; but he mistakes, if he charge 
 all Malthusians with this ludicrous absurdity. 
 Theory when of any worth at all is experience 
 generalized ; and, both theoretically and experi- 
 mentally, nothing can be more impregnably or 
 unassailably just than the doctrine of Mr Malthus 
 — yet the way for carrying it into practical effect, 
 is not directly or formally to indoctrinate the 
 general population therewith. It is to furnish 
 them with a sound education, both the education 
 of principle and the education of letters ; and 
 more particularly still, to gather them, boyhood 
 and manhood, into well-taught congregations — 
 where they might become the subjects of a right 
 ecclesiastical discipline, and have frequent inter- 
 course with the best and wisest of their neigh- 
 bourhood in well-organized and well-worked par- 
 ishes. This of itself would beget a new taste and 
 better habits — or, more correctly, would revive 
 the tastes and habits of the olden time, and lead 
 to the practice of certain Malthusian virtues, which 
 were exemplified by a peasantry whom Mr Car- 
 lyle loves and reveres, long before Malthus was 
 ever heard of. He may perhaps remember, I do, 
 the plenishings and providings anterior to every 
 marriage of humble life in Scotland, the products 
 of a housewifery that secured a respectable outset 
 21 u 
 
258 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 at the commencement of every new family ; and 
 the guarantees of such a thrift and management 
 with both the parties in this alliance, as kept them 
 economically right and respectable to the end of 
 their days. 3. He is right in both his specifics of 
 Emigration and Education ; and I would only add, 
 that while the former of these two remedies might 
 only be of temporary, the other should and must 
 be of perpetual appliance. On a system of national 
 emigration, without a system of education alike 
 national, there behoved to be a constant genera- 
 tion of vice and misery, and hence the constant 
 overflow of a wretched and wicked population, as 
 of scum upon distant lands — Whereas if contem- 
 poraneous with one great and wholesale act of 
 emigration, or the large emigration at most of a 
 few years, there were instituted a full apparatus 
 of schools and churches — then afterwards might 
 the emigration, no longer defrayed from public 
 funds, be altogether spontaneous — as of redundant 
 capitalists seeking a profitable investiture for their 
 money, at the head of well-paid labourers going 
 forth not as before under the impulse of want, but 
 rather under the impulse of a generous ambition, 
 seeking from their now higher platform at home, 
 a still higher status abroad in countries of larger 
 capability than their own. 4. But he is most of 
 all and pre-eminently right in his demand for the 
 popular education being religious ; and profoundly 
 wise, when he prophesies of our coming regene- 
 ration, (p. 101,) that it will be the achievement, 
 not of one or a few gigantic intellects^ but the 
 product of a wide and general eo-operation among 
 
IIIE PAROCHIAL SYSTt:.!. 259 
 
 men of ordinary and every day power. Genius 
 is rare — but worth and virtue are diffusible, and 
 can be multiplied indefinitely. Altogether, and 
 notwithstanding our demur to its paradox of might 
 being right, we rejoice in this little work of Mr 
 Carlyle's, as full of wholesome principle, and fitted 
 to impress on minds of a higher class, sound and 
 right views of philanthropy. 
 
 15. We conclude this section with the mention 
 of our own home-made compositions, already too 
 well-known or in the way of being so, to require 
 from us any specification of their merits and pecu- 
 liarities. 1. First and foremost we would name 
 the works of Mr Monypenny — characterized 
 throughout by the soundest views, and from the 
 weight of his well-earned authority, of greatest 
 possible value to the cause which he has espoused. 
 2. Mr Lewis's accouat of his parish in Dundee, 
 whicii, along with his other Tracts, evinces the 
 most intimate acquaintance with the habitudes of 
 a town population, as well as the utmost graphic 
 force and fidelity in his description of them. 3. 
 Mr Begg's account of the Pauperism in his Parish 
 of Libberton, also a pamphlet of great excellence. 
 
 4. Report of the Committee on Pauperism to the 
 list General Assembly (1841), the suggestions of 
 which, on the benefits of a more strictly parochial 
 economy in large cities, are peculiarly valuable. 
 
 5. Mr Milne's Report of a Committee of Landed 
 Proprietors is a composition of great merit, not- 
 withstanding the highly exceptionable remarks 
 which are subjoined to it. We hope that it will 
 soon come forth free of thio alloy in an expurgated 
 
2G0 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 edition, and that all wiiich is obnoxious and wrong, 
 will be disclaimed by the Proprietors as apocry- 
 phal. 6. The eulogy on these Remarks by Mr 
 John Cook, in the footnote at p. 35, of his pamph- 
 let on the Scottish Poor, and with which we can 
 have no sympathy, has not made us insensible to 
 the value of his own performance, as a clear, con- 
 clusive, and very intelligent exposition of the 
 subject. 
 
 Section XII I. — Application of the whole Argu- 
 ment, and more particularly to Scotland. 
 
 1. A method grounded on these principles and 
 views might be adopted anywhere.* Though 
 there be no office in the Church of England cor- 
 responding fully with that of our Deacon — this 
 need not restrain an English clergyman, by means 
 of lay assistants, from the practical establishment 
 of our system in his own parish. How the law 
 shall be brought into harmony therewith is a dif- 
 ferent matter, and on which we do not here enter 
 — more especially, as we have considered it at 
 great length in another place,t where we have 
 attempted to explain first the parliamentary and 
 then the parochial treatment of the whole ques- 
 
 * We can imagine notliin;; more perfect than the mechanism 
 put into operation by the Jansenist Bishop (of Alet) throughout 
 his wliole diocese — as described in the Port Royal Memoirs, 
 Vol. III. p. 231, &c., by M. A. Schimmelpenninck. 
 
 t See chapters XIV, XV, and XVI, of the Christian and Ecw- 
 ui'mic Polity of a Nation. 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 2G 1 
 
 tion. It is a question very far from being yet 
 conclusively settled in England ; nor will it ever, 
 we conceive, be placed on a sound or permanent 
 footing but by what we term a blow at the root — 
 or proceeding on this essential distinction between 
 justice and humanity, that, whereas it is the proper 
 use and function of law to enforce the one ; the 
 other, and more especially in as far as the relief of 
 general indigence is concerned, should not be so 
 enforced, it being that wherewith on every ground 
 both of principle and expediency law ought not to 
 intermeddle. The admission of a right in the 
 destitute to a maintenance, in conjunction with 
 the unnatural and revolting severities which have 
 been placed as a barrier in the way of their making 
 it good, is the attempt to compensate one error by 
 another — a blunder in the essence of the law, by 
 a blunder in the practical administration of it. 
 Altogether it is a violent incongruity ; and there- 
 fore impossible that it should succeed, or be of 
 long endurance in any commonwealth. The law 
 of the statute-book ought to be expunged, that 
 the law of kindness might have free scope for her 
 energies on the field which is properly her own. 
 
 2. In Scotland we have the advantage of being 
 able to commence, or rather to restore this system, 
 by putting it into the hands of men vested with an 
 official character, and bearing an ancient and well- 
 known oflScial designation — thereby securing for 
 it a readier coalescence in the popular mind of 
 this country ; and where, instead of being resisted 
 as a novelty or violence done to our ecclesiastical 
 constitution, it will be viewed as a replacement of 
 
262 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 that which had worn away from it. We may 
 count on all the greater facility of its re-establish- 
 ment in Scotland, in that it is already so familiar 
 to the recognition of Scotchmen. It is in fact part 
 and parcel of her old parochial system ; and, in 
 arguing the sufficiency of that system for the 
 right management of the poor, it is no more than 
 justice that full and free play should be allowed 
 to it — and, more especially, that we should be 
 permitted to reason on the high capabilities of an 
 office expressly instituted in other times both as 
 the scriptural and the soundly expedient way, by 
 which to ascertain and provide for the destitution 
 of all more or less helpless families. 
 
 3. It is not that we hold a deaconship indis- 
 pensable in the great majority of our Scottish 
 parishes — where, in spite of every exaggeration to 
 the contrary, things go on smoothly and prosper- 
 ously ; and there is no crying destitution whatever, 
 on account of which any change in the existing 
 management is called for. It is not then as for 
 the cure or removal of a malady that we desiderate 
 the restitution of this order of men, even in our 
 most virtuous and best-conditioned parishes — but 
 for the sake of a great positive amelioration, for 
 which there is still indefinite room, in the economics 
 of our common people. We feel quite assured 
 that under the guidance and with the frequent con- 
 verse of enlightened men, they could be brought 
 up to a far higher point of comfort and sufficiency 
 than they at present stand at. The very inter- 
 course with their superiors to which it would give 
 rise, and of which there is now such a woeful lack 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 263 
 
 in British society, would of itself tend to elevate 
 and humanize them. There are many ways in 
 which this ascending movement could be impressed 
 on them — as through habits of thrift and temper- 
 ance and reading, and in the cleanliness and order 
 of their houses ; and would magistrates and justices 
 but co-operate with these lay officials of the church, 
 and place a limit on the number of public houses 
 in every little vicinity, this alone would everywhere 
 work out a mighty enlargement in the state and 
 condition of our Scottish peasantry. But in thus 
 seeking after the re-establishment of a universal 
 deaconship, we confess that we have a higher object 
 still than merely to better what may be termed the 
 secularities of the working classes, However in- 
 tently we may desire the improvement of their 
 temporal state, the far more earnest and intent 
 aim of every real Christian will be the good ot 
 their souls ; and for this view we hold it most im- 
 portant, that our elders should be relieved of all 
 that is secular in their present charges — or in other 
 words, that the eldership of the church should be 
 spiritualized. We rejoice in the efforts which are 
 now making to regenerate this part of our ecclesi- 
 astical system ; nor are we aware of aught that 
 would conduce more to the purity and efficiency of 
 our Kirk sessions, than if the members of these 
 parochial courts, vested exclusively with ecclesias- 
 tical functions, were regarded strictly and alto- 
 gether in the light of ecclesiastical men — whose 
 office was entirely a sacred one, as to pray wnth 
 the sick and the dying, to stimulate the Christian 
 education, and generally to take cognizance of the 
 
2r>4 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 religious state and habit of the families in their re- 
 spective districts. With a hard-working clergyman 
 in every parish, and a body of elders to assist him 
 in holy things, and deacons to look after the tem- 
 poralities of the people, we should behold the 
 ecclesiastical system of Scotland in full operation; 
 and with the blessing of God, we should also be- 
 hold as the palpable result of it, a hale prosper- 
 ous and well-conditioned commonalty, in a state 
 of general if not of universal sufficiency — having 
 a present fulfilment in the promise of the life 
 that now is, as well as a bright and hopeful anti- 
 cipation in the promise of the life that is to 
 come.* 
 
 4. But it is in towns and over-peopled parishes, 
 where the service of deacons is most urgently and 
 immediately required — and that not merely to 
 effect an amelioration as in country parishes, but 
 to heal a sore and mischievous distemper. The 
 remedy which we propose is no daring or untried 
 novelty ; but has the wisdom of ancient and vene- 
 rable sages, and the experience of a whole nation 
 to recommend it. To find it, we have but to ask 
 for the old paths, or good old way and to walk 
 therein.! To us there is something peculiarly 
 delightful in the blending of elements which are 
 not heterogeneous, though hitherto they may have 
 occupied different places and far asunder from each 
 other, in the imaginations of men. The office of a 
 deacon as described in the original formularies of 
 our kirk has long fallen into desuetude ; and it may 
 appear to some a grotesque and incongruous com- 
 • 1 Tim. iv. 8. \ Jer. vL 16. 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 265 
 
 bination, when we propose to revive it in the per- 
 sons of our modern city gentlemen, versant it 
 may be in the philosophy and recent economics of 
 our present day ; and on whom we would fasten 
 the name and the investiture of functionaries, 
 scarcely known in Scotland since the time of our 
 remote grandfathers. It may look to some like a 
 union of contrarieties — yet a union, we are per- 
 suaded, which, when realized and acted on, will be 
 found prolific of the greatest blessings to society. 
 The devices and discoveries of our present age, its 
 savings' banks, and parish libraries, and mechanic 
 schools, will not be the less but ten-fold more 
 effective, when brought to bear on the population 
 in the garb and with the authority of an old eccle- 
 siastical institute. 
 
 5. We cannot image a greater infatuation, than, 
 if with such a power in reserve, and in resorting 
 to which we but recur to the wholesome practice 
 of other days — we shall nevertheless choose rather 
 to precipitate ourselves into a system, alien to all 
 the habits of Scotchmen ; and, which, so far from 
 being conclusively established in the country 
 whence we propose to borrow it, is there only upon 
 trial — still a doubtful experiment, subjected by a 
 decree of their legislature to the questionary pro- 
 cess of a few years longer, and meanwhile assailed 
 by fierce and bitter outcries all over their land. 
 Our advice is not to innovate, but restore ; not to 
 rush on the adventurous new, but to re-establish 
 and to return to the well-tried old — and which, 
 because so rich in the experience of the past, holds 
 out the best guarantee for its promises of the future. 
 
26G ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 We complain of the insufficiency of our system, 
 after having inflicted on it a grievous mutilation. 
 All we ask for it is, that the mutilation shall be 
 replaced ; and then let us see, whether when the 
 parochial apparatus is made as perfect as before, 
 it will not prove as efficient as before. And how 
 much more consonant, we would remark, with the 
 sound philosophy of observation — is it to proceed 
 on the intimate household converse of a deacon- 
 ship for each parish, than on the wide and general 
 surveys of a workhouse union for a number of 
 parishes. It makes all the difference between a 
 distant and therefore superficial view on the one 
 hand, and a thorough we had almost said micro- 
 scopical inspection on the other — whether a number 
 of parishes shall be thrown into one field of super- 
 intendence, and placed under an elevated Board of 
 Directors ; or each parish shall be broken down 
 into a number of small and manageable sections, 
 each given in charge to a friendly guardian, who 
 might hold weekly, it may be daily converse with 
 the families. Under the one economy, they will 
 reach to but a slender acquaintance with the inner 
 mechanism of the subject on which they operate, 
 and that notwithstanding their busy manufacture of 
 programmes and queries and schedules of goodly 
 enumeration. Their circulars and the returns to 
 their circulars will not do much for them ; but in 
 all probability will leave these dealers in wholesale 
 just as wise as before. Under the other economy, 
 we open a way to the hidden privacies of the 
 question, to the springs and principles of the living 
 human nature concerned with it, and which form 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 267 
 
 in reality the ipsa corpora of the whole problem^ 
 for the right discernment of which it is not a rare 
 metaphysical acumen which is required ; but the 
 everyday intelligence and common sense of men 
 in ordinary life, so circumstanced as that they 
 might have familiar access to the hearts and 
 the homes of our population. 
 
 6. And here we are tempted to repeat the chal- 
 lenge which we have already made for a trial of 
 the St John's experiment over again, and that on 
 the most pauperized district of Glasgow, which can 
 be fixed upon. The conditions that we require 
 are — First, a population not exceeding two 
 thousand — Second, a church that can hold one 
 thousand sitters, with a commensurate amount of 
 cheap schooling for the young — Tliird, a prefer- 
 ence at every seat-letting to the parishioners, either 
 at indefinitely low seat-rents or no seat-rents at all, 
 which condition can only be made good by an ade- 
 quate endowment for the clergyman — Fourth, a 
 protection which if not legally might yet be con- 
 ventionally secured against the influx of paupers 
 from all the other city parishes, they having a re- 
 ciprocal protection from the new parish — Fifth, 
 the allocation of the weekly collections to all the 
 new cases of general indigence alone, so as that 
 the church offerings shall not be burdened with the 
 cases either of immorality or of institutional disease. 
 We doubt not that there are still surviving elders 
 and deacons of the St John's school in sufficient 
 number to undertake such an experiment, (six or 
 eight of each class would be fully competent to the 
 task.^ Let these for once at least have the ap- 
 
268 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 pointment of the clergyman ; and then we shall 
 brave all the discredit which might accrue to our 
 argument — if they do not make it palpable in two 
 or three years, that without a compulsory provi- 
 sion, and with the help of no other public fund than 
 what is gathered from the Sabbath plates they 
 will meet every application for relief, and bring 
 the parish into a better economic condition than 
 before. We do not want to complicate such an 
 experiment by tacking a rich parish to a poor one. 
 Such an offer would embarrass ourselves, because 
 we think it would paralyze the operation ; and we 
 should therefore greatly prefer to work the poor 
 parish single-handed. Surely to allow such an 
 experiment before resolving on so momentous a 
 change in our system as is contemplated by the 
 advocates of an English pauperism, were but in 
 accordance with that inductive or Baconian spirit 
 which is as wise in practical economics, as it is 
 sound in philosophy. And surely to risk the 
 trifling loss that might be incurred by its failure, 
 were better than to incur the certain expenditure 
 of £800,000 a-year for the pauperism of all Scot- 
 land, or of £80,000 for that of Glasgow alone. 
 
 7. By a repetition of this process we might ob- 
 tain the same result for a whole city, a whole pro- 
 vince, or for the country at large. In other words, 
 the extension of its church, and the extinction of 
 its pauperism, miglit go hand in hand.* The 
 
 * The following is a very general outline of the scheme ol 
 Churcli Extension, for wlncli we attempted to obtain the consent 
 of government : — I. A grant of a-yeur to eiich of our unen- 
 
 dowed churches (lately Chapels-of-Eaae). 2. A prospective en- 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 269 
 
 moral and the economical reformations would pro- 
 ceed contemporaneously ; and so as to verify the 
 celebrated saying of Burke, that education (most 
 emphatically true of the high education of princi- 
 ple), while the only effectual, is far the cheapest 
 defence of every nation against its sorest and most 
 formidable evils. Our specific, and we know ef 
 no other, by which to heal the great national dis- 
 temper of England, or at least to ward off the 
 contagion of it from our own land — is a sufficient 
 number of well-served churches, and well-taught 
 schools. Let it not become the scorn either of 
 economists or statesmen, because of the two-fold 
 blessing which it is fitted to accomplish — raising 
 the character along with the comfort of our popu- 
 lation : Or because while it achieves their salva- 
 tion from many of the ills of life, its chief aim is to 
 
 dowment to the same extent for each of our New Churches. 3. 
 This grant never to be bestowed without an equivalent return by 
 tlie church which receives it, m a certain regulated and moderate 
 scale of seat-rents for the parish families. 4. We should hold it a 
 fair and desirable stipulation, that every new church so endowed 
 should undertake for the pauperism of its own parish ; and that 
 the produce of its ordinary collections (meanwhile indispensable 
 for the support of tiie clergyman) should be given up for this 
 object. 
 
 I may in this last foot-note meet the question of Dr Alison — 
 why not allow both objects to be alike provided for and go on 
 contemporaneously? — that is have bis poor-rate for the relief of 
 destitution, and at the same time our ciiurch extension for the 
 religious instruction of the people. Our objection to this is, that 
 the first would neutralize the second ; but I will give no further 
 explanation of this here, and only refer to what I have said 
 years before on this very suggestion in Vol. I. p. 427, of my 
 Christian and Economic Polity ot a Nation, being Vol. XIV. of 
 the series — in my Evidence before the Commons' Committee at 
 p. 389 of Vol. III. of the same work, being Vol. XVI. of the 
 Series, and in Vol. II pp. 15 — 18, of my Political Economy, be- 
 in'f Vol. XX. of the scries. 
 
270 ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF 
 
 provide them with a higher salvation in the good 
 of their eternity. 
 
 8. In these times of imminent peril to the 
 Church of Scotland, and when her very existence 
 as a National Establishment is at stake, it may be 
 thought that we have not chosen the likeliest sea- 
 son for gaining attention to our arguments, and 
 far less for the practical adoption of such measures 
 as we have ventured to recommend. But even 
 in the most favourable circumstances, we are not 
 very sanguine of an immediate reception for our 
 views; and conceive it far more probable that 
 men will seek for relief from the evils of pauperism 
 in a succession of palliatives and trifling modifica- 
 tions, than go back to the first elements of the 
 quostion, or seek to eradicate the principle on 
 which the system of a legal and compulsory provi- 
 sion is founded. It would not surprise us, if, by 
 a series of failures, in shifting from one expedient 
 to another, and after that experience had demon- 
 strated they were but shifting from one error to 
 another — we should not wonder if as by the in- 
 direct process in mathematics, states and parishes 
 by a practical reductio ad absurdum, were brought 
 to the truth at last. We look on the last great 
 attempt for the reform of English pauperism as 
 but one step in this process — even as the Acts 
 of Mr Gilbert, Sturges Bourne, and others, 
 have been successively thrown aside as things 
 tried and found wanting. Let us hope that this 
 tentative process will not be lengthened out inde- 
 finitely. All that we require for Scotland is, that 
 Law will learn to be observant of her own proper 
 
THE PAROCHIAL SYSTEM. 271 
 
 boundaries, and make no inroad beyond them. 
 This were an effectual remedy for all our dis- 
 orders. Would the civil authority but cease to 
 be a usurper on a province which does not belong 
 to her, and retire within her own domain — then 
 should we be ecclesiastically right, in being per- 
 mitted to give unto Cesar the things which are 
 Cesar's, and to God the things which are God's ; 
 and economically right, in being permitted to give 
 unto justice the things of justice, and to humanity 
 the things of humanity. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 For the sake of those readers who do not possess the 
 Series of my Works so often referred to in this publi- 
 cation, we now subjoin such of the extracts specified 
 in the foregoing pages, as we deem of most importance 
 to our argument. 
 
 I Section I. § 11. — Moral Benefit of Parochial 
 Associations. 
 
 The great defence which such a Society establishes against 
 pauperism is, the superior tone of dignity and independence 
 which it imparts to the character of him who supports it. He 
 stands on the high ground of being a dispenser of charity ; and 
 l)efore he can submit to become a recipient of charity, he must 
 let himself farther down than a poor man in ordinary circum- 
 stances. To him the transition will be more violent ; and the 
 value of this principle will be acknowledged by all who perceive 
 that it is reluctance on the part of the poor man to become a 
 pauper, which forms the mighty barrier against the extension of 
 pauperism. A man, by becoming the member of a benevolent 
 association, puts himself into the situation of a giver. He stands 
 at a greater distance than before from the situation of a receiver. 
 He has a wider interval to traverse before he can reach this 
 point. He will feel it a greater degradation; and to save him- 
 self fiom it, he will put forth all his powers of frugality and 
 exertion. The idea of restraining pauperism by external ad- 
 ministrations seems now to be generally abandoned. But could 
 we thus enter into the hearts of the poor, we would get in at 
 the root of the mischief, and by fixing there a habit of economy 
 iind independence, more would be done for them, than by all the 
 liberalities of all the opulent. 
 
 21 « 
 
274 APPENDIX. 
 
 In tliose districts of Scotland where poor rates are unki;own, 
 the descending avenue which leads to pauperism is powerfully 
 guarded by tlie stigma which attaches to it. Remove this 
 stigma, and our cottagers, now rich in the possession of con- 
 tentment and industry, would resign their habits and crowd 
 into the avenue by thousands. The shame of descending is 
 the powerful stimulus which urges them to a manful contest 
 with the difficulties of their situation, and which bears them 
 through in all the pride of honest independence. Talk of this 
 to the people of the South, and it sounds in their tars like an 
 Arcadian story. But there is not a clergyman amongst us who 
 has not witnessed the operation of the principle in all its fine- 
 ness and in all its moral delicacy ; and surely a testimony is due 
 to those village heroes who so nobly struggle with the difficul- 
 ties of pauperism, that they may shun and surmount its degra- 
 dation. 
 
 A Parochial Association gives additional vigour and buoyancy 
 to this elevated principle. The trifle which it exacts from its 
 contributor is, in truth, never missed by him ; but it puts him 
 in the high attitude of a giver, and every feeling which it in- 
 spires is on the side of independence and delicacy. Go over 
 each of these feelings separately, and you find that they are all 
 litted to fortify his dislike at the shame and dependence of pau- 
 perism. There is a consciousness of importance which una- 
 voidably attaches to the share he has taken in the support and 
 direction of a jjublic charity. There is the expanding efTect o. 
 the information which comes to him through the medium of the 
 circulated Reports, which lays before him the mighty pi ogress 
 of an institution reaching to all countries, and embracing in its 
 ample grasp, the men of all latitudes and all languages, which 
 deeply interests him in the object and perpetuates his desire of 
 promoting it. A man with his heart so occupied, and his at- 
 tention so directed, is not capable of a voluntary descent to pau- 
 perism, lie has, in fact, become a more cultivated and intel- 
 lectual being than formerly. His mind gathers an enlargement 
 from the wide and animating contemplations which are set be- 
 fore him; and we appeal to the reflection of every reader it 
 such a man will descend as readily to a dependence on tlie cha- 
 rity of others, as he whose mind is void of information and 
 whose feelings are void of dignity. 
 
 In such associations, tlie rich and the poor meet together. 
 They share in one object, and are united by the sympathy of 
 one feeling, and of one interest. We have not to look far into 
 liuman nature to be convinced of the happj and the harmoniz- 
 ing influence which this must have upon society ; and liow, in 
 the glow of one connnon cordiality, all asperity and discontent 
 must give way to tiie kindlier principles of our nature. The 
 
APPENDIX. 275 
 
 days have been wben the very name of an association carried 
 terror and suspicion along with it. In a Parochial Association 
 for religious objects there is nothing which our lulers need to 
 be afraid of; and they may rest assured that the moral influence 
 of such institutions is all on the side of peace and loyalty. But 
 to confine myself to the present argument. Who does not see 
 that they exalt the general tone and character of our people; 
 that they bring them nearer to the dignity of superior and cul- 
 tivated life ; and that, therefore, though their direct aim is not 
 to mitigate poverty, they go a certain way to dry up the most 
 abundant of its sources? — Influence of Parochial Associations 
 for the Moral and Spiritual Good of Mankind. 
 
 II. Section I. § 13. — Influence of Juxtaposition on 
 the imitative propensity. 
 
 There is also much in the juxtaposition of the taught to one 
 another. This brings what may be called the gregarious prin- 
 ciple into fuller play. What children will not do singly, they 
 will do with delight and readiness in a flock. This comes 
 powerfully to the aid of the other advantages which belong to 
 the local system — where the teacher will not only experience a 
 kind reception at his first outset among the families ; but will 
 find, that, in the course of a very few rounds, he engages, for 
 his scholars, not a small proportion of the young, but a great 
 majority of those in the district. And if he just follow up each 
 act of absence, on the part of the children, by a call of inquiry 
 upon their parents, he will succeed in controlling them to regu- 
 lar and continued attendance — a habit, which, with a slight ex- 
 ertion of care upon his part, may be so kept up and strengthened, 
 as to obtain, in the little vicinage over which he presides, all 
 the certainty of a mechanical operation Christian and Econo- 
 mic Polity of a Nation. 
 
 It may be difficult to explain (but it is not the less real on 
 that accourit) the prodigious virtue which lies in its being not 
 a scattered, but a compact and contiguous population — in con- 
 sequence of which the direct influence which passes between 
 the clergyman and his people, is mightily aided by the sympathy 
 of a common feeling, and a common interest among themselves. 
 As the matter stands, juxtaposition forms no security whatever 
 tor acquaintanceship — insomuch that the members of distinct 
 households might live for years under tiie same roof, unknow- 
 ing and unknown to each other. We know of no expedient 
 better fitted to overcome this alienation, to annihilate this mo- 
 ral distance between oui contiguous ianiilits, and more espe- 
 
276 APPENDIX. 
 
 cially in the plebeian quarters of the to\\ n, than the re-establish- 
 iiieiit of tliis local, or strictly parochial system, in the midst of 
 them. Let next-door neighbours be supplied with one common 
 object of reverence and regard, in the clergyman who treats 
 them alike as members of the same parochial family ; let his 
 church be the place of common repair upon the Sabbaths; let 
 his sermon, which told the same things to all, suggest the com- 
 mon topics, on which the similarly impressed might enter into 
 conversations, that begin and strengthen more and more the 
 friendship between them ; let the intimacies of the parish chil- 
 dren be formed and ripened together, at the same school — these 
 all help as cementing influences by which to bind this aggregate 
 of human beings into one community, and with a speed and cer- 
 tainty, now by many inconceivable, to set up a village or do- 
 mestic economy, even in the heart of a crowded metropolis. 
 It will at once be seed, with what force and celerity this con- 
 summation would be hastened forward by the movements of a 
 clergyman, who, in the cultivation of his parochial domain, that 
 home-walk of his daily and delightful labours, would have 
 countless oppoituniti^s of grouping together the inmates of 
 every little vicinity ; and who, in their very relation to himself 
 as a common centre, would come to recognise and to feel the 
 affinity of a certain mutual relationship to each other. And 
 here, perhaps, that reciprocal influence will be better under- 
 stood, by which the week-day attentions of the minister to his 
 parish are sure to be followed up, when there is room and op- 
 portunity, by the Sabbath attendance of the people upon his 
 church. If he have but obtained an initial footing of this sort 
 ill his parish, the example will spread, — passing, as if by infec- 
 tion, from one neighbour to another ; and he, reaping the fruit 
 of his perseverance as a house-going minister, in yearly acces- 
 sions to himself of a church-going people. If he will only bind 
 himself to them as his people, they will at length bind them- 
 selves to him as their minister Right Ecclesiastical Economy 
 
 of a Large Town, 
 
 III. Section I. § 14. — Accumulation of small efforts. 
 
 We read, in the book of Genesis, how few the righteous men 
 were, that would have sufficed to save a city from destruction. 
 It is cheering to cali'ulate on the powers of human agency, and 
 how much even an individual may do, when those powers are 
 wisely and steadily directed ; and. above all, what is the num- 
 ber of individuals required, who, it each, labouring in his own 
 duteous and devoted walk, would altogether assure the magiii- 
 
APrsNDix. 277 
 
 ficent result of a country recovered from viva and violence, and 
 placed conclusively beyond the reach of all moral and all political 
 disorders. 
 
 This result will, at length, be arrived at, not by the working 
 of one mighty organization, for the achievement of great things, 
 but by the accumulation of small things — not by men whose 
 taste it is to contemplate what is splendid in philanthropy, but 
 by men whose practical talent it is, to do what is substantial in 
 pliilanthropy — not by men, who eye, with imaginatiye transpoit, 
 the broad and boundless expanse of humanity, but by men, who 
 can work in drudgery and in detail, at the separate portions of 
 it. But, before we can sit down and be satisfied with doing 
 thoroughly and well, th:it which lies within the compass of our 
 strength — there must be a conquest over the pride of our nature 
 
 there must be a calling in of the fancy, from those specious 
 
 generalities, which have lured so many from the path of sober 
 and productive extrtion — we must resign the glory of devising 
 a magnificent whole ; and count it enough to have rendered, in 
 our narrow spheie, and in our little day, the contribution of 
 a part to the good of human society. The whole it is only 
 for Him to contemplate fully, whose agents we are, and who 
 assigns a portion of usefulness to each severally, as He will. 
 It is our p;irt to follow the openings of His Providence, and to 
 do, with our might, that work which He hath evidently put into 
 our hands. Any great moral or economical change in the state 
 of a countiy, is not the achievement of one single arm, but the 
 achievement of many ; and though one man walking in the lof- 
 tiness of his heart, might like to engross all the fame of it, it 
 will remain an im[)otent speculation, unless thousands come 
 forward to share among them all the fatigue of it. It is not to 
 the labour of tho>e who are uiiiversalists in science, that she 
 stands indebted for her present solidity, or her present eleva- 
 tion, but to the separate labours of many — each occuoying his 
 own little field, and heaping, on the basis of former acquisitions, 
 his own distinct and peculiar offering. And it is just so in 
 philanthropy. The spirit of it has gone marvellously abroad 
 amongst us of late years ; but still clouded and misled by the 
 bewildering glare which the fancy of ambitious man is apt to 
 throw around his own undertakings. He would be the sole 
 creator of a magnificent erection, lather than a humble contii- 
 butor to it, among a thousand more, each as necessary and im- 
 portant as himself. And yet, would he only resign his specu- 
 lations, and give hiuiself to the execution of a task, to which 
 his own personal faculties were adequate, he would meet with 
 much to compensate the loss of those splendid delusions, which 
 have hitherto engrossed him. There would be les« of the glHrc 
 of public y, bi.t there would be more of the kindliness of a 
 
2iQ APPENDIX. 
 
 quiet and sheltered lioirie. He could not, by his own solitary 
 strength, advance the little stone into a great mountain, but 
 the worth and the efficacy of his labours, will be sure to recom- 
 mend them to the imitation of many ; and the good work will 
 spread, by example, from one individual, and from one district 
 to another; aTid, though he may be lost to observation, in the 
 growing magnitude of the operations which surround him, yet 
 will he rejoice even in his very insignificance, as the befitting 
 condition for one to occupy, among the many millions of the 
 species to wiiich he belongs; and it will be enough for him, that 
 he has added one part, however small, to that great achievement, 
 which can only be completed by the exertions of an innumerable 
 multitude — and the fruit of which is to till the whole earth. — 
 Christian and Economic Polity of a Nution. 
 
 IV. Section II. § 6. — Delicacy of the Loicer Orders, 
 when rightly and judiciously dealt with. 
 
 There is a delusive fear to which inexperience is liable upon 
 this subject, as if there was a very general rapacity among the 
 families of the poor, which, if not appeased out of the capabili- 
 ties of a public fund, would render it altogether unsafe for any 
 private individual, in the upper walks of society, to move at 
 large among their habitations. It is not considered how much 
 it is that this rapacity is whetted by the imagination of a great 
 collective treasure, at the disposal of this individual. An elder 
 who is implicated with pauperism, or the agent of a charitable 
 society who is known to be such, will most certainly light up 
 a thousand mercenary expectations, and be met by a thousand 
 mercenary demands, in the course of his frequent visitations 
 «mong the people. But let him stand out to the general eye 
 as dissociated with all the concerns of an artificial charity ; and 
 let it be his sole ostensible aim to excite the religious spirit of 
 the district, or to promote its education — and he may, every 
 day of his lite, walk over the whole length and breadth of his 
 territory, without meeting with any demand that is at all un- 
 manageable, or that needs to alarm him. The truth is, that 
 there is a far greater sufficiency among the lower classes of so- 
 ciety than is generally imagined; and our first impressions of 
 their want and wretchedness are generally by much too aggra- 
 vated ; nor do we know a more effectual method of reducing 
 these impressions tlian to cultivate a closer acquaintance with 
 their resources, and their habits, and their whole domeslic eco- 
 nomy. It is certainly in the power of artificial expedients to 
 create artificial desires ; and to call out a host of applicutioni. 
 
APPEKDIX. 279 
 
 that would never nave ornerwise been made. And we know of 
 nothing that leads more directly and more surely to this state 
 of" thingi, tlian a great regular provision for indigence, obtruded, 
 with all the characters of legality and certainty and abundance, 
 upon the notice of the people. But wherever the securities 
 whicii nature hath establisiied for the relief and mitigation of 
 extreme distress are not so tampered witli — where the economy 
 of individuals, and the sympathy of neighbours, and a sense of 
 the relative duties among kinsfolk, are left, without disturbance, 
 to their own silent and simple opeiation ; — it will be found that 
 there is nothing so formidable in the work of traversing a whole 
 mass of congregated human beings, and of encountering all the 
 clamours, whether of real or of fictitious necessity, tliat may l)e 
 raised by our appearance amongst them. So soon as it is un- 
 derstood that all which is given by such an adventurous pliilan- 
 thropist is given by himself; and so soon as acquaintanceship 
 is formed between him and the families ; and so soon as the 
 conviction of his good-will has been settled in their hearts, by 
 the repeated observation they have made of his kindness and 
 personal trouble, for their sakes ; — then tiie sordid appetite 
 which would have been maintained, in full vigour, so long as 
 there was the imagination of a fund, of which he was merely an 
 Bgent of conveyance, will be shamed, and that nearly into ex- 
 tinction, the moment that this imagination is dissolved. Such 
 an individual will meet with a limit to his sacrifices, in the very 
 flelicacy of the poor themselves ; and it will be possible for him 
 to expatiate among hundreds of his fellows, and to give a Chris- 
 tian reception to every proposal he meets with ; and yet, after 
 all, with the humble fraction of a humble revenue, to earn the 
 credit of liberality amongst them. We know not, indeed, how 
 one can be made more effectually to see, with his own eyes, the 
 superfluousness of all public aiid legalised charity, than just to 
 assume a district ; and become the familiar friend of the people 
 who live in it; and to do for them the thousand nameles oflices 
 of Christian regard ; and to encourage, in every judicious and 
 inoffensive way, their dependence upon themselves, and their 
 fellow-feeling one for another. Such a process of daily obser- 
 vation as this will do more than all political theory can do, to 
 convince him with what safety the subsistence of a people may 
 be left to their own capabilities; and how the modern paujjer- 
 ism of our days is a superstructure altogether raised on the basis 
 of imposture and worthlessness — a basis which the very weight 
 of the superstructure is fitted to consolidate and to extend. 
 
 There is one style of companionship with the poor, that is 
 fitted to call forth a rapacity, which all the ministrations of 
 opulence cannot appease. There is another style of it, that is 
 fitted to call forth delicacies of a far softer and more sensitive 
 
280 APPENDIX. 
 
 character than they often get credit for. The agent of a society 
 for the relief of indigence, wlio carries a visible commission 
 along with him, is sure to he assailed, in full and open cry, at 
 every corner, with the importunities of alleged want. The 
 bearer of a moral and spiritual dispensation will not, in the long 
 run, be the less vvelconie of the two, nor will his kindness be 
 less appreciated, nor will the courtesy of his oft-repeated atten- 
 tions fail of sending the charm of a still gladder sensation into 
 the heart. The truth is, tliat it is in the absence of every 
 temptation, either to cunning or sordidness, when the inter- 
 course between the rich and the poor is m the end most grati- 
 fying, as well as most beneficial, to both ; and these are the 
 occasions upon which the unction of a finer influence is felt, with 
 each of the parties, than ever can have place in the dispensations 
 of common charity. When one goes ostensibly forth among the 
 people as an almoner, the recoil that is felt by them, from the 
 exposure of their necessities, is overuorne, at the very first inter- 
 view; and the barrier of delicacy is forced, and forced irrecover- 
 ably: so as that deceit and selfishness shall henceforth become per- 
 petual elements in every future act of fellowship between them. 
 When one goes forth among them on a spiritual enterprise, 
 and introduces himself on a topic that reduces to a general level 
 the accidental distinctions of humanity, and addresses a poor 
 man as a sharer in the common hopes and common interests 
 of the species, he is rebeved, for the time, from all sense of 
 inferiority, nor will he be the first to revive it in his own 
 breast, by descending to the language of complaint or supplica- 
 tion. It is thus that the acquaintanceship between the rich 
 and the poor, which is sustained by converse v\ith them on all 
 other topics save that of their necessities, is sure to increase 
 the reluctance of the poor to obtrude this last topic on the 
 attentions of the wealthy. It is thus that a mere Sabbath 
 teacher comes speedily into contact with such delicacies, among 
 the lower orders, as are not suspected even to exist by the ad- 
 ministrators of a city hospital. And it is thus, that under a 
 right Christian economy, there would arise, in the hearts, and 
 among the habitations of the poor themselves, a most effectual 
 barrier against all that importunate and insatiable urgency of 
 demand, which has been so fostered among the people by de- 
 basing pauperism. — Christian and Economic Polity of a Nation. 
 
 V. Section II. § 11. — Strength of Popular Sympathy. 
 
 There is a statement, made by Mr. Buxton, in bis valuable 
 work upon Prisons, which is strongly illustrative of the force 
 
APPENDIX. 281 
 
 of human sympatliy. In the gaol of Bristol, tte allowance of 
 bread to the criminals is beneath the fair rate of human sub- 
 sistence ; and, to the debtors, there is no allowance at all, 
 leaving these last to be provided by their own proper resources, 
 or by the random charity of the town. It has occasionally hap- 
 pened that both these securities have failed them : and that 
 some of their number would inevitably have perished of hun- 
 ger, had not the criminals, rather than endure the spectacle of 
 so much agony, given a part of their own scanty allowance, and 
 so shared in the suffering along with them. It is delightful to 
 remark, from this, tliat the sympathy of humble life, instead of 
 the frail and imaginative child of poetry, is a plant of such 
 sturdy endurance as to survive even the roughest of those pro- 
 cesses by which a human being is conducted to the last stages 
 of depravity. Now, if the working of this good principle may 
 thus be detected among the veriest outcasts of human society, 
 shall 've confide nothing to its operation among the people and 
 the families of ordinary life ? If such an intense and unbroken 
 fellow feeling be still found to exist, even after the career of 
 profligacy is run, are we to count upon none of its developments 
 before the career of profligacy is entered on ? In other words, if 
 in prisons there be the guarantee of natural sympathy against 
 the starvation of the destitute, is it too sanguine an affirmation 
 of our species, that there is the same and a stronger guarantee 
 in parishes ? The truth is, such is the recoil of one human 
 being from the contemplation of extreme hunger in another, 
 that the report of a perishing household, in some deepest recess 
 of a city lane, would inflict a discomfort upon the whole neigh- 
 bourhood, and call out succour, in frequent and timely forth- 
 goirigs, fi'om the contiguous families. We are aware that pau- 
 perism lays an interdict upon this beautiful process. Pauperism 
 relaxes the mutual care and keepership which, but for it, would 
 have been in more strenuous operation ; and has deadened that 
 certain feeling of responsibility which would have urged and 
 guided to many acts of beneficence. There can be little doubt, 
 that the opening up of this great artificial fountain has reduced 
 that natural fountain, the waters of which are so deeply seated, 
 and so diffusively spread, thioughout the whole mass and inte- 
 rior of a population. But, in countries where pauperism is un- 
 known, and popular sympathy is allowed to have its course, it 
 sends forth supplies upon humun want which are altogether 
 incalculable ; and still, in our own country, is it ready to break 
 forth in streams of rich and refreshing compensation, so soon 
 as pauperism is done away. — Christian and Economic Polity of 
 a Nation. 
 
282 APPENDIX. 
 
 VI, Section II. § 13. — Distinction between the two 
 cases of Disease and Indigence as ohjccts of Public 
 Charity. 
 
 LaNiiig out of sight the objections you have stated to any 
 general principle of compulsory assessment, do you not con- 
 ceive that there are certain classes of misery and distress for 
 which relief may be safely afforded, and which, if safely to be 
 afforded, ought to be afforded? — I think there is a very great 
 distinction between rases of general indigence and certain other 
 cases of distress, which may be relieved with all safety. 
 
 What would be the distinction in general principle that you 
 would lay down between the two classes of cases ? — I would 
 say that all those cases of hopeless and irrecoverable disease, or 
 even those cases of disease which are better managed in public 
 institutions than in private families, ought to be provided i'or 
 with the utmost liberality. 
 
 Do you not conceive that all cases of misery, the relief of 
 which has no tendency to increase the number of cases requir- 
 ing relief, may be' safely provided for ? — I think they may be 
 provided for with all safety. 
 
 Would not cases of insanity, and cases of loss of sight and 
 loss of limb, come under the latter description ? — Decid^'dly. 
 Deaf and dumb asylums, lunatic asylums, institutions for the 
 blind, infirmaries, and even fever hospitals might be supported 
 to the uttermost on public funds. It is the more desirable a 
 right direction should be given to public charity, and in parti- 
 cular to the charities of the rich; that, generally speaking, the 
 upper classes have a great desire to do good if they knew but 
 how to do it. There is one way in which ostensible relief, whe- 
 ther through the medium of an assessment or from the haiuis 
 of the wealthy, might scatter on every side the elements of 
 moral deterioration, and that is when the object is general in- 
 digence. There is another way in which public and visible 
 charity might prove of permanent benefit to society, both for 
 the relief of suffering and the increase of virtue among men ; 
 such as the support of institutions for the cure or alleviation 
 of disease, and for education. 
 
 Do you not conceive that provision might be made at the 
 public expense for all those cases of calamity which are so 
 entirely contingent that no foresight or previous calculation 
 could be made to prevent their occurrence, or to provide for them 
 when they do occur ? — I think that institutions ought to be pro- 
 vided for all those cases. 
 
 Do you see any objection to an enlarged liberal provision for 
 the relief of the sick poor, in the way of distribution of medi- 
 
Aprr.NDix. 2815 
 
 cines ai-.d dispensaries ? — I would object to any ]e{jal relief of 
 the poor in their own houses. I would not object to dispen- 
 Baries, the object of which is medicine ; but all that kind of 
 household distress which falls in the way of the ordinary expe- 
 rience of families, I think should be left to be provided for by 
 the families themselves, or by private charity. — Evidence before 
 the Commons' CowmitUe. 
 
 VII. Section III. § 2. — The Gradations and 
 Inequalities of Humble Life. 
 
 The delusion of blending all the grades and varieties of com- 
 mon people into one general object of contemplation, has mis- 
 led or bewildered the public mind on two great questions. In 
 the question of pauperism, the apprehension is, that if the sup- 
 plies of the existing system were done away, there would be no- 
 thing to replace them ; and, in particular, that destitute families 
 in the deep recesses of a city population, surrounded on all hands 
 by others about as destitute as themselves, and placed beyond the 
 observation and effective sympathy of those who had the power 
 to relieve them, would inevitably perish. This is a very natural 
 fear ; but it proceeds on the imagination, that every plebeian 
 district of a town is a dead level, of equal unmixed unalleviated, 
 want and wretchedness. It is not recollected, how much can 
 be done in every little neighbourhood by an internal operation 
 of charity ; and how much would be done, were it not that, by 
 the attempt of law to supplement and supersede humanity, this 
 operation has been paralyzed. We have to record it as our 
 experience, after the close and personal observation of years, 
 that never did a case of distress occur in the midst of a large 
 and congregated mass of operatives, which was not followed up 
 by the timely outbreakiiigs of sympathy from the contiguous 
 families ; and, therefore, as our persuasion, that were human 
 want confided to human benevolence alone, it would experience 
 a far more copious, as well as kindly, circulation of relief, than 
 is poured upon it from without, by the ministrations of a legal- 
 ized charity. — The Supreme Importance of a right Moral to a 
 right Economical slate of the Commuiiitij. 
 
 VIII. Section III. § 13. — Importance of devolving 
 the Temporal Ministrations of aCkurchon a separate 
 order of Office- biarers. 
 
 Conceive an individual to be associated with a district in the 
 
284 
 
 APPEXDIX. 
 
 joint capacity of elder and deacon ; and that, at the same time, 
 its pauperism has attained such a magnitude, and such an esta- 
 blishment, as to have addressed itself to the desires and the 
 expectations of a large proportion of the families. The argu- 
 ment must suppose him to be equally intent on the duties of 
 each office, without which there is a defect of right and honest 
 principle on his part ; and this of itself is a mischievous thing, 
 though no exception whatever could be alleged against the 
 combination of these two offices. It will, therefore, serve better 
 to expose the evils of this combination, to figure to ourselves a 
 rnan of zeal and conscientiousness, on whom the burden of both 
 offices has been laid, and who is uprightly desirous of fulfilling 
 the duties of both. There are many who are but elders in 
 name, while deacons alone and deacons altogether in practice 
 and performance ; and this, of itself, by the extinction, as far as 
 it goes, of the whole use and influence of the eldership among 
 the people, is, of itself, a very sore calamity. But let us rather 
 put the case of one who would like religious influence to descend 
 from him, in the former capacity, and, at the same time, would 
 like to acquit himself rightly among the people, in the latter 
 capacity ; and we hope to ujake it appear that a more ruinous 
 plurality could not have been devised, by which to turn into 
 poison each ingredient of which it is composed — and that it is 
 indeed a work of extreme delicacy and difficulty for an indivi- 
 dual, on whom duties of a character so heterogeneous have been 
 devolved, to move through the district assigned to him, without 
 scattering among its people the elements of moral deterioration. 
 He goes forth among them as an elder, when he goes forth 
 to pray with them, or to address them on the subject of Chris- 
 tianity, or to recommend their attention to its ordinances, or to 
 take cognisance of the education of their children. There are, 
 indeed, a thousand expedients by which he may attempt a 
 religious influence among the people ; and, in plying these expe- 
 dients, he acts purely as an ecclesiastical labourer. And, did 
 he act singly in this capacity, we miglit know what to make of 
 the welcome which he obtains from the families. But they 
 recognise him to be also a dispenser of temporalities ; and they 
 have an indefinite imagination of his powers, and of his patron- 
 age, and of his funds; and their sordid or mercenary expecta- 
 tions are set at work by the very sight of him ; and thus some 
 paltry or interested desise of their own may lurk under the 
 whole of that apparent cordiality which marks the intercourse 
 of the two parties. It were a great satisfaction, to disentangle 
 one principle here from another; and this can oidy be done by 
 separating the one office from the other. It were desirable to 
 ascertain how much of liking there is for the Christian, and 
 how I'liinh for the pecuniary ministration with which th.s phi- 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 285 
 
 lanthropist is charged. The union ot these two throws an 
 impenetrable obscurity over this question, and raises a barrier 
 against the discerinuent of real character, amongst the people 
 with whom we deal. 
 
 But this combination does more than disguise the principles 
 of the people. It serves also to deteriorate them. If there be 
 any nascent affection among them towards that which is sacred, 
 it is well to keep it single — to defend it from the touch of every 
 polluting ingredient — to nourish and bring it forward on the 
 strength of its own proper aliment — and most strenuously to 
 beware of holding out encouragement to that most subtle of all 
 hypocrisies, the hypocrisy of the heart ; which is most surely and 
 most effectually done, when the lessons of preparation for an- 
 other world are mixed up with the bribery of certain advan- 
 tages in this world, and made to descend upon a human subject 
 in one compound administration. There is a wonderful dis- 
 cernment into our nature evinced by the Saviour and his 
 Apostles, throughout their whole work of christianising, in the 
 stress that is laid by them on singleness of eye ; and in the 
 announcements they give of the impossibility of serving two 
 masters, and of the way in which a divided state of the afftctions 
 shuts and darkens the heart against the pure influence of truth. 
 Simplicity of desire, or the want of it, makes the whole differ- 
 ence between being full of light and full of darkness. It is 
 thus that Christ refuses to be a judge and a divider ; and that 
 the Apostles totally resign the office of ministering to the tem- 
 poral wants of the poor ; and that Paul, in particular, is at so 
 much pains both to teach and to exemplify, among his disciples, 
 the habit of independence on charity to the very uttermost — 
 denouncing the hypocrisy of those who make a gain of godli- 
 ness ; and even going so far as to affirm, that the man who had 
 joined their society, with a view to his own personal relief, 
 out of its funds, from the expense of maintaining his own house- 
 hold, was worse than an infidel. On the maxim that " my 
 kingdom is not of this world," it will ever be vain to amalga- 
 mate Christianity with the desires of an earthly ambition ; and 
 this is just as applicable to the humble ambition of a poor man 
 for a place in the lists of pauperism, as to that higher ambition 
 which toils, and aspires, and multiplies its desires, and its doings, 
 on the walks of a more dignilit;d patronage. \N e are not plead- 
 ing, at present, for the annihilation of pauperism, but for the 
 transference of its duties to a separate class of office-bearers. 
 We are for removing a taint and a temptation from the elder- 
 ship, and for securing, in this way, the greate>t possible efficacy 
 to their Christian labours. We are for delivering the people 
 from the play and the perplexity of two affections, which can- 
 not Work together, contemporaneously at least, in the same 
 
286 Ari'RNDix. 
 
 bosom. On the principle that there is a time for every thing, 
 we bhoulil like a visit from an elder to be the time when Chris- 
 tianity shall have a separate and unrivalled place in the atten- 
 tion of those with whom, for the moment, he is holding inter- 
 course ; and that when the impression of things sacred might 
 be growing and gathering strength from his conversation, there 
 shall not be so ready and palpable an inlet as there is at pre- 
 sent, for the impression of things secular to stifle and overbear 
 them. 
 
 There are two different ways in which an elder may acquit 
 himself of his superinduced deaconship — either in the way of easy 
 compliance with the demands of the population, or in the way 
 of strict and conscientious inquiry, so as to act rightly by the 
 fund which has been committed to him. Take the first way of it ; 
 and suppose him, at the same time, to have the Christianity of 
 bis district at heart, and what a bounty he carries around with 
 him on the worst kind of dissimulation ! Like a substance, 
 where neither of the ingredients taken singly is poisonous, and 
 which assumes all its virulence from the composition of them, 
 what a power of insidious but most fatal corruption lies in the 
 mere junction of these two offices 1 There is many a pluralist 
 of this sort, who never can and never will verify this remark, 
 by any experience of his own ; because he has virtually resigned 
 the better and the higher of his functions, or rather has not 
 once from the beginning exercised them. But let him go forth 
 upon his territory, in the discharge of both, and what a sicken- 
 ing duplicity of reception he is exposed to I What a'mortifying 
 indifference to the topic he has most at heart, under all the 
 constrained appearance of attention which is rendered to it ! 
 With what dexterity can the language of sanctity be pressed 
 into the service, when their purpose requires it ; and yet how 
 evident, how mortifyingly evident, often, is the total absence of 
 all feeling and desire upon the subject, from the hearts of these 
 wily politicians ! How often, under such an unfortunate 
 arrangement as this, is Christianity prostituted into a vehicle for 
 the most sordid and unworthy applications — all its lessons no 
 further valued than for the mean and beggarly elements with 
 which they are conjoined, and all its ordinances no further 
 valued than as stepping-stones, perhaps, to a pair of shoes. It is 
 this mingling together of incompatible desires — it is this bringing 
 of a pure moral element into contiguity with other elements 
 which vitiate and extinguish it — is is this compounding of 
 what is fitted in itself to raise the character, with what is fitted, 
 in itself, and still more by its hypocritical association with bet- 
 ter things, to adulterate and debase it — It is this which sheds 
 a kind of withering blight over aii the ministrations of the 
 pluralist ; and must convince every enlightened observer, that. 
 
APPENI/fX. 287 
 
 till he gets rid of the many elements of temptation which are 
 ill his hands, he will never expatiate, either with Christian 
 comfort, or witii Christian effect, among the population. 
 
 And here we may remark another argument against this 
 plurality, which ought to address itself with great effect to all 
 those who think that an increase of profligacy among the people 
 is the sure attendant on an increase of pauperism. There may 
 he no great harm done by putting this administration into the 
 hands of an eldership, so long as the money is raised in the 
 shape of a free-will offering from the giver, and it is made to 
 descend in the shape of unconstruined kindness upon the receiver; 
 or so long as they have only to deal with moderate sums among 
 moderate expectations. But, when the fund is raised in a legal 
 and compulsory way by assessment ; and when that which wont 
 to be petitioned for, in the shape of charity, is demanded in the 
 shape of justice ; and when the people are thus armed with 
 the force and impetus of an aggressive legality, upon the one 
 side, and are not met in the firm and resolute spirit of a defen- 
 sive legality, upon the other — there will, in time, be amongst 
 us a far more rapid acceleration of pauperism than ever has 
 been exemplified in England. That old apparatus which would 
 have sufficed under the old system, will be a feeble defence 
 against the weight and urgency of applications that are sure to 
 be eugendered by the new. A kirk-session may do for an organ 
 of distribution, while the expression of good-will may be held 
 forth, on the one side, and the feeling of gratitude may be called 
 back, on the other. But when, from an administration of 
 charity, it is transformed into a warfare of rights, it becomes 
 altogether an unseemly contest for such parties as these ; and 
 a contest in which the cupidity, and the love of pleasure or of 
 indolence, that characterise our nature, will mightily prevail over 
 that unpractised simplicity which we should ever like to cha- 
 racterise our eldership — whose proper business it is to officiate 
 umong sacraments, and to exert a Christian superintendance 
 over the families that are assigned to them. The exemption 
 of Scotland from an oppressive pauperism is not at all due to the 
 ecclesiastical form of that machinery under which it is adminis- 
 tered. It is to be ascribed simply to the absence of a compul- 
 sory provision ; and it will be found that, after this is intro- 
 duced, then, so soon as it is fully understood and acted on, all 
 that is ecclesiastical in our courts of administration, so far from 
 being a safeguard to the independence of our people, will, in 
 fact, smooth and widen and encourage their transition to pau- 
 perism. Scotland has not yet had time to overtake Englaiid, 
 in the amount of her expenditure. But it will be found, that, 
 ill the great majority of tiiose parishes where a compulsory pro. 
 vision for the pour has been established, she is moving onward 
 
288 APPEKDIX. 
 
 at a faster rate of acceleration. The pauperism of JIanehester 
 is Rtill greater, in its present amount, than that of Glasgow, 
 But the proportional increase in Glasgow, (luring the last twenty 
 years, is very greatly beyond that in Mnnches.ter. 
 
 Let us now conceive a pluralist to be aware of this mischief, 
 and, by way of guarding against it, to put himself forth in an 
 attitude more characteristic of deaconship — firm in resistance to 
 every claim that is capable of being reduced, and most strict 
 and resolute in all his investigations. In this case the only fit 
 and effectual attitude of eldership must be given up. He may 
 as well try to look two opposite ways at the same moment, as 
 think of combining the one with the other, and of keeping tlie 
 people at bay by his resistance to them, on the ground of his 
 lower, and, at the same time, drawing their regard, oti the 
 ground of his better and higher ministrations. He will find it 
 utterly impossible to find access for the lessons of Christianity, 
 into hearts soured against himself, and, perhaps, thwarted in 
 their feelings of justice, by the disappointments they have 
 gotten at his hand. It is thus that, by a strange fatality, the 
 man who has been invested with a religious superintendanoe 
 over the people, has become the most unlikely for gaining a 
 religious influence over them ; and all his wonted powers of 
 usefulness, now worse than neutralised, have, by the positive 
 dislike that has been turned against him, been snnk far hereaf h 
 the level of any private or ordinary individual. There cannot, 
 surely, be a more complete travesty on all that is wise and 
 desirable in human institutions, than to saddle that man, whose 
 primitive office it is to woo the people to that which is spiritu- 
 ally good, with another office, where he has to war against the 
 people, on the subject of their tempoialities. There may, at 
 one time, have been a compatability between these two func- 
 tions, under the cheap economy of the old Scottish pauperism; 
 but it is all put to flight by the shock which takes place be- 
 tween the rapacity of the one party and the resistance of the 
 other, under a system of ' nglish pauperism. The people will 
 listen with disdain, or with shrewd and significant contempt, to 
 to the Christian conversation of that elder who stands con- 
 fronted against them, on the ground of his deaconship ; and 
 they will expect an easy unresisting compliance «ith all their 
 demands from that deacon who has plied them with the affec- 
 tionate counsels of Christianity, on the ground of his eldership. 
 They will dexterously work the desirousness that he must feel, 
 in the one of these capacities, against the duties that he would 
 like to fulfil in the other of them. They will tell him that 
 they have no time and no heart for religion, while under the 
 I)ressure of alleged difficulties that he will do nothing to relieve. 
 He, in the meantime, will perceive that, unless he complieB 
 
ApruNDix. 289 
 
 with the ueinand, he can find no acceptance ; and (hat, though 
 he should oomply, acceptance gained through the medium of 
 bribi-ry will lead to no pure or desirable influence on the cha- 
 racter of the population. In this unfortunate contest, each will, 
 in all likelihood, believe the other to be a hypocrite; the one 
 incurring this suspicion because of the way in which the legal 
 hardihood of the deacon stands in awkward and unseemly con- 
 junction upon the same individual, with the apparent zeal and 
 sincerity of the elder ; and the other incurring this suspicion, 
 because of the way in which a sordid desire after things secular 
 is mingled, in the same exhibition, with a seeming deference to 
 things sacred. It is thus that the pluralist feels himself para- 
 lysed into utter helplessness; and never was public functionary 
 more cruelly hampered than by this association of duties, which 
 are altogether so discordant. There is no place for the still 
 small voice of Christian friendship, in such an atmosphere of 
 recrimination, and heart-burning, and mutual jealousy, as now 
 encompasses the ministration of charity in our great towns. 
 To import the English principle of pauperism among the kirk- 
 sessions of Scotland is like putting new wine into old bottles. 
 It so mangles and lacerates an eldership, as to dissipate all the 
 moral ascendancy they once had over our population. It is 
 ever to be regretted that such a ministration as this should have 
 been inserted between the two parties. No subtle or Satanic 
 adversary of religion could have devised a more skilful barrier 
 against all the usefulness and effect of these lay associates of 
 the clergy : and, as the fruit of this melancholy transformation, a 
 class of men, who have contributed so much to build up and sus- 
 tain our national character, will be as good as swept away from 
 the land. — Christian and Economic Polity of a Nation, 
 
 IX. Section IV. § 3. Distinction beticeen the Natnrol 
 and Political Difficulties of the Problem of Pau- 
 perism, 
 
 Now, that a compulsory provision for the poor has been es- 
 tablished ; and that the great unwieldy corporation of the state 
 must be moved, ere any step can be taken towards the aboli- 
 tion of it ; and that the subordinate courts of administration, 
 ill every parish, have sunk and settled into the obstinacy of an 
 old practical habit, in all their proceedings — there is a host of 
 political dilTiculties that must be met and overcome, not ere it 
 can be proved with what certainty the people, when left to 
 themselves, will find their own way to their own comfort and 
 21 T 
 
290 APPENDIX. 
 
 independence, but ere the measure shall be carried of actual!/ 
 leaving the people to themselves. We think that there is no 
 natural difficulty which stands in the way of the success o. 
 such an experiment, if tried ; but we feel that there are many 
 political difficulties in the way of putting the experiment to 
 the trial. We hold it a practicable thing, to conduct any 
 parish, either in a city or in the country, to the old economy 
 of a Scottish parish, on the strength of an arrangement which 
 we shall afterwards endeavour to set, in more detailed exposi- 
 tion, before our readers; and that there is no impediment on 
 the parochial field, which is the real theatre of the experiment, 
 in the way of a final and looked for success. The struggle is 
 not with the population, for obtaining the success of the 
 arrangement; but the struggle is with our legislature and our 
 municipalities, for obtaining the arrangement itself. The place 
 of most formidable resistance is not in the outer, but the inner 
 department of this business ; and the occasion of it is, when, 
 in the hall of deliberation, the attempt is made to break up 
 our existing artificial economy, and thus to prevail over the 
 dislike and the prejudices of hacknied functionaries, and to 
 carry that nearly impregnable front, wherewith all novelty is 
 sure to be withstood, by the clerks, and the conveners, and the 
 committeemen, of an old establishment. The battle is not 
 with the natural difficulties of the pioblem, but with its politi- 
 cal difficulties — not with the laws of human nature, as to be 
 found in the parish where the experiment is made, but with 
 the tendencies of human nature, as exhibited on that arena of 
 public discussion and debate where the experiment is proposed. 
 In the Vi'ork of abolishing legalised charity, the heaviest con- 
 flict will not be with the natural poverty of the lower orders, 
 but with that pride of argument, and that tenacity of opinion, 
 and all those political feelings and asperities which obtain 
 among the higher orders. In short, we hold that there is 
 notiiing in the condition of the people which opposes a barrier 
 against the abolition of all legal and compulsory pauperism ; 
 but that there is a very strong initial barrier in the condition 
 of our la«s, and courts, and long establi.«hed usages. In the 
 piactical solution of the question of public charity, the re- 
 cipients will not be found so difficult ot management as the 
 lawgivers and administrators. There is a method by which 
 might be effected, and ahrost without difficulty, the abolition 
 of public charity among o .r plebeians — but the consent of our 
 patricians must be obtained, ere we are free to put the method 
 into operation : and what we affirm is, thatjt is agreater achieve- 
 ment to obdiin leave and liberty for using the method, than to 
 obtain success for the method itself; or, in other words, that 
 the great impediment to the removal of this sore national di&- 
 
APPENDIX. 291 
 
 temper, lies not among the plebeians, but among the patiiciani 
 cf the commonwealth. — Christian and Economic Polity of a 
 Nation. 
 
 X, Section IV. § 8. — Letier to the Lord Provost of 
 Glasgow. 
 
 Glasgow, August 3rd, 1819. 
 My Lord, — When I received the intimation of my appoint- 
 ment as minister of St. John's, it gave me sincere pleasure to 
 be informed, at the same time, that a letter written by myself 
 to Mr. Ewing was read to the magistrates and council previous 
 to my election, as it gave me the flatteiing assurance that the 
 leading objects adverted to in that letter met with the appro^ 
 bation of the honourable body over which your Lordship pre- 
 sides. In that letter I adverted to the wish I had long enter- 
 tained, and which is publicly enough known by other channels, 
 for a separate and independent management, on the part of my 
 session, of the fund raised by collections at the church door, 
 and with which fund I propose to take the management of all 
 the existing sessional poor within our bounds, and so to meet 
 the new applications for relief, as never to add to the general 
 burden of the city by the oidinary poor of the parish of St. 
 John's. And I here beg it to be distinctly understood, that I 
 do not consider the revenue of the kirk-session to be at all 
 applicable to those extraordinary cases which are produced by 
 any sudden and unlooked-for depression in the state of our 
 manufactures; nor, if ever there shall be a call for pecuniary 
 aid on this jiarticuhir ground, do I undertake to provide for it 
 out of our ordinary means, but will either meet it by a parochial 
 subscription, or by taking a full share of any such general mea- 
 sure as may be thought expedient under such an emergency. 
 Your Lordship will not fail to observe, that if the new cases 
 of ordinary pauperism accumulate upon us in the rate at which 
 they have done formerly, they would soon overtake our pre- 
 sent collections. And yet my confidence in a successful re- 
 sult is not at all founded on the expected magnitude of my 
 future collections, but upon the care and attention with which 
 the distribution of the fund will be conducted; a care and 
 an attention which I despair of ever being able to stimulate 
 efTectually till I ol)tain an arr:nigeint'nt by which my session 
 shall be left to square its own se[);iiate expenditure by its own 
 separate and peculiar resources. At the same time, 1 can also, 
 with such an arrangement, stimulate moie effectually than be- 
 fore the liberality of my congregation ; and witli this twofold 
 advantage, I am hopeful not merely of being able to overtuke 
 
292 AITENDII. 
 
 the whole pauperism of St. John's, but of leaving a large sur- 
 plus applicable to ether objects connecteil with the best in- 
 terests of the population in that district of the city. What I 
 propose to do with the surplus is, to apply it as we are able to 
 the erection and endowment of parochial schools, for the pur- 
 pose of meeting our people, not with gratuitous education, but 
 with good education on the same terms at which it is had in 
 country parishes. My reason for troubling your Lordship with 
 this intimation is, that I require the sanction of the heritors of 
 the parish ere I can allocate any part of the sum raised by col- 
 lections in this way. Without this sanction, I shall make no 
 attempt to stimulate the liberality of my congregation beyon(' 
 what is barely necessary for the expenses of pauperism; with 
 this sanction I shall have the best of all arguments by which 
 to stimulate the liberality of my hearers, and the care of my 
 distributors, and (most important of all) the zealous co-opera- 
 tion even of the poorest among my people, who will easily be 
 persuaded to observe a moderation in their demands, when they 
 tind it stands associated with a cause so generally dear to them 
 as the education of their families. There is another object 
 which I shall not press immediately, but which your Lordship 
 will perceive to be as necessary for the protection of the other 
 parishes of Glasgow as of my own, and that is, that the law of 
 residence shall take effect between my parish and the other 
 parishes of the city ; I am quite willing that every other parish 
 shall have protection by this law from the ingress of my poor, 
 in return for the protection of my parish from the ingress ot 
 theirs. It is practically the simplest of all things to put thij 
 into operation from the very outset ; but I mention it now 
 chiefly with a view to be enabled to reaind your Lordship, 
 when it comes to be applied for afterwards, tiiat it is not be- 
 cause of any unlooked-for embarrassment that I make the ap- 
 plication, but in pursuance of a right and necessary object 
 which even now I have in full contemplation. I shall only 
 conclude with assuring your Lordship, that nothing will give 
 me greater pleasure than to transmit from time to time tlie 
 state of our progress in the parish of St. John's respecting all 
 the objects alluded to in this communication ; and that 1 hold 
 myself subject to the same inspection and control from you, as 
 the heritors of my parish, which the law assigns to the heritors 
 of other parishes. A deed of consent and approbation relative 
 to the various points that have now been submitted through 
 your Lordship to the magistrates and council, will very much 
 oblige, 
 
 My Lord, your Lordship's most obliged and obedient servant, 
 
 TUOMAS CuAtlltUb. 
 
 —Evidence be/ore the Cvmmons Committee. 
 
APPENDIX. 293 
 
 XI. Section IV. § 10. — Directory of procedure for 
 the Deacons of St. Johis. 
 
 When one applies for ailmittance, through his deacon, upon 
 our funds, the first tiling io be inquired into is, if there be any 
 kind of work that he can yet do, so as either to keep him alto- 
 gether off, or, as to make a partial allowance serve for his 
 necessities. The second, what his relations and friends are 
 willing to do for them. The third, whether he is a hearer in 
 any dissenting place of worship, and whether its Session will 
 contribute to his relief. And, if, after these previous inquiries, 
 it be found, that further relief is necessary, then there must be 
 a strict ascertainment of his term of residence in Glasgow, and 
 whether he be yet on the funds of the Town Hospital, or is 
 obtaining relief from any other parish. 
 
 If, upon all these points being ascertained, the deacon of (he 
 proportion where he resides, still conceives him an object for 
 our assistance, he will inquire whether a small temporary aid 
 will meet the occasion, and state this to the first ordinary meet- 
 ing. But, if instead of this, he conceives him a fit subject for 
 a regular allowance, he will receive the assistance of another 
 deacon to complete and confirm his inquiries, by the next ordi- 
 nary meeting thereafter, — at which time, the applicant, if they 
 still think him a fit object, is brought before us, and received 
 upon the fund at such a rate of allowance as, upon all the cir- 
 cumstances of the case, the meeting of deacons shall judge 
 
 proper Present State and Future Prospects of Pauperism in 
 
 Glasyow. 
 
 XII. Section IV. § 12. — Utopianism of Practical 
 3len. 
 
 There is a stubborn incredulity, which, however widely it 
 may appear to differ, is, in some respects, very much at one 
 with sanguine Utopianism. It is true, that the same magnifi- 
 cence which captivates the latter, is that which is regarded by 
 the former with derision and distrust. So that while the one 
 is easily lured to a chimerical enterprise, and just because the 
 object of it is great, it is this vt-ry greatness which freezes the 
 other into hopeless and impracticable apathy. Yet both agree, 
 in that they take a direct and instantaneous impression from 
 the object itself, and are alike heedless of the immediate means 
 by which it may be accomplished. It is thus, that the splendid 
 visionary is precipitated from his aerial flight, because be over. 
 
294 APPENDIX. 
 
 looked the utter pathlessness of that space, which lay between 
 him and the impossibility that he aspired after. But it is also 
 thus, that the fixed and obstinate practitioner refuses to move 
 one single footstep, because he equally overlooks that con- 
 tinuous way, which leads through the intervening distance, to 
 
 some great yet practicable achievement. But give him time 
 
 and the mere length of a journey ought not to repel the travel- 
 ler from his undertaking — nor will he resign the advantage for 
 which he looks at its further extremity, till you have demon- 
 strated that one or more of its stages is utterly impassable. In 
 other words, there is a blind infidelity, as well as a blinded 
 imagination — and it is difficult to say whether the cause of 
 philanthropy has suffered more from the temerity of projectors, 
 or from the phlegmatic inertness of men, who, unable to dis- 
 criminate between the experimental and the vissionary, are 
 
 alike determined to despise all and to resist all Christian and 
 
 Economic Polity of a Nation. 
 
 XIII. Section IV. § 15. — One Example (referring 
 for Others to the work specified in page 112 J of the 
 Parochial Management of St. John's. 
 
 4. A mother and daughter, the aole occupiers of a single 
 apartment, were both afflicted with cancer, for which the one 
 had to undergo an operation, while the other was so far gone 
 as to be irrecoverable. A case so impressive as this, required 
 only to be known that it might be met and provided for; and 
 on the first warning of its necessity, a subscription could easily 
 be raised, out of the unforced liberalities of those, who have 
 been attracted from a distance, by the mere report of the cir- 
 cumstance having made its natural progress to their ears. And 
 what then is it that suspends the necessity of such a measure ? 
 — the exuberant, and as yet nntired kindness of those who are 
 near, and whose willing contributions both of food, and of ser- 
 vice, and of cordials, have lighted up a moral sunshine in this 
 habitation of distress? Were it right that any legal charity, 
 whatever, should arrest a process so beautiful? "Were it even 
 right that the interference of the wealthier at a distance, should 
 lay a freezing interdict on the play of those lesser streams, 
 which circulate around the abode of penury and pain ? We 
 want not to exonerate the rich from their full share in the bur- 
 den of this world's philanthropy. But it is delightful to think 
 that while, with their mightier gifts, an ed.ucational apparatus 
 could be reaied for good Christian tuition to the people, and 
 good scholarship to their families, and so a barrier be set up 
 against the profligacy of cities — there is meanwhile a spirit and 
 
APJ^ENDIX. 'J[)b 
 
 a capability among the poor wherewith it is easy to ward off 
 the scarcely inferior mischief of a corrupt and degradui)f 
 pauperism. — Appendix to Speech delivered be/ore the General 
 Assembly of 1 822. 
 
 XIV. Section IV. § 17.— Three Testimonies (of the 
 Twenty -two printed at the place referred to in payc 
 l\3 J from the Deacons of St. John's, each deponiny 
 to the perfect facility of his management. 
 
 These Testimonies were given in the form of Replies to the fol- 
 lowing Circular : — 
 
 Glasgow, August 11th, 1823. 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 You will oblige me much by your earliest 
 possible reply to the following Queries : — 
 
 1. Of what Proportion is it in St. John's Parish that you 
 are Deacon ? 
 
 2. What is its population, as nearly as you can infer, from 
 your latest survey ? 
 
 3. How many Paupers belong to it tiat are upon the 
 Deacon's Fund ? 
 
 4. How many applications may you have for Parochial Re- 
 lief, monthly or quarterly, as near as you can remember ? 
 
 5. What time may the business of attending to these appli- 
 cations, and the necessary inquiries that you had to make in 
 consequence of them, have cost you upon the whole ? 
 
 6. Are the applications more or less frequent since you en- 
 tered upon your office? 
 
 7. Could you state how much time you are required to 
 (sacrifice, per week, or per month, in making the requisite in- 
 vestigations that you are actually called to ? 
 
 8. Do you think, that a man in ordinary business would find 
 the task of meeting the pauperism of such a district as yours, 
 faO laborious as to put him to any sensible inconvenience ? 
 
 9. Will you have the goodness to state any circumstances 
 co''nected with your management, that you think might eluci- 
 date the nature of the duties or attentions that you have iiad 
 to discharge ? 
 
 I am, dtar Sir, yours most gratefully, 
 
 Thomas Chalmkhs. 
 
 1. " The latest 8. "rvey was taken about a month a>,'o, and 
 from it I observe, tuat this proportion contains 335 ii:iiabi 
 
2U6 API'ENDir. 
 
 " There is not at present a single pauper in this proporlian 
 upon the Deacon's Fund ; nor has there occurred either an 
 occasional or permanent case, requiring assistance from this 
 fund, since I received the charge of it in the month of May, 
 1822 
 
 " The number of applications for relief in this proportion 
 has been very few during the last twelve months, not amount* 
 ing, to the best of my recollection, to more than seven, or 
 about an average, one every two months. 
 
 " Upon a review of these cases, I compute that I may have 
 bestowed upon them about sixteen hours in wliole, or about a 
 quarter per week, at the utmost. 
 
 " All those applications for relief to which I have alluded, 
 occurred during the first si.\ months after accepting office; 
 which leaves nine months during which I have not had a single 
 application for parish relief. 
 
 " Before I could be prevailed upon to take charge of this 
 proportion, [ imagined that, in consequence of my professional 
 avocations, it would be quite impossible for me to accomplish 
 such an object ; but I was very much astonished to find, after 
 a few months' trial, how sin)ple a matter it was, and how 
 easily managed ; indeed so light and pleasant did the duty seem, 
 that I thought, if all the other proportions were equally manage- 
 able, I could take upon me to manage the whole parish, and 
 attend to my business besides. 
 
 " I am of opinion that the first thing necessary to the pro- 
 per discharge of the office which I hold, is to get immediately 
 acquainted with every house and family in the proportion ; in 
 order to check any imposition which may otherwise be prac- 
 tised, and also to facilitate the investigation of every case which 
 may occur. 
 
 " Of those cases which I have above alluded to, three were 
 of runaway husbands. The first was left with two children, 
 both under three years of age, the youngest at the breast. The 
 second case was left with four daughters, under ten years of 
 age, and the youngest at the breast. The third was left about 
 three years before she applied to me, with two children under 
 ten years of age, and an adopted child, for the support of which 
 she had nothing, the father and mother having died some time 
 hefore. 
 
 " All these cases appear at first sight formidable, and seem- 
 ingly fit for the exercise of unbounded charity, both public 
 and private ; but with the exception of the second case, (which 
 by the by, was one of a very interesting n'ature) none of them 
 received, nor did they require the hand of ill-timed charity to 
 assist them. It would occupy too much of your valuable time, 
 however, to enter upon the particulars of any of the cusei., or 
 
ArpEiiDix. 297 
 
 expliiiii how they were treated ; but let it suffice to add, that 
 lirtd liberal means been afforded in those cases to supply their 
 a[)pareTit wants, their husbands would never have been found 
 out, atul they and their children would have been at this ino- 
 inerit in more abject poverty than at their first application. 
 
 " I am sorry that I should have taken up so much of your 
 time, in reading over this long answer to your important queries ; 
 but I thought it incumbent on me to say so much, in defence 
 of a system, the advantages resulting from which, both to the 
 moral and religious character of a people, I have had now so 
 ample an opportunity of judging." 
 
 The testimony here respecting the runaway husbands, is 
 peculiarly important, and marks the close connexion that ob- 
 tains between the abolition of pauperism, and the virtue of 
 families. 
 
 5. " In reply to your queries, I beg to state, that I have 
 charge of the poor of a proportion in St. John's parish, whose 
 population amounts to 314, according to a very recent survey. 
 
 " There is only one regular pauper, an orphan boy, and two 
 who get occasional assistance. 
 
 " I should imagine the applications for even occasional aid, 
 do not exceed one monthly. 
 
 " 1 have spent a good deal of time in the proportion, but 
 think an hour every week would be sufficient to investigate 
 into the state of the poor. 
 
 " Applications for relief are less frequent, because work has 
 latterly been much more abundant. 
 
 " From what I know of the n)ode of conducting business in 
 Glasgow, I think any man might, without sensible inconvenience, 
 if he have the inclination, attend to the pauperism of such a 
 proportion as mine, provided his dwelling-house be not very re- 
 mote from the proportion of which he has charge. 
 
 " It appears to me, if a deacon simply confine his charge of 
 a district to granting an allowance to those who have a legal 
 claim to relief, his labour will be very small indeed ; but if he 
 take an interest in procuring work for those who find a dif- 
 ficulty in getting it — if he endeavour to get the parents to send 
 their children to school — if he give occasional assistance to 
 those who require it from sickness — he will find a good deal of 
 employment, and require to exercise some discretion not to do 
 karm where he wishes to confer a benefit. 
 
 " The most unpleasant thing to be met with, as far as I have 
 seen, are people who profess to be religious, but who, either 
 from want of principle or industry become a burden, either as 
 direct paupers, or, what is worse, borrowers of money, which 
 they can never repay. 
 
 «' P. S. — You are aware the population of this proportion 
 
298 APPENDIX. 
 
 consists of very poor peojle; there is only one family abore 
 the rank of operatives." 
 
 The district to which the above testimony relates is aboiit 
 the poorest in Glasgow. I offer the following very important 
 notice in regard to this district, from a former deacon who had 
 the charge of it, but was obliged to quit it upon leaving town : — 
 " Though foreign to our subject, I may state that I have re- 
 ceived £2 2s. out of the proportion, to assist an outfit of emi- 
 grants to Quebec ; and £5 or £6 from among the very poorest 
 of them for Bible and Missionary Societies. These sums tend 
 to prove that any of our proportions might be supported Irom 
 its own resources." 
 
 18. " In reply to the queries contained in your circular, 1 
 have to state, that my proportion in St. John's parish contains 
 a population, by the last survey of June, 1823, of 300. 
 
 " There is only one case of pauperism connected with the 
 proportion at present — it is of three years and a half standing. 
 
 " I have had only four regular cases altogether. The whole 
 population of my district are operatives, or labourers, many of 
 them Irish. In November 1819, when I was appointed deacon, 
 the greater part of them were in absolute starration from want 
 of work. I had consequently many applications for about five 
 months, which were greatly increased by the distribution at 
 liutchesons' Hospital. During that i)eriod, I supplied with 
 various relief about one-third of the families under my charge, 
 not one of which would have been called forth in oidinary 
 times. 
 
 " As I was an entire stranger to the duties of my office, as 
 well as the people committed to my charge, it required a great 
 sacrifice of my time at first, often three or four hours in a day ; 
 but that pressure has long passed away, and I now reap the 
 benefit of it in a pretty thorough knowledge of almost every 
 family in the district. 
 
 " I have brought no case under investigation for ten months. 
 I bad indeed two applications within that time, but after a 
 little conversation, they both voluntarily withdrew. 
 
 " Taking the survey, may occupy three or four hours per 
 annum. The deacons' meetings and investigations connected 
 therewith, two or three hours a month, but 1 have had no call 
 on my time from the pauperism of my own district, for many 
 months, except signing a few papers exempting from the Cot- 
 tage Tax. 
 
 " With a little experience, I see nothing to prevent a per- 
 son in ordinary business, to manage such -a distiict as mine 
 without inconvenience. 
 
 " I consider it most important for a deacon to be intimately 
 acquainted with every family under his charge, and tbtre is iiu 
 
APPENDIX. 299 
 
 way he can acquire that knowledge so well, as by frequent 
 visitation ; besides, the very frequency of his visits gives hirej 
 H stronger interest in their well-doing, not to mention the reci- 
 procal feeling it creates towards himself, while he is furnished 
 with a store of useful information for every emergency. 
 
 " 1 have not been able to persevere in visiting regularly, but 
 it is not from the fear that my presence would increase the 
 applications for parish aid. I tliink, were we required to give 
 our pastor monthly a written report, it might be of great benefit 
 to ourselves. It ought to be a deacon's aim to behave with as 
 much kindness as possible, to listen patiently to every applica- 
 tion, do his utmost to procure work when it was wanted, and, 
 what is perhaps more difficult, to resist, with sturdy firmness, 
 every improper claim, in spite of abuse, or popular clamour." 
 
 I have here to express my acknowledgments for the informa- 
 tion that I have received from such monthly reports of their 
 districts, as the gentlemen connected with them were pleased 
 to furnish, and, more particularly, to the author of the last 
 communication. Tiie truth is, that this practice languished, 
 but from what cause ? — purely from the want of materials. 
 The people when conducted to a natural state, at length, offer 
 nothing to call forth the observation of those, whose ostensible 
 office it is to manage the affairs of their pauperism. " They 
 sheathe the sword for lack of argument." Their attentions 
 are finally superseded — a circumstance which might, at length, 
 attach an insipidity, and even an unimportance to their office, 
 but which, it) itself, affords the strongest verification of the 
 truth of our principles. — Statement in regard to the Pauperism 
 of Glasgow, from the Experience of the last eight years. 
 
 XV. Section IV. § 18. — Rationale of the Success 
 attending the St. Johns Experiment. 
 
 I should like on this subject to repeat an illustration that I 
 have often employed in argument, which, though rather homely, 
 is, I think, an effective one. I have sometimes imagined a 
 diseased excrescence upon a man's face connected with his 
 habit of drinking port wine, and that he had been under a coun- 
 cil of physicians for years, who had managed in a variety of 
 ways, but that the disease only got worse : suppose another 
 physician discovers the real connexion between the excrescence 
 and its cause, he has, perhaps, infinite trouble and pains in the 
 work of breaking up the old council of physicians, and at length 
 gets alongside of his patient, after which he has nothing to do 
 but to lay a firm interdict on the fuither use of port wine, after 
 
;',00 APPENDIX. 
 
 vhfbh the excrescence subsides, not l)y nny fui'lier rare or 
 ^treIlUo^lsness on his part, but in virtue of the vis medicatrir 
 in the body natural. Now, that was precisely my experience 
 in the parish of St. John's; it was under a very complex 
 management, and the whole of my difficulties were of an arti- 
 ficial and political sort. The difficulty was not to make our 
 svstem succeed, but to get the system established at all, after 
 which it stood as a barrier between the disease and that which 
 I hold to be the aliment of the disease, the compulsory fund, 
 when by the pure vis medicatrix of the body politic, the pau- 
 perism subsided of itself We were complimented for our 
 strenuousness and skill ; but we all along felt it to be quite 
 undeserved, assured as we were, that under the same system 
 the same effects would follow all the world over. — Evidence 
 Iffore the Commons' Committee. 
 
 XVT. Section IV. § 21.— Laudable efforts of ihe 
 Common People, lohen their setf-resptct is not unduhj 
 tampered tcith. 
 
 If the people have sunk in moral or religious worth, under 
 a treatment the necessary effect of which was to degrade them, 
 let us not utter one sentence of disrespect, till we first try the 
 effect of a treatment, the natural effect of which is to raise and 
 to transform them. We could not, without this preliminary 
 remark, have adverted to the outset of one of these Saltmarket 
 schools, or looked back on the first raw exhibition of the chil- 
 dren, or revealed thus publicly what they once were, if we had 
 not been enabled further to relate what, under the energetic 
 superintendence of one of the teachers, they have actually be- 
 come. Certain it is, that we never witnessed so rapid a culti- 
 vation ; and when, vm visiting the school a few months after its 
 establishment, we beheld the dress and decency of their exterior, 
 and marked the general propriety of their manners, and ob- 
 served the feeling that whs evident in the replies of some, and 
 the talent and promptitude that shone forth in the replies 
 of many — when, along with all this, we were made to rejoice 
 in the greetings of the assembled parentage, and shared their 
 triumph and satisfaction in the proficiency of their own offspring, 
 whom, poor as they were, tiiey, out of their own unaided re- 
 sources, had so respectably arrayed — when we further reflected, 
 that the living scene befoie us, was not made up of the scant- 
 lings of a whole city, but was formed by the compact popula- 
 tion of one small but thoroughly explored vicinage, — With our 
 eyes open to what had thus been done by the moral force of 
 
^ APPENDIX, 301 
 
 care and kindness on the part of one indi vidua), we could not 
 miss the inference, that, with a right distribution, it was in the 
 power of a number of individuals, to throw another aspect over 
 
 the habit and character of another generation Christian and 
 
 Economic Polity of a I^ation. 
 
 XVII, Section IV. § 26. — Testimony of Dr. 
 M'Farlan. 
 
 April 20th, :8:?nt 
 My dear Sir, — You cannot be more fully satisfied of the 
 excellence of the St. John's system of pauperism than I aui, 
 nor can I imagine how any man who approves of our country 
 parish system can object to it, for it has always appeared to me 
 to be neither more nor less than the Scottish country parisli 
 system applied by means of a peculiar agency or machinery to 
 cur city parishes. I hope to be able, at no distant period, to 
 show, that if there is in our large towns a greater number of 
 poor, there is also a much greater amount of wealth to supply 
 the wants of the poor, and no want of a disposition to apply it 
 to that purpose. The St. John's system a()pears to me to 
 create the link which connects the ri?h and the beneficent with 
 the poor, it being the otfice of the deacons not only to prevent 
 imposture by their rigid examination of all the cases which come 
 before them, but also to bring the real and deserving poor 
 under the eye of those who may have it in their power to pro- 
 vide work for their children, or to contribute otherwise to their 
 relief. As the friend of the poor, I am an advocate for the sys- 
 tem ; I am convinced that if it universally prevailed in our large 
 towns, it would greatly alleviate much of the misery which now 
 exists, and, by creating and strengthening habits of industry 
 and economy, would promote materially the moral improve- 
 ment, and consequently the happiness of the poor. 
 
 The experience of the sixteen months during which I was 
 minister of St. John's confirmed the favourable opinion which 
 1 previously entertained of the system ; it worked well in all 
 respects; with an income from collections not much exceeding 
 jG300 we kept down the pauperism of a parish containing a 
 population of 10,000, and 1 know from actual observation that 
 the poor were in better condition, and excepting the worthlessand 
 profligate who applied, and were refused assistance, were nu)re 
 contented and happy than the poor in the other paiishes of 
 Glasgow; I was also agreeably disappointed at finding that Dr. 
 Chalmers was not the only person having snilicient influence to 
 obtain the aid of the respectable members of liis congregation 
 ill administering the alfairs of the pi>or. 1 had not the smuiit'St 
 
302 A.PPENDIX. 
 
 (lilliculty in procuring a sufficient number of deacons for tliat 
 purpose. 
 
 You are aware, that in the month of November, 1825, I 
 was appointed to another parish in this city, at that time under 
 the old system ; and although that system was better admiiiis- 
 tered in St. Enoch's parish than it was perhaps in any other ia 
 similar circumstances, I could not fail to perceive its defects ; 
 and, therefore, with the concurrence of the kirk-session, asys* 
 tern in all essential points similar to that of St. John's has been 
 established. It has now been in operation for eight or nine 
 months, and has hitherto succeeded to my utmost wishes. 
 The assessment is the only thing that stands in my way ; it 
 chills both public and private charity ; many of the wealthy 
 members of my congregation do not hesitate to assign it as an 
 apology for contributing sparingly to our church-door collections; 
 and I fear that it has a pernicious influence on their habits of 
 private charity ; notwithstanding, we are confident of success. 
 
 Wishing all success to those who would ward of from the poor 
 of Ireland the dreadful influence of poor rates, 
 
 I am, My dear Sir, yours always sincerely, 
 
 Patrick M'Farlane. 
 
 XVIII. Sectiox IV. § 27. — Discouragements under 
 which the St, Johns System laboured, and in virtue 
 of which its discontinuance was anticipated as far 
 hack as 1830. 
 
 I have to state that we are under very peculiar disadvantage* 
 in these parishes, St. Enoch's and St. John's ; because it has a 
 paralyzing influence on the liberalities of the wealthy to our 
 poor, that those wealthy are also brought in to support tlie 
 expenditure of the general system in Glasgow, and it is ex- 
 tremely discouraging, that though we have cleared away the 
 burden of a compulsory provision from the parish of St. John's, 
 yet the liouscholders and the proprietors in that parish are just 
 as much subject as before to assessment for the general expenses 
 of the poor in the city. 
 
 I think it right to say, in regard to the present state of St. 
 John's, as justifying a reliance upon the result of our experi- 
 ment, that there is in one respect a very great precariousness : 
 for let two or tiiree only of the agents relax their management 
 by a very little, such is the inherent power of increase in all 
 systems of public charity which are carelessly conducted, that it 
 would be in the power even of these few to overset the experi. 
 »)«iit. The true doctrinal inference which may be drawn out 
 
AITESDII. 303 
 
 of the past history of St. John's ought not to be affected by any 
 thing future in the history of that piirish, particularly when one 
 adverts to the very great discouragements by which the parish 
 is surrounded, as well as the great mischief which it is in the 
 power even of a small fraction of the agency tof bring' upon the 
 parisii, by letting down the strictness of their administration. 
 The discouragements are great indeed : the establishment of a 
 new system always makes slow progress amongst practical men, 
 insomuch that I have found it far easier practically to do the 
 thing, than to convince men that the thing is practicable. There 
 is a considerable feeling of hostility to this gratuitous method of 
 relieving the poor. — Evidence before the Commons' Committee. 
 
 XIX. Section- IV. § 28.— -Extracts from 3Ir. TufneVs 
 Report. 
 
 This system has been attended with the most triumphant 
 success for thirteen years; it is now in perfect operation, and 
 not a doubt is expressed by its managers of its continuing to 
 remain so. The poor which St. John's had in the hospital 
 have diminished by deaths to four, and even the expense of 
 maintaining these is paid for by the parish out of its collectiotis, 
 consequently it has to undergo the hardship of being assessed 
 for the support of the poor, without receiving a farthing's bene- 
 fit from the money so raised, as not a single pauper belonging 
 to it is maintained by the assessment. 
 
 The chief virtue of the new systein seems to consist in the 
 closer investigation which each new case of pauperism receives, 
 by which means the parish is prevented from being imposed on ; 
 and as it is well known by the poor that this severe scrutiny 
 is never omitted, attempts at imposition are less frequently 
 practised. The laxity of the old management and utility of 
 this investigation may be exemplified by what occurred when 
 it was first put in practice. As all the St. John's sessional 
 poor were closely examined, it was thought unfair not to bring 
 their out-door Hospital poor, which the old system had left, to 
 the same scrutiny ; when it was discovered that many persons 
 were receiving relief who had no claim to it, and who were 
 consequently instantly struck off the roll; one man was found 
 in the receipt of a weekly allowance wlio had eiglit work- 
 men under him. It may safely be averred, thiit under the pre- 
 sent management sucli an instance could not possibly occur. 
 It is right, however, to mention, that in the other Glasgow 
 parishes a much closer attention is bestowed on each cam of 
 P'uperism than formeily. 
 
304 APPENDIX. 
 
 In spite, however, of tliis success, the lovers of the old sys- 
 tem still oppose the new as keenly as ever ; and there seems 
 to be as much difference of opinion in Glasgow at present 
 respecting its merits as when it was (irst estsblished. Amidst 
 these conflicting statements it would be pi tsuinptuous in a 
 stranger to give an opinion except so fur as it is drawn from 
 facts, and these it seems are all in favoui' of it. 
 
 When this system was begun, it was declared by its oppo- 
 nents that it could not last, but it has lasted for thirteen years: 
 that it eould only exist under Dr Chalmers, but it has existed 
 equally well under his two successors, Dr. M'Farlan and Dr. 
 Brown : that in no other church so large offerings could be 
 collected, as an undue proportion of rich attended St. John's 
 church. This, I am assured by the residents is incorrect, and 
 that the congregation is not richer tlian an average one. Dur- 
 ing Dr. Chalmers's incumbency, the large amount of the collec- 
 tions was doubtless paitly owing to his popularity, as they 
 have since declined on the average ; but by an inspection of the 
 fifth column of the table, it will be seen that they at present 
 far exceed what is given in any other parish. This, 1 have 
 little doubt, is owing to the knowledge, which the church-goers 
 have, that the sole dependence of the poor is on the collections. 
 This is the case so uniformly in every parish I have visited, that 
 it might be known, whether the poor of any place in Scotland 
 were supported by assessment, simply by an inspection of the 
 amount of offerings at the church door. 
 
 It has been said, that sii'.ce the parishes of Glasgow are not 
 protected against each other's poor by the law of settlement, 
 the small number of the St. John's paupers is owing to their 
 poor being mostly driven out of the parish by the harsh treat- 
 ment they might receive. Before this system was commenced, 
 80 confident was the founder of it that the reverse would take 
 place, that the poor would prefer instead of avoiding his parish 
 on account of the different mode of treating them, that he actu- 
 ally stipulated, in a letter to one of the magistrates published 
 at the time, that the law of settlement should take efTect be- 
 tween his parish and the other paiishes ; in other words, that 
 he should be protected from the influx of paupers from other 
 parishes, which in return were to be similarly protected agaiiist 
 his own. And so correct were his anticipations (the stipula- 
 tion not having been agreed to), that in the first three years of 
 the existence of the leformed i)lan, twice as many paupers came 
 ill as went out; and one of the managers assures me, that a 
 constant preference seems given by the, poor to St. John's 
 above other parishes, on account of the different way of treat- 
 ing them; at any rate there is no disiucliuation to dwell in it. 
 
 The essence of the St. John's maniigement consists in lUv 
 
APPENDIX. 305 
 
 •uperior system of inspection which it establishes ; tiiis is 
 brought about by causing the applicants for aid to address them- 
 selves, in the first instance, to persons of station and character^ 
 whose sole parochial duty consists in examinin^r into their con- 
 dition, and who are always ready personally to pay a kind attei:- 
 tion to tlieir complaints. 
 
 This personal attention of the rich to the poor seems to be 
 one of the most efficient modes of preventing pauperism. It is 
 a subject of perpetual complaint that the poor do not receive 
 the charities of the rich with gratitude. The reason of this 
 appears to be, that the donation of a few shillings from a rich 
 man to a poor one is no subtraction from the giver's comforts, 
 and consequently is no proof of his interest in the other's wel- 
 fare : it seems natural and reasonable that there should be some 
 proportion preserved between the gratitude felt for a favour 
 conferred, and the difficulty or inconvenience that the doer of 
 it is put to in conferring it. If the rich give their time to the 
 poor instead of their money, they part with a commodity which 
 the poor see is valuable to the givers, and consequently 
 esteem the attention the more, as it implies an interest in their 
 prosperity; and a feeling seems to be engendered in their minds 
 of unwillingness to press on the kindness of those who thu* 
 prove themselves ready to sympathise with them in distress, 
 and to do their utmost to relieve it. This feeling acts as a 
 spur to the exertions of the poor; their efforts to depend on 
 their own resources are greater ; and consequently the chance 
 of their becoming dependent on the bounty of others less. 
 
 In St. John's |)arish this personal attendance on the poor is 
 carried to the greatest possible extent , every application for 
 assistance is sure to be met with patietit attention, as far 
 removed as possible from magisterial haughtiness, and instead 
 of the continued bickerings between the overseer and the ob-. 
 jects of relief, which frequently characterise the administration 
 of an English parish, a friendly intercourse between rich and 
 poor ensures to the latter a ready relief and a just appreciation 
 of their distresses, to the former, that their bounty will not be 
 abused, or their attentions be undervalued or unacknowledged. 
 — Appendix to Christian and Economic Polity/ of a Nation. 
 
 XX. Sectio.'^ IV. § 33. — Summary Reflection on the 
 Experience of St, Johns. 
 
 The managers of the poor for the parish of St. John's are in 
 I'he best possible circumstancer, for observation on these points, 
 ^ome of them will recollect the stato oi matters anterior tj 
 
 21 " 
 
306 APPENDIX. 
 
 1819; and they will not have forgotten their experience dur. 
 ing the currency of the undertaking from 1819 to 1837. But, 
 last of all, they have now entered on the reverse experience o 
 the old system again in operation ; and they can tell what the 
 blessings are which have tiovved in its train — or wliether in 
 their consciences they can say, that they witness any ameliora- 
 tion therefrom 'n the peace and contentment of the parish, 
 or in the substantial well-being of its families. For our- 
 selves we cannot but look on the period from 1819 to 1837, 
 as a precious interval of light ; and though the lesson then 
 given forth was unheeded at the time, and is now with* 
 drawn from the observation of men refusing to be schooled by 
 it — yet the truth it told is stable and everlasting, at least as 
 abiding as is the constitution of humanity, or as are the laws of 
 that nature which God hath given to us. It remains an article 
 in our creed, proclaimed to sitccessive students, for guidance i.i 
 their future parishes — that for the relief of general indigence, 
 the charity of law ought in every instance to be displaced, to 
 make room for the charity of principle and of spontaneous kind- 
 ness litJliCtions of 1839 on the Eperience of P hiicrism in 
 
 Glaagow. 
 
 XXI. Section IV. § 30. — Process of Extrkatwn from 
 the Compulsory iSystein for the Assessed Parishes of 
 Scotland. 
 
 The retracing process, in such a case, is very obvious. Let 
 the Kirk-Session be vested with the sole management of the 
 gratuitous fund, in which it will be the wisdom of the Heritors 
 not to interfere with them. Let all the existing ca^es of pau- 
 periscD, "it the outset of the proposed reformation, be laid upon 
 the compulsory fund, and seen out without any diHerence in 
 their relation, or in the rate of their allowance, from what 
 would have obtained under the old system. Let the Session 
 undertake the new oases alone, with tlie money raised from the 
 free-will offerings at the chuich doois, which offeiings they 
 may stimulate or not as they shall see cause. Let them give 
 their heart and their entrgy to the enterpiise, and a very few 
 years will find the parish totally relievi^d of assessments, by the 
 dying away of the old pauperism ; and the revenue of the Ses- 
 sion, as drawn fioni purely Scottish sources, will be cjuite com- 
 petent to the expenses of the new pauperiaui. — CUrinliuu. uud 
 Keoiwmic Polity of a ^i^lioju 
 
A.PPENDIX. 307 
 
 XXII. Section V. § 5. — Replacement of the Artificial 
 by the Natural Charity. 
 
 1. The first case tlmt occurs to us, is that of a weaver, who, 
 though he had sixpence a-day as a pension, was certainly put 
 into circumstances of difficulty, when two winters ago, in a 
 season of great depression, the typhus fever made its deadly 
 inroads upon his household. His distress was, in the highest 
 degree, striking and noticeable : and it may, therefore, look 
 strange that no sessional movement was made towards the re- 
 lief of so afflicted a family. Our confidence was in the sym- 
 pathies and kind offices of the immediate neighbourhood ; and 
 we felt quite assured that any interference of ours might have 
 checked or superseded these to such a degree, as would have 
 intercepted more of aid, than is ever granted by the most 
 liberal and wealthiest of all our public institutions. An out- 
 cry, however, was raised against us — and we felt compelled, 
 for our own vindication, to investigate as far as we could, the 
 amount of supplies that had been rendered, and actually found 
 that it exceeded, at least, ten times the whole sum that would 
 Lave been allowed, in the given circumstances, out of the fund 
 raised by assessment. It reconciled us the more to our new 
 system, when given to understand, that the most liberal of all 
 the benefactions was called forth by the simple information, 
 that nothing had been done by any of the legal or parochial 
 charities — nor did we meet with any thing more instructive in 
 the course of these inquiries, than the obvious feeling of each 
 contributor, that all he had given was so very insignificant. 
 And it is just so, that the power of individual benevolence is 
 greatly underrated. Each is aware how incommensurate his 
 own offering is to the necessity in question, and would, there- 
 fore, desiderate or demand a public administration of relief, else 
 it is feared that nothing adequate has been done. He never 
 thinks of that arithmetic by which it can be computed, that all 
 the private offerings of himself and others, far outweigh that 
 relief which, had it issued from the exchequer of a session or 
 an almshouse, would have arrested those numerous rills of 
 beneficence that are sure to flow in, upon every case of visible 
 destitution or distress, from the surrounding vicinity. — Appen- 
 dix to Speech delivered before the General Assembly of 1822. 
 
308 APPENDIX. 
 
 XXIII. Section VII. § 7.— Wisdom and Safety of 
 Public Charities for the Belief of Disease ; and 
 their distinction in this respect from a Public Charittf 
 for the Relief of Indigence. 
 
 There is a class of necessities in the relief of which public 
 charity is not at all deleterious, and which she might safely be 
 left to single out and to support, both as liberally and as osten- 
 sibly as she may. We allude to all tiiose varieties, whether 
 of mental or of bodily disease, for which it is a wise and salu- 
 tary thing to rear a public institution. We hold it neither 
 wise nor salutary to have any such asylum for the impotency 
 that springeth from age ; for this is not an unforeseen exigency, 
 but one, that, in the vast majority of instances, could have been 
 provided for by the care of the individual. And neither is it 
 an exigency that is destitute of all resource in the claims and 
 obligations of nature, for what more express, or more clearly 
 imperative, than the duty of children? A systematic pro- 
 vision for age in any land, is tantamount to a systematic 
 hostility against its virtues, both of prudence and of natural 
 piety. But there are other infirmities and other visita- 
 tions, to which our nature is liable, and a provision for which 
 stands clearly apart from all that is exceptionable. We refer 
 not to those current household diseases, which are incidental, 
 on the average, to every family, but to those more special in- 
 flictions of distress, by which in one or more of its members, a 
 family is sometimes set apart and signalized. A child who is 
 blind, or speechless, or sunk in helpless idiotism, puts into this 
 condition, the family to uhich it belongs. No mischief what- 
 ever can accrue from every such case being fully met and pro- 
 vided for — and it were the best vindication of a Kiik-Session, 
 for the spiireiiess of its allowances, on all those occasions where 
 the idle might work, or kinsfolk might inteipose, that it gives 
 succour to the uttermost of its means, in all those fatalities of 
 nature, which no prudence could avert, and which being not 
 chargeable as a fiuilt, ought neither to be chargeable as an ex- 
 pense, on any poor and strugj^ling family. 
 
 It maybe at once seen, wherein lies the distinction between 
 the necessities of signal and irremediable disease, and those 
 merely of general indigence. A provit.ion, however conspicuous, 
 for the former, will not add one instance of distress more to the 
 already existing catalogue. A provision for the latter, if regu- 
 lar and procliiimed, u ill furthermore be counted on — and so be 
 sure to multiply its own objects, to create, in fact, niOre of 
 general want liian it supplies. To qualify tor the tirst kind o( 
 
APPKNDIX. 309 
 
 relief, one must be blliul. or deaf, or lunatic, or maimed, which 
 no man is wilfully — so tliat this walk of charity can be over- 
 taken, and without any corrupt influence on those who are 
 sustained by it. To qualify for the second kind of relief, one 
 has only to be poor, which many become wilfully, and always too 
 in numbers which exceed the promise and the power of public 
 charity to uphold them^so that this walk can not only never 
 "be overtaken, but, by every step of advancement upon it, it 
 stretches forth to a more hopeless distance than before, and i;; 
 also more crowded with the thriftless, and the beggarly, and the 
 immoral. Tiie former cases are put into our hand by nature in 
 a certain definite amount — and she lias farther, established in 
 the human constitution such a recoil from pain, or from the 
 extinction of any of the senses, as to form a sure guarantee 
 against the multiplication of them. The latter cases are put 
 into our haiuls by man, and his native love of indolence or dissi- 
 pation becomes a spontaneous and most productive fountain of 
 poverty, in every land where public charity has interposed to 
 disarm it of its terrors. It is thus, that while pauperism has 
 most egregiously failed to provide an asylum, in which to bar- 
 bour all the indigence of a country, there is no such impossi- 
 bility in the attempt to harbour derangement, or special impo- 
 tency and disease. The one enterprise must ever fall short of 
 its design, and, at the same time, carry a moral deterioration 
 in its train. The other may fulfil its design to the uttermost, 
 and without the alloy of a single evil that either patriot or 
 economist can fear. 
 
 The doings of our Saviour in the world, after he entered on 
 his career as a minister, had in them much of the eclat of 
 public charity. Had he put his miraculous power of feedin:" 
 itito full operation, it would have thrown the people loose from 
 all regular liahits, and sjiread riot and disorder over the face ot 
 the land. But there was no such drawback to liis miraculous 
 power of iiealing. And we tliitik it both marks the profound- 
 ness of his wisdom, and might serve to guide the institu- 
 tions and the schemes of j)hilanthropy, that while we read of 
 but two occasions on which he multiplied loaves for a people 
 who had been overtaken with hunger, and one on which he 
 refused the miracle to a people who crowded about bim for 
 the purpose of being fed, he laid no limitation whatever oi 
 his supernatural faculties, when they followed him for the 
 purpose of being cured. But it is recorded of him again and 
 again, that when the halt, and the withered, and the blind, 
 and the impotent, atul those afflicted with divers diseases. 
 were brought unto him, he looked to them, and he had com- 
 passioti on them, and he healed them all. 
 
 This then is one safe and salutary absorbent for the rcven..* 
 
310 APPENDIX. 
 
 of a Kirk-Session. The dumb and the blind, and the insane 
 of a parish, may be freely alimented therewitli, to the great 
 relief of those few families who have thus been specially 
 afflicted. Such a destination of the fund could excite no beg- 
 garly spirit in other families, which, wanting the peculiar claim, 
 would feel that they had no part or interest in the peculiar 
 compassion. There is vast comfort in every walk of philanthropy, 
 where a distinct and defi.nite good is to be accomplished, and 
 whereof, at a certain given expense, we are sure to reach the 
 consummation. Now, this is a comfort attendant on that sepa- 
 rate direction of the poor's money which we have now recom- 
 mended — but the main advantage that we should count upon, 
 is its wholesome effect on the general administration and state 
 of pauperism. The more systematically and ostensibly that 
 the parochial maiiagers proceeded on the distinction between 
 special impotency and general indigence, the more, at length, 
 would the applicants on the latter plea, give way to the appli- 
 cants on the former. The manifest superiority of the first 
 claim to the second, would go at once to the hearts of the 
 people; and mere indigence would be taught, that in the 
 moderation of her demands, there was a high service of 
 humanity rendered to still more abject helplessness than her 
 own. 'J'he Sabbath offering might gradually come to be re- 
 garded as a sort of consecrated treasure, set apart for those 
 whom Providence had set apart from the rest of the species. 
 Nor would indigence suffer from this rejection of her claims 
 by public charity. She would only be throu n back on the better 
 resources that await her in the amenities and kindnesses of 
 private life. And it is thus that a great positive good might 
 be rendered out of the parochial administration, to one class of 
 sufferers, while both the delicacies of the general poor, and the 
 sympathies of that individual benevolence on which all their 
 
 wants might safely be devolved, would be fully upholden. 
 
 Christian and Economic Polity of a Nation. 
 
 There are many distresses incidental to humanity, the inflic- 
 tions of necessity and nature, which cannot be too openly or 
 too liberally provided for. 'J'here is all the difference that can 
 be imagined, in point both of principle and effect, between an 
 institution for the relief of want, and an institution for the re- 
 lief of disease. The one multiplies its objects. Not so the 
 other. The one enlists the human will on its side. The other 
 will ever remain the object of painful reluctance and revolt to 
 all the feelings of our sentient nature. Open a door of ad- 
 mission for the indigent, and we shall behold a crowd of appli- 
 cants increasing every year, because lured thitherward by the 
 inviting path of indolence or dissipation. Open a door for the 
 admission of the diseased, and we shall only have a definite 
 
AFFENDIX. 311 
 
 ii'jaiber of applirants. Men will become voluntarily poor, but 
 they will not become voluntarily blind or deaf or maimed or 
 lunatic. It is thus, that while an asylum for want creates more 
 objects than it can satisfy ; an asylum for disease creates none, 
 but may meet all and satisfy all. Public charity has been pro- 
 fuse where it ought not, and it has also been niggardly where 
 it ought not. It is a disgrace to our philanthropic age, if in- 
 firmaries, or dispensaries, or asylums, whether for the cure of 
 mental and bodily disease, or for the keeping of that which is 
 incurable, are left to languish from want of support, or com- 
 pelled to stop short, ere the necessity for which they were 
 
 instituted has been fully and finally overtaken Political 
 
 Economy. 
 
 XXIV. Section VIII. § i.— TIw practice of Malthu- 
 sianism long anterior to the promulgation of its 
 philosophy. 
 
 If we revert to the habit of the last generation in Scotland, 
 which is still fresh in the remembrance of many who are row 
 alive, we shall find an ample verification of all these remarks. 
 At that time, Malthus had *iot written, and his speculation 
 had little more than an embryo existence in the pages of Wal- 
 lace ; and, certain it is, that, in the minds of our solid and 
 regular and well-doing peasantry, it had no existence at all. 
 It was acted upon, but without being at all counted upon. 
 It was one of the cherished and domestic decencies of a former 
 age, transmitted from every matron to her daughters, not to 
 marry without a costly and creditable provision ; and the de- 
 lay of years, was often incurred, in the mighty work of piling 
 together, tiie whole material of a most bulky and laborious pre- 
 paration ; and the elements of future comfort and future re- 
 spectability, behoved to be accumulated to a very large extent, 
 ere it was lawful, or at least reputable, to enter upon the con- 
 dition of matrimony — and thus the moral preventive check of 
 our great economist, was in full aiul wholesome operation, lonu' 
 before it was offered by him to public notice, in the shape of u 
 distinct and salutary principle. And, if we wish to revive its 
 influence among the people, this will not be done, we appre- 
 hend, by cheapening the currency of his doctrine, and bringing 
 it down to the level of the popular understanding. It must 
 be by other tracts than those of political economy, that we 
 shall recover the desceruling habit of our countrymen. It must 
 be by addresses of a more powerful character, than those which 
 point to the futurities of an earthly existence. It must be, nut 
 
312 Al'PENUlS. 
 
 by men labouring, however strenuously, after some great poll, 
 tical achievement, but by men labouring for the good of im- 
 perishable spirits — by men who have their conversation in 
 lieaven, and who, with their eye full upon its glories, feel tbt 
 comparative insignihcance of the pilgrimage which leads to it. 
 And not till we recall the Christianity — shall we ever recall 
 the considerate sobiiety, the steady equalised comfort, the 
 virtuous independence of a generation, the habit and the 
 
 memory of which are so fast departing away from us CAris- 
 
 iian and Economic Polity of a Nation, 
 
 XXV. Sectiox VIII. § 5.— The effect of Christianity^ 
 in raising the Standard of Enjoyment. 
 
 Our political writers, if at all honestly desirous of obtain- 
 ing a fulfilment for their own speculation, should look towards 
 the men who are titted to expatiate among the people, in the 
 capacity of their most acceptable and efficient moralists. It is 
 evident that they themselves are not the best adapted for such 
 a practical movement through a community of human beings. 
 It is not by any topic or any demons' ration of theirs, that we 
 can at all look for a general welcomt and admittance amongst 
 families. Let one of their number, for example, go forth with 
 the argument of Malthus, or any other of the lessons of poli- 
 tical economy, and that, for the purpose of enlightening the 
 practice and observation of his neighbourhood. The very first 
 leception that he met with, would, in all likelihood, check the 
 farther progress of this moial and benevolent adventure, and 
 *tamp upon it all the folly and all the fruitlessness of Quixotism. 
 People would laugh, or wonder, or be offended ; and a sense 
 of the utterly ridiculous would soon attach itself to this ex- 
 pedition, and lead him to abandon it. Now, herein lies the 
 great initial superiority which the merely Christian has over 
 the merely civil philanthropist. He is armed with a topic of 
 ready and pertinent introduction, with which he may go round 
 a population, and come into close and extensive contact with 
 all the families. Let his erraiul be connected with religion ; 
 and, even though a very obscure and wholly unsanctioned in- 
 dividual, may he enter within the precincts of nearly every 
 »ousehold, and not meet with one act of rpdeness or resistance 
 during the whole of his progress. Should he only, for example, 
 invite their young to his Sabbath-School, iie, with this for his 
 professed object, would iind himself in possession of a passpon, 
 upon which, and more especially among the common ranks oi 
 »ociety, he might step into almost every dwelling-place ; rp.U 
 
APPENDIX. 313 
 
 engage the inmates in cotivereatiotis of piety ; and leave, at 
 Jeast, the sensations of cordiality and gratitude behind him; 
 and pave the way for successive applicntions of the same in- 
 fluence ; and secure this acknowledgment in favour of his sub* 
 ject, that it is worthy of being proposed on the one side, and 
 worthy of being entertained and patiently listened to, on the 
 other. It is not of his final success that we are now speaking. 
 It is of his advantageous outset. It is of that wide and effectual 
 door of access to the population, which the Christian phil- 
 anthropist has, and which the civil pliilantbiopist has not—. 
 and from which it follows, that if the lessons of the former are 
 at all fitted to induce a habit favourable to the objects of the 
 latter, the economist who underrates the gospel of Jt'sus 
 Christ, and the zeal of its devoted labourers, is deposing from 
 their rightful estimation, the best auxiliaries of his cause. 
 
 And it would save a world of misconception, were it dis* 
 tinctly kept in mind, that, for the purpose of giving effect to 
 Ihe lessons of the economist, it is not necessary for him who 
 labours in the gospel vineyard, either to teach, or even so much 
 as to understand, these lessons. Let him simply confine him- 
 self to his own strict atid peculiar business — let him labour for 
 immortality alone — let his single aim be to convert and to 
 christianise, and, as the result of prayer and exertion, to sue-, 
 ceed in depositing with some the faith of the New Testament, 
 so as that they shall held forth to the esteem and the imitation 
 of many, the virtues of the New Testament ; and he does more 
 for the civil and economical well-being of his neighbourhood, 
 than he ever could do by the influence of all secular demonstra- 
 tion. Let his desire and his devotedness be exclusively to- 
 wards the life that is to come, and without borrowiitg one 
 argument from ihe irrterest of the life that now is, will he do 
 more to bless and to adorn its condition, than can be done by 
 all the other efforts of patriotism and philosophy put together. 
 It were worse than ridiculous, and it most assuredly is not re- 
 quisite, for him to become the champion of any economic theoiy, 
 with the principles of which he should constantly be irrfusing 
 either his pulpit or his parochial ministrations. His office may 
 be upheld in the entire aspect of its sacredness; and the main 
 desire and prayer of his heart towards God, in behalf of his 
 brethren, may be that they should be saved ; and the engross- 
 ment of his mind with the one thirrg needful, may be as com- 
 plete as was that of the Apostle, who determined to know 
 nothing among his hearers, save Jesus Christ, and Him cruci- 
 fied — and yet, such is the fulness of the blessing of the gospel 
 \vith which he is fraught, that while he renders the best pos- 
 sible service to the converts whom, under the Spirit of God, 
 be has gained to its cause ; be also, in the person of these con- 
 
?Ai APPENDIX 
 
 verts, renders the best possible contribution to tlie temporal 
 good of society. It is enough, that they have been rescued 
 trora the dominion of sensuality ; — it is enough, that they have 
 become the disciples of that book, which, while it teaches 
 them to be fervent in spirit, teaches them also to be net 
 slothful in business; — it is enough, that the Christian faith 
 has been formed with such power in their hearts, as to 
 bring out the Christian morals into visible exemplification 
 upon their history; — it is eirough, that the principle within 
 tht-m, if it do not propagate its own likeness in others, can 
 at least, like the salt to which they have been compared, 
 season a whole vicinity with many of its kindred and secondary 
 attributes. There is not a more familiar exhibition in humble 
 life, than that alliance, in virtue of which a Christian family is 
 almost always sure to be a well-conditioned family. And yet 
 Its members are utterly unversant, either in the maxims or in 
 the speculations of political science. They occupy the right 
 place in a rightly-constituted and well-going mechanism ; but 
 the mechanism itself is what they never hear of, and could not 
 comprehend. Their Christian adviser never reads them a 
 lesso!! from the writings of any economist; and yet the moral 
 habit to which the former has been the instrument of conduct- 
 ing them., is that which brings them into a state of practical 
 conformity witli the soundest and most valuable lessons which 
 the latter can devise. And now that hubit aiid character and 
 education among the poor, have become the mighty elements 
 of all that is recent in political theory — as well may the in- 
 ventor of a philosophical apparatus, disown the aid of those 
 artisans, who, in utter ignorance of its use, only know how to 
 prepare and put together its materials — as may the most sound 
 and ingenious speculator in the walks of civil economy, disown 
 the aid of those Chiistian labourers, who, in utter ignorance of 
 the new doctrine of population, only know how to otficiate in 
 that path of exertion, by which the members of our actual 
 population may be made pure, and prudent, and pious.— 
 Christian and Economic Polity of a Nation. 
 
 XXVI. Section VIII. § 8.— The effect of a xcelU 
 administered Parochial System in Scotland. 
 
 There is a most fiightful picture given of the state of Scot- 
 land in 1698, by Fletcher of Saltoun, as "appears from the fol- 
 lowing extract 
 
 There are at this day in Scotland (besides a great number of 
 families very meanly piovided for by the church boxes, with 
 
APPENDIi. 315 
 
 others who, with living upon bad food, fall into various diseases) 
 200,000 people begging from door to door. These are not only 
 no ways advantageous, but a very grievous burden to so poor 
 a country; and though the nuinljer of them be perhaps doui)le 
 to what it was formerly, by reason of the present great distress, 
 yet in all times there have been about 100,000 of these vaga- 
 bonds, who have lived without any regard or submission either 
 to the laws of the land, or even of those of God and nature ; 
 fathers incestuously accompanying their own daughters, the son 
 with the mother, and the brother with the sister. No magis- 
 trate could ever discover or be informed which way any of these 
 wretches died, or that ever they were baptized. Many mur- 
 derers have been discovered among them ; and they are not 
 only a most unspeakable oppression to the poor tenants, (who, 
 if they give not bread or some sort of provision to peihaps forty 
 such villains in one day, are sure to be insulted by them,) but 
 they rob many poor people who live in houses distatit from any 
 neighbourhood. In years of plenty many thousands of them 
 meet together in the mountains, where they feast and riot for 
 many days ; and at country weddings, markets, burials, and 
 other the like public occasions, they are to be seen, both men 
 and women, perpetually drunk, cursing, blas|)lieming, and fight- 
 ing together. 
 
 Does it appear, from historical records, that that state of 
 things continued long after the date of the work of Fletcher of 
 Saltoun? — It appears, from very distinct historical documents, 
 that that state of things subsided almost per sallum, very sud- 
 denly indeed, when the population had leave to repose from 
 the religious persecutions, and the parochial system of educa- 
 tion was again general. 'J'hey were besides plied from Sab- 
 bath to Sabbath by an efficient and acceptable clergy, in conse- 
 quence of which, the transformation appears to have been quite 
 niarvelloLS. 'I'iie extract I have now read, refers to the year 
 1698. The extract I am about to read, refers to a period of 
 time only nineteen years distant, 1717. It is taken from Defoe, 
 the author of Robinson Crusoe. " The people," says he, " are 
 restrained in the ordinary practice of common immoralities, 
 such as swearing, drunkenness, slander, fornication, and tj)e 
 like. As to theft, murder, and other capital crimes, they come 
 under the cognizance of the civil magistrate as in other coun- 
 tries; but in tiiose things which the church has power to punish, 
 the people being constantly and impartially prosecuted, they 
 are thereby the more restrained, kept sober, and under govern, 
 ment, and you may pass through twenty towns in Scotland 
 without seeing any broil, or hearing one oath sworn in the 
 streets; whereas, if a blind man was to come froBi there into 
 England, he shall know the first town he sets his foot in within 
 
316 APPENDIX. 
 
 the English border, by hearing the name of God blasphemed 
 and profanely used, even by the very little children on the 
 street." — Evidence before the Cojuhwhs' Committee. 
 
 XXVII. Section IX. § 8. — HJffect of a Poor Bate in 
 Reducing Wages to the level of a Charity Allowance. 
 
 The following little narrative is by the overseer of LoTig Bur- 
 ton, in Dorsetshire ; a parish with a population of only three 
 hundred and twenty-seven, and therefore peculiarly adapted 
 for the distinct exhibition of any influence which its parochial 
 economy might have on the state of its inhabitants. 
 
 The overseer had three able-bodied men out uf employment, 
 and whom it fell upon him to dispose of. The farmers all satu- 
 rated with workmen, could not take them in ; and rather than 
 send them to work upon the roads, he applied to a master 
 mason in the neighbourhood, who engaged to take their services 
 at the low rate of six shillings in the week — the parish to 
 make up the deficiency to the three men, so as that they should, 
 on the whole, have fifteen pence a- week for each member of 
 their families. The mason had previously in his employment, 
 from seven to ten men, at the weekly wage of eight or nine 
 shillings each. But no sooner did he take in these three 
 supernumeraries from the parish at six shillings, than he began 
 to treat anew with his old workmen, and threatened to dis- 
 charge them if they would not consent to a lower wage. This 
 of course would have thrown them all upon the parish, for the 
 difference between their reduced and their present wages ; 
 upon perceiving which, tiie overseer instantly drew back his 
 three men from the mason, and at length contrived to dispose 
 of them otherwise.' Upon this the wages of the journeymen 
 
 masons reverted to what they were before Christian and EcO' 
 
 nomic Polity of a Nation. 
 
 1 The following is an extract of a letter received from the overseer, ilr. 
 Poole : — 
 
 '• The facts respecting the three men at Long Burton, were as follows : 
 ytfi had three able men out of emiiloy, and rather than send them on the 
 roads to work, we eiisaged with Mr. Peiratt, the mason, for them, at six 
 shillings per week eiich. Mr. Peiratt was at that time giviii, his men 
 (from seven to ten men) eij;ht or nine shillings each. Mr. Perratt then saw 
 he could get men at a lower rate, and informed some of his old hands that 
 he should discluirge and lower the wages; therefore, in consequence those 
 men (or many of them) would, t their discharge, become very burdensome 
 to the parish of Long Uurton. We immediately saw our error, of letting him 
 ha^ e men at a low rate, (for recollect, it was one «r two shillings lower tlian 
 the farmers were giving at that time.) and took the men back on tlie roads 
 at certain prices, so as to make thei. iarnings fifteen pence per head, U>r 
 fhey fanu\'es ; which, with Mr. Perratt's six shillings }jer week, we were 
 o.'iligcd to n.»ke up trom the parish to fifteen pence per head, per week," 
 
APPENDIX. 317 
 
 XXVIII. Section IX. § 10. — ProporUun between the 
 Price of Labour and the Number of Labourers. 
 
 Labour might be considered in the light of a marketable 
 commodity — the supply of which is measured by tlie number 
 of labourers — and the price of which is regiihited, as in other 
 instances, l)y the proportion between this supply, and the de- 
 mand. This price paitakes, with that of the necessaries of life, 
 in being liable to great fluctuation ; and on the same principle, 
 too, but in a sort of reverse direction. It is the urgent need of 
 subsistence which so raises articles of the first necessity, even 
 upon a very slight shoitcoming from their usual quantity in the 
 market. And it is the same urgent need of subsistence which 
 so lowers the price of labour ; and that, upon a very s-light over- 
 plus in the number of labourers. What, in fa^t, looking to one 
 side of the negotiation, may be called the demand of the capi- 
 talists for labour, — when looking to the other side of if, may 
 be called the demand of the labourers for employment ; and, in 
 this latter demand, there may be all the importunity and vehe- 
 mence of a demand (or the necessaries of life. Employment, 
 in fact, is the vehicle on which these necessaries are brought 
 to their door ; and should there be more hands than are wanted, 
 rather than be tin own out of the competition altogetlier, there 
 will be a general cheapening of their labour, and so that the fall 
 in its price shall go greatly beyond the excess in the number of 
 labourers. Men must have subsistence ; and if employment 
 be the essential stepping-stone to this, men must have employ- 
 ment ; — and thus it is that capitalists have tlie same control 
 over workmen, « hen there is an excess in thtir number, which 
 the holders of the necessaries of life have over their customers, 
 when there is a deficiency in the crop. And so, the price of 
 labour too is a most tremulously variable element, and has as 
 wide a range of fluctuation as the price of corn. A very small 
 excess in tlie rmmber of labourers will create a much greater 
 propcrtional reduction in their wages. Should twenty thou- 
 sand weavers of muslin be adequate, on a fair recon)pense for 
 their work, to meet the natural demand that there is in that 
 branch of niatiufacture, an additional thousand of these unem- 
 ployed, and going about with their solicitations and offers among 
 the master-manufacturers, would bring a fearful distress and 
 (deficiency on the< circumstances of the whole body. The wages 
 would fall by much more than a twentieth part of what th<-y 
 were originally; and tluis, by a very trifling excess in tiie 
 number of workmen, might a very sore and widely felt depres- 
 eion be brought upon tlie comfort and sutficiency of the lower 
 orders, / 
 
318 appendlx. 
 
 Now, however mehiiicboly this contemplation might be in the 
 first instance, yet, by dwelling upon it a little further, we shall 
 be led to discover certain outlets and reparations that might 
 cause us to look more bopetuUy than ever on the future destinies 
 of our species. One thing is clear, that if so small a fractional 
 excess in the supply of labour, over its demand, is enough to 
 account for a very great deficiency in its remuneration, then, 
 after all, it may lie within the compass of a small fractional 
 relief to bring back the remuneration to its proper level, and 
 so restore the desirable equilibrium between the wages of a 
 workman and the wants of his family. It is comfortable to 
 know, that the misery of an overwrought trade is capable of 
 being retrieved on such easy terms — and that could either the 
 present small excess of labourers be otherwise disposed of, or 
 their future annual supply be somewhat and slightly reduced, 
 then might well-paid, and well-conditioned industry, that most 
 cheerful of all spectacles, again be lealised. Could any expe- 
 dient be devised by which the number of labourers might ba 
 more equalised to the need that there is tor them, then, instead 
 of the manufacturers having so oppressive a control over the 
 workmen, workmen might in some degree have a control over 
 manufacturers. We should certamly regard it as a far more 
 healthful state of the community, if our workmen, instead of 
 having to seek employment, were to be suuglit after; and that 
 masters had to go in rjuest of service, rather than that labourers 
 had to go a-begging lor it. It is most piteous to see a popula- 
 tion lying prostrate and overwhelmed under the weight of their 
 own numbers; nor are we aware of a finer object, botii for the 
 wisdom and benevolence of patriotism, than to devise a method 
 by which the lower orders might be rescued from this state of 
 apparent helplessness. This would be done, if they were only 
 relieved from the pressure of that competition by which they 
 now elbow out, or beat down each other ; but nothing more 
 certain, than that not till the number of workmen bears a less 
 proportion to the need which there is for tiiem, will they be 
 able to treat more independently with their employers, or 
 make a stand against all such terms of remuneration, as would 
 degrade their families beneath the par of huuian comfort. 
 
 That a very small excess of woikmen over the need which 
 there is for them, will create much more than a proportional 
 depression in tlieir wages, is just as true, as that a very small 
 deficiency in the supply of the corn-market will create much 
 more than a proportional rise in the price of that commodity. 
 Both are true, and on the same principle- too. It is, in either 
 case, a very sore mischief, traceable to a very slight cause ; and 
 which, therefore, perhaps, may admit of being cured by the appli- 
 cfivioii of a very slight corrective. It appears, by ^I'Pherson's 
 
APPENDIX. 319 
 
 Annals of Commerce, that the average importation of corn, 
 during a great many years, exclusive of the two remarkable sea- 
 sons of scarcity in 1800 and 1801, did not amount to more 
 than eleven days' consumption annually ; and that even the 
 greatest importation ever known, did not amount to one-tenth 
 of the consumption of the island. These might appear but 
 fractional remedies, which could be easily dispensed with ; and 
 80, the good of importation might come to be under-rated. But 
 minute as these annual supplies may appear in themselves, they 
 are momentous in their consequences; and lower the price of corn 
 in the market, far more than they add to the stock of it. And, 
 it is even so, of the relation which subsists between the number 
 of people in a country, and the degree of comfort which they 
 enjoy. A very small excess in the number, will operate a 
 very great reduction upon the comfort. But just as a slight 
 importation will restore the price of necessaries to their fair and 
 natural level, so may either a slight exportation of our people, 
 such as to dispose of their small excess, or a slight change of 
 habits, such as to prevent their small excess, have the effect of 
 raising the lower orders to that condition, in which every gener- 
 ous friend of humanity would rejoice to behold them. — Ckris- 
 lian and Economic Polity of a Nation, 
 
 XXIX. Section XII. § G.— Necessity for the Pre- 
 venth'e Check long anterior to a perfect cultivation 
 of the Earth 
 
 'I'lie imagination of many is, that, not until the world be fully 
 cultivated and fully peopled, shall we have any practical inte- 
 rest in the questioti. 'I hey seem to think of the doctrine of 
 Malthus, that the consideration of it may, with all safety, be 
 postponed, till the agriculture of every country and every clime 
 have been carried to its extreme perfection ; and that, mean- 
 while, the population may proceed as rapidly and recklessly as 
 it may. V^ hen a hous-ehold is straitened by its excessive num- 
 bers, or a parish is oppressed by its redundant families — they 
 would bar every argument about the proximate causes of this 
 inconvenience, by the allegation, that there were still thou- 
 sands of unreclaimed acres at home, or millions in distant places 
 of the earth, though of as little real or substantial consequence 
 to the suffering parties, as if the land were situated in another 
 planet. They appear to conceive, that ere any body can be felt 
 us an obstacle to our progress, it must have come to a dead 
 •tand — not aware that to act a* a check or impediment, it 
 bits only to muve more ulouly, though iu the same directioUi 
 
320 APPENDIX 
 
 than at the rate in which we are advancing ourselves. Thev 
 proceed on the idea, that no shock or collision can be ftlt but 
 by the stroke of an impellent on a body at rest — whereas it io 
 enough if the body be but moving at a tardier pace. In the 
 one case, the strengtli of the collision would be estimated by the 
 whole velocit?y — yet, in the other, there might still be a very 
 hard collision, though estimated only by a difference of velocities. 
 It is thus that, for tlie continued pressure of the world's popu- 
 lation on its food, it is far from necessary that the food should 
 have reached that stationary maximum, beyond which it can- 
 not be carried. It is enough, for this purpose, that the limit of 
 the world's abundance, though it does recede, should recede 
 more slowly than woidd the limit of the world's population. 
 A pressure, and that a very severe one, may be felt for many 
 ages together, from a difference in the mere tendencies of their 
 increase. The man, who so runs as to break his head against 
 a vi'all, might receive a severe contusion, even to the breaking 
 of his head, if, instead of a M-all, it had been a slowly retiring 
 barrier. And therefore we do not antedate matters, by taking 
 up now the consideration of Malthus' preventive and positive 
 checks to population. There is scarcely a period, even in the 
 bygone history of the world, when the former checks have not 
 been called for, and the latter have not been in actual opera- 
 tion. To postpone either the argument or its application till 
 the agriculture of the world shall be perfected, is a most un. 
 practical, as well as a most unintelligent view of the question — 
 for long ere this distant roiisummation can be realized, and even 
 now, may the obstacb.' of a slowly-retiring limit btgin to be 
 felt. The tendency of a progressive population to outstrip the 
 progressive culture of the earth, may put mankind into a con- 
 dition of straitnessand difficulty — and that for many generations 
 before the earth shall be wholly cultivated. 'We are not sure, 
 but it may have done so from the commencement of the race, 
 and throughout all its generations. Certain it is, at all events, 
 that the produce of the soil cannot be made to increase at the 
 rale that population tfOuW increase. Neither mechanical inven- 
 tion, nor more intense manual labour, is sufficient for this pur- 
 pose. On the supposition th.at the numbers of mankind were 
 to increase up to their natural capability of increase, no human 
 skill or human labour, though doing their uttermost, could suffice 
 for raising a produce up to the population — nor will the mass of 
 society ever be upheld in comfort, without the operation of 
 certain other principles. Sy which to restrain the excess of iLe 
 population over the produce. — Political^ Econvtny, 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 321 
 
 XXX. Section XII. § 6. — Distinction between a 
 National Provision for Indigence, and a National 
 Provision for Instruction. 
 
 Some have assimilated an endowment for the relief of indi- 
 gence, to an endowment fot the support of literary or Christian 
 instruction. The two cases, so far from being at all like in 
 principle, stand in direct and diametric opposition to each other. 
 We desiderate the latter endowment, because of the languor 
 of the intellectual or spiritual appetency ; insomuch that men, 
 left to themselves, seldom or never, originate a movement 
 towards learning. We deprecate the former endowment, be- 
 cause, in the strength of the physical appetency, we have the 
 surest guarantee that men will do their uttermost for good ; and 
 a public charity, having this for its object, by lessening the 
 industry and forethought that would have been otherwise put 
 forth in the cause, both adds to the wants, and detracts from 
 the real worth and virtue of the species. And, besides, there 
 is no such strength of compassion for the sufferings of the 
 moral or spiritual, that there is for those of physical destitu- 
 tion. An endowment for education may be necessary to sup- 
 plement the one, while an endowment for charity may do the 
 greatest moral and economic mischief, by superseding the other. 
 Relatives and neighbours could bear to see a man ignorant, or 
 
 even vicious. They could not bear to see him starve Political 
 
 Economy. 
 
 XXXI. Section XII. § 11. — Testimony of a Scottish 
 Clergyman on the Intrody^tion of a Poor Mate into 
 his Parish. 
 
 " The Moderator then, with the entire concurrence of the 
 Kirk-Session, begins his remarks with expressing his deep regret 
 that the one system has been abandoned, and that the other 
 lias been substituted in its place ; for his decided opinion is, 
 that, in parishes where there is a prevailing sense of religion 
 and of duty, the voluntary has an immeasurable advantage over 
 the compulsory. In giving utterance to this conviction, he 
 only reiterates the same sentiments he ever held on the subject, 
 dnd which, year after year, he was accustomed, in his annual 
 manifestoes, to repeat usque ad nauseum. He will now give 
 the reason, once for all, which has led him to this preference ; 
 mid, assuredly, he has not been brought to the opinion which 
 he holds on account of the supposed superior economy of the 
 
 21 X 
 
Z2'J APPEKDIX. 
 
 voluntary over the compulsory system — a very low ground of 
 preference for a minister of the gospel to build on — but alto- 
 gether on account of the superior comforts and advantages which 
 it brings to the poor themselves. This is the ground on which 
 he founds his preference, and it is the one he lias ever had in 
 view as often as he declared his opinion on the subject. It 
 may be true that more is given to the pauper in bard cash on 
 liie compulsory, than on the voluntary scheme — at least more 
 appears in the day-book of the treasurer in the one case than in 
 the other ; but if the attentions and kindnesses of neighbours 
 and friends, in consequence of the giving of that greater sum, 
 are withdrawn, — and the tendency of the compulsory is to lead 
 to their withdrawal, and the tendency of the voluntary is to 
 encourage them — attentions and kindnesses which cannot be 
 bought, and of which no record is kept, and which constitute the 
 very all in all of the poor man's earthly happiness — the receipt of 
 a few monthly additional shillings will be to him an inadequate 
 compensation. What the law of man says to the owner of pro- 
 perty is, ' The proportion of the assessment which has been 
 laid upon you must be paid. There is no escaping from it. 
 You must either pay or go to prison. Your excuses cannot be 
 listened to. We have all burdens. Your poor cousins maj 
 go to the Kirk-Session, and tlity are obliged to relieve them. 
 Well, what follows ? The assessment is paid — in many cases 
 sulkily, in some inconveniently ; and the advice tendered i» 
 literally taken, and their poor dependants, who were formerly 
 fed and clad by them, and whose wants were never beard of 
 before, are thrown on the public for relief." 
 
 " And how often, in the course of the moderator's experience, 
 has he had occasion to observe the benevolence of his 
 parishioners towards their neighbours when in distress, — nay, 
 he has seen these beautiful precepts of Scriptuie, which he has 
 just now quoted, literally reduced by them to practice ! How 
 often, in a locality not abounditig, it may be, in this world's 
 Wealth, but rich in Christian principle, has he seen neighbouri", 
 as if animated with one heart and soul, ministering, by every 
 means in their power, to the comfort of the poor man who lived 
 mar them when labouring under distress, — one kind female 
 bringing a little of her own tea and sugar ; another some warm 
 broth about dinner-time ; another, on less considerate, a piece 
 ot flannel, or some other useful article which she has seen to be 
 needed ; a fourth, having nothing of her own to spare, coming 
 every evening to assist in making the sick man's bed ; a fifth, 
 in like circumstances, washing his clothes as often as needed ; 
 and all, in short, in every possible way, V3 iiig as it were with ' 
 each other in acts of kindness arid Christian love ! In the 
 iiitan lime, the spiritual v\ dtttb of the sick man are not neglected ; 
 
APPEHDIX. 323 
 
 for the elders of the church to which he belongs have been called, 
 Bnd arraiigenieiits have been made among the pious acquaintance 
 of the sick man, the members, it may be, of the prayer-meeting 
 of which he formed a part, to have exercise regularly conducted 
 every evening in his presence. Nor are acts of benevolence 
 confined to females. How often has he observed mules also, 
 six or eight of them, so soon as they come to know that there 
 was want in any of the houses in their neighbourhood, without 
 waiting to be prompted by others, but from mere good-will 
 and Christian principle, taking active steps for its relief; and, 
 having judiciously divided the town into convenient districts, 
 it was their practice to go, two and two, to those whom they 
 knew to be benevolent and possessed of this world's goods in 
 each of them ; and they never halted, or were ' wearied in well- 
 doing,' till they had canvassed the whole locality which had 
 been assigned to them, and had gathered a purse less or morj 
 filled for the persons for whom they pleaded 1 And these 
 humble and philanthropic individuals, be it recorded, were 
 scarcely in a single instance frowned away from the doors of 
 the persons to whom they applied, but they were welcomed as) 
 men going on an errand of mercy ; for the considerate were 
 aware that they had the best opportunities of being acquainted 
 with the character and circumstances of the family for whom 
 they interceded, and the pious remembered that it is written in 
 God's book, that ' whosoever hath this world's goods, and 
 seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of 
 compassion, how dwelleth the love of God in him ?' and some- 
 thing was always given, according to the nature and urgency 
 of the case which had been submitted to them. In the mean- 
 time, the guardians of the poor are consulted, and the conduct 
 of the neighbours unto the family that was distressed is heartily 
 approved of; and a consideration of what would be required 
 weekly for their support is taken, and a monthly allowance of 
 some five or six shillings is added by the Kirk-Session, that the 
 contents of the purse which had been collected might last as 
 long as possible ; and the whole families of this little band of 
 Christian philanthropists, and others like minded, having be- 
 come interested in the sufferers, and a great many hearts, 
 heads, and hands having been thus set in motion, a degree of 
 actual comfort has in this way been secured for them, which 
 no counted penny — no allowance, however liberal, which ex- 
 torted charity has been ever known to dole out to the wretched 
 
 could have purchased. The small sum of five or six shillings 
 
 monthly, is all of course that appears in their books as bestowe<i 
 by the Kirk- Session on the sufferers; and it is not to be won- 
 dered at, therefore, that philanthropic men at a distance, on 
 looking at the paltry sums as there recorded, should proclaiir 
 
324 APPENDIX. 
 
 their inadequacy ; for the members of Session should have been 
 the first to do the same, had they been ignorant of all that 
 kind friends and neighbours had privately and unostentatiously 
 and perseveringly been doing for the comfort and support of 
 the afflicted ones, who had been seemingly so much neglected. 
 " And this mode of providing for the wants of the poor, so far 
 from being a rare occurence in times past, has been the one 
 generally adopted ; and the Moderator can truly say, that it has 
 been witnessed by him almost every other month, and some- 
 times more frequently, when the case of the poor is aggravated 
 by any general calamity, such as epidemic disease, unfruitful 
 seasons, and the fluctuations in trade and commerce, during 
 the whole course of his ministry down to the very day when 
 poor-rates, even in a modified shape, were unhappily introduced 
 among us. It was then that a sudden change in the feelings 
 of his parishioners took place. So soon as they were made 
 aware that proprietors of houses rented at the tiifling sum of 
 three or four pounds must pay their share of the public assess- 
 ment for the support of the poor, than it was immediately in- 
 ferred, that, when cases of destitution occurred in their vicinity, 
 the burden of relieving it no longer lay upon them ; and so 
 quickly has the lesson been learned, that it was but the other 
 day, when a neighbour's assistance was asked to do some kindly 
 office to a sick man, she declared, that, now that poor-rates 
 were laid on, she would not lay a hand upon the dying man — 
 no, not so much as to assist in turning him in his bed — till she 
 was informed who was to pay her. The advice of neighbours 
 and of landlords is, * Go to the Kirk-Session : State your case 
 to them — they are bound to listen to your application.' And 
 they do consider themselves bound to listen to every applica- 
 tion that is made to them, from whatever quarter it proceeds ; 
 but it is public money that has been intrusted to their manage- 
 ment, and many eyes are upon them ; and before the applicants 
 can be admitted upon the poor's roll — for there is now a roll — 
 many steps must be taken, and conversations must be held, and 
 consultations conducted, and visitations made, and scrutinous 
 inquiries instituted, and inventories of effects taken and legally 
 made over ; and, though the applicants do make good their 
 claim to the assistance required by them, and though a monthly 
 aliment, comparatively liberal, has been allowed them, yet their 
 feelings have been so much hurt, and their spirits so much 
 crushed, by the ordeal they have been compelled to go through, 
 that they find, many of them by bitter experience, that the 
 shillings they receive are but a poor substitute for the kind- 
 nesses and labours of love, which, at a former period, they 
 could have counted on receiving from their neighbours, and 
 which they themselves had been accustomed, in their better 
 
ArrENDix. 325 
 
 days, to extend towards others, when, by the infliction of Pro- 
 vidence, they were in like circumstances as they now tind them- 
 selves to be. And many a modest and needy applicant, rather 
 than have their feelings wounded in this way, feel themselves 
 forced to give up the contest altogether in despair, — pieferriug 
 the evils of extreme poverty and starvation, and cold and 
 nakedness, to the full disclosure of their situation, and to all 
 the humiliating and mortifying circumstances with which it is 
 attended, and to the seeming doubting of their representations, 
 all of which tueir gentle and sensitive nature will not permit 
 them to encounter; while the forward and the shameless and 
 the undeserving, to whom the arts of imposture are familiar, — 
 who are poor, perhaps, because they will not work, or because 
 they have speiit in debauchery what they have earned, — stand 
 their ground, set the scrutinatoisat defiance, and are successful. 
 
 And what is the tendency of this system on society ? In 
 time it comes to be Mt in all its interests. The kindly inter- 
 course which ought to exist between the rich and the poor, 
 and which harmonizes so beautifully with the spirit of the 
 gospel, having been gradually discontinued, the gulf which 
 separates the two classes, who ought to have but one interest 
 in common between them, continually becomes deeper and 
 wider; for first an estrangement has taken place, then a posi- 
 tive dislike, then a spirit approaching to actual hostility has been 
 engendered, and the poor le^rn to look to the rich with envy, 
 and the rich to look down upon the poor with feelings of sur- 
 prise and disappointment and displeasure, that the large sums 
 which they have contributed to their relief have excited in 
 them no gratitude, till at last their mutual jealousies become 
 80 violent that they cannot speak of each other but in terms of 
 acrimony and vituperation. 
 
 " This report is melancholy and gloomy throughout. Never, 
 in the course of his ministry, have the Moderator's hopes of 
 the well-being of his beloved parish, both in an economical and 
 a spiritual view, been lower than they are at present; for not 
 only is pauperism increasing, but vice of every kind is becoming 
 frightfully prevalent." 
 
 " O, that we could retrace our steps 1 O, that we were in 
 the «ame situation as we were in former times! But these ate 
 vain wishes. The Rubicon has been passed ; and we have, I 
 fear, no alternative but to go on from bad to worse, and from 
 worse to ' worser' still. A legal assessment out-and-out on 
 means and substance will inevitably be our next fatal step in 
 our downward progress; and where we are to land at last — 
 what shall be the end thereof — is known to Him only who 
 knoweth the whole from the begininng. It is but a poor con- 
 solation to me, that having foreseen the evils, I warned my 
 
326 APPENDIX. 
 
 parishioners of the danger; for surely nothing could Lave been 
 more unhappy than the condition of Cassandra — ' Dei jussu non 
 unquam credita Teucris ;' who is fabled to have had the gift 
 of foreseeing evils, but whose warnings were destined to be dis- 
 regarded. The great objection to the voluntary scheme of re- 
 lieving the wants of the poor, and indeed the only one that was 
 incessantly and clamorously diimed in my ears, was, that the 
 burden fell exclusively on the generous and philanthropic, while 
 the penurious and hard-hearted escaped : But there was not 
 much in this ; for verily both will have their reward ; and per- 
 haps even the persons who so urgently pressed the objection, 
 if they have not already, may come to be convinced, that it 
 would have been better for them ' to have borne the ills they 
 knew of, than to encounter those of which they had then no 
 experience.' " — Statement relative to the Parish of Kirriemuir, bit 
 Thomas Easton, D.D. 
 
 XXXIT. Section XII. § 12 .— Testimony of an 
 English Gentleman on the Poor Law System of his 
 country. 
 
 " Nice discrimination cannot enter into the operat)ons and 
 practice of officials, or into accounts which must be kept with 
 rigid strictness, and wholesale uniformity : — nor that fine elastic 
 touch be applied of sympathy and vital charity, which discrimi- 
 nates the pulse of misery in its infinite variety, discerns the 
 real seat of the wound, and applies the oil and the balm with 
 a truth and touch as exact, as tender, and as delicate. But 
 all stomachs must be of the same size ; all appetites must 
 relish the same food, on the same days of the week ; all mala- 
 dies and sores and accidents of life must be healed by the same 
 medicine 
 
 *' A poor-law can hardly be administered any where except 
 in connection with police regulations; and this of necessity 
 places misery and misfortune in close contact with crime and 
 punishment. At least this is eminently the case in England. 
 Thieves, able-bodied sturdy vagrants, persons travelling to 
 seek for work, or returning to their homes, cripples, blind, 
 infirm, children, persons sick from the visitation of God, from 
 accident, or intemperance, — all are classed and clubbed together, 
 and are placed in the same category by the receipt of a penny, 
 and are liable to be dealt witli according to law, under the 
 condemned title of beggars. A poor and very decent woman, 
 formerly a maid-servant, was taken up on the 19th of last May, 
 for carrying round a petition signed by several ladies who knew 
 ler, and who testified to the truth of the statement of her mis. 
 
AFPENDIX. 327 
 
 fortune, and had put themselves down for subscriptions. Slie 
 was much astonished on being told that she had been infringing 
 the law." 
 
 " The necessary connexion between a poor-law and these 
 severe police regulations, is evidenced by the tendency towards 
 them in every country in Europe in which a legal provision 
 for the poor is made the chief basis of their relief. 
 
 " We say that the poor-law system is bad in principle — that 
 it is a mere expedient ; and that it ought never to supersede 
 the more free and active distribution of relief by voluntary 
 and personal charity ; — that a resort to a compulsory provision 
 for the poor is the symptom of a low state of religion in a 
 country, and of public principle ; — that a disposition to place a 
 chief reliance upon such a provision is the sign of a diseased and 
 morbid constitution, and an enervation almost desperate ; — and 
 that there is no hope of restitution to vigour and to health in 
 such cases, but by waking up again the dormant principles and 
 energies of nature, and returning as fast as possible to sober 
 and rational habits, by voluntary almsgiving, — superseding the 
 compulsory provision." 
 
 " Count Holstein, in answer to the inquiries of our Foreign 
 Secretary of State in 1833, respecting the working of the poor- 
 iiw in Denmark, states, — 
 
 " ' Tiie morality of the rich man suffers ; for the natural moral 
 relation between him and the poor man has become completely 
 severed. There is no place left for the exercise of his benevo- 
 lence. Beint^ obliged to give, he does it with reluctance ; ami 
 thus is the highest principle of charitable action, Christian love, 
 exposed to great danger of destruction.' 
 
 " Mr. Browne, in his Report from the same country, adds, — 
 
 " ' Wliat is given is afforded with dislike and reluctance. The 
 higher orders have become cold and uncharitable ; and, in short, 
 ere long, unless some strenuous steps are taken, Denmark will 
 drink deep of the bitter cup of which England, by a similar 
 stem, has been so long drinking to her grievous cost.'^ 
 . cnior's Foreign Poor Low, pp. 42, 44. 
 
 " The poor-law had been introduced into Denmark at that 
 time only thirty-five years. 
 
 " The following case exemplifies the relative sympathies and 
 liberality of the rich towards the poor, and of the poor towards 
 each other, under the operation of our compulsory system. A 
 bricklayer named Hogan, about three months since, met with 
 an accident, and died the same night at eleven o'clock. His 
 only child died of a fever, at seven the same evening. Several 
 gentlefolks who were consulted, and took an interest in the case, 
 agreed that it would be right, by all means, to let the parish 
 bury them ; and limit all charity to the relief of the widovr. lii« 
 
328 APPENDIX. 
 
 fellow- workmen subscribed among themselves, and buried boih 
 the child and the husband." 
 
 " The frugality, and force of character, and independence ot 
 the labouring man, are weakened, if not destroyed, by thif 
 miserable dependence. The amount given always creates a 
 greater expectation than it realizes." 
 
 " The mutual dependence of parents and children, and other 
 relatives, is also impaired, and their natural affection diminished. 
 Being comparatively independent of each other, the affections 
 become blunted. We shall presently bring to notice the ex- 
 istence and exuberance of these feelings in all their depth and 
 freshness, in those countries of Europe in which they are yet 
 uninvaded by a poor-law. In the meantime, the testimonies 
 are abundant to the destructive effect in this and other countries, 
 where our system of poor-laws exists. 
 
 *' As early as the act 7 Jac. 1, c. 4, the statute of Elizabeth 
 was represented as having a tendency to produce improvidence, 
 and to weaken the ties of natural affection. And these eflFects 
 have been growing into ripeness ever since. 
 
 " Mr. Browne, in the Report before mentioned, says of Den- 
 mark,— 
 
 " ' The poor-lavv greatly weakens the frugal principle.' — ' It 
 tends to harden the heart of the poor man, who demands with 
 hU that authority with which the legal right to provision in- 
 vests him. There is no thankfulness for what is gotten, and 
 what is given is afforded with dislike and reluctance.' — ' Po- 
 verty has been greatly increased by weakening the springs of 
 individual effort, and destroying independence of character. 
 The lower orders have become tricky, sturdy, and unobliging j 
 the higher orders, cold and uncharitable.' — ' It disturbs the 
 natural dependence and affection of parent and child. The 
 latter feels his parent comparatively needless to him ; he ob- 
 tains support elsewhere ; and the former feels the obligation to 
 support the latter greatly diminished. In short, being com- 
 paratively independent of each other, the affections must ine- 
 vitably become blunted.' — Senior's Foreign Poor Law, pp. 42, 
 43. 
 
 " What we have said is independent of the religious obliga- 
 tion 'to visit the fatherless and poor in their affliction,' and of 
 the promise made to those who visit the sick by Him, who 
 Himself spent his whole time in going about doing good. This 
 obligation ought of itself to render all our arguments needless." 
 
 " This question we propose to solve. A practical proposition 
 is required ; and we make suggestion of a practical and de- 
 finite measure. ' Let the relief of the out-door poor by the 
 guardians of unions be given up, and let it be restored to the 
 parishes.'** 
 
APPEIfDIX. 329 
 
 " All the evils that we have already pointed out as resulting 
 from law-forced charity and a system of official relief, enter 
 still more deeply into our present system under the changes in- 
 troduced by the Poor-Law Amendment Act. The instru- 
 ments applied are mechanical. The machinery used is adapted 
 to wholesale manufacture ; — to reducing all articles to pro- 
 crustian uniformity ; — to turning out pieces of goods of tlie 
 same exact size, and pattern, and length. It is a steam-engine 
 system, well worthy of this age of physical invention and me- 
 chanical contrivance ; and well fitted to bring its wares into a 
 marketable fashion and appearance, sufficient for the current 
 discernment of customers, at the lowest cost, and with the ut- 
 most dispatch and regularity. Discrimination cannot enter into 
 the system. The very term 'classification,' the beau-ideal of 
 poor-law-commissioner management, excludes the notion of it. 
 The very words 'general rules and regulations' exclude the 
 possibility of it." 
 
 " To reduce all stomachs of the same sex and age to the 
 same calibre, — to reduce all habits and skill and tastes to a 
 few fixed occupations, — is abhorrent enough to the variety of 
 human nature ; but to test all shapes and habits of the body 
 and mind, all tastes and desires and feelings, by the workhouse, 
 to try all claims to relief by this assay, the measure of actual 
 endurance from poverty by the capacity to bear this other en- 
 durance in the alternative, — this is certainly one of the boldest 
 and most fallacious attempts to enforce mechanical rule atid 
 contrivance upon human minds and motives that has ever been 
 ventured upon by town-made politicians. 
 
 " While this deformed and rigid mask, incapable of all play 
 of feature and countenance, witliout motion or expression, ig 
 thus placed before the face of real charity by the very use and 
 nature of official relief, its deformities are still more character- 
 istic, and become more essential, in proportion as the districts 
 are enlarged, over which one machine and system extends its 
 operations." 
 
 " We say that the most essential ingredient in poor-relief is 
 personal communication, and knowledge of the exact condition 
 
 of the objects of it That this communication can be kept up, 
 
 can be even attempted, only in small divisions and districts; 
 and that this creation and extension of large districts, by unions 
 of parishes, and unions of unions, is the most essential evil in 
 the new system of poor-law administration." 
 
 " But we particularly object to this plan of extensive dis- 
 tricts, because it prevents the experiment of returning in any 
 degree to that wholesome system and condition, in which 
 private and voluntary alms-giving supersedes the public com- 
 
330 APPENDIX 
 
 pulsory provision, and renders the law of forced cliarity dor- 
 mant and obsolete. No one parish can be encouraged to at- 
 tempt such a system, while it is bound up in interests and 
 expenses with otiier parishes in a union, the whole machinery 
 of which is connected and moves together. If a parish were 
 to relieve the union from all burden in respect of it, and were 
 to maintain its whole poor by private liberality, yet the contri- 
 butions to the union workhouses would be still demanded, and 
 the share of wages to the union officers must be paid. Never- 
 tiieless we say that it is the duty of parishes to make this ex- 
 periment. As it is the duty of individuals to make this en- 
 deavour in a single parish, though the charitable few must be 
 additionally burdened by such a measure, and the selfish ma- 
 jority relieved by it, — so it is the duty of parishes to agree 
 within themselves, and attempt a like renovation, and to despise 
 the paltry addition of expense which the demands of the union 
 may impose upon them. 
 
 " But a few such successful attempts would bring about a 
 general change, by showing the advantages of it. Whenever 
 the public mind shall be prepared by experimental conviction, 
 and its heart restored to healthy action by the use and habit of 
 genuine Cliristian charity, the law must follow this impulse and 
 oe adapted to it. In the mean time we greatly lament the im- 
 pediment which is created by the union system. 
 
 " But we must pursue this subject of the advantages of 
 managing and relieving the poor in small districts. One chief 
 advantage is, as we have just said, that the inhabitants of 
 small districts would be enabled to make trial of restoring that 
 only true system of poor-relief, the providing for the indigent 
 and sick by voluntary cliarity ; and thus superseding the com- 
 pulsory provision. ' From the beginning,' observes Mr. Wil- 
 berforce, 'the Church relieved her own poor; and in parishes 
 of due dimensions she might do so again.' " — Parochial System, 
 p. 40. 
 
 '♦ The economy of the poor-rel'ef in Prussia, as described by 
 the returns of Mr. Gibsone and Mr. Abercrombie, confirms our 
 views on this subject in every particular. 
 
 " The whole of that country is divided into small districts, 
 each comprising a moderate population. Even in the largest 
 towns these districts never contain more than 1500 inhabitants, 
 and in the smaller towns they contain from 400 to 1000. In 
 villages, the management of the funds for relief of the poor re- 
 sides in the mayor and some of the principal inliabitants ; in the 
 towns they are under a board of directors. These individuals 
 are required to find out and verify the condition of the poor of 
 theii «nvn district. Each township is governed by its own 
 
APPENDIX. 331 
 
 particular laws and customs with regard to the management of 
 tlie Door. and the whole is under the inspection of the first sec- 
 tion of the Home Department. 
 
 " ' As regards the manner of obtaining the necessary funds, 
 everything is done by donations and private charity. Each 
 liouse proprietor, each inhabitant of a floor or apartment, is in 
 iiis turn visited by some member of t!ie sub-committee of the 
 direction. The donations from residents are generally monthly, 
 and vary in amount according to the number of the family and 
 the generosity of the donor. 
 
 " ' The provision of the funds rests upon the charity and 
 benevolence of the inhabitants. 
 
 " ' Every proprietor of an estate, indeed every town and 
 village, is bound to provide for those belonging to them. 
 Should a proprietor or a community not fulfil this obligation, 
 they are compelled to do so ; but this is seldom necessary. 
 
 " ' As regards the practical working of this system,' adds 
 Mr. Abercrombie, ' I have no hesitation in affirming that it is 
 found universally to succeed. That the effect upon the com- 
 fort, character, and condition of the inhabitants is, first, to afford 
 speedy and sufficient means of relief when necessary ; that it 
 prevents in a great degree false applications, inasmuch as that the 
 districts being small, the really needy are more easily discovered ; 
 and secondly, that as no tax is fixed (or the maintenance of the 
 poor, it renders all classes more willing and anxious to asiist, 
 according to their respective means, in sustaining the fund« 
 required for their support.' 
 
 *' Mr. Gibsone says — 
 
 " ' The regulations for the support of paupers operate bene- 
 ficially on industry. Every proprietor of an estate, every coin- 
 .•Jiunity of a town or village, has unquestionably the most cor- 
 rect knowledge of the bodily condition, of the moral conduct, 
 of the expertness, of the capability to earn a livelihood in whole 
 or in part, and of the pecuniary circumstances of the needy 
 persons under their jurisdiction, whom they are bound to sup- 
 port, as well as of the circumstances of their relatives. The 
 pauper knows that aid must be given when necessary, and be 
 applies to the proper authority for it, when not duly afforded i 
 while he is, on the other hand, deterred from making exorbi- 
 tant claims by his situation being so thoroughly known in everv 
 respect, and from ungrounded demands not being complied 
 with. In general therefore neither the party called upon for 
 assistance, nor that requiring it, inclines to let the authority 
 interpose.' " — Senior's For. P. L. 
 
 " The reports made to our Foreign Secretary of State in 
 1833, of the provisions for the poor in diflferent foreign coun. 
 tries, as contained in the Appendix to the Poor Law Report at 
 
332 * APPENDIX. 
 
 that date, and in Mr. Senior's work, named at the head of this 
 article, supply us with the materials ; as they have done in 
 part of the picture which we have presented of the deadening 
 and baneful effects of forced plans of poor relief. It is remark, 
 able that it was with these returns and this evidence before them, 
 that the government prepared, and the legislature passed, the 
 bill which rendered more strict and cogent the legal form of 
 relief. These recent and stringent measures however, so 
 forcibly leaning in the wrong direction, are not without hope. 
 It is the effect of violent proceedings that they frequently pro- 
 duce reaction. The necessity for voluntary alms has become 
 greater, with the increased straitness and severity of the rules 
 and limits of official assistance : and we thank God, that in 
 some degree this call has been responded to, and this occasion 
 has opened forth richer and more abundant sources of private 
 charity than were wont to overflow and fertilize the dry and 
 withered wastes and drooping pastures of this once bountiful 
 and beneficent land. If the unionizing of unions, and the plan 
 of large districts, do not prevent the experiment, we have hope 
 of seeing the system of private and voluntary alms-giving gr» 
 dually, but yet rapidly and effectually, grow and increase itself, 
 till it swallows up at length and supersedes the use of all coni' 
 pulsory provision. We are well convinced that there could be 
 no better sign and symptom, we think that there could be no 
 better means and step towards the recovery of religious motive 
 and principle in the country, and its political regeneration. But 
 to our present purpose. 
 
 " The accounts received from those countries which have 
 no forced provision for the poor are of the most striking and 
 pleasing description. They present a picture of human nature 
 and character which is quite new, and instructive, and awaken- 
 ing. They exhibit the feelings and characters of both rich 
 and poor in a colouring and light amiable, honourable, and 
 enviable. The rich are never to be found wanting in their 
 alms, which expand and contract, and form and fit themselves 
 to every necessity and occasion. There is no death from star- 
 vatioti in time of dearth or difficulty, no lavishness or abuse in 
 time of prosperity. And what is very remarkable is, that there 
 are not those signs of improvidence and profusion, and indis- 
 criminate distribution of alms, which we are apt to attribute as 
 the necessary concomitants of free and voluntary giving of 
 charity for Christ's sake. 
 
 " The picture of the poor themselves is still more admirable 
 and amiable. The people are industrious and frugal; honest 
 towards their employers ; and though the funds of charitable 
 relief are known to be inexhaustible, yet they are indisposed to 
 take advantage of them, or even to make use of them, uiiless 
 
APPENDIX. 333 
 
 occasion really calls for it. Their mutual kindness towards 
 each other is still more instructive and beautiful. They are 
 generally kind-hearted. Their family affection is ardent and 
 constant ; the mutual assistance of relations and friends is 
 always to be depended upon ; and is ever ready, and preferred 
 to foreign support, so long as there are means within the bosom 
 or branches of the family. Even neighbours and parishioners 
 live together with the friendly feelings of relationship, and 
 with family union and affection. 
 
 "These are habits and principles of which wehave little know- 
 ledge in this country. We can hardly believe or comprehend 
 them. We are used to view things, even human life, with 
 such calculating coldness, with such mechanical and heartless 
 exactness, we have been so little apt to give religion full scope, 
 and to obey its high rules and impulses with freedom, bold- 
 ness, firmness, and faith, that we have not a belief of the possi- 
 bility of man's life being moved and governed by such motives, 
 or of our passions and feelings being so ruled and well directed, 
 as to go before and lean onward the reason to the right -and 
 proper goal, and not away from it. Much less that society 
 could be so impelled, except to ruin and fanaticism. 
 
 " Yet all these points are verified and exemplified by the 
 returns before mentioned, and from which we now quote. 
 
 " France is returned as a country having no legal provision 
 for the poor ; but the system there seems to be a mixed one ; 
 the funds consisting principally of endowments, but partly of 
 contributions, partly also of direct taxation ; and the govern- 
 ment for the most part directing the administration. 
 
 " ' The Bretons are hospitable. Charity and hospitality 
 are considered religious duties. Food and shelter for a night 
 are never refused.' " — Senior's For. P. L. pp. 154 — 162. 
 
 " In Venice the funds are supplied by private and govern- 
 ment contiibutions. There is no compulsory legal provision. 
 The number of poor is immense owing to the fall of the Re- 
 public, and the great decay of the place. However, the return 
 informs us that — 
 
 " ' Cases of death by starvation never occur. Even during 
 the great distress caused by the blockade in 1813, and the 
 famine in 1817, no occurrence of this kind was known. In 
 fact, the more urgent the circumstances are, the more abun- 
 dant are the subscriptions and donations. 
 
 " ' The poorer classes are remarkable for their kindness to 
 each other in times of sickness and need. Many instances of 
 this have fallen under my own observation. 
 
 " • There is much family affection in all classes of the Vene- 
 tians ; and in sickness, distress, and old age, amotig the 
 poorer classes, they show every disposition to assist and relieve 
 each otb<:r, 
 
334 APPENDIX. 
 
 " ' The clergy, who have great influence over the lowt-r 
 classes, exert themselves much to cultivate the good feeling 
 wliich subsists among them towards one another.' — Ibid. pp. 
 190—192. 
 
 " The annual expenditure of the commission of public charity 
 alone is £100,000 among a population of 1 12,000." — Private 
 Alms a7id Poor Law Relief, by G. P. Bosanquct, Esq. 
 
 XXXIII. Section XIII. § 7. — Incompatibility of a 
 General Poor Mate with a General System of Edu- 
 cation. 
 
 It is, indeed, a heavy incumbrance on the work of a clergy- 
 man, whose office it is to substitute among his people the 
 graces of a new character, for the hardness, and the selfishness, 
 and the depraved tendencies of nature, that, in addition to the 
 primary and essential evils of the human constitution, he has 
 to struggle, in his holy warfare, against a system so replete as 
 pauperism is, with all th^t can minister to the worst, or that 
 can wither up the best affections of our species. With what 
 success can he acquit himself as a minister of the New Testa, 
 ment, in the presence of this legalised and widely spread temp, 
 tation, by which every peasant of our land is solicited to cast 
 away from him the brightest of those virtues wherewith the 
 morality of this sacred volume is adorned ? By what charm 
 shall he woo them from earth, and bear their hearts aspiringly to 
 heaven, while such a bait and such a bribery are held forth to all 
 the appetites of earthliness, — or, how can he find a footing for 
 the religion of charity and peace, in aland broiling with litigation 
 throughout all its paiishes, and where charity, transformed out 
 of its loveliness, has now become an angry firebrand, for light- 
 ing up the most vindictive passions and the fiercest jealousies 
 of our nature ? — Christian and Econvmic Polity if a Nation. 
 
 It is a most important question for Ireland, whether you will 
 gubmit for a time to its mendicity, or exchange that mendicity 
 for a regular and compulsory pauperism. Now, on many 
 accounts, I would prefer the former to the latter alternative ; 
 and one of my reasons is, that education will at length quell the 
 one but not the other. It may be difficult to furnish the Com- 
 mittee with a satisfactory analysis of this matter : I feel assured 
 that so it is, however much 1 may fail in expounding how it is. 
 One thing is abundantly obvious, that the act of becoming n 
 mendicant is one of unini.xed degradation, and the self-respect 
 inspired by education stands directly and diametrically opposed 
 to it. It is not so with the act of becoming a pauper; a state 
 
APPENDIX. 335 
 
 •anctioiied by law, and in entering upon which, the conscious- 
 ness of riglit, and the resolute assertion of it, awaken feelings 
 that serve to temper the humiliation of charity. 1 think that 
 this admits of historical illustration. The mendicity of Scot- 
 land gave way in a few years to its education. The pauperism 
 and education of England have for many years advanced 
 contemporaneously. I do not believe that the moat efficient 
 §yetem of education which can be possibly devised will ever make 
 head against the pauperism of England ; at the very most, it 
 would but give rise to two populations, distinguished from each 
 other by opposite extremes of character. I should therefore 
 be exceedingly sorry if Irish mendicity were exchanged for 
 English pauperism, I think that the floating mendicity of Ire- 
 land will fall under the operation of those moral causes which 
 might be brought to bear upon it ; but if, in order to escape 
 from this, you establish a law of pauperism, you will in fact 
 establish so many parochial fixtures, a nucleus in every parish, 
 around which yottr worst population will gather, and from 
 which you will find it impossible to dislodge them. I should 
 exceedingly regret, that under the influence of an impatience 
 to be delivered from this evil of mendicity, you should, in 
 getting quit of that wiiich is conquerable by education, precipi- 
 tate yourselves into that which is unconquerable by education. 
 — Evidence before the Commons' Committee. 
 
 But we must here remark, that for the purpose of a general 
 economic improvement, to be brought about by the means oi 
 Christian education, a gradual abolition of the compulsory pro- 
 vision for indigence, which now obtains in England, and bangs 
 menacingly over Ireland, seems to us indispensable. We can 
 anticipate no rise of wages, no elevation in the state and suffi- 
 ciency of the working classes, from any efforts to instruct and 
 Christianize them, however strenuous, if the pauperism and the 
 education are to go on contemporaneously. We, in the first 
 place, feel quite assured, from the moral influences of this public 
 charity, that it operates as a dead weight on the ministrations 
 of the clergymen, and stands most grievously in the way of their 
 success. But, in the second place, however vigorous and effec- 
 tive his exertions may be, at the most, and while the present 
 •ystem of poor's laws contiiuies, we shall have two distinct 
 populations, each marked by opposite extremes of charac- 
 ter. The clergyman, on the one hand, may reclaim hundreds 
 to principle and sobriety, who shall form a wholesome and 
 better class of peasantry. But the parish vestry, on the other, 
 remains an attractive nucleus, around which there will gather 
 and settle, in every little district of the land, a depraved and 
 improvident class, whom the temptation of this legal charity 
 has called into being, and who will bid inveterate defiaiu-e to 
 
336 API'EXDIX. 
 
 all the moral energy which might be brought to bear upon 
 them. The very presence of such a class, even though but :i 
 fraction of the community, will, with their reckless habits, 
 depress and overbear the general condition of labourers. A 
 very few supernumeraries, we have seen, will suffice for this 
 effect. So that whether the temptation to improvidence ope- 
 rates on all the people, or only on part of them, still that 
 redundancy is generated which tells so adversely on the general 
 rate of wages, and so on the comfort and circumstances of the 
 population at large. Education will make head against men- 
 dicity. It will make head against poverty in any other form 
 than that of being fixed and legalized, and invested with the 
 power of challenging, as its right at the bar of justice, that 
 relief which should have been left to the willing sympathies of 
 nature. But shielded and encouraged as it is in the parishes of 
 England, it will stand its ground, against every attempt to 
 dislodge it from those innumerable fastnesses which it now 
 occupies ; and in spite of every counteractive, whether by the 
 Christian or literary education of the people, will it remain an 
 incubus on the prosperity and comfort of the lower orders. — 
 Political Economy, 
 
O.V THE 
 
 APPLICATION OF STATISTICS 
 
 MORAL AND ECONOMICAL QUESTIONS 
 
 READ AT THE MEETINO. OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION 
 HELD IN r.LASGOW, SEFTEMBlltt, 1840. 
 
 21 
 
o?i rtir. 
 
 APPLICATION OF STATISTICS 
 
 TO 
 
 MORAL AND ECONOMICAL QUESTIONS. 
 
 There are oertain princiiiles or general proposi- 
 tions, which may be truly affirmed of men and of 
 human affairs — all of which have been learned, and 
 can only be learned through the medium of parti- 
 cular observations. We are not called upon at 
 present to lay down that process of the intellect; 
 by which it is led onward from particulars to 
 uiiiversals ; or from special facts to general laws. 
 Enough that we now advert to such a process, ot 
 which however we might remark, that some there 
 are — men who, on the strength of their native 
 sagacity alone, can carry it forward aright to its 
 proper results and legitimate applications, uncon- 
 scious of all aid either from rules of logic or a 
 reflex metaphysics ; or in other words, who can 
 describe the process soundly and well and yet have 
 taken no distinct notice, or far less could make 
 any explicit narration, of its several footsteps. 
 They somehow or other, can, in the act of looking 
 to a complex phenomenon, discriminate the causal 
 
340 APPLICAIION OF STATISTICS TO 
 
 from the casual — they can seize on the valid and 
 essential principle, to the presence and operation 
 of which some given effect is owing — they can set 
 up that principle in the midst of some new combi- 
 nation; and confidently anticipate the same effect, 
 although in circumstances which had never been 
 all assembled together before. Now these men, 
 after that they have proposed their scheme or even 
 set it afoot ; and after they have predicted the re- 
 sulting consequence which was to ensue from it, 
 but before the consequence is realized — in other 
 words between their prophecy and its fulfilment — 
 They stand in a very peculiar position to all others 
 who have not studied the same lessons of life and 
 character which they have done, and not made the 
 same application of them. They have the tacuiiy 
 of analysis, by which to detect the essential cau- 
 sation which leads in one place, or amid one set of 
 circumstantials, to a given result ; and they have 
 the faculty of synthesis, by which to transplant 
 that causation into another place and among other 
 circumstantials — where, proceeding on the con- 
 stancy of Nature, they foretell the same or a similar 
 result. Now how is it that they are regarded by 
 the men who are incapable both of the analysis and 
 of the synthesis which their minds have undergone 
 — and, more especially, during the interval which 
 takes place between the utterance of what they 
 have foretold and the accomplishment of it ? They 
 are characterized as theorists. Their anticipations 
 are branded as theoretical — and that by men who 
 do not share in these anticipations, just because 
 utiniindful or unobservant of all former experience, 
 
MOUAL AND ECONOMICAL QUESTIONS. 341 
 
 and incapable of profiting by its lessons. For 
 you will observe, that the scheme, even at its first 
 setting up, previous therefore to the working of it, 
 and before any result can yet take place from its 
 operation, may nevertheless be strictly an experi- 
 mental one, and that because constructed on 
 principles for the truth and efficacy of which we in 
 past life have had the most abundant experience — 
 just as the inventor of a new machine may have the 
 utmost confidence in the effect which he predicts 
 from it — not because he is the most sanguine of 
 all theorists ; but truly because he is the most 
 studious of all experimentaUsts, or because of all 
 his fellows he is the shrewdest and most diligent 
 observer of Nature's laws. And as with a ma- 
 chine in the material, so may it be with a scheme 
 in the moral world — devised we can suppose for 
 the amelioration of human society, in some one of 
 its departments. The scheme itself may never 
 have been previously tried ; but all the principles 
 on which it is constructed, and which its author 
 counts on for success, may have been abundantly 
 tried. Such a scheme may never before have been 
 put into operation ; and therefore viewed as a 
 whole, or in connexion with all its adjuncts and 
 accessaries, it may be regarded as altogether new 
 — and hence as requiring an after experience, ere 
 we can make sure of the promised good which we 
 expect to follow in its train. We do not object 
 to this after experience, and consider the demand 
 for it as altogether fair and reasonable, nay as 
 necessary for the purpose of conclusively accredit- 
 ing the scheme. Only, we would not have you 
 
3^2 AI TM.ICATION OF STATISTIC.'". TO 
 
 forg-et the beforehand experience which precede:! 
 the scheme, and guided its originator onward to 
 the adoption of it. Its success may carry in it 
 no instruction to him ; for it may but exemplify the 
 one or more principles, or general propositions, 
 which suggested the scheme to his mind — and the 
 truth of which principles or propositions may rest 
 on the basis of a manifold experience. It may 
 have been this experience in fact — a cautious, con- 
 siderate, well-weighed experience — and not an 
 ardent temperament at all, which both inspired 
 and warranted his hope of a prosperous result. It 
 might have been because, of all his fellows, he 
 profited most by an experience which has been 
 thrown away upon them ; and while surrounded 
 by critics and observers, who distrust and perhaps 
 denounce him as an ambitious speculator, it may 
 turn out after all — that he has proved the most 
 submissive and patient disciple at the school of 
 experience — the most respectful observer of her 
 lessons. 
 
 But, quitting these generalities, we shall be 
 more intelligible if we descend at once to particu- 
 lar illustrations. Let me instance then one expe- 
 rience, which, on the moment of its being inti- 
 mated, will 1 think recommend itself as a familiar 
 acquaintance, or as a sort of common and every- 
 day finding which none can fail to recollect — so 
 common, in fact, that the very utterance of it will 
 be felt a commonplace, and which we should 
 almost be ashamed to bring forward, were it not 
 for its momentous applications. What we want, 
 not to inform you of ; for it cannot be a novelty to 
 
MOU.VL AND ECONOMICAL QUESTIONS. 343 
 
 any, but to remind you of — is the difference in 
 point of eft'ect wiien you wish to obtain the consent 
 of others to any given proposal — the diiference, we 
 say, between your moving with it to them, and 
 their moving for it to you. Lest we should be 
 still too general, let me give you the example of 
 your seeking to obtain the signatures of a town or 
 neighbourhood for a parliamentary petition — what 
 we desire to impress, is the much larger result if 
 you go round with the petition from house to 
 house, rather than leave it in some place of ren- 
 dezvous whither all who will may find their own 
 way to it. The former method is tenfold more 
 prolific of names than the latter — for thousands 
 there are who will not refuse their subscriptions 
 to a document thus brought to their door, yet who 
 would not move the distance of half a street for 
 the purpose of appending their names to it. The 
 principle is well understood by those agents of 
 charity, who, in the capacity of district visitors, 
 have now learned to ply every family with their 
 periodic calls, in behalf of some philanthropic de- 
 sign; and find how much more productive it is, than 
 leaving each to make his own call on some one, or 
 on any number of receiving houses : And equally 
 well understood by those aspirants in the walk of 
 merchandise, who want either to create or to ex- 
 tend a business ; and who, instead of waiting till 
 customers shall come to them, go forth over their 
 surrounding neighbourhoods — and whether by the 
 specious advertisement sent across every threshold, 
 or even by the urgency of a living voice brought 
 to bear on the occupiers within, prosecute the 
 
344 APPLICATION OF STATISTICS TO 
 
 Strenuous attempt either to find or to multiply 
 customers. It is thus that the amount, either of 
 liberality in the one case or of custom in the other, 
 may be inconceivably augmented — for the carrying 
 of which into effect, it is obvious that a locomotion 
 is required ; and the whole question is, on which 
 side the locomotion should begin — whether on the 
 side of him who wants to enlist another, or on the 
 side of him who waits to be enlisted in a given 
 arrangement. All sense, and all experience, de- 
 clare in favour of the former ; and there are many 
 influences which might be alleged in explanation 
 of its superior efficacy — not merely the influence 
 of juxtaposition to overcome the obstacle, whether 
 of short or long distances ; and of the knowledge 
 whereof many might have remained destitute, had 
 they not been accosted by an information brought 
 within our hearing — but the influence of one man's 
 expressed wish over another man's pliant and 
 practicable will, though yet neutral and in a state 
 of indifferency — the power of entreaty, whether in 
 the shape of simple desire brought to bear on the 
 kindness, or of moral suasion brought to bear on 
 the consciences of men — the power also of contig- 
 uous example, in virtue of which one man is carried 
 more readily along in the stream of imitation, if 
 made to know that next-door neighbours have 
 already done the thing in which he is solicited to 
 join them. All these taken together explain the 
 mighty power, often of one single mind, to impress 
 a gregarious movement in the same direction over 
 a whole vicinity — what a French author whom I 
 lately read, called the impulsion of individuals 
 
MORAL AND ECONOMICAL QUESTIONS. 345 
 
 upon masses in cases where nothing could have 
 been effected but by a moving force made to ope- 
 rate ah extra; and nothing would have been effected 
 in an aggregate of human beings, had all been 
 abandoned to theii own vis InerticB, or each been 
 left at random to take his own part in some given 
 combination by a separate and spontaneous move- 
 ment of his own. 
 
 But it is high time to enter on the detail of 
 specific cases ; and we hope that the first of these 
 will not be thought less fitted to illustrate the 
 principle and philosophy of our subject, that it 
 happens to be of a strictly professional character 
 — or that, because of its supreme moral and reli- 
 gious importance, its scientific importance will not 
 therefore be overlooked. The little field or plat- 
 form on which the experiment was made, and the 
 subsequent experience was realized, is a small 
 suburb district on the immediate confines of Edin- 
 burgh; and certainly at that time it formed not 
 only one of the poorest, but one of the most profli- 
 gate assemblages in or about the metropolis of 
 Scotland. It consisted of 1356 human beings, 
 all inhabitants of a place named the Water of 
 Leith, and of two straggling hamlets each at the 
 distance of a stone-throw or a little more from the 
 main village. We undertook our ecclesiastical 
 survey of its population, by which there could be 
 ascertained at least one branch of its moral statis- 
 tics ; and found that not one for every nine of its 
 whole number, or not a ninth part of its resident 
 individuals were in the habit of attending any 
 place of worship — leaving a fearful amount of 
 
S46 APPLICATION OF STATISTICS TO 
 
 Sabbath idleness or profanation, which, as is well 
 known to those who are conversant with the habi- 
 tudes of the lower orders, forms the surest indica- 
 tion or earnest to all sorts of week-day profligacy. 
 There were two ways in which one might have pro- 
 ceeded to operate on this mass of irreligion and 
 consequent moral degeneracy. The first was to 
 have built a church, and left the attendance on it 
 to a gratuitous and unbidden volition on the part 
 of the people themselves. This we felt to be 
 altogether hopeless. We therefore took to the 
 second way, which was to build a church ; and, 
 availing ourselves of the principle which has now 
 been expounded, assign to its minister the task not 
 merely of preaching on the seventh day, but of 
 prosecuting his round of household visitations 
 among the families of that district with its certain 
 prescribed and definite boundaries by which it was 
 surrounded. We never counted on a spontaneous 
 forthgoing of the people to church ; but rested all 
 our hopes of success on the frequent and sustained 
 forthgoing of the minister among the people. In 
 a word, the essence of our experiment lay in this, 
 that, instead of the people being left to seek, they 
 were now to be sought after ; or, to express it 
 otherwise, the burden of the initial movement, 
 instead of being laid as heretofore upon them, was 
 transferred to another party — not on the recipients 
 of the moral benefit, of whom we knew well, that 
 they would never of their own accord go forth in 
 quest of it, nay that though piaced within their 
 sight scarcely one would in the first instance 
 choose to come for it ; but on the dispenser of the 
 
MORAL AND ECONOMICAL QUESTIONS. 347 
 
 moral benefit, whose business it should be to make 
 search and entry in every house that returned his 
 approaches, and press it on the acceptance of all 
 the families. And we counted beforehand on a 
 prosperous result — for though we call it an expe- 
 riment, we felt that, anterior to the experiment, 
 we had a solid groundwork of experience on which 
 to sustain our confidence. For over and above 
 the general principle on which we have already 
 expatiated, we knew the peculiar facilities which 
 belonged to a minister of religion, on the strength 
 of which he could pioneer his way through this 
 moral wilderness ; and, even among the rudest of 
 nature's children, find an access for himself both 
 to their hearts and to their homes. We knew 
 that, even at the outset of this enterprise, the 
 welcome which attended or rather which opened a 
 way for his footsteps would be all but universal. 
 We had read of the omnipotence of Christian 
 kindness in prisons ; and felt sure of the still 
 stronger likelihood, that the very same experience 
 would be verified in parishes. We believed, in spite 
 of all that is figured by superficial observers to the 
 contrary, that there was no substantial difference 
 between the inhabitants of town and country — the 
 same play of domestic affections — the same deeply 
 seated instincts and sensibilities of a constitution, 
 the stubborn identities of which were not to be 
 obliterated or overborne by any change of situa- 
 tion or exposure — the same susceptibilities, and 
 that even behind a front of seeming hardihood, 
 the same susceptibilities of a softer nature when 
 any touch or demonstration ofkindness from without 
 
348 APPLICATION OF STATISTICS TO 
 
 was brought nigh to evoke them — the same grati- 
 tude for attentions to children — the same kindly 
 response to the overtures, whether of a weekday 
 education for their young, or of a religious educa- 
 tion on the Sabbath both for themselves and for 
 their families — the same visitation of seriousness 
 on their spirits, when death entered within their 
 threshold and tore away with rude hand the 
 dearest of its inmates — Above all, the same reve- 
 rential affection for that man of God, who, by his 
 frequent presence lighted up the scene of distress, 
 and shed over its dying bed the halo of his sympa- 
 thies and his prayers. We did, notwithstanding 
 the frightful pictures which are given of a city, as 
 if wholly dissimilar and distinct from a country 
 population, we did calculate — and not on the 
 strength of a sanguine imagination, as some who 
 now listen to our description may perhaps be 
 ready to conceive, but on the strength of repeated 
 and hard-won experience — we did calculate on the 
 same moral results, if only the same moral regi- 
 men were brought to bear with equal degrees of 
 vigour and constancy on both. And accordingly, 
 though charged as we have been with luxuriating 
 all our days among the visions of Utopia, we did 
 venture to predict — that if a man not of gigantic 
 but of ordinary dimensions, for we have no taste 
 and no value for anomalies — and not by dint of 
 incessant labour which few would undertake, but 
 of certain plain and practicable assiduities which 
 are competent to all — if such a ma^n, giving up a 
 certain portion of his strength and his time to the 
 task, would but char":e himself with some manage- 
 
MORAL AND ECONOMICAL QUESTIONS. 349 
 
 able hundreds of these neglected outcasts, and 
 never by any persuasion be induced to accept of 
 more than two thousand of them : But if on such 
 a limited field as I have now prescribed for him, 
 if he would enter every house ; and make his peri- 
 odic inquiries of kindness at every family ; and be 
 on the alert at every call of distress ; and strike 
 in on every occasion when either the alarms of 
 conscience, or the solemnities of an approaching 
 dissolution, opened a wide and welcome door for 
 the message of the gospel ; and, by his presence 
 at every funeral, at once dignify and gladden each 
 group of plebeian mourners who had assembled 
 to carry a neighbour to his grave ; and, to sum up 
 all, let him be furnished with such means and faci- 
 lities as might enable him to offer, we do not say 
 relief to their poverty — that is a distinct object, 
 and which will be taken up afterwards — but to 
 otFer and on easy terms a remedy for their igno- 
 rance, the scholarship of letters for the young at 
 a weekday seminary within reach of all ; and the 
 scholarship of religion from his own lips on the 
 Sabbath, and to which he invites the attendance 
 especially of those who had hitherto been strangers 
 to the habits and the decencies of a Christian 
 land — Let all this be done, and it has been our 
 confident averment for years — that on the strength 
 of these simple Christian attentions, reiterated and 
 concentred on the people of a given locality, and 
 where the minister was not exposed to the distrac- 
 tions of a general congregation from all parts of 
 the city — He in a very few months, would obtain 
 tlie same ascendancy for good in the most putrid 
 
350 APPLICATION OF STATISTICS TO 
 
 lanes of a metropolis, that is realized by the village 
 pastor with a church embosomed in foliage, and 
 beset on all sides by peaceful and smiling land- 
 scapes. Utopianisra ! Pray who are the Uto- 
 pians ? — They who, in the unwearied rounds of 
 their daily experience, encounter the homebred 
 realities of life in the worst alleys of a town, and 
 tell us on the result of their own findings there, 
 that human nature both in its propensities to evil 
 and its capacities for good is of the same staple all 
 the world over ; or they who descant on the hope- 
 less and impracticable difference between our 
 urban and our rural populations — and, like children 
 of sweetest poesy, imagine that, because the scen- 
 ery of fields and woods and whitewashed cottages 
 is so much finer than the noisome smoke of manu- 
 factories with the din of their ringing anvils in the 
 suburb streets and among the hovels of the work- 
 ing families which belong to them — therefore pic- 
 ture forth to the eye of their minds a correspond- 
 ing diversity in the character of their living occu- 
 piers ; forgetting all the while, that it may be just 
 as imaginative to look for nothing in the one local- 
 ity but humanity in all its rudest and most revolt- 
 ing forms — as to conceive of the other, that, 
 because lapped in beauty and fanned by the pure 
 air of heaven, we must therefore look for a people 
 of another race, the simple-minded patriarchs and 
 happy swains of Arcadia. 
 
 But let us remember that it is with science, not 
 with sentiment whether just or extravagant, that 
 in this place we have properly to do ; and we 
 therefore proceed to exhibit the credentials of our 
 
MORAL AND ECONOMICAL QUESTIONS. 351 
 
 argument, which, we think in the present instance, 
 approximate very nearly if they do not reach alto- 
 gether the precision of strict mathematics. 
 
 The field of our enterprise then was a contig- 
 uous population of 1356, of the very humblest 
 rank in society, consisting of carters and quarry- 
 men and pig- feeders — where not one in nine were 
 in the habit of going to any place of worship what- 
 ever; and of whom we wanted to ascertain in how 
 far they were reclaimable to the good old Sabbath 
 observation, as the surest step or precursor of 
 their return to the sobrieties and the regulari- 
 ties and the everyday virtues of our Scottish 
 forefathers. 
 
 We had no hope of any prosperous result what- 
 ever from the mere juxtaposition of a chapel, 
 though erected in the midst of them, and made to 
 send forth in the hearing of the villagers the inti- 
 mation of its coming services. Yet we behoved 
 to provide ourselves with some such apparatus — 
 though the only substitute we could get for a 
 sacred edifice was an old malt-barn into which 
 four hundred human beings were capable of being 
 squeezed ; and which, moreover, we equipped 
 outside with a second-hand manufactory bell, in 
 no way remarkable either for melody or power, 
 but which yet could make itself be heard through- 
 out all the dwelling-places of a small and compact 
 population. 
 
 But we knew well that however audible the 
 summons, it were of itself but a voice in the wil- 
 derness — .wasting its sweetness in the desert air ; 
 and calling forth no response from the sluggish 
 
352 APPLICATION OF STATISTICS TO 
 
 and lethargic mass over which it verberated. We 
 knew that the vis inertice of the people had to be 
 operated upon in another way, and that as in 
 physics, a force ab extra adequate to move and to 
 impel must be brought to bear upon them. We 
 knew that to evoke any reaction from the living 
 mass, it must be acted upon by a living agency ; 
 and accordingly in the very earliest and most 
 rudimental stage of our undertaking, while it was 
 yet in embryo, and to call forth the first heavings 
 of a multitude sunk in settled and deep ungodli- 
 ness — there behoved to go forth, and to move in 
 busy circulation throughout all the recesses of 
 this deep and dark interior, one endowed viith the 
 voice and the heart and the intelligence and all 
 those feelings of brotherhood, which tell so power- 
 fully in the way of suasion and sympathetic impulse 
 between man and man. I will not tell over again 
 the encouragement which hailed even the initial 
 footsteps of our missionary — whose business it was 
 to preach or to officiate as a minister on the Sabbath, 
 and to ply the families of his assigned district with 
 all the attentions of Christian kindness, or to oflS- 
 ciate amongst them as a pastor through the week. 
 I have not time to explain how admirably and 
 efficiently it is, that these two offices conjoined in 
 the same person, and discharged by him towards 
 the contiguous population of one and the same 
 locality — how powerfully and how wholesomely it 
 is that they work to each other's hands. Suffice 
 it to say that it gives rise to what -may be termed 
 a reciprocating movement between his weekday 
 attentions and their Sabbath attendance. But it 
 
MORAL AND ECONOMICAL QUESTIONS. 353 
 
 is of capital importance to understand that the 
 whole charm and efficacy of the operation depend 
 on the first movement being laid on the right 
 party — that is on the minister, and not on the 
 people. In the order of cause and effect, it is he 
 in the first instance, who, in the course of his itin- 
 erancies from door to door, opens every house 
 and finds his way to many hearts ; and they, in 
 grateful response for his assiduities and Christian 
 services, come back upon him on the Sabbath ; 
 and so fulfil what has now become an adage I 
 understand in the mouths of our city philanthro- 
 pists — that a house-going minister creates a 
 church-going people. But I must now hasten 
 forward from a description of the process, to a 
 statement of the result. The malt-barn was, in 
 the course of a very few months, filled first to 
 compression, and then to an overflow — and that 
 mainly by tlie very families, the reckless misthriven 
 outlandish families for whom it was intended. 
 Men and women, young and old, returned to the 
 habit which had perhaps been extinct among 
 them for one or two generations ; and, as the fruit 
 of his benevolent and devoted labours, did this 
 painstaking missionary earn for himself the proud 
 achievement of a local or parochial congregation, 
 made up of the rudest and most neglected of 
 nature's children. 
 
 We now come to our statistics. In the spring 
 of 1836, the Royal Commissioners on the question 
 of Religious Instruction in Scotland sat in Edin- 
 burgh — when, previous to offering myself for ex- 
 amination, a little survey was commenced and 
 21 z 
 
354 APPLICATION OF STATISTICS TO 
 
 carried through, having for its special object to 
 ascertain with numerical precision the success of 
 this our peculiar method for recruiting an incipient 
 church from a territory of aliens. We deemed it 
 a signal advantage, that, in our immediate neigh- 
 bourhood, not more than a few stone-throws from 
 the eastern limit of our own selected vineyard, 
 there stood another place of worship, open to the 
 ingress of our population for many more years than 
 our malt-barn had been for months, but open alike 
 to all parts of the town, (the minister having no 
 charge or cognizance of any territory out of doors); 
 and therefore left to be filled, as I am sorry to say 
 almost all city churches or chapels still are, at the 
 spontaneous choice of hearers, w ho must therefore 
 have a predisposition for the services of Christi- 
 anity — a predisposition which does not exist, among 
 the thousands and tens of thousands in the first 
 second and third-rate towns of our empire who 
 have lapsed into heathenism. The precise dis- 
 tinction between our missionary and the clerical 
 neighbour who was nearest to him lay hi this — 
 That whereas, for the purpose of bringing a min- 
 ister and a people together — in the former case the 
 first movement was made by him, in the latter 
 case the first movement was made by them ; and 
 the precise object of our statistical investigation 
 was to determine the distinct results of these two 
 very distinct processes. Accordingly, we caused 
 entry to be made into every house of our own 
 locality ; and our first question to each was, How 
 many of that household attended the malt-barn, 
 our second, How many attended the handsome aiid 
 
MORAL AND ECONOMICAL QUESTIONS. 355 
 
 commodious place of worship that was nearest to 
 it. The sums total of the two returns astonished 
 even ourselves. The malt-barn had in a few 
 months gathered from the locality in question 364 
 regular hearers. The chapel again had not for 
 the same or a greater number of years, drawn 
 more than five. The one, with a missionary going 
 forth through the week amongst its dwelling-places, 
 may be said to have proceeded by the method of 
 aggression ; the other, trusting to the mere effect 
 of the Sabbath services on the same population, 
 may be said to have proceeded on the method of 
 attraction. Here then, to speak mathematically, 
 are two forces, and to borrow another term from 
 the phraseology of the exact sciences, here are 
 two forces in moral dynamics ; and where the ratio 
 of the first to the second can be given with all the 
 accuracy of a numerical expression. The force 
 of aggression is to the force of attraction as 364 
 to 5, or as nearly as may be 73 to 1, which gives 
 an overpassing superiority to the aggressive prin- 
 ciple — a most important law, and the practical 
 value of which cannot be too highly estimated — 
 seeing that, although other methods may retard 
 the decline of virtue in a commonwealth ; by this 
 method, and by this alone, can we hope to recover 
 a population from tlie degeneracy into which they 
 have fallen. To the antiseptic property of being 
 a preserver of moral health, which other applian- 
 ces might have though in a far less degree, it adds 
 the property which is all its own of being a resto- 
 rative. 
 
 Before proceeding to other instances, let me 
 
356 APPLICATION OF STATISTICS TO 
 
 here interpose a few brief remarks on the benefit 
 of statistics. 
 
 First — by subjecting, when possible, every pro- 
 cess for the amelioration of society to the touch- 
 stone of actual numbers, you put a conclusive 
 stamp on the amount, whatever it may be, of the 
 real worth and soundness which belong to it. No 
 scheme however shrewdly it may have been de- 
 vised, or whatever be the seeming strength of that 
 antecedent experience on which it rests or by 
 which it may have been suggested, may claim to 
 be exempted from this ordeal — either to accredit 
 its solid wisdom, or otherwise to detect and make 
 it manifest that there is a vitiating flaw in the 
 whole speculation. 
 
 Second — such a verification of the scheme as 
 this may often be the only way, by which to con- 
 vmce many, perhaps the great majority of men, 
 of its experimental character — able to comprehend 
 results, yet unable to comprehend processes. Its 
 projector may have been qualified for his discov- 
 ery, just because signalized above all his fellows 
 both for the practice and the philosophy of obser- 
 vation — Yet meanwhile, or till tested and made 
 palpable by statistics, he must be content to have 
 his invention stigmatized as theory, that most con- 
 venient and often most senseless of all by-words, 
 by men too as little able to penetrate the inner 
 laboratory of nature or discern there the working 
 of those principles which lead to a visible fulfil- 
 ment, as they are able to explore the mechanism 
 or trace the evolutions of Mr Babbage's calculating 
 machine, while abundantly able to read ofl^ the 
 
MORAL AND ECONOMICAL QUESTIONS. 357 
 
 riumbers which cast up by the operation of it. 
 This last they can do, and perhaps little or nothing 
 more. 
 
 Third — the statistics which furnish a measure 
 for the intensity or the regularity of certain moral 
 forces that operate and are of influence in human 
 affairs, may at length give to certain moral and 
 economical subjects a near approximation to the 
 exactitude, and precision, and certainty of mathe- 
 matics. This consideration, if well weighed, may 
 perhaps reconcile and satisfy those gentlemen of 
 the physical departments, who felt a difficulty in 
 admitting our Statistical Section within the scheme 
 of the British Association. Not that the essen- 
 tial distinction between the moral and the mathe- 
 matical can ever be obliterated, any more than in 
 mathematics itself we can obliterate the essential 
 distinction between geometry and algebra. It is 
 now forty years since I heard Professor Robison 
 of Edinburgh, all whose tastes and preferences 
 were on the side of geometry, state, and felici- 
 tously state, in behalf of this his more favourite 
 method of investigation, that so long as the mind 
 was engaged in it, it was in more direct and imme- 
 diate contact with what he expressively termed 
 the ipsa corpora of the subject — whereas in alge- 
 bra, while he did all homage to the latter as being 
 the more powerful instrument of research and dis- 
 covery, after that lines were committed to symbols, 
 the thinking principle had no more to do with the 
 real and original elements of the question ; but 
 losing sight of these, had only to do with certain 
 artificial and representative characters in the man- 
 
358 ArTLlCATION OF STATISTICS TO 
 
 agement and transformation of which it was alto- 
 gether occupied. Now certain it is that they are 
 only the observers of life and character who hold 
 sensible commerce with the ipsa corpora of our 
 department — the principles or the phenomena of 
 human nature ; and that the mere statists are only 
 taken up with the resulting numbers which come 
 forth of the working of these in communities of 
 assembled men. Nevertheless, in the tables of 
 the statist, as well as in the formulae of the analyst, 
 we may have correct exhibition of objective reali- 
 ties in the external world — a rigorous expression, 
 in the one case, of things in the world of motion 
 and inanimate matter ; an accurate registration in 
 the other, of things in the region of human society. 
 Fourth — in further recommendation of our 
 theme, and which indeed I hold to be its prime 
 recommendation, let me bid you ponder well the 
 distinction between the statistics of a small terri- 
 tory, and the general sketch or state of a large 
 one ; or between your thorough minute micro- 
 scopic acquaintance with but the segment of afield, 
 and your wider but necessarily on that account 
 your more superficial view of the whole. It is 
 this which so enamours me with the business of 
 our special department — that when compared with 
 those surveys which are given in authorship to the 
 public, of the state of the world, or the state of a 
 continent, or the state of a country, or even the 
 state of a single city — I believe that a deeper in- 
 sight is often to be gained into the principle and 
 philosophy of many questions in the economics of 
 society, from the statistics of a single parish, a 
 
MORAL AND ECONOMICAL QUESTIONS. 359 
 
 single street, often a single household or family. 
 I feel that the farther down you carry this subdi- 
 vision, the more intense must be your study of the 
 last and the least portion to which you have arrived, 
 and the nearer you come to the infinitesimals or 
 so to speak the corpusculavs of your subject ; and 
 so a profounder wisdom might thence be gathered, 
 and a more searching penetration effected into the 
 essence or else hidden and interior nature of 
 things — just as from the treatment of little speci- 
 mens in Chemistry, as a bit of chalk or the merest 
 handful of earth or salt or charcoal, along with a 
 close and diligent inspection of the results, there 
 might be evolved laws in nature, of the widest 
 possible extent and most beneficial operation. The 
 man whose eyes, like those of Solomon's fool, are 
 on all the ends of the earth, may prize the dazzling 
 outlines of a great and magnificent panorama ; 
 but it is only on the basis of patient and skilful 
 observation, patient of all drudgeries and cogni- 
 zant of all details, that a science of firm substra- 
 tum or stable endurance can be raised. 
 
 But lastly — there is one special reason why, in 
 the present style and temper of our age — I desid- 
 erate statistics, in the elucidation of all those 
 questions which bear on the economic comfort, 
 and still more on the present reform and future 
 amelioration of the species. It is difficult to handle 
 these topics at all, without betraying a certain 
 sympathy and felt interest in the concerns and 
 fortunes of the human family ; but mark the instant 
 effect which the betrayal of any such emotion has, 
 in lighting up a leer of incredulity, if not of con- 
 
360 APPLICATION OF STATISTICS TO 
 
 tempt, on the faces of our hard and heartless utili- 
 tarians. They have altogether disjoined and iso- 
 lated from each other, the intellectual from the 
 moral and the emotional faculties of our nature — 
 as if the perceptions of a man's understanding, and 
 the sensibilities of his heart, could not be in play 
 at the same instant. And accordingly on the 
 moment that a man begins to feel, he in their esti- 
 mation ceases to discern. For their sakes there- 
 fore, and as they seem to hold that science and 
 sentiment are incompatible with each other, 1 
 think it most desirable, not certainly to suppress 
 the one, but to make full acquittal of our preten- 
 sions to the other : And seeing that they are dis- 
 posed to regard with suspicion all the effusions of 
 an ardent philanthropy, as if they were mere 
 fancies or figures of speech — I would provide, and 
 in abundant supply, the only others which they 
 seem to care for — the figures of arithmetic. This, 
 it would appear, is the only demonstration to their 
 liking — the osteology of a bald, numerical, naked 
 skeleton. I should imagine that they had a mar- 
 vellous preference for dried specimens ; and that 
 the freshness of a living subject was utterly dis- 
 tasteful to them. Though they have greatly in- 
 creased of late years, yet they are not altogether 
 new to the world, nor quite peculiar to the gene- 
 ration in which we live — for, in the age immedi- 
 ately before us, we can descry their genuine pre- 
 decessors, of altogether their own likeness, in 
 those members of the British Pafliament, whose 
 constant practice it was to leave the House on the 
 moment that Edmund Burke commenced one oi 
 
MORAL AND ECONOMICAL QUESTIONS. •>b 1 
 
 his elaborate demonstrations — under the concep- 
 tion I presume, that because there was so much 
 briUiancy on the surface, there was therefore no 
 substratum of wisdom or philosophy beneath. 
 They have broken up the association between two 
 ideas, which, in the finer and juster apprehension 
 of the ancient Greeks, were so implicated together, 
 or rather so identified, that in their language one 
 and the same word was expressive of either or of 
 both. The to koiXov was significant of truth or of 
 beauty, or of the two together — whereas it seems 
 to be almost a category with these modern philo- 
 sophers that nothing can be true which is beauti- 
 ful, and nothing can be beautiful which is true. 
 May the statists of the British Association fully 
 awake to the charms of the one, and to the para- 
 mount claims of the other — erect to their honour 
 a common shrine, at which they may yield a con- 
 junct affection, and vindicate the high prerogatives 
 of both. 
 
 But let me proceed to other instances of the 
 good of statistics, for the determination of moral 
 and economical questions — with one sentence more 
 however, on that case of a more professional char- 
 acter than any of the others, which I have already 
 given. 
 
 When in London in the summer of 1837, I 
 waited on the Marquis of Lansdowne ; and, aware 
 of his taste and talent for statistics, I presented 
 iiim with the results of the survey which I have 
 now explauicd to you ; and more especially directed 
 his attention to the arithmetical test, by which we 
 could measure and ascertain the effect of this our 
 
362 APPLICATION OF STATISTICS TO 
 
 peculiar method of territorial cultivation. The 
 proportion of church-goers in the given locality 
 was less than one in nine ; and I put the supposi- 
 tion, that, by so many months or years of perse- 
 verance in the operations of the aggressive system, 
 it should become one in three — commenting at the 
 same time on the improvement of character and 
 habit, which such a change would imply. It gives 
 me pleasure to think that the proportion now is 
 still more favourable ; and though it ought at least 
 to be one in two or the half of the whole popula- 
 tion, of which proportion it still comes short from 
 a barrier whicn though, removeable is not yet re- 
 moved. On this point we cannot at present explain 
 ourselves; but we rejoice in the evidence that we 
 have already gathered, and of a strictly experi- 
 mental character, as warranting the confidence we 
 feel — that, on certain obstacles being removed, a 
 patent way will lie before us, for carrying that best 
 and highest of all education, the education of prin- 
 ciple, down to the humblest and onward to the 
 lowest of the people. 
 
 There are fifteen similar enterprises to the one 
 I have now described in and about Glasgow, and 
 upwards of one hundred and fifty now going on in 
 the whole of Scotland. I do hope that, as one 
 fruit of the visits from the British Association by 
 which our country has been honoured, the nume- 
 rical results of the success which has been earned 
 in many of our localities will be prepared and trans- 
 mitted on every future year — sure; I am confident, 
 of a respectful welcome from those enlightened men, 
 who will not deem it unworthy of a place in their 
 
MORAL AND ECONOMICAL QUESTIONS. 3G3 
 
 repositories, and among their other accumulated 
 treasures — that they should have the statistics of 
 reform, or of the people's moral amelioration ; as 
 well as the statistics of crime, or the statistics of 
 disease, or the statistics of mortality, or the statistics 
 of pauperism. 
 
 There is one fact more in regard to the Water 
 of Leith which I earnestly recommend to the 
 attention of general educationists. A weekday 
 school was provided for this district of 1356 people, 
 where, in virtue of the monitorial system, between 
 two and three hundred could be admitted without 
 injury to the scholarship of the learners. It was 
 intimated from the pulpit on the Sabbath, and 
 tilled per saltum — so that more than the Prussian 
 proportion, more than one in seven of the popula- 
 tion were assembled at a primary school, and that 
 from a community of the poorest of the poor. It 
 is to the virtue of the local and aggressive system 
 that I would give the credit of this result — for the 
 notice and recommendation were given by the mis- 
 sionary, and came with weight from his lips, be- 
 cause of the general confidence which he had 
 earned by his frequent and familiar movements 
 among the families. 
 
 But let me now quit these experiments in 
 Edinburgh, for a few cases and experiences in 
 Glasgow. 
 
 In illustration of my fourth general remark on 
 the subdivision of the territory, upon which either 
 processes are instituted or observations are made, I 
 would mention, that, so far back as 1816, I made 
 a single parish the sul)ject of no less than forty dis- 
 
364 APPLICATION OF STATISTICS TO 
 
 tinct and independent operations — each carried 
 forward in a small and separate district of its own 
 A parish of 1 1,000 people was broken up into acon- 
 geries of Sabbath-schools on the local principle — 
 the efficacy of which altogether turns on the differ- 
 ence between seeking and being sought after. To 
 every teacher were assigned about fifty contiguous 
 households ; and his business was to go round and 
 solicit the attendance of the children. When left to 
 themselves, as they were under the general system, 
 I am confident that not more than a hundred from 
 the whole parish attended Sabbath-schools. Under 
 the aggressive operations which we had instituted, 
 the yield amounted to fully 1200 of our juvenile 
 population — an experience which naturally led to 
 a transition in our thoughts from «, model to a 
 machine, or from a thing in miniature to a thing in 
 bulk. We see no difference between the case of 
 Sabbath evening schools for the young, and the 
 case of churches which are Sabbath-day schools 
 for the community at large, or people of all ages; 
 and it is our conviction, more and more rivetted by 
 the observations of every year, that an operation 
 at once territorial and aggressive forms the only 
 tactics by which to reclaim en masse, or to work 
 with aught like general and sensible effect on the 
 aggregates of a city population. 
 
 1 have now to record another experience which 
 1 hold in great value, as a beautiful exemplification 
 of the same principle. The same local and aggres- 
 sive system which I found so producttive of scholars, 
 both in Sabbath and common weekday seminaries 
 — I tried with equal success in the institution of little 
 
MORAL AND ECONOMICAL QUESTIONS. 365 
 
 home sewing-schools for girls. This species of 
 education is peculiarly called for in Glasgow, and 
 all similar manufacturing towns — where many of 
 the young are transplanted at a very early age into 
 the public works, and without availing themselves 
 even of the briefest interval for obtaining an 
 acquirement of such importance to good house- 
 wifery ; and the consequence is, a general ill-con- 
 ditionedness among that class of families in respect 
 of clothing, due it is well known to the incapacity 
 of the mothers for any sort of needle-work. To 
 remedy this, we determined to provide them with 
 an opportunity ; and, true to the principle of laying 
 the right initial movement on the right party, in- 
 stead of waiting till they should take advantage of 
 it, to press it on the attention of all. A very 
 simple machinery sufficed for the accomplishment 
 of our ouject. We calculated, that, as the lessons 
 of a single year might do for the elements of plain 
 sewing, there could not be so many as one in fifty 
 attending at a time on this branch of education, 
 confined as it was to one sex — at which rate half 
 a dozen small household seminaries, with an ai- 
 tendance of thirty on each, would meet the de- 
 mands of a population of nine thousand. For 
 the completion of this arrangement, we succeeded 
 in getting as many decent female householders, to 
 undertake for a salary of five pounds a-year and 
 the weekly payment of twopence from each of the 
 pupils, that they would receive into theirown houses, 
 all of their own vicinity who might require this edu- 
 cation at their hand. The salary in each in- 
 
366 APPLICATION OF STATISTICS TO 
 
 Stance was made out by the contributions of five 
 ladies, who visited both the schools and the fami- 
 lies to which the scholars belonged. One most 
 important practice in these little institutions, was 
 that each pupil in turn should take charge of the 
 apartment in which they met, and keep it in right 
 order, after which they were expected to do the 
 same in their own houses — a practice carried by 
 them into visible effect, and so as to humanize, in 
 a way that was quite noticeable, the aspect of their 
 own homes. I look back with the greatest plea- 
 sure to this experience— for never was there an 
 operation so thoroughly pervading. The yield of 
 scholars exceeded our previous computations ; and 
 whether I looked to the improvement in the ap- 
 pearance of the girls and change for the better of 
 their domestic habits which ensued from it, or to 
 the recognitions which took place between the 
 visitors and their young charge when they met on 
 the pavement and exchanged the notices of cordial 
 acquaintanceship with each other, I could not but 
 feel the vast importance of a well-directed agency 
 of ladies for speeding on the work of civilization, 
 even among the most ungainly of our city multi- 
 tudes. With the growing benevolence of the age, 
 the growing interest that is felt in the fortunes and 
 families of the working classes, it needs but a 
 thorough subdivision of the territory, that each 
 may have a task put into his hands which he can 
 thoroughly overtake — to redeem the consequences, 
 I will not say of past mismanageiftent, but mainly 
 of past heedlessness and inattention, to the state 
 
MORA.L AND ECONOMICAL QUESTIONS. 367 
 
 both as to comfort and character of our heretofore 
 neglected population. 
 
 The readings subsequent to this were on the 
 subject of Glasgow pauperism, which in the fourth 
 section of our treatise on the Sufficiency of the 
 Parochial System, have already been presented to 
 the reader in a more expanded form. 
 
ESSAY READ BEFORE THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. 
 
 DISTINCTIO^\ 
 
 IN PRINCIPLE AND EFFECT 
 
 SETWEEN 
 
 A LEGAL CHARITY FOR THE RELIEF OF INDIGENCE, 
 
 AND 
 
 A LEGAL CHARITY FOR THE RELIEF OF DISEASE, 
 
 1 . It had been good for the well-being of states, 
 if legislation had at all times kept within its own 
 proper boundaries — whereas, by stepping beyond 
 these, it has often marred the interest which it 
 meant to provide for, and inflicted a sore distemper 
 on human society. This has nowhere been more 
 strikingly exemplified, and in a way more instruc- 
 tive to the governments of other countries, than h^ 
 the Poor-law of England. 
 
 2. We often hear of the wisdom of nature, as 
 evinced in the laws and adaptations of the material 
 world ; but the same wisdom may be as visibly 
 discerned in the frame and principles of our men- 
 tal constitution — the spontaneous working of which 
 often leads to a far better result, than all the skill 
 and vigilance of statesmen can possibly effectuate. 
 A commerce which results from the free en- 
 terprise of individuals, each devising and labouring 
 for his own special advantage, is greatly more 
 flourishing and more conducive to the real pros- 
 21 2 a 
 
370 MEMOIR PRESENTED TO THE 
 
 perity of a kingdom, than a commerce wlilch la 
 nourished by the bounties, and at the same time 
 guided by the regulations of the Statute-book. 
 The whole of political economy bearsevidence to 
 the perfection of what may be termed the natural 
 system of human industry and human exchanges — 
 in opposition to the artificial system, that, whether 
 in the form of encouragements or restraints, acts 
 with all the mischievous influence of a disturbing 
 force on the operations of a previous and better 
 mechanism. 
 
 3. One of the most interesting verifications of 
 this remark may be seen in the history of pauper- 
 ism. It is quite palpable that nature has at least 
 made some provision in the very make and con- 
 stitution of humanity, for the alleviation, often pre- 
 vention, of the ills of extreme want. It, in the 
 first place, has endowed man with a strong and 
 urgent principle of self-preservation, and has su- 
 peradded the goading agonies of hunger to the fear 
 of perishing — so as to afford the most powerful 
 stimulus that can well be imagined, for the utmost 
 possible exertion to secure an adequate and regu- 
 lar supply of food. In the second place, it has 
 implanted a strong relative affection, as that of 
 parents to children, of children back again to pa- 
 rents, even of more distant kindred for each other 
 — so as to enlist the energies of all the effec- 
 tive members in a household, for the maintenance, 
 not of themselves only, but of the most weak and 
 helpless under their own roof; and, over and above 
 this, so as often to prompt them to the large assist- 
 ance of those, who, though beyond the limits of the 
 
ROYAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. 371 
 
 home in which they live, are yet of the same blood 
 and family. But there is a third principle, and 
 from which it is obvious that nature meant the 
 kindness of man for man to extend over a wider 
 field of operation than within the circle of the same 
 relationship — the principle of compassion, that 
 powerful impellent to deeds of generosity ; and in 
 virtue of which, it is nearly as intolerable for one 
 man to see another in the agonies of hunger, as to 
 be the victim of these agonies himself. This 
 opens up two resources for the relief of poverty — 
 First the kindness of poor to poor, or rather of im- 
 mediate neighbours for each other, living in the 
 same vicinity and occupying nearly the same level 
 on the ground-floor of society — Secondly the kind- 
 ness of rich to poor, which we place last in the 
 enumeration ; because truly we regard it as the 
 least powerful and the least prolific of the whole — 
 believing as we do, that, in the principle of self- 
 preservation whereby each man is led to care for 
 himself, and the principle of relative aff*ection 
 whereby each man is led to care for those of his 
 own kindred, and the principle of compassion 
 whereby each man is led to care for those of his 
 own acquaintance or neighbourhood who have 
 fallen into distress, we behold the most important 
 of nature's ordinations — first for the prevention, 
 and then for the relief, of extreme want and 
 wretchedness in the world. 
 
 4. But, to make our reasoning still more dis- 
 tinct and conclusive, w.e shall attempt to demon- 
 strate of each of these principles, separately and 
 in order, that in respect of beneficial operation, 
 
372 MEMOIR PRESENTEn TO THE 
 
 each is so injured and enfeebled by the hurtful 
 influence of a public charity for the relief of indi- 
 gence — as altogether to have greatly deteriorated 
 the condition of the poor and working classes, in 
 every neighbourhood where such a provision has 
 been established. 
 
 5. And first then it is obvious, that a law by 
 the state, of public and proclaimed charity for the 
 relief of indigence, must slacken the operation of 
 what has been termed the strongest law of nature 
 — even the law of self-preservation. It tends to 
 supersede the care and industry, which, but for 
 its own mischievous and seducing influence, a man 
 might have otherwise put forth — in labouring to 
 realize a sufficiency for himself and for his chil- 
 dren. It is a law of exemption from toil, from 
 prudence, from foresight and economy, from every 
 restraint on the gratifications of present and power- 
 ful appetite ; and from all those busy expedients 
 wherewith a man, who is left to depend on himself, 
 devises for the security or the advancement of his 
 own condition in the world. A man feels dis- 
 charged from all strenuousness or self-denial, when 
 the care of his own subsistence is thus taken out 
 of his hands ; and the state undertakes to do for 
 him that which, but for its interference, he would 
 infallibly and in obedience to the calls of hunger 
 and necessity have otherwise done for himself. A 
 universal guarantee against starvation, operates to- 
 wards a universal relaxation of industry and provi- 
 dential habits among the .families of a land. A 
 man will not accumulate of his savings against thp 
 evil day, if that day have already been provided 
 
nOYAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. 373 
 
 for by the institutions of his country. He is thus 
 tempted to idleness, nay tempted either to profli- 
 gacy or premature marriage, by the expenses of 
 which he is no longer deterred— when these ex- 
 penses are shifted from himself to a public and 
 compulsory fund, raised for all sorts of destitution, 
 in whatever way that destitution may have been 
 formed. It is thus that many a single parish in 
 England holds forth in miniature the example of an 
 over-peopled world. It labours and is in distress 
 from the redundancy of its own numbers; and 
 whether this excess proceeds from the number of 
 illegitimate births, or from the regular family 
 births of too early and too frequent marriages — 
 certain it is, that there are thousands of parochial 
 communities in England, where the overplus of 
 labourers has effected an unnatural reduction of 
 price in the labour market — so as to have inflicted 
 a sore and general degradation on the circum- 
 stances of the ^vorking classes. It is thus that 
 the Poor-law of England has created far more of 
 want and wretchedness than it can by any possi- 
 bility relieve ; or, in other words, a law in the con- 
 stitution of the country, by superseding a wiser 
 and better law in the constitution of human nature, 
 has depressed the condition of the lower orders 
 in society, and aggravated tenfold the poverty 
 which it had vainly proposed to do away 
 
 6. But secondly, there- is another law, inserted 
 by the hand of Nature in the mechanism of our con- 
 stitution ; and which, when left undisturbed to its 
 own proper direction and force, goes far to allevi- 
 ate the ills of poverty, we mean the law of rela- 
 
374 MEMOIR PRESENTED TO THE 
 
 tive or family afFection — as of parents to children, 
 of children back again to parents, of brothers and 
 sisters to each other ; and even of more distant 
 members in the same circle of relationship. And, 
 beside this, there is a certain sentiment of pride 
 which comes in aid of the more intense kindness 
 that operates within the limits of a common house- 
 hold, or, more extended still, of a common kindred, 
 though parted into separate domestic establish- 
 ments, and in virtue of which many a sacrifice is 
 made to support and to save each other from the 
 degradations of charity, so long as charity is not 
 legalised. But both affection and honour give way, 
 before the temptations of a public and authorized 
 provision for the relief of indigence ; and accord- 
 ingly in England, under its late and still under its 
 present parochial economy, there do occur the 
 most scandalous desertions of very near relatives, 
 and which, by the force of habit and under the 
 countenance of general example, have ceased to be 
 scandalous there. Aged parents, instead of being 
 taken into the houses of their children now advanc- 
 ed to manhood and in a state of sufficiency for sup- 
 porting those to whom they owe their birth, are 
 abandoned for life to the cheerless imprisonment 
 of a Poors-house ; and on the other hand, parents, 
 in the full vigour of manhood and the natural pro- 
 tectors of their own families, have been tempted 
 in hundreds perhaps in thousands every year to 
 abscond from their dwellings, and leave all the 
 inmates to the charity of the parish bound by law 
 to provide for them. We have counted in one 
 newspaper no less than forty advertisements of 
 
ROYAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. 3/5 
 
 runaway husbands from the town of Manchester, 
 who had left their faraihes on the parish fund, and 
 for the discovery and apprehension of whom a 
 reward was offered by the managers. This unna- 
 tural desertion of their own kinsfolk is the epidemic 
 vice of England — only, however, because a legal 
 guarantee against the starvation of those who are 
 thus deserted is its epidemic temptation. It is in 
 striking contrast with the general habit of Scot- 
 land, in the great majority of whose parishes such 
 a guarantee is practically unknown ; and where, 
 almost universally, such an abandonment, either of 
 parents by their own children or of children by 
 their own parents, would, as a thing of exceeding 
 rare occurrence, be deemed a monstrous excep- 
 tion to the most binding duties, the most sacred 
 proprieties of Christian and humanized life. We 
 have already considered the effect of a law of pau- 
 perism, in releasing man from the duties which he 
 owes to himself. Its effect in releasing him from 
 the duties which he owes to those of his own rela- 
 tionship, is no less obvious. In both instances, 
 it directly tends to multiply the number of paupers; 
 and, great as this economic evil is, it is surpassed 
 by the moral evil of a system, under which the sus- 
 tenance of man is made independent of his own 
 virtue and prudence ; and the sustenance even 
 of his nearest relatives is alike independent of 
 those parental and filial affections, which are na- 
 ture's strongest securities for the maintenance and 
 uprearing of successive families in the world. 
 Surely better than to have thus counteracted such 
 urgent and universal principles as these, would it 
 
376 MEMOIR PIIESEKTED TO TUB 
 
 have been that the hand of power had not interfer- 
 ed with them ; but leaving them to their own native 
 and spontaneous operation, that legislation had 
 kept within her own rightful province, and let the 
 business of charity alone. 
 
 7. But thirdly, beside the strong feeling of 
 relative affection between men and men of the 
 same kindred, Nature hath established another 
 guarantee against the ills of extreme want; and 
 another feeling strong too and of wider operation 
 than the former, we mean the feeling of compas- 
 sion — of which all might be the objects ; but 
 which acts with peculiar force and great practical 
 effect, between men and men of the same neigh- 
 bourhood. And so it is not to be told how much 
 is given and received throughout the families, even 
 of the poorest localities, by the internal operation 
 of charity amongst themselves. It is true that 
 the contributions of each might be individually 
 small, but this is made up for by their number 
 and constancy. It is quite palpable, even on the 
 most cursory observation, how mutually helpful, 
 by personal service and attendance, they are to 
 each other, in seasons of sickness ; but it requires 
 much intercourse, and a very intimate acquaintance 
 with the habitudes of the poor who are congregat- 
 ed together in the same community, to be made sure 
 of their great mutual generosity, in imparting, 
 from their own scanty share of the necessaries of 
 life, to the naked and the hungry, and the mem- 
 bers whether young or old of those bereaved 
 households wl)om the hand of death has deprived 
 of their parents or natural protectors. Such, 
 
ROYAL INSTITUTE OF FIIAIJCE. 377 
 
 nevertheless, is the actual finding of all who have 
 given themselves to the business of observation on 
 tbis most interesting walk. The Reverend Mr 
 Carlyle of Dublin informs me, that he can depone, 
 from his minute and statistical acquaintance with 
 one of the poorest sections in the city of Dublin — 
 that the amount given and received by the opera- 
 tion of a charity purely internal, or which recipro- 
 cates between the families of the district, exceeds 
 all computation. This fully accords with my own 
 experience, when minister in Glasgow, where I 
 had a parish of ten thousand people, the poorest 
 of the poor ; and where, from instances too nume- 
 rous to be mentioned, 1 learned the delightful 
 lesson — that the spontaneous charity of neighbours 
 for each other was a more certain as well as more 
 abundant source of relief, in cases of extreme in- 
 digence, than that legal charity, by which, when 
 in full operation, the other is wellnigh superseded. 
 Never did a case occur without the most timely 
 forthgoings of aid and sympathy from the imme- 
 diate neighbours — insomuch that I have often ex- 
 pressed it as my confidence, that, if surrounded by 
 human eyes and human ears, I had no fear of 
 human feelings being also awakened, so as to 
 make it a moral impossibility that any man should 
 starve in the sight of his fellows. Perhaps the 
 most vivid illustration of this cheering truth in the 
 history of our nature is to be gathered from Bux- 
 ton's Tour through the Prisons of Great Britain. 
 The legal allowance of bread to the prisoners 
 varies at different places. In Bristol it was 
 below the par of human subsistence. The allow- 
 
378 MEMOIR PRESENTED TO THE 
 
 ance was too small for the criminals ; and for the 
 debtors there was no allowance at all. 'i'he pris- 
 oners of the latter class, therefore, are left, either 
 to the assistance of their friends or to the charity 
 of the public. But it occasionally happened, that 
 both these resources failed them — when they 
 would have inevitably perished of hunger but for 
 the generosity of the criminals, who, rather than 
 brook the spectacle of a fellow-creature suffering 
 under one of the sorest agonies of nature, shared 
 their own scanty pittance along with them. This 
 1 hold to be one of the finest examples which can 
 be quoted of the strength of human compassion — 
 proving that it survives the depraving process which 
 conducts a criminal to his cell. We have only to 
 carry back this experience from prisons to parishes, 
 in order to be convinced of the safety, wherewith 
 the evils of extreme want might generally be left 
 to the workings of individual sympathy in every 
 neighbourhood where they occur. If a man in 
 the agonies of hunger, and giving authentic tokens 
 of this sore distress, be within sight and hearing 
 of his fellows — then, by an urgent and irrepressible 
 law of nature, do they feel the promptings of a 
 desire to relieve him which they are unable to 
 resist. But not if a law of the state have ordained 
 its own prescribed and authoritative method of 
 relieving. Such a law has practically the effect 
 of absolving every man from the obligation of 
 caring for his neighbours ; and by laying its arrest 
 on a thousand rills of beneficence', which would 
 else liave flowed in refreshing and kindly circula- 
 (ion throughout the mass of society, it has bhut 
 
ROYAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. o79 
 
 far moi'e copious and effective sources of relief for 
 human wretchedness than itself can open. 
 
 8. The arrest thus laid on the popular habit of 
 mutual service and sympathy between poor and 
 poor, will prove a far greater loss to the destitute 
 than can be possibly made up to them by all the 
 dispensations of legal charity. The spontaneous 
 offerings of private benevolence will be sadly 
 abridged — because men naturally feel themselves 
 released from the care of all the want and suffer- 
 ing around them, when made to understand that 
 the State has taken that care upon themselves. 
 Those of the same rank with the dependent and 
 the needy keep back from the work of relief, be- 
 cause of an imagined sufficiency in the law which 
 meanwhile is never realized. Those of a higher 
 rank, the wealthy on whom the burden of the 
 compulsory provision is laid, have an additional 
 reason for their insensibility to the calls of dis- 
 tress. It is not merely that their forced contri- 
 butions to the Poor-rate supersede, in their own 
 minds, the obligation of any further, or free-will 
 offering. But the truth is, that the whole effect 
 of such an artificial system of charity is to banish 
 from its ministrations all the better and kindlier 
 feelings of our nature. What is given by the ordi- 
 nation of law is given without good-will ; and what 
 is received by the same ordination is received 
 without gratitude. That, which ought at all 
 times to have been a thing of love, is transformed 
 into a thing of fierce and fiery litigation. The 
 clear and right proceeding in the management of 
 our nature — were to leave to justice the things of 
 
380 MEMOIR PRESENTED TO THB 
 
 justice, and to humanity the things of humanity. 
 But the first has been made to usurp the province 
 of the second ; and in the confusion of these two 
 moral elements, which should have ever been kept 
 distinct from each other, the one party have been 
 led to demand what they ought to have supplicated; 
 and the other party, in the attitude of defensive 
 jealousy, stoutly to withhold what in the exercise 
 of an enforced compassion they would freely and 
 willingly have given. This will account for the 
 state of mutual exasperation which obtained, and 
 which recent changes have for a time at least only 
 inflamed the more, between the paupers and the 
 proprietors of England ; and the loss to a great 
 extent of their spontaneous liberality must be 
 added to the other and still larger privations, 
 which, under the guise of kindness, the law of a 
 compulsory provision for the poor has entailed on 
 the victims of its folly. 
 
 9. Shortly then to recapitulate the four causes 
 of deterioration in the comforts of the poor, which 
 the allowances of no public charity can by any 
 possibility countervail — we refer once more — 
 First, to the augmenting improvidence and idle- 
 ness which are generated by the system — Secondly, 
 to the reduction which it effects on that mutual 
 kindness, which, in a natural state of things, ob- 
 tains between those of the same kindred — Thirdly, 
 to a similar reduction made by it on those inter- 
 changes of sympathy and aid, which take place 
 among the poor themselves of the same neigh- 
 bourhood, when the laws of their country do not 
 contravene the laws and tendencies of their own 
 
ROYAL INSTITDTE OF FRANCE. 381 
 
 moral nature — and Lastly, the alienation which it 
 begets of the rich from the poor, whom it arrays 
 into two hostile parties against each other — the 
 one fiercely clamouring for those imagined rights, 
 of which they never would have dreamed, had not 
 this perverse and mischievous law of pauperism 
 inspired the notion of them ; and the other party 
 as fiercely resisting the encroachments on their 
 property of that popular demand, which they fear 
 will be ever increasing and never satisfied. We 
 are not to wonder, that, with such powerful coun- 
 teractions, the number of poor is found greatly to 
 outstrip the provision which is made for them ; 
 and that a law which carries in it an aspect of 
 munificence to the lower orders of society, has in 
 truth depressed their condition, and aggravated 
 the evils which it meant to remedy or alleviate. 
 
 10. It would detain us too long from the main 
 subject of this essay, did we say all that is import- 
 ant to be noticed or known, respecting the utter 
 powerlessness of law — if it proceed in the way of 
 a public and positive administration of reUef, even 
 to abridge, and far less to do away with the indi- 
 gence of the land. But we cannot omit to assign 
 a great master reason, why the consequence of 
 such a law is the very opposite of this — so that, 
 instead of abridging, it is sure not only to multiply 
 the wants of the poor ; but to effect a great and 
 general deterioration in the circumstances of the 
 working classes at large. We advert to the un- 
 doubted stimulus, which a poor-law gives to popu- 
 lation — both adding to the frequency and the pre- 
 cipitation of marriages ; and thereby causing, not 
 
382 MEMOIR PRESENTED TO THE 
 
 only a greater number of families, but of larger 
 families than before. It is thus that the market 
 for labour comes to be overstocked, and the sure 
 effect of this over proportion of labourers is the 
 under price of labour. The greater the number 
 of workmen the smaller must be the wages ; and it 
 gives a fearful aggravation to this mischief, that a 
 very small addition to the number of labourers, 
 creates a very great reduction in the wages which 
 are paid to them. Let there be but the excess of 
 one twentieth in the quantity of labour ; and we 
 mistake the consequence, if we think that there 
 will be only the fall of one twentieth in the remu- 
 neration which is made to it. Even so few as a 
 twentieth part of the vliole number, unemployed, 
 and soliciting admission In the places already occu- 
 pied and full by those who have gone before them, 
 would create so intense a competition throughout 
 the general body of workmen as might bring down 
 wages one-fourth, one-third, or even one-half, of 
 what they might be, were the number of human be- 
 ings in no more than equal proponion to the demand 
 for their industry. It is thus that the whole body 
 of the common people suffer a general and severe 
 depression even from a slight redundancy in their 
 numbers ; and legislation is sure to find itself em- 
 barked in a vain enterprise, when it attempts to 
 overtake this constantly increasing destitution, by 
 a larger dispensation of charity than before. In 
 an economy of legalized pauperism, the necessities 
 and the demands ever multiply beyond the sup- 
 plies — as in England, where the gigantic expendi- 
 ture of eight millions was lavished on the relief of 
 
ROYAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. 3S3 
 
 that poverty which its own system may be said to 
 iiave created ; and where, in many of its parishes, 
 the sum necessary for the maintenance of the poor 
 had nearly overtaken the rent of the land. It 
 v/as high time to review an administration so replete 
 with evils ; and which every year was rendering 
 more burdensome and oppressive than before. It 
 remains to be seen whether the great abridgments 
 which have been eifected, in consequence of the 
 last reforms on the pauperism of England, are but 
 temporary ; and the effect of that more rigorous 
 administration, which, however natural at the out- 
 set of a new process, may afterwards relax — when 
 the native principle of the whole system may again 
 develop its powers of mischievous expansion, and 
 prove of the legal and compulsory provision for 
 indigence, that no ingenuity of man can repress its 
 overgrowth. It may require the experience of 
 some years to determine this question. 
 
 1 1. The most important change which has taken 
 place in their management of the poor, is the sub- 
 stitution of what is termed in-door relief, for those 
 allowances which the paupers wont to receive 
 at their own houses ; and which are now in a great 
 measure superseded, by the admission of those who 
 apply for legal charity to a general alms-house 
 erected for the district — often comprising a good 
 many parishes. In this way the relief is made 
 greatly more unpalatable to the applicants. It is 
 hold out to them in the most repulsive form. If 
 they consent to accept of it, it is at the expense of 
 liberty and home, and all those old associations of 
 place and neighbourhood, which tht^y are forced 
 
384 MEMOIR PRESENTED TO THE 
 
 to renounce for the discipline and confinement of 
 the great public asylum which has been provided 
 for them. It is thus that the treatment of poverty 
 is assimilated to the treatment of crime. The in- 
 mates of the institution receive a maintenance — but 
 a perpetual imprisonment though somewhat miti- 
 gated by certain relaxations, is the penalty which 
 they have to pay for it. 
 
 12. The experiment is yet far from being com- 
 pleted, but the progress of it is highly instructive 
 as far as it has gone. In some parishes, every 
 pauper who under the former regime was in the 
 habit of receiving out-door relief; but who in ex- 
 change for this, was required under the present 
 system to become the inmate of an asylum — has 
 refused the alternative and withdrawn his name 
 from the lists and the allowances of pauperism 
 altogether. It is thus that many thousands of 
 these parochial pensioners all over England, have 
 been driven by the severities or terrors of the new 
 system from the domain of pauperism ; and, after 
 betaking themselves to their own resources, do in 
 fact find a sufficiency in these for an independence 
 and a comfort which they never formerly enjoyed. 
 This history, repeated and exemplified in thou- 
 sands of the parishes in England, is rich in prin- 
 ciple, and fraught with the discovery of an import- 
 ant truth. It proves that there was no call, no 
 natural necessity, for that part at least of the 
 enormous expenditure of the former system from 
 which they are now relieved — and" that not by any 
 skilfulness in the management of their new system ; 
 but by the mere repulsion of its discouragements, 
 
ROYAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. 385 
 
 and of the dread which is inspired by it. Instead 
 then of boasting of the wisdom of their new economy, 
 they have far greater reason to acknowledge the 
 egregious folly of their old one ; and when in so 
 many of their parishes, they witness the palpable 
 fact, that the great majority of their former pau- 
 pers, after being deprived of their old allowances, 
 can contrive to live and in all appearance as com- 
 fortably as before — this might lead them to appre- 
 hend, that, to a great extent at least, the artificial 
 charity of law is uncalled for, and even prepare 
 them for the conclusion that it perhaps were better 
 if the law could be dispensed with altogether. 
 
 13. But perhaps it is too much to expect, that 
 a country shall so speedily retrace its way, and so 
 as to make even in one generation, a total recovery 
 of itself from the error of centuries. But other 
 countries, at least, may learn a lesson from the 
 experience of England. They should know how 
 to make a right interpretation of the abridgment 
 which is now being made on the expenses of Eng- 
 lish pauperism. It demonstrates that there is no 
 necessity, either in nature or in the state of human 
 society, for such a system at all; and it is therefore 
 to be hoped, that other nations will avoid that 
 great blunder in the domestic policy of England, 
 which has been fraught with so many evils to all 
 the classes of society, and to none more than to the 
 poor themselves. Foreigners are far more likely 
 to profit from the history of this great and memo- 
 rable delusion than the country itself which has 
 been the victim of it, and which at this moment 
 makes striking display of the tenacity of inveterate 
 21 2 b 
 
386 MEMOIR PRESENTED TO THB 
 
 and long-established error, in extending the samo 
 hurtful policy to Ireland — thereby to aggravate the 
 distempers of that unhappy land. 
 
 14. And it is further instructive to observe the 
 expedient by which it is attempted to correct this 
 wrong legislation — not by abolishing the legisla- 
 tion, but by counteracting it with other legislation, 
 wrong too, though in an opposite direction to the 
 former. Thus, a compulsory provision for the 
 poor wears an expression of kindness to the hum- 
 bler classes of society. But when pauperism, 
 fostered into being by this unwise ordination, made 
 alarming progress, and threatened to annihilate the 
 property of the higher classes — then to arrest and 
 neutralize this mischief, they have devised another 
 ordination, by which to make the pauperism as re- 
 pulsive as possible to the feelings of those who 
 claim a part in its ministrations. They still keep 
 up the notion of their right to a maintenance in the 
 hearts of the destitute ; but, by the new law, it is 
 a maintenance on terms the most hateful and humi- 
 liating, and that for the purpose of scaring away as 
 many as possible, of those applicants, who, under 
 the old system, did beset the parish vestries of 
 England — the wretched victims of their own indo- 
 lence and dissipation. We cannot imagine a state 
 of the law, more fitted to engender the utmost 
 acerbity of feeling among the poor ; and indeed 
 to alienate the general body of the common people 
 from the government under which they live. 
 Surely it were better that charity 4iad been left to 
 its own spontaneous operation, and so as to ensure 
 the kindly play of good will on the part of its dis- 
 
ROYAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. 387 
 
 pensers and gratitude on the part of its recipients ; 
 surely tiiis must give rise to a better and a blander 
 community, than when the one party are led to 
 challenge a sustenance as their privilege and their 
 due; and the other party, to defend themselves 
 against the encroachment, labour to make the pri- 
 vilege as worthless as they may, by assimilating 
 to the uttermost the treatment of paupers to the 
 treatment of criminals. In such a condition of 
 things, we behold the materials of a fierce and 
 fiery fermentation in the hearts of the lower orders 
 — most hurtful to their own spirits, and most haz- 
 ardous to the peace of society. The first great 
 blunder in this legislation, was to ordain a law of 
 compulsory relief at all ; and when, to save the 
 ruinous consequences of this law, the relief was 
 made as degrading as possible, this was attempting 
 to correct one evil by another, or to bring about a 
 right result by what mathematicians would call a 
 compensation of errors. The first may be re- 
 garded as a disturbing force in one direction, and 
 the second as a disturbing force in the opposite 
 direction. Let both be removed, and the busi- 
 ness of charity, when restored to its own proper 
 character, would proceed in the right and natural 
 course, without error and without deviation. 
 
 15. In every way then, it is better for a nation 
 to keep itself clear of any legal enactment for the 
 relief of indigence ; and more especially for a 
 government, not to take out of the hands of its 
 people, the duties which they owe either to them- 
 selves or to their relatives or to their neighbours. 
 The great lesson to be learned from the example 
 
388 MEMOIR PRESENTED TO THE 
 
 of England is, that the economic condition of the 
 lower classes is not improved but deteriorated by 
 the establishment of a compulsory provision for the 
 destitute — which provision too, besides aggravat- 
 ing the miseries of their state,has, by introducing the 
 heterogeneous element of an imagined right into 
 the business of charity, turned what ought to have 
 been altogether a matter of love into a matter 
 of angry litigation, and greatly distempered the 
 social condition of England, by the heart-burnings 
 of a perpetual contest between the higher and 
 humbler orders of the commonwealth. 
 
 16. But it must be admitted, that, though this 
 be the wise and even benevolent part of a govern- 
 ment, devising for the welfare of its subjects, it 
 may not be the policy by which best to conciliate 
 the affections of the multitude. There is in it a 
 certain unmoved and cold-blooded aspect of insen- 
 sibility to distress — the appearance of a heartless 
 indifference to the sufferings and the sympathies of 
 our common nature. It has been matter of boast- 
 ful complacency to the writers of England, when 
 expatiating on the perfection of their own govern- 
 ment — that they could speak, not merely of the 
 wisdom and the justice, but also of the humanity 
 of their laws : and the law to which they make 
 their most confident appeal in support of this asser- 
 tion, is their own law of pauperism. It no doubt 
 conduces mightily to the strength and popularity 
 of any government, when it can stand forth in the 
 guise of kindness to the most helpless of its people ; 
 but kindness in the expression, or even in the real 
 and honest purpose, may often be cruelty in effect. 
 
ROYAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. 889 
 
 And never was this more strikingly exemplified 
 than by England's famous law — prompted we have 
 no doubt, by feeUngs of the sincerest benevolence; 
 but which, notwithstanding, has enhanced and mul- 
 tiplied tenfold the sufferings that were meant to 
 be relieved by it. It has become therefore all the 
 more desirable, that the occasions should be 
 pointed out, on which a government might have 
 the opportunity of coming forth ostensibly as the 
 friend, and so at the same time as to relieve and 
 substantially to be the benefactor of the afflicted — 
 with the same aspect of munificence and mercy to 
 the destitute upon its forehead, which made the 
 government of England so popular at the first en- 
 actment of its Poor-law; but without those tre- 
 mendous consequences on the character and 
 comfort of the lower orders, which the experience 
 of centuries has demonstrated to follow inevitably 
 in its train 
 
 17. It is the part of every well-principled 
 government to discriminate between a seeming and 
 a real good to the population ; and never for the 
 sake of popularity to provide the former, even if it 
 only practise thereby a harmless deceit on the 
 public imagination — and still more, if under the 
 guise of an apparent blessing to the poor, there 
 lurks an influence at once ruinous both to the moral 
 and economic prosperity of the lower orders. But, 
 on the other hand, should the good to be provided 
 be free of any such alloy, and at the same time be 
 as apparent as it is real, then, it is not only a well- 
 principled but an eminently politic and wise pro- 
 ceeding in a government, to determine on the 
 
390 MEiMOIR PRESENTED TO THE 
 
 adoption of it — thereby earning the grateful affec- 
 tions of the people ; and, at the same time, scat- 
 tering amongst them those solid and unquestionable 
 benefits, which may abide the test of experience, 
 and prove to be of great and actual service to the 
 interests of humanity. Now, a law of relief for 
 general indigence does not realize both these con- 
 ditions. It may carry upon its front an aspect of 
 benignity to the poor ; but, fraught with innume- 
 rable evils, will at length turn out to be the 
 mockery of an unreal blessing, or rather a deadly 
 act of hostility to their best interests ; and all the 
 more grievous, that it is in the semblance and with 
 the promises of truest friendship. In defect of 
 such a law then, can any other law of relief be spe- 
 cified in which both the conditions will hold ? — full 
 of promise even at the outset, and not behind in 
 performance afterward — a law which not only ex- 
 presses some great purpose of obvious benevolence, 
 but which executes that purpose to the full ; and 
 without inflicting as the law of pauperism unques- 
 tionably does, deterioration or discomfort on the 
 objects of its care. 
 
 18. A law of relief for general indigence does 
 not fulfil these conditions ; but a law of relief for 
 disease may. There is no fund that can possibly 
 be raised, which will overtake the former. But 
 with a small fraction of the country's wealth, the 
 latter can be overtaken. The distinction between 
 these two objects — that is, between a public 
 charity for the relief of indigence, and a public 
 charity for the relief of disease — must not have 
 occurred to the civilized governments of Europe, 
 
ROYAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. 391 
 
 else it would have been more frequently acted on ; 
 and yet on the moment of its being stated, it is a 
 distinction abundantly obvious in itself, and alike 
 obvious in the reasons of it. An ostensible pro- 
 vision for the relief of poverty creates more poverty. 
 An ostensible provision for the relief of disease 
 does not create more disease. The human will 
 is enlisted on the side of poverty by the provision 
 which is made for it. No such provision will 
 ever enlist the human will on the side of disease. 
 Let proclamation be made of a law which guaran- 
 tees every man against starvation — and this were 
 tantamount to the proclaiming a jubilee of exemp- 
 tion from the toils of industry, from the cares of 
 providence, from the duties of family and the sym- 
 pathies of social life ; and by the check thus given 
 to all the natural incentives, whether of private 
 exertion for one's own interest or of private charity 
 for the good of others, there might ensue a con- 
 stantly increasing poverty that will ever keep 
 ahead of the increasing fund, by which it is vainly 
 hoped to quell the mischief that rises into greater 
 dimensions with every new and larger attempt to 
 overtake it. To think of providing for the wants 
 of poverty by the ordination of an adequate sup- 
 ply, is every way as irrational, as to aim at the 
 extinction of a fire by pouring oil upon it. It is 
 not so with the attempt to provide, and that even 
 in the most legal and certain and open manner, for 
 the wants of disease. And this is the reason of 
 the difference. Though poverty in itself be not 
 pleasant, yet the path of indolence and dissipation 
 which leads to it, is abundantly pleasant and 
 
392 MEMOIR PKESENTED TO THE 
 
 alluring ; and so thousands are prepared to rush 
 upon this descending path, on the moment that 
 the consequent poverty is disarmed of its terrors, 
 by the j)rotection and the promises of law. It is 
 thus that under such a system men are tempted, 
 and that in constantly increasing numbers, to be- 
 come voluntarily poor ; but no system, no multi- 
 plication of funds or of hospitals, will (with a few 
 rare exceptions, far too rare to be practically of 
 any weight in a general argument) tempt men 
 to become voluntarily diseased. No man will 
 break a limb for the sake of its skilful amputation 
 in an infirmary ; or put out his eyes for the benefit 
 of admittance to a blind asylum ; or become wil- 
 fully dumb or deranged or leprous, that he might 
 lay claim to any treatment or guardianship, which 
 may have been provided at the expense of the 
 nation for these respective maladies. In the very 
 constitution of our sentient nature, in its repug- 
 nance to pain and physical suffering, we have the 
 strongest possible guarantee against men wilfully 
 becoming patients, in order to their admission into 
 an asylum for disease. We have no such guar- 
 antee, but the opposite, against men becoming 
 paupers, in order to their admission into an asylum 
 for indigence. An indefinite provision for want is 
 ever sure to multiply its objects ; and the evil 
 recedes and enlarges, with every advance that is 
 made upon it. A certain definite provision on the 
 other hand for disease will be as sure to overtake 
 its objects. By every new contribution we ap- 
 proach the nearer to a distinct and satisfactory 
 fulfilment ; nor does the benevolence whether of 
 
ROYAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. 393 
 
 the govv^rnment or of associated philanthropists, 
 need to stay its hand, under the apprehension that 
 one sufferer more will be added to the melancholy 
 catalogue of disease, because of all the care and 
 tenderness which can possibly be bestowed upon 
 it. This forms the great distinction between the 
 two cases. The open proclamation of a free 
 entry into asylums of disease would make a clear 
 abridgment of human misery, and bring no new 
 or additional disease into existence. The like 
 proclamation of a free entry into the asylums of 
 indigence, would bring a world of new poverty 
 into existence, and swell more every year the 
 amount of pauperism. The fin'al outgoing of such 
 a system were at length to absorb all the resources' 
 of the country, and beggar its whole population. 
 
 19. The antipathy of all our most enlightened 
 political economists to a public charity for the 
 relief of indigence, has been ascribed to a cold and 
 unfeeling hardihood of soul. And the imputation 
 may be true sometimes; but is calumny in all 
 those instances, numerous it is to be hoped, when 
 the moving principle of their hostility is a real 
 concern for the substantial interests of the lower 
 orders — the desire to ward off a system which they 
 honestly believe to have a withering influence 
 both on the character and comfort of the general 
 population. At all events, if it can be demon- 
 strated of any public charity, that it is altogether 
 free of this deleterious tendency, and works an 
 unquestionable good to its objects, without any 
 alloy to discourage or repel the attempts of the 
 benevolent to support it — this holds out a noble 
 
394 MEMOIR PRESENTED TO THE 
 
 opportunity for the enemies of a Poor-law, to re- 
 deem their character, and manifest the real spirit 
 and design by which they are actuated. Now, a 
 public chai'ity for disease just presents this very 
 opportunity. The halt, and the blind, and the 
 maimed, and the impotent, and the dumb, and the 
 lunatic — stand before us, with a special mark im- 
 pressed upon them by the hand of Providence, 
 and which at once announces both their necessity 
 and their claim, for the unqualified sympathy of 
 all their fellows. It would give rise to no ulterior 
 demand on the benevolence of the country, though 
 receptacles were opened wide enough and frequent 
 enough to harbour them all. A certain definite 
 amount of suffering and distress would be cleared 
 away from the territory of human wretchedness, 
 without any baleful operation on the territorj 
 beyond it. That mischief, which, like the spread- 
 ing leprosy, is ever sure to follow a public and 
 certain provision for indigence, is, on an obvious 
 principle, never to be apprehended from a provi- 
 sion however public and however certain for the 
 cure or alleviation of disease. If it was under 
 the burden of such an apprehension, that these 
 philanthropists stood aloof, and refused their coun- 
 tenance and their aid to the one species of charity 
 — let them now, when relieved from the burden, 
 come fnrth both with their testimony and their 
 wealth in support of the other species of charity. 
 If in the first place they kept feeling at abeyance, 
 because philosophy forbade the indulgence of it — 
 let them in the second place, when there is no 
 cold obstruction in the way, dem.onstrate the 
 
ROYAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. 395 
 
 power and promptitude of their humanity, by a 
 ready forthgoing of their sympathies, now emanci- 
 pated from all restraint, on those involuntary dis- 
 tresses which nature and necessity have imposed. 
 By their opposition to the institutes of pauperism, 
 they have proved themselves to be before others 
 in the soundness of their understandings — let them 
 by their large and willing support for the insti- 
 tutes of disease, prove that they are not behind 
 others in the sensibilities of the heart. If at the 
 dictate of reason they withheld their liberalities 
 from the one cause — when the other presents itself, 
 and reason not only withdraws its disallowance but 
 urges its unexceptionable claims, then let them 
 show that they have an eye for pity and a hand 
 open as day for melting charity. 
 
 20. That this lesson has yet to be learnt by the 
 great majority of our philanthropists, is obvious 
 from the review of those public charities, which 
 have been founded by the munificence of individ- 
 uals — whether in the form of bequests or of bene- 
 volent associations. It is not many years ago, 
 since a Royal Commission was appointed in Bri- 
 tain, to inquire into the public charities of England 
 and Wales ; and it is striking to observe the large 
 number of those which have the relief of indigence 
 for their object, and the very small number which 
 are instituted for the treatment of disease. In the 
 account now before us of these charities abridged 
 from the Commissioners' Reports, we reckoned 
 from the commencement of their enumeration no 
 less than a hundred and thirty six various charities 
 of London and Bristol, of which the great majo- 
 
396 MEMOIR PRESENTED TO THE 
 
 rity were for indigence alone ; and a few for edu- 
 cation, before we arrived at one for disease being 
 a charity for blind persons. The erection of 
 alms-houses, the distribution of bread, the supply 
 of coals, loans or gifts of money to the indigent ; 
 and a countless variety of other distinctions, but 
 all pointing to the general object of the relief of 
 poverty — these outnumber the institutions for edu- 
 cation at least in the proportion of six to one, and 
 the institutions for disease in the proportion of 
 fifty to one. We feel quite assured, whether we 
 take a general survey of the whole country or 
 limit our attention to one of its large towns, that, 
 in the testamentary dispositions of the benevolent, 
 there is a very great and general misdirection of 
 wealth to the wrong object. A known and cer- 
 tain provision held out to indigence, will create 
 the indigence — a provision, however certain or 
 however ample made, for disease, will never create 
 or multiply the disease. And yet, in spite of this 
 obvious consideration, far the greatest proportion 
 of the legacies which are left for benevolent pur- 
 poses, are left for the relief of poverty which can 
 never be overtaken ; and so small a proportion 
 left for disease which may be overtaken, as to 
 come greatly short of the necessity. Within these 
 few years, there have been two magnificent sums 
 bequeathed in charity to the city of Edinburgh : 
 and this will add two asylums to a number formerly 
 in excess — because asylums not for any specific 
 maladies but for general want. Meanwhile the 
 Infirmary is inadequately supported. The Deaf 
 and Dumb Asylum is limited, with a very few ex- 
 
ROYAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. 397 
 
 ceptions, to those whose relatives can afford to 
 pay for their maintenance. The Bhnd Asylum is 
 on a very limited scale, and in great difficulties ; 
 and there is no institution at all in the capital of 
 Scotland, for the gratuitous admission of lunatics. 
 By a more judicious destination of their wealth on 
 the part of those two individuals, a real and un- 
 questionable blessing would have been conferred 
 on society — families relieved of their blind, or 
 fatuous, or other diseased members ; and without 
 any substitution of families alike helpless and un- 
 fortunate in their places. But the reverse of this 
 takes place with the asylums for indigence. Hun- 
 dreds of poor may be admitted within their thresh- 
 olds ; but these are sure to be replaced by an 
 equal, we think by a greater number, and the 
 general community labours under as great a burden 
 of want and wretchedness as before. 
 
 21. It is instructive to observe the relative esti- 
 mation in which these two objects are held by the 
 charitable — we mean the relief of poverty, and the 
 relief of disease. We thought it a good way of 
 settling this question, to take the volume which 
 presented an account of all the public charities 
 that had been found in a certain number of the 
 towns and parishes in England, abridged from the 
 Reports of the Royal Commissioners on Chari- 
 table Foundations. These charities, in the great 
 bulk of them originated in the spontaneous bene- 
 volence of individuals who very generally conveyed, 
 not by gifts while they were living but by be- 
 quests which took effect after their death, the 
 whole or part of their wealth to certain philan- 
 
398 MEMOIR FRESENTED TO THE 
 
 thropic purposes. It is marvellous to contem- 
 plate the preference which these testators had for 
 the relief of poverty, rather than for the relief of 
 disease. The distinction which we have so much 
 insisted on must not have been present to their 
 minds. They must not have adverted to the utter 
 failure of every attempt by public charity to over- 
 take the indigence of the land, or even to diminish 
 the amount of it — seeing that the relieving process, 
 in virtue of which a certain number were fed and 
 clothed, was followed up and accompanied by a 
 creative process, in virtue of which at least an 
 equal, we think a greater amount of poverty, or of 
 hunger and nakedness, was created in general 
 society. And neither along with this must they 
 have adverted to the obvious impossibility of a 
 similar eifect in the treatment of disease — seeing 
 that the relieving process in this department of 
 charity never could be so followed up by a creative 
 process, in virtue of which any more disease 
 could be called into existence. We have reck- 
 oned the number of such destinations of which an 
 account is given in the work now referred to — 
 comprehending the Charities of London, along 
 with those of ten other great towns, beside a num- 
 ber of parishes in England ; and we find, that, 
 while there are only eleven distinct allotments of 
 land or money for the relief of disease in all these 
 places, there are among the same places no less 
 than 7 1 2 for the relief of indigence. It must also 
 be mentioned that the number of Educational 
 Charities amounts to 202 ; but perhaps it will 
 exhibit a fairer proportion of the two, if we look 
 
ROYAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. 399 
 
 separately to each of the disthict localities ; and, 
 accordingly, the following are a few examples out 
 of the many. In the borough of Stafford, we have 
 an account of 19 charitable bequests for the indi- 
 gent, seven for education, and none for disease. 
 For the town of Northampton, we have an account 
 of 31 charitable funds for indigence, and 9 for 
 euucation, and none for disease. In the city of 
 Gloucester, we have an account of 21 instituted 
 funds for charity, 6 for education, and none for 
 disease. In the town of Leeds, we have an ac- 
 count of 13 public benefactions for the poor, and 
 8 for education. In the city of York, we recog- 
 nize 48 benefactions for poverty, and 23 for edu- 
 cation. In the large and populous town of Man- 
 chester, we mark 31 distinct heads of charity for 
 the poor, and 19 for education. It should be 
 observed, however, that w^e count every object to 
 be education, which goes any way to the instruc- 
 tion of the people, whether it be in religious doc- 
 trine or in ordinary scholarship — including there- 
 fore the suras allocated for the repairs of churches, 
 and the preaching of sermons, as well as for the 
 expenses of week-day seminaries. In the labo- 
 rious enumeration that we drew out, we generally 
 rated all the individual bequests as one, which were 
 made over to one and the same institution. Of 
 the 1 1 cases of provision for disease we state as 
 specimens the conveyance by Robert Hudson of, 
 eight acres on trust, to apply the rents in provid- 
 ing medicine and medical aid for the poor of the 
 parish of Selby ; and the munificent bequest of 
 Mr Thomas Henslow of £20,000 for a blind asy- 
 
400 MEMOIR PRESENTED TO THE 
 
 lum at Manchester. It was altogether in keeping 
 with this, that the same individual should bequeath 
 £1,000 for the Manchester Infirmary, and £1,000 
 tor a Lunatic Hospital. 
 
 22. We are aware that we have taKen account 
 of but a very small proportion of the charities in 
 England, and have not even completed the list of 
 the charities in all the places which we have now 
 specified. We were necessarily limited to the ex- 
 amination of such charities as the royal commis- 
 sioners were empowered to inquire into ; but they 
 were not excluded from taking cognizance of the 
 institutions for disease, any more than of the insti- 
 tutions either for want or for learning ; and the 
 proportions we have now been enabled to exhibit, 
 do, it is certain, evince most strikingly, a prefer^ 
 ence on the part of the benevolent founders for 
 those charitable institutions, which have for their 
 object the relief of that indigence into which men 
 might voluntarily descend, and to which descent 
 these bequests hold out a resistless temptation. It 
 is melancholy to think, that, by a small fraction of 
 the w^ealth thus thrown away, institutions for dis- 
 ease might have been provided all over the land, 
 and so as to leave no involuntary sufferer under 
 the inflictions of nature and necessity, in want of 
 any likely appliance, by which to cure or to alle- 
 viate his distress 
 
 23. It is not for us to enter into a full detail on 
 the public charities of France. We rejoice to 
 observe in the city of Paris so many institutions 
 for disease, while the sums spent on the public 
 relief of indigence, derived chiefly from the pro- 
 
ROYAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. 401 
 
 duce of public shows and public amusements, 
 form but an insignificant fraction of what is ex- 
 pended on the same object in London. We, at 
 the same time, were astonished at the immense 
 proportion which the number who received charity 
 at their own houses, bore to the population of the 
 city — having in 1835 amounted to one in 12.32 of 
 the whole community. It is our confident opinion, 
 yet we desire to express it with all humility and 
 respect, that the sure effect of such distributions 
 is to augment the discomfort and moral deteriora- 
 tion of the lower classes. The sum given to each 
 individual is small ; but it should ever be recol- 
 lected, that the mischief is not proportionally small. 
 That relaxation of industrious and providential 
 habits, and that relaxation also of the family and 
 relative obligations, which are the sure conse- 
 quences of pauperism, are not to be measured by 
 the sum received but by the sum expected ; and 
 each, in virtue of the natural confidence which 
 every man has in his own good fortune, may look 
 for a larger share of the public beneficence, than 
 he shall ever succeed in realizing. It is thus, we 
 apprehend, that every known charity for the relief 
 of indigence multiplies its objects ; and it is woful 
 to think, that, while the amount of suffering is in- 
 creased thereby, it is in virtue of a process whicli 
 carries along with it the tenfold greater evil of an 
 increase of depravity. The decay of character 
 and the decay of comfort keep pace with each 
 other — for who does not acknowledge, that, if the 
 pride of honest indej3endence, an affection for one's 
 own kindred, and a sympathy for those of one's 
 21 2c 
 
402 MEMOlil FRESKNTED TO THE 
 
 own neighbourhood are all enfeebled under a sys- 
 tem of pauperism — that system must have a wither- 
 ing influence, both on the worth and the well-being 
 of society ? The evil we imagine to be greatly ag- 
 gravated by those places of reception {Hospices) 
 — where applicants, with no other qualification than 
 poverty, find a harbour and a maintenance pro- 
 vided for them. If the out-door relief be of small 
 •iccount — beyond this there is the ulterior prospect 
 of an in-door admittance, to all the necessaries at 
 least, if not the comforts of existence. The ma- 
 gical influence of hope will extend to a far greatei 
 multitude than to those actual receivers of charity, 
 who are so far fortunate as to have their hopes at 
 least in part realized. The indolence, the impro- 
 vidence, the dissipation, the disregard to every 
 claim of family or neighbour — these are the fertile 
 causes of want, or of want unrelieved. And these 
 are stimulated throughout the mass of the commu- 
 nity by the promises of pauperism, to a far greater 
 extent than the promises are ever realized. We 
 think, it may with all safety be affirmed, that neither 
 Paris nor any town in Europe has at this moment 
 a less, we think it has a much greater amount of 
 unrelieved poverty, because of the public charities 
 for general indigence which have been established 
 in the midst of them — beguiling the people from a 
 dependence on themselves ; and from the duties 
 of family and social life, which they owe to the 
 helpless who are around them. 
 
 24. Yet however mischievous in their operation 
 these public institutions for the relief of indigence 
 may be, we do not plead for the immediate aboh- 
 
ROYAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. 403 
 
 tion of them. We think that even justice requires 
 the continuance of their wonted allowances, to all 
 whom the very existence of these proclaimed cha- 
 rities has allured from the habits of industry and 
 self-dependence. Let them be seen therefore to 
 their graves in the sufficiency of their present al- 
 lowances, unless it be found on a scrutiny of their 
 cases that they may be committed back again to 
 their own resources. It is only by a gradual pro- 
 cess that we desire the extinction of any of those 
 institutions against which we have contended. We 
 would steadily refuse the admission of any new 
 applicants, while we would spare the old recipients; 
 and would rather wait to be delivered from the 
 burden of aiding them by the operation of death, 
 than incur the violence of a movement per saltum, 
 by the instant dismissal, either of the actual in- 
 mates from their asylums, or of the actual out-door 
 pensioners from the periodical grants which they 
 have been in the habit of receiving. We would 
 not thus violate the law of continuity ; but suffer 
 every institute for the relief of poverty gradually 
 to die a natural death, by the successive deaths of 
 the individuals who now depend upon them. Only 
 we would take on no new individuals ; and feel 
 assured, that, if these either were taught to draw 
 upon their own resources, or were left to the 
 sympathies whether of neighbourhood or of rela- 
 tionship, we should find, as the result of this 
 change of system — that the community would be- 
 come economically more comfortable, and morally 
 more virtuous than before. 
 
 25. It were well that the governments, both of 
 
404 MEMOIR PRESENTED TO THE 
 
 states and of cities, were more alive to the distinc- 
 tion which we have endeavoured to unfold, between 
 the one species of charity and the other. The 
 argument against a public charity for indigence, 
 applies so little to the public charities for disease — 
 that practically, while the former ought to be 
 abolished, the latter, w ith a proper degree of re- 
 gulation and watchfulness, might be encouraged 
 to the uttermost. If a government endangered 
 somewhat its popularity, by suffering the one class 
 of institutions to fall into desuetude — this, it is to 
 be hoped, would be greatly more than compen- 
 sated, by the patent character of beneficence and 
 mercy, which stood on their ordinance of an instant 
 provision for all those maladies that come under 
 the best and most effectual treatment in a public 
 asylum. A door might be opened, not only with 
 safety, but with an unalloyed blessing to society — 
 wide enough for the reception of all the maimed, 
 and all the impotent, and all the bereft of their 
 faculties whether of sight or reason or speech or 
 hearing. Infirmaries and fever-hospitals ; and 
 even dispensaries, though these last seem the most 
 difficult to be guarded from abuse, might be mul- 
 tiplied to the extent of the necessity if not of the 
 demand for them. We are aware of the com- 
 plaints which have been made, and nowhere more 
 than in Paris, of the undue advantage that even 
 patients as well as paupers might take of the pro- 
 vision that is made for them. But surely disease 
 admits of being more distinctly and decisively 
 tested than poverty. Neither is the one so multi- 
 plied by institutions raised in its behalf, as the 
 
ROYAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. 405 
 
 Other is. No man can counterfeit the loss of a 
 limb, or even the loss of his sight and reason and 
 heai'ing, so as long to impose on the guardians of 
 an asylum into which he may have found his way. 
 But any man can counterfeit poverty ; or, what is 
 still more decisive, he not only can but he will create 
 poverty — when the temptation of a public and i. 
 promised relief are held out to a little more indo- 
 lence, or a little more dissipation. If there have 
 been mutilations practised, or if there have been a 
 voluntary contraction of real diseases, in order to 
 qualify for the sustenance and the shelter held 
 forth in a place of cure — these, it is demonstrable, 
 compose but an insignificant fraction, compared 
 with that host of unworthy applicants, who crowd 
 the avenue which leads to a place of supply for the 
 wants of indigence. The few and incidental evils 
 which might at times be realized even in an infir- 
 mary (hopital), do not obscure the line of demar- 
 cation between such an institution and a poor's- 
 house (hospice) — the evils of which are sure to be 
 multiplied tenfold, with every increase of its funds 
 and its allowances. The fictitious disease which 
 knocks at the door of an asylum, bears a very small 
 proportion to the fictitious poverty. But the 
 great distinction between the two charities lies in 
 this — that the real disease (excepting that which 
 is contracted by vicious indulgence) brought into 
 existence by the provision made for it, bears the 
 proportion of an infinitesimal to the real poverty, 
 which comes into being under the malignant influ- 
 ence of a public charity — by the relaxation of in- 
 dustrious and economical habits, as well as of all 
 
406 MEMOIR PRESENTED TO THE 
 
 those ties that bind the members whether of a 
 household or of a neighbourhood into a common 
 sympathy with each other. 
 
 26. And there is one class of sufferers about 
 whom there can be no mistake, and who possess an 
 indisputable and pre-eminent claim upon human 
 sympathy. We mean those — on whom all the re- 
 sources of the medical art have been expended in 
 vain ; and who, after a season of full probation in 
 an hospital of disease, are at length pronounced to 
 be beyond hope and beyond recovery. The great 
 desideratum is an asylum, or place of refuge for these 
 poor incurables — who, instead of being devolved a 
 heavy and hopeless burden on the families to which 
 they belong, should at least have it in their powei 
 to enter some such house of mercy open to re- 
 ceive them — where they might meet with every 
 possible alleviation which human skill can devise, 
 or human kindness can administer. For their 
 sakes it were well, if even the title of the institu- 
 tion were softened from a House for Incurables to 
 a House for Convalescents — through which all 
 who leave the infirmary may pass on their transi- 
 tion to perfect health and strength, after the medical 
 treatment is over ; and only those be detained 
 w hom the hand of nature has stricken with irreco- 
 verable disease, and whom the God of nature has 
 thus signalized and marked out for the unqualified 
 sympathy of all their fellows. 
 
 27. The whole of this argument receives a 
 beautiful illustration, or I would even say is 
 strengthened and confirmed, by the example of our 
 ISaviour. He could have brought, nay he actually 
 
ROYAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. 407 
 
 on two occasions did bring do'^'n, food by miracle, 
 to appease the hunger ot a starving multitude ; but 
 refused to do so a third time, when, in the sordid 
 expectation of a meal, they ran after him for the 
 purpose of being again regaled by his bounty. 
 " Verily you have come not to see the miracle but 
 to eat of the loaves and be tilled." What a con- 
 trast between this reserve in the supply of food, 
 and the unexcepted freeness of his ministrations in 
 the supply of health, which he brought down by 
 miracle on every patient who applied to him for a 
 cure. There is no recorded example of his ever 
 having bid away from him the maimed, or the im- 
 potent, or the palsied, or the lunatic, or the vexed 
 with sundry and sore diseases ; but in every case 
 of which we read, " He looked to them and had 
 compassion on them, and healed them all." I have 
 often thought of this history as a guide and an 
 example to us, in our public charities. For hi 
 the notoriety which he attained, any charity of 
 his w as in fact a public charity ; and it is ob- 
 vious, that, had he brought down food indefin- 
 itely by miracle, it would have discharged the 
 people from all their liabits of industry and fore- 
 sight, and disorganized the whole of Judea by 
 trooping multitudes running after this great 
 prophet for the purpose of being fed by him. 
 But no such consequence was to be apprehended 
 when, instead of a miraculous almoner to all his 
 countrymen, He became a miraculous Physician 
 to those limited and comparatively few who sought 
 the relief of their malady at His hand ; and, ac- 
 cordingly, when, in the march of his wise and 
 
408 MEMOIR PRESENTED, &C. 
 
 effective beneficence through the land of Judea, 
 the dumb, and the bUnd, and the afflicted with 
 various infirmities, came forth of the surrounding 
 villages — he laid no prohibition on these children 
 of blameless and helpless disease. We have much 
 to learn from this proceeding of our Saviour's; 
 but, whatever discouragements we may draw from 
 his example in the erection of an asylum for in- 
 digence, we can draw none against the erection of 
 an asylum for disease. And while the boding ap- 
 prehension both of moral and physical disaster 
 hangs over the one institution — do we infer of the 
 other that its door may be thrown open, and all 
 its accommodations be widened and multiplied, till 
 every imploring patient be taken in, and a harbour 
 of sufficient amplitude be provided for all those 
 sufferings which an uncontrollable aecessity has 
 laid upon the species. 
 
 EKD OF VOLUME TWEXTY-FIRST.