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THIS BOOK
FORMS PART OF THE
ORIGINAL LIBRARY
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
BOUGHT IN EUROPE
1838 TO 1839
BY
ASA CRAY
THE
CHRISTIAN
AND
CIVIC ECONOMY
OF
BY
THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D.
MINISTER OF ST. JOHN*S CHURCH, GLASGOW.
VOL. I.
Printed by James Starke, Nelson Street,
FOR CHALMERS & COLLINS, .GLASGOW;
A. CONSTABLE & Co.; W. BLACKWOOD; W. WHYTE & Co.; OLIVER & BOYD.;
WAUGH & INNES; W. OLIPHANT; FAIRBAIRN & ANDERSON; MANNERS & MILLER;
AND JAMES ROBERTSON, EDINBURGH;
BALDWIN, CRADOCK & JOY; LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME & BROWN;
G. & W> B. WHITTAKER; HURST, ROBINSON & CO.;
T. HAMILTON; OGLE, DUNCAN & Co.; W. BAYNES & SON,
B. J. HOLDSWORTH; AND J. NISBET, LONDON.
1821.
CONTENTS.
CHAP I.
PACE
The Advantage and Possibility of Assimilating a Town to
a Country Parish, ™~™~™™~~ S
CHAP II.
On the Influence of Locality in Towns, *™ 53
CHAP. III.
Application of the Principle of Locality to the Work of a
Christian Minister, ^^^^^^^^^ „ ww<„ 89
CHAP IV.
The Effect of Locality in adding to the Useful Establish-
ments of a Town, ~v~~~w™~™^~w~™«^ 129
CHAP. V. AND VI.
On Church Patronage,™ —^~™™ 169
CHAP. VII.
Church Offices, ™ 249
CHAP. VIII.
On Sabbath Schools,^ „_,™~v^~~™~ ~~~ ~~ SOS
PREFACE,
There is a great deal of philanthropy afloat in this our
day. At no period, perhaps, in the history of the human
mind, did a desire of doing good so earnest, meet with a
spirit of inquiry so eager, after the best and likeliest methods
of carrying the desire into accomplishment. Amid all that
looks dark and menacing, in the present exhibitions of society,
this, at least, must be acknowledged,—that never was there a
greater quantity of thought embarked on those speculations
which, whether with Christian, or merely economical writers,
have the one common object of promoting the worth and
comfort of our species.
It must be confessed, at the same time, that much of this
benevolence, and more particularly, when it aims at some
fulfilment, by a combination of many individuals, is rendered
abortive for want of a right direction. Were the misleading
causes to which philanthropy is exposed, when it operates
among a crowded assemblage of human beings, fully under-
stood, then would it cease to be a paradox,—why there should
either be a steady progress of wretchedness in our land, in
the midst of its charitable institutions; or a steady progress
of profligacy, in the midst of its churches, and Sabbath schools,
and manifold reclaiming societies.
The Author of the following work has been much in the
way of comparing the habitudes of a city, with those of a
country population; and he cannot more fitly express its sub-
ject than by assigning to it the title of " The Christian and
Civic Economy of our Large Towns."
Though he counts himself in possession of materials ample
enough for an immediate volume, yet it suits better with his
other engagements, to come forth in quarterly numbers, with
the successive chapters of it.
A
« PREFACE.
He does not know very well how to explain to the distant
reader, the allusions to the specialities of his own office, which
are mixed up with the arguments of his first chapter. It may
be remarked, however, that when an author enters upon a
work on the economy of cities, and draws his illustrations
and proofs from every accessible quarter of observation, it
were not right to resist the insertion of such materials as may
be offered from a field so near and so interesting to him, as
his own city parish. It is proper, however, to state, that the
great mass of his observations is furnished to him from other
sources,—insomuch that were he even disjoined from the of-
fice altogether, the only effect would be to extend his surveys,
and to hasten his literary preparations, on a topic, the real
principles of which are sure and permanent, and in no way
affected either by the failures or the performances of any indi-
vidual.
He is still more at a loss how to explain the notice that he
has taken of a very painful circumstance, which recently
occurred in his own personal history. It is true, that it is
such a circumstance as bears to be incorporated with the dis-
cussions of the following number. But it is just as well to
confess what the public will give him credit for, when they
reflect that he stands at a point of observation of which he is
the alone occupier. He has no such fit opportunity as that
of which he has availed himself, by the short narrative prefix-
ed to the following chapter, of repairing a very severe shock
which he knows, and feels, to have been inflicted by hostile or
heedless calumny, on the whole system of his professional
operations.
He looks forward, with pleasure, to the period for the pub-
lication of his next number, by which time he trusts that he
will be enabled to merge into the pacific generalities of his
subject—and that any tone of complaint, or of controversy'
into which he may have now fallen, shall have conclusively
passed away.
CHAP. I.
'Remarks applicable to the outset of Dr. Chalmers9
connection with tlie Parish of St. John, Glasgow.
Addressed to the Members of his Parochial Agency.
1 shall preface these remarks by the short and com-
prehensive statement of an affair which I know has
painfully agitated the minds of many, and given
birth to a very busy fermentation of rumours and
calumnies in your city.
I was in Edinburgh on the 8 th of August last, and
there received letters from two gentlemen of liter-
ary rank and estimation in that city, holding out to
me a prospect of the Natural Philosophy Chair in
Edinburgh, and urging me to take the matter into
serious consideration.
I had a conversation with the gentleman who de-
livered these letters to me, on the subject of them. It
is impossible to recollect all the particulars of that
conversation. But I assuredly know what my mind
and my determination have uniformly been on this
subject, and I could say nothing at variance with
that determination. It may be expressed by the
following short alternative,—that if I got my ar-
rangements in the parish of St. John, I would not
take the Professorship, but if I did not get these
arrangements, I would think of it.
I left Edinburgh early on the morning of the 9th;
and my proceedings from that day to the 12th, will
best evince what the practical impulse was, which I
received from these overtures. I had no correspond-
ence with Edinburgh during that period, but wras
quite assiduous in my correspondence with Glasgow.
The object of it was to achieve for myself the first
term of the above alternative; or, in other words,
to hasten on the accomplishment of my favourite
objects for the parish of St. John. It was to ob-
tain that condition on which I made my continuance
in the one office, and my rejection of the other of-
fice, to turn. I knew not what my friends in Edin-
burgh were doing; for that was a matter on which
I had given no counsel, and uttered no desire, and
put forth no effort, and obtained no information.
But whatever they were doing, I was labouring
with all my might to nullify their exertions; and,
in allusion to the shrewd remark which some of
you may have heard, that I was working with both
my hands, I have to observe, that there is a sense
in which it is perfectly true;—for, with the one hand
I was pulling down the wall of separation between
me and my parish, and, out of its broken materials,
I, with the other hand, was rearing a barrier be-
tween me and the Professorship.
But while I, in the prosecution of my wishes, was
working as hard as I could for the first term of the
alternative; my friends in Edinburgh, it would ap-
pear, were, in the prosecution of their wishes, work-
ing as hard as they could to realize the hopes which
were held out by the second term of it. This, Gen-
tlemen, is the short explanation of the whole mys-
tery j and serves to unriddle all the crudity and con-
tradiction on this topic, by which the minds of my
acquaintance have been so variously exercised.
On the evening of the 12th, I received the first let-
ter I had gotten from Edinburgh on this subject
since I left it, requiring an explicit declaration of
myself as a candidate. In my reply, I reiterated
my adherence to the first term of the alternative,
and stated that " I was doing all I could to induce a
favourable arrangement of matters in Glasgow, and
of course was counterworking, with all my might, my
kind friends in Edinburgh." This letter laid such
a discouragement on the attempt of my friends to
get me into Edinburgh, that they forthwith aban-
doned it.
There are only two mis-statements, among the
multitude of others which have been circulated on
this subject, that I feel at all disposed to single out
on the present occasion. The first is, that I vacil-
lated in my purposes. There was no vacillation.
I took my ground from the first, and I all along
acted upon it; and it was not my hesitation, but my
steady and unfaultering adherence to the assigned
object of my own parish in my own way, which, in
as far as I was concerned, put an end to this affair.
The second mis-statement is, that these overtures
had been made to me so early as a few days after
the death of Professor Playfair. The author of
this mis-statement could not have taken a more ef-
fectual method of stamping the character of a well
sustained hypocrisy on my late visit of ten days to
your city, from the 27th of July to the 7th of August—
and that not merely in the eyes of my Parochial
Agents, but in the eyes of our highest official men,
among whom I was negotiating with all my might,
6
my favourite arrangements for the parish of St
John, The truth is, that the idea of filling the
Natural Philosophy chair of Edinburgh, was never,
in any shape, or for a single moment, present to my
mind, before I left Glasgow on the 7th of August;
and the propositions which were made on the 8th,
were the very first that were offered to me on the
subject.
The above narrative, while it explains the part
which I had in this affair, also explains, in a way
that is satisfactory to me, all that I know of the part
which my Edinburgh friends had in it.
They could not estimate at first either the degree
of discouragement which lay in the first term of
my alternative, nor the degree of encouragement
that lay in the second term of it. Till they obtain-
ed the written and deliberate expression of my
mind on this subject, they seem not to have been
sufficiently aware either of the strenuousness of my
determination for Glasgow, or of the earnestness
with which I was prosecuting it. I have had no in-
tercourse nor correspondence with any of them since
I got that letter of the 14th, in answer to mine of
the 12th, by which I was informed that they had
ceased their operations. But I know of nothing that
has been at all substantially or grievously amiss in
their conduct—and I will here add respecting
Mr. Thomson, that I know enough of his pure,
and noble, and upright character, to be assured—that
he never expressed a single hope upon this subject,
which he did not honestly entertain, nor conceived
about it a single wish, which was not linked with
the fervent and ever breathing desires of his heart,
for the good of our oommon Christianity.
I take leave of my friends in Edinburgh, with
the assurance—that while 1 regret the temporary
delusion on this subject which gave rise to their ef-
forts, and also the delusion to which their efforts have
given rise, but which last I am confident will
speedily pass away,—the only surviving sentiment
I shall feel towards them, is that of gratitude for
the partiality which they have been pleased to ex-
press, and for the honour which they intended me.
I now turn my observations towards Glasgow,
and trust that every thing I say will have a perti-
nency, and a bearing, upon a subject which is yet
untrodden, but which, I conceive, to be intimately
connected with the cause of Christianity; and thus
with the moral and political interests of our nation.
What I allude to, is a subject about which many of
you have heard me talk, and for which I cannot
find a more expressive designation than c< The
Christian and Civic Economy of our large Towns."
The great and leading position, then, which I
have to advance upon this subject is, that the same
moral regimen which, under the parochial and ec-
clesiastical system of Scotland, has been set up,
and with so much effect, in her country parishes, may,
by a few simple and attainable processes, be in-
troduced into the most crowded of her cities, and
with as signal and conspicuous an effect on the
whole habit and character of their population—that
the simple relationship which obtains between a mi-
nister and his people in the former situation, may
bfe kept up with all the purity and entireness of its
influences in the latter situation,, and be equally avail-
able to the formation of a well conditioned peasantry
—in a word, that there is no such dissimilarity
8
between town and country, as to prevent the great
national superiority of Scotland, in respect of her
well principled and well educated people, being just
as observable in Glasgow or Edinburgh, for exam-
ple, as it is in the most retired of her districts, and
these under the most diligent process of moral and
religious cultivation. So that, while the profligacy
which obtains in every crowded and concentrated
mass of human beings, is looked upon by many a
philanthropist as one of those helpless and irreclaim-
able distempers of the body politic, for which there
is no remedy—do I maintain, that there are certain
practicable arrangements which, under the blessing
of God, will stay this growing calamity, and would,
by the perseverance of a few years, land us in a
purer and better generation.
You know, Gentlemen, that this assimilation of a
town and country parish has been the distinct object
of my exertions, ever since I came amongst you.
It is an object, in the prosecution of which many
difficulties are to be overcome, and much develop^
ment both of practice and of principle must be given,
ere it be fully understood. But you will do me
the justice to believe, that though it is an object
which, from its very nature, cannot be prosecuted
with privacy, there is not an earthly privilege of
which I am more desirous, than that I should be
suffered to prosecute it in peace.
One most essential step towards so desirable an
assimilation in a large city parish, is a numerous
and well appointed Agency. The assimilation does
not lie here in the external frame-work; for, in a
small country parish, the minister alone, or with a
very few coadjutors of a small Session, may bring
the personal influence of his kind and Christian at-
tentions to bear upon all the families. Among the
ten thousand of a city parish, this is impossible; and,
therefore, what he cannot do but partially and su-
perficially in his own person, must, if done substan-
tially, be done in the person of others. And he,
by dividing his parish into small manageable dis-
tricts—and assigning one or more of his friends in
some capacity or other to each of them—and vesting
them with such a right either of superintendance or
of inquiry, as will always be found to be gratefully
met by the population—and so raising as it were a
ready intermedium of communication between him-
self and the inhabitants of his parish, may at length
attain an assimilation in point of result to a country
parish, though not in the means by which he arrived
at it. He can in his own person maintain at least a
pretty close and habitual intercourse with the more
remarkable cases; and as for the moral charm of
cordial and Christian acquaintanceship, he can spread
it abroad by deputation over that portion of the city
which has been assigned to him. In this way an in-
fluence long unfelt in towns, may be speedily re-
stored to them; and they, we affirm, know nothing of
this department of our nature, who are blind to the
truth of the position—that out of the simple elements
of attention, and advice, and civility, and good-will,
conveyed through the tenements of the poor, by men
a little more elevated in rank than themselves, a far
more purifying and even more gracious operation
can be made to descend upon them, than ever will
be achieved by any other of the ministrations of
charity.
10
There is no large city that would not soon expe-
rience the benefit of such an arrangement. But
when that city is purely commercial, it is just the
arrangement which, of all others, is most fitted to
repair a peculiar disadvantage under which it la-
bours. In a provincial capital, the great mass of
the population are retained in kindly and immediate
dependence on the wealthy residenters of the place.
It is the resort of annuitants, and landed proprie-
tors, and members of the law, and other learned
professions, who give impulse to a great amount of
domestic industry, by their expenditure; and, on
enquiring into the sources of maintenance and em-
ployment for the labouring classes there, it will be
found that they are chiefly engaged in the imme-
diate service of ministering to the wants and luxuries
of the higher classes in the city. This brings the
two extreme orders of society into that sort of
relationship, which is highly favourable to the ge-
neral blandness and tranquillity of the whole popu-
lation. In a manufacturing town, on the other
hand, the poor and the wealthy stand more dis-
joined from each other. It is true, they often meet,
but they meet more on an arena of contest, than on
a field, where the patronage and custom of the one
party are met by the gratitude and good will of the
other. When a rich consumer calls a workman
into his presence, for the purpose of giving him
some employment connected with his own personal
accomodation, the general feeling of the latter must
be altogether different from what it would be, were
he called into the presence of a trading capitalist,
for the purpose of cheapening his work and being
dismissed for another, should there not be an agree.
11
ment in their terms. We do not aim at the most
distant reflection against the manufacturers of our
land; but it must be quite obvious, from the nature
of the case, that their intercourse with the labouring
classes is greatly more an intercourse of collision,
and greatly less an intercourse of kindliness, than
is that of the higher orders in such towns as Bath,
or Oxford, or Edinburgh, In this way, there is a
mighty and unfilled space interposed between the
high and the low of every large manufacturing city,
in consequence of which, they are mutually blind
to the real cordialities and attractions which belong
to each of them; and a resentful feeling is apt to
be fostered, either of disdain or defiance, which it
will require all the expedients of an enlightened
charity effectually to do away. Nor can we guess
at a likelier, or a more immediate arrangement for
this purpose, than to multiply the agents of Chris-
tianity amongst us, whose delight it may be to go
forth among the people, on no other errand than
that of pure good will, and with no other ministra-
tions than those of respect and tenderness.
There is one lesson that we need not teach, for
experience has already taught it, and that is, the
kindly influence which the mere presence of a hu-
man being has upon his fellows. Let the attention
you bestow upon another be the genuine emanation
of good will—and there is only one thing more to
make it irresistible. The readiest way of finding
access to a man's heart, is to go to his house—and
there to perform the deed of kindness, or to acquit
yourself of the wonted and the looked for acknow-
ledgement. By putting yourself under the roof of
a poor neighbour, you in a manner put yourself
12
under his protection—you render him for the time
your superior,—you throw your reception on his
generosity, and be assured that it is a confidence
which will almost never fail you* If Christianity
be the errand on which you move, it will open for
you the door of every family; and even the profane
and the profligate will come to recognise the worth
of that principle which prompts the unwearied as-
siduity of your services. By every circuit which
you make amongst them, you will attain a higher
vantage ground of moral and spiritual influence—
and in spite of all that has been said of the ferocity
of a city population, be assured that, in your
rounds of visitation, you will meet with none of it>
even among the lowest receptacles of human
worthlessness. This is the home walk in which
you earn, if not a proud, at least, a peaceful popu-
larity—the popularity of the heart—the greetings
of men who touched even by your cheapest and
easiest services of kindness, have nothing to give
but their wishes of kindness back again; but in giv-
ing these have crowned your pious attentions with
the only popularity, that is worth the aspiring after—
the popularity that is won in the bosom of families,
and at the side of death beds.
There is another, a high and a far sounding Popu-
larity, which is indeed a ir?<ost worthless article, felt
by all who have it most to be greatly more oppres-
sive than gratifying—a Popularity of stare, and pres-
sure, and animal heat, and a whole tribe of other
annoyances which it brings around the person of its
unfortunate victim—a Popularity which rifles home
of its sweets, and by elevating man above his fel-
lows, places him in a region of desolation, where
13
the intimacies of human kindness are unfelt, and
where he stands a conspicuous mark for the shafts
of malice, and envy, and detraction—think not
that the blessings and gratulations which meet you
on your path, have any place in this Popularity,
which, with its head among storms, and its feet
on the treacherous quicksand, has nothing to lull
the agonies of its tottering existence, but the ho-
sannahs of a drivelling generation.
Another most essential step towards the assimila-
lation of a city and a country parish, is one simple
and unembarrassed relationship between the Heri-
tors and the Kirk Session. Now, till very lately in
Glasgow, it was not so. A Kifk Session was, in. one
way, subject to a controul from the Town Hospital—
and in another way, subject to a controul from the
General Session—and in a third way, subject to a
controul from the Magistrates and Council—and
only, in a fourth way, had a small remainder of in.
dependence upon which it could act at all, with
any thing like the comfort or the vigour of a free
deliberative body. It may be thought, that to re-
duce all these links of connexion to one firm and
indissoluble tie with the Heritors of the Parish, is
a mere improvement in the frame-work of its ma-
chinery. But it is such an improvement as may
bring the spirit and substance of other most essen-
tial improvements along with it—as vests a Kirk
Session with the power of carrying into effect all
its devices for the moral and spiritual good of the
population—as enables it to relieve the Minister,
almost in toto, from the work of secularities, and even
to devolve this work upon others so as to preserve
distinct its own ecclesiastical character—as re-
14
stores it in fact to the healthful tone of liberty,
with which it may go prosperously onwards in the
work of a simple parochial jurisdiction, and breathe a
free and pleasant air, now that its way is fairly
wrought out of the meshes and entanglements of a
mechanism, which it was very curious to contem-
plate, but sadly vexatious and troublesome to have
any thing to do with.
If I dare make an allusion to Natural Philosophy,
let me reveal to you, Gentlemen, that the difficul-
ties I had to contend with in this matter, often put
me forcibly in mind of the difficulties which Sir
Isaac Newton experienced, in his attempt to resolve
the problem of the three bodies. It is an affair of
very simple computation to assign the path of a
planet, acted upon by the sun exclusively, and when
no other force is admitted into the computation than
the mutual attraction of the two bodies. But it in-
stantly becomes a labour of very profound analysis,
when the planet is acted upon both by the sun and
the disturbing force of another planet, such as our
earth, for example, which under the joint attraction
of the sun and moon, gives us an example of the
problem of three bodies. Now I just felt, and with
great intenseness too, this very difficulty, when I
had to compute my way amongst the mutual attrac-
tions, or rather repulsions of no less than four bodies.
When all is reduced to one simple relationship
between us and the Heritors, all will go on smoothly
and without embarrassment. But I must confess,
that when tossed and tempest-driven, under a set of
opposing influences which we knew not well how to
manage or comprehend—when placed in the very
15
middle of clashing and conflicting authorities on
every side of us—when we had to steer our course
under the beck of so many great unwieldy corpo-
rations, which appeared to frown from their respec-
tive orbits, both upon us and upon one ano-
ther—J[ must confess that when we had thus to walk
among such elements of perplexity, the enterprise
of assimilating a town to a country Parish, often
looked to me a very hopeless speculation.
And here it must be remarked, that it was, indeed,
a most fortunate circumstance for the great cause
of parochial independence, that the public discus-
sion of it was forborne so long, in all these bodies,
This, in fact, has done more for the object than
the most refined calculation could have done. Had
the cause of parochial independence been advocated
much sooner among the Directors of the Town's
Hospital, it would have been outspoken and out-
voted there; and the Gentlemen who thus spoke and
voted, would have stood in some measure committed
to the cause of opposition in all time coming, by the
part that they had already so publicly taken in it.
It would have been the same in the General Session.
And as to the Magistrates and Council, it must be
quite palpable, that had an application for this fa-
vourite object been ventured much sooner than it
was actually done, the application would have been
premature. It wTas, therefore, better that the question
was forborne so long, and that it was suffered to
ferment in private through that mass of solid and
very superior intelligence which exists in your city.
It is truly difficult to write on certain subjects with-
out giving offence, and that, even though not a
16
single individual has a right to be offended. The
reform of public institutions is one of these subjects.
There is not a member or an office-bearer of one of
these institutions who is at all responsible for the
defects of it. They come to him by bequest; and
he is earning a substantial title to the gratitude of
his townsmen, by taking his share in a work which
must be carried forward till something else is sub-
stituted in its place. We therefore repeat it, and we
do it anxiously, that while we think unfavourably of
many of the public institutions in Glasgow, we know
not a more kind and enlightened order than the
public men of Glasgow—nor do we know that there
is a city of our empire where there could have been
so soon achieved, in the face of so many obstacles,
and in the midst of so much misconception, the
great object of parochial independence.
After a work is done, the difficulties in the doing
of it are forgotten; nor do I wish to recall these dif-
culties, but for the purpose of ushering in an ex-
planation which I conceive that I owe to certain
members of the Magistracy and Council of Glas-
gow. It has been alleged that J ought to have con-
fided this arrangement to the good will of that
honourable body—and that I ought not to have
availed myself of the Edinburgh overtures, for the
purpose of hastening on a decision, which they were
heartily desirous of granting me at any rate. I
never doubted of their good will. Before I left
Glasgow, on the 7th, I had obtained the most
cheering assurances of it. Their disposition I
counted on, as a matter of certainty. But, in com-
mon with many of themselves, I still had the im-
17
pression of certain legal or constitutional difficulties,
which stood in the way of their kind intentions to-
ward me. After a certain enlightened resolution,
passed by the Town-Hospital, some months ago,
it was a common feeling between the promoters of
that resolution and myself, that the consent of an-
other body must be obtained, ere the great work
of parochial emancipation was completed. The
General Session had, in fact, become very formid-
able to me, ever since I discovered a certain un-
looked for clause in the deed of the erection of St*
John's, which seemed to throw a web of entangle-
ment over all my attempts to obtain a resolution of
our general system into separate parishes. I, a
good many months ago, communicated my alarms
upon the subject to certain legal and official authori-
ties of this place; nor were these alarms entirely
dissipated, till, in reply to a letter written by me on
the 12th of August, I learned, on grounds which
I thought satisfactory, that the deed of the erection
of St. John's was an alternative deed. On my leav-
ing Glasgow, then, the General Session, deriving
an authority from a source which appeared to me,
at the time, to be independent of Magistracy, still
stood a serious obstacle in the way of my arrange-
ments. There was, in fact, at that very time, lying,
upon their table a motion about my propositions, to.
be taken up and decided on the 2d of September.
The Town-Hospital was now withdrawn from the
play of this complicated operation. But, with an un-
decided motion about me,, in the minutes of the Gene-
ral Session, respecting the future business of the Kirk
Session of St. John's, and an unanswered letter from
c
18
me to the Magistrates and Council, on the same
subject, I was still involved among the difficulties
of the problem of the three bodies. And with
every feeling of the most grateful and delighted
confidence in the good will of the Magistrates and
Council of Glasgow, I had too long and too harass-
ing an experience of those difficulties, and also of
the interminable delays, which often take place in
public business, to be without my anxieties about
the final result of this affair.
All my correspondence with Glasgow was for
the simple ascertainment of those circumstances,
on which I should rest the conscientious decision
of a question, that might or might not, in the course
of a very few days, be submitted to me. The re-
volting and indelicate attitude of menace which
some have ascribed to me, on this occasion, is one
of which I am altogether incapable. It were pre-
sumption beyond endurance, in any individual, to
assume such an attitude, in reference to such a
body. And if this was their feeling, they have just
done what became them, in only granting me one
of my requests, and reserving the other two for future
consideration. But the truth is, that in granting
me that one they have granted me all They have
granted me deliverance from every authority but
their own. They have granted me a close, because
now an exclusive, relationship with themselves.
They have resolved for me the otherwise inextri-
cable problem of the four bodies, and whatever I
may now require can be managed by the simplicity
of one correspondence. It recalls something like
the charm and the blessedness of other days, when
now, that I am admitted to this intimate affiliation,
19
I can look to the Magistrates and Council of Glas-
gow, in precisely the same light that I wont to look
to the much loved Heritors of my former parish.
And instead of running the gauntlet, through con-
test and clamour, for every object connected with
my new charge—instead of having to speechify
my way through committees and sub-committees,
and the various meetings of agency and director-
ship which are held through all the days of the
week, and in different quarters of the city—instead
of fighting my breathless way amongst the mazes of
such a sore and fatiguing complication,—I count it
a mighty enlargement that I can now repair to one
quarter for ail the external business of my parish,
and treat with men of whom I expect nothing but
what is right and liberal from their hands.
And the very same thing is to be expected of all
the members of all the other bodies. As far as I can
gather from private and personal intercourse, I cap.
discern nothing, but a fine spirit of liberality and
good will, pervading the vast majority of those indi-
viduals who compose the living mechanism of the
institutions of Glasgow. My whole desire is either
to simplify that mechanism, or to make my escape
from it. Let me here invoke the spirit of a former
observation. It is not from any body of men in
their personal, but in their corporate capacity, that
I want the relief and the comfort of a perpetual
disengagement It is simply to be in Glasgow, what
the very humblest Minister of our Establishment
is in his own retired country parish. It is to be
translated into just the same privileges, and to be
placed under precisely the same controul, from
the one body of Heritors. If this be to strike
20
out from the local system of your City, it is also to
fall in with the general and original system of Scot-
land. If it be to import a form from the provinces,
it is with the view of perfecting and strengthening
that vehicle by which I hold it a possible thing to
import the cordiality, and the moral discipline, and the
comparative virtue, of the provinces along with it.
The second of September has come, and the
General Session have not yet given their consent to
the arrangements. This, in one respect, I am not
sorry for. It serves, at least, to justify all my anxie-
ties, and so to substantiate the apology which I have
now rendered to the Magistrates and Council of Glas-
gow. Tlrey will now enter somewhat more fully and
experimentally into the difficulties of the problem of
the three bodies; and will I trust, read in them the
true interpretation of all the solicitude I ever felt
upon this subject, and of all the urgency I ever
employed about it.
It is my fond hope, that all the parties in this
transaction are alike desirous of an amicable and
satisfactory adjustment. Amid the jarrings of an
ill-constructed mechanism, there is a softening oil
in the temper, and kindness, and friendly conciliating
.spirit of the men who compose it. I still think that
the proposal which I have submitted, can be shown
arithmetically to have in it all the characters of ex-
treme moderation. But there is a demand, it
would appear, for certain modifications—and sure
I am, that if the independence of the parish be con-
ceded, and no permanent burden be entailed upon
it, it were an extravagant demand, indeed, which
I should feel at all inclined to refuse, for the good
and the comfort of such a system as I have long
aspired after.
21
I think it, for the moral and spiritual good of such
a parish as I now have, that the secular duties of the
Kirk Session should be discharged by one order of
men, and the ecclesiastical duties by another. I
cannot enter now into the vindication of such an
arrangement; but it is enough to explain my anxiety
for an independent parish, that, under the present
system, I shall find it to be impracticable. I at-
tempted, indeed, a deaconship some years ago: and
the first rebuff that I experienced in this enter-
prise was, that their signatures were not sustained
in the Town Hospital. Neither would the members
of such a body be admitted into the deliberations
of our General Session. So that my release from
both these institutions forms an essential step to-
wards such a system of parochial management, as I
hold to be best for the people who are entrusted to
me. 1 have many other reasons for wishing it, and
it has cost me the pains and the preparation of many
months to bring on the matter thus far. That it
should be arrested now is not to be thought of for
a single moment. After having accomplished two
most laborious personal surveys of a parish contain-
ing about eleven thousand people—after having es-
tablished, in each of its districts, one or more aux-
iliaries, through whom I can hold a ready inter-
course with all the families,—after having reared
so goodly an apparatus which kept its ground amid the
breakers that recently assailed it, and proved how firm
and how fast are its moorings, by having so nobly
ridden out the storm—that all this is to go for
nought, and I to be tacked at a post of subordinate
drudgery to a body of superintendance, the whole
spirit and style of whose conceptions on questions
22
of parochial management may be utterly at variance
with my own*—I cannot, for an instant of time, give
quarter to such an imagination—nor do I believe
that there exists in our City an order of associated
men, who, though they had the power, could ever
have the wish, so fearfully to tamper with the limits
and the possibilities of human endurance.
A third essential step towards the assimilation of a
town with a country parish, is an entire exemption
of the minister from all the secularities which of late
years have been so oppressively heaped upon his of-
fice, and which are still augmenting upon it, at a
rate of rapid and alarming accumulation.
On this subject I shall make one concluding re-
ference to the Edinburgh Professorship, and that,
both for the purpose of doing away the only difficulty
which I perceive to exist in your minds upon this
subject, and also for the purpose of turning the ex-
planation that I shall now offer to the enforcement of
a cause, for which I have long and earnestly con-
tended—the entire deliverance of clergymen from
every imposition that can take them away either
from the literature of their profession, or from its
strictly spiritual services.
You know that a machine, in the hand of a single
individual, can often do a hundred fold more of
work, than an individual can do by the direct ap-
plication of his own hands. He who makes the
machine then, is more productively employed than
he who, without it, engages immediately in the work.
To produce a steam engine, which sets one hundred
looms agoing, is a far larger contribution to the
goods of the country, than to work at a single loom.
This principle, obvious enough in manufactures,
23
is sadly overlooked in the business of human society.
The man who spends so much time in the services of
a philanthropic institution, is not so productively em-
ployed, as he who excites the principle which prompts
those services in the breasts of a hundred men. He
who does the work is not so productively employed
as he who multiplies the doers. He who is a mere
agent in the business of charity, is not so efficient a
contributor to the cause, as he who rears a charita-
ble agency. "Put them," says the Apostle to one
Preacher, "put them in mind to be ready unto all
good works." To another Preacher he says, "Medi-
tate on thine own peculiar work, give thyself to it
wholly."
But, further, the elevated office of a Christian
Minister, is to catch men. There is, however, an-
other still more elevated, and that, too, in regard
of Christian productiveness—which is to be employ-
ed in teaching and in training the fishers of men.
A Professorship is a higher condition of usefulness
than an ordinary parish. Some of you may think
that this holds true only of a Theological Professor-
ship. But this is your mistake. There are many
University subjects, which, without being hurtfully
transformed, admit of the very strongest impregna-
tion of Christianity. This holds eminently and
characteristically true of Natural Philosophy—where
science and sacredness may be made to stand to-
gether in perpetual conjunction—where the demon-
strations of the one may be employed to kindle
and sustain the devotions of the other—where every
new step, in the march of investigation, leads to a
new evolution of the glories of the Divinity—and
where the unequivocal testimonies which must ever
24
fall from the abundance of a heart filled with the light
of the Gospel, would not descend with less emphasis
upon the hearers, that it came associated with that
light of Philosophy which they now hold in too ex-
clusive veneration.
Were there, at this moment, fifty vacancies in
the Church, and the same number of vacancies in
our Colleges, and fifty men to start into view,
equally rich in their qualifications for the one de-
partment and the other, some of you would be for
sending them to the Pulpits. I would be for send-
ing them to the Chairs. A Christianized Univer-
sity, in respect of its Professorships, would be to
me a mightier accession, than a Christianized
county, in respect of its parishes- And should
there be a fountain out of which there emanated a
thousand rills, it would be to the source that I
should carry the salt of purification, and not to any
of the streams which flow from it.
The execrable cry of malice and bigotry which
has arisen in one quarter, and that, because, in the
shape of a possible condition, I entertained any
thought of the Professorship at all, is strikingly
opposed to the small still voice, which 1 have heard
in another quarter, and which gently, but not less
powerfully, rebuked me for having put that Pro-
fessorship so decisively away. It was a voice made
up of the regret of parents, and of certain culti-
vated friends, who cast their Christian and enlight*
ened regards over the whole face of our Scottish
territory. They are men who thought most extra-
vagantly of me, else I might have been almost per-
suaded by them that I have done wrong. And did
the individual, whom they recommended, possess
25
one-half of the qualifications which they ascribed to
him, he would be put on a hard defence for thus
turning away his thoughts from an office, where his
subject constantly admitted of the most powerful
and pertinent applications to religious truth,—where
he had the most unbounded command, both of time
and of retirement, for maturing all his preparations,
—where, after they were completed, he had the
leisure of a whole life for the work of authorship,
on any subject most suited to his taste and capabili-
ties,—and, above all, where his office vested him
with a presiding influence over young men, who pass-
ed, in annual succession, through his course of in-
structions, and were destined to fill, in hundreds,
the future vacancies of our parishes in Scotland.
The only way of managing between the calm tes-
timony of the enlightened, on the one hand, and
the noisy obstreperous outcry of zealots, on the
other, is to count it a small matter to be judged of
man's judgement, and commit ourselves to Him who
judgeth righteously.
Such is the state of the alternative between a
Professorship and an ordinary parish; and how much
stronger does it become for the former, when the
latter is depressed beneath the ordinary level of
other parishes,—when the minister stands fettered
among the generalities of a wide and complicated
management,—when the retirements of Sabbath pre-
paration are ever and anon broken up by the bois-
terous inroad of week-day secularities,—when that
study, whose occupier should give himself wholly
to prayer, and to the ministry of the word, is pro-
faned by the invasion of other things, even as the
temple of Jerusalem was by cages, and cattle, and
26
the tables of money-changers- It does not admit of
a moment's thought, which is the station of greater
Christian usefulness, such a Professorship as I would
have laboured to make, or such a parish as for
years I had been labouring to unmake.
It is through you, my friends, that it has been in
a great measure rescued from this condition; and it
is owing entirely to you that I felt the preponder-
ancy of my mind and inclination to be for Glasgow.
And perceiving, as you now do, the true character
of the whole of this transaction, you will do me
.the justice to acknowledge, that it just embodies in
practice, what, a few days before, I had held out to
you in profession, that you formed the strong tie
which attached me to your city.
I shall take leave of all my allusions to this sub-
ject, by presenting you with part of a letter, writ-
ten so far back as the 16th of August, to one of
the most respectable of your citizens, and written
at a time when I foresaw no call whatever for the
explanation of my motives. I happen to have re-
served a copy of it, and perceive that it expresses,
as well as 1 can do it in any other way, the essen-
tial merits of this question:—
"I trust, that one good result will come cut
of this matter. It is the vulgar and undiscerning
outcry of the unthinking, that to leave a parish for
a Professorship, is to leave a condition of sacred-
ness for one of secularity. Be assured that the
business of a parish may be so secularized, #nd the
business of a Professorship be so Christianized, as
to make the latter a far more congenial situation for
a lover of the gospel than the former. And I, for
one, would feel myself much abler to advocate the
27
cause of Christian truth from a chair, all the prepa-
rations of which were matured and carried forward
in the calm of an undisturbed retreat^ than from a
pulpit, which I should be compelled to ascend every
Sabbath, after a week spent in the menial offices
of every charity, and every corporation. And hap-
py will I be, if I now have such a full command of
my own arrangements, as to be enabled to elevate
my condition as a minister in your town, which
only had the semblance of sacredness, into the re-
ality and the substance of it."
Let me now proceed to expose the mischief of
those secularities, which have been laid on the cleri*
cal office; and for this purpose, do I offer a short
narrative of the way in which the sanctity of a
profession, that ought ever to have been held invio-
lable, has been laid open to all the rude and random
invasions which are now^ ready to overwhelm it,—
though I shall find it impossible to advert to every
one item in that strange medley of services, by which
the minister of a large city-parish now feels himself
plied at every hour, and beset at every path, and
every turning point, in the history of his move-
ments.
Among the people of our busy land, who are
ever on the wing of activity, and, whether in cir-
cumstances of peace or of w r, are at all timels
feeling the impulse of some national movement or
other, it is not to be wondered at, that a series of
transactions should be constantly flowing between
the metropolis of the empire, and its distant prov-
inces. There are the remittances which pass through
our public offices, from sdldiers and sailors, to their
relatives at home;—there are letters of inquiry sent
28
back again from these relatives;—there is all the
correspondence, and all the business of drafts, and
other negotiations, which ensue upon the decease
of a soldier, or a sailor;—there is the whole tribe of
hospital allowances, the payment of pensions, and
a variety of other items, which, all taken together,
would make out a very strange and tedious enume-
ration.
The individuals with whom these transactions
are carried on, need to be verified. They live in
some parish or other; and who can be fitter for the
required purpose, than the parish minister? He is,
or he ought to be, acquainted with every one of his
parishioners; and this acquaintance, which he never
can obtain in towns, but by years of ministerial ex-
ertion amongst them, is turned to an object destruc-
tive of the very principle on which he was selected
for such a service. It saddles him with a task which
breaks in.upon his ministerial exertions; which wid-
ens his distance from bis people; and, in the end,
makes him as unfit for certifying a single clause of
information about them, as the most private indi-
vidual in his neighbourhood.
Yet so it is. The minister is the organ of many
a communication between his people and the offices
in London,—and many a weary signature is exacted
from him,—and a world of management is devolved
upon his shoulders,—and, instead of sitting like his
fathers in office, surrounded by the theology of
present and other days, he must now turn his study
into a counting-room, and have his well-arranged
cabinet before him, fitted up with its sections and
its other conveniencies, for notices, and duplicates,
7
29
and all the scraps and memoranda of a manifold
correspondence.
But the history does not stop here. The example
of Government has descended, and is now quickly
running through the whole field of private and in-
dividual agency. The regulation of the business of
prize-monies, is one out of several examples that
occur to me. The emigration of new settlers to
Canada, was another. The business of the Kinloch
bequest, is a third. It does not appear, that there
is any act of Government authorising the agents
in this matter to fix on the clergy, as the organs
either for the transaction of their business, or the
conveyance of their information to the people of
the land. But they find it convenient to follow the
example of Government, and have accordingly
done so; and, in this way, a mighty host of sche-
dules, and circulars, and printed forms, with long
blank spaces, which the minister will have the good-
ness to fill up, according to the best of his know-
ledge, come into mustering competition with the
whole of his other claims, and his other engage-
ments. It is true, that the minister may, in this
case, decline to have the goodness; but, then, the
people are apprised of the arrangement, and, trained
as they have been, too well, to look up to the minis-
ter as an organ of civil accommodation, will they lay
siege to his dwelling-place, and pour upon him with
their inquiries; and the cruel alternative is laid upon
him either to obstruct the convenience of his parish-
ioners, and bid them from his presence, or to take
the whole ^weight of a management that has been so
indiscreetly and so wantonly assigned to him. In
this painful struggle between the kindness of his
30
nature, and the primitive and essential duties of
his office, he may happen to fix on the worse, and
not on the better part It is not reason, that even,
for such a service, I should leave the ministry of
the word and prayer. But, in an unlucky moment,
I did so, along, I believe, with a vast majority of
my brethren; and out of the multitude of other
doings, from this source of employment alone, which
are now past, and have sunk into oblivion, the
single achievement of seventy signatures in one
day, is all that my dizzy recollection has been
able to keep and to perpetuate.
If, for the expediting of business, we are made
free with, even by private individuals, it is not to be
wondered at, if charitable bodies should, at all times,
look for our subserviency to their schemes and
their operations of benevolence. When a patriotic
fund, or a Waterloo subscription, blazons in all the
splendour of a nation's munificence, and a nation's
gratitude, before the public eye,—who shall have the
hardihood to refuse a single item of the bidden co-
operation that is expected from him? Surely, such a
demand as this is quite irresistible; and, accordingly,
from this quarter too, a heavy load of consultations
and certificates, with the additional singularity of
having to do with the drawing of money, and the
keeping of it in safe custody, and the dealing of it
out in small discretionary parcels according to the
needs and circumstances of the parties;—all, all is
placed upon the shoulders of the already jaded and
overborne minister.
But the greater number of these employments, it
may be thought, originated in our state of war; and
now, that war is at an end, that they have ceased
31
with the final winding up of the old system. But
this is not the case. That great event which
brought peace to the whole country, brought no
peace to the minister. In some unlucky hour or
other, the Secretary of War seems to have had a
conversation with the Secretary for the Home De-
partment, and to have, supplied him with the mis-
chievous hint of how vastly convenient a set of
people were we ministers. I do not know if this be
an exact account of the matter. But thus much I
know, that some such hint has been given, and that
the hint is most assuredly acted upon. For the
practice has now fairly got in, when the right man
cannot be found for doing any piece of provincial
business, just to hinge it all upon the minister;.
And the duty of sitting in judgement on the qualifi-
cations of hawkers and spirit-dealers, is among the
first fruits of that precious system which has late-
ly been devised, and is now in a state of hopeful
perseverance, for conducting the matters of our
home administration.
I know not where this is to end, or what new and
unheard-of duties are still in reserve for us. But
this much I know, that they are in the way of an in-
definite augmentation. 1 have heard obscurely of
some very recent additions to our burdens; but of
what it particularly is, I have not got the distinct or
the authentic information. I am not civilian
enough to know, if even an Act of Parliament carry
such an omnipotence along with it, as to empower
this strange series of wanton and arbitrary infringe-
ments on the individual homes and liberties of
clergymen. But I am patriot enough to feel, that
the rulers of our country are fpr an accommodation
32
which might be easily rendered to them by another
method, bartering away the best interests of its peo-
ple,—that, through the side of its public instructors,
they are reaching a blow to the morality and principle
of the commonwealth,—that, by every such impolitic
enactment as I have now attempted to expose, they
are slackening the circulation of Christianity, and of
all its heathful and elevating influences amongst our
towns and families,—that they are sweeping away
from the face of every large city, the best securities
for order, and contentment, and loyalty;—nor should
I wonder if, in some future period of turbulence
and disorder, they shall rue the infatuation which
led them to tamper so with the religion of our land,
by the inroads they are now making, and the cruel
profanation they are now inflicting, on the sacred-
ness of its officiating ministers.
It is needless to expatiate on the mischievous ef-
fect of all this upon the great mass of our popula-
tion. In virtue of the grievous desecration that has
thus been inflicted on the office, we hold out, in
their eyes, a totally different aspect from the mini-
sters of a former age. We are getting every year
more assimilated, in look and in complexion, to
surveyors, and city-clerks, and justices, and distri-
butors of stamps, and all those men of place, who
have to do with the people, in the matters of civil
or municipal agency. Every feature in the sacred-
ness of our character is wearing down, amid all the
stir, and hurry, and hard-driving, of this manifold of-
ficiality. And thus it is, that our parishioners have
nearly lost sight of us altogether, as their spiritual
directors, and seldom or never come near to us,
upon any spiritual errand at all—but, taking us, as
33
they are led by the vicious system that is now in pro-
gressive operation tofind us—they are, ever and anon,
overwhelming us with consultations about their tem-
poralities; and the whole tact of a spiritual rela-
tionship between the pastor and his flock is thus
dissipated and done away. There is little of the
unction of Christianity, at all, in the intercourse he
holds with them—and every thing that relates to
the soul, and to the interests of eternity, and to the
religious care of themselves, and of their families, is
elbowed away by the work of filling up their sche-
dules, and advising them about their monies, and
shuffling, along with them, amongst the forms and
the papers of a most intricate correspondence-
It is right that Government should be told, with
fearlessness, the whole extent of that mischief,
which they are now unwarily inflicting on the cha-
racter of our people, and the best interests of our
country. And Government well tknows, on the
other hand, how to distinguish between the fearless,
ness of friendship, and the fearlessness of faction.
There is all the difference between the one and the
other, that there is between frankness and audacity.
And it is, therefore, fondly hoped, that the rulers of
our country will not turn an adverse or an indiffer-
ent ear from a cause, which stands associated with
the best securities of peace, and the dearest objects
of patriotism.
It is right that the whole work of management
and certification which is laid personally upon us,
should be done in some way or other; and we are
not to wonder, that Government has actually laid
hold of the existing parochial machinery in our
34
land, as being by far the most available for that
purpose. It were to be regretted, that they aban-
doned that way of it. It may be rendered subser-
vient to a great moral purpose. With vigilance
and care, on our part, and especially in the matter
of licenses for spirit dealers, many a sad and pesti-
lential nuisance may, in virtue of the power with
which we are invested, be rooted away from our
parishes. And if, by one simple expedient, they
would transfer the whole work of examination, and
personal interview, from the person of the minister
to the persons of his Elders or Deacons, then a griev-
ance scarcely felt in small country parishes, but in-
tolerable in towns, would be conclusively done
away.
Let the name of the Clergyman, which now stands
foremost in the signatures of himself and his two
Elders or Deacons, that are subjoined to so many a
declaration, of such a person having appeared be-
fore us, and of our having put to him such and such
questions, and of our having reason to believe that
such are his circumstances, though this be a point
of utter inscrutability to us all; and of our having
ascertained that such is his height, and such the
colour of his hair and eyes, and such the marks
upon his body—Let there be no blank space, for
the name of the clergyman, subjoined, at least, to
any declaration of this sort; seeing that it is a space
which, having to do with the many thousands of a
crowded parish, he cannot possibly fill, without ei-
ther his conscience, or his convenience, being utterly
overthrown.
The persons who own the two succeeding names,
attached as they are to small manageable districts,
35
will find it a light work to verify all the circum-
stances set forth in the declaration; and, if tire name
of the Clergyman must be had, it were better sub-
joined to a small posterior declaration, affirming the
above to be his Elders or Deacons, attesting his
confidence in their accuracy, and so verifying their
signatures.
This separates the Minister altogether from a
work, of which he is now required to attest, that it
was actually done by him, in his own person; and, if
it still expose him to calls for counter-signatures,
there is one expedient, by which he would greatly
promote the mutual convenience both of himself and
of his people. There may be a house of call, in his
parish, occupied by the Beadle, or some one else,
where the papers, after they are signed by his El-
ders or Deacons, may accumulate through the day-
They may be brought to him daily, countersigned
by him in a few minutes, and carried down, in a
finished state, to his people. This would effectually
save him from the whole breaking up of the present
system ; and whatever it may be, in aspect, to the
people, it would be kindness to them, in effect;
simplifying their part of the operation, and saving
them from a world of movement and perplexity.
Let the Minister go forth among his people, with
Christianity as his topic ; and when they offer to
approach him, with Christianity as theirs, let him
have a house for all, and a heart for all.
I have heard that even, under the present con-
struction of Government and other papers, it comes
substantially to the very way which I now recom-
mend,—that the minister's name is but a form, and
that without being expected to do any part of what
36
he avers himself to have done, it is accepted simply
as a verification of the other signatures.
I fear that this grossly mercantile age will not sym-
pathize with me, when I enter my vehement protest
against such an abomination. If the delicacies of
conscience, on the part of the Teachers of religion,
are thus to be overborne, this will, indeed, liken our
church to a sanctuary trodden under foot of the
Gentiles. It is an attempt to hackney, and to har*
den, the moral sense of her Clergy, to such current
perjuries as obtain, I have heard, in a custom house.
Public virtue lies prostrate amongst us, if one enact-
ment more shall come forth, to legalize a corruption so
hideous, or so much as another drop of this deadly
virus be infused into the very fountain heads of the
morality of our nation.
The business laid upon the Clergy by Government,
forms but a very small fraction of the business which
was wont to be laid upon us, in Glasgow, by the mu-
nicipal authorities, and the various institutions of the
place. But I do not need to enter into any enume-
ration, on this part of the subject. For, in every
one quarter of our city affairs, have I experienced
nothing but a kindness and a facility of accommo-
dation, which, considering the inveteracy of old
habits, do infinite honour to the citizens of Glasgow.
But it is not right that any department of public use-
fulness should suffer by any innovation. The man
who withdraws from a good work should substitute
another in his place—and surely he, whose office it is
to multiply the doers of what is good, may be able
to furnish ten times more of benevolent agency, in
the person of others, than he keeps back in his own.
Government should be served, and that with greater
37
punctuality and correctness than before. Our city
should be served, and that in greater abundance of
public labours than before. The people should be
served, and that far more kindly and attentively than
before. All this should be done, and it may be
done. The laymen require no more than a cor-
rect view of the importance of the substitution which
we now demand from them, and, when that is given,
they will come forth, in hundreds, from their hiding
places. The ranks of philanthropy will soon fill, and
this fine city be put into a glow with generous
wishes, and high and liberal devisings for the good
of her population. Instead of ministers being
brought down to the habit of merchants, merchants
will be brought up to the tone and habit of minis-
ters. And if, through the ascending scale of charity,
some of them should rise so high as to do what was
done by the Elders of other days—if, unashamed of
the gospel of Christ, they should stand intrepidly
forth as the guides and comforters of the people—if,
not unwilling, and not afraid to vary the labours
of the counting-house, with the labours of an
affectionate urgency amongst the chambers of
the sick, and the afflicted, and the dying, they shall
bring back the habit of the olden time, amongst our
families—another generation will not pass away, till
they have brought back all the piety, and all the
kindness of the olden time along with it.
Before I have done, then, let me try to enforce
this substitution of lay, for clerical agency, by un-
folding the mischiefs which have arisen from minis-
ters having been required to do what others should
have done.
38
The principle which I lay down is,—that the work
of a Christian Teacher is enough, by itself, to engross
and take possession of the entire powers of any sin-
gle man, The business of meditation is a fatiguing
business, and leaves a general exhaustion behind it.
There is such a thing as a weariness of the mind, and
surely, if the right ministration for weariness be
repose—then, there must be an overworking of the
mind, when after having taken exercise up to the It
mits of its strength, it is plied with a multiplicity of
other and overbearing demands on its attention, and
its memory, and its judgement, and the various fa-
culties which belong to it. The likest thing to it,
Gentlemen, in your own experience, which I can
imagine, is the case of a merchant exhausting himself
by the forenoon labours of his desk, or his counting,
house, and retiring to the sweets of a comfortable
home, and there solacing himself with the conversa-
tions of friendship, or recruiting the languor of his
worn-out spirits among the endearments of a fa-
mily. There is a wall of defence which, I under-
stand, that many of you have thrown around your
persons, and, in virtue of which, no one application
about business is at all entertained, or listened to,
excepting on business hours. Just guess, then, how
much you would be teased, and jaded, and positively
enfeebled, were this wall of defence broken down;
and there regularly passed through the breach, in
force and in frequency, every evening, upon you*
a host of invaders, armed with their miscellany of
mixed and multiform applications. Take this back
to the case of a man, whose business is meditation.
You, perhaps, may never have engaged to any great
extent in this business. Then, I do not wait for the
39
conviction of your personal experience on the sub-
ject; but I demand it as a right, that the man who
has the experience should be believed. His positive
testimony should be made to outweigh all that
inexperience may conceive, or may utter, on such a
case* If he happen to stand confronted with a pub-
lic, who are utter strangers to the labour of intense
thoughtfulness, the voice of such a public, if lifted
in condemnation against him, should not be sustained
as a voice of authority. They are not a competent
jury upon this question. And> having premised
this, I assert what I am not afraid to carry, by appeal,
to the higher reason of the country—that the labour
of intense study, if persisted in, for a few hours, is
just as exhausting as the busiest and most lengthened
forenoon of an ordinary citizen. He who has borne
this labour, has purchased by it, through the day, as
good a right to exemption from all that can disturb
or annoy him—and if, nevertheless, these annoy-
ances shall be obstinately presented to him, he is
put into a state of mental and bodily suffering. There
is a pressure upon his whole constitution greater than
the strength of it can enable him to carry. And, un-
der these circumstances, he must cast about for re-
lief, in some change of his daily and habitual ar-
rangements.
You are all aware of the restless appetite of a sen-
tient being, for a comfortable state of existence.
In the case which I have now specified, this prin-
ciple must tell. If a student was in the habit of labour-
ing at his own peculiar exercise, up to the measure of
his constitutional ability, then, the additional labour
that is thus laid upon him, lays also upon him the
necessity of an abridgement upon his studies. He
40
must just make a curtailment upon his business hours.
There is a familiar advice, that is often given to a
man under hardship, and which will come upon him
with all the power of a most insinuating temptation •
"Take matters easily." Are you busied with
foreign applications? Take them easily. Are you
cumbered with official patronage? Take it easily.
Are you plied for your personal attendance on the
work of secularities? Take it easily. Are you put
into requisition, through the week, for a variety of
manifold engagements? Take them all easily. Are
you, in addition to other things, burdened with the
duty of Sabbath preparation? It is true, that there
is something, in this employment, which may well
weigh a man down with a feeling of its importance.
He is to address a number of unperishable creatures
about the affairs of immortality. But he has no
other resource, than just to do with them what he
does with the crowd and the frequency of his other
affairs- He must throw together such thoughts as
he can, and get up a half-hour exhibition, in some
way or other; but, in self-defence, and as he values
the great objects of comfort and endurance, he must,
by all means, take the matter easily.
I need say no more about the direct blow which the
prevailing system of our towns must, at length, in this
way, give to the cause of practical Christianity, in our
congregations and parishes. I proceed to another
effect, still more palpable, if not more prejudicial,
than the former. It will keep back and degrade
the theological literature of Scotland.
There is nothing in the contrast which I am now
to offer, between the theology of our age and that of
another, which is not highly honourable to the pre-
41
sent race of clergymen. The truth is, that they have
kept their ground so well against the whole of this
blasting and degenerating operation, as to render it
necessary, for the purpose of giving full effect to my
argument, that 1 should look forward, in perspective,
to the next age, and compute the inevitable difference
which must obtain between its literature and that of
the last generation.
On looking back to the distance of half a century,
we behold the picture of a church adorned by the
literature of her clergy. It is of no consequence to
the argument, that the whole of this literature was
not professional. Part of it was so; and every part
of it proved, at least, the fact, that there was time,
and tranquillity, and full protection from all that was
uncongenial for the labours of the understanding.
I cannot but look back with regret, bordering upon
envy, to that period in the history of our church—
when her ministers companied with the sages of
philosophy, and bore away an equal share of the
public veneration—when the petulancies of Hume,
as he sported his unguarded hour, among the circles
of the enlightened, were met by the Pastors of hum-
ble Presbyterian ism, who, equal in reach and in ac-
complishment to himself, could repel the force of all
his sophistries, and rebuke him into silence—when
this most subtle and profound of infidels aimed his
decisive thrust at the Christian testimony, and a
minister of our church, and he, too, the minister
of a town, dared all the hazards of the intellectual
warfare, and bore the palm of superiority away from
him—Ina word, I look back, as I do upon a scene
of departed glory, to that period, when the clergy
of our cities could ply the toils of an unbroken soli-
F
42
tude, and send forth the fruits of them, in one rich
tide of moral and literary improvement over our land.
It is true, that all the labours of that period were
riot rendered up, in one consecrated offering, to the
cause of theology. It is true, that among the names
of Wallace, and Henry, and Robertson, and Blair,
and M'Knight, and Campbell, some can be singled
out, who chose the classic walk, or gave up their
talent to the speculations of general philosophy. Yet
the history of each individual amongst them, proves
that, in these days, there was time for the exer-
cise of talent—that these were the days, when he,
among the priesthood, who had an exclusive taste
for theology, could give the whole force of his mind
to its contemplations—* that these were the days, when
a generous enthusiasm for the glories of his profes-
sion, met with nothing to stifle or vulgarise it—that
these were the days, when the man of prayer, and
the man of gospel ministrations, could give himself
wholly to these things, and bring forth the evidence
of his profiting, either in authorship to all, or in weekly
addresses to the people of his own congregation* It is
true, that the names which I have now gathered, are
all from the field of a lofty and conspicuous literature.
Yet I chiefly count upon them, as the tokens of such
a leisure, and of such a seclusion, and of such an
habitual opportunity, for the exercises of retirement,
as would give tenfold effect to the worthiest and
most devoted ministers of a former generation—as
enabled the Hamilton and Gillies of our own city,
to shed a holier influence around them, and have
throned, in the remembrance of living men, the
Erskine, and Walker, and Black, of 6ur metropolis,
who maintained, throughout the whole of their his-
43
tory, the aspect of saeredness, and gave every hour
of their existence to its contemplations and its
labours.
What is it that must cause all resemblance qf
this to disappear from a future generation? Not
that their lot will be cast in an age of little men.
Not that Nature will send forth a blight over the
face of our establishment, and wither up all the
graces and talents which, at one time, signalized it.
Not that some adverse revolution of the elements
will bring along with it some strange desolating
influence on the genius and literature of the priest-
hood, The explanation is nearer at hand, and we
need not seek for it among the wilds or the ob-
scurities of mysticism. Nature will just be as liberal
as before; and bring forth the strongest and the
healthiest specimens of mind, in as great abundance
as ever j and will cast abroad no killing influence at
all, to stunt any one of its aspiring energies j and
will just, if she have free play, be as vigorous with
the moral as with the physical productions of a former
generation. This change, of which the fact will be
unquestionable, however much the cause may elude
the public observation, will not be the work of Na-
ture, but of lxian. There will be no decay of talent
whatever, in respect to the existence of it. The
only decay will be in the exercise of talent. It will
be that her solitudes have all been violated—that
her claims have all been unheeded and despised—
that her delicacies have all been overborne—above
every thing, that her exertions and her capabili-
ties have been grossly misunderstood—it not being
known how much restraint stifles her—and the em-
ployments of ordinary business vulgarise her—and
44
distraction impedes the march of her greater enter-
prizes—and the fatigue she incurs by her own ex-
ercises, if accumulated by the fatigue of other ex-
ercises, which do not belong to her, may, at length,
enervate and exhaust her, altogether. Thus it is,
that an unlearned public may both admit the exist-
ence of the mischief, and lament the evils of it, and
yet be utterly blind to the fact, that it is a mischief
of their own doing. They lay their own rude es-
timate on a profession, of the cares and the labours
of which, they have no experience—and, instead of
cheering, do they scowl upon the men who vindicate
the privileges of our order. They are perpetually
measuring the habits and the conveniencies of liter-
ary business, of which they know nothing, by the habits
and the conveniencies of ordinary business, of which
they know something, And thus it is, that instead of
the blind leading the blind, the blind, in the first in-
stance, turn upon their leaders—they give the whole
weight of their influence and opinion to that cruel
process, by which the most enlightened priesthood in
the world, if they submit to it, may, by the lapse
of one generation more, sink down into a state of
contentment with the tamest, and the humblest, and
the paltriest attainments. Nor will it at all alleviate,
but fearfully embitter, the whole malignity of this
system, should its operation be such, that, in a suc-
ceeding age, both our priests and our people will
sit down in quietness, and in great mutual satisfac-
tion with each other—the one fired by no ambition
for professional excellence; the other actuated by no
demand for it—the one peaceably leaning down to
the business of such services as they may be called to
45
bear; the other not seeking, and not caring for
higher services.
Every thing that is said for the evils of such a
system, should elevate, in public estimation, all our
living clergymen. It came upon them in the way of
gradual accumulation; and, at each distinct step,
it wore the aspect of a benevolent and kind accom-
modation to the humbler orders of society. They are
not to blame that it has been admitted; and I call
upon the public to admire, that they have stood so
well its adverse influence on all their professional la-
bours. But there is one principle in human nature,
which, if the system be not done away, will, in time,
give a most tremendous certainty to all our predictions.
It does not bear so hard on the natural indolence
of man, to spend his life in bustling and miscellan-
eous activity, as to spend his life in meditation and
prayer. The former is positively the easier course of
existence. The two habits suit very ill together; and,
in some individuals, there is an utter incompatibility
betwixt them. But should the alternative be pre-
sented, of adopting the one habit or the other, singly,
the position is unquestionable, that it were better
for the ease, and the health, and the general tone
of comfort and cheerfulness, that a man should lend
out his person to all the variety of demands for at-
tendance, and of demands for ordinary business,
which are brought to bear upon him, than that he
should give up his mind to the labours of a strenu-
ous and sustained thoughtfulness. Now, just cal-
culate the force of the temptation to abandon study,
and to abandon scholarship, when personal comfort
and the public voice, both unite to lure him away
from them—when the popular smile would insinuate
46
him into such a path of employment, as, if he once
enter, he must bid adieu to all the stern exercises of
a contemplative solitude; and the popular frown
glares upon that retirement, in which he might con^
secrate his best powers to the best interests of a sadly
misled and miscalculating generation—when the ho-
sannahs of the multitude cheer him on to what may
be comparatively termed, a life of amusement; and
the condemnation both of unlettered wealth and un-
lettered poverty, is made to rest upon his name*
should he refuse to let down the painful discipline
of his mind, by frittering it all away amongst those
lighter varieties of management, and of exertion,
which, by the practice of our cities, are habitually
laid upon him. Such a temptation must come, in
time, to be irresistible; and, just in proportion as it
is yielded to, must there be a portion of talent with*
drawn from the literature of theology. There must
be the desertion of all that is fine, and exquisite, and
lofty, in its contemplations. There must be a relapse
from the science and the industry of a former gener-
ation. There must be a decline of theological attain-
ments, and theological authorship. There must be a
yearly process of decay and of deterioration, in this
branch of our national literature. There must be a
descending movement towards the tame, and the
feeble, and the common-place. And thus, for the
wretched eclat of getting clergy to do, with their
hands, what thousands can do as well as they, may
our cities come, at length, to barter away the la-
bour of their minds, and give such a blow tp the-
ology, that, amongst men of scholarship and general
cultivation, it will pass for the most languishing of
the sciences.
47
And here I cannot but advert to the observation of
Hume, who, be his authority in religion what it
may, must be admitted to have very high authority
in all matters of mere literary experience. He tells
us, in the history of his own life, that a great city
is the only fit residence for a man of letters; and
his assertion is fbtinded on a true discernment of our
nature. In the country, there may be leisure for the
pursuits of the understanding; but there is a want
of impulse. The mind is apt to languish in the
midst of a wilderness, where, surrounded perhaps,
by uncongenial spirits, it stagnates and gathers the
rust of decay, by its mere distance from sympathy
and example, and the animating converse of men
who possess a kindred taste, and are actuated by a
kindred ambition. Transport the possessor of such
a mind to a town, and he there meets with much to
arouse him out of all this dormancy. He will find his
way to men, whose views and pursuits are in harmony
with his own—and he will be refreshed for action, by
the encouragement of their society—and he will feel
himself more linked with the great literary public, by
his personal approximation to some of its most distin-
guished members—and communications from the emi-
nent, in all parts of the country, will now pour upon
him in greater abundance—and above all, in the
improved facilities of authorship, and from his actual
position within the limits of a theatre, where his ta-
lents are no sooner put forth into exercise, than th6
fruits of them may be brought out into exhibition—
in all this, we say, there is a power and a vivacity of
excitement, which may set most actively agoing
the whole machinery of his genius, and turn to its
right account those faculties which, else, had with-
48
ered in slothfulness, and, under the bleak influences
of an uncheered and unstimulated solitude, might
finally have expired.
This applies, in all its parts, to the literature of
theology, and gives us to see how much the cities of
our land might do for the advancement of its inter-
ests. They might cast a wakeful eye over the face
of the country—and single out all the splendour and
superiority of talent which they see in our establish-
ment—and cause it to emerge out of its surround,
ing obscurity—and deliver it from the chill and lan-
gour of an uncongenial situation—and transplant it
into a kindlier region, where, shielded from all that
is adverse to the play or exercise of mind, and en-
couraged to exertion by an approving and intelli-
gent piety, it may give its undivided labour to things
sacred, and have its solitude for meditation on these
things, varied only by such spiritual exercises out of
doors, as might have for their single object the in-
crease of Christian worth and knowledge amongst
the population.
This is what cities might do for Theology. But
what is it that they in fact do for it? The two es-
sential elements for literary exertion, are excitement
and leisure. The first is ministered in abundance
out of all those diversities of taste and understanding
which run along the scale of a mighty population.
The second element, if we give way much longer to
the system which prevails among you—if we lay no
check upon your exertions, and make no stand
against the variety of your inconsiderate demands
upon us—if we resign our own right of judgment
upon our own habits and our own conveniences, and
follow the impulse of a public, who, without experi-
49
ence on the matter, can feel no sympathy and have
no just calculation about the peculiarities of clerical
employment—then should we be robbed of this se-
cond element altogether. We should lie under the
malignity of an Egyptian bondage,—bricks are requir-
ed of us, and we have no straw. The public would
like to see all the solidities of argument, and all the
graces of persuasion, associated with the cause of sa-
cred literature. But then they would desolate the
sanctuaries of literature. They would drag away
mind from the employments of literature. They
would leave not one moment of time or of tranquil*
lity for the pursuits of literature. They would
consume by a thousand preposterous servilities all
those energies of the inner man, which might, every
one of them, be consecrated with effect, to the ad-
vancement of literature. In one word, they would
dethrone the guardians of this sacred cause from the
natural eminency of their office altogether;—and,
weighing them down with the burden of other ser-
vices, they would vulgarise them out of all their taste
and all their generous aspirings after literature.
- Here, then, is the whole extent of this sore and
two-edged calamity. In the country, there is time
for the prosecution of a lofty and laborious walk $
but there is not the excitement. In the town,
there is the excitement -, but under the progress of
such a system as I have attempted to expose, there
will not be the time. There is a constant with-
drawment of the more conspicuous members of
our establishment from the solitude of their first
parishes. But it is withdrawment into a vortex
which stifles and destroys them. Those towns,
which, with a few most simple and practicable refor-
50
mations, might be the instruments of sustaining the
cause of theology, and of sending abroad ove*r the
face of our country, a most vigorous and healthful
impulse towards the prosecution of theological learn-
ing, may, under that yearly process of extinction,
which is now going forward, depress the whole li-
terature of our profession, and by every translation
from the country, may, in fact, absorb so much of
promise and ability from the cause of the gospel. The
atmosphere of towns, may at length become so pes-
tilential, as to wither up the energies of our church,
and shed a baleful influence over all that lustre of
ministerial accomplishment, which otherwise might
adorn it. And we have only to look to the last fifty
years, and think of the new direction to our habits
which has taken place in that period, in order to com-
pute how soon our national establishment may, by
the simple cause of its ministers being turned to the
drudgery of other services, be shorn of her best and
most substantial glories, and how soon that theology
of which she is the appointed guardian, may come
to sink both in vigour and illustration, beneath
the spirit, and literature, and general philosophy;
of the times.
Should no arrest be laid on this mischievous ope-
ration, then, by another age, will we behold two great
absorbing eddies for the theology of our land. An
Argus is stationed at each of them, whose office now,
is to watch for all the rising excellence that shoots
into visibility on the face of our establishment—and
whose office then, will be to lure it to inevitable
destruction. In the short-lived whirl of some fair
and even brilliant exhibitions, may it be able, in each
individual case, to sustain itself for a few circling
51
years above the surface of mediocrity, when it will
at length touch the brink of its final engulphment,
and disappear for ever.
Should any reader think that 1 have drawn the
above picture with too faithful, or even with too
strong a hand, I ask him further to think, that it
is such a picture, as, by its very exhibition, may
scare away the realities which it anticipates.
The case, I am persuaded, requires only to be un-
derstood, and then will it be provided for. The
restoration of the clergy to their own proper and
peculiar influence over the hosts of a city popula-
tion, must appear both to the Christian and the ge-
neral philanthropist, one of the most important of
all our national desiderata. And should I unwarily
have been betrayed into any remark in the course
of this extended demonstration, by which I have
given offence in any one quarter, and so hazarded a
peace which I am most unwilling to throw away,—
it will afford at least some consolation, if the atten-
tion of the public shall be, in some degree, awakened
to a matter which I have long regarded as one that
bears most vitally and essentially on the best inter-
ests of the commonwealth.
A. & J. DUNCAN, PRINTERS, VIIXAFIELTX
53
CHAP. II.
ON THE INFLUENCE OF LOCALITY IN TOWNS.
We do not know how the matter is ordered in
London; but, in the second-rate towns of our
empire, it will often be found, that, when a
philanthropic society is formed in them for any
assigned object, it spreads its operations over the
whole field of the congregated population. This
holds generally true both of the societies for relief,
and of the societies for instruction. Take a cloth-
ing society, or an old man's friend society, or a
destitute sick society, as examples of the former—
or take a Sabbath school society, as an example of
the latter—and, in by far the greater number of
instances, will it be seen, that, instead of concen-
trating their exertions upon one district or depart-
ment of the city, they expatiate at large, and over
the face of its entire territory, recognising no
other boundary, than that which lies indefinitely
but fully beyond the final outskirts of the compact
and contiguous dwelling-places.
We do not offer at present to discuss the specific
mei'its of any of these societies; and though, in
the remarks which immediately follow, we attach
ourselves chiefly to the last of them—yet it is
not with the view of appreciating or vindicating
Sabbath schools; but, through them, to illustrate
a principle of philanthropic management, for
54
which we can find no better designation, than the
influence of locality in large towns.
In most of the Sabbath school societies with
which we are acquainted, this principle is disre-
garded* The teachers are indiscriminately sta-
tioned in all parts of the city, and the pupils are
as indiscriminately drawn from all parts of the city.
Now, what we affirm, is, that the effectiveness of
each individual teacher is greatly augmented, if
a definite locality be given to him; and that a
number of teachers spread over any given neigh-
bourhood on this principle, is armed, in consequence
of it, with a much higher moral power, over the
habits and opinions of the rising generation.
Let a small portion of the town, with its geo-
graphical limits, be assigned to such a teacher.
Let his place of instruction be within this locality,
or as near as possible to its confines. Let him re-
strain his attentions to the children of its families,
sending forth no invitations to those who are
without, and encouraging, as far as it is proper,
the attendance of all who are within. Under such
an arrangement, he will attain a comfort and an
efficiency in his work, which, with the common
arrangement, is utterly unattainable. And, we
farther conceive, that, if this local assignation of
teachers were to become general, it would lead to
far more precious and lasting consequences of
good to society.
However thoroughly we may be convinced of
the benefit that would result from the influence
55
of locality, we feel that it is not an easy task
didactically to set forth this influence, by any pro-
cess of argument or explanation. The conviction
is far more readily arrived at by the tact of real
and living experience, than by the lessons of any
expounder. There is a charm in locality, most
powerfully felt by every man who tries it; but
which, at the same time, it is most difficult so to
seize upon as to embody it in language, or to bring
it forth in satisfying demonstration to the public
eye. We do not know an individual who has
personally attached himself to a manageable por-
tion of the civic territory, and has entered with
taste and spirit upon its cultivation—and who
does not perceive, with something like the force
and the clearness of intuition, that, if this way of
it were spread over an assembled million of human
beings, it would quickly throw a new moral com-
plexion over the teeming expanse that is on every
side of him. But what he feels, it is not easy to
make others see. For, however substantial the
influence of locality is, there is a certain shadowy
fineness about it, in virtue of which it eludes
the efforts of an observer to lay hold of it, and to
analyse it. It is no bad evidence, however, of the
experimental soundness of this operation, that the
incredulity about it, is all on the side of those
who stand without the field of local management;
and the confidence about it, on the side of those
who stand within; and that, while the former
regard it as a mystic and undefinable fancy, the
56
latter find in it as much of sureness and solidity, as
if their eyes saw it, and their hands handled it.
Let us attempt, however, in the face of all these
difficulties, to offer some developement of the pre-
cise character and tendency of the arrangement
which we have now recommended.
The first effect of it which falls to be considered,
is that which it has upon the teacher. He, with a
select and appropriate vineyard thus lying before
him, will feel himself far more powerfully urged,
than when under the common arrangement, to go
forth among its families. However subtle an exer-
cise it may require from another, faithfully to analyse
the effect upon his mind* he himself has only to try
it, and he will soon become sensible of the strong
additional interest that he acquires, in virtue of
having a small and specific locality assigned to him.
When the subject on which he is to operate, thus
offers itself to his contemplation, in the shape of
one unbroken field, or of one entire and continuous
body, it acts as a more distinct and imperative call
upon him, to go out upon the enterprise. He will
feel a kind of property in the families; and the very
circumstance of a material limit around their habi-
tations, serves to strengthen this impression, by
furnishing to his mind a sort of association with
the hedges and the landmarks of property. At
all events, the very visibility of the limit, by con-
stantly leading him to perceive the length and the
breadth of his task, holds out an inducement to
his energies, which, however difficult to explain,
51
will be powerfully felt and proceeded on. There
is a very great difference, in respect of its practical
influence, between a task that is indefinite, and a
task that is clearly seen to be overtakeable. The
one has the effect to paralyze; the other, to
quicken exertion. It serves most essentially to
spirit on his undertaking, when, by every new
movement, one feels himself to be drawing sensibly
nearer to the accomplishment of it—when, by
every one house that he enters, he can count the
lessening number before him, through which he
has yet to pass with his proposals for the attend-
ance of their children—and when, by the distinct
and definite portion which is still untravelled, he
is constantly reminded of what he has to do, ere
that district, which he feels to be his own, is
thoroughly pervaded. He can go over his families
too, with far less expense of locomotion, than
under the common system of Sabbath schools;
and, for the same reason, can he more fully and
frequently reiterate his attentions; and it will
charm him onwards, to find that he is sensibly
translating himself into a stricter and kinder rela-
tionship with the people of his district; and, if he
have a taste for cordial intercourse with the fellows
of his own nature, he will be gladdened and
encouraged by his growing familiarity with them
all; and thus will he turn the vicinity which he
has chosen, into a home-walk of many charities;
and recognised as its moral benefactor, will his
kindness, and his judgment, and his Christianity,
58
be put forth, with a well-earned and well-estab-
lished influence, in behalf of a grateful population.
Thus one great benefit of such an arrangement,
is, its effect in calling out the exertion of the
teachers; the next, is, its effect in calling out the
attendance of the taught. The invitation comes
upon them with far greater power, when it is to
attend the weekly lessons which are given out in
the close vicinity of their own habitations, than
were it to attend at some distant place, where
children are assembled from all quarters of the
city. And the vicinity of the place of instruction
to the taught, is not the only point of juxtaposition
which goes to secure and to perpetuate their at-
tendance. There is also much in the juxtaposition
of the taught to one another. This brings what
may be called the gregarious principle 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 advan-
tages 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 en-
gages, 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 con-
trollingthem to regular and continued attendance—
a habit, which, with a slight exertion of care upon
59
his part, may be so kept up and strengthened, as
to obtain, in the little vicinage over which he pre-
sides, all the certainty of a mechanical operation.
The third peculiar benefit of this local arrange-
ment, is, its effect on the population of the district.
That very influence which binds the teacher to the
families, does, though by a looser and feebler tie,
bind the families to each other. One great desi-
deratum in large towns, is acquaintanceship among
the contiguous families. And to promote this,
every arrangement in itself right, should be pro-
moted, which brings out the indwellers of one
vicinity to one common place of repair, and brings
upon them one common ministration. We believe,
that the total want of parish schools, and the total
neglect of the right of parishioners, to a preference
for seats in parish churches, have, in addition to a
mischief of a deadlier and more direct character,
withheld from our population, the great, though
collateral advantage that we are now insisting on.
It is an advantage, which is, to a certain degree,
made up by the local arrangement of Sabbath-
schools—where, by next-door neighbours being
supplied with one common point of reference \ and
their children being led to meet in each other's
houses, at one common work of preparation; and
all being furnished with one common topic of
simple, but heart-feltgratitude—that moral distance
is somewhat alleviated, which obtains in our great
cities, without any counteraction whatever, even
among those living under the same roof, and which
60
powerfully contributes, among other causes, to
stamp a louring and unsocial aspect, on a city
population.
The common system of Sabbath-schooling, has
none of these advantages. The families that fur-
nish children to the same teacher, may lie at a
wide physical distance from each other; and it is
therefore seldom that he holds any week-day in-
tercourse at all, with the few and scattered houses
out of which his scholars repair to him—or that
he maintains any common understanding with the
parents about their young—or that he joins his
guardianship with theirs, in calling the absentees
to account, for their acts of non-attendance—or
that he forms acquaintance with them upon that
most gratifying and welcome of all intimations,
that their children are doing well. The close and
oft-repeated influences, in virtue of which, a local
teacher may incorporate his school, with the habit
of all the families that are allotted to him, are
wanting to the general teacher. The latter may
still, however, head a most numerous and respect-
able school; but this is more in virtue of a pre-
existent desire for Christian instruction, than of
any desire which he himself has excited among
the families* Attendance upon a general teacher,
in spite of distance and other disadvantages, gen-
erally argues, and is indeed the fruit of a certain
value and pre-disposition for the lessons of Chris-
tianity. Attendance on a local teacher, is oftener
the fruit, not of an original, but of a communicated
61
taste for his instructions. It is a produce of his
own gathering. It is the result, not of a spon-
taneous, but of a derived movement, to which he
himself gave the primary impulse, by going aggre-
sively forth upon a given territory; and which he
perpetuates and keeps up by his frequent calls and
his unremitting vigilance, and his oft-repeated
applications, brought to bear upon one and the
same neighbourhood.
Under a local system, the teachers move towards
the people. Under a general system, such of the
people as are disposed to Christianity, move to-
wards them. To estimate the comparative effect
of these two, take the actual state of every mixed
and crowded population, where there must be
many among whom this disposition is utterly
extinguished. The question is, how shall the
influence of a Sabbath school be brought most
readily and most abundantly into contact with
their families? Which of the two parties, the
teacher or those to be taught, should make the
first advances to such an approximation? To meet
this question, let it ever be remembered, that
there is a wide and a mighty difference between
the wants of our physical, and those of our moral
and spiritual nature. In proportion to our want
of food, is our desire for food; but it is not so
with our want of knowledge, or virtue, or reli-
gion. The more destitute we are of these last, the
more dead we are as to any inclination for them.
A general system of Sabbath schooling may attract
K
62
towards it all the predisposition that there is for
Christian instruction, and yet leave the majority
as untouched and as unawakened as it found them.
In moving through the lanes and the recesses of a
long-neglected population, will it be found of the
fearful multitude* that not only is their acquaint-
ance with the gospel extinguished, but their wish to
obtain an acquaintance with it is also extinguished.
They not only have no righteousness; but they
have no hungering nor thirsting after it. A general
teacher may draw some kindred particles out of
this assemblage. He may bring around him such
families as are of a homogeneous quality with him-
self. Those purer ingredients of the mass, which
retain so much of the etherial character as to have
an etherial tendency, may move towards a place
of central and congenial attraction, though at
a considerable distance from them; and, even
though, in so doing, they have to come separately
out from that overwhelming admixture with which
they are encompassed. But the bulky sediment
remains untouched and stationary; and, by its
power of assimilation, too, is all the while adding to
its own magnitude. And thus it is both a possible
thing that schools may multiply, under a general
system, and that out of the resources of a mighty
population, an overflowing attendance may be
afforded to each of them, while an humble fraction
of the whole is all that is overtaken; and below
the goodly superficies of a great apparent stir and
activity, may an unseen structure of baser materials
63
deepen and accumulate underneath, so as to fur-
nish a solution of the fact, that with an increase of
Christian exertion amongst us, there should, at one
and the same time, be an increase of heathenism.
It is the pervading operation of the local system,
which gives it such a superior value and effect
in our estimation. It is its thorough diffusion
through that portion of the mass in which it ope-
rates. It is that movement, by which it traverses
the whole population, and by which, instead of
only holding forth its signals to those of them who
are awake, it knocks at the doors of those who are
most profoundly asleep, and, with a force far more
effective than if it were physical, drags them out
to a willing attendance upon its ministrations. In
this way, or indeed in any way, may it still be im-
possible to reach the parents of our present gener-
ation. But the important practical fact is, that,
averse as they may be to Christianity on their own
account, and negligent as they often are, in their
own persons, of the Christianity of their children,
still, there is a pride and a satisfaction felt in their
attendance upon the Sabbath schools, and their
proficiency at the Sabbath schools. Let the sys-
tem be as impotent as it may in its efficiency upon
the old, still, it comes into extensive contact with
the ductile and susceptible young; and, from the
way in which it is fitted to muster them nearly all
into its presence, is it fitted, in proper hands, to
wield a high and a presiding influence over the
destinies of a future age.
64
The schools, under a general system, are so
many centres of attraction for all the existing
desire that there is towards Christianity; and
what is thus drawn, is, doubtless, often bettered
and advanced by the fellowship into which it has
entered. The schools, under a local system, are
so many centres of emanation, from which a vivi-
fying influence is actively propagated through a
dead and putrid mass. It does not surprise us to
be told, that, under the former operation, there
should be an increase of youthful delinquency,
along with an increase of public instruction for the
young. Should the latter operation become uni-
versal in cities, we wTould be surprised if there were
still an increase of youthful delinquency; and it
were a phenomenon we would be unable to explain.
The former, or general system, draws around
it the young of our more decent and reputable
families. It can give an impulse to all the mat-
ter that floats upon the surface of society. It is
the pride of the latter, or local system, wrhile it
refuses not these, that it also fetches out from
their obscurities, the very poorest and most profli-
gate of children. It may have a painful encounter
at the outset, with the filth, and the raggedness,
and the other rude and revolting materials, which
it has so laboriously excavated from those mines
of depravity, that lie beneath the surface of com-
mon observation. But it may well be consoled
with the thought, that, while much good has been
done by its predecessor, which, we trust, that it
65
is on the eve of supplanting, it holds in its own
hands the materials of a far more glorious trans-
formation.
This is an age of many ostensible doings, in
behalf of Christianity. And it looks a paradox to
the general eye, that, with this feature of it stand-
ing out so conspicuously, there should also be an
undoubted increase of crimes, and commitments,
and executions, all marking an augmented depra-
vity among our population. A very slight degree
of arithmetic, we are persuaded, can explain the
paradox. Let it simply be considered, in the case
of any Christian institution, whether its chief office
be to attract or to pervade. Should it only be
the former, we have no doubt, that a great visible
exhibition may be drawn around it—and that
stationary pulpits and general Sabbath schools,
and open places of repair for instruction indiscri-
minately to all who will, must give rise to a great
absolute amount of attendance. And whether we
look at the streets, when all in a fervour with
church-going—or witness the full assemblage of
children, who come from all quarters, with their
weekly preparations, to a pious and intelligent
teacher—or compute the overflowing auditory, that
Sabbath after Sabbath, some free, evening sermon
is sure to bring out from among the closely peopled
mass—or, finally, read of the thousands which find
a place in the enumerations of some great philan-
thropic society—we are apt, from all this, to think
that a good and a religious influence is in full and
66
busy circulation on every side of us. And yet,
there is not a second-rate town in our empire,
which does not afford materials enough, both for
all this stir and appearance, on the one hand, and
for a rapid increase, in the quantum of moral
deterioration, on the other. The doings to which
we have adverted, may bear, with a kind of mag-
netic influence, on ali that is kindred in character
to their own design and their own principle.
They may communicate a movement to the mi-
nority who will, but leave still and motionless
the majority who will not. Whole streets and
whole departments may be nearly untouched by
them. There is the firm and the obstinate growth
of a sedentary corruption, which will require to
be more actively assailed. It is certainly cheering
to count the positive numbers on the side of Chris-
tianity. But, beyond the ken of ordinary notice,
there is an outnumbering both on the side of week-
day profligacy, and of Sabbath profanation. There
is room enough for apparent Christianity, and
real corruption, to be gaining ground together,
each in their respective territories; and the delusion
is, that, while many are rejoicing in the symptoms
of our country's reformation, the country itself
may be ripening for some awful crisis, by which
to mark, in characters of vengeance, the consum-
mation of its guilt.
In these circumstances, do we know of no ex*
pedient, by which this woful degeneracy can be
arrested and recalled, but an actual search and
67
entry upon the territory of wickedness. A mere
signal of invitation is not enough. In reference
to the great majority, and in reference to the
most needful, this were as powerless as was the
bidding to the marriage-feast of the parable. We
must have recourse, at last, to the final expedient
that was adopted on that occasion; or, in other
words, go out to the streets and the highways,
and, by every fair measure of moral, and personal,
and friendly application, compel the multitude to
come in. We must do with the near, what we are
doing with the distant world. We do not expect
to Christianise the latter, by messages of entreaty,
from the regions of paganism. But we send our
messages to them. Neither do we give a roving
commission to the bearers, but assign to each of
them their respective stations in that field, which
is the world. And we most assuredly need not
expect to Christianise any city of nominal Chris-
tendom, by waiting the demand of its various
districts, for religious instruction, and acting upon
the demands, as they arrive. There must just be
as aggressive a movement in the one case as in the
other. There is not the same physical distance,
but there is nearly the same moral distance, to be
described with both; and they who traverse this
distance, though without one mile of locomotion
to the place of their labour, do, in eiFect, maintain
the character, and fulfil the duty of missionaries.
Any one, or, at most, two philanthropists, may
set forth upon such an experiment. They will
68
soon, in the course of their inquiries, be enabled
to verify the actual state of our city families, and,
at the same time, their openness to the influence
of a pervading operation. Let them, for this
purpose, make their actual entrance upon a dis-
trict, which they have previously chalked out as
the ground of their benevolent enterprise; and it
were better, that it should be in some poor and
neglected part of the city. Let the one introduce
the other to every family; and on the simple
errand, that he meant to set up a Sabbath school,
to be just at hand, and for the vicinity around
him. With no other manner than that which
Christian kindness would dictate, and just such
questions as are consistent with the respect which
every human being should entertain for another,
we promise him, not merely a civil, but a cordial
reception in almost every house, and a discreet
answer to all his inquiries. The first thing which,
in all likelihood, will meet his observation, is the
mighty remainder of good that is left for him to
do, amid the number and exertion of the general
Sabbath schools that are on every side of him. It
may be otherwise in some few accidental districts.
But, speaking generally, he will assemble a suffi-
cient school out of a population of three hundred.
Parents of all characters will accept his proposition
with gratitude. And if, on his first meeting with
their children in some apartment of the district,
he should be disappointed by the non-attendance
of some wdiom he was counting on, a few calls of
69
inquiry on the subject, will generally, at length,
secure the point of their attendance; and, by fol-
lowing up every case of absence with a week-day
inquiry at the parents, he will secure the regularity
of it; and thus may he bring his moral and per-
sonal influence into contact with their young, for
a few hours of every recurring Sabbath; and also
keep up an influence through the whole week,
by the circulation of books from a small library
attached to his institution. It will prove a mighty
accession to the good that he is doing, if he hold
frequent intercourse with the families. Their
kindness and his enjoyment will grow with the
growth of their mutual acquaintanceship. And
should he, in the spirit of a zealous philanthropy,
resolve to cultivate the district as his own—should
he fill up every opening to usefulness which oc-
curs in it—should he mix consideration with sym-
pathy—and, in all his services and all his distri-
butions, bear a respect to their character as well
as to their comfort—we cannot confidently say,
that he will turn many from Satan unto God, but
he will extinguish many an element, both of moral
and political disorder.
A few months of perseverance will thoroughly
engage him to the cause that he has undertaken.
He will feel a comfort in this style of philanthropy,
which he does not feel in the bustle and distraction
of manifold societies. He will enjoy both the
unity and the effectiveness of his doings. And,
instead of pacing, as he does now, among dull
L
70
^committees, and perplexing himself ^niong the
questions of a large and laborious superintendence,
will he expatiate, without encumbrance, upon his
own chosen field, and rejoice in putting forth
his immediate hand, on the work of reclaiming it
from that neglected waste of ignorance and im-
providence by which it is surrounded.
To be effective in such a walk of benevolence
as this, it is not necessary to be rich. Should, for
example, the defective education of a whole dis-
trict be repaired by one individual, without the
expense of a single shilling; and that, by the mere
force of moral suasion, he, prevailing on every
parent who required urgency upon the subject, to
send all the children of a right age, to a week-day
school upon their own charges—or, should another
individual, standing in the relation that we are
now explaining, to a particular district, put a debt,
which bears most oppressively over one of the
families, into a sure and rapid process of liquida*-
tion, and that, not by advancing one fraction,
but by simply recommending the expedient of
a small weekly deposite—and such instances as
these, be varied and multiplied to the extent that
is conceivable, would not this be enough to prove,
that it is not by the influence which lies in wealth,
but by the power which resides in the moral ele-
ments of intelligence and affection, that the good
is to be accomplished? The weapons of this, war-
fare are, advice—and friendship—and humanity, at
all times ready, without being at any time imper-
71
tinent—and the well-earned confidence, which is
ever sure to follow, in the train of tried and
demonstrated worth—these, when wielded for a
time by the same individual, on the same contig-
uous families, will work an effect of improvement,
which never can be attained by all the devices
and labours of ordinary committeeship.
There are so many philanthropists in this our
day, that if each of them, who is qualified, were
to betake himself, in his own line of usefulness,
to one given locality, it would soon work a great
and'visible effect upon society. One great security
for such an arrangement being propagated, is the
actual comfort which is experienced by each, after
he has entered on his own separate portion of it*
But there is, at the same time, a temporary hin-
drance to it, in the prevailing spirit of the times*
The truth is, that a task so isolated as that which
we are now prescribing, does not suit with the pre-
sent rage for generalising. There is an appetite for
designs of magnificence. There is an irtipatience
of every thing short of a universal scheme, landing
in a universal result. Nothing will serve but a
mighty organization, with the promise of mighty
consequences; and, let any single person be in-
fected with this spirit, and he may decline from
the work of a single court or lane in a city, as an
object far too limited for his contemplation. He
may like to share, with others, in the enterprise
of subordinating a whole city to the power of
some great and combined operation. And we
72
may often have to deliver a man from this ambi-
tious tendency, ere we can prevail upon him to
sit humbly and perseveringly down to his task—
ere we can lead him to forget the whole, and
practically give himself to one of its particulars—
ere we can satisfy him, that, should he moralise
one district of three hundred people, he will not
have lived in vain—ere we can get him to pervade
his locality, and quit his speculation.
This spirit has restrained the march of philan-
thropy as effectually, as, in other days, it did
that of philosophy. In the taste for splendid
generalities, it was long ere the detail and the
drudgery of experimental science were entered
upon. There is a sound and inductive method of
philanthropy, as well as a sound and inductive
method of philosophising. A few patient disciples
of the experimental school, have constructed a far
nobler and more enduring fabric of truth, than all
the old schoolmen put together could have reared.
And could we prevail on those who are unwearied
in well-doing, each to take his own separate slip,
or portion of the vast territory that lies before us,
and to go forth upon it with the one preparation
of common sense and common sympathy; and,
resigning his more extended imaginations, actu-
ally to work with the materials that are put into
his hand—would we, in this inductive way of it,
arrive at a far more solid, as well as striking con-
summation, than ever can be realised by any society
of wide and lofty undertakings.
73
The individual who thus sits soberly down to
a work, that is commensurate with the real medio-
crity of the human powers, will soon meet with
much to reconcile him to the enterprise. He will
not fail to contrast the impotency of every general
management, in reference to the whole, with the
efficacy of his own special management, in refer-
ence to a part. His feeling of the superior com-
fort of his own walk, and his conviction of its
superior productiveness, will soon make up to him
for the loss of those more comprehensive surveys
that are offered to his notice by Societies, which,
however gigantic in their aim, are so inefficient in
their performance. He loses a splendid deception,
and he gets, in exchange for it, a solid reality,
and a reality too, which will at length grow and
brighten into splendor, by the simple apposition
of other districts to his own—by the mere summa-
tion of particulars—by each philanthropist betak-
ing himself to the same path of exertion, and
following out an example that is sure to become
more alluring by every new act of experience.
There is an impatience on the part of many a
raw and sanguine philanthropist, for doing some-
thing great; and, akin to this, there is an impatience
for doing that great thing speedily. They spurn
the condition of drivelling amongst littles; and
unless there be a redeeming magnificence in the
whole operation, of which they bear a part, are
there some who could not be satisfied with a
humble and detached allotment in the great
74
vineyard of human usefulness, A Sabbath sch6ol
society for one city parish, has a greatly more
limited aim, than a Sabbath school society for the
whole city, or than a similar society for the whole
of Scotland. And yet, in opposition to the maxim,
that union is power, would we strongly advise the
managers of every parochial society, to refuse every
other alliance than that of good will, with any
wider association—to maintain, within its own
limits, the vitality and the spirit of a wholly inde-
pendent existence—to resist every offered exten-
sion of its mechanism, and rather leave the con*
tiguous parish to follow its example, than lay upon
it a chain of fellowship, which will only damp the
alacrity and impede the movements of both. Not
that we at all admire the narrowness of an unsocial
spirit, which cares for nothing beyond the confines
of its own territory. It is simply, that we hold
it to be bad moral tactics, thus to extend the field
of management—thus to bring a whole city or a
whole province under one unwieldy jurisdiction—
thus to weaken, by dispersion, the interest which
we think is far more vivid and effective when
concentrated upon one given locality—thus to ex-
change the kindliness of a small appropriated home
for the cold lustre of a wider and more public
management—thus to throw ourselves abroad, over
an expanse of superficiality, instead of thoroughly
pervading and filling up each of its subordinate
sections. We have, in fact, somewhat of the same
antipathy to a general society for matters spiritual,
75
that we have to a general session for matters tem-
poral; and are most thoroughly persuaded, that the
le^s we are linked and hampered with one another,
the more effective will be all our operations.
In the work of filling up a parish with Sabbath
schools, we would recommend the local system
in its purest form; that is, that a small separate
district should be assigned to each teacher, and
that it should no more be his practice to draw the
young from all parts of the parish indiscriminately,
than to draw them from all parts of the city in-
discriminately. There are many parishes in the
empire, of a population, that would require fifty
teachers for their thorough cultivation; and the
danger is, that in the hurry of an ambitious desire
to get up a complete apparatus, there may be
a rapidity and a regardlessness of qualification in
the admissions of new agency. It were greatly
better, that the promoters of such an undertaking,
should begin with one extremity of the ground
upon which they have entered—cautiously pro-
vide for each department as they move onwards
to the other extremity—and leave a portion, for a
time, in an outfield state, rather than precipitate
the appointments, or assign to any, a larger al-
location than he can comfortably or effectually
pervade.
It was a matter of speculation, some months ago,
to subordinate the whole of Glasgow to this local
system, and that, by a simultaneous movement on
the part of many individuals. It is greatly better
16
that this was abandoned. The projectors of such
a scheme never could have found their way through
the conflict and perplexity of many opinions, to its
accomplishment. To muster a force, in any way
adequate to the commencement of such an enter-
prise, there behoved to be a very wide and crowded
arena of consultation upon the subject j and this,
to a moral certainty, would have turned out an
arena of controversy, where, after a very great deal
of unproductive speechifying, the parties would
have neutralized each other's propositions, and the
project been given up in despair. Even though
it had been possible to institute a society for this
object, the work of filling up the city with local
schools, would have gone on most languidly—the
agency would have sunk under the consciousness
of a burden too heavy for them—it would have
been utterly impossible to send, over this wide
extent, the impetus of such a common spirit as is
often observed to animate a more small and select
band of philanthropists—in proportion to the sub-
limity of the aim, would have been the shortness
and slenderness of the execution: and one delusion
more would have been added to the number of
others, by which the public have been blinded to
the fact, that, amid all the zeal and variety of our
apparent doings in behalf of Christianity, we live
at a time when irreligion is multiplying her pro-
selytes every day, and vice, and ignorance, and
ferocity, are making their most frightful advances
over a rapidly degenerating population.
77
But we have to record a far more fortunate at-
tempt that was made some time ago, to institute a
society of the same kind, on a more limited scale.
We allude to the Saltmarket Sabbath School So-
ciety. The field of its operations takes in both
sides of the street, with the deep, and narrow, and
numerous lanes which branch off from them.
It bears a population of 3624; and to cultivate
this extent, there were only four individuals, at
the outset of the undertaking, who, instead of
spreading themselves over the whole, appropriated
each a small locality, and waited for more agents,
ere they proceeded to lay out the remainder.
And, such is the impulse that lies in a field of
exertion, with its boundaries lying visibly before
you—such is the excitement given to human
power, when linked with a task that may be
surmounted, instead of being left to expatiate
at random, over an obscure and fathomless un-
known—such is the superior charm of a statistical
over an extended territory, and such the more
intense sympathy of a devoted few, in the prose-
cution of their common and defined object, than
that of the scattered many, who have spread
beyond the limits either of mutual inspection or
of general control, that, in a few months, did this
little association both complete its numbers, and
thoroughly allocate and pervade the whole ground
of its projected operations. It has now opened
fourteen schools, and provided them with teach-
ers. The number of scholars is 420, amounting to
M
78
more than a ninth of the whole population. This
is a very full proportion indeed; for, on pretty
extensive surveys, is it found, that the whole
number of children, from the age of six to fifteen,
comes to about one-fifth of the population. Cer-
tain it is, that all the general societies in previous
operation, had brought out' but a very slender
fraction, indeed, of the number brought out by
this local and pervading society—that many a
crowded haunt of this district, was as completely
untouched by the antecedent methods, as are the
families in the wilds of Tartary—that hundreds of
young, never in church, and without one religious
observation to mark and to separate their Sab-
bath from the other days of the week, have thus
been brought within an atmosphere, which they
now breathe for the first time in their existence—
that, with a small collection of books attached to
each humble seminary, there is a reading of the
purest and most impressive character, in full cir-
culation amongst both the parents and the children
who belong to it; and, what is not the least
important effect of all, that, by the frequent
recurrence of week-day visitations, there is both
a Christian and a civilizing influence sent forth
upon a whole neighbourhood, and a thousand
nameless cordialities are constantly issuing out of
the patriarchal relationship, which has thus been
formed between a man of worth, and so many
outcast and neglected families.
79
We know that there are many who look coldly
and suspiciously to the whole system of Sabbath
schools. We postpone, to some future number of
this work, our direct vindication of them,—our sole
object at present being to illustrate, by a reference
to them, a principle which will afterwards be seen
to bear, with effect, on a number of other questions,
that respect both the Christian and the civic eco-
nomy of our towns. But thus much we may at
least say, that many of the objections proceed on
an ignorance of the actual state of a crowded
society;—it not being sufficiently known, how
utterly alienated the great majority of our young
are from all Christian opportunities; and that
there is an unobserved heathenism amongst us,
which stands as much in need of being aggressively
entered upon from without, as the heathenism of
antiquity stood in need of apostles. Such is the
lack of churches, and such is the dreary and
unprovided extent of our city parishes, that the
majority of our people may be said to live in a
state of excommunication from all the privileges
of a Christian land. The disgrace of their present
habits is not theirs alone, but must be shared with
them by others. And, if they have sunk in moral
or religious worth, under a treatment, the neces-
sary effect of which was thus 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
80
adverted to the outset of one of these Saltmarket
schools, or looked back on the first raw exhibition
of the children, or revealed thus publicly what
they once were, if we had not been enabled
further to relate what, under the energetic super-
intendence of one of the teachers, they have
actually become. Certain it is, that we never
witnessed so rapid a cultivation; and when, on
visiting the school a few months after its estab-
lishment, we beheld the dress and decency of their
exterior, and marked the general propriety of their
manners, and observed the feeling that was evident
in the replies of some, and the talent and promp-
titude that shone forth in the replies of many—
when, along with all this, Mre were made to re-
joice 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, they, out of their own unaided re-
sources, had so respectably arrayed—when we fur-
ther reflected, that the living scene before us, was
not made up of the scantlings of a whole city,
but was formed by the compact population of one
small but thoroughly explored vicinage,—with our
eyes open to what had thus been done by the
moral force of care and kindness on the part of
one individual, 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.
81
There is much of experimental wisdom to
be gathered, we think, from the circumstances
attendant on the origin and progress of this little
association. We learn, by its history, first, wThat
unsanctioned and wholly unofficial individuals can
do. They had no superior to introduce or to ac-
company them in their rounds; and yet did they
find their way to a gracious reception, and a firm
practical concurrence with their scheme, on the
part of the general population. They have also
proved how much more stimulating a manageable
section of the city is, than a mighty whole, over
which there hangs the feeling of a weight and a
difficulty insuperable. From the very outset of
their undertaking, they were within clear sight of
its termination, and felt themselves urged onwards
at every new step, by a new inspiration of hope and
energy, till, in a very few weeks, their establish-
ment was completed. Their lists, furthermore,
teach us how this is the effectual system for most
thoroughly pervading any given space. The Sab-
bath scholars amount to more than a ninth of the
whole population. There is one district, consisting
of 264 people, which furnishes no less than 50
pupils j and, before they are admitted, they must
previously be able to read the New Testament.
For the -object of such institutions is greatly dif-
ferent from their general object in England. It
is not to teach them the reading of the Scriptures;
but to exercise their memory, and judgment, and
conscience, on the lessons of Scripture. The
82
Sabbath schools of our country do not supersede,
but stimulate the processes of week-day education.
This has been their effect, in many instances, under
the society in question. Were it otherwise, it might
lead to the substitution of a worse for a better
scholarship. But, as it is actually conducted,
scholarship is not the fruit of attendance on these
little seminaries, but the essential preparation for
entering them. And thus have we the pleasure
of recording, that, under the care and vigilance of
a few associated individuals, an impulse, not merely
on the side of Christianity, but on the side of
ordinary learning, has been sent abroad among
the families of a department, that, in both re-
spects, was fast languishing into utter degeneracy.
The machinery which they have so speedily raised,
need only to be diligently wrought; and even the
performance of a few months, warrants the largest
expectation of good from their steady and unfal-
tering perseverance.
The number of scholars from this part of the
town, in attendance upon the general schools, at
the erection of this Society, was 128, being greatly
less than a third of the number who attend the
present schools. But the most cheering part of
the whole operation, was, the great and immediate
effect of the local interest, in calling out a well
qualified agency for the work of this association.
It consists of fourteen teachers, ten of whom were
never employed in this capacity before j and who
were allured to the enterprise by the peculiar
83
motives and facilities which were attached to it.
In other words, to multiply and extend the good
which has been done on this portion of the terri-
tory, we do not need to starve any one department
of public, usefulness that is now in operation. In
answer to the prayers and the pains of Christians,
will labourers come forth, as the work of the har-
vest is entered upon; and an influence, which
never could have emanated from any one fountain
of general superintendence, will spread itself among
the contiguous districts, by a mere process of dis-
tinct and successive imitations.
It is the feeling of the writer of these remarks,
that, for the purposes both of good superintend-
ence and good Workmanship, the extent of the
Saltmarket district, is perhaps the most desirable
that can be fixed upon, as being about the right
extent of field, for a separate and independent
management. It is scarcely possible to proceed
far beyond such limits, without a growing sense
of unwieldiness, and a proportional deadening of
that interest and activity, which are far better
kept up among the members of a small association.
Certain it is, that the present size of our parishes
in Glasgow, is greatly beyond the fittest magni-
tude, either for this or for any other operation,
which points to the moral and religious welfare of
our people. But there is a comfortable hope, that
there will be a reduction and a splitting down of
these enormous masses—that the process which
clergymen, of late years, have had to undergo,
84
will be altogether inverted; and, instead of over-
grown charges, where the care of souls and the
care of secularities were mingled together, into
one disgusting compound, and laid upon their
persons—that they will be disengaged, in toto,
from the latter care; and, to prosecute the former
with effect, will, by the multiplication of churches,
have their respective managements then rendered
strictly ecclesiastical, and gradually so lessened,
as at length to be brought each within the grasp
of one individual.
Strong, however, as our partialities are for the
Saltmarket Society, we are not sure but that we
feel a still greater interest in the solitary, yet
eminently successful, attempt of a gentleman in
our city, whose name, from motives of delicacy,
we forbear to mention. It is now about a year
and a half ago, since he assumed a district to
himself, which he resolved to cultivate, on the
system of local philanthropy. We believe that, in
respect of the rank and condition of those who
live in it, it is greatly beneath the average of
Glasgow. It comprises a population of 996;
whom he, in the first instance, most thoroughly
surveyed, and all of whom, we are confident, he
has now most thoroughly attached, and that, by
a series of the most friendly and enlightened
services. He has found room, within its limits,
for four Sabbath schools, which he provided with
teachers of his own selecting, and who, like him-
self, labour, of course, gratuitously in the cause;
85
as, indeed, we believe, do all the other Sabbath
teachers in the city. The scholars amount to
110 j which is, also, in very full proportion to the
number of inhabitants* He has also instituted
a Savings Bank, which takes in deposites only
from those who live, and from those who work,
within the bounds of this little territory. With
this last extension of his plan, the bank may
embrace a population of 1200; and, from its
commencement, in December 19th, 1818, to De-
cember 18th, 1819, the whole sum deposited is
235/. 12s. 3d. During the twelvemonth, sixty
families of this small district, have opened their
accounts with the bank, and received an impulse
from it, on the side of economy and foresight.
This, in such a year, proves what might be made
of the neglected capabilities of our labouring
classes. Any general savings bank for the town
at large, would not have called out one tenth of
this sum, from the obscure department which this
gentleman occupies, and which, with the doings
and the devices of a most judicious benevolence,
he is so fast rescuing from all the miseries which
attach to a crowded population. We bold this to
be one of the most signal triumphs of locality.
The sum deposited in this local bank, is about
proportional to the sum of 30,000/. for the town
and suburbs of Glasgow} and forms another proof,
among the many others which multiply around us,
of the superiority, in point of effect, which a small
and, at the same time, distinct and unfettered
N
86
management holds, over a wide and ambitious
superintendence.
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
calculate 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 number of individuals re-
quired, who, if each, labouring in his own duteous
and devoted walk, would altogether assure the
magnificent result of a country recovered from vice
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 accu-
mulation 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 philanthropy—
not by men, who eye, with imaginative transport,
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, that 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 gene-
ralities, which have lured so many from the path
87
of sober and productive exertion—we must resign
the glory of devising a magnificent whole, and
count it enough to have rendered, in our narrow
sphere, 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 use-
fulness to each severally, as he will. It is our part
to follow the openings of his Providence, and to
do, with our might, that work which he hath evi-
dently put into our hands. Any great moral or
economical change in the state of a country, is
not the achievement of one single arm, but the
achievement of many; and though one man walk-
ing in the loftiness of his heart, might like to
engross all the fame of it, it will remain an im-
potent speculation, unless thousands come forward
to share among them all the fatigue of it. It is
not to the labour of those who are universalists
in science, that she stands indebted for her present
solidity, or her present elevation, but to the se-
parate labours of many—each occupying 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 bewil-
dering 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,
rather than a humble contributor to it, among a
88
thousand more, each as necessary and important
as himself* And yet, would he only resign his
speculations, and give himself 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 less of
the glare of publicity, but there would be more of
the kindliness of a quiet and sheltered home. 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 recommend them to the imitation of many—
and the good work will spread, by example, from
one individual, and from one district to another—
and, though he may be lost to observation, in th$
growing magnitude of the operations which sur-
round 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 which 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 fill the
whole earth.
89
CHAP. III.
APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF LOCALITY IN
TOWNS TO THE WORK OF A CHRISTIAN MINISTER.
It is perhaps the best among all our more general
arguments for a religious establishment in a coun-
try, that the spontaneous demand of human beings
for religion, is far short of the actual interest which
they have in it. This is not so, with their demand
for food or raiment, or any article which ministers
to the necessities of our physical nature. The
more destitute we are of these articles, the greater
is our desire after them. In every case, where
the want of any thing serves to whet our appetite,
instead of weakening it, the supply of that thing
may be left, with all safety to the native and
powerful demand for it, among the people them-
selves. The sensation of hunger is a sufficient
guarantee for there being as many bakers in a
country, as it is good and necessary for the coun-
try to have, without any national establishment of
bakers. This order of men will come forth, in
number enough, at the mere bidding of the people;
and'it never Can be for want of them, that society
will languish under the want of aliment for the
human body. It is wise in government to leave
the care of the public good, wherever it can be
left safely, to the workings of individual nature;
and, saving for the administration of justice be-
90
tween man and man, it were better that she never
put out her hand either with a view to regulate or
to foster any of the operations of common mer-
chandise.
But the case is widely different, when the ap-
petite for any good, is short of the degree in
which that good is useful or necessary; and, above
all, when just in proportion to our want of it, is
the decay of our appetite towards it. Now this is,
generally speaking, the case with religious instruc-
tion. The less we have of it, the less we desire
to have of it. It is not with the aliment of the
soul, as it is with the aliment of the body. The
latter will be sought after; the former must be
offered to a people, whose spiritual appetite is in a
state of dormancy, and with whom it is just as ne-
cessary to create a hunger, as it is to minister a
positive supply. In these circumstances, it were
vain to wait for any original movement on the
part of the receivers. It must be made on the
part of the dispensers. Nor does it follow, that
because government may wisely abandon to the
operation of the principle of demand and sup-
ply, all those interests, where the desires of our
nature, and the necessities of our nature, are ade-
quate the one to the other, she ought, therefore,
to abandon all care of our interest, when the
desire, on the part of our species, is but rare, and
feeble, and inoperative, while the necessity is of
such a deep and awful character, that there is not
one of the concerns of earthliness which ought,
for a moment, to be compared with it.
91
This we hold to be the chief ground upon which
to plead for the advantage of a religious establish-
ment. With it, a church is built, and a teacher is
provided, in every little district of the land. With-
out it, we should have no other security for the
rearing of such an apparatus, than the native
desire and demand of the people for Christianity,
from one generation to another. In this state of
things, we fear, that Christian cultivation would
only be found in rare and occasional spots over
the face of extended territories; and instead of
that uniform distribution of the word and ordi-
nances, which it is the tendency of an establish-
ment to secure, do we conceive that in every
empire of Christendom, would there be dreary,
unprovided blanks, where no regular supply of in-
struction was to be had, and where there was no
desire after it, on the part of an untaught and
neglected population.
We are quite aware, that a pulpit may be cor-
ruptly filled, and that there may be made to
emanate from it, the evil influence of a false or
mitigated Christianity on its surrounding neigh-
bourhood. This is an argument, not against the
good of an establishment, but for the good of
toleration. There is no frame-work reared by
human wisdom, which is proof against the fre-
quent incursions of human depravity. But if
there do exist a great moral incapacity on the
part of our species, in virtue of which, if the
lessons of Christianity be not constantly obtruded
92
upon them, they are sure to decline in taste and
in desire for the lessons of Christianity; and if an
establishment be a good device for overcoming
this evil tendency of our nature, it were hard to
visit, with the mischief of its overthrow, the future
race either of a parish or of a country, for the
guilt of one incumbency, or for the unprincipled
patronage of one generation. We trust, there-
fore, in the face of eVery corruption which has
been alleged against them, that our parochial
establishments will stand, so as that churches shall
be kept in repair, and ministers, in constant suc-
cession, shall be provided for them. At the same
time, we hope that no restriction whatever will be
laid on the zeal and exertion of dissenters; and
that any legal disability, under which they still
labour, will, at length, be done away. The truth
is, that we know not a better remedy against the
temporary and incidental evils of an establishment,
than a free, entire, and unexcepted toleration;
nor how an endowed church can be more effec-
tually preserved, either from stagnation or decay,
than by being ever stimulated and kept on the
alert, through the talent, and energy, and even
occasional malignity and injustice of private ad-
venturers. Still, however, such is our impression
of the overwhelming superiority of good done by
an establishment, that, in addition to the direct
christian influence which it causes to descend
upon the country, from its own ministers, we
regard it as the instrument of having turned the
93
country into a fitter and more prepared field, for
the reception of a Christian influence from any
other quarter. Insomuch, that had the period of
the reformation from Popery, in Britain, been also
the period for the overthrow and cessation of all
religious establishments whatever, we apprehend
that there would not only have been no attendance
of people upon churches, but a smaller attendance
of people upon meeting-houses than there is at
this moment. They are our establishments, in
fact, which have nourished and upheld the taste
of the population for Christianity; and when that
taste is accidentally offended, they are our estab-
lishments which recruit the dissenting places of
worship with such numbers as they never would
have gotten out of that native mass which had
been previously unwrought, and previously unen-
tered on.
In order that men may become Christians,
there must either be an obtruding of Christianity
on the notice of the people, or the people must be
waited for, till they move themselves in quest of
Christianity. We apprehend that the former, or
what may be called the aggressive way of it, is
the most effectual. Nature does not go forth in
search of Christianity, but Christianity goes forth
to knock at the door of nature, and, if possible,
awaken her out of her sluggishness. This was the
way of it at its first promulgation. It is the way
of it in every missionary enterprise. And seeing,
that the disinclination of the human heart to en-
94
tertain the overtures of the gospel, forms a mightier
obstacle to its reception among men, than all th6
oceans and continents which missionaries have to
traverse, there ought to be a series of aggressive
measures in behalf of Christianity, carried on from
one ^ge to another, in every clime and country of
Christendom. To wait till the people shall stir so
effectually, as that places of worship shall be built
by them, and the maintenance of teachers shall be
provided by them, and that, abundantly enough
for all the moral and spiritual necessities of our
nation, is very like a reversal of the principle on
which Christianity was first introduced amongst
us, and on which, we apprehend, Christianity
must still be upheld amongst us. We, therefore,
hold it to be wise, in every Christian government,
to meet the people with a ready-made apparatus
of Christian education. It is like a constant and
successive going forth amongst them with those
lessons which they never would have sought after,
through all the sacrifices that they else would have
had to make, and all the obstacles that they else
must have overcome. It is in order to perpetuate
the religion of the people, keeping up the same
aggressiveness of operation, which first originated
the religion of the people. We are aware that
itinerancy is an aggressive operation, and that dis-
senters do itinerate. But we are mistaken if, in this
way, there is more of the gospel brought into
contact with the inhabitants of our country,
throughout the space of a year, than is heard on
95
every single Sabbath within the pale of its two
establishments. This is not fastening the con-
tempt of insignificance upon dissenters; for, in
truth, the good done by their locomotive proceed-
ings, forms, we believe, a very humble fraction*
indeed, of the good that emanates from their
pulpits, and is performed through the week, and
around the vicinity of their pulpits, by the mi-
nisters who fill them. It is a mere question of
moral and spiritual tactics, which we are at pre-
sent engaged with. The ability and the Christian
worth of dissenters, and the precious contributions
which they have rendered to sacred literature,
should ever screen them from being lightly or
irreverently spoken of. And yet, among all their
claims to the gratitude of the public, we think
that they have a higher still, in their wholesopae
re-action on the establishments of the land, in their
freshj and vigorous, and ever-recurring impulses
on a machinery, the usefulness of which they may
disown in words, while, in fact, they are ajnong
the most effective instruments of its usefulness.
So much for the question of a religious establish,
ment; over a country at large, But we think that it
has a special advantage in towns, which has been,,
ix\ a great measure, overlooked, or, at least, been
wofully defeated in the practical management/of
towns.
In our last chapter, we made a comparison be-
tween local and general Sabbath schools. Now,
a church is, or easily might be, in effect, a local
96
Sabbath school. Its district is, or ought to be,
the parish with which it stands nominally asso-
ciated, and its sitters ought to be the inhabitants
of that parish. The established ministers of a large
town, should be enabled, each to concentrate the
full influence of his character and office, on his
own distinct and separate portion of the whole
territory. Any thing that can disturb the reitera-
tion of his attentions to the same local quarter of
the city, should be resisted as a detraction from
his real usefulness. And what we affirm, is, that
the united influence of the exertions of all the
clergy, when generalised and extended over the
town, will never nearly amount to the sum of their
separate influences, when each is permitted to give
the whole both of his Sabbath and week-day labour
to the people of his own geographical vineyard.
To demonstrate this at length, we would just
have to repeat the argument of the last chapter,
with the substitution of other terms. We could
not offer a complete analysis of that influence
which lies in parochial locality, without a frequent
recurrence to the very considerations upon which
we have already decided in favour of Sabbath-
school locality. We shall, therefore, at present,
study to observe all the brevity that is consistent
with the importance of the subject.
The influence of locality may be resolved into
two influences; first, that which operates on the
agent to whom the locality is assigned; and,
secondly, that which operates on the people who
reside within the field of his undertaking.
97
In the first place, then, it is not so likely that a
minister will go forth on his share of the popula-
tion, when spread at random over the whole city,
as when they lie within the limits of a space that
is overtakable. He feels an incitement to move
in the latter way of it, which he does not feel when
his attentions are dispersed over a wide and be-
wildering generality* He, under the one arrange-
ment, may have rare, and rapid, and transient
intercourse with the individuals of a diffused
multitude; but this can never ripen into solid
acquaintanceship with more than a very few.
Under the other arrangement, he may, at a greatly
less expense, attain to terms of confidence with
some, and of familiarity with many. And it would
add prodigiously to this operation, were his hearers,
on the Sabbath, also his parochial acquaintances
through the week. By this simple expedient alone,
he would attain such an establishment of himself in
his parish, in a single month, as he will not other-
wise reach, but by the labour and assiduity of years.
The very consciousness that, in a certain quarter
of the city, lay the great body of his congrega-
tion, would be enough to assure him of a welcome
there, and a friendship there, that would ever be
inclining his footsteps to his parish, as the fittest
scene of promise and of preparation for all his
enterprises. And he would soon find, that the
business of the Sabbath and the business of the
week, had a most wholesome, reciprocal influence
the one upon the other. The former business
p
98
would immediately open a wide and effectual door
of intercourse with the people, and the latter
business would not only retain their people in
attendance upon their minister, but would rapidly
extend their demand of attendance upon him,
whenever there was room for it. So that, like
as the local Sabbath school teacher recruited his
seminary out of the families of the district that
was assigned to him; so may the local minister,
With far less fatigue and locomotion, than are now
incurred by the distractions of too manifold and
scattered a concern, not only recruit his church
out of the parish to which it has been appropriated,
but keep up an effective demand for seats, which
shall press on the existing accommodation, and
must at length be provided with more.
But the second influence of locality in this mat-
ter, is perhaps of greater efficacy still. The first is,
that by which the minister obtains a more intense
feeling of his relationship to his people. The second
is, that by which the people obtains a more in-
tense feeling of their relationship to their minister.
It is incalculable how much this last is promoted,
by the mere juxta-position of the people to one
another. There is a great deal more than perhaps
can be brought out by a mere verbal demonstra-
tion, in a number of contiguous families, all related
by one tie to the same place of worship, and the
same minister. It would go to revive a feeling,
which is now nearly obliterated in towns, whereby
the house which a man occupies, should be con-
99
nected, in his mind, with the parish in which it is
situated, and an ecclesiastical relationship be re-
cognized with the clergyman of the parish. In
these circumstances, where there was no inter-
ference of principle, and no personal disapproba-
tion of the clergyman, attendance upon the parish
church, would at length pass into one of the habi-
tual and established proprieties of every little
vicinage. Old families would keep it up, and new
families would fall into it 5 and the demand for
seats, instead of slackening under such an arrange-
ment, would become more intense every year, so
as to form a distinct call for more churches, when-
ever they were called for by the exigencies of a
growing population.
There is nothing fanciful in the charm which
we thus ascribe to locality. It is the charm of
tact and of experience. It is better, when the
people who live beside each other, are under one
common impression of good from their minister,
than when these same people live asunder from
each other. It is not known how much that im-
pression is heightened by sympathy. Did §ach
of the thousand who attend a dramatic perform-
ance, satisfy himself with reading the composition
at home, the total impression among them were
not half so powerful, as when, within the infection
of one another's feelings, they sit together, at its
representation in a theatre. This is, in part, due
to the power of sensible exhibition in the acting.
But it is also due, in great part, to the operation
100
of sympathy. And when contiguous families hear
the same minister on the Sabbath, or come within
the scope of the same household attentions on other
days, there is between them, through the week, a
prolonged, and often a cherished sympathy, which,
were the families widely apart in distant places
of the town, would have no operation. Such a
common topic, too, of reference and attention,
would have a cementing influence on every little
neighbourhood. It would draw next-door families
into closer and nearer relationship with each
other, and shed a mild, moral lustre, over many
vicinities, now crowded with human beings, but
desolate in respect of all those feelings which
go to sweeten and to solace human bosoms. It
would, in fact, go a certain way, to transplant
into our larger towns, the kindliness of select and
limited intercourse; so that, even though the
minister could be the visitant of as many families,
and the friend of as many individuals, on the
general, as on the local system, yet the very
circumstance of their being scattered, instead of
being contiguous, makes a heavy deduction from
the amount of his influence upon them. And, on
these various accounts, do we think, that a city
clergy would be greatly more effective under an
arrangement, where, instead of the hearers of all
churches being intermingled in every direction
over the town, they were as much as may be,
recalled from this state of dispersion, so as that
they may be found together in their respective
101
parishes, and there offer to each of the ministers
one separate and compact body of acquaintance-
ship.
But, after all, the argument of greatest strength
for a strictly parochial system in towns, is identical
with the argument for a religious establishment all
over the country. People will not be drawn in
such abundance to Christianity, by a mere pro-
cess of attraction, as Christianity can be made to
radiate upon them, by a process of emanation. We
have not yet heard of any dissenting minister in
towns, who assumed to himself a locality for the
purpose of its moral and religious cultivation. We
think, that it would greatly add to the power of his
ministrations, if he did so. But, as the case stands,
his pulpit operates on the neighbourhood, chiefly
as a centre of attraction; and the people move, in
the first instance, towards him, instead of him, in
the first instance, going forth among the people.
We can see, how he may form his congregation
out of the pre-disposition for Christianity, that
there already is in the place; and, in this way,
how dissenters have, in fact, rendered this im-
portant service to the nation, that they have re-
tarded the decline of its religious spirit and char-
acter. But we do not see, in their system, what
the forces are, by which the nation can be recalled
from the declension into which it has actually sunk.
We do not see, how the torpid, and lethargic, and
ever-augmenting mass, can be effectually wrought
upon* Many will continue to attend their meet-
102
ing-houses, and thus be retained by them on the
side of Christianity. But we do not see, how it
is likely that many will be recovered and brought
over from the side of practical Heathenism. And,
thus it is, that, along with the multiplication of
their pulpits, and the undoubted zeal and ability
of those who fill them, there has been, in our
chief towns, an increasing alienation from the
word and ordinances, on the part of the inhabi-
tants, and that, greatly beyond the rate of the
increasing population.
The pulpit of an established minister, may, like
a local sabbath-school, be turned into a centre of
emanation. Instead of having a merely attractive
influence, which can operate only where a taste
for Christianity already exists, there may, in the
person of him who fills it, and in virtue of the
peculiar advantages which we have just explained,
go forth a pervading influence, which may be
made to spread itself through every portion of the
space that he occupies, and be reiterated upon it
at short intervals, and with successive applications.
He, and the auxiliaries with whom he stands asso-
ciated, may keep up an incessant locomotion
among the families, and they will scarcely meet
with one solitary exception in the way of a cordial
and universal welcome. This is the way in which
a local teacher recruits his school out of families
that felt no moving inclination whatever towards
a general teacher j and this, in effect, is the way
in which a parochial clergyman, had he room and
103
space for it, may reclaim to congregational habits,
a whole multitude that have sat motionless for
years, and grown most alarmingly in number,
under all that churches and meeting-houses have
yet done for them.
The ideas of rest, and stillness, and stagnancy,
have long been associated with an establishment.
But the truth is, that they are its facilities for a
busy movement of circulation over a given space,
which confer upon it, in our apprehension, a
mighty superiority over a mere system of dissen-
terism. It is true, that the movement is, in a
great measure, internal; and, for this reason, it does
not bear ostensibly upon it the character of a mis-
sionary enterprise. But surely, a missionary object
is as much fulfilled by the movement that com-
prehends all who are within, as by the movement
that extends to all who are without. The precept
of " Go and preach the gospel to every creature,"
includes an application to the outcasts at home,
as well as to the outcasts abroad; and, on the very
principle which inclines us to the frame-work of
a missionary society, do we feel inclined to the
frame-work of a national establishment.
It will readily be asked, why, if an establishment
be an engine of such mighty operation, it has done
so little. Is it at all palpable, that, with the same
talent and professional ardour, an established
clergyman does more to stay the declension of a
religious habit in towns, than the dissenting mini-
ster who labours on the same field along with him?
104
And would the difference, in point of result, have
been great, from the state of matters as it now
exists around us, though, instead of so many en-
dowed churches with territorial portions of the
city annexed to them, there had just been the
same number of additional meeting-houses, all
drawing such hearers as they could out of a com-
mon population?
It is quite true that the establishment has been
greatly more powerless in cities, than, with care and
vigilance on the part of our rulers, it might have
been. It is not merely of the inadequate number
of churches that we complain, though these, in
some of the chief cities of our empire, could not
harbour more than a tenth part of the inhabitants.
Neither is it of the manner in which the clergy
have been loaded with such extra-professional
work, as, in fact, has reduced their usefulness as
ministers, greatly beneath the level of that of their
dissenting brethren. But, in addition to all this,
the most precious advantages of an establishment,
have been virtually thrown away, and its ministers
disarmed of more than half their influence, by a
mere point of civic practice and regulation. By
what may be called a most unfortunate blunder in
moral tactics, an apparatus that might have borne
with peculiar effect on the hosts of a rapidly de-
generating population, has been sorely thwarted
and impeded in the most essential part of the me-
chanism which belongs to it. Not by the fault of
any, but through the mere oversight of all, a wide
105
disruption has been made between city ministers,
and the people of their respective localities; and
we should esteem it a truly important epoch in
the Christian economy of towns, were effectual
measures henceforth taken, to repair gradually, and
without violence, the mischief alluded to.
What we complain of is, the mode which has
obtained hitherto of letting the vacant church-
seats. They are open to applications from all
parts of the town and neighbourhood, and that,
till very lately, without any preference given to
the inhabitants of the parish.
It is this, which, trifling as it may appear, has
struck with impotenc}^ our church establishment
in towns, and brought it down from the' high
vantage ground it might else have occupied. In
this way each church is made to operate, by a
mere process of attraction, over an immense field,
instead of operating, by a process of emanation, on
a distinct and manageable portion of it. With the
exception of his civil immunities, and his civil
duties, which last form a heavy deduction from his
usefulness, there remains nothing to signalise an
established over a dissenting minister, though the
capabilities of his office ought to give him the very
advantage which a local has over a general Sabbath
school. That which, in argument, forms the main
strength of our establishment, has, in practice, been
so utterly disregarded, as, in fact, to have brought
every city of our land under a mere system of
dissenterism. It is not of the powerful influence
Q
106
of dissenters that we complain. It is of the feeble
influence of their system. It is not that they are
become so like unto us, as to have gained ground
upon the establishment. It is, that we have be-
come so like unto them, as both of us to have lost
ground on the general population. Locality, in
truth, is the secret principle wherein our great
strength lieth; and our enemies could not have
devised more effectual means of prevailing against
us, in order to bind us and to afflict us, than just
to dissever this principle from our establishment.
Our city rulers, without the mischievous intent,
have inflicted upon us the mischievous operation
of Delilah; and since we are asked, why it is that,
with all the strength and superiority which we
assign to an establishment, we put forth so power-
less an arm on the general community—we reply,
that it is, because, under this operation, our
strength has gone from us, and we have become
weak, and are like unto other men.
It is well enough, that every article of ordinary
sale is to be had in stationary shops, for the general
and indiscriminate use of the public at large; for
all who need such articles, also feel their need, and
have a moving force in themselves to go in quest
of them. But this is no reason why the same
thing should have been done with Christianity.
It is what all men need, but what few feel the
need of; and, therefore it is, that, under our pre-
sent arrangement in towns, there are many thou-
sands who will never move towards it, but where
107
still it is in our power to reclaim and to engage,
did we obtrude it upon them. We cannot think
of a more effectual device, by which to send a
reaching and a pervading influence to this sedentary
part of our population, than by binding one church,
with one minister, to one locality. Under the
opposite, and, unfortunately, the actual system,
the result, that is now visibly before us, was quite
unavoidable. All the activity of dissenters, aided
by the established church, whose activity and in-
fluence have been, in fact, reduced to that of
dissenters, could not have prevented it. It is not
mere Sabbath preaching that will retain, or, far
less, recal a people to the ordinances of Chris-
tianity. It is not even this preaching, seconded
by the most strenuous week-day attentions, to
hearers lying thinly and confusedly scattered over
a wide and fatiguing territory. With such a bare
and general superintendence as this, many are the
families that will fall out of notice; and there will
be the breaking out of many intermediate spaces,
in which there must grow and gather, every year,
a wider alienation from all the habits of a country
parish; and the minister, occupied with his extra-
parochial congregation, will be bereft of ail his
natural influence over a locality which is but
nominally his. The reciprocal influence of his
sabbath and week-day ministrations on each other,
is entirely lost under such an arrangement. The
truth is, that, let him move through his parish, he
may not find so much as a hundred hearers within
108
its limits, out of more than ten times that number
who attend upon him. And, conversely, however
urgent might be the demand in his parish for room
in his church, which, under the existing practice,
it is not likely to be, he has not that room that is
already in foreign occupation, to bestow upon them.
A parochial congregation would have, at the very
outset, throned him ini^uch a moral ascendency
over his district of the town, as the assiduities of
a whole life will not be able to earn for him. But,
as the matter stands, he is quite on a level, in
respect of influence, with his dissenting brethren;
and the whole machinery of an establishment, in
respect of its most powerful and peculiar bearings
upon the people, is virtually dissolved. On the
system of each minister feeding his church from
his parish, he could not only have crowded his own
place of worship, but stirred up such an effective
demand for more accommodation, as might have
caused the number of churches and the number
of people -to keep in nearer proportion to each
other. But, under the paralyzing influence of the
present system, it is not to be wondered at, that
the urgency for seats should have fallen so greatly
in the rear of the increasing rate of population;
and that the habit of attendance on any place of
religious instruction whatever, should have gone
so wofully into desuetude—and that the feeble
operation of waiting a demand, instead of stimu-
lating, should be so incompetent to reclaim this
habit; and that the labouring classes in towns,
109
should have thus become so generally alienated
from the religious establishment of the land—and,
what is greatly worse than the desertion of estab-
lishments, that a fearful majority should be now
forming, and likely to increase every year, who
are not merely away from all churches, but so for
away, as to be beyond the supplementary operation
of all meeting-houses—a majority that is fast thick-
ening upon our hands, and who will be sure to
return all the disorders of week-day" profligacy
upon the country, because that country has, in
fact, abandoned them to the ever-plying incite-
ments and opportunities of Sabbath profanation.
Before setting forth those expedients for the
alleviation of this mischief, which we shall venture
to recommend, wTe shall offer numerical estimates
of the extent of it, taken from the actual survey
of small slips and portions of the territory, but
which, we are confident, do not exceed a fair
average reckoning for the whole.
Let it be premised, that, in a country parish,
the number who should be in attendance upon
church, is computed at one-half of the whole
population. In towns where the obstacle of dis-
tance is not to be overcome, a larger proportion
than this is generally fixed upon. We think it,
however, overrated at two-thirds, and shall there-
fore assign the intermediate fraction of five-eighths,
as the ratio which the church-going inhabitants
of a town should bear to the total number of them.
110
The first result that we shall give, is the fruit of
a larger survey, made in one of the extreme dis-
tricts of Glasgow, and comprehending a popula-
tion of 10304. The number of Sabbath-hearers
ought, at the rate now specified, to have been
6240. The number of seats actually taken, in all
the churches and meeting-houses put together,
was only 2930. This survey becomes more in-
structive, when regarded in the separate portions
of it. As it passes onwards to the limits of the
royalty, where the people become poorer, and the
space which they occupy is in contact with that
enormous parish, the Barony, whose population,
by a recent survey, is found to be 51861, the pro-
portion of non-attendance becomes much greater.
There are, along the line of separation between
the city and the suburbs, contiguous populations
of 377, 400, 500, 475, 469, and 468, where the
numbers that ought to attend a place of worship,
are 236, 250, 322, 297, 293, and 293, respectively;
and where the sittings actually taken, which cor-
respond to those numbers, are 76, 74, 131, 87, 103,
and 113. Thus, in some instances, is it found,
that the church-going population bear only the
proportion of less than one-fifth to the whole, and
than one-third to that part of the whole, who
would, in a well-ordered state of things, be in a
regular habit of attendance upon ordinances. It
is remarkable, that in one of those spaces which
comprised a population of 875, there were not
above 4 individuals who had a sitting in an estab-
Ill
lished church; so that, were it not for dissenters,
who take up at least 148 out of the whole, and 38
in chapels of ease, there would have been a dis-
trict of the city, with a larger population than is
to be found in many of our country parishes, in a
state nearly of entire Heathenism. The country,
in fact, lies under the deepest obligation to the
dissenting clergy; and let no petty jealousies in-
terfere with the acknowledgments due to men
who have done so much to retard the process of
moral deterioration, and whose ability and zeal
have carried onward to the limit of its utmost
possible operation, the high function that they
fulfil in the commonwealth.
This survey was not carried beyond the limits
of the Royalty; but we are sure, if it had, that all
the results would have been aggravated. In a
parish of upwards of 50,000 people, where one
church, and three subsidiary chapels, form the
whole amount of accommodation provided by the
establishment, we confidently aver, that not one-
fifth of those who live in it, and not one-third of
those who should have sittings, are in the habit of
attendance upon any ordinances whatever; and
that this computation holds, after dissenterism has
put forth all its resources, and it has been free to
expatiate over every neighbourhood of human
beings for several generations. Such is the tried
inefficiency of its mechanism. It will never, of
itself, do the work of an establishment, however
essential it may be in a country, to stimulate and
112
to supplement an establishment. And when we
contemplate the magnitude of those suburb wastes*
which have formed so rapidly around the metro-
polis, and every commercial city of our land
when we think of the quantity of lawless spirit
which has been permitted to ferment and to mul-
tiply there, afar from the contact of every sof-
tening influence, and without one effectual hand
put forth to stay the great and the growing dis-
temper—when we estimate the families which,
from infancy to manhood, have been unvisited
by any message from Christianity, and on whose
consciences the voice of him who speaketh the
word that is from heaven has never descended, we
cannot but charge that country, which, satisfied
if it neutralise the violence, rears no preventive
barrier against the vices of the people, with the
guilt of inflicting upon itself a moral, if not a
political suicide.
It is to be presumed, that, in the central dis-
tricts of the city, the rate of attendance upon
places of worship is not so deficient It is observa-
ble, that the mere juxta-position of a church or
a meeting-house, stimulates, to a certain degree,
the attendance of those who live in its immediate
vicinity. The very sight of a fabric for Christian
instruction, is, in itself, an obtrusion of Christi-
anity on the notice of the people. But this circum-
stance singly, will not do much. The mere erec-
tion of fabrics for the accommodation of the
inhabitants of a town, will have no sensible effect.
113
without an aggressive operation upon the inhabi-
tants themselves. There are interior departments
of population in Glasgow, where the amount of
church-going is greatly less than all that we have
yet specified. In that short street called the
Goose-Dubbs, with the few lanes and closses
which belong to it, there are 9*5 people, only 106
of whom have seats any where. The deficiency
is as great in some of the sub-districts of the Salt-
market *. Dissenterism has done something for
these families. It has done much more for them than
the establishment has done, and yet but a humble
fraction of what an establishment might do, and
is best fitted to do. But the mere building and
opening of a new church, will not attract them.
They who are connected with the church, must
go forth upon them. The sluggishness of the ex-
isting habit, will not be so easily overcome as those
may imagine, who have only observed the readiness
with which a place of worship is filled, where there
is the glare of novelty, or the attraction of a little
more eloquence than usual, or even the solid re-
commendation that attaches to him who is a firm
and faithful expounder of the New Testament. All
this will impress a preference and a locomotion on
the part of those who have a pre-existent taste for
* In one district of the Saltmarket, there are 38*7 people, and only 61 of
them who have seats in any place of worship. In Clay-Braes, there are 64
seats among 319 people. And in one continuous space of the Bridgegate,
are there 209 people, only 7 of whom have seats any where.
R
114
Christianity; and thus a new congregation may
immediately be formed, out of shreds and detach-
ments from all the previous ones. But it will be
a mixed, and not a local congregation. There is no
portion of what may be called the outfield popula-
tion, that will be sensibly reclaimed by it. And
little do they know of this department of human
experience, who think that it is on the mere
strength of attractive preaching, that this is to
be done.
An experiment may often be as instructive by
its failure, as by its success. We have here to
record the fate of a most laudable endeavour,
made to recal a people alienated from Christian
ordinances, to the habit of attendance upon them.
The scene of this enterprise was Calton and
Bridgeton—two suburb districts of Glasgow which
lie contiguous to each other, bearing together, a
population of above 29,000, and with only one
chapel of ease for the whole provision which the
establishment has rendered to them. It was thought
that a regular evening sermon might be instituted
in this chapel, and that for the inducement of a
seat-rent so moderate as from 6d* to Is. 6d. a-
year, to each individual, many who attended no
where through the day, might be prevailed upon
to become the regular attendants of such a con-
gregation. The sermon was preached, not by one
stated minister, but by a succession of such min-
isters as could be found; and as variety is one of
the charms of a public exhibition, this also might
115
have been thought a favourable circumstance.
But besides, there were gentlemen who introduced
the arrangement to the notice of the people, not
merely by acting as their informants, but by going
round among them with the offer of sittings, and,
in order to remove every objection on the score of
inability, they were authorised to offer seats gra-
tuitously to those who were unable to pay for
them. Had the experiment succeeded, it would
have been indeed the proudest and most pacific of
all victories. But it is greatly easier to make war
against the physical resistance of a people, than
to make war against the resistance of an estab-
lished moral habit. And, accordingly, out of the
1500 seats that were offered, not above 50 were
let or accepted by those who had before been total
non-attendants on religious worship; and then
about 150 more were let, not, however, to those
whom it was wanted to reclaim, but to those who
already went to church through the day, and in
whom the taste for church-going had been already
formed. And so the matter moved on, heavily and
languidly, for some time, till, in six months after
the commencement of the scheme, in September
1817, it was finally abandoned.
There were several ingredients of success, how-
ever, wanting to this experiment. There was no
such reiteration of one minister, as would ripen
in*o familiarity or friendship between him and
his hearers. There was no reciprocity of opera-
tion, between the duties of the Sabbath, and the
116
duties of the week. The most aggressive part of
a minister's influence upon the people, lies in his
being frequently amongst them; the recognised
individual, whose presence is looked for at their
funerals, and who baptizes their children, and who
attends their sick-beds, and who goes round
amongst them in courses of religious visitation.
There was nothing of all this in the experiment;
nor were the Christian philanthropists who did go
forth upon the population, so firmly embodied under
one head, or so strictly and officially attached to
one locality, as fairly to represent the operation of
a stated minister, and, where possible, a residing
eldership. Above all, in so wide and dispersed a
locality in question, it was not by the marvellous
doings of one year, that a great or visible change
in the habits of the people ought to have been
expected. The descent of more than half a cen-
tury, will not be so easily or so speedily recovered.
Such an achievement as this, can never be done
without labour, and without the perseverance of
men, willing to plod and to pioneer their way
through the difficulties of a whole generation.
This may serve to guide our anticipations, re-
specting the probable effect of new churches,
built in places of the most crowded and unpro-
vided population* A given territory ought, by
all means, to be assigned to each of them; and, in
letting the seats, a preference should be held out
to the residents upon that territory. But we
should not be sanguine in our hopes, of the pre-
117
ference being, to any great extent, actually taken
by thein in the first instance; and this, if the
cause be not adverted to or counted on, may, for
a time, damp and discourage the whole speculation.
On our first entrance upon new ground, we must
consider that there is a minority already in pos-
session of sittings elsewhere, and that, nearly up
to the existing taste for church-going; and that
there is a majority in whom that taste must be
formed and inspired, ere the church can be re-
cruited out of their numbers. A congregation,
out of these, may be looked for in time, as the
fruit and the reward of perseverance; but it cannot
be looked for immediately. The best rule of
seat-letting, in these circumstances, is, to hold out
a preference, in the first instance, to the inhabi-
tants of the new parish, and then, in as far as that
preference is not taken, to expose the remaining
seats to the applications of the general public.
It is of importance, however, that each of the
extra-parochial sittings should be let in the name
of one individual, instead of their being let by
threes and fours in the name of the head or re-
presentative of a family; for, in this latter case,
they may pass from one member of it to another,
and, perhaps, descend to its next and its succeed-
ing generations. The object of this last regulation
is, to secure a more rapid and abundant falling
in of extra-parochial vacancies, which should be
rigidly and unviolably offered to parishioners from
one year to another, as they occur. Under such
118
a constitution, there may, at the outset of every
new church, be but a small proportion of parish-
ioners attending it; but, with the removal or the
dying off of extra-parochial hearers, there will be
a certain number of vacancies to dispose among
them annually. Meanwhile, the interest of the
minister, in his new parish, will be gradually .ex-
tending, and, with very ordinary attention on his
part, may so keep pace with the disappearance
and decay of the exotics among his congregation,
as will enable him to replace them by parish appli-
cants; and thus, in the process of time, will a
home be substituted in the place of a mixed con-
gregation. It were laying an impossibility upon a
clergyman, at once to call in from a yet unbroken
field, fifteen hundred ready and willing attendants,
upon his ministrations. But this, without any
colossal energy at all, he might do at the rate of
fifty in the year. So that though he begins him-
self with a mixed auditory made out of hearers
from all the parishes of the city, there may be
such a silent process of substitution going forward
during the course of his incumbency, as shall
enable him to transmit to his successor an almost
entirely parochial congregation.
This is the way, in fact, in which all our existing
congregations might be at length parochialised.
It should be done by an enactment of gradual
operation. Were they now broken up, for the
purpose of being new-modelled, and that instantly
on the local principle, there would be violence
119
done to the feelings of many an individual. Put
what is more, it would also be found that after the
dispersion of our mixed congregations, there would
be a very inadequate number of applicants in the
poorer parishes ready to take the places which had
thus been dispossessed. It is much better if the
existing arrangement can be righted without the
soreness of any forced or unnatural separations,
and in such a way as that no actual sitter can, on
his own account, personally complain of it. Though
he retain his right of occupation till death, the
substitution of a home for a foreign congregation,
will yet go on, and as rapidly perhaps as the paro-
chial demand for seats can be stimulated. So
that the sure result will at length be arrived at,
of the parish and congregation being brought
within the limits of one influence, and reduced to
the simplicity of one management.
There is a philanthropy more sanguine than it is
solid, which, impatient of delay, would think an
operation so tardy as this unworthy of being sug-
gested, and refuse to wait for it. But it is the
property of sound legislation, to look to distant
results, as well as to near ones—to be satisfied with
impressing a sure movement, though it should be
a slow one—nor does the wisdom of man ever
make a higher exhibition, than when apart from the
impulse of a result that is either speedy or splen-
did, she calmly institutes an arrangement, the
coming benefit of which will not be fully realised
till after the lapse of our existing generation.
120
But it is not enough that the demand of each
parish, for seats, should be stimulated up to the
extent of its present accommodation. The truth
is, that all our large towns have so far outgrown
the church establishment, that though each church
were crowded, and with local congregations too,
and each meeting-house already in existence were
also filled to an overflow, there would still be a
fearful body of the people in the condition of out-
casts from the ordinances of Christianity. The
mere erection of additional fabrics will do nothing
to remedy this, without an operation on the people
who should fill them. It must be admitted that
the Calton experiment looks rather discouraging.
But still, we think that certain adverse ingredients
may be removed from it, and certain favourable
ingredients be substituted in its place. It was
really not to be expected, that much could be done
by an indefinite number of ministers, who each had
the transient intercourse of a rare and occasional
Sabbath evening with the people, without any week-
day movement amongst them at all. But is there
not a greater likelihood of success, when the same
attempt is made by one minister in his own parish,
in conjunction, perhaps, with an assistant equally
bound to its locality with himself? And what
the influence of & few private philanthropists,
going forth on so wide and populous a district as
the one we are alluding to, could not accomplish
by a transient effort, may at length be accomplished
by persevering and reiterated efforts on the part of
121
an official body, raised, perhaps, into existence for
the very object of calling out a parochial congre-
gation, and animated with a sense of the import-
ance of achieving it. Even with all these ad-
vantages, the strenuousness of an encounter with
previous and established habits will be felt, an en-
counter which will require to be as assiduously
met by moral suasion through the week, as by
preaching on the Sabbath* At the same time, it
is a very great mistake, to think that any other
peculiar power is necessary for such an operation,
than peculiar pains-taking* It is not with rare
and extraordinary talent conferred upon a few,
but with habits and principles which may be culti-
vated by all, that are linked our best securities
for the reformation of the world. This is a work
which will mainly be done with every-day instru-
ments operating upon every-day materials j and
more, too, by the multiplication of labourers, than
by the gigantic labour of a small number of indi-
viduals* The arrangement now suggested, may
exemplify this. Let a Sabbath evening sermon be
preached in the church of a city parish, to a paro-
chial congregation, distinct from the day-hearers
altogether. Let a moderate seat-rent be exacted,
and a preference for these seats be held out to
those in the locality, who have sittings no where
else. Some care and some perseverance will be
necessary to ensure the success of such an enter-
prise. But there is nothing impracticable about
it, and no such impediments in the way of its exe-
122
cution, as to stamp upon it the least degree of a
visionary character. There need be no additional
labour to the minister, who may, in fact, take full
relief to himself, from an assistant. There may,
at length, be no additional expense to the city,
seeing that out of the produce of the seat-rents,
all the charges of the evening arrangement will in
time be defrayed. There will even be no addi-
tional fabrics to build, in the first instance, which
the people are not yet in readiness to fill, were
they erected in any sensible proportion to the
existing deficiency. Thus, by a very cheap and
simple arrangement, may the number of ecclesias-
tical labourers be doubled in every city of our
land; and, with the distinctness of the day and
evening congregations, .the number of sitters be-
longing to the establishment, at length, be doubled
also. We are not aware of a speedier method for
reclaiming the outcasts and wanderers of a city
population, to congregational habits; nor can we
think how an approximation equally rapid, and,
at the same time, equally practicable, can be
made in towns to the parochial system. It would
instantly improve the condition of the minister as
to his relationship with the parish, who will gain
more by it, in point of recognition, within his own
locality, in a single month, than he could do by
preaching to a mixed congregation for a whole
life-time. And it would gradually extend a taste
and a demand for the services of Christianity,
among a people who had no taste and no demand
123
for them before. It is altogether a chimerical
apprehension, that it may only change day-sitters
into evening-sitters, and cause those who have
now a full participation of ordinances to be satis-
fied with less. It would change total non-attend-
ants into attendants upon an evening service, who,
at length, not satisfied with their deficiency from
others, would have a demand for more. Instead of
diminishing the taste which now is, it would create
the taste which must still be called into existence.
Instead of superseding the use of new churches
for the people, it would prepare a people for the
new churches, and turn out to be the most effectual
nursery of their future congregations.
And here let it be remarked, how effectually it
is, that Sabbath.evening schools subserve the pro-
spective arrangement which we are now contem-
plating. It requires a much harder struggle than
most are aware of, to prevail on grown-up people,
who never have attended church, to become the
members, either of a day or an evening congrega-
tion. But the compliance which cannot be won
in manhood, for attendance on a church, we win
in boyhood, for attendance on a school; and, when
the boy becomes the man, a second effort is not
necessary. It were, in fact, a far more congenial
transition for him to pass from the evening school
to the evening church, than if he never had at-
tended school at all; and far more congenial for
the member of an evening, to become the mem-
ber of a day congregation, than if, brought up in
124
the utter want of congregational habits, he never
had attended either the one or the other. Thus
it is, that the Sabbath school system, which many
regret as a deviation from the regularities of an
establishment, is the very best expedient for feed-
ing an establishment, and making it at length
commensurate with the moral and spiritual neces-
sities of our population. It connects the suscepti-
bility of youth with a result, which, but for the
possession of an element so manageable, might
never be arrived at. It appears like the first and
the firmest step to a great moral renovation in
our land. And a parochial system, which might
never have been reared in towns, out of such stub-
born materials as the depraved and inveterate
habits of our older, is thus likely to be formed
and extended out of the softer materials of our
younger generation.
It is felt by many as a deduction from the good
of the local system in towns, that the poorer
among the families so frequently change their
places of residence; and that there must not only
be the same parish, but also the same parishioners,
else the acquaintanceship which is formed, will be
constantly liable to be broken up, by the constant
dispersion of its members. The quantity of fluc-
tuation is greatly over-rated. The district referred
to in our last chapter, as having been assumed by
a philanthropic individual, for the purpose of its
moral and economical cultivation, contains 219 fa-
milies, of which there were 23 removals at the last
125
term, or about one-tenth of the whole. It will,
speaking generally, be found not to exceed this
fraction, in small contiguous districts of such a
population; and even from this, there ought to be
an abatement, in estimating the number of yearly
removals from a parish: for many of the movements
are internal, being from one small district of the
parish to another. And besides, even though there
were removals out of the parish every year, at the
rate of one-tenth of all the families in it, we are not
to infer, that, in ten years, there is a complete change
of families; or that the old parish is thus scooped
away by so many liftings of the people who live in
it. The truth is, that the movement is far more
a vibratory than a successive one. The families
that leave a parish this year, are, in a great mea-
sure, the very families that came to it last year.
There is a certain number, and those chiefly of
the worse-conditioned of the population, who are
constantly upon the wing; and they alternate
from one parish to another, over the heads of a
stable population. A locally parochial system
would serve, in the long run, to retain even these;
but, even in their present amount, they leave the
great bulk of the inhabitants of every parish, in a
fixed and permanent state for any species of culti-
vation that might be applied to them. We be-
lieve, indeed, that the families of a city parish are
less given to change than those of an agricultural
parish, from the expiry of leases, and, above all,
the yearly fluctuation of farm-servants. So that,
126
there is scarcely any department, however poor,
of any city, however crowded, which would not,
in the course of time, be turned into a home walk;
and where the simple perseverance of such eccle-
siastical attentions as are current in the country,
would not, were the parishes sufficiently small,
have the effect of binding the minister to the
families, and of binding the families to one
another. The new comers would soon catch the
esprit de corps that was already formed in the
neighbourhood of their new residence, and be soon
so far assimilated by the overwhelming admixture
of their superior number, to the tone and habit
of the people who were there before them, as at
least, to be accessible to all the attentions which
are current in the parish, and bt trained very
shortly, to such a recognition of the parish-church
and parish-minister, as, in our large towns at pre-
sent, is nearly unfelt and unknown altogether.
There is nothing in the mere circumstance of
being born in a town, or of being imported into it
from the country, which can at all obliterate or
reverse any of the laws of our sentient nature.
That law, in virtue of which a feeling of cordiality
is inspired, even by a single act of recognition,
and in virtue of which it is augmented into a fixed
personal regard by many such acts, operates with
just as much vigour in the one situation as it does
in the other. In towns, every thing has been done
to impede the reiteration of the same attentions
upon the same families. The relationship between
127
ministers and their parishes has, to every moral,
and to every civilising purpose, been nearly as
good as broken up. Every thing has been per-
mitted to run at random; and, as a fruit of the
utter disregard of the principle of locality, have
the city clergyman and his people almost lost
sight of each other. It is the intimacy of connec-
tion between these two parties which has impressed
its best and most peculiar features on the Scottish
nation; and it were giving way to a mystic
imagination altogether, did we not believe that
the treatment of human nature, which leads to a
particular result in the country, would, if trans-
planted into towns, lead to the same repult on their
crowded families. We have no right to allege a
peculiar aptitude to moral worthlessness, in the
latter situation, when we find that every moral
influence, which bears upon the former, has, in
fact, been withdrawn from our cities. The moral
regimen in the one, is diametrically the reverse of
what it is in the other; and, not till they are
brought under the operation of the same causes,
can we estimate aright the question, whether the
town or the country is most unfavourable to
human virtue.
It may be long before we are in fair circumstan-
ces for determining this question experimentally,
because it may be long ere our enormous city
parishes are so far subdivided, as that one church
and one minister shall be commensurate to the
population of each of them. But certain it is,
128
that the mere act, either of building the churches,
or of splitting down the parishes, will not suffice
for the purpose of reclaiming the people to the
habit of their Scottish forefathers. There must
be a previous operation upon the people, ere the
desire or the demand for Sabbath accommodation
can guarantee to the builders of churches, that
their churches shall be filled* For this purpose,
we hold the strict, and, as nearly as may be, the
exclusive union of churches with their parishes, to
be indispensable; and, even with this advantage,
do we think, that the existing habit of alienation
from ordinances, instead of being altogether re-
claimed by exertion, will, in part, need to be
removed by death; and that it is mainly to an
operation upon the young, and that through the
medium of Sabbath schools, that we have to look
for the coming in of a better order of things, with
the coming up of another generation.
129
CHAP. IV.
THE EFFECT OF LOCALITY IN ADDING TO THE USEFUL
ESTABLISHMENTS OF A TOWN.
It were, perhaps, a sanguine anticipation to expect,
that the gradual process, unfolded in the last chap-
ter, for reclaiming the people of our cities, to a
habit of attendance on the ordinances of Chris-
tianity, should be completed in the course of one,
or even of two generations* For, what a rapid
process of church-building would this imply? More
would need to be done in this way in several of
our towns, than has been done altogether, since
the first erection of them. There are many of
them, in fact, so unprovided with churches, that
it were a great achievement, could these be built,
and people be prepared for filling them, to such an
extent, as that, out of each five thousand of the
inhabitants, there might be a congregation belong-
ing to the establishment. This would still leave
greater room for dissenters than that which they
have actually succeeded in occupying, and might,
therefore, still leave unfinished, the great work of
retrieving a habit which surely may be recalled,
seeing that it once existed. The time once was,
when, in virtue of the nearer proportion which
obtained between a city population, and the places
of worship that were provided for them, we saw
nearly the present number of churches more
130
crowded than they are now, out of less than half
the number of our present residenters.
This, by the way, holds out to us another
view of the importance of dissenters, and of the
increasing demand that may still obtain, through
a very lengthened period of years, for their ser-
vices. The process by which the establishment
will gain ground, on the out-field population, that
is, on those who at present neither attend church
nor meeting-house, must be very gradual; and
mean while, if it advance at all, it will not lessen
the demand for seats from the dissenters, but
rather increase it. There is a direct and arith-
metical style of computation, which often fails
when it is applied to the phenomena, or the prin-
ciples of human nature. It is thus, for example,
that many conceive an alarm, lest one benevolent
society should suffer in its revenues, when another
benevolent society is instituted in the same town,
and among the same people. They calculate by
a mere process of subtraction upon the money of
subscribers; and they do not calculate on the
moral impulse which every new scheme of philan-
thropy is fitted to send into their hearts. They
seem not aware, that the mere habit of liberality,
in behalf of one object, renders them more acces-
sible to the claims of any new object, than if the
habit had not been previously called into existence.
The truth is, that after all which is given away in
liberality, there still is left, in the fund for such
luxuries as may easily be dispensed with, and in
131
the fund which goes to the loose and floating
expenses of pocket-money, an ample remainder
for meeting fresh and frequent applications. The
money is, of course, lessened by the amount that
has previously been given; but, if the habit and
disposition of giving be increased, this may secure
for an indefinite length of time, more than a full
compensation. And thus it is, that in starting
some new enterprise of philanthropy, one may
far more surely count on being liberally supported,
in a town teeming with previous charities, and
where the fund for benevolence has, therefore, to
a certain degree been impaired, but the feeling of
benevolence has been strengthened by exercise—
than in a town, where, as no encroachment has
yet been made upon the means, so no excitement
has yet been given to the motives of charity.
And there is a similarity to this, in the matter
before us. The new church which is opened, will
not so operate by a process of subtraction upon
those who hear in meeting-houses, as it will operate
by a process of fermentation upon those who hear
no where. It will increase the taste and the
demand for church-going. If rightly followed
up, by such local and aggressive operations as we
have already explained, it will leaven the dead mass,
and revive an appetite for the ministrations of
Christianity, beyond its own power to meet and
to gratify. The population is greater than, per-
haps, with the most rapid process of church-build-
ing, which can rationally be counted on, will be
132
overtaken in the course of a century. And,
meanwhile, it were no paradox to those who know
the amplitude of the field that is yet unbroken,
and who calculate on the power of a living excite-
ment sent over the face of it, though, for many
years to come, churches and meeting-houses were
seen to spring up in frequency together, and
both the dissenters and the establishment gained
ground contemporaneously on the vast unoccupied
extent that yet lies before them.
To make this plain by an example. The num-
ber of people in Glasgow and its suburbs is about
one hundred and fifty thousand; of whom ninety
thousand should be in a condition to attend church.
Even though our chapels of ease were turned, as
they ought to be, into parish churches, there is
scarcely accommodation in our establishment for
the one-fourth of this number; and, ere it can
overtake the one-half, there must be no less than
fifteen additional fabrics built; leaving, after all,
as large a space for the energies of dissenterism,
as the establishment shall itself have overtaken.
In repairing the defects of a great moral ap-
paratus, it does harm to underrate the magnitude
of the object. It is by so doing, that the advisers
of public measures are often so sanguine in respect
of anticipation, while the measures themselves are
so slender in respect of efficiency. The grant, for
example, of a million sterling for new churches in
England, and the proposal of a hundred thousand
pounds for the same purpose in Scotland, sound
133
far more magnificently in the public ear, than
they will be found adequate to the necessity
which they are intended to meet. They have
certainly been matters of gratulation to those who
are friendly to our national establishments, and
who, at the same time, regard Christianity as the
alone specific for all the distempers of society.
Yet it is not to be disguised, that, even when
carried into full accomplishment, they will leave
a vast extent of our population unprovided for.
And, what is more, Government will positively
have retarded the cause which it means to help,
if, by its interference, it shall propagate fhis delu-
sion—that, as the strength and wisdom of our
great national council are now in motion upon the
undertaking, all individuals, and all the subordinate
bodies of the state, may now wait, suspended in
a kind of respectful abeyance on that supreme
body, whose function it is to oversee all, and to
provide for all.
This is the precise mischief which is to be
apprehended in the case of every wide and general
superintendence. The more wide and the more
general, the means will be absolutely greater, and
the effort for the accomplishment of any given
object will also be absolutely greater: and this is
enough to fill and to satisfy the imaginations of all,
who look no farther than to the measure itself, and
have not patience nor arithmetic for computing
the proportion which it bears to the evil it is meant
to remedy. But, relatively to the whole amount
134
of what ought to be done, will it come greatly
short of what many individuals would do for their
own local districts, and many corporations would
do for their own townships. For the purpose,
however, of calling out these latter to the full
stretch of their means and energies, it is necessary
that there should be no delusive expectation of
aid from a higher quarter, so as that they should
feel the full weight of the responsibility which lies
upon them. It is thus, that we should like the
principle of locality to be brought forth into
operation, and directed to the object of multiplying
both schools and churches over the face of our
land. It works far more intensely and productively
within its own limited sphere, than Government,
we fear, will soon find itself able to do, over the
whole country, or than a great city superintend-
ence will do in the bulk, for its general population.
And, therefore it is, that we contemplate a great
national effect, not as the result of any corporate
movement, or any legislative operation, but as the
result of a slow accumulative process, helped
forward mainly by the growth and expansion of
Christian philanthropy in. our land, and at length
completed into a whole, by the simple apposition
of parts done separately, and done independently.
But while it is to be feared, that the movement
of our legislature, in behalf of Christian institu-
tions, (f&r more showy than it is productive,) has
lulled asleep much of the private liberality that
else would have operated 5 it were also to be re-
135
gretted, as a very mischievous re-action, should
the zeal, and the bustle, and the adventure, of
individuals in the same cause, have the effect to
slacken, rather than to excite our tardy corpora-
tions. It is exceedingly desirable, that they too
should come forward, were it for nothing else than
the weight of their testimony, which is eminently
fitted to carry the public mind along with it.
Only, it were a salutary accompaniment, if, along
with their testimony, there also went forth the
lesson of their utter inability for more than a small
fraction of this great achievement. The resources,
in fact, for giving such a national extension to the
cause, as will work a national effect on the habits
of our people, must be provided in another way
than out of the present resources of any corpora-
tion. Nor can we expect that, with their existing
means, any more than a few rare and desultory
efforts will be made for an object which, after all
they shall do, will still appear to lie at a hopeless
and impracticable distance.
It is well, indeed, that both the council of a city
and the great council of a nation, should be told
what an arm of impotency it is that they often put
forward. It is altogether grievous to remark the
satisfaction, with which a magistracy will dwell on
the achievement of adding one church more to a
city, that stands in need of an additional twenty.
It is not the one church that is to be regretted. But
it is the repose, or even the triumph of a great ex-
ploit, which is evidently felt by many of our public
136
functionaries upon the occasion. It is not even
the circumstance of one church only being built
in the space of two or three years, that ought to
be complained of. It were vain to expect any
thing else than a very gradual movement, even
though all the applicable energies of society were
brought to bear upon it. But the thing to be
mainly regretted is, the deceitful imagination that
enough is doing, or enough is done, when we see
put on their uttermost stretch, the feeble and
inadequate energies of a ruling corporation. The
glare of magnitude and publicity, which is atten-
dant upon its proceedings, serves far more to blind
the general understanding into the treacherous
conclusion, that enough is doing, than it does to
enlighten it upon the question, how much is to be
done. After the slight and superficial enterprise is
over, it may be made out arithmetically, that the
former proportions of the outfield to the church-
going population are not sensibly affected by it;
that the elements of depravity are nearly in as great
force as ever, and the counteractions which have
been provided for it, nearly in as great feebleness
as ever; and, in a word, that, thoroughly to fill up
the neglected spaces, which have so widened and
multiplied over the expanse of a town or of a king-
dom, something far more gigantic must be done,
than appeal's to lie within the means either of
Government or of any inferior municipality in
the land.
It is the misfortune both of a civic and of a nation-
137
al legislator, that he deals so much in generalities.
He casts a hurried glance over the whole field of
contemplation, and the influence of what he does,
or of what he devises, is thinly spread along the
face of the territory before him. He is seldom
arrested by that dull and humbling arithmetic,
which casts up to him the utter insignificance of
all that he has attempted on the general mass and
habit of society. He vainly tries, by his one
enactment, to measure strength with the needs or
the immoralities of a vast population. Nor will he
submit to the mortification of being told, that
though the sound of it has gone forth amon^ all,
the sensible and pervading influence of it is scarcely
felt among any. It is the wideness of his survey
which makes him overlook particulars: and with
his habit of largely expatiating, does he neglect
completely and minutely to fill up. This it is
which accounts for the utter futility of many
projects splendid in promise, and vanishing away
into a meagre accomplishment. This it is which
explains the abortive magnificence of many of our
great national undertakings.
But all this is the natural effect of office and
situation; nor can we well expect it to be other-
wise, either with the members of a legislature, or
with the members of a municipality. But it is to
be regretted, of our private philanthropists, who are
at liberty to begin their own work in their own
way, that they should not have entered on the
clear path of comfort and just calculation, and,
u
138
ultimately, of sure and complete success. The
prevailing tendency, hitherto, has been, to attempt
great things rather than to do small things tho-
roughly and well; to set up a mechanism which will
work for the whole city, rather than reduce the
city into manageable parts, and seek for the ac-
complishment that is proposed, by the mere appo-
sition of these parts to each other; to aspire, and
that, by the energies of one grand association, after
some universal result, which never will be reached
but by the summing up of the separate achieve-
ments of many lesser associations. It may look a
strange way of proposing a universal good, either
for a city or for a nation, to bid our active philan-
thropists never admit the town as a whole, or the
nation as a whole, into any of their speculations.
But we are quite satisfied, that much of that effort,
which would else have been productive, is wasted;
and that, merely because of the insuperable mag-
nitude of the object at which it aims* There
are many individuals, whose zeal for the good of
humanity is now dissipated and lost among vague
generalities that might be turned to a tenfold more
beneficial account, could they only be prevailed
upon to meddle not with matters that are too high
for them—many individuals who have worth enough
to live for the good of society, but who have not
wisdom enough for suiting their exertions to the
real mediocrity of their powers; and who, accord-
ingly, come forth upon their enterprise, just as if
the whole burden of this world's benevolence lay
139
upon their shoulders. The best thing they can do
is, to gather in their ambitious fancies, and give
themselves, instead, to actual and living fulfilments
on the sphere which is immediately around them.
The eyes of a fool, says Solomon, are towards all the
ends of the earth. We cannot join in the hostility
that has often been expressed against missionary
operations; but certainly there is a vague and va-
grant philanthropy in our day, which loses much of
its energy in its diffusiveness, and which it were
far better to fasten, and to concentrate, and to
confine, within the limits of a small locality. We
leave to those more lofty and adventurous spirits,
whom Providence will certainly call forth, the task
of devising for the good of the world abroad; and
we trust that they will never fail to be supported
in this noble cause, by the liberalities of the people
at home. But our object, at present, is, to guide
to its highest productiveness, the benevolence of
him whose station and opportunities restrain him
more to his own vicinity; and to engage him, if pos-
sible, with the near and practicable realities which
lie within his reach. His best contribution to the
interest of the world, is, to do the humble and
practicable task which his hand findeth to do, and
to do it with all his might, till he has finished it off.
A single obscure street, with its few divergent
lanes, may form the length and the breadth of his
enterprise; but far better that he, with such means
and such associates as are within his reach, should
do this thoroughly, than that, merging himself in
140
some wider association, he should vainly attempt
in the gross, that which never can be overtaken
but in humble and laborious detail. Let him not
think, that the region which lies beyond the limits
of his chosen and peculiar territory, is to wither
and be neglected, because his presence is not there
to fertilise it. Let him not proudly imagine him-
self to be the only philanthropist in the world.
Let him do his part, trusting, at the same time,
that there are others around him who have zeal
enough, and understanding enough, to do theirs.
The example of a well-cultured portion of the ter-
ritory, will do more to spread a beneficent influ-
ence over the whole, than is done by the misplaced
energies of men who cannot be tempted to move,
till some design of might and of magnificence is
proposed to them. The efficacy of this humbler
style of benevolence will, at length, come to be
witnessed; and the comfort of it to be felt; and it
will diffuse itself, by sympathy, over the contigu-
ous spaces; and the local resources of each space
will be abundantly called forth on the near and
exciting object of its own cultivation; and the
result universal will be attained, not by the com-
bination of all the powers into one effort, but by the
summation of many efforts done by these powers
apart from, and independent of, each other—not by
one stalking society lording it over the whole,
but by manifold associations, each assuming its
own distinct task, and fulfilling a work commensu-
rate to its own separate energies.
141
The institutions which are most wanted in our
great towns and populous villages are those, the
object of which is, the christian education of our
labouring classes. This object embraces schools
for ordinary scholarship through the week, and
churches for the delivery of gospel doctrine and
exhortation upon the Sabbath. They who are
friendly to the religious establishments of our
country, can find their way far more immediately
to the erection and endowment of the former, than
of the latter. They who found a school, have the
patronage of the school. They who build and
endow a church for the establishment, cannot,
without many forms, and the concurrence of many
authorities, retain the patronage of the church.
This is a peculiarity which leads us to postpone
to the next Chapter, the most essential explana-
tions that are connected with the multiplication of
churches. And all we shall attempt at present, is,
to instruct the friends of general education, in
what appears to us the likeliest mode of equalising
our schools to the necessities of our population.
We have already, in a little work which stands
separately out from our present series of exposi-
tions, endeavoured to demonstrate the Scottish
system of education, and to prove both the possi-
bility and the great advantage of its application to
large towns. We refer our readers to that small
performance*; and shall be satisfied with a short
* Considerations on the System of Parochial Schools in Scotland, and on
the advantage of establishing them in Large Towns.
142
recapitulation of as much of it as is necessary to
our present argument.
It is with common, as it is with christian educa-
tion. There is not such a native and spontaneous
demand for it in any country, as will call forth a
supply of it at all adequate to the needs of the
population. If the people are left to themselves,
they will not, by any originating movement of their
own, emerge out of ignorance at the first; nor will
they afterwards perpetuate any habit of education
to which they may have been raised in the course
of one generation, if, in all succeeding generations,
they are left wholly to seek after scholarship, and
wholly to pay for it. To keep up popular learning,
there is just the same reason for an establishment,
as we have already alleged in behalf of an estab-
lishment for religion. The article must be ob-
truded upon them, and, in some degree, offered to
them; and if the best way of so obtruding it, is,
that there shall be one fabric of general repair for
the people of each distinct locality, to which pa-
rents, under the impulse of near and surrounding
example, may send their children for the purposes
of education—then let these fabrics be multiplied
to a sufficient extent; and under a right manage-
ment will the security be complete, both for the
people attaining a right place in the scale of mental
cultivation, and after they have attained it, for
never again descending to the low state out of
which they had been called.
We have, in the small work to which we have
143
just referred, attempted to expose the defects
both of a wholly gratuitous, and of a wholly
unendowed system of education; affirming that,
under the one scheme, the article is undervalued,
and that under the other, it is not sought after to
the extent to which it would be beneficial. Al-
most all the education of our great towns is shared
between these two methods, and a woeful decline
from the habit and accomplishment of our Scottish
country parishes, is the undeniable consequence*
To restore the mass of our population in towns,
to the degree of scholarship that has shed so proud
a moral glory over the face of the country at large,
there seems no other expedient than that of erecting
Schools and School-houses, and salarying teachers
for each little district of a town and suburb popu-
lation; establishing a local connection between
each fabric and a given portion of the vicinity
around it; and announcing it as the privilege of
all the families which reside within its limits, that
in that fabric a good and a cheap education is to
be had for their children*.
It is a moderate computation, that one-fifteenth
of the whole population should be at school; and
that a school, therefore, where a hundred children
are taught, should serve the demand of a popula-
* We are aware that Lancastrianisrn undertakes a more economic plan of
education. It may do very well at the first breaking up of a country, where
there was no habit of scholarship before. But we hold it to be a bad substi-
tute for the old Scottish method, which provides a local and residing school-
master, and brings such a number of scholars around him as do not exceed the
range of his own minute and personal superintendence.
144
tion of fifteen hundred. It is an equally moderate
computation, that permanently to provide for the
endowment of such a school, would require the
sum of a thousand pounds sterling; or, in other
words, that ere such a system could be completed
for Glasgow and its suburbs, the sum of a hundred
thousand pounds behoved to be expended on it.
We are quite prepared here for the epithets of
visionary and theoretical, as ready to fall in most
impetuous denunciation on all those who should
affirm, that, for the cause of popular education
amongst us, a sum so mighty ever will be raised,
or an object so vast ever will be overtaken. We
are aware of the discredit which this charge has
inflicted, and of the damp and discouragement
which it has thrown over many of the best projects
of benevolence; and we, therefore, count it worth
while to pause a little here, and examine somewhat
attentively what the grounds are on which a charge
of this sort may be soundly preferred, and what
the schemes are which most abundantly deserve it.
It does not bring down the imputation of vi-
sionary upon a man, when he simply affirms of
any state or condition of things which has not yet
been attained by society, that it were a desirable
attainment. It were truly desirable that all men
were virtuous. It were desirable that such were
the providential habits of our poor, as that the
country should not be liable, through any mis-
management of theirs, to the burden of an exces-
sive population. It were desirable that such a
145
habit of education as would tend both to exalt
their individual character, and to raise them above
the influence of those delusions which might array
them in hatred and turbulence against the cause
of order, had a universal establishment among
their families. There seems to be no imputation
of the visionary, incurred by simply affirming all
these things to be desirable. There is full permis-
sion to express our wishes on the subject, whatever
ridicule or resistance may be awaiting our specu-
lations. It is not the mere expression of that to
be desirable, which all men feel to be desirable,
that provokes the charge of visionary; andvthe
question still remains, what distinctly and precisely
the provocative is?
The imputation of visionary, then, seems spe-
cifically to fall on him, who affirms that to be
practicable, which they, who advance the imputa-
tion, think to be impracticable. Both parties may
equally feel the object in question, to be desirable.
The man of sanguine temperament, thinks that it
is not merely a thing to be desired, but a thing
that may be done. The man of slow and sober
reflection, thinks too, that it were a matter to be
desired, but that it cannot be done.
There is, at the same time, a distinction to be
attended to here. One may barely affirm an object
to be practicable, without specifying the means
that be has in contemplation. If no adequate
means occur to those who hear the affirmation,
he lays himself open to the imputation of being
x
146
a visionary. Or he may propose the means, and,
if they appear to the others inadequate to the ac-
complishment, then, with a contempt which may be
seen to leer under a front of conscious sagacity,
will they again pronounce him to be a visionary.
Let us apply these very obvious preliminary
remarks to the topic that is now before us.
All the friends of universal education will agree
in thinking it very desirable that an apparatus
were raised for providing it. It is quite obvious,
that, in none of our great towns, is there such
an apparatus; and the question simply is, what
appears the likely and the practicable way of
arriving at it?
We have heard, that, among the legal and con-
stituted bodies of the place, various movements
have been made towards such an object; but we
never heard that more than one school was in
contemplation for each of the parishes. Such an
achievement we are sure would satisfy the great
bulk of our practical men, and the signal effort
that Glasgow had made for the education of her
citizens, would be talked of and approven, and set
the public imagination at rest upon the subject
for half a century.
Now, to such a measure as this, and the antici-
pations that are connected with it, let us apply the
test for determining whether it be of a visionary
character. The test is, the inadequacy of proposed
means to a proposed object. This measure, then,
instead of providing a school for each fifteen hun-
147
dred of our people, would only provide a school for
about each twelve thousand of them. We doubt
whether the advantage rendered to education, by-
such a proceeding, would not be more than neu-
tralised by the disguise that it might serve to
throw over the nakedness of the land. We fear,
that it would operate for ages as a sedative upon
a far more efficient philanthropy, than ever can
be exerted through the medium of any corporation.
The goodly apparatus of twelve established schools,
with the usual accompaniment of a yearly exa-
mination, and a published statement of the appear-
ance and proficiency of scholars, would so filkand
satiate the eye of our citizens, that even the
arithmetic of the subject, however obvious, might
not disturb their complacency. To propose any
thing, with the view of supplementing that which
looked so ample already, would appear to be quite
uncalled for, and thus might the holders of our
wealth be lulled into a profounder apathy than
before. Meanwhile, the people, with this frac-
tional attempt upon their habits, would, to all sense
and observation, exhibit about the same ignorance
as ever. And the men who glowed with the fond
anticipation of a more exalted and enlightened
peasantry, and were confident of carrying it into
effect by means so inadequate—these would turn
out to be the visionaries.
We have also heard of various consultations
upon this subject, with the Government of the
country. There i& one way, that we shall explain
148
-afterwards, in which we think that its interposition
might in time be rendered effective. But we fear
that any hand which it proposes to put forth at
present, will be a hand of impotency. One school
for each parish, and one parish for each ten or
twelve thousand of many a city population, will
be an apology for a good thing, but it will not be
the good thing itself. And those who count upon
a renovating influence on our people, from an
apparatus so meagre as this, whether they be the
public functionaries of the state, or the men whom
the functionaries advise with, are indeed the most
egregious of all visionaries.
There are certain of our mere operatives in
public business, who, however plentiful their re-
proach of others as visionaries, never dream that
they are visionaries themselves. They seem to re-
gard it as their sufficient exemption from such
a charge, that their hand is so wholly occupied in
practice, and their mind so little, if at all, occupied
with principle. It would look, as if to escape from
being a theorist upon any given topic, it were
altogether necessary to abstain from thinking of
it; and that, to stamp a sound and experimental
character on a man's notions, it is quite enough
that he personally bustle and spend all his time
among the mere matters of manipulation and
detail. Such men never, perhaps, in the whole
course of their lives, have given one hour of
meditative solitude to the question at issue; and,
perhaps, think that the whole effect of such a sea-
149
son of loneliness, would be to gather around them
the spectres of vain imagination. They have no
other conception of a student, than as of one who
muses all day long, over the inapplicable abstrac-
tions of an ideal and contemplative region; nor
do they see how, in calm and collected retirement,
it is possible for the mind to calculate and to
recollect, and to be altogether conversant among
the realities of the living world, over which it may
have cast a most observant regard, and the well
known familiarities of which, it is able to turn into
the materials of a just view, and a just anticipation.
In these circumstances, it ought not to be wan-
dered at, that practical men have engrossed the
credit of all the practical wisdom that there is in
society; and that they have missed the self-dis-
cernment which might have led them to perceive,
that the possessor of a body, which moves its dull
and unvarying round through the duties of public
office, and of a mind that is either profoundly
asleep to the rationale of public affairs, or catches
its occasional view of them by rapid and confused
glances—that he, with all the confidence which a
kind of coarse and hackneyed experience has
given to him, may, very possibly, be the most
blundering and bewildered of all visionaries.
The thing to be chiefly dreaded from the deed
of Government, or the deed of a city corporation,
in this matter, is, that it may overbear the public
into the conclusion, that enough has been done,
because they have done it. There is an imposing
150
magnitude in the measures of a public body, which
can only be reduced to its correct estimation, by
being arithmetically compared with the magnitude
of the subject over which it operates. It is seldom,
when a boon is thus conferred upon a country,
that it is accompanied with the proclamation of
its insignificance, relative to the whole need of
a country. But it were well, both in the case of
schools and churches, that such a proclamation
were made. In this way, the very partial endow-
ment, instead of acting as a soporific, would act
as a stimulus on the benevolence of individuals.
If, when the* rulers of the nation, or the rulers of
a city, did something, (and it is most desirable that
they should,) they made a full demonstration of its
inadequacy to the object; this would effectually
be leading the way to its full accomplishment.
Such a high testimony would call forth the means
and energies of many voluntary associations; which,
instead of being superseded into downright in-
action, as they else might have been, would be
excited to follow the paternal example, that had
thus been set before them.
But voluntary associations have come forward
in the cause of education, without waiting for
any such signal. And if, to look confidently
forward to a proposed end, with feeble and dispro-
portionate means, be to incur the character of
visionary, then we fear that this imputation must
be made to rest upon them also. They have all
been greatly less efficient than they might have
151
been, from their neglect of the principle of
locality. There are many associations which, by
their resources, could have done that permanently
and substantially for a district of the town, which
they have vainly attempted, and have, therefore,
done partially and superficially for the whole. The
money which could have built a local school,
and emanated enough of interest for ever to have
kept it in repair, and provided the teacher with
a perpetual salary, has been dissipated in transient
and ineffectual exertions for the accomplishment
of a universal object. The error is, to have been
led away, by the splendour of a conception, fat
greater than it was able to realise* It is this
ambition, to plan beyond the ability to execute,
which has involved in failure and misdirection, so
many of the efforts of philanthropy. And they
who have so precipitately counted on any general
result, that would be at all sensible, from the pro-
ceedings of any one society, however magnificent
in its scale, and however princely the offerings
that were rendered to it, have evinced themselves
well entitled to the* character of visionaries.
The great mischief of any such society, is, that
it blinds the public eye to the utter inadequacy of
its own operations. It sends a feeble emanation
over the whole cityj which were doing an import-
ant benefit, had it only the effect of making the
darkness visible. But, instead of this, we fear,
that the light which it thus diffuses, imperfect as
it is, is rated, not according to the intensity with
152
which it shines upon our population, but according
to the extent in which it is thinly and obscurely
spread over them. The very title of a school for
all, is enough to deceive a miscalculating public,
into the imagination, that all are provided with
schooling. If, instead of trying to engross the
whole, the society in question had concentrated its
means and its energies upon a part, and upon such
a part, too, as it could overtake most thoroughly,
there would have been no such pernicious delusion
in the way of rendering a solid and entire benefit
to the labouring classes. The very contrast it had
produced between the district it so effectually bright-
ened, and the total darkness of the surrounding or
contiguous spaces, would have forced that lesson
upon the public notice, which, under the general-
ising system, is thrown into disguise altogether.
Instead of a semblance of education for the whole,
let there be the substance of it in one part; and
this will at length, spread and propagate its own
likeness over all the other parts. It will serve
like the touch of a flame to kindle the whole mass
into a brilliancy as luminous as its own. It never
would be permitted to stand a barren and solitary
memorial. Other men would soon feel a respon-
sibility in other quarters, who now feel none at
all. Other societies would speedily arise in other
districts; and the whole effect, which was so
vainly looked for, as the result of one great
organization, will at length be made out, by the
apposition of successive parts to one another.
153
Our earnest advice, for these reasons, is, that;
no benevolent society for education shall undern
take a larger space of the city than it can provide?
for, both completely and perpetually; by reclaiming*
its families to a habit of scholarship for ever,
through the means of a permanent endowment*
attached exclusively to the district of its operations*.
It is far better to cultivate one district well, though-
all the others should be left untouched, than fca
superficialise over the whole city. It is far better
that these other districts be thrown as unprovided
orphans, upon a benevolence that is sure to be,
called out at other times, and in other circles of
society. Instead of casting upon them a feeble
and languid regard, it is infinitely better to aban-,
don them to the fresh, and powerful, and une^
pended regards of other men. Let none of us
think to monopolise all the benevolence of the
world, or fear that no future band of philanthropists
shall arise, to carry the cause forward from that
point at which we have exhausted our operations.
If education is to be made universal in towns by
voluntary benevolence, it will not be by one great,
but by many small and successive exertions. The
thing will be accomplished piecemeal; and what
never could be done through the working of one
vast and unwieldy mechanism, may thus be com-
pleted most easily, in the course of a single
generation*
Let us now attempt to trace the eharaete.f of
the process that we have j ust recommenced, ftoi$
154
the first beginning of it, and along that line of
conveyance, by which it is finally brought onward
to the result of an adequate provision for the en-
tire and universal scholarship of our city families.
We see nothing of the visionary at its commence-
ment. One society, that should propose to raise
a hundred thousand pounds for a project so
gigantic, may well be denounced as visionary;
but not so the society that should propose to
raise one or two thousand pounds for its own
assumed proportion of it. There is many an
individual, who has both philanthropy enough,
and influence enough, within the circle of his own
acquaintanceship, for moving forward a sufficiency
of power towards such an achievement. All that
he needs, is the guidance of his philanthropy at
the first, to this enterprise. When once fairly
embarked, there are many securities against his
ever abandoning it till it is fully accomplished.
For, from the very first moment, will he feel a
charm in his undertaking, that he never felt in
any of those wide and bewildering generalities of
benevolence, which have hitherto engrossed him.
To appropriate his little vicinity—to lay it down
in the length and the breadth of it—to measure
it off as the manageable field within which he can
render an entire and a lasting benefit to all its
families—to know and be known amongst them,
and thus have his liberality sweetened by the
charm of acquaintanceship with those who are
the objects of it—instead of dropping, as hereto-
155
fore of his abundance, into an ocean where it was
instantly absorbed and became invisible, to pour
a deep, and a sensible, and an abiding infusion
into his own separate and selected portion of that
impracticable mass which has hitherto withstood
all the efforts of philanthropy—instead of grasp-
ing in vain at the whole territory, to make upon
it his own little settlement, and thus to narrow,
at least, the unbroken field, which he could not
overtake—to beautify one humble spot, and there
raise an enduring monument, by which an example
is lifted up, and a voice is sent forth to all the
spaces which are yet unentered on—this is bene-
volence, reaping a reward at the very outset of its
labours, and such a reward, too, as will not only
ensure the accomplishment of its own task, but, as
must, from the ease, and the certainty, and the
distinct and definite good which are attendant
upon its doings, serve both to allure and to guar-
antee a whole host of imitations.
And, to redeem this initiatory step still further
from the charge of visionary, it ought to be re-
marked, that even though not followed up by any
imitation, it is not lost. A certain good wall have
been rendered to society, and a good too, fully
proportionate to the labour and expense that have
been bestowed upon it. If permanently to cover
the whole city with education, be an enterprise
worth a hundred thousand pounds, then, to cover
a hundredth part of it, is an enterprise worth a
thousand pounds. The purchase and the pur«
156
chase-money are equivalent to each other; and if
not a magnificent operation, it is, at least, not like
many of the magnificent projects of our day—it
is hot an abortive one.
Viewed, indeed, in the light of one isolated
effort*—of one single feat of liberality, there is
something altogether, independent of its being a
likely stepping-stone to many similar undertak-
ings by other hands and in other places, that is
well calculated to engage the kindly affections of
our nature. It is vesting one's self with the noblest
of all property, when he can point to a certain
geographical district in a great city, on which he
has stamped a visible impress of his benevolence,
which it will wear to the end of time, and be a
blessing fo its future families throughout all gene-
rations. Some may regard this more in the light
of a solace to the vanity of his constitution—but
surely it is fitted to soothe and to satisfy his better
feelings, that the objects of his liberality come so
distinctly under his notice; that the good he has
rendered, survives the exertion he has made in so
separate and visible a form; that the families he
has benefited, can be so specifically pointed to, and
the children, who, through him, are brought under
the wholesome ministration of a sound and a cheap
scholarship, may be met, as often as he will, to
witness the progress of his own experiment, and
eheer them on to the attainments which he himself
has provided for them. There is in all this, a con-
centrated chmm> whi^h were dissipated into thin
157
-air, had the same cost and the same exertion been
incurred among some of the heartless and unpro-
ductive generalities of a more extended operation.
But more than this* It is felt by every man iis
a stronger pull, both on his liberality and his exer-
tion, when he sees the end of what he is embarked
upon, than when that end lies at an obscure and
indefinite distance from him* The moment that
an exhausted crew come within sight of land, a
new energy is felt to revisit and revive them. An
enterprise of charity may be so vast that this sight
may never be attained; or, it may be so circum-
scribed within distinct and narrow boundaries,
that it may never fail, from the very outset, to en-
liven the hope, and spirit on the progress of bene-
volent adventurers. Under the local system, this
principle comes into full .play, and works a mighty
increment of good to society. Insomuch, that
even with the same number of philanthropists,
a greater amount both of money and of exertion is
rendered to the cause, by separate bands of them,
each of them expatiating on its own local $nd
limited province, than by the whole body of them
putting forth one gigantic effort on the whole field
of operation that lies before them.
And again. The very same system does call
forth a greater number of philanthropists. This
is due, not merely to the superior practicability
of its object, but also to the strength of that local
interest with which it is associated. When the
good proposed to be done, is for the special behoof
158
of one city parish, or even one department of a
city parish, this carries a far more forcible appeal
than any general object would, to all those con-
nected with it, either by office, or by property, or
by residence. It is felt by all such, as a directly
pertinent application, and so, both in respect of
agency and of subscription, calls forth a host of
latent capabilities, that, under a general system,
would never have been reached, and never have
been entered upon. There can be no doubt, that
the more you subdivide a territory into districts, the
more intense, and the more productive, will be the
operation in each of them; so as to draw out a far
greater number of supporters, and to raise a far
greater sum than ever could have been raised out
of the same district, for any scheme of universal
education. Better that this scheme should never
be entertained, than that it should so float in the
imaginations of the sanguine, as to lead them
away from the alone path of practical wisdom,
which can conduct to its accomplishment. Better
far, surely, that it should at length come out in
exhibition as the actual result of each particular
body labouring assiduously for its own particular
object, than that, in the shape of an airy dream, to
which the public eye is generally and collectively
drawn, it should call forth the one ostentatious,
but futile movement that will never realise it.
It is not known how precious and how produc-
tive a thing the operation of this local interest is,
even in the very poorest of our districts. The
159
capabilities of humble life are yet far from being
perfectly understood, or turned to the full account
of which they are susceptible. We certainly in-
vite, and with earnestness too, the man of fortune
and philanthropy, to assume a locality to himself,
and head an enterprise for schools, in behalf of its
heretofore neglected population. But little is it
known to what extent the fund may be augmented
by pains and perseverance among the population
themselves. With a little guidance, in fact, may
the poor be made the most effective instruments of
their own amelioration. The system which could
raise a single penny in the week from each family,
would, of its own unaided self, both erect and per-
petuate a sufficient apparatus for schooling over
the whole empire, or over any part into which it
was introduced, in about twelve years. This is a
mine which has lately been entered upon, for the
purpose of aiding those excellent religious charities
that have so signalised our nation; and more is ex-
tracted from it than from all the liberalities of the
opulent. In a cause so near and so exciting as
that of home education, it could, by dint of stren-
uous cultivation, be made to yield much more
abundantly. So that, should the rich refuse a
helping hand to a cause so closely associated with
the best interests of our country, we do not de-
spair of the poor being at length persuaded to take
it upon themselves, and of thus leaving the higher
classes behind them in the career of an enlightened
patriotism.
160
Yet it were well, that the rich did step forward
and signalise themselves in this matter. Amid all
the turbulence and discontent which prevail in
society, do we believe, that there is no rancour so
fiery or so inveterate in the heart of the labouring
classes, but that a convincing demonstration of good
will, on the part of those who are raised in circum-
stances above them, could not charm it most effec-
tually away. It is a question of nicety, how
should this demonstration be rendered? Not, we
think, by any public or palpable offering to the
cause of indigence, for this we have long conceived
should be left, and left altogether to the sympa-
thies of private intercourse; it being, we believe,
a point of uniform experience, that the more
visible the apparatus is for the relief of poverty,
the more is it fitted to defeat its own object, and
to scatter all the jealousies attendant upon an
imaginary right among those who might else have
been sweetened into gratitude by the visitations of
a secret and spontaneous kindness. Not so, how-
ever, with an offering rendered to the cause of
education, let it be as public or as palpable as it
may. The urgency of competition for such an
object, is at all times to be hailed rather than re-
sisted; and on this career of benevolence, there-
fore, may the affluent go indefinitely onward, till
the want be fully and permanently provided for.
We know no exhibition that would serve more to
tranquillise our country, than one which might
convince the poorer classes, that there is a real
161
desire, on the part of their superiors in wealth, to
do for them any thing, and every thing, which they
believe to be for their good. It is the expression of
an interest in them, which does s^q much to soothe
and to pacify the discontents of men; and all that is
wanted, is, that the expression shall be of such a
sort, as not to injure, but to benefit those for whom
it is intended. To regulate the direction of our
philanthropy, with this view, all that needs to be
ascertained, is, an object, by the furtherance of
which, the families of the poor are benefited most
substantially; and, at the same time, for the ex-
penses of which, one is not in danger of contrib-
uting too splendidly. We know no object which
serves better to satisfy these conditions, than a
district school, which, by the very confinement of
its operation within certain selected limits, will
come specifically home with something of the im-
pression of a kindness done individually to each of
the householders. It were possible, in this way,
for one person, at the head of an associated band,
to propitiate towards himself, and, through him,
towards that order in society with which he stands
connected, several thousands of a yet neglected
population. He could walk abroad over some
suburb waste, and chalk out for himself the limits
of his adventure; and, amid the gaze and inquiry
of the natives, could cause the public edifice
gradually to arise in exhibition before them; and
though they might be led to view it at first as a
caprice, they would not be long of feeling that it
z
162
was at least a caprice of kindness towards them—
some well-meaning quixotism, perhaps, which,
whether judicious or not, was pregnant, at least,
with the demonstration of good will, and would
call forth from them, by a law of our sentient na-
ture, which they could not help, an honest emotion
of good will back again; and, instead of the envy
and derision which so often assail our rich when
charioted in splendour, along the more remote
and outlandish streets of the city, would it be
found, that the equipage of this generous, though
somewhat eccentric visitor, had always a comely
and complaisant homage rendered to it. By such
a movement as this, might an individual, through-
out a district, and a few individuals throughout
the city at large, reclaim the whole of our present
generation, to a kindliness for the upper classes
that is now unfelt; and this toq, not by the mini-
stration of those beggarly elements, which serve
to degrade and to impoverish the more; but by the
ministration of such a moral influence among the
young, as would serve to exalt humble life, and
prepare for a better economy than our present,
the habits of the rising generation.
We know not, indeed, what could serve more
effectually to amalgamate the two great classes of
society together, than their concurrence in an ob-
ject which so nearly concerns the families of all.
We know not how a wealthy individual could work
a more effectual good, or earn a purer and more
lasting gratitude, from the people of his own se-
163
lected district, than by his splendid donative in the
cause of education. Whatever exceptions may be
alleged against the other schemes of benevolence,
this, at least, is a charity whose touch does not
vilify its objects; nor will it, like the aliment of
ordinary pauperism, serve to mar the habit and
character of our population. Here, then, is a walk
on which philanthropy,may give the rein to her
most aspiring wishes for the good of the world;
and while a single district of the land is without
the scope of an efficient system for the schooling
of its families, is there room for every lover of his
species to put forth a liberality that can neither
injure nor degrade them.
Every enlightened friend of the poor ought to
rejoice in such an opportunity, amid the coarse
invectives which assail him, when led by his honest
convictions to resist the parade and the publicity
of so many attempts as are made in our day, in
behalf of indigence. It may sometimes happen,
that selfishness, in making her escape from the
applications of an injudicious charity, will be glad
to shelter herself under some of those maxims of
a sounder economy, which are evidently gaining in
credit and currency amongst us. And hence the
ready imputation of selfishness upon all, who
decline from the support of associations which
they hold to be questionable* And thus is it
somewhat amusing to observe, how the yearly
subscriber of one guinea to some favourite scheme
of philanthropy, thereby purchases to himself the
164
right of stigmatizing every cold-blooded speculator
who refuses his concurrence; while the latter is
altogether helpless, and most awkwardly so, under
a charge so very disgraceful. In avowing, as he
does, the principle, that all the public relief which
is ministered to poverty, swells and aggravates
the amount of it in the land, and that it is only
by efforts of unseen kindness, that any thing
effectual can be done for its mitigation—he cannot
lay bare the arithmetic of private benevolence,
and more especially of his own—he cannot drag
it forth to that ground of visibility, on which he
believes that the whole of its charm and efficacy
would be dissipated—he cannot confront the un-
told liberalities which pass in secret conveyance
to the abodes of indigence, with the doings and
the doqueted reports of committeeship—he cannot
anticipate the disclosures of that eventful day,
when He who seeth in secret shall reward openly,
however much he may be assured, that the drop-
pings of individual sympathy, as far outweigh in
value the streams of charitable distribution, which
have been constructed by the labour and the
artifice of associated men, as does the rain from
heaven, which feeds the mighty rivers of our world,
outweigh in amount, the water which flows through
all the aqueducts of human workmanship that
exist in it. From all this, he is precluded, by the
very condition in which the materials of the ques-
tion are situated; and silent endurance is the only
way in which he can meet the zealots of public
165
charity, while they push and prosecute the triumph
of their widely blazoned achievement—even though
convinced all the while, that, by their obtrusive
hand, they have superseded a far more productive
benevolence than they ever can replace; that they
have held forth a show of magnitude and effort
which they can in no way realise; and with a
style of operation, mighty in promise, but utterly
insignificant in the result, have deadened all those
responsibilities and private regards, which, if suf-
fered, without being diverted aside, to go forth
on their respective vicinities, would yield a more
plentiful, as well as a more precious tribute, to
the cause of suffering humanity, than ever can be
raised by loud and open proclamation.
The disciples of theMalthusian philanthropy,who
keep back when they think that publicity is hurt-
ful, should come forth on every occasion when
publicity is harmless. That is the time of their
vindication; and then it is in their power to meet,
on the same arena, with those Lilliputians in
charity, who think that they do all, when, in fact,
they have done nothing but mischief. We hear
much of the liberality of our age. But it appears
to us to be nearly as minute in respect of amount,
as much of it is misplaced in respect of direction;
nor can we discover, save among the devoted
missionaries of Serampore and a few others, any
very sensible approximations to the great standard
of Christian charity, set forth in the gospel for
our imitation. The Saviour was rich, and for our
166
sakes he became poor; and ere the world he
died for, shall be reclaimed to the knowledge of
himself, many must be his followers, who regard
their wealth, not as a possession but as a steward-
ship. We anticipate, in time, a much higher rate
of liberality than obtains at present in the Christian
world; nor do we know a cause more fitted to
draw it onwards, than one which may be supported
visibly, without attracting a single individual to
pauperism, and which, when completed, perman-
ently and substantially, will widen, and that for
ever, the moral distance of our people, from a state
so corrupt and degrading. Ere the apparatus
shall be raised, which is able, not faintly to skim,
but thoroughly to saturate the families of our poor
with education, there will be room for large sums
and large sacrifices; nor do we know on whom
the burden of this cause can sit so gracefully and
so well, as on those who have speculated away
their feelings of attachment from all societies for
the relief of indigence—and who are now bound
to demonstrate, that this is not because their
judgment has extinguished their sensibilities; but
because they only want an object set before them
which may satisfy their understanding, that, with-
out doing mischief, they may largely render of
their means to the promotion of it.
We are sensible, that, to look for a universal
result, in the way that we have now recommended,
is to presuppose a very wide extension of Christian
zeal, seconded by an equal degree of Christian
167
liberality all over the land. If it be visionary to
look for this, then do we hold it alike visionary,
to look for any great moral improvement in the
economy of our national institutions without this.
We see not our way to any public or extended
amelioration, save, through the medium of greater
worth in the character of individuals, and a greater
number of such individuals in the country; and
but for this, would we give up in despair, that
cause on which both politicians and moralists have
embarked so many sanguine speculations. It is
not, we think, on the arena of state partizanship,
that a victory for this cause is to be decided; but
that, similarly to the growth of the small prophetic
stone, which at length attained to the size of a
mountain that filled the whole earth, will it grad-
ually proceed onwards, just as the spirit and
principles of the gospel find a numerical way
through human hearts, and multiply their pro-
selytes among human families. If it be here, that
a contemptuous scepticism discovers the weak side
of our argument, and proclaims it accordingly; it
is also here, that Prophecy lifts up the light of
its cheering countenance on all our anticipations.
Meanwhile, its best and brightest fulfilments are
not to be without human agency, but by human
agency; and even already do we see a rising
philanthropy in our day, which warrants our
fondest hopes both of the increase of learning and
virtue amongst our population. For a time, it
may waste a portion of its energies among the
bye-paths of inexperience. Ambition may be-
168
wilder it. Impatience may cause it to overrun
itself. A taste for generalities may dazzle it into
many fond and foolish imaginations; and the
ridicule of an incredulous public may await the
mortifying failures, which will ever mark the enter-
prise of him, whose aim is beyond the means of his
accomplishment. But the spirit of benevolence
will not be evaporated among all these difficulties:
It will only be nurtured into greater strength, and
guided into a path of truer wisdom, and sobered
into a habit of more humble, and, at the same
time, far more effective perseverance. Man will
at length learn to become more practical and less
imaginative. He will hold it a worthier achieve-
ment to do for a little neighbourhood, than to
devise for a whole world. He will give himself
more assiduously to the object within his reach,
and trust that there are other men and other
means for accomplishing the objects that are
beyond it. The glory of establishing in our world,
that universal reign of truth and of righteous-
ness which is coming, will not be the glory of any
one man; but it will be the glory of Him who
sitteth above, and plieth his many millions of
instruments for bringing about this magnificent
result. It is enough for each of us to be one of
these instruments, to contribute his little item to
the cause, and look for the sum total as the pro-
duct of innumerable contributions, each of them
as meritorous, and many of them, perhaps, far
more splendid and important than his own.
169
CHAR V.
ON CHURCH PATRONAGE*
In the case of a district school, where the appoint-
ment of the teacher Kes with those who built and
whopartially endowed it, matters maybe so ordered,
as that we shall not have much to fear from a corrupt
exercise of the patronage. It were well, we think,
for the purpose of securing a local and a residing
patronage, that a voice in the election of the teacher
should be given to two or three of the ecclesiastical
functionaries of the parish in which the school was
situated. These would feel a responsibility for their
choice to the district families with whom they stood
so closely associated. And should their propensity
to favouritism not be overruled by the force of pub-
lic opinion, the patrons by subscription, by whom
they, in most instances, would be far outnumbered*
were enough to neutralize it. And lest there still
were an unity of disposition, among the majority of
electors, in behalf of an unworthy candidate, it
would go far to check this tendency, that the school,
though endowed to a certain extent, is endowed but
partially. The office, in fact, if it be rightly consti-
tuted, is only an object of ambition to those who are
qualified. The teacher may have a dwelling-house
and a salary, and still have his main dependence
on the scholars' fees. It will thus be an object of
keenest competition to those who hope most san-
u
170
guinely for a crowded attendance; and amid tlie
quantity of known and aspiring talent that will
come forth upon every vacancy, it is not to be
conceived, that, in the face of a vigilant neigh-
bourhood, and when parents, by the simple with-
drawment of their young, could reduce the teacher
to starvation, the patrons will disgrace themselves,
and that without essentially benefitting their client,
by a glaringly unfit nomination.
And, in the very same way, might not a district
chapel be raised as well as a district school, and
with still greater securities even, for a right exer-
cise of the patronage? How often, for example,
do we observe a meeting-house, built at the ex-
pense of so many adventurers, and with the pro-
spect of such a return from the seat rents, as, after
defraying the salary of the minister, and all other
charges, will yield them a full indemnification?
Here the effective patronage is as good as shared
between the electors and the hearers, and the hold
is in every way as strong as human interest can
make it for a pure, or at least for a popular ap-
pointment. And, with such an appointment, all
the expenses of the institution may be covered;
so that though at first sight it looks a more ardu-
ous enterprise to found a chapel than a school,
the truth is, that the latter may require a stretch
of benevolence which the former may not. To
make common education universal among the
children of the operative class, it seems necessary
that there should be a gratuitous erection, and a
171
gratuitous salary; enabling the teacher to meet
the whole population with scholarship on reduced
fees: in which case a part only of the whole ex-
pense is laid upon the attendance. To meet the
same class with Christian education, we have ample
and repeated experience, that the whole expense
may be charged upon the attendance; provided
only, that right measures be taken to secure an
attendance. This is done simply by a popular
appointment*, by holding forth instruction to the
people from a man of acceptable doctrine, and of
esteemed ability and character. That the house
be well filled, the great and sufficient step is, that
the pulpit be well filled. This, therefore, will be
the first care of those who have a direct interest
in the attendance: and it is a care which is often
so abundantly repaid, as to make the chapel in-
demnify itself, and that out of a congregation
chiefly made up of the families of labourers.
If, then, the process that w^e have already re-
commended for pervading a city with common
education, through the week, be at all practicable,
there appears to be a still smoother and more
practicable way of pervading it as thoroughly
with Christian education, on the Sabbath. By the
simple and successive apposition of chapel-districts
to each other, may a sufficient apparatus at length
be reared in a town for the religious instruction
of all its families; and such we conceive to be the
efficiency of a wisely exercised patronage in draw-
ing out the attendance of the people, that we
172
think a system of this kind may at length be com-
pleted without any draught whatever on the libe-
rality of the public. This great achievement lies,
we think, within the power and scope of dissen-
terism; and if so little progress has yet been
made towards it, it is only because dissenters have
not localised. They have attracted a few scattered
families towards them, but they have not sent
forth an emanating influence upon the whole.
They have not yet found their way to that strong
reciprocal influence which lies between the week-
day attentions of one man reiterating upon one
neighbourhood, and the Sabbath instructions that
are delivered by the same man in the heart of the
same neighbourhood. They have not penetrated
or transfused the mass of our population. They
have only drawn together a few of its particles.
That principle of locality, of the truth and power
of which, the trial of a single month will give more
satisfying evidence than the argumentation of
many volumes, has not yet by them been pro-
ceeded on to any extent; and we know not how
long it may continue to be regarded both by them
and by the general public, as a mere imaginative
charm of no force and no efficacy. Did an asso-
ciation of Christian philanthropists only try this ex-
periment on any suburb and neglected portion of a
city multitude, we are persuaded that they would
soon find themselves in possession of a new power
for calling forth the people to the ministrations of
the gospel. Let them simply rear then tabeiv
173
nacle, and assume for it a locality, to the families
of which they might grant a preference for seats,
and restrict the week-day services of the minister
whom they have chosen. At first, in a rude and
heathenish district, the preference would not be
extensively taken; in which case the remaining
seats would be held forth to general competition.
Now, it is not yet known how surely and how
speedily the assiduities of the minister, within the
limits of his territorial district, wrould spread the
desire among its people to sit under him; nor
how readily the very obtrusion of his chapel upon
their notice, as a chapel appropriated for the use
of their little vicinity, wrould hasten forward their
attendance; nor how powerfully, by the force of
contiguous and increasing example, next door fa-
milies would be drawn into the common relation-
ship of parishioners and hearers with the man
who preached so near them every Sabbath, and
was daily observed to be plying amongst them,
during the week, the sacred and benevolent atten-
tions of his office. There might, at the outset of
such an enterprise, be only a partial attendance
from the district, supplemented by hearers from all
parts of the city. But should the vacancies that
occur by the death or removal of these hearers, be
rigidly held forth, in the first instance, to local
applicants; a single generation would not elapse,
ere this chapel-minister, though a dissenter, stood
vested with all that ascendency over his little
neighbourhood, which a parochial congregation
174
is fitted to give to a minister in the Establishment.
He would soon ascertain the comfort and the
power of operating within a locality, occupied
by the people of his own congregation; and would
find that in such a concentration of all his forces,
there lay an efficacy tenfold greater than what
lies in the diffuseness and variety of his present
movements. It is thus that dissenters may gain by
territorial conquest, upon an Establishment which
either provides inadequately, or patronizes care-
lessly, for the religious welfare of a city population.
They may not only draw people, but recover
ground from the church, and bring, if they will,
every inch of the domain they have thus wrested
under a parochial economy. They might at length
work themselves into an arrangement of high in-
fluence, which, by the existing practice of our
cities, is still denied to the established clergy, who
are compelled to sit loose to their parishes, from
the influx of extra-parochial hearers upon their
congregations. The ministers of the Establish-
ment would thus become mere congregational
teachers, whereas those of the dissent would at-
tain, through the medium of locality, a close and
intimate relationship with the great mass of our
city families. Should the present wretched mode
of seat-letting be perpetuated, it lies with the dis-
senters themselves to become, if they will, the
stable and recognized functionaries of religion
in our great towns; and, by a fair usurpation,
175
to change places with the Establishment altoge-
ther.
If it be possible to cover the face of a city
with district-schools, for the expense of which
there must be a draught on the liberality of the
public, it is surely as possible to cover it with
district-chapels, which, with the benefit of locality,
and a wise exercise of the patronage together,
may at all times be made to pay themselves. The
former advantage is little understood, and has
scarcely at all been acted on by dissenters. The
latter is far more palpable, though without the
aid of locality, it will never, for reasons that
have already been adduced, stay the moral and
religious deterioration of cities. Were dissenters
armed with both these advantages, it would give
them a might and a pre-eminence in large towns
which they have never yet attained. They would,
in fact, acquire for the apparatus they had reared,
all the homage and all the perpetuity of an esta-
blishment; and wield those very influences over
the population, for which alone a national church
is in any way desirable,
But an instrument that is ready made to our
hands should not be wantonly set aside; and it were
far better that the church should be stimulated
than that it should be superseded. It has al-
ready a great advantage over dissenters, in that lo-
cality, the full benefit of which, were it not for
the obtuseness of our civic legislators, might be
so soon and so easily restored to it. But there is
176
not the same hold upon it for a pure exercise of
the patronage. The expense of its fabrics and its
salaries is not in general derived from hearers,
and therefore the taste of hearers may not be at
all consulted in its appointments. Instead of a re-
spectful deference to the popular opinion, on these
occasions, there is often a haughty, intolerant, and
avowed defiance to it—and we then see the long-
ings of the public sorely thwarted by the resolute
and impregnable determination of the patron. It
may be easily conceived, therefore, how wide the
disruption is between the ruling and the subject
party, when a spirit altogether adverse to the pre-
vailing taste is seen to preside over the great bulk
of our ecclesiastical nominations. If power and
popularity shall ever stand in hostile array against
each other, we are not to wonder though the re-
sult should be, a church on the one hand, frowning
aloof in all the pride and distance of hierarchy
upon our population, and a people on the other,.
revolted into utter distaste for establishments, and
mingling with this a very general alienation of
heart from all that carries the Stamp of authority
jn the land.
We should like, even for the cause of public tran-
quillity and good order, that there were a more
respectful accommodation to the popular taste in
Christianity, than the dominant spirit of ecclesias-
tical patronage in our day is disposed to render it.
We conceive the two main ingredients of this taste
to be, in the first place, that esteem which is felt by
177
human nature for what is believed to be religious ho-
nesty; and, in the second place, the appetite of hu-
man nature, when made, in any degree, alive to a
sense of its spiritual wants, for that true and Scrip-
tural ministration which alone can relieve them.
Now, if these be, indeed, the principles of the popu-
lar taste, we know not how a deeper injury can be
inflicted, than when all its likings and demands, on
the subject of religion, are scorned disdainfully
away. There is a very quick and strong discrimina-
tion between that which it relishes and that which it
dislikes, in the ministrations of a religious teacher;
and, previous to all enquiry into the justice of this
discrimination, it must be obvious, that if instead
of being gratified by the compliances of patronage,
it is subjected to an increasing and systematic an-
noyance, this must gender a brooding indignancy
at power among the people, or, at least, a heart-
less indifference to all that is associated with the
government of the country, or with the matters of
public administration.
In every matter that is seen intensely to affect
the popular mind—that mind which is so loud in
its discontent, and so formidable in its violence—
that mind, the ebullitions of which have raised so
many a wasting storm in our day, and which, still
heaving, and dissatisfied, and restless, seems as if
it would roll back the burden of its felt or its fan-
cied wrongs on the institutions from which they
have germinated—it surely is the part of political
wisdom to allay rather than infuriate the disorder,,
x
178
by according all which it can, and all which it
ought, to the general wish of society. And the
obligation were still more imperious, should it be
made out that the thing wished for would add to
the public tranquillity, by adding to the public
virtue—that what is granted would not merely ap-
pease a present desire, but would shed a pure as
well as a pacifying influence over the future ha-
bits of our population—that, instead of a bribe
which corrupted, it were a boon to exalt and to
moralise them; thus combining what is rarely to
be met with in one ministration, the property of
calling forth a grateful emotion now, and the pro-
perty of yielding the precious fruit both of nation-
al worth and loyalty hereafter.
We believe that there is no one subject on
which our statesmen are more woefully in the
dark, than the right exercise of church patron*
age. They apprehend not its true bearings on
the political welfare of the country* The whole
question is blended with theology: and this has
shaded it with such a mystery to their eyes, as one
profession holds forth to the eye and the discern-
ment of another. They have not, in fact, steadily
looked to the matter, with their own understand-
ing-, and acting, as they often do, in the hurry of
their manifold occupations, on the guidance and
information of others, they have very naturally
reposed this part of their policy on the advice of
mere ecclesiastics. It is true, that, in many a
single instance, the nomination may be so over-
179
ruled by family interest and connection, as to
bring patronage and popularity into one. But,
with this abatement, there is a leading policy
which presides over this department of public af-
fairs; and we repeat it, that it is a policy mainly
derived from the representations and the authority
of churchmen. It is far more the interest of a go-
vernment to be right than wrong; and we think,
that in this, as in every other branch of their ope-
rations, they do what is honestly believed to be
most for the civil and political well-being of the
state. But, just as in questions of commerce,
they maybe misled by lending their ear to the po-
litical science of party and interested merchants;
so, in questions of church countenance and pre-
ferment, they may be misled by lending their ear
to the oracles of a spiritual partisanship. It is
thus that the main force of their patronage may
be directed to one kind of theology; and that may
be the very theology which unpeoples the Esta-
blishment of its hearers. It is thus that their hon-
ours and rewards may, in the great bulk of them,
be lavished on one set of ecclesiastics, and these
may be the very ecclesiastics who alienate the po-
pulation from the church, and so Ividen the unfor^
tunate distance that obtains between the holders
of power in a country, and the subjects of it.
It is manifest, therefore, that there must, on
this subject, be a delusion somewhere, though it
may not be easy to expose it. It is obviously for
the interest of statesmen that there should be a
180
harmony of temper between them and the popu-
lation; and never is this so forced upon our con-
victions as when, in a time like the present, a
slumbering fire is at work, which, if much further
irritated, will break out into fierce and open con-
flagration on the existing structure of society..
We know not what the political concessions are,
which would allay the tumults of the public mind;
nor are we sure that any concessions of that sort
would be at all effectual. But there is, at least,
one avenue by which our rulers might still find
their way to acceptance and gratitude all over the
land. There is, at least, one link of communica-
tion, to the fastening of which they have only to
put forth a friendly hand; and, by keeping hold
of which, they will be sure to retain a steady hold
on the affections of a now alienated multitude. It
must be quite palpable, even to themselves, that
there is one kind of church appointment which
sends a glow of satisfaction abroad among the fa-
milies of a parish; and that, by a boon so cheap
and simple, as a mere habit of acceptable patron-
age, they may bring in as many willing captives
to the Establishment, as there is room in the
Establishment to receive. Little as they may
know of the theology of the question, they must,
at least, know that which so much glares upon
the observation of all, as that, with a certain style
of ecclesiastical patronage, they may, when they
will, turn the great current of the population into
the national church, and again replenish the emp-
m
ty pews and spacious but deserted edifices of the
their great hierarchy, with willing and delighted
hearers from all the ranks of society. And the
question recurs, what is the might and the myste-
ry of that spell which has so bewildered our men
of power from the path that would lead to a result
so desirable? Or, if not the effect of an infatua-
tion, but of a principle, what are the weighty rea-
sons of vindication for a policy that has so severed
the church from the common people, and reduced
to-naked architecture one-half of that costly ap-
paratus, reared by a former age, for upholding
the Christian worth and virtue of the common-
wealth?
There seem to be three distinct grounds, on
which the popular taste in Christianity is so much
held at nought by the dispensers of patronage.
First, on the ground of the contempt that is felt
for it, as a low, drivelling affection; secondly, on
the ground of the moral reprobation in which it is
held as being inimical to human virtue; and,
thirdly, on the ground of the suspicion that it is
in close alliance with a factious and turbulent
disposition, and that, therefore, every encourage-
ment which is awarded to it forms an accession
of strength to the cause of democracy in the land.
On one or other of these grounds is there an array of
contempt and resistance against the popular taste;
and men of the highest ascendency in the king-
dom are often to be seen among the foremost in
this array. The cry of, down with fanaticism,
182
ascends from the bosom of the church; and the
dignitaries of the state may be observed in firmly
leagued opposition with the dignitaries of religion,
against the warmest likings of the multitude.
L First, then, the popular taste in Christianity
is often treated by the holders of patronage, as if
it were a perverse appetite for absurdity and er-
ror. It is looked to as a thing of whim, and a
thing of imagination; and there can be no doubt
that it has its occasional whims and absurdities-**
its squeamish dislike to what is in itself very inno-
cent—and its fanciful and extravagant regards
to what in itself is very insignificant. Among
these we would remark its puling and fantastic
antipathy to all the visible symptoms of written
preparation in the pulpit*,—and its jealousy of all
doctrine that is uttered in any other than the cur-
rent phraseology,—and its sensitive recoil from
such innovations of outward form, as might sim-
plify or improve any of the sendees of the church,
■—and its appetite for length and loudness, and
wearisome occasions, and other puerilities, which
have made it appear an utterly weak and con-
temptible thing, in the eye of many a scornful
observer. The popular taste, even in its pur-
* We must, however, earnestly recommend to all the readers of sermons,
thai they shall try to attain the habit of reading them freely and impressively,
and in such a way as marks the direct communication of personal feeling
irom the speaker to those whom he addresses.
183
est and most respectable form, will still be a sub-
ject for caricature. But it has supplied additional
features for such a sketch out of its own follies,
and its own excrescencies; insomuch, that, to the
eye of many, and those too among the most pow-
erful and enlightened of our land, does it hold
forth the general aspect of a freakish and way-
ward propensity, which it is quite fair to trample
upon, and, at all events, no outrage on any wor-
thy feeling of our nature, utterly to thwart and to
disregard.
And here one reason at least becomes manifest,
why, on the part of clergymen, the mere whim-
sies of popular feeling ought not to be complied
with; and that between favourite preachers and
their doting admirers such a spectacle should ne-
ver be held out, as that of servile indulgence upon
the one side, and weak, trifling, senseless conceits
of taste and partiality, on the other. It is this
which, more perhaps than any other cause, has
degraded the popular opinion into a thing of no
estimation, and has thrown circumstances of ridi-
cule around it, which have given an edge to sa-
tire, and furnished a plea of extenuation for the
policy that holds it at nought* If it be grievous
to observe the demand of the people about frivo-
lities of no moment, it is still more grievous to
behold the deference which is rendered thereto bv
the fearful worshippers at the shrine of popularity.
It is a fund of infinite amusement to lookers on,
when they see, in this interchange of little minds,
184
how small matters can become great, and each
caprice of the popular fancy can be raised into a
topic of gravest deliberation. It were surely bet-
ter that Christian people reserved their zeul for
essentials; and that Christian teachers, instead of
pampering the popular taste into utter childish-
ness, disciplined it, by a little wholesome resis-
tance, into an appetite, at once manly, and ratio-
nal, and commanding. Every thing that can
disarm the popular voice of its energy will be la-
mented by those who think as we do, that it is a
voice which, in the matters of Christianity, is
mainly directed to what is practically and substan-
tially good; and that it is just the despite which
has been done to it that has so paralyzed the mi-
nistrations of our Establishment. And, therefore,
do we hold it so desirable that the popular taste
were chastened out of all those vagaries which
have just had the effect of chasing away the hom-
age that else would have been rendered to it. We
know that it has its occasional weaknesses and ex-
travagancies; but we believe that these are in no
way essential to it, and that, by the control of the
ministers of religion, acting wisely, and honestly,
and independently, they could all be done away.
Though these were lopped off from the affection,
it would still subsist, with undiminished vigour,
and it would then be seen what it nakedly and
characteristically is—not that mere fantastic relish
which it is often conceived to be, but the deep and
strong aspiration of conscious humanity, feeling,
185
and most intelligently feeling, what the truths,
and who the teachers are, that are most fitted to
exalt and to moralise her.
In proof of this we may, with all safety, allege
that let there be a teacher of religion, with a con-
science alive to duty, and an understanding sound-
ly and strongly convinced of the truths of the
gospel; let him, with these as his only recommen-
dations, go forth among a people, alive at every
pore to offence from the paltry conceits and cro-
tchets in which they have drivelled and been in-
dulged for several generations; let them be pre-
pared with all the senseless exactions which a
dark and narrow bigotry would often bring upon
a minister; and let him, disdainful of absurdity
in all its forms, whilst zealous and determined in
acquitting himself of every cardinal obligation,
only labour amongst them in the spirit of devoted-
ness: and it will soon be seen that the general
good will of a neighbourhood is far more deeply
and solidly founded, than on the basis of such
petty compliances as have made popularity ridicu-
lous in the eye of many a superficial observer.
The truth is, that there is not one irrational pre-
judice among his hearers, which such a teacher
would not be at liberty to thwart and to traverse,
till he had dislodged it altogether. Grant him
the pure doctrine of the Bible for his pulpit, with
an overflowing charity in his heart for household
ministrations—and the simple exhibition of such
worth and such affection on the week, from one
186
who preaches the truths of Scripture on the Sab-
bath, will, without one ingredient of folly, gain
for him, from the bosoms of all, just such a popu-
larity as is ever awarded to moral worth and to
moral wisdom. This, indeed, we believe to be
the main staple of that popularity which is so
much derided by the careless, and often so unfeel-
ingly trampled upon by the holders of patronage.
And thus it is fearful to think that, in the syste-
matic opposition which has been raised upon this
subject against the vox popidi, government may,
unknowing of the mischief, have been checking,
all the while, the best aspiration that can arise
from the bosom of a country—may have been
combating, in its first elements, the growth of
virtue in our land—and, in wanton variance with
its own subjects about the principles of religion,
may have been withering up all those graces of re-
ligion, which would else have blessed and beauti-
fied our population,
II. But this brings us to the second imputation
that has been brought against the popular taste,
in matters of Christianity—far graver than any
that is uttered in the mere playfulness of con-
tempt, and in virtue of which it has often been
reckoned with, as a pernicious delusion that tin-
settles the morality of the people, as if, in its
preference for doctrine, it loathed and neglected
duty, and could only relish that ministration,
which, instead of acting as a stimulus, acted as a
soporific to human virtue. This we believe to be
187
a very prevailing conception among the enemies
of popular Christianity; and hence there are not
a few who may resist its inroads as conscientiously
as they would the inroads of any moral pestilence,
—regarding the character of the population as ex-
posed to hazard from the currency of a favourite
and high-sounding mysticism, that made no ac-
count of ordinary practice, and left the conduct
of its disciples without restraint and without regu-
lation. There is the imagination of a seducing An-
tinomianism, in the creed of the vulgar, that enters
into all this hostility against their opinion and their
will in matters of religion, and often gives the tone
of serious indignant principle to a distinct class of
antagonists from the former—who, more disposed
to fasten on the alleged follies of the popular taste,
regard it rather as a topic of light and airy ridi-
cule, than as a topic of earnest, solemn, and em-
phatic denunciation.
Now what we affirm is, that the very peculiar
economy of the gospel, devised as it has been for
the recovery of a sinful race from a great aberra-
tion into which they have wandered, exposes its
most honest and intelligent disciples to precisely
these aspersions—and that, therefore, the mise-
steem in which the popular taste is held may be
due to a misunderstanding of this economy. The
gospel, in the first instance, proclaims so wide an
amnesty for transgression, that the most gross and
worthless offenders are included; and there is
none so far sunk in the depths and atrocities of
188
moral turpitude, but that still the overtures of re-
deeming mercy may be brought down, even to
his degraded level, and he be told of an open
gate and a welcome admittance to heaven's sanc-
tuary. That blood of atonement which »cleans-
eth from all sin is proclaimed of virtue enough to
cleanse him from his sin; and he, without any de-
duction whatever, on the score of his former ini-
quities, is not barely permitted, but entreated and
urged to enter, through a great propitiation, up-
on the firm ground of acceptance with God.
Now, it is not merely that such encouragement,
held forth in the gospel to the most profligate
of our species, has suggested the idea of an im-
punity held forth by it to moral evil. But what
serves still more, perhaps, to stir the imputation,
that it makes no account of moral distinctions
whatever, is, that it appears to reduce the purest
and most profligate to the same level of worthless-
ness before God, and, in pointing to the avenue
of reconciliation, addresses both of them in the
same terms. It looks as if, under this new system,
all the varieties of character were to be supersed-
ed; and it is, indeed, a very natural conclusion
from the doctrine of the efficiency of faith with-
out works, that works are henceforth to be in no
demand and of no estimation. The man who is
deemed by society to have no personal righteous-
ness whatever, is told to link all his hopes of ac-
ceptance with the righteousness of Christ; and
the man to whom society awards the homage of a
189
pure and virtuous character, is likewise told that
it is a fatal error to ground his security on any
righteousness of his own; but that he also must
place all his reliance before God on the righte-
ousness of Christ. This is very like, it has been
said, to the entire dismissal of the personal vir-
tues from religion, and the substitution of a mere
intellectual dogma in their place. It is certainly
a dogma, that glares upon us as the most promi-
nent feature of the popular or evangelical system;
and we ought not to wonder if, on a partial and
hurried contemplation, it should be apprehended
that, instead of amending the people, its direct
tendency is to vitiate and demoralise them.
For the purpose of arriving at truth in this
matter, it were well to reflect under wrhat kind of
moral impression it is, that a believer, who hopes
for acceptance through the Mediator, renounces
all trust in his own righteousness. They who
wrould malign his system* affirm it to be, that it
is because his moral sense is so far obliterated,
that the distinction between right and wrong has
become a nullity in his estimation; insomuch that
he looks on a man of double criminality to be no
further, on that account, than his neighbour, from
the friendship of God. But might it not rather
be, because his moral sense is so far quickened
and enlightened, that the differences between the
better and the worse among men are lost in the
overwhelming impression that he has of the fear-
ful deficiency of all? The man whose conceptions
190
have been enlarged upward to the high measure-
ments of astronomy, may know that though one
earthly object is nearer to the sun than another,
yet the distance of both is so great as to give
him the impression of a nearly equal remoteness
with each of them. And the man whose con-
science has been informed upon heaven's law,
may know that though one of his fellows has, by
an act of theft, receded further than himself, who
never stole, yet that both are standing in their
common ungodliness at an exceeding wide dis-
tance of alienation from the spirit and character
of heaven. When one man's righteousness is
placed by the side of another, it woidd argue a
moral blindness, not to perceive the shade of dif-
ference that there is between them. When the
better righteousness of the two is placed by the
side of the Saviour's, it would argue a still more
grievous defect both of moral sight and moral
sensibility, not to perceive the contrast that
there is between the sacred effulgency of the one
and the shaded earthly ambiguous character of
the other. And if, in the New Testament, the
alternative be actually placed within the reach of
all, of either being tried according to their own
righteousness, or of their being treated according
to the righteousness of Christ—it may not be from
a dull, but from a tender and enlightened sense of
moral distinctions, when one renounces the former,
and cleaves to the latter, as all his defence and
all his dependence,.
191
It seems to be on this principle that the publi-
cans and the sinners, in the gospel, are stated to be
before the Pharisees, in coming to the kingdom of
heaven. The palpable delinquencies of the former
seem to have forced more readily upon their ap-
prehension the need of another righteousness than
their own. The plausible accomplishments of the
latter served to blind their consciences against this
necessity. They were alive to the difference that
obtained between themselves and others. But,
they were not alive to the deficiency of their own
character from the requirements of God. And
it is thus, perhaps, that the doctrine of human
worthlessness still finds its readiest acceptance
among the lower orders of society. Their beset-
ting sins are of easier demonstration than either
the voluptuous or ungodly affections of the rich,
blended as they often are with so much honour,
and elegance, and sensibility. Still, it is not from
the dulness, but from the delicacy of the moral
sense, that it can penetrate its way, through all
these disguises, to the actual character of him who
is invested with them: and it is not because this
power of the human mind is steeped in lethargy,
but because it is of quick and vigorous discern-
ment, that man renounces his own righteousness,
and betakes himself to the righteousness of faith.
And what is true of the acceptance of this righ-
teousness on the part of man, is also true of the
proposal of it on the part of God. It is not be-
cause he wider-rates morality, that he refuses the
192
morality of man as a plea of confidence before
him—but, because sensitive of the slightest en-
croachment on a law, the authority of which he
holds to be inviolable, he will not admit the ap-
proach of sinners, but in' a way that recognizes
the truth of the Lawgiver, and thoroughly recon-
ciles it with the exercise of his mercy. Through-
out the whole economy of the system of grace,
there is not one expression which so thoroughly
and so legibly pervades it, as the irreconcileable
variance that there is between sin and the nature
of the Godhead. It would almost look as if it
were for the purpose of holding forth this expres-
sion, that the whole apparatus of redemption was
instituted. Every circumstance that can give
weight to such a solemn demonstration is made to
accompany the overtures of forgiveness to man in
the New Testament. It is not a simple assurance
of pardon that is there exhibited, but of pardon
linked with the atonement that has been rendered
for iniquity. This, in truth, is the leading pecu-
liarity of the gospel dispensation, that while mer-
cy is addressed to all, it is addressed in such terms,
and through such a line of conveyance, as to mag-
nify all the other attributes of Deity. So that
man cannot enter into peace but through the me-
dium of such a contemplation as must obtrude
upon his mind1 the entire and untainted purity of
the divine nature. The avenue of reconciliation
is inscribed on each side of it with the evil of sin,
and with the sacred jealousy against it of a most
high and holy God.
193
And, if it be God's intolerance of sin, and a
high sense of the authority of his law, as inviol-
able—if it be these that modelled the gospel eco-
nomy at the first—it were strange, indeed, should
these principles fall out of sight, or be, in any
way, traversed and given up, in the subsequent
progress and application of the gospel among
men. It were strange, indeed, if those principles
which originated this system should be abandoned,
or even so much as impaired in its forthgoings
through the world—if the moral expression it
bears so decisively, as it comes out of the hands
of God, should be dissipated into nothing, wrhen
making its way through the hearts and the habi-
tations of men—if that which so strongly marked,
at its outset, God's abhorrence of sin, should, in
any of its future developements, have the effect
of encouraging sin—or, if a method of salvation
so peculiarly devised, and that, for the express
purpose of guarding and demonstrating the hon-
ours of virtue, should, after it is brought out to
the notice, and has gained the concurrence of
those for whom it was instituted, obliterate, in
their minds, the distinction between right and
wrong, or reduce virtue to a thing of no demand
and no estimation.
The gospel, in the meantime, maintains a most
entire consistency with itself. It unfolds that
provision by which atonement has been made for
the guilt of sin; but it never ceases announcing
as its ulterior object, to exterminate the being of
194
sin from the heart and the practice of all its dis-
ciples. Its office is not merely to reconcile the
world, but to regenerate the world; and there is
not an honest believer, who rejoices in pardon,
and does not, at the same time, aspire after all
moral excellence; knowing, that to prosecute a
strenuous departure from all iniquity is his ex-
pressly assigned vocation, and that he who, from
Christ as a redeemer, has obtained deliverance
from the punishment of sin, must, under him as
a captain, hold an* unsparing war with the power
and the existence of it.
Here, then, would appear to lie the miscon-
ception which we are endeavouring to combat.
The advocates of the evangelical system affirm
the nullity of human righteousness, when regarded
in the light of its founding any claim to reward
from the great Moral Governor of our species.
And this affirmation of theirs hangs upon the
principle, that by admitting the validity of such
a claim, the character of heaven's jurisprudence
would be degraded beneath that standard of high,
inflexible, and uncompromising purity, from which
God will not consent that it shall be brought
down, in accommodation to human frailty and hu-
man sinfulness. But the same August Being, who
is thus prompted by the holy jealousies of his na-
ture to lay an interdict on the claims of sinfulness,
must, on the very same prompting, be equally
bent on the utter extirpation of it from the char-
acter of all whom he takes into reconciliation.
195
If the presumption of sin be hateful in his sight,
the existence of sin must be hateful to him also.
He who, of purer eyes than to look upon sin, can
have no tolerance for its claims, can have as little
tolerance for its wilful continuance in the sinner's
bosom. The entire nullity of human righteous-
ness viewed as a plea for reward from a God of
such surpassing holiness, so far from being at
variance is altogether of a piece with the entire
necessity of this righteousness, viewed as a per-
sonal accomplishment for the kindred society of
One whose character is so lofty. There is no in-
consistency whatever, but the directly opposite,
in that the obedience of man should be inadmis-
sible as his personal claim to heaven, and yet
indispensable as his personal qualification for it*
And thus it is that while, in the doctrine of jus-
tification by faith alone, the virtue of a human
being is not admitted as an ingredient at all into
that title-deed which conveys to him his right of
entry into paradise, it is this virtue and nothing
else, which making constant progress in time, and
reaching its consummate perfection in eternity,
that renders him fit for the blessedness, and the
employments, and the whole companionship of
paradise.
And perhaps the most plain and direct vindi-
cation of the evangelical system, as being altoge-
ther on the side of morality, is that morality forms
the very atmosphere both of the happiness which
it offers here, and of the heaven to which it points
196
hereafter. In the service of an earthly superior,
the reward is distinct from the work that is done
for it. In the service of God, the main reward
lies in the very pleasure of the service itself.
The work and the wages are the same. It is not
after the keeping of the commandments, but in
the keeping of the commandments, that there is
a great reward.* Even from the little that is
made known to us of the upper paradise, it is evi-
dent that its essential blessedness lies not in its
splendour, and not in its melody, and not in the
ravishment of any sensible delights or glories—
but simply in the possession and play of a moral
nature, in unison with all that is right, and in
the rejoicing contemplation of that Being from
whose countenance there beams and is imprest
upon all the individuals of his surrounding family
the moral excellence which belongs to him.t The
gate of reconciliation, through the blood of Christ,
is not merely the gate of escape from a region of
wrath—it is the gate of introduction to a field of
progressive and aspiring virtue; and it is the
growth of this virtue upon earth which constitutes
its full and its finished beatitude. The land to
which every honest believer is bending his foot-
steps is a land of uprightness^ where the happi-
ness simply consists in a well attempered soul res-
cued from the tyranny of evil, and restored to
the proper balance of principles and affections,
* Psalm xix. 11. f 1 John iii, I, 2, 3. J Psalm cxlvii. 9, 10.
197
which had gone into derangement. It is the hap-
piness of a moral being doing what he ought, and
living as he ought. It were a contradiction in
terms, to aver of such a system that it is unfa-
vourable to the interests of virtue. The doctrine
of justification by faith is not the absorbent of all
human activity, but the primary stimulant of that
busy and prosperous career, in which the soul,
emancipated alike from fear and earthly affection,
rejoices in the acquirement of a kindred charac-
ter to God, and finds the work of obedience to
be its congenial and best loved employments.
This is the real process of effort and mental dis-
cipline that is undergone by every honest believ-
er, though hidden from the general eye under the
guise of a phraseology that is derided and un-
known by the world. He is diligent that he may
be found without spot and blameless, on the
great day of examination. It is the business of
his whole life to perfect holiness in the fear of
God.
And for effecting this moral transformation on
the character of its disciples, does this system of
truth provide the most abundant guarantees. It
holds forth the most express announcement that,
without such a transformation, there will be no
admittance into the kingdom of God. And it
reveals an influence for achieving it, which is
ever in readiness to descend on the prayers of
those who aspire after the habits and the affections
of righteousness. And, along with the call of
198
faith, does it lift the contemporaneous call of re-
pentance. And it marks out a path of obedience,
by the urgency and the guidance of precepts in-
numerable. And, so far from lulling into inac-
tion, by its free offer of forgiveness, does it only
thereby release its disciples from the inactivity of
paralysing terror, and furnish them with the most
generous excitements to the service of God, in
the love, and the gratitude, and the joy of their
confident reconciliation. And, finally, as if to
shut out all possibility of escape from the toils
and the employments of virtue, does it make
„ known a day of judgment, wherein man will be
reckoned with, not for his dogmata, but for his
doings; and when there will be no other estimate
of his principles than the impulse which they gave
to his practical history in the world—they who
have done good being called forth to the resur-
rection of the just, and they who have done evil
unto the resurrection of damnation.
Now, all this truth has full recognition and
occupancy among the articles of the evangelical
creed; and the doctrine of justification by faith
alone, so far from laying any arrest on the prac-
tical influence of it, is felt by every genuine be-
liever to give all its spirit and all its scope to
the new obedience of the gospel. Without this
doctrine, in fact, there can be no agreement be-
tween God and man, but by a degrading compro-
mise between the purity of the one and the imper-
fection of the other; and the point at which
199
this compromise should be struck is left undeter-
mined, and at the discretion of each individual,
who will, of course, accommodate the matter to
the standard of his own performances; and thus,
under all the varieties of moral turpitude, as well
as of moral accomplishment, will there be a fatal
tranquillity of conscience, in a world where each
may live as he lists; and heaven's law, once
brought down to suit the convenience of our fallen
nature, may at length offer no disturbance to any
degree either of ungodliness or unrighteousness in
our species. But, with the doctrine of justifica.
tion by faith there is no such compromise. The
rewards of the divine government are still granted
in consideration of a righteousness that is altoge-
ther worthy of them. The claims of the Godhead
to the perfect reverence, as well as the perfect
love, of his creatures, are kept unbroken; and
when he proclaims his will to be our sanctification,
the disciple, as he feels himself released from the
vengeance of an unbending law, also feels himself
to be placed in a career of exertion that is quite
indefinite; where he will stop short at no degree
of moral excellence—where he can be satisfied
with no assignable fulfilment whatever—where his
whole desire and delight, in fact, will lie in pro-
gress, and he will never cease aspiring and press-
ing forward, till he has reached his prize, and
stands upon the summit of perfection.
It is only under the impulse of such principles
as these, that the mighty host of a country's popu-
200
lation can be trained either to the virtues of so-
ciety, or to the virtues of the sanctuary. The
former may, to a certain extent, flourish of them-
selves, among the children of this world's prospe-
rity. But, saving in conjunction with, and as eman-
ating from the latter, they never can be upheld amid
the workshops and the habitations of industry. It
is a frequent delusion, that the evangelical system
bears no regard to the social virtues, because,
in the mind of an evangelical Christian, they are
of no religious estimation whatever, but as they
stand connected with the authority of God. But
he cannot miss to observe that the sanctions of
this authority are brought, in every page of the
Bible, most directly and abundantly to bear upon
them; and thus, in his eyes, do they instantly re-
appear, strengthened by all the obligations, and
invested with a full character of deepest sacred-
ness. The integrity of such a creed as he pro-
fesses is the best guarantee for the integrity of
his relative and social conduct. And it is only in
proportion to the prevalence of this derided ortho-
doxy, that the honesties and sobrieties of life will
spread in healthful diffusion over the face of the
country. That system of doctrine which is stig-
matized as methodising and against which govern-
ment are led to array the whole force of their
overwhelming patronage; and on the approaches of
which ecclesiastics are often seen to combine as
they would against the inroads of some pestilen-
tial visitor; and which, when it does appear within
201
the well-smoothed garden of the Establishment,
is viewed as a loathsome weed that should be cast
out and left to luxuriate in its rankness, among the
wilds and the commons of Sectarianism;—what a
quantity of undesigned outrage must be inflicted
every year on the best objects both of principle
and patriotism, should this, indeed, be the alone
system that has the truth of heaven impressed
upon it, and the alone system that can transform
and moralise the families of our land!
If, then, evangelical Christianity be popular
Christianity—if its lessons are ever sure to have the
most attractive influence upon the multitude—i£
whatever the explanation of the fact may be, the
fact itself is undeniable, that the doctrine of our
first Reformers, consisting mainly of justification
by faith, and sanctification through the Spirit of
God, is the doctrine which draws the most crowd-
ed audiences around our pulpits, and this doctrine
is, at the same time, the most powerful moralising
agent that can be brought to bear upon them—
then does it follow that the voice of the people
indicates most clearly, in this matter, what is best
for the virtue of the people—that the popular
taste is the organ by which conscious humanity
expresses what that is which is best fitted both to
exalt and to console her—and that, by the ne-
glect and the defiance which are so wantonly ren-
dered to its intimations, are our statesmen with-
holding the best aliment of a people's worth, and
therefore the best specific for a nation's welfare.
202
III. But we now proceed to the third great
prejudice which requires to be combated. In the
mind of many of our politicians there is a con-
ceived alliance between the fervour of the popular
demand for that religion which is most palateable,
and the fervour of the popular demand for those
rights which form the great topic of disaffection
and complaint among the restless spirits of our
community. It is quite enough to decide their
impressions upon this subject, that the voice which
they hear ifa favour of a certain style of Christian-
ity, is the voice of a great assemblage, made up
chiefly of the vulgar; and that when it reaches
them, it is in the shape of a cry or a challenge
from the multitude. This will instantly remind
them of the vociferation and the menace that arise
from the factious on a political arena, and they
will feel inclined to deal with it accordingly. Let
there be but the sympathy of the same impassion-
ed feeling among a number of people, and, what-
ever be the topics of it, this is quite enough to
conjure up to the apprehensions of many a dis-
tant observer the imagery of riot, and resistance,
and the sturdiness of dissatisfied plebeianism.
When Bishop Horsley said in Parliament, that
the popular zeal which had gone so extensively
abroad, in behalf of missionary objects, was but
another expression of the revolutionary spirit, or
a new direction which it had now taken, after
the overthrow of its clubs and associations, we
doubt not he said what he honestly believed to
203
be the truth. A bare inventory of names* how*
ever, had he actually taken it, might have con-
vinced him that the missionary cause was altoge-
ther another enterprise, supported by another set
of individuals, and animated* too, with a spirit
which would not only have lent no re-inforeement
to the turbulence that he dreaded, but if fostered
through the country to the uttermost, would most
effectually have neutralised it To be blind on &
matter like this, is to be in blindness, if not of the
first, at least of among the most important ele^
ments of political wisdom. Nor can we conceive
how a government may be misled more grievous-
ly, than when the character and views of a great
and growing body of their own subjects are thus
misapprehended.
But there are other causes for the delusion that
we are now attempting to expose; and, perhaps,
the most powerful of them is, that insignificance
in which a spiritual and devoted adherent of the
evangelical system will generally hold all the cofnM
mon objects of partizanship. He cannot, with a
heart pre-occupied by eternal things, let himself
down to a keen interest in the rivalry of this
world's politics. Like a man intent on the prose^
cution of a journey, and with a mind absorbed by
the objects of it, he cannot mingle any great ear*
nestness or intensity of feeling with the disputes
of his fellow travellers; and especially if they relate
to matters connected with the mere comfort and
accommodation of the few days in which they
204
are to keep together. He is otherwise taken
up, and he finds no room in his bosom for the
eager and busy emulations of a combatant upon
an arena, where he is comparatively so little af-
fected by all that is going on. The ruling party
of the State can see no use for such an individual,
and can place but a small reliance upon him; and
what will confirm their whole sense of hopeless-
ness about his services is, that, as indifferent to
the rewards as he is to many of the aims and ob-
jects of political adherence, he appears to stand
beyond the possibility of being purchased by
them. As contrasted with the man whom they
can at all times count upon, he will, indeed, be felt
as of little or no estimation for any of their pur-
poses. And thus it is fearful to contemplate, by
how direct and natural a process the whole of the
Church patronage that is vested in the hands of
Government may be employed in rearing a care-
less and worldly priesthood all over the land—
how the men who sit loose to time are the surest
to be overlooked and neglected in the dispensa-
tion of benefices j and those who, by the very zeal
and indiscriminateness of their party attachment,
betray the earthliness of the element they breathe
in, may, on that single account9 be raised to
those places of highest ascendency, from which
the weightiest and most abundant influence could
be made to descend on the character of the popu-
lation.
And here we may remark how readily the want
205
of a very devoted regard to the special interests
of a reigning and existing Administration may be
confounded with the want of loyalty. They who
honour not the king's immediate servants lie open
to the imputation that they bear no great honour
to the king himself. Thus it is that the man who
simply feels himself in a state of unconcern about
the stability of a present Administration, may
come to be likened to those radically disloyal,
who vent forth asperity and menace against all
Administrations. It is surely possible to link the
utmost reverence with the solid and abiding pil-
lars-of the Constitution, and, at the same time,
to feel but small interest in the changes of that
more shifting and moveable part of its apparatus
which is termed the Cabinet. But neither is this
enough for the full vindication of those who can-
not embark their zeal in the affairs and the con-
tests of partisanship. Now, this a man whose
zeal is all pre-engaged on higher objects cannot
do. And, accordingly, in this part of our king-
dom, at least, there does exist a very general
imagination, among the upper classes, that, with
the more serious and spiritual clergy of our Es-
tablishment, there is a sort of hollowness of prin-
ciple, in reference to the Government of the land
—a certain suspicious cast of democracy about
them; and altogether an ambiguity of political
sentiment, on which no dependence could be laid,
in the crisis of national danger—in the dark and
turbid hour of a people's violence.
206
And the man who cannot bring himself to take
a keen concern in the affairs of partizanship, will
fare no better with the resisting than he does with
the ruling party of the State. It is altogether of
a piece with the general habitude of his feelings,
that as he does not much care, on any ground of
interest, at least, whether those who are in place
shall retain it, so he does not much care whether
those who are out of place shall succeed in ac-
quiring it. In this apparent contest, indeed, be-
tween place and patriotism, he can see no more
of the ravenous in the firm hold of the one party
upon that which they have, than in the eager
grasping of the other after that which they have
not; and so, if in Parliament, he will sit and vote
like a conscientious juryman on the specific merits
of every question that comes before him. We believe
that, acting on the guidance of such a principle as
this, he will, under every successive change of the
Cabinet, vote generally with Ministers, and occa-
sionally against them. It is so much more the
interest of every Administration to be right than
wrong, that it were strange, indeed, if they blun-
dered the matter so systematically as to be wrong
in any thing like a majority of instances. And,
hence, this man of simplicity, who sits loose to
the profit, and is only alive to the principle, of
our domestic politics, while, by his incidental
deviations from Ministry, he forfeits all confidence
as a stedfast and thorough-going adherent of theirs,
will, by his more habitual dissent from the mea-
207
sures of Opposition, call down from the other par-
ty, a far severer weight of reprobation.
And, indeed, it may be seen of every such in-
dividual, that, while only perhaps slighted or the
object of playfulness to the former party, he is
often, to the latter, the object of a keen and im-
passioned virulence. The very circumstance of
their exclusion from office holds them forth to the
public eye as the martyrs of political integrity,—-
and it is beyond all endurance, when the voice of
censure descends upon them from one who stands
so evidently posted on a ground of independence
still higher than their own. This they could bear
from the servile adherents of Ministry; but when it
comes down upon them from the eminence of ac-
credited honesty and of worth unimpeachable, it
is unsufferably galling. They know that the main
ingredient of their popularity is the imagination
(of their disinterestedness; and it is not to be for-
given, that one who neither cares that he is out,
nor wishes to be in, should, ever and anon, from
the platform of a disinterestedness far more 1111-
questionable than theirs, be blasting this ima-
gination, and so neutralising the very charm in
which their great strength lies. To stand in the
ranks of Opposition is like standing in the ranks of
a sturdy and self-denying patriotism; and when
thwarted at every turn by one more pure and
obviously more patriotic than them all, nothing
can more cruelly disarm of all its force an exhibi-
tion so imposing, and so fitted to maintain a party
208
in public confidence and estimation. This may
serve to explain the angry intolerance of the min-
ority in Parliament against every man in it of true
independence, and also why it is upon such that
the anti-ministerial press is sure to lavish the whole
strength and bitterness of its acrimony.
And here, for the purpose of marking still more
specifically the men whom we are attempting to
describe, let them be brought into comparison
with another set of men9 who, in some of their
features, may be thought to resemble them.
Among the political characters of our age, there
are certain mal-contents who are altogether unap-
peasable; and who speak despairingly alike, and
contemptuously alike, of both the great parties in
the State; and who, if not yet seated within the
territory of Radicalism, are at least standing on
the very borders of it; and with whom the passions
of the multitude are the favourite weapons which
they employ, as instruments of annoyance against
all the existing authorities of the land. They
are like the others in this, that they cohere not
either with the one side or the other of that great
regular partizanship which obtains in our legis-
lative bodies; and yet how diametrically opposite
are they, in the whole spirit, and principles, and
temper, of their public conduct. Loud, and in-
flammatory, and seizing, with most congenial ea-
gerness, upon every topic of fermentation, the
only element they can breathe in with comfort is
that of uproar and discordancy; and whether they
209
meditate in earnest an overthrow of government
or not, there is no spectacle which they more evi-
dently enjoy, than when they see the fabric urged
and played upon by the undulations of popular vi-
olence. Such a furious denouncer of both the
parties in the State as one of these, stands con-
trasted, in almost all his lineaments, with him who
is the hireling or the devotee of neither; but whose
calm, reflecting, independence is altogether in the
spirit of that wisdom which is pure, and peaceable,
and gentle, and full of mercy and good fruits,
without partiality and without hypocrisy. And if
any thing be wanting to establish the total diver-
sity of principle that there is between the two
sorts of independence, we have only to observe
the aspect which the champion of radicalism bears
to the champion of Christian consistency in Par-
liament, and gather, from his invective and his
scorn, its most satisfying illustration.
But after all, it may be asked, of what possible
use are such men of simplicity and godly sincerity
in Parliament?—men, of whom you are never sure
on what side to find them, and whose whole line
of proceeding is a constant mockery on the expec-
tations of party. And, were there no higher prin-
ciple in politics than those which characterise and
mark off the distinctions of party, the question
were altogether called for. But there are higher
principles. The cause of order and general go-
vernment is a higher cause than the cause of any
Administration j and often, in periods of turbu-
2 B
210
lence and national distress this cause is endanger-
ed; and it is not the suspected testimony of the
partizan, but the testimony of the patriot, that is
of any power to still the commotion. It is not
the man of thorough-paced devotion to his party,
under all the fluctuation of its principles; but the
man of stedfast devotion to principle, under all
the fluctuations of party—it is he, and he alone,
who can lift a voice of authority that will be list-
ened to, amid that deafening noise which, at
times, is heard to rise, in one appalling outcry of
menace and discontent, from all quarters of the
land* He sits loose to both parties, but, in such a
crisis as this, he stands at the distance of the anti-
podes from him who reviles both parties; and
while the one does what he may to thicken the
disorder, does the other rally, at the simple lifting
up of his voice, all the right-hearted men of the
nation around the standard of loyalty. Were this
his solitary service, it were enough to stamp upon
him a character of far higher value than any un-
varying adherent either of Ministry or Opposition
can lay claim to. But the truth is, that his pre-
sence in the Legislature is of daily and perpetual
benefit. He bears with him, at all times, an un-
seen force of control over the motions of Govern-
ment; and each of the parties, though they may
be ashamed to acknowledge it, are yielding him a
constant homage, and rendering to his principles
and views a constant accommodation. The man
who is ever to be found on a higher walk of con-
211
sisteney than the consistency of mere partizanship,
cannot be disregarded with impunity. There is
both a moral compulsion in the worth of his own
character; and a still more palpable compulsion in
the weight of his opinions, over the best and most
wholesome part of the community. It is thus that
he obtains an unknown ascendency in Parliament,
not visible, in nearly its full extent, to the public
eye; but most distinctly and powerfully felt in all
those modifying processes under which every bill
is shaped and prepared, ere it is brought ostensi-
bly forward. If parties be indispensable to the
business of a large deliberative assembly, if the
machinery will not work without them, if there be
no going on, unless a certain number of hands on
each side of the vessel keep stedfastly by the tack-
ling at which they are respectively stationed—let
the many be enlisted into this needful sendee, if
needful it really be; but let us never want the men
of purer and loftier character, who bring thought,
and conscience, and moral principle, into contact
with each specific movement of this great national
engine,—who make the freshness and simplicity
of their own individual worth to bear on all its
operations—and who, taking no part in the game
of competition between the two parties, but often
derided as anomalous by them both, are, neverthe-
less, of mighty influence in staying both the cor-
rupt encroachments of the one, and the factious
extravagance of the other.
It may now be perceived what a pure (which
212
we have already endeavoured to prove is mainly
synonymous with a popular) exercise of Church
patronage will do for the political well-being of
a country. It would, generally speaking, fill the
Establishment with clergy who, detached from the
world, on that account sat loose to partizanship;
but who, thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the
Bible, on that account were the staunch and hon-
est devotees of general patriotism. To them no
one Administration could look for effective aid
against their rivals in the contest of power. But
on them every Administration would have rea-
son to count for the most effective aid, in the con-
test of disaffection and disloyalty against the re-
gular authorities of the land. The minister who
had earned the confidence of his people, by urg-
ing the faithful exposition of all Scripture upon
them, stands on a high and secure vantage ground,
when, out of that indelible record, he bids them
honour the king, and obey magistrates, and med-
dle not with those who are given to change, and
lead a quiet and a peaceable life, in all godliness
and honesty. These accents would fall utterly
powerless from the lips of one who, on an arena
of partizanship, had manifested the heat or the
worldliness of a mere political clergyman. But
they would carry another influence along with
them, when recognised as the effusions of the
same honest principle which took the whole round
of Scripture, and brought forth of its treasury all
the truths and lessons that are to be found in it.
213
It may thus be seen, how possible it is, by one
style of ecclesiastical patronage, to sacrifice the
permanent tranquillity of the kingdom to the
ephemeral views of an existing Administration;
while, by another style of it, a secure and ever-
lasting barrier may be raised against all the surges
of insurrectionary violence. A church filled with
the zealous friends and retainers of one leading
political interest can have no authority over a po-
pulation whom the very character of its priesthood
has alienated from its services. A church teeming
with zealous, and holy, and well-principled evan-
gelists, that has drawn largely of its hearers from
the multitude, and won largely on their veneration
and regard—such a church, without one offering
at the shrine of any party whatever, but mixing
her lessons of loyalty with all the other lessons of
the Christian law, will be found, in the fiercest
day of a nation's trial, to be its best and surest pal-
ladium.
But the partizanship of clergymen is just as
hurtful, on the one side of politics, as the other.
The spirit of their office should raise them above
this arena altogether, and lead them to refrain
from taking any share in the contest at all. We
believe that the fancied alliance between the party
of Whiggism in the State, and the Evangelical
party in the Church, has tended, in Scotland, to the
discouragement and depression of the best of caus-
es. It has helped to direct the whole power and
patronage of government against the more accept-
214
able clergy of our land, and so multiplied the to-
pics of heartburning and irritation between the
people and their rulers. A few political clergy
standing prominently forth, on either side of the
church, will suffice to fasten a political imputation
on the whole body that is represented by them—
and it is ever to be regretted, either that Govern-
ment should thus have been blinded into the in-
discriminate opposition of all that would make
most for the Christian worth and eventual loyalty
of the population; or that the zealots of Ministry
should have been betrayed into the imagination
that they were fighting the battles of order, when,
mistaking sound faith for tumultuous fanaticism,
they were ever thwarting those ecclesiastical mea-
sures which were best fitted to harmonise as well as
morally to elevate the lower orders of the country.
A priesthood strictly devoted to their own profes-
sional objects, and keeping aloof from the contest
of this world's politics, and neither servile in their
loyalty, nor boisterous in their independence, and
ardently prosecuting the literature of their order,
or the labour of love in their parishes—the intent
and engrossing aim of such a priesthood is to rear
a generation for eternity. But still the blessings
which they would scatter along the path of time
are also incalculable. The promise of the life
that now is, as well as of the life that is to come,
is attendant upon all their exertions. And it is
deeply, indeed, to be regretted, that the voice
of party should have so marred and transformed
215
the whole of this contemplation, as to have alien-
ated the Government of the land from the alone
instrument that can be at all effectual in form-
ing either a moral or a manageable population.
216
CHAR VI.
ON CHURCH PATRONAGE, CONTINUED.
We are not aware that law has provided any limi-
tation whatever to the right of patronage in the
English Church, which, for ought we know, may
be exercised in a way altogether absolute and un-
controlled, and without any power of counterac-
tion or restraint vested in the people. So that,
however obnoxious a presentee to a living may
be, in the parish that has been assigned to him,
he, by holding a deed of presentation, holds a
title to the benefice which cannot be wrested from
him by any earthly power. The concurrence of
the Bishop of the diocese is, perhaps, indispens-
able to the completion of this right; and if he be
not responsible to any powrer out of the Church
for the principles upon which he either grants or
refuses this concurrence, we can see that, how-
ever little it may have been exercised of late, there
virtually lies a veto among ecclesiastics on every
nomination to an ecclesiastical office. Still, how-
ever, should there be the same regard]essness of
the popular taste among the dignitaries of the
Church, that we fear there still is among the great
majority of the holders of patronage, the practical
security would appear as feeble as is the legal one,
against the likings of the multitude on the subject
217
of Christianity being, in the greater number of in-
stances, thwarted and overborne.
In these circumstances, the most direct method
for restoring the Establishment to efficiency and
acceptance among the people, is to conciliate the
regard both of the patrons and of the dignitaries
to the evangelical system, which is the only one
that can attract the multitude, because the only
one, the application of which to their condition, or
their conscience, is at all felt by them. This,
however, is not the work of a day; and whether
we look to the High Church intolerance that so
evidently scowls from the Episcopal bench, or to
the jealousy of all popular interference with the
right of Church nomination that has recently been
evinced in the Legislature of these kingdoms, wre
must still reckon ourselves at a fearful distance
from a right adjustment between patronage, on
the one hand, and popularity, on the other. This
distance, however, we conceive to be lessening.
A more just estimation of popular Christianity is
now making ground in the walks of property and
political influence; and a more respectful defer-
ence to the popular voice will be sure to follow in
its train. It ought nowT to be well understood
among them, that the moral reprobacy of the
lower orders, as well as their political restlessness
and discontent, emanate from popular infidelity,
and not from that which has been ignorantly and
injuriously aspersed as popular fanaticism. When
the whole truth becomes evident to them, it will
218
then be perceived, that by the latter of these two
elements alone will the former ever be neutralised.
It is not by a haughty defiance to the taste or the
tendencies of the multitude; or by declamatory
charges against sectarianism; or by a remote and
lofty attitude of withdrawment, on the part of her
superior ecclesiastics, from all those Christian in-
stitutions which are at once the ornament and the
blessing of our country; or by the strict and jea-
lous guardianship of bishops, in alarm for the im-
portation of an enthusiastic spirit inta their dio-
ceses; it is not thus that the Church of England
evei will acquire a religious and rightful ascen-
dency ova: its population. Under such a process
her arm wrill wither into powerlessness; and an
instrument, else of greater might and efficacy than
dissenterism, with the putting forth of all her en-
ergies, can ever hope to attain to—will lose its
whole force of moral and salutary control over the
character of the nation. The alienation of the
people will wriden every year from the bosom of
the Establishment—and the Establishment, reft of
all spiritual virtue, will at length be reduced to a
splendid impotency of noble edifices, and high
gifted endowments, and stately imposing ceremo-
nial. We plead not for the overthrow of this mag-
nificent framework; for, if animated with the
breath of another spirit, as it stands, we conceive
it fitted to wield a far more commanding influ-
ence on the side of Christianity than were likely to
come from the ashes of its conflagration. But ne-
219
ver will it recover this influence, till the spirit of
the olden time be recalled—never, till what is now
dreaded by the majority of that Church as fanati-
cism come again to be recognized and cherish-
ed as the sound faith of the gospel—never, till
what they now nauseate as methodism be felt as
the alone instrument that can either moralise the
people in time, or make them meet for eternity.
Our reason for affirming a jealousy of the popu-
lar voice in the appointment of clergy, on the part
of the British Legislature, is founded on an exam-
ination of their recent Act for building, and pro-
moting the building, of additional churches, in
populous parishes. Though the Parliamentary
grant for this object is so small that, for a great
national effort, it must be extensively aided by the
voluntary subscriptions of the people, yet the will
of the people is admitted to no authority in the
nomination of the minister. Their contributions
are looked for, without any such equivalent, either
in whole or in part, being provided to encourage
them. When the erection is a chapel for an eccle-
siastical district, the patronage is vested either in
the incumbent of the parish, or the chapel is to be
patronised in such a way as may be agreed upon
by the patrons of the parish where it is situated,
in conjunction with the commissioners for carrying
the act into execution. When the erection is a
new parish church, then its patronage is vested in
the patron of the original parish from which it is
detached. In other words, patronage is to have as
220
great an ascendency, and the popular will to be of
as little legal force in counteracting it, with the
new churches, as with the present ones; and so
sensitive is the aversion to any limitation upon the
former element, by the encroachment of the lat-
ter, that when a clause was proposed in the House
of Commons, for vesting the patronage of new
churches or chapels in the twelve highest sub-
scribers, where the edifices were raised wholly by
subscription, this clause, though supported by
the whole evangelical interest in Parliament, and
advocated by the chiefs of Administration, called
forth a prompt and overbearing majority, who in-
stantly put it down.
Now this is certainly not the way to promote the
building of new churches; neither is it the way to
secure an attendance upon them, after they are built.
And the only hopeful circumstance in the whole
of this national provision is, that the stipend of the
minister is paid out of the pew-rents which are
raised from the hearers. This will compel an ac-
commodation to the popular taste at least in thefirst
instance. But we cannot fail to remark how ut-
terly helpless every speculation of our Legislature
is, about the revival and the growth of public vir-
tue in our land, when thus impeded by their own
groundless alarms; and by their utter misconcep-
tion of what that instrument is, by which people can
be drawn to an attendance on the lessons of Chris-
tianity, or of what that Christianity is which eman-
ated pure from the mouth of revelation, and which,
221
by its adaptation to human want and human con-
sciousness, is sure to meet with a responding
movement from the multitude, whenever it is ad-
dressed to them.
There is one evil that has ensued upon this
movement of the Legislature. It has tended to
fill and to satisfy the public imagination, and thus
laid an arrest upon the zeal of private adventur-
ers, who are friendly alike to the cause of the
Establishment and to the cause of Christian edu-
cation. Previous to the passing of this Act, Mr.
Gladstone of Liverpool erected two new churches
in that town, after having negotiated for him-
self, not the permanent right of patronage, for
this could not be obtained, but the three first no-
minations of a minister to each of them. There
was, in this instance, every security for a popular
exercise of the right of patronage. The zeal which,
prompted the undertaking was, in itself, a gua*
rantee for the appointment of acceptable and ef-
fective clergymen. And, besides, as the seat-
rents were to form the revenue both for the sti-
pend of the minister, and for the repair and upT
holding of the fabrics, there was all the power of
a veto conceded, by the arrangement itself, to the
popular voice. It is gratifying to know that this
patriotic and enlightened gentleman, after having
so materially strengthened the interests of the
Establishment, and added to it two flourishing
congregations, in that great commercial town,
where his philanthropy and public spirit have so
222
much distinguished him, has just been indemni-
fied for the expenses of his most benevolent specu-
lation, by its actual returns. This is a most im-
portant fact, in as far as it indicates a safe and
likely career for the multiplication of religious
edifices in our most populous and unprovided ci-
ties. And would magistrates or patrons, on the
one hand, concede a liberal allowance of patron-
age to subscribers, we doubt not that wealthy in-
dividuals, on the other, both ready to hazard and
even willing to lose in a good cause, would, in
imitation of this fine example, come forth in suf-
ficient strength, to second the designs and great-
ly to outrun the power of Government, in for-
warding an enterprise so closely allied with the
very highest objects after which either statesman
or philanthropist can aspire.
And here it occurs to us to say, that had Mr.
Gladstone obtained the perpetual patronage of his
two churches, in return for having erected and
endowed them, the right would have descended,
by inheritance, to his family, and, like any other
property, been transferable by sale. The right
would have originated most legitimately, and been
transmitted most legitimately; and long, perhaps,
after the purely Christian object which it subserv-
ed at first had passed out of remembrance, would
it be assimilated, in its character and in its exer-
cise, to any other private right of church patron-
age in the country. We know not in how far the
actual patronage in our land has taken its origin
223
and its descent from the liberality of pious and
benevolent founders; or been rendered to great
proprietors, as an equivalent for the burden of
church expenses which was laid upon them. But
when we think for what essential purposes this
right may be acquired, and how fairly it may be
appropriated and handed down in families, from
one generation to another, we are led to look to
its guidance and not to its overthrow, for any
great Christian reformation of the churches in
our land. The holders of this important right will,
at length, participate in the growing spirit and il-
lumination of the age; and while others regard pa-
tronage as the great instrument of the corruption
and decline of Christianity, we trust that, under
the impulse of better principles, it will, at length,
become the instrument of its revival.
It is not to any violent demolition in the exist-
ing framework of society, that we look for the
impulse which is to regenerate our nation. The
actual constitution, whether of Church or State,
is a piece of goodly and effective mechanism,
were the living agents who work it animated with
the right zeal and the right principle. And sorry
should we be, in particular, were a rashly inno-
vating hand laid upon the venerable Hierarchy of
England. Even the affluence of its higher dig-
nitaries, so obnoxious to the taste of some, could
be made subservient to the best of causes; and
through it, the principle of deference to station,
which, in spite of all his assumed sturdiness, eve-
224
ry man feels to be insuperable within him, may be
enlisted on the side of Christianity. We envy not
that dissenter his feelings, who would not bless
God and rejoice, in the progress of an apostolical
Bishop through his diocese. But it is not from this
quarter, at present, that the glance of disapproba-
tion and disdain is made to fall upon him. It is
from his own brethren, we fear, on the episcopal
bench, who if, instead of lifting upon him the
frown of a hostile countenance, were to go and
do likewise, would throne their Establishment in
the affections of the whole population, and, by
the resistless moral force which lies in the union of
humble worth and exalted condition, would cause
both the radicalism and infidelity of our land to
hide their faces, as ashamed. Wherever the good
Bishop of Gloucester assumes, for a day, the office
of humble pastor, in one of the humblest of his
parishes, he leaves, an unction of blessedness be-
hind him; and the amount of precious fruit that
springs from such an itinerancy of love and evan-
gelical labour is beyond all computation. Such a
mingling with the people as this would not confound
ranks, but most firmly harmonise them. It would
sanctify and strengthen all the bonds of society.
And it is wretched to think not merely of sound
principle being thrown aside, but of sound policy
being so glaringly traversed by the derision and
the discouragement which are laid on all the ac-
tivities of religious zeal—or, that they who pre-
side over the destinies of the English Church, as
c225
well as they who patronise her, should have been
misled into the imagination that her security lies
in her stillness—and that, should the warmth of
restless sectarianism be, in any semblance or mea-
sure, imported into her bosom, it will burn up and
destroy her.
In Scotland, too, there is a law of patronage
now firmly established, and now almost entirely
acquiesced in; and there are few belonging to our
Church, who ever think of disputing the right of
the patron to the nomination. But there seems
to be a great diversity of understanding about the
jine which separates his right from the right of the
Church. He can nominate; but it would startle
the great majority of our clergy, were they told,
that the Church can, on any principle which seem-
eth to her good, arrest the nominee. The Church
can, on any ground she chooses, lay a negative
on any man whom the patron chooses to fix upon.
It is her part, and in practice she has ever done
so, to sit in judgment over every individual no-
mination. There are a thousand ways, in which
a patron might, through the individual whom he
nominates, throw corruption into the bosom of
our Establishment; and we would give up our best
securities, w7e would reduce our office as constitu-
tional guardians of the Church, to a degrading
mockery, were we to act as if there was nothing
for it, but to look helplessly on, and to lament that
there was no remedy. The remedy is most com-
2d
226
pletely within ourselves. We can take a look at
the presentee; and if there be any thing whatever,
whether in his talents, or in his character, or in
his other engagements, or in that moral barrier
which the general dislike of a parish would raise
against his usefulness, and so render him unfit, in
our judgment, for labouring in that portion of the
vineyard, we can set aside the nomination, and
call on the patron to look out for another pre-
sentee. It is the patron who ushers the presen-
tee into our notice; but the fitness of the person
for the parish is a question which lies solely and
supremely at the decision of the ecclesiastical
courts.
For the purpose of limiting the Church in the
exercise of this right, it has been contended that
her judgment on the fitness of the presentee is re-
stricted to the mere question of his moral and lite-
rary qualifications. But she has often taken a far
wider range of cognizance than this, and there is
nothing to prevent her from widening that range
to any extent she will. Previous to the enactment
of that law which, with all the formalities, has re-
cently been established, and by which a Professor
in a university is declared incapable of holding a
country parish, there was the case of a Professor,
who had received a presentation to such a parish,
brought up for the decision of the General As-
sembly. It is true that, by a majority of five, he
was found a competent person for the charge; but,
had three of these five voted differently, the hold-
227
er of the presentation would have given it up as a
lost cause; nor would it ever have entered into
the conception of the patron that any thing re-
mained for him but to issue a new presentation in
behalf of some other individual. The incompe-
tency of the presentee would thus have been de-
clared, and on a ground altogether different from
that of moral or literary qualification. The truth
is, that the Church is not at all limited to particu-
lar grounds. She is at liberty to decide on any
principle she may; and, instead of departing from
her character, will, in fact, dignify and adorn it,
by admitting every principle connected with the
religious good of the people into her deliberations.
She can set aside any presentee, and that general-
ly on the principle that it is not for the cause of
edification that his presentation should be sustain-
ed. More particularly she has often, in the course
of Jier bygone history, judged it inexpedient to
settle a presentee, in the face of violent dislike and
opposition from the people; and, on this principle,
alone, has laid her veto upon his presentation,
without any reference to the moral or literary qua-
lifications of the holder of it.
There is, with many, a confusion of principle
upon this subject, that has been a good deal ag-
gravated by a case which occurred twice in the his-
tory of the Church, in which, after that the General
Assembly had set aside a presentee nominated by
one claimant to the patronage, and authorised the
settlement of one who was nominated by another,
228
the former was found entitled, by the civil court,
to retain the fruits of the benefice. But this decision
of the civil court, it must be remarked, was found-
ed solely and exclusively on the legal right of the
claimants to the patronage. The minister who
was actually inducted was deprived of the stipend
attached to his office, but just because his presen-
tation was found to be invalid. It is no exception
whatever to the principle which we have just af-
firmed, that a case can be quoted of a clergyman
not having a right to the emoluments of his charge,
who had the authority of the Church for his set-
tlement, but had not, at the same time, a good
presentation. The only case, in point, against it
would be that of a clergyman having a good pre-
sentation, and, at the same time, not having the
authority of the Church for his settlement, and
enjoying, nevertheless, the fruits of the benefice.
And if no such case can be alleged, saving, per-
haps, in days of persecution and violence, it
would appear that the authority of the Church, not
responsible certainly for her decisions to any pow-
er existing without the limits of her ecclesiastical
jurisdiction, is just as indispensable to the valid
settlement of a ministei*, as is a deed of presenta-
tion.
The truth is, that there are two essential cir-
cumstances which must meet together, ere a
preacher can be ordained to the charge of a par-
ish. He must have a presentation from the legal
holder of the patronage; and he must have the
229
concurrence of the Presbytery to which the parish
belongs, or of its superior church judicatories.
As the matter actually stands, the first circum-
stance is indispensable; nor can we proceed to or-
dain a preacher to the charge of a parish, till he
come to us with a valid presentation; and few are
the members of our Establishment who would hold
it advisable to oppose the right of patronage.
But what we contend for is, that the other circum-
stance is equally indispensable—that as the matter
has ever stood, from the infancy of our being as a
Church, and as the matter stands at this very
hour, there must, previous to his ordination, be
the concurrence of the Church; and if we know
not a single instance, in our day, of a minister
being suffered bylaw to officiate and to draw the
emoluments of his living, in the face of the right
of patronage exercised against him; so, neither
do we know a single instance of a minister being
forced upon a parish, we shall not say in the face
of the people, but in the face of the ecclesiastical
power; nor are we aware of any settlement where
the preacher did not enter upon his charge with
the sanction of our votes, and under the canopy
of our majorities.
The right of a veto by the Presbytery on every
presentation, when they judge there is a defect in
the moral or literary qualifications of the presentee,
is conceded on all hands. When they pass a veto
on any other plea, however, their sentence, it
Would appear, must be borne upwards by appeal
230
to the General Assembly, and may be decided
there, on any principle which shall seem good unto
that venerable Court.* They may put their con-
clusive veto on any presentation, for any reason,
or, if they choose, for no reason at all. Even
though there should be manifest injustice in their
decision, there exists not, without the limits of
the Church, any one legal or constitutional provi-
sion against such a possibility. The only security,
in fact, is that a Church so constituted as ours
will not be unjust. At all events, the matter
could not be mended, by carrying the question
without the limits of the Church's jurisdiction,
and so carrying the chance of, at least, as great
error and injustice along with it, when the eccle-
siastical reasons on which the General Assembly
passed sentence were brought under the review
of a civil judicatory. But in truth there is and
can be no such transition. The power of a veto
on every presentation, and without responsibility
at any bar but that of public opinion, is by all law
and practice vested in the supreme ecclesiastical
court of this country. And in these circumstan-
ces, is it to be borne that, with a power so ample,
we are tamely to surrender it to the single opera-
tion of another power not more firmly established,
* Appendix to Sir Harry MoncriefTs Life of Dr. Erskine, p. 424. The
reader will find, in this Appendix, an able and luminous exposition of the
whole question, done by the masterly hand o£ the Reverend Baronet, whose
talents and force of character have shed a brightness over that Church, of
which he is so distinguished a minister*
231
and not more uniformly indispensable than our
own? Are we, whose busiuess it is to watch over
the interests of religion, and to provide for the
good of edification, and who, if we would only-
make use of the rights with which wTe are invested,
could, in fact, subordinate the whole machinery
of the Establishment to our own independent
views of expediency—are we, as if struck by pa-
ralysis, to sit helplessly down under the fancied
omnipotence of a deed of patronage? So soon as
the majority in our Church shall revert to the
principle of its not being generally for the good
of edification, that a presentee, wdien unsupported
by the concurrence of the parish, shall be admit-
ted to the charge of it, there is no one earthly
barrier in the way of our nullifying his presenta-
tion, and making it as absolutely void and power-
less as a sheet of blank paper. We are not now
contending for the right and authority of a call
from the people, but for the power of the Church
to admit the will or taste of the people as an ele-
ment into her deliberations on the question, Whe-
ther a given presentation shall be sustained or not?
and of deciding this question just as she shall find
cause. And therefore it is, that in the lengthened
contest which has taken place between the rights
of the patrons and of the people, the Church, by
giving all to the former and taking all from the
latter, and in such a way, too, as to establish a
kind of practical and unquestioned supremacy to
a mere deed of presentation, has, in fact, bartered
232
away her own privileges, and sunk into a state of
dormancy the power with which she herself is es-
sentially invested, to sit as the final and irrevers-
ible umpire on every such question that is submit-
ted to her.
But the Church has given away nothing that
she cannot recal. If there be, at this moment,
an entire independence of patrons upon the people,
this is a temporary grant, at the will and pleasure
of an authority that can, at any time, rescind it
In the struggle between the right of patronage
and a principle of deference to the popular taste,
what was the theatre of the contest?—the General
Assembly. Where was it that patronage won her
victory?—in the supreme Court of our Establish-
ment. To what do the holders of patronage owe
the practical sovereignty which, for half a centu-
ry, has been conceded to those rights by which
they proudly think to overrule the deliberations
of clergymen?—why, to the votes of clergymen.
The vote of such an unrestricted supremacy to
the right of patronage wras not extorted from us
by any legal necessity, but was the fruit of our
own voluntary deliberations; and the good of the
Church was or ought to have been the principle
which influenced them. Other views of the good
of the Church may again lead to other conclusions.
And, in the exercise of her undoubted right to
sustain or to refuse, upon ecclesiastical grounds,
any presentation that is offered, we may again
come to regard, as of old, the acceptable talents
233
of the presentee, and the number of signatures
to his call, and the station or character of those
who have thus testified their concurrence in his
appointment, to be just as essential elements of
the question before us, as either his moral or lite-
rary qualifications.
It is on these principles that there are not a few
of the clergy who cleave to the Establishment, in
spite of all the partial corruptions that Sectarianism
has alleged against her. They see in the bosom
of their own church an open avenue to every de-
sirable reformation. They honestly believe that
there is not a better range of Christian usefulness
to be found, over the whole face of the country,
than within her walls—and that a man of prin-
ciple and zeal, when backed by the independence
which she confers, and shielded about by the am-
plitude of her securities and her power, stands on
the highest of all vantage ground, for the work of
honest and faithful ministrations. They trust that
she is the destined instrument for the preservation
and the revival of Christianity in our land—and
would tremble for her overthrow, as the severest
blow that, in this quarter of the island, could be
inflicted on the cause of the gospel. And when
either patrons or people are in the wrong, let us
never see the day when the cause shall be commit-
ted to any but to those whom the wisdom of the
country has raised above the temptations of depen-
dence; and who can clear their unlaultering way,
alike unmoved by the smile of grandeur, or by
the frown of a sometimes deluded population.
2e
234
But we forget that, after all, it will not be pri-
marily by any triumph gotten on the field of pub-
lic controversy, that an accommodation will at
length be brought about between the measures of
the patrons and the wishes of the people. Ere the
majority of our Church be desirous of such an ac-
commodation, there must be a great revolution of
sentiment among them, about the deference that
is due to the popular understanding; and this will
imply a similar revolution among men of power
and intelligence, in the country at large. Should
it come at length to be a general recognition with
the clergy, that, bating a few excrescencies, po-
pular Christianity is indeed the Christianity of the
New Testament, and the only system of doctrine
which can either regenerate the people for heaven-
or reform them into the sober and patriotic vir-
tues of the present world—this will also be a gen-
eral recognition with the reading and reflecting
classes of the community. And thus it will not
be upon an arena of litigation that the vox populi
will struggle its way to that ascendency which, in
matters of religion, we conceive to be altogether
due to it. It will arrive more surely and more pa-
cifically at this result, by the silent progress of a
common and harmonising sentiment among those
various classes who wont to set themselves in bat-
tle array, and debate their conflicting pretensions,
with all the keenness which opposite views and
opposite interests could inspire. Patrons will come
at length to see that the most acceptable offering
at the shrine of popularity is also the best offer-
235
ing at the shrine of patriotism: and government
will not fail, in time, to understand that the
quick and sensitive tact of the people, in theology,
to which so litde indulgence has hitherto been
given, so far from being, in any degree, allied to
that appetite for disturbance which endangers a
nation, is, in fact, the longing of man's diseased
moral nature for that doctrine which brings, in its
train, the righteousness that exalteth a nation.
With the great majority of dissenters, the ap-
pointment of ministers is by popular election. The
right of suffrage is more or less extended, how-
ever, being sometimes vested in the sitters of a
congregation; at other times, restricted to the
members of it, or those who have been admitted
to the ordinances; and, in no small number of
instances, being exclusively in the hands of pro-
prietors, or trustees, who own the chapel, and bind
themselves to defray, from the proceeds of it, all
the expenses of the concern.
We do not hold the last of these arrangements
to be different, in point of effect, from either of
the two former. It affords, no doubt, the exam-
ple of a patronage shared among so many indivi-
duals, but still of a patronage controlled by the
hearers, and in a state of dependence on the po-
pular will. It is the obvious and direct interest
of the electors to fix on the man who, by his ta-
lents and doctrine, shall secure a full attendance
upon his ministrations; and so secure, at least, a
sufficient rental for meeting all the engagements.
236
This state ot things is tantamount to a right of
patronage vested in the few, with the power of a
veto on each nomination vested in the many—a
power which will be exercised on each successive
appointment, till that one individual is brought
forward, in whom the patronage and the populari-
ty come to an adjustment with each other. This,
perhaps, is a simpler and better process for arriv-
ing at the result of an acceptable minister, than
where the power of originating each his own can-
didate is spread over the whole multitude, and
the proceedings may come at length to be marked
with the turmoil and confusion that often attend
the business of a large popular assembly. And
we apprehend, that with a patronage under this
kind of influence, the business of each appoint-
ment may not only be conducted in a style of
greater smoothness and facility; but that as zeal-
ous, and able, and faithful ministers would be pro-
vided, as under a constitution of things where each
individual sitter had a direct and personal share in
the positive nomination.
And after all, it must often happen that, even
under the most democratic economy of a congre-
gation, the minister virtually obtains his office by
the appointment of the few, and only with the ac-
quiescence of the many. In every assemblage of
human beings, this is the method by which all
their proceedings are really carried forward. The
ascendency of worth, or talent, or station, or some
other natural influence, is ever sure to vest the
flower of originating in the few, and to leave no-
237
thing with the many but the power of a veto;
nay, even, n many instances, to disarm them of
that power. The work of choosing their minister,
in a dissenting congregation, is, we doubt not, in
the great majority of instances, most wisely and
most peaceably conducted. But, on looking to
principles as well as to forms, we have as little
doubt that, in very many instances, the appoint-
ment is the result of a harmonized meeting beween
what may be called a virtual deed of patronage,
on the one hand, and the power of a negative, on
the other. And, amid all the sturdy opposition
there is to the Church, on the score of what has
been felt, as the most corrupt and pernicious of
her grievances, it is curious to observe how the
method of proceeding, even under the most popu-
lar constitutions of a chapel, resolves itself effectu-
ally into a modified patronage.
And there are many ways in which the Estab-
lishment may be in circumstances of as great ad-
vantage as dissenterism, for having her Church
patronage so modified, as that the popular voice
shall have its right degree of ascendency, in the
appointment of ministers. Whensoever the hold-
ers of patronage shall come to appreciate aright
the character and tendencies of the evangelical
system, this of itself will answer all the purposes
of a modified patronage. And whensoever the
Church shall resume the exercise of the authority
which belongs to her, of giving effect to the ex-
pression of the popular will, on every individual
Domination, this will re-instate that negative, in
238
all its force, which would restrain patronage, as
far as we hold it to be desirable. And, in all
cases where the revenue from seat-rents is of im-
portance to the patron, as in great towns, this
forms a strong security for the popular exercise of
the right. And, as in the building of new churches,
it is revenue derived from this source which fur-
nishes the means for the endowment of them, we
cannot extend the Establishment, without extend-
ing the cause of popular Christianity, by adding
to the number of instances in which we shall have
an accommodation between the choice of the pa-
trons and the wishes of the people.
Upon this last circumstance, indeed, we hold
ourselves entitled to found the following observa-
tion. Let the patronage of the existing Churches
in our Establishment be as corrupt as it may, every
additional Church that is built and endowed, on
the produce of its seat-rents, has, by its very con-
stitution, a security for the right and popular ex-
ercise of its patronage. However the right of no-
mination may be vested, there is a virtual control
with the hearers, which will necessitate the pa-
trons towards acceptable and evangelical clergy-
men. Whatever disadvantages may be alleged
on the side of the Establishment, when brought
into comparison with the Dissent, in respect of the
state of its patronage, they vanish altogether, in
reference to new erections; and, standing upon
equal ground, in this one particular, the only re-
maining question is, Which of the two is most fit-
ted to overtake the necessities of our unprovided
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240
Still, it is well for a country that dissenters do
their uttermost. They are right to extend their
interest and their ascendency as far as they can;
and to make as deep an impression on the out-
cast and alienated mass of our population as pos-
sible. The very jealousy that they awaken among
the fiery and alarmed bigots of our Establishment
is, of itself, a salutary principle. And we doubt
not that, to the good of their own direct exertions,
they have added a most important contribution to
the cause of Christianity, by the wholesome re-ac-
tion to which, through them, the Church has
been stimulated. It is our part to rejoice that
Christ has been more preached in the Church,
by their means, even though, in some instances,
it may have been of contention. They have
poured a fresh zeal into the bosom of our Estab-
lishment, and done something to guide and to
purify the exercise of its patronage. It were well,
if, in every portion of the land, they could sup-
plement all that is corrupt or defective in our na-
tional churches. Could such an arm of intole-
or tolerated conventicles (as they will call them), they have raore than half
overcome it, and will not doubt to use it next as they do in France, and by
one turn more to cast it out. The countenance of authority will go far with
the vulgar against all the scruples that men of conscience stick at, and they
will mostly go to the allowed churches, whoever is there. Let us, therefore,
lose no possession that we can justly get, nor be guilty of disgracing the
honest Conformists, but do all we can to keep up their reputation for the
good of souls. They see not matters of difference through the same glass
that we do. They think us unwarrantably scrupulous. We think the mat-
ter of their sins to be very great. But we know that before God the degree
of guilt is much according to the degree of men's negligence or unwilling-
ness to know the truth, or to obey it. And prejudice, education, and con-
verse, maketh great difference on men's apprehensions. Charity must not
reconcile us to sin, but there is no end of uncharitable censuring each
other."
241
ranee be lifted up, in any country, as to crush
the energy of non-conformists, that would be the
country where the purest Establishment on earth
were sure to languish into indolence, or to gather
upon it the mould of spiritual decay. And, there-
fore it is, that we hold the best ecclesiastical sys-
tem for a kingdom, to be a publicly endowed
Church, on the one hand, keeping pace, in its
extent, with the growth of the population; and
an altogether free, unshackled dissenterism, on the
other, without one civil disability, or one stigma
of degradation, however light and lenient it may
be, affixed to the profession of it.
And, we have only one word more to our poli-
tical rulers upon this subject. We are most tho-
roughly aware of the association that obtains in
the minds of many of them between dissent and
democracy; and that, under this feeling, they not
only look with a hard and suspicious eye upon non-
conformity, but would resist every assimilation to
any of its features, on the part of the Establish-
ment. The evidences are innumerable, that the
association is, in the main, unfounded. Among
others we appeal to the charges issued in Novem-
ber, 1819, by the Methodist body, against politi-
cal disaffection, when Radicalism was at its height;
and to the known fact, that individuals were ex-
cluded from the membership of their churches,
for the single offence of attending the meetings
of the seditious. But the most satisfactory proof
of all, and one that comes immediately under the
eye of our statesmen, is that, which may be ob-
2f
242
tained from an investigation into the habit and
condition of those who are apprehended for sedi-
tious practices. We understand that, about three
years ago, when such apprehensions were nume-
rous, there was not among them the case of one
individual, who was a member of any of the great
dissenting bodies in our kingdom. And it will
be found, we venture to say, in every season of
political alarm, when such apprehensions are
called for, that, with a very few exceptions, in-
deed, neither the guilt of disaffection, nor even
the suspicion of it, has brought down this kind of
visitation at least on a regular member of any of
the evangelical denominations of Christianity.
The great majority, in fact, belong to those out-
casts from the word and ordinances, who associ-
ate themselves with no body of worshippers at all;
and the question comes to be, Why were they not
to be met with in the empty churches of the Es-
tablishment? This matter suggests whole volumes
of argument and reproof to statesmen. And it
is right that they should know the real origin of
those troubles which most embarrass them. It
does not lie with dissenters, who are innocent of
it all; but it lies with their own careless and cor-
rupt patronage. Were the Church of England
rightly extended and rightly patronised, there
would be neither sedition nor ^plebeian infidelity
in the land. And thus, in the eye of one who
connects an ultimate effect with its real though
unseen cause, the whole host of Radicalism may
have been summoned into being by the very Go-
243
vernment that sent forth her forces to destroy it;
and fierce ministerial clergymen, though they
mean not so, may, each from his own parish,
have contributed his quota to this mass of disaf-
fection; and, ascending from the men of subal-
tern influence, that Bishop, whose measures have
alienated from the Church the whole popular feel-
ing of his diocese, instead of a captain of fifties,
may virtually though unwittingly be a captain of
thousands, in the camp of that very rebellion
which would sweep, did it triumph, the existence
of his order from the kingdom; and, to complete
the picture of this sore and infatuating blindness,
iftherebeone individual in the Cabinet, whose
pernicious ascendency it is, that has diverted away
the patronage of the Crown from the only men
who can Christianise and conciliate the people, he,
in all moral and substantial estimation, is the ge-
neralissimo in this treasonable warfare against the
rights and the prerogatives of the monarchy.
But we believe that, in the majority of instanc-
es, they are the city rulers, who are the patrons
of city churches; and the post they fill is, there-
fore, one of great responsibility for the well-being
of the empire. It is under them that there exists
the most fearful deficiency in the means of reli-
gious instruction; and it is, of course, throughout
the mighty hosts over which they preside, that
violence, and profligacy, and all the elements of
moral and political mischief are ever sure to be
most copiously engendered. They have thepow-
244
er, however, of counteraction in their own hands;
and were their eyes once opened to the influence
of locality, when combined with a reduction in
the size of parishes, and a pure exercise of patron-
age, they could not fail to perceive that, under a
steady and well-principled course of management,
the neglected myriads of a city might come, at
length, to change the ferocity of their aspect for
the moral and pacific cast of a country population.
There is the very same nature on which to operate
with both; and there is not one district, however
wild and outlandish at present, and though teem-
ing with families in the coarsest style of dissipated
and worthless plebeianism, that would not experi-
ence a speedy transformation, were certain prac-
ticable facilities opened for admitting them to the
church of a laborious minister, on the Sabbath,
and securing for them, through the week, the
unwearied and ever-plying attentions of the same
individual. When he once found his way to a re-
siding eldership, he would find himself elevated to
a tenfold ascendency over them; and without ro-
mantic effort (for if this were requisite, the whole
were fruitless Utopianism) might he bring his
densely peopled vineyard under all the blandness
of a village economy. They are the principle of
locality which has been so little adverted to, and
the preference of the parishioners to tli2 sittings
of their own church which is still so provokingly
disregarded by our administrators, and the mo-
derate extent of parishes which may at length be
attained by terms of liberal encouragement held
245
out to the subscribers for new churches, on the
part of magistrates—these are the simple elements
out of which a sufficient mechanism maybe reared
for regenerating even the most unwieldy metropo-
lis; and, lastly, to animate this mechanism with
a right spirit and principle of vitality, let our city
patrons be no longer disdainful of conceding their
favours to the expression of the popular will; and,
on the side of religious honesty, as it in general is,
will it almost always be sure to direct their regards
to the most zealous and devoted labourers.
We have already said enough of locality and pa-
tronage, and the preference for seats to parish-
ioners; but, on the topic of lessening the extent
of parishes, by new erections, we would again re-
cur to the example at Liverpool, as a proof how
much may be done, without putting to hazard the
funds of the corporation. If, for the encourage-
ment of private adventurers, magistrates will not
allow a perpetual right of patronage, they may,
at least, allow that right for a certain term of
years, or for a certain number of successive no-
minations. In this way, without expense to the
town, may they obtain an immediate extension of
churches, and an ultimate extension of their own
patronage. It is not to be expected that sub-
scribers will pay for the erection and endowment
of a new church, if others are forthwith to patro-
nise it. But should they be permitted to hold,
for a time at least, in their own hands, a security
for popular appointments, they would not only feel
themselves prompted to this enterprise of benevo-
246
lence, by a hope of indemnification from the seat-
rents, but also by the hope of a fulfilment to their
own wishes, in the increase of useful and accept-
able clergy. If one individual has done so much
in Liverpool, what may not be expected from the
efforts of a great Christian public, in the cause?
And we are not aware of any expedient, by which
so speedy and effectual an enlargement of church ac-
commodation, in populous towns, can be arrived at.
And there is one circumstance which may dis-
hearten this process, at the outset, and which it
were, therefore, well to understand and be pre-
pared for. The people of every new parish should
have the preference for seats in their own church.
But there Mall generally be a disappointment, if it
be thought that this preference is to be extensive-
ly taken. The truth is, that the great object of
extending the church accommodation in cities is,
not to meet the demand that already exists, but
to create a taste and a habit which have now fallen
into desuetude. It is altogether a reclaiming pro-
cess; and more for the inspiration of a right ap-
petite that is not yet felt, than for the gratification
of one which is already astir, and in quest of in-
struction. It is, therefore, very possible that, at
the outset, there may be a very meagre demand
for the sittings of the new fabric, in the appro-
priate district itself; in which case, after the pre-
ference has been held out for a sufficient length
of time, the competition should be thrown open to
the inhabitants of the town at large. And here
lie the charm and the might of locality—that the
247
minister, by concentrating his attention upon the
families that reside in it, will soon stir up a re-ac-
tion among them towards the place of his Sabbath
ministrations; and he will excite a growing de-
mand for seats that will soon press hard upon the
vacancies which occur; and, by the simple regu-
lation of continuing the rule of preference to the
parishioners for these vacancies, a parochial will
come, in the course of years, to be substituted for
a general congregation; and, triumph enough for
one incumbency, will the people of a given geo-
graphical section of a town, at one time alienated
from Christianity and all its ordinances, be trans-
lated into the general habit of church-going; and,
trained to the recognitions and the regularities of
a country parish, will it be found that they are
capable of exemplifying all its virtues, and of ex-
hibiting the same aspect of kindliness and sobriety,
which many think can only be kept inviolate in
the more retired provinces of our empire.
With plain fabrics, and moderately endowed, a
most useful class of evangelical labourers may be
had, and on such seat-rents as could be afforded
by the great bulk of the people. Indeed, in all
the new churches, the utmost economy should be
observed, else the system will never be carried
forward to a right or adequate degree of exten-
sion. If our city rulers shall ever propose, in
good earnest, to have an ecclesiastical apparatus,
at all commensurate to their population, they must
bethink themselves of churches altogether secon-
dary to the present ones, both in architectural
248
\
splendour and in the salaries of clergymen. It is
right that a certain number of the livings should
be upheld in such a degree of superiority, as to
hold out an allurement to men of professional emi-
nence, from all parts of the country. But should it
be reckoned necessary, so to hold up all the livings,
then this were an impracticable barrier in the way
of multiplying the parishes. And, therefore, the
best arrangement for a town that has only ten
churches, and would need thirty, is, in supple-
menting the deficiency, to descend from spires to
belfries, and, besides observing the utmost simpli-
city in the buildings, to assign such an income to
the clergyman, as that the whole expenses, both
of the erection and endowment, may, as nearly as
possible, be met by the proceeds of the atten-
dance. This would give confidence, and call forth
a much more productive effort, in the way of pri-
vate subscription for the cause, or even enable
magistrates to take the cause into^their own hands.
But, in every possible way, it is a cause which
ought to be carried forward: and those are the
most patriotic and enlightened rulers, who, laying
aside the prejudices which have hitherto kept po-
pularity and patronage at so heartless a distance
from each other, shall now give their promptitude
to the great object of so multiplying churches, as
to meet the necessities of the people, and of so
appointing churches, as to draw them to a willing
attendance on the ministrations of Christianity.
249
CHAP. VIL
ON CHURCH OFFICES.
By the constitution of the Church of Scotland, it
is provided that, in each parish, there shall be, at
least, one minister, whose office it is to preach
and dispense the ordinances of Christianity, on the
Sabbath, and to labour in holy things among the
people, through the week; and elders, whose of-
fice it is to assist at the dispensation of sacra-
ments, to be the bearers of religious advice and
comfort among the families, and, in general, to
act purely as ecclesiastical labourers for the good
of human souls; and, lastly, deacons, to whom it
belongs, not to preach the word, or administer the
sacraments, but to take special care in administer-
ing to the necessities of the poor.*
In the course of time, the last of these three
offices has fallen into very general desuetude.
The duties of it have been transferred to the el-
dership, the members of which body have thus
been vested with a plurality of cares; it being
both their part to labour in matters connected
with the religious good of the people, and to share
in the administration of those funds which the law
* See the Form of Church Government, agreed upon in the Assembly
of Westminster Divines, and ratified afterwards by an act of the General
Assembly, in the year 1645.
K
250
or custom of the country has provided for meeting
the demands of its pauperism.
The moral effect upon the people of such a con-
junction as this seems very much to have escaped
observation. And, indeed, it is only under cer-
tain rare and peculiar circumstances, where this
effect is very broadly or very strikingly exempli-
fied. The truth is, that, in the great majority of
our Scottish parishes, the sum expended on pau-
perism is raised by voluntary collection, and still
maintains the character of a ministration of kind-
ness. It is, besides, so very small in amount, as
not to have come very sensibly or extensively in-
to contact with the lower orders of society, who,
in those parts of the country where the method of
legal assessments for the poor has not been estab-
lished, still retain the veteran hardihood and inde-
pendence of their forefathers, and among whom
the condition of known and public dependence is
still regarded in the light of a family misfortune,
or a family degradation.
It is not, therefore, in such Scottish parishes as
these where we can see to greatest advantage the
effect of such a combination of duties as that
which we have now adverted to. Neither are we
sure that any very decisive exhibition of this ef-
fect is to be met with, in the whole of England.
There, it is true, the funds for pauperism are en-
ormous, and they are spread in distribution over
a very large proportion of the labouring classes in
that country. But we are ignorant whether the
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252
tinge—and, what makes it still worse, is spread-
ing itself over so many of our families as to
threaten a bad impression on the general habit
and character of our population. The people, at
large, are becoming more closely associated with
pauperism; and pauperism itself is fast transform-
ing from its olden aspect of kind and gentle hu-
manity, and putting on a countenance of grim
attorneyship. Meanwhile, there has not been a
sufficient corresponding change in the old bodies
of administration; and thus both ministers and
elders, whose joint office it is to woo the people
to Christianity, have, in many of our larger towns,
been implicated in a most unseemly warfare with
them, on another ground altogether. It is in
such transition parishes as these, from an old to
a new system of things, that the phenomenon in
question is in its best possible state for observa-
tion; and where we may catch such an evolution
of our nature as shall not only serve to demon-
strate a present evil, but as shall also bring out to
view those general principles on which the chari-
ties of human intercourse ought to be conduct-
ed.
Conceive, then, an individual to be associated
with a district in the joint capacity of elder and
deacon, and that, at the same time, its pauperism
has attained such a magnitude, and such an estab-
lishment, as to have addressed itself to the desires
and the expectations of a large proportion of the
families. The argument must suppose him to be
253
equally intent on the duties of each office, with-
out which there is a defect of right and honest
principle, on his part, and this of itself is a mis-
chievous thing, though no exception whatever
could be alleged against the combination of these
two offices. It will, therefore, serve better to ex-
pose the evils of this combination, to figure to
ourselves a man of zeal and conscientiousness, on
whom the burden of both offices has been laid,
and who is uprightly desirous of fulfilling the du-
ties of both. There are many who are but elders
in name, while deacons alone and deacons altoge-
ther in practice and performance; and this, of it-
self, 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 make it ap-
pear 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 individual, on whom duties of a character
so heterogeneous have been devolved, to move
through the district assigned to him, without scat-
tering among its people the elements of moral
deterioration.
He goes forth among them as an elder, when
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qoupv Xq S}ii9ip9dx9 puusnoip v cp99pui c9Ji3 9J9qjL
•U9jp{itp jpip jo uopi?onp9 9ip jo 93inJziuSoo
9qu; o; jo 's99iretupjo s;i oi uopu9:pT? jpip pii9ui
-IU099J o; jo 'Xjurepsijq3 jo pofqns 9ip no uiatp
ss9jppu o; jo £ui9ip ipiAv A'^jd o; q^JOj S9oS 9q
997,
uiuS u 9^111 oijAv 9soq) jo Asuoodiq aip Supunou
-9p )SOUU9)')U xClOA 01}.) 0} A)LVUqO 110 99U9pU9d
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-i)iud in '[ni'j iuq) puu <jood 9q) jo s}uuay yujod
-ui9) 9ip o; 8uu9)$iuuu jo 90iijo oq) uSis9i Xjpno)
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•q)iu^ jo gouonijui 9Jiid 9q) )smuSu )iu9q 9i[)
su9>]iup puu s)nqs suorpoiju oq) jo 9)u)s pgpiAip
V tpiqAV III A'UAV 9I[) JO pUU <SI9)SUIU OAV) SllIAJ9S
jo A)qiqissoduu 9q) jo 9aiS ,{9q) s)U9iuoounou
-UU 91]) UT pilU 9A9 JO SS9U9]SuiS 110 HIOI]). Aq piU]
si )uq:) ss9j)s 9q) in 'StnsraupsuiQ jo >[ioay 9]oi]ay
xpq; ^uoqSnoiq) <S9psody siq puu JtioiAug oq)
£q P9DUIA9 9Jll}UIl JUO III )U9IUUJ99Sip piJJ9pilOAV
v si aioqx •uoi)u.i)siiuiupu pimodraoo 9110 in )oof
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pOXIIII 9JU ppiOAV J9l])0UU JOJ UOIJUIudoid JO SI10SS9]
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si ipiqAV i^iuoq aiR J° ^suoocLCq 9q) 'soisuoodAq
]]u jo 9[)qns )soiu )uq) o) )U9iii9Sujnooii9 }no Sen
"PI0LIJ° 9JUAV9q o) A]suonu9J)s ;soiu puu—)ii9iuqu
j9doid iiAVo s^i jo q^gu9j)s 91]) uo piuAUoj cqSuuq
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ipUO; 91]} IIIOJJ )I pil9J9p 0%. 9[SuiS }I d99^[ 0} |[9A\ St
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-D9JJU }U30SUU AuU 9q 9J9I[) JI '11191]) 0}UJOTJ9)9p
256
of godliness, 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 a vain attempt to amalgamate Christian-
ity with the desires of any 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 dignified patronage. We are
not pleading, 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 greatest
possible efficacy to their Christian labours. We
are for delivering the people from the play and
the perplexity of two affections, which cannot
work together, contemporaneously at least, in the
same bosom. On the principle that there is a
time for every thing, we should like a visit from
an elder to be the time when Christianity shall
have a separate and unrivalled place in the atten-
tion of those with whom, for the moment, he is
holding intercourse; and that when the impres-
sion of things sacred might be growing and gath-
ering strength from his conversation, there shall
not be so ready and palpable an inlet as there is
257
at present, 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 deacon-
ship: 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 right-
ly 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 his district
at heart, and what a bounty he carries around
with him on thevvorst krad of dissimulation! Like
arsenic, where neither of the ingredients taken
singly is poisonous, and which assumes all its vi.
rulence from the composition of them, what a
power of insidious but most fatal corruption lies in
the mere junction of these two offices! 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 bet-
ter 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 dis-
charge of both, and what a sickening duplicity of
reception he is exposed to! What a mortifying in-
difference 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 evi.
dent, how mortifyingiy evident, often, is the total
258
absence of all feeling and desire upon the subject,
from the hearts of these wily politicians! How of-
ten, 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—it 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 better things, to adulterate and
debase it—it is this which sheds a kind of wither-
ing blight over all the ministrations of the plural-
ist, and must convince every enlightened observ-
er, that, till he gets rid of the many elements of
temptation which are in his hands, he will never
expatiate, either with Christian comfort, or with
Christian effect, among the population.
And here we may remark another argument
against this plurality, which ought to address it-
self 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 be no great harm done by putting this admi-
nistration into the hands of an eldership, so long
as the money is raised in the shape of a free-will
259
offering from the giver, and it is made to descend
in the shape of unconstrained 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 com-
pulsory 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
defensive 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 de-
fence against the weight and urgency of applica-
tions that are sure to be .engendered 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 un-
seemly 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 character-
ise our eldership; whose proper business it is to
officiate anions sacraments, and to exert a Chris-
260
tian superintendence 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 administered. It is to be ascribed sim-
ply to the absence of a compulsory provision; and
it will be found that, after this is introduced, then,
so soon as it is fully understood and acted on, all
that is ecclesiastical, in our courts of administra-
tion, so far from being a safeguard to the indepen-
dence of our people, will, in fact, smooth, and
widen, and encourage, their transition to pauperism.
Scotland has not yet had time to overtake England,
in the amount of her expenditure. But it will be
found that, in the great majority of those parishes
where a compulsory provision for the poor has
been established, she is moving onward, at a faster
rate of acceleration. The pauperism of Manches-
ter is still greater, in its present amount, than that
of Glasgow. But the proportional increase in
Glasgow, during the last twenty years, is very
greatly beyond that in Manchester.*
* It grieves us to remark, here, that there have lately sprung up, in Scot-
land, some strenuous advocates for a legal and compulsory provision, and
that, on the ground of a few isolated cases, where there has been no increase
of expenditure consequent on the introduction of this method into some of
our Scottish parishes. The habit of the people may certainly survive the per-
nicious influence of this system for perhaps half a generation. It is certain..
ly not all at once that a national spirit, or a national habit, can be overthrown.
But it will at length give way to the force of new institutions; and it must
261
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 character-
istic of deaconship—firm of 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
the people at bay by his resistance to them, on the
ground of his lower, and, at the same time, draw-
ing their regard, on the ground of his better and
higher ministrations. He will find it utterly im-
possible to find access for the lessons of Christian-
ity, into hearts soured against himself, and, per-
haps, 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 vested with a religious superintendence over
the people, has become the most unlikely for gain-
ing a religious influence over them—and all his
wonted powers of usefulness, now worse than neu-
tralised, have, by the positive dislike that has been
turned against him, been sunk far beneath the le-
vel of any private or ordinary individual. There
for ever be regretted, if the wholesale experience of England, together with
Miat of the vast majority of those Scottish parishes where the English prac-
tice has been admitted, shall not countervail the argumentations of certain
able men, on a subject in which their powers of logic have certainly far out-
stripped their powers of observation.
262
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 spiritually
good, with another office, where he has to war
against the people, on the subject of their tempo-
ralities. There may, at one time, have been a
compatibility between these two functions, under
the cheap economy of the old Scottish pauperism;
but it is all put to flight by the shock which takes
place between the rapacity of the one party and
the resistance of the other, under a system of Eng-
lish pauperism. The people will listen with dis-
dain, or with shrewd and significant contempt, to
the Christian conversation of that elder who stands
confronted against them, on the ground of his dea-
conship: and they wilj expect an easy unresisting
compliance with all < their demands from that dea-
con who has plied them with the affectionate
counsels of Christianity, on the ground of his el.
dership. They will dexterously work the desirous-
ness that he must feel, in the one of these capaci-
ties, 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 un-
der the pressure of alleged difficulties that he will
do nothing to relieve. He, in the meantime, will
perceive that, unless he complies with the de-
mand* he can find no acceptance; and that, though
he should comply, acceptance gained through the
medium of bribery will lead to no pure or desir-
263
able influence on the character of the population.
In this unfortunate contest, each will, in all likeli-
hood, believe the other to be a hypocritej the one
.ncurring this suspicion because of the way in
which the legal hardihood of the deacon stands in
iwkward and unseemly conjunction 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 paralysed into
utter helplessness: and never was public function-
ary more cruelly hampered than by this associa-
tion of duties, which are altogether so discordant.
There is no place for the still small voice of Chris-
tian friendship, in such an atmosphere of recrimi-
nation, 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 ascendency they once had over our
population. It is ever to be regretted that such a
ministration as this should have been inserted be-
tween the two parties. No subtle or Satanic ad-
versary 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
264
of men, who have contributed so much to build
up and sustain our national character, will be as
good as swept away from the land.
And the clergy themselves have received a vitiat-
ing taint from this pernicious innovation. They too
have been implicated among the stout legalities of
a business, now turned from an affair of the heart
to an affair of points and precedents, where every
question must be determined with rigour, and
every determination be persisted in, with uncom-
plying hardihood. The minister feels himself
translated into a new and strange relationship with
his people, and is in inextricable difficulties about
the character he should assume; for whether he
moves in the style of an affectionate pastor, or puts
on the stern countenance amongst them of a liti-
gant with their claims, corruption will be sure to
attend upon his footsteps; and he will either call
forth the fawning hypocrisy of expectants, on the
one hand, or be met, in soreness and sullenness of
spirit, by the disappointed candidates for parochi-
al aliment, on the other.
In the late ferments of the popular mind which
took place at Glasgow, one of the earliest move-
ments was a combined application to each of the
kirk-sessions, for an extension of the system of
parochial aid. Whether the refusal of this was
the pretext, or the principle, of the disturbances
that followed, it ought at least to be quite palp-
able that our ecclesiastical courts ought never to
be involved in the whirl of any such political agi-
265
tationsj and we have reason to believe that, from
the Church having been implicated to such a de-
gree, in what was once a charitable, but is now
regarded as a legal ministration, there has a ran-
corous infidelity been spreading among the people
—a contempt for religion itself mingling with all
the odium and irritation that have been incurred
by its ministers.
There are two ways of decomposing this mis-
chief. There may be a reversion to the old sys-
tem of Scottish pauperism, so that its expenses
shall be wholly defrayed, as before, by voluntary
collections, and it shall regain the character of a
purely ecclesiastical ministration. We believe
this to be practicable, and that too with a speed
and a facility of which no adequate impression
can be given by argument. This is a subject in
which the result of experience, upon actual trial,
will far outstrip the anticipations even of the most
sanguine economist. If the existing cases of pau-
perism are suffered to die out, on the legal fund
raised by assessment, and the new applications
are met by the gratuitous fund gathered at the
church doors—the former fund would, in a few
years, be left unburdened, and be no longer call-
ed for; and the latter fund be found, in every
way, as adequate to the then existing demand
for relief, as the whole of the present revenue,
both legal and gratuitous, is to the present de-
mand. It were interfering with a future part of
our argument, were we to enter now into the
M
266
question, why it is that a happier state of things,
and a more diffused comfort and sufficiency among
our people will follow upon the reduction, or
even the total abolition of public charity, for the
relief of indigence, than can ever be brought
about, either by its most skilful or its most abun-
dant ministrations? But, in the meantime, let
the thing be tried, instead of argued; let separate
parishes just throw themselves fearlessly on an ex-
periment which, to many an eye, looks so hazar-
dous; let the excess of their actual pauperism
over their present collections be taken off, and
provided for out of the sum raised by assessments;
and let all future cases be attempted, at least, up-
on the produce of future collections:—and ere
one year has rolled over this new system of tilings,
there are many of our public and practical men,
who have resisted to the uttermost all theoretical
conviction upon the subject, that will, if they
simply engage in the matter with their own hands,
be sure to work their way to a most firm experi-
mental conviction about it. Should this plan be
entered upon, we would feel less earnest about
the separation of our eldership from the wor> ->f
public charity. There would still, it is true, af-
ter the abridgment had taken place, in the extent
of its operation, be a remainder of the mischief
that we have attempted to expose; but far more
innocent, in point of effect, just because far more
insignificant than before, in point of magnitude.
Perhaps, however, a deaconship might be of tern-
267
porary use, in helping to conduct the pauperism
back again to its original state. It would, in the
meantime, relieve the eldership of all apprehen-
sion of personal fatigue and difficulty to them-
selves, while the experiment was going forward.
It would extend that most desirable of all opera-
tions—a frequent intercourse between the lower
and higher orders of the community. By this
widening of the public agency, too, there would,
at least, be a widening of the amount of practical
observation, on a matter that is grossly misunder-
stood by many reasoners and declaimers, and that
requires only the light of a close and familiar ex-
perience to be thrown upon it. We may, after-
wards, attempt to bring forward the reasons, why
a deaconship, however good as a temporary expe-
dient, need not be insisted on as a part of the per-
manent or essentia] machinery of any parish;
however important their services may be, through-
out the whole period of transition, from the pre-
sent corrupt and modernised system of pauper-
ism, in our large towns, back again to the old
and healthful economy of our Scottish parishes.
But should this plan not be adopted, it were
greatly better that the Church should be altogether
dissevered from the ministrations of public charity.
We shall never cease to regret the introduction
of a legal spirit into the work of human benevo-
lence; and to regard the establishment of a com-
pulsory provision for the poor as one of the worst
invasions ever made on the olden habit of our
268
country, and as one of the deadliest obstacles to its
moral regeneration. But if this curse is to be
perpetuated upon our land, let elders and deacons
and all who hold any ecclesiastical character
amongst us, cease, from this moment, to be impli-
cated in a business so mischievous. It is quite
enough that, in their strict official employment,
of sustaining the principle and character of the
country, they have the whole adverse influence
of this vitiating dispensation to contend with.
But, in the name of all Christian and all political
wisdom, let not such a dispensation be put into
their hands; nor let these labourers in the cause
of Scotland's piety and Scotland's worth be
charged with any distribution of a quality so poi-
sonous, and, at the same time, so alluring, that
they can neither withhold it, without alienating
many hearts from them, nor spread it freely
around, without insinuating corruption into these
hearts, and scattering the seeds of a great and
pernicious distemper over the land.
It is our confident expectation, however, that
our towns will take the better way of it, and re-
duce then separate parishes to the economy from
which they have departed. In this case, there
will be a gradual diminution of the evil to which
our eldership is, at present, so much exposed.
Of if, to aid the process, an order of deacons
shall be instituted, then the members of the
former body, relieved altogether from the public
charge of the poor, may be left free to expatiate
269
among the people purely as their Christian friends,
and with the single object of promoting the spirit
and the observations of the gospel among their
families.
TV hen the work of an elder is thus disembarass-
ed from" the elements by which it w-as before vi-
tiated, he will feel a sad burden of perplexity and
discomfort cleared away. He may, at times, be
received with distaste, by families that would
have welcomed him, on the ground of his secular
ministrations. But surely it is better that there
be a distinctly visible hue of demarcation between
these families, and those which still receive him
with cordiality on a higher ground, and about
the principle of whose cordiality, therefore, there
can be no mistake and no misinterpretation. He
who has felt the delight of genuine Christian in-
tercourse with the poor, will feel all the charm of
a deliverance, when the sordid and the sacred are
thus separated the one from the other; and he,
freed from the suspicions which, at one time, har-
assed and distressed him, can now expatiate, at
least over a certain portion of the territory, with
the animating thought that so many doors and so
many hearts are open to him; and that, on the
single score of such religious or such respectful
attentions as he may be disposed to render to the
population. He will feel himself as if elevated
into a more etherial region, when borne in plea-
santness along on the pure play of such feelings
and such friendships as are called forth by simple
270
goodness, on the one side, and that simple grati-
tude, on the other, which is ever sure to be at-
tracted by goodness, even when it has no gift to
bestow. In truth, the very purity of such a min-
istration adds prodigiously both to the pleasure
and to the power of it: and, whereas no cheering
inference could be drawn from the extended ac-
ceptance of an elder among the people, so long
as he stood charged with the elements of a beg-
garly dispensation—should that charge be given
up, we shall then, from every additional house,
where he is hailed as the acquaintance and the
respectable friend of the inmates, be able to infer
the authentic progress of a right and peaceful in-
fluence among our families.
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 capabilities 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 ra-
pacity is whetted by the imagination of a great
collective treasure, at the disposal of this indivi-
dual. An elder who is implicated with pauper-
ism, 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 among the people. But
271
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 reli-
gious spirit of the district, or to promote its edu-
cation—and he may, every day of his life, walk
over the whole length and breadth of his territo-
ry, without meeting with any demand that is at
all unmanageable, or that needs to alarm him.
The truth is, that there is a far greater sufficiency
among the lower classes of society than is gener-
ally imagined; and our first impressions of their
want and wretchedness are generally by much
too aggravated; nor do we know a more effectual
method of reducing these impressions than to cul-
tivate a closer acquaintance with their resources,
and their habits, and their whole domestic econo-
my. It is certainly in the power of artificial ex-
pedients to create artificial desires, and to call out
a host of applications, that would never have
otherwise been made. And we know of nothing
that leads more directly and more surely to this
state of things, than 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 securi-
ties which nature hath established for the relief
and mitigation of extreme distress are not so tam-
pered with, where the economy of individuals,
and the sympathy of neighbours, and a sense of
the relative duties among kinsfolk, are left, with-
out disturbance, to their own silent and simple
272
operation;—it will be found that there is nothing
so formidable in the work of traversing a whole
mass of congregated human beings, and of en-
countering all the clamours, whether of real or
of fictitious necessity, that may be raised by our
appearance amongst them. So soon as it is un-
derstood that all which is given by such an adven-
turous philanthropist 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 the 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 agent of conveyance, will be shamed, and
that nearly into extinction, the moment that this
imagination is dissolved. Such an individual will
meet with a limit to his sacrifices, in the very de-
licacy of the poor themselves; and it will be pos-
sible for him to expatiate among hundreds of his
fellows, and to give a Christian 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 effectu-
ally to see, with his own eyes, the superfluousness
of all public and 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
273
the thousand nameless offices of Christian regard*
and to encourage, in every judicious and inoffen-
sive way, their dependence upon themselves, and
their fellow-feeling one for another. Such a pro-
cess of daily observation 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 mo-
dern pauperism of our days is a superstructure al-
together raised on the basis of imposture and
worthlessness—-a basis which the very weight of
the superstructure is fitted to consolidate and to
extend.
It is fully admitted, that an elder, to be at all use-
ful to the people, must approve the genuineness of
his Christianity amongst them; and this he cannot
do if he carry to their observation the hard and
forbidding aspect of one that has no feeling for
the poor. It is the necessity of maintaining such
a defensive aspect among the numerous applica-
tions which are gendered by an artificial system of
charity, that renders it so desirable to rescue all
ecclesiastical men from the work of its distribu-
tions. But should charity cease to be artificial,
and the cause come, at length, to be confided to
the operation of sympathy, and a sense of duty,
among individuals, then, let an elder associate
himself with the families of any city district, and
it is certainly his part, as one of these individuals,
to exemplify, in his person, all the virtues of that
gospel, for the interest of which he professes to
N
274
be a labourer. But he will soon ascertain the dif-
ference, in respect of pressure and urgency of ap-
plication for those alms which are dispensed by
public and associated charity, and those alms
which are done in secret. What is still better,
there will be a charm of gratitude and of moral
influence in the one ministration, which he never
felt in the other: and, when the year has rolled
over his head, and he computes all the expenses
of that season of kindness and of enjoyment
which is past, he will find ill this, as in every
other department of Christian experience, that
the yoke of the Saviour is, indeed, easy, and his
burden is light.
But it is not the materiel of benevolence, given
to those few of his families who may require it,—'
it is not this that will bind to him the population
he has assumed. This may be necessary to indi-
cate the honesty of his principles. But it is the
morale of benevolence,—it is the unbounded and
universal spirit of kindness felt by him for all the
families, and expressing itself in numberless other
ways, besides the giving of alms,—it is this which
will raise him to his chief and useful ascendency
over them. It is seldom adverted to, how much
a simple affection, if it be but authentically mani-
fested in any one way, is fitted to call forth affec-
tion back again. It is little known how open
even the rudest and wildest of a city population
are to the magic, of this sweetening influence.
There is here one precious department of our na-
275
ture which seems not to have been so overspread
as the rest of it, by the ruins of the fall. Per-
haps, vanity and selfishness may enter as elements
into the effect; but, certain it is, that if one hu-
man being see, in the heart of another, a good
will towards himself, he is not able, and far less
is he willing, to stifle or to withhold the recipro-
cal good will that he feels to arise in his own bo-
som. This is a phenomenon of our nature which
the hardy administrators of a poor's house have
little conception of; and they may be heard to
predict, that if you disjoin an elder from all the
patronage which he shares with them, you take
away from him the only instrument by which he
can ever hope to conciliate his families. The
truth is, that it is in virtue of being associated
with them, that there is so wide a distance, and
so many heart-burnings, between him and his
families. And he never will be able to make
ground amongst them, till that which letteth is
taken out of the way. The hostility of the people,
or the hypocrisy of the people, may be abundant-
ly nourished out of the elements of the present
system; but it is by the play of finer elements al-
together, that the hearts of the people are to be
won. We are quite aware of the incredulity of
practical men upon this subject; but it is just be<-
cause they are not practical enough, that they
are blind to the truth, and cannot perceive it*
This is a subject on which the faithful delinea-
tions of experience are, at the same time, so very
276
beautiful, that they impress an indiscriminating
mind with the suspicion of a fancy picture, on
which the glare, and the tinsel, and the warm col-
ouring, of an artist have been abundantly em-
ployed. We are quite confident, however, that,
in the progress of the system of locality, there
will be a speedy and a satisfying multiplication of
facts, more than enough to verify that what has
been affirmed upon this topic are, indeed, the
words of truth and soberness.
It has never been enough adverted to, that a
process for Christianising the people is sure to be
tainted and enfeebled, when there is allied with
it a process for alimenting the people—that there
lies a moral impossibility in the way of accom-
plishing these two objects, by the working of one
and the same machinery—and that if a combined
operation has been set up, in behalf of the former,
then its individual agents do wrong, by joining
their counsels and their energies together, in be-
half of the latter; for the duties connected with
which they should simply resolve themselves into
private Christians, each acting separately, and in
secret, within his own sphere, and each eventual-
ly finding how much more remarkable that sphere
becomes, when charity is again restored to its na-
tural aspect, and all artifice, and all publicity, are
done away from it.
Still, however, there is the impression among
many, of a flowery and unsubstantial romance, in
all that has been said about the charm of private
277
kindness, when unassociated with such gifts as
can only be supplied out of the treasures of public
liberality. They regard it as a dream of poetry,
which is never realised, even in a country parish
—a scene more favourable, it is thought, to all
sorts of sentimentalism—and which, therefore, lies
at a still more hopeless distance away from us,
among the rude and rugged materials of a city
population. So that it still remains the obstinate
conviction of by far the greater number of our
municipal rulers, that, without a copious distribu-
tion of the material of benevolence, there is no
making way among the crowded families of a
town; and that the simple affection of benevo-
lence, however intense in its feeling, and how-,
ever obvious and sincere in all its indications,
will not suffice for the acceptance of a mere Chris-,
tian philanthropist, in the humble walks of so*
ciety.
This is a question, too, which it were better to
try than to argue. And yet it ought to be apaL
pable thing, even with our most every-day observe
ers, that humanity is so constituted as to derive
a sensation of pleasure from another's love, as
well as from the fruit of another's liberality.
When humanity, indeed, is brought up to it3
perfection, it will be the former, and not the lat*
ter, that will minister the highest gratification,
There is to be treasure, we are told, in heaven 5
and yet there will neither be silver nor gold there,
which the apostle Peter ranks among corruptible
278
things; for, according to the report of our Savi-
our, there is nothing in that place of blessedness
which either moth or rust can corrupt, or which
thieves can steal. And there will also be benevo-
lence in heaven—a communication from one to
another, of such treasure as belongs to it—a mu-
tual transference of enjoyment, which will heigh-
ten the enjoyment of each of the parties—-a ful-
ness of gratification arising not merely from the
tide of kind and pleasurable emotion which passes
and repasses between God upon his throne, and the
holy and happy family around him, but arising also
from the reciprocal conveyance of reverence and
regard, and all that is righteous, and affectionate,
and true, between the various members of that
family. So that, even in a state of things where
poverty is altogether excluded—where silver and
gold cannot enter, as they do now, into that ex-
pression of good will, which is often rendered
here by one human being to another—where,
though materialism do exist, it is not such a cor-
rupt and deranged materialism as that by which
we are surrounded, and in virtue of which, the
claims of want, and sickness, and suffering, are
incessantly calling forth a supply of this world's
wealth, from those who have it to those who have
it not—in a state of things where those miseries
which draw upon the ordinary beneficence of our
species are unknown, and where almsgiving is
impossible;—will there still, in some way or
other, be a rich and blessed dispensation of good
279
falling from those who have neither gold nor sil-
ver to give, and yet who, by giving such things
as they have, will so elevate the raptures and the
felicities of heaven, as to cause its joy to be
felt.
In this world the poor shall be with us always;
and, under the imperative duty of giving such
things as we have, all who do have the silver and
gold are under the obligation of being willing to
distribute, and ready to communicate. And yet this
is a world where the principles of heaven ripen into
perfection. This is a world where the affections of
heaven take their birth, and rise into maturity, and
operate, in the midst of much to thwart and to dis-
courage them, and find in the peopled scenes of
humanity the objects of constant and manifold
indulgences. This is a world too which gross and
sensual as the general nature of its inhabitants
may be, and keenly directed as their appetites are
towards silver and gold, or such materials of en-
joyment as these can produce, it is still a world,
where, through all its generations the charm even
of simple kindness is not unfelt, even when it has
nothing to bestow; it is a world wThere Christian
love, even though it do not possess the elements
of liberality, is no sooner recognised in our bo-
som, than it causes another bosom to respond and
to rejoice along with it; it is a world where the
cordiality of man to bis fellow, in its passage from
one heart and from one habitation to another, is
ever sure to carry along with it the truest and
280
most touching of all gratifications; it is a world
where we affirm, that good will, though unaccom-
panied with wealth, can spread a higher and more
permanent felicity, even among its poorest vi-
cinities, than ever wealth can, in all its profu-
sion, unaccompanied with good will. So that
though a time be coming, when the world shall
be burned up, and all its silver and gold, and other
materials for the grosser desires of our body, are,
like the dross of some worthless residuum, to be
utterly consumed and cast away; yet, if the pure
and prompting benevolence of the soul, with all
its ardours upon the one side, and all its honest
gratitude upon the other, shall survive this pro-
cess of destruction, and be transplanted into hea-
ven, there will be enough to regale, and that for
ever, its immortal society; enough, out of the mere
interchange of its moralities and its feelings, to
sustain all its fondest delights, and all its highest
and most abiding ecstacies.
Now, though these moralities are here imper-
fect, yet are they not even now, in their present
measure, and according to their present degree,
convertible to the purpose of diffusing upon earth
a certain proportion of the blessedness of heaven?
When unaccompanied with the possession of gold
and silver, they will of course give to their in-
struments of benevolence, the aim and the direc-
tion of benevolence. But they are not always
thus accompanied. The poor in this world's
goods are often rich in faith, and heirs of the
281
everlasting kingdom. They may possess the ele-
ments of the character of heaven, though they do
not possess the earthly means of earthly gratifica-
tion. With this character, and its emanating in-
fluences, they will shed a lustre and a blessedness
around the mansions of the city which hath foun-
dations. And though the earthly be unlike to
the heavenly nature, in its active principles, yet
it is not so unlike, in its experience of passive en-
joyment, but that with this character a poor man
may shed a degree of the same lustre and the
same blessedness around his present dwelling-
place. It holds true, even of the most profligate
of our kind, that attentions can soothe them, and
the expression of civility can reconcile them, and
the courteousness which is due from one human
being to another can soften and draw them out
to a return of courteousness back again; and.the
friendship which has positively nothing to offer,
but its moral and affectionate regards, can waken
in their minds a sensation of enjoyment; and good
will, with those minuter services, which, of no mo-
ment in respect of their material benefit, go only
to indicate the principle from which they spring,
can, on the strength of its own bare and unasso-
ciated existence, subdue them into a reciprocal
tenderness—and that all these, when obviously
emerging out of a Christian heart, from a deep
and a sacred fountain struck out there, and form-
ing a well of water which springeth up into life
everlasting, can give such an unequivocal charac-
o
282
ter of religiousness to all that its possessor either
doeth or saith to his neighbours who are around
him, as, though he has neither silver nor gold to
give away, may, in fact, render him their most
important benefactor. In that crowded obscuri-
ty of human beings where God hath fixed his ha-
bitation, he may be a light, and send forth a mo-
ral sunshine into the surrounding darkness; he
may be a leaven, and by the fermenting opera-
tion of his example and advice may leaven the
whole of his little neighbourhood; he may be a
salt, nor will it be known, perhaps, till the dis-
closures of another day, how far the influence of
his presence went to preserve from utter dissolu-
tion the putrid mass of wickedness around him;
Or how much the recurring melody of his evening
psalms served to mitigate the uproar of its noisy
and turbulent dissipation. But the fact which
now calls our attention is, that even the most de-
praved of nature's children own the power and
the graciousness of those simple ministrations
which form the all that a humble Christian can
bestow—that his professions of kindness, and his
pleadings of earnestness, and his advices of piety,
to themselves and to their families, and his little
surrenders of time and of trouble, have an impres-
sion upon them—and that, even in spite of their
own unregenerate hearts, it is, upon the whole,
an impression of kindliness—that, giving only
such things as he has, and without either gold or
silver to give, he has wrought a benefit for them,
283
and for himself a gratitude, and a cordial remem-
brance, surpassing all that takes place in the more
common dispensations of charity: insomuch that,
whether we compute the good that has been ren-
dered, on the one hand, as made up of moral
influence, and friendly admonition, and the name-
less offices of a humble but honest regard; and the
return it calls out, on the other, as made up of a
heart-felt graciousness which even the sternest of
our kind* cannot withhold from the man who
unites, in his person, the worth of Christianity
with the gentleness of Christianity;—we will posi-
tively find, in this simple play of the pure and
abstract feelings of benevolence, unassociated
as it is with what may be called the materialism
of benevolence, more of the ethereal character of
a higher and holier region, than in the mere inter-
course of such a generosity as evinces itself only
by a gift, and of such a gratitude as evinces itself
only by the pleasure of receiving it.
It is surely a position, the truth of which may
be demonstrated to human experience, that the,
simple existence of kind affection, on the one
hand, and the simple recognition of it, with its
influence in calling forth a corresponding return,
upon the other, are enough, of themselves, to
augment, and that too in a most substantial and
satisfying degree, the happiness of each of the
parties; and that, therefore, the man who has no-
thing to give but the expression of his friendly
regard may, in fact, be dealing out among his fel-
284
lows the materials of real enjoyment. It will not
be difficult to convince of this truth the members
of an affectionate family, in the transference of
whose kindly feelings from one to another they
intimately know that there is a sensation far more
precious to the heart, than can be wrought there
by the transference of gold or silver. Neither
will it be difficult to convince the man of ever-
flowing cordiality, in the walks of social inter-
course, who, whether at the festive board, or
even in his hurried passage through the bustle and
throng of a street teeming with acquaintance, is
most thoroughly conscious of the pleasure that is
both given and received by the smile, and the ra-
pid enquiry, and even the most slight and momen-
tary token of deference and good will. Neither
will it be difficult to make the truth of this lesson
be recognised by him who has had frequent expe-
rience and fellowship among the abodes of pover-
ty, and who can attest how pure and how delici-
ous that incense is which arises from the simple
acknowledgments of those who, save the regards
and the expressions of their honest attachments,
have positively nothing to bestow. And neither
will it be difficult to make this whole matter plain
to the reflection of the poor themselves, upon
whose humble vicinities the wealthy have seldom
or never entered, and who know well that, with-
in the narrow compass of their own intercourse,
a bright and a gladdening influence may be con-
veyed from one humble tenement to another;
285
and that if the next door neighbour bear an affec-
tion to them, it throws a light into their bosoms
which would not be there, if he bore against them
a grudge or a displeasure; and that the difference,
in point of feeling, between an atmosphere of
kind agreement and an atmosphere of "fierce and
fiery contention is just as distinct as will be the
difference between heaven and hell: insomuch
that, after all, it is not so much the occasional
liberality of him who makes the transient visit,
and leaves behind him some token of his abun-
dance,—it is not this which so cheers and allevi-
ates the lot of poverty, as that more stedfast and
habitual blessedness which, by the kindness of im-
mediate neighbours, may be made to -shine and to
settle around its habitation. All this is abun-
dantly obvious among the various conditions of
society, in the bosom of a family, or among the
rich, in all that regards their intercourse with
each other; or among the rich, as to the sweetness
which they have themselves experienced, in a
simple offering of affection from the poor; or
among the poor, in all that they know and feel of
the relationship in which they stand with the
members of their own neighbourhood. And the
only difficulty, in completing this proof, which
we have to contend with, is when we attempt to
convince the rich that, while it is their duty to
give of their gold and silver to those who stand
in need of them, it is their kindness which, if ac-
tually perceived to be genuine, is more valued
286
and more enjoyed by the poor than even the fruit
of their kindness—it is the principle which
prompted the offering that, after all, affords a
truer relish to their feelings than the offering it-
self—it is the community of hearts which raises
and delights them more than even the community
of goods. If the one be established between the
various classes of society, it will no doubt bring
the best and fittest proportion of the other along
with it. But the thing of importance to be re-
marked just now is, that nature, even when sunk
in abject poverty, and, therefore, relieved in her
more pressing wants by an act of alms-giving, is
still more soothed and conciliated by an exhibi-
tion of good will, on the part of the giver, than
by the whole material product of the beneficence
that he has rendered—that it is a gross, and, in
every way, an injurious misconception of the poor
to think them beyond the reach of those finer in-
fluences which reciprocate between pure sympa-
thy, on the one hand, and a simple sense and
observation of that sympathy, on the other. In
other words, that the rich are not aware of what
that is which gains the most effective influences
over the hearts of the poor, if they think that for-
tune has given them a power which belongs only
to the principle of generosity that is within, and
not to the mere fruit of generosity that is with-
out; or if they think that money descending, by
the law of the land, in the shape of an unwilling
or extorted ministration, has any portion in it of
287
that higher control which only belongs to the law
of love written in the heart, and evincing its
operation in unwearied attentions, and engaging
affabilities, and willing services.
Conceive, then, an individual who has been in
the habit, for years, of going round among an as-
signed population as the agent and the distributor
of relief, out of a public treasury. Should he
transfer his office to another, and simply go
round among them, in the new capacity of a
friend and a Christian adviser, he may still have
a certain proportion of silver and gold to dispose
of, out of those private means which he, in com-
mon with all other men, should lay out on chari-
table uses, as God hath given him the ability.
The gold and the silver may not, therefore, be
totally withdrawn from his ministrations; but, in
virtue of such an arrangement, the gold and the
silver would, at least, be very much reduced,
and he would be left without any thing to substi-
tute in their places, but the attentions of kind-
ness and the attentions of Christianity. We are
not supposing this old office to be abolished, but
only to be laid on another; and the question is a
very plain one, Will the attentions which we have
just now specified be, in themselves, enough to
maintain him in the place which he formerly held
over that neighbourhood of human beings, where
he wont to expatiate? The practical solution of
this question would lead us to determine whether
the account, which we have now given, of our
288
nature be of an experimental or of a visionary
character. If there be other tokens of affection
than the one act of giving money, and these to-
kens be exhibited; if there be other marks of good
will than the distribution of a gold and a silver
which he no longer has to bestow, and these
marks be authentically seen and read of all men,
upon his person; if, without the means of his
former liberality, his present love be only verified
in its naked existence, or if it announce its real-
ity by such signs as nature has annexed to the
feeling, and as every partaker of that nature
knows well how to interpret; if, by the perseve-
rance of months, he has schooled away every
suspicion of hypocrisy, and, in the toils and the
services of an unwearied assiduity, he has, at
length, earned the conviction that all their hopes
and all their anxieties are his own; if, when he
knocks at their doors, it should only be on the
simple errand of a cordial enquiry, or an im-
ploring advice, either to themselves or to their
children;—the man may positively have nothing
but his heart to give, but, in giving that, he has
touched the very principle of our nature which
brings all its hidden machinery under his power.
This ascendency of the moral over the material
part of our constitution is no romance and no fa-
brication of poetry. It is exemplified every day,
in the living and the ordinary walk of human ex-
perience. There is not, on the face of our world,
one neighbourhood of contiguous families, either
289
so poor or so profligate as to withstand these re-
peated demonstrations; and that sullenness of
character which no bribery could reduce, and
which gathers a deeper and more determined
gloom, when the hand of authority is applied to
it, has been rendered tractable as childhood, un-
der the mighty and the magical spell of a meek,
and endearing, and undissembled charity.
The law of reciprocal attraction between one
heart and another is a law of nature as well as
of Christianity; insomuch, that no sooner does
the regard of a philanthropist for the people of
his district come to be recognised, than their re-
gard for him, and that, too, both from the con-
verted and unconverted, will attest of what kind
of material humanity is formed. The effect is so
beautiful that one cannot expatiate upon it, with-
out meeting the imputation of romance from
those hackneyed, and secular, and incredulous
men, whose eyes have never once been directed to
this field of observation; but the effect is, at the
same time, so certain as to stamp on what we say
all the soundness of an experimental affirmation.
Christianity, indeed, is the alone agent by which
the elevating power of a sentiment so pure and so
celestial, as to have the effect of poetry upon the
imagination, will ever be realised on the familiar
and homebred scenes of ordinary life. But it is a
most inviting circumstance, in the great enter-
prise of spreading the light and influence of
Christianity around a population, where one sees
p
290
that the very humblest of its zealous votaries can
thus work his secure and certain way to the uni-
versal acceptance of his fellows. Let suspicion
be but once dissipated, and the enmity of nature
be disarmed, by the true and touching demon-
strations of a real principle of kindness, and ridi-
cule have ceased from its uproar, and contempt
have discharged all its vociferations, and the man's
worth and benevolence become manifest as day;
then, though the ministration of gold and silver
be that which fortune hath altogether denied him,
it is both very striking and very encouraging to
behold, how, in spite of themselves, he steals the
hearts of the people away from them; how, as if
by the operation of some mystic spell, the most
restless and profligate of them all feel the soften-
ing influence of his presence and of his doings;
and howr, in the cheap and humble services of
tending their children, and visiting their sick, and
ministering in sacred exercises at the couch of
the dying, and filling up his opportunities of in-
tercourse with the utterance of holy advice, and
the exhibition o£ holy example, there is, in these
simple and unaccompanied attentions, a charm
felt and welcomed, even in the most polluted
atmosphere that ever settled around the most cor-
rupt and crowded of human habitations.
This is not credited by many of our citizens;
and men who deliver themselves in a tone of
grave, and respectable, and imposing experience,
may be heard to affirm, that, unless an elder be
291
vested with a power of administration over the
public money, he will be an unwelcome visitor
with the general run of our families—that he wall
meet with few to bid him God-speed, on the
single and abstract errand of Christianity—and
that, while the old system of payments without
prayers was acceptable enough, the new system
of prayers without payments will banish the
whole host of eldership in our city from the ac-
ceptance and good will of its inhabitants. Surely
this is a matter of proof and not of probability—
a thing that may be committed to the decision of
experience, instead of being left to the conten-
tions of reason or of sophistry. Let an elder
count it his duty to hold a habitual intercourse of
kindness with the people of his district, and, for
this purpose, devote but a few hours in the week
to their highest interest; out of the fulness of a
heart animated with good will to men, and, in
particular, with that good will which points to
the good of their eternity, let him make use of
every practical expedient for spreading amongst
them the light and influence of the gospel; let it
be his constant aim to warn the unruly, to com-
fort the afflicted, to stimulate the education of
children, to press the duty of attending ordinan-
ces, to make use of all his persuasion in private,
and of all his influence to promote such public
and parochial measures as may forward the simple
design of making our people good, and pious, and
holy;—then, though he should go forth anions
292
them stript of power, and patronage, and pecuni-
ary administrations; though his honest and Chris-
tian good will be all he has to recommend him;
though the various secularities, by which the of-
fices of our Church have been polluted and de-
graded, shall be conclusively done away, and the
wThole armory of our influence among the people
be reduced to the simple element of good will,
and friendship, and personal labour, and unwea-
ried earnestness in the prosecution of their spiri-
tual welfare:—yet, with these, and these alone,
will any of our elders, at length, find a welcome
in every heart, and a home in every habitation.
Others may then take up the ministration which
he has put away. But it will be his presence
which will awaken the finest glow of kindly and
reverential feeling among our population. Though,
out of any public treasury, he neither has gold
nor silver to give, yet, let him just do with his
means and his opportunities as every Christian
should do, and feel as every Christian should feel,
and he will rarely meet with a family so poor as
to undervalue his attentions, or a family so pro-
fligate as to persist in despising them.
All the dispensations of Providence, and all the
great events in the train of human history, are
on the side of the Christian philanthropist. He
has only to watch his opportunity, and there is
not a family so hardened in the ways of impiety,
where he may not, in time, establish himself.
The stoutest hearted sinner he may have to deal
S6S
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294
the blessing of God, infuse into that mass of hu-
man immortality with which he is associated the
fermentation of such holy desires, and peniten-
tial feelings, and earnest aspirations, and close
inquiries after the truth, as may, at length, issue
in the solid result of many being called out of
darkness into light, of many being turned unto
righteousness.
The Christian elder who has resigned the tem-
poralities of his office should not think that, on
that account, he has little in his power. His pre-
sence has a power. His advice has a power. His
friendship has a power. The moral energy of his
kind attentions and Christian arguments has a
power. His prayers at the bed of sickness, and
at the funeral of a departed parishioner, have a
power. The books that he recommends to his
people, and the minister whom he prevails on them
to hear, and the habit of regular attendance upon
the ordinances to which he introduces them, have
a power. His supplications to God for them, in
secret, have a power. Dependence upon him,
and upon his blessing, for the success of his own
feeble endeavours, has a power. And when all
these are brought to bear on the rising genera-
tion; when the children have learned both to
know and to love him; when they come to feel
the force of his approbation, and, on every recur-
ring visit, receive a fresh impulse from him to dili-
gence at school, and dutiful behaviour out of it;
when the capabilities of his simple Christian rela-
295
tionship with the people thus come to be estimat-
ed:—it is not saying too much, to say that, with
such as him, there lies the precious interest of the
growth and transmission of Christianity, in the
age that is now passing over us; and that, in re-
spect of his own selected neighbourhood, he is the
depositary of the moral and spiritual destinies of
the future age.
We shall conclude this department of the sub-
ject with three distinct observations relative to the
office and duties of the eldership.
First. We are well aware how widely the prac-
tice of our generation has diverged from the prac-
tice of our ancestors: how the temporal, which form
their superinduced duties, have taken place of the
spiritual, which form the primitive and essential
duties of the eldership; how, within the limits of
our Establishment, the lay office-bearers of the
Church are fast renouncing the whole work of
ministering from house to house, in prayer, and
in exhortation, and in the dispensation of spiritu-
al comfort and advice, among the sick, or the
disconsolate, or the dying. We are aware that a
reformation, in this department, can only be
brought about by an influence of a more gentle,
and moral, and withal more effectual kind than
that of authority. But we almost know nothing
of greater importance than to have a connection
of this kind established between the elders and
the population of those districts which are respec-
tively assigned to them. We know of nothing
296
which will tell more effectually, in the way of hu-
manizing our families, than if so pure an intercourse
was going on, as an intercourse of piety, between
our men of respectable station, on the one hand,
and our men of labour and of poverty, on the
other. We know of nothing which would serve
more powerfully to link and to harmonize into
one.fine system of social order, the various classes
of our community. We know not a finer exhibi-
tion, on the one hand, than the man of wealth
acting the man of piety, and throwing the goodly
adornment of Christian benevolence over the splen-
dour of those civil distinctions, which give a weight
and a lustre to his name in society. And we know
not a more wholesome influence, on the other
hand, than that which such a man must carry
around with him, when he enters the habitations
of our operatives, and dignifies, by his visits, the
people who occupy them; and talks with them,
as the hgirs of one hope and of one immortality;
and cheers, by the united power of religion and
of sympathy, the very humblest of misfortune's
generation; and convinces them of a real and
a longing affection after their best interests; and
leaves them with the impression that here, at
least, is one man who is our friend; that here, at
least, is one proof that we are not altogether des-
titute of consideration amongst our fellows; that
here, at least, is one quarter on which our confi-
dence may rest; aye, and amidst all the insigni-
ficance in which we lie buried from the observa-
297
tion of society, we are sure, at least, of one who,
in the most exalted sense of the term, is now rea-
dy to befriend us, and to look after us, and to
eare for us.
Secondly. Those who have entered on the im-
portant and honourable office of the eldership,
should have a full impression of its sacredness.
We are fully aware that there is not a professing
Christian who does not forfeit all title to the name
and character of a Christian, if he do not honest-
ly, and with all the energies of his soul, aspire at
being not merely almost, but altogether a disciple
of the Lord Jesus. It is the duty of the obscur-
est individual in a congregation, to be as hea-
venly in his desires, and as peculiar in the whole
style of his behaviour, and as upright in his trans-
actions, and as circumspect in his walk, and as
devoted, in heart and in service, to the God of
his redemption, as the minister who labours
amongst them in word and in doctrine, or as the
elders that assist him in the administration of or-
dinances, or as the most, conspicuous among the
office-bearers of the church with which lie is con-
nected. But they should remember that the very
circumstance of being conspicuous forms a double
call upon their attention to certain prescribed du-
ties of the New Testament. It is this which gives
so peculiar an importance to their example. It
is this which, by making their light shine before
men, renders it a more powerful instrument for
glorifying God. And it is this, too, which stamps
Q
298
a tenfold malignity upon their misconduct. And
under the impression of this, should they be care-
ful lest their good be evil spoken of—to be, in all
things, an example to the flock over which God
hath appointed them the overseers—to remember
that their conduct has a more decided bearing
ijpon others than it had formerly—and that, as it is
their duty to look, not to their own things, but
to the things of others also, so it is their most so-
lemn and imperious obligation, to take heed, and
give no just offence, in any thing, that the reli-
gion of which they are the declared and the vi-
sible functionaries, be not blamed. We know not
how a greater outrage can be practised on Chris-
tianity, we know not how a deadlier wTound can
be given to its interest and its reputation in the
world, we know not how a sorer infliction can be
devised on a part of greater tenderness, than for
a man to usurp a place of authority and of lofty
standing, in the church of our Redeemer, and
then to exhibit such a life, and to maintain such
a lukewarm indifference, and to hold out such a
conformity to the world, as to all the levities, and
all the secularities which abound in it; and above
all, so to deform the path of his own personal
history, by what is profane, and profligate, and
unseemly, that the report of his misdoings shall
spread itself over the neighbourhood, and, into
whatever company it may enter, it shall scanda-
lise the friends of Jesus, and become matter of
triumph and of bitter derision to his enemies.
299
Thirdly. The gentlemen who have been invest-
ed with this office should make a conscience of
their attendance upon the needs and the demands
of their respective population; not to slur and
superficialise the matter, but to give to it strength,
and earnestness, and persevering attention; not
to enter upon their offices, as if they were so many
sinecures, but to feel that certain duties are an-
nexed to them, and that, for the right and atten-
tive performance of these duties, a weight of re-
sponsibility is lying upon them. In each parish
there is an ample field for the exercise of such
duties; a field so extensive that, if left to the so-
litary management of one individual, must be left
in a great measure neglected; a field greatly be-
yond the time and the strength of the minister; a
field which he is not able to cultivate to the full,
by his own personal exertions, and to do justice
to which he must avail himself of the assistance
of his elders. And sure we are that, with a man-
ageable extent of walk assigned to each of them,
they would, at length, come to feel that to be
an enjoyment which they may, perhaps, for some
time, feel to be an oppression: and, though deli-
cacy and inexperience should, at first, operate as
restraints to their acting in the capacity of spiri-
tual labourers, yet habitual and intimate inter-
course with their people will soon reconcile them
to their new employment, and render it a smooth,
a pleasant, and an interesting concern.
It might be expected that, ere bringing this to-
300
pic to a close, we should deliver a few rules
for the right discharge and exercise of deacon-
ship. We do not plead for this as a permanent
institution of the church, believing as we do, that
it were vastly better for the people, if all public
charity, for the relief of indigence, were, as soon
as possible, done away. Still, however, such an
order of men might be of important service, in
conducting society back again to its natural state,
as it respects pauperism. And we are thorough-
ly persuaded that, by acting conformably to the
spirit of the few hints which follow, they will ar-
rive at the conviction, that all public and osten-
sible charity might very safely be dispensed
with.
First. The poor will feel themselves greatly
soothed and conciliated, by their ready attention,
by then- friendly counsels, by their acts of advice
and assistance as to the conduct of their little af-
fairs; by the mere civility and courteousness
which marks their transactions with them; and
that these will positively go farther to gladden
their hearts, and to endear their persons to them,
than all the money which they may find it neces-
sary to award for the support of their indigent
families.
Secondly. It will be said that, by this unre-
strained facility of manner, they will lay themselves
open to the inroads of the worthless and the un-
deserving. In answer to this, we ask if there be
not room enough, in a man's character, for the
301
wisdom of the serpent along with the gentleness
of the dove? That we may ward off the unde-
serving poor, is it necessary to put on a stern and
repulsive front against all the poor who offer them-
selves to our observation? The way, we appre-
hend, is to put forth patience, and attention, and
to be in the ready attitude of prepared and imme-
diate service for all applications, in the first in-
stance; to conduct every examination with tem-
per and kindness: and surely it is possible to do
this, and, at the same time, to conduct it with
vigilance. Exercise mil soon sharpen their dis-
crimination in these matters, and when they have
got a thoroughly ascertained state of the claim
which has been advanced, and they find that it is
not a valid one, then let them put forth their
firmness, then let them make a display of calm
and settled determination, then let them show
their people that they have judgment as well as
feeling, and that they know how to combine the
habit of justice to the public, by not squandering
their money on unsuitable objects, with the habit
of sympathy for genuine distress, and of ready
attention to the merits of every application.
On the strength of this principle, it will be in
the power of a deacon to check, on the one hand,
all unreasonable applications; and, on the other,
still to preserve all that homage of attachment,
which his kindness to real sufferers, and his can-
dour and courteousness to all, are fitted to secure
for him. His people will not like him the worse
302
that they see him acting in a sound, judicious, and
experimental way with them. They know how
to appreciate good sense, as well as we; and they
admire it, and they have an actual liking for it.
They are scandalised when they see kindness
lavished upon the unworthy. Though they like
attention and sympathy, they have a greater esteem
for them, when they see them combined with the
exercise of judgment and a good understanding:
and in proportion therefore as a deacon evinces
himself to have the faculty of rejecting those claims
which are groundless, in that very proportion will
a real sufferer esteem that act of preference, by
which he has had the discernment to single out
his claim, and the benevolence most soothingly
and most sympathisingly, and most amply, to pro-
vide for it.
But, lastly, we know not a more interesting
case that can be submitted to a deacon, than
when an applicant proposes, for the first time, to
draw relief from a public charity. This he is often
compelled to do, from some temporary distress,
that hangs over his family: and if the emer-
gency could be got over without a public and de-
grading exposure of him who labours under it,
there would both be a most substantial saving of
the public fund, and a most soothing act of kind-
ness rendered to the person who is applying for it*
If by the influence of the deacon, or that of his
friends, work could be provided for a man in
such circumstances, or some private and delicate
303
mode of relief be devised for him, then we know
not in what other way he could more effectually
establish himself as the most valuahle servant of
the public, and as the best and kindest friend of
his own immediate population. All will depend
upon the earnestness and the sense of duty w^hich
he brings to his offices along with him; and we
should be much disappointed if it be not the re-
sult of his practice and observation, in this walk
of philanthropy, that, after all, the cause of hu-
man indigence may be fully confided to the sym-
pathy of individuals, and that even the demise of
his own order is an essential step towards the
conclusive establishment of that state of things
where nature and Christianity will render their
most effectual contributions, for alleviating the
wants and the miseries of the species.
We may afterwards enlarge on the reasons why
wre regard a deaconship in the light of a tempora-
ry expedient, for the purpose of reducing that pau-
perism which has been accumulated upon us, under
a former system of administration, rather than as
an institution that is at all essential to the perma-
nent well-being of a parish. - So long as any me-
thod of public relief for indigence is perpetuated
amongst us, whether by assessment or voluntary
collection, we hold it greatly better that its whole
conduct and management be devolved upon dea-
cons than upon elders. But we are, at the same
time, persuaded that it is not only a most practi-
cable thing for an order of deacons so to manage,
304
as, in a few years, to transfer the whole expenses
of the parochial poor from a compulsory to a
gratuitous fund—we are further persuaded, that
as the result of their experience, these very men
will come to see with what perfect safety, and
even improvement, to the comfort of the lower
orders, the latter fund may also be dispensed
with; and thus their labours may come to be dis-
pensed with, after having reached this most satis-
factory of all consummations, that of having led
the people to repose on their own capabilities:
For, by giving them to understand that individual
sympathy, and their own foreseeing prudence,
are all they have to look for, against the day
of poverty, they will, at length, re-open those
mighty sources which an artificial charity had
sealed, and out of which nature, when not tortur-
ed and tampered with, as she has been, by the
intermeddling spirit of legislation, provides far
more abundantly for the wants of all her chil«
dren.
305
CHAR VIII.
ON SABBATH SCHOOLS.
It is well, that in the various religious establish-
ments of Europe, provision should have been made
for the learning as well as for the subsistence of a
regular clergy. It is well, when a teacher of the
gospel, in addition to the strict literature of his
own profession, is further accomplished in the
general literature of the times. We do not hold
it indispensable that all should be so accom-
plished. But that is a good course of education
for the church, which will not only secure the
possibility that every minister may be learned in
theology, but also a chance, bordering upon
certainty, that some of them shall attain an emi-
nence of authority and respect, in the other sci-
ences. Christianity should be provided with
friends and defenders, in every quarter of human
society; and there should be among them such
a distribution of weapons, as may be adapted to
all the varieties of that extended combat, which is
ever going on between the church and the world.
And there is a special reason why the prejudices
of philosophy against the gospel should, if possible,
be met and mastered by men capable of standing
on the very same arena, and plying the very same
tactics, with the most powerful of. its votaries;—
and that, not so much because of the individual
306
benefit which may thereby be rendered to these
philosophers, as because of their ascendant influ-
ence over the genera] mind of society; and be-
cause of the mischief that would ensue to myriads
beside themselves, could an exhibition so degrad-
ing be held forth to the world, as that of Christi-
anity which laid claim to the light of revelation,
retiring abashed from the light of cultivated na-
ture, and not daring the encounter, when men,
rich in academic lore, or lofty in general author-
ship, came forth in hostility against her.
It is mainly to the learning of the priesthood
that Christianity has kept her ground on the
higher platform of cultured and well educated hu-
manity, and that she enters so largely, as a bright
and much esteemed ingredient, into the body of
our national literature. It is true that, in this
way, she may compel an homage from many
whom she cannot subdue unto the obedience of
the faith5 and save herself from contempt, in a
thousand instances, where she has utterly failed
in her attempts at conversion. But it is well,
whenever this degree of respect and acknowledg-
ment can be obtained for her, among the upper
classes of life; and more especially in every free
and enlightened nation, like our own, where the
reigning authority is so much under the guidance
of the higher reason of the country, it is of un-
speakable benefit that Christianity has been so
nobly upheld by the talent and erudition of her
advocates. The fostering hand of the Legisla-
307
ture would soon have been withheld from all our
Christian institutions, had the Christian! system
not been palpably recommended by those nume-
rous pleadings wherewith a schooled and accom-
plished clergy have so enriched the theological
literature of our island. Nor do we believe that,
in the face of public opinion, any political defer-
ence could have long been rendered to Christian-
ity, had she been overborne, in her numerous
conflicts with the pride and sophistry of able un-
believers. It is thus that we stand indebted to
the learning of Christian ministers for the security
of that great national apparatus of religious in-
struction, the utility of which we have already
endeavoured to demonstrate: and hence, though
learning does not, of itself, convert and Chris-
tianise a human soul, it may be instrumental in
spreading and strengthening that canopy of pro-
tection, which is thrown, by our Establishment,
over those humbler but more effective labourers,
by whose Parish ministrations it is, that the gen-
eral mass of our population becomes leavened with
the doctrines of the gospel, and Christianity is
carried, with light, and comfort, and power, into
the bosom of cottages.
But, though learning must be enlisted on the
side of Christianity, for the purpose of upholding
her in credit and acceptance, among influential
men; yet it is not indispensable for the purpose
of conveying her moral and spiritual lessons into
308
the heart of a disciple. The truth is, that many
of the topics about which ecclesiastical learning
is conversant, are exterior to the direct substance
of that Bible which professes to be a written com-
munication from God to man: such as the historic
testimonies that may be quoted in favour of reli-
gion, and those church antiquities, to acquire the
knowledge of which we must travel through many
a volume of ponderous erudition, and at least the
history, if not the matter, of the various contro-
versies by which the Christian world has been
agitated. We are aware that much of this con-
troversy relates to the contents of the record, as
well as to the credentials of the record. Yet,
however its plainer passages may have been dark-
ened by heretical sophistry, on the one hand, and
its obscure passages may have divided the opinion
of critics and translators, on the other; this does
not hinder, that, from the Bible, and the Eng-
lish Bible, there may be made to emanate a flood
of light, on the general mass of an English pea-
santry—that, to evolve this light, a high and ar-
tificial scholarship is neither necessary nor avail-
able—that, on the understanding of a man, un-
lettered in all that proceeds from halls or colleges,
the Word of God may have made its sound, and
wholesome, and sufficient impression: and that
from him the impression may be reflected back
again, on the understandings of many others, as
unlettered as himself—that thus all, in the book
of God's testimony which mainly goes so to en-
309
lighten a man, as to turn him into a Christian,
may be made to pass from one humble convert to
-his acquaintances and neighbours; and, without
the learning which serves to acquire for Christi-
anity the dignified though vague and general
homage of the upper classes, he may, at least, be
a fit agent for transmitting essential Christianity
throughout the plebeianism that is around him.
To deny this, indeed, were to resist the affir-
mations of that very record in which all that may
be known of Christianity is found. We are there
told, and from the direct mouth of the Saviour,
that things essential to salvation may be revealed
unto babes, which lie hid from the wise and the
prudent. The poor to whom the gospel is preach-
ed have a full share of this revelation. The Spirit
of God, we are told, acts as a revealer; and yet
it is not his office to make known any truths ad-
ditional to those which are already engrossed in
Scripture. The light that coraeth from him is a
light which shineth on the page of inspiration,
and causes us to discern only what is graven
thereupon. The doctrine of the Bible is made
known to us by this process, and nothing else.
Under the tuition of God's Spirit, we only learn
what has already been fully expressed by the let-
ter of the Bible, but which, without his influence,
can never be fully apprehended in its meaning, or
felt in its power. It is thus that he communi-
cates nothing at variance with the written testi-
mony, and nothing which has not been already
310
declared by the written testimony; though his in-
terference be necessary, in order that the testi-
mony be received. The operation may be illus-
trated by the way in which an impression is given
to any substance, through the means of a stamp-
ing instrument. The substance may be so hard
and impracticable as to resist the impression,
when a weak arm is put forth to urge forward the
instrument; but it may be made to take in a full
and a fair impression, when a strong arm is em-
ployed. And thus may it be with the impression
of Bible doctrine, on moral, and thinking, and in-
telligent man. The Bible may be brought into
contact with the mind of the reader, and learn-
ing, and talent, and all the forces that mere hu-
manity can muster, may be made to aid the im-
pression of it, and be wholly ineffectual. The
Spirit of God may then undertake the office of
an enlightener; and, in so doing, he may keep
by the Bible as his alone instrument; and not one
truth may pass in conveyance from him to the spi-
rit of that man, on whom he is operating, but sim-
ply and solely the truths which are taken off from
the written Word of God; and all the Christiani-
ty that he teaches, and that he leaves graven on
the hearts of his subjects, may just be a correct
transcript of the Christianity that exists in the
New Testament. And thus it is that a workman
of humble scholarship may be transformed, not
into an erratic and fanciful enthusiast, but into a
sound Scriptural Christian, without one other re-
311
ligious tenet in his understanding than what is
strictly and accurately defined by the literalities
of the written record, and without one other reli-
gious feeling in his heart than what is most perti-
nently called forth by the moral influence of the
truths which have thus been made known to him.
If there be truth in this representation, it will
appear that the Bible can be no more dispensed
with, for the purpose of putting the impress of
Christianity on a human soul, than the stamping
instrument can be dispensed with, for the pur-
pose of fixing the device which it bears on the
piece of matter that is submitted to it. The dis-
ciple's mind must be brought into contact with
Scripture, and it is so, when he is employed, ei-
ther in hearing, or reading, or pondering, what
is written thereon. And it will further appear
that the Spirit, in his work of making good an
impress of Christianity on man, no more varies in
one feature, or one lineament, from the Christi-
anity that is already engraven on the indelible
Word of God, than that hand, which simply bears
upon a seal, either alters or effaces the inscrip-
tion which is fastened by it on the substance to
which it is applied. It is thus that all the pre-
tences of enthusiasm may be refuted and exposed;
and that, while the teaching of the Spirit is held
to be indispensable, the soundness and proficien-
cy of the taught still remain to be tried, and may
be taken cognizance of, at the bar of the law and
of the testimony. There is no license given by
312
this statement to the vagaries of a credulous and
overheated imagination: being subject, as they
all are, to the touchstone of a word that is immu-
table, and cannot pass away. We know it to be
the fear of many, lest the doctrine of a special
and spiritual illumination, taking place in every
instance of conversion, should throw open the
Christian world to an influx of fancies and
fluctuations, that would be utterly interminable.
But the written record is the great barrier of de-
fence against all such irregularities. There might
be room for this apprehension, were it still the
office of the Spirit to originate new and unheard
of truths, in .the minds that he enlightens. But
this work has ceased long ago, and the Book in
which the truths thus originated were treasured
up has, for many centuries, had the seal of com-
pleteness set upon it; and the office of the Holy
Ghost now is not to inform any one mind of no-
velties that are yet unrevealed, but simply to
transcribe on the tablet of its understanding what
has already been inscribed on the tablet of the
written revelation. And thus it is both true that
it is through a distinct and personal work of the
Holy Spirit that each believer is called out of
darkness unto marvellous light—and that, in re-
spect of the essentials of Christianity, there has
been one stable and permanent belief among them
all. It is like the telescope pointed to a distant
landscape, which reveals the same objects to all
the numerous and successive spectators; and so
313
it is mainly one and the same doctrine that is held
by the genuine disciples of all countries, and
which has come unchangingly down, from gener-
ation to generation.
If it be thought that this statement serves very
much to reduce the importance of human learn-
ing, let it be observed, on the other hand, that
still to human learning there belongs an impor-
tant function, in the matter of Christianity. One
does not need to be the subject of a material im-
press upon his own person, in order to judge of
the accordancy between the device that is sub-
mitted to his notice, and the seal that is said to
have conveyed it. Both may be foreign to him-
self: and yet he, by looking to the one and to
the other, can see whether they are accurate
counterparts. And, in like manner, a man of
sagacity and of natural acquirement may never
have received, upon his own heart, that impres-
sion of the Bible which the Holy Spirit alone has
strength to effectuate; but still, if such an im-
pression be offered to his notice, in the person of
another, he may be able both to detect tire spuri*
ous, and, in some measure, to recognize the gen-
uine marks of correspondence between the eon-
tents of Scripture, on the one hand, and the
creed, or character, of its professing disciple, on
the other. It is well, when such a man looks, in
the first instance, to the written Word; and, by
aid of the grammar and lexicon, and all the re-
sources of philology, evinces the literal doctrine
s
314
that is graven thereupon. It is also well, when
he looks, in the second instance, to the human
subject, and by aid, either of natural shrewdness,
or of a keen metaphysical inspection into the ar-
cana of character, drags forth to light that moral
and intellectual picture which the doctrine of the
Bible is said to have left upon the soul. If there
be a single alleged convert upon earth, who can-
not stand such a trial, when fairly conducted, he
is a pretender, and wears only a counterfeit and
not the genuine stamp of Christiahity. And thus
it is, that he who has no part whatever in the
teaching that cometh from God, who is still a
natural man, and has not received the things of
the Spirit, may, to a certain extent, judge the
pretensions of him who conceives that the Holy
Ghost has taken of the things of Christ, and
shown them to his soul. He can institute a sound
process of comparison between those testimonies
of Scripture which a natural criticism has made
palpable to him, and those traces upon the soul
which a natural sagacity of observation has made
palpable to him: and, without sharing himself in
an unction from the Holy One, or being sealed
by the Spirit of God into a personal meetness for
the inheritance of the saints, still may he both
be able to rectify and restrain the excesses of fan-
aticism, and also to recall the departures that her-
esy is making from the law and from the testi-
mony.
The work of Bishop Horsley against Unitarian-
315
Ism is a work which erudition and natural talent
are quite competent to the production of. It is
the fruit of a learned and laborious research into
ecclesiastical antiquities, and a vigorous argumen-
tative application of the materials that he had ga-
thered, to that controversy, on the field of which
he obtained so proud and pre-eminent a conquest.
We would not even so much as hazard a conjec-
ture on the personal Christianity of this able and
highly gifted individual. We simply affirm, that
for the execution of the important service which
he, at that time, rendered to the cause, his own
personal religion was not indispensable; and, whe-
ther or not by the means of a spiritual discern-
ment, he was enabled to take off, from the in-
scribed Christianity of the record, an effectual
impression of it upon his own soul, it was well,
that, by the natural expedients of profound sense
and profound scholarship, he cleared away that N
cloud in which his antagonist, Dr. Priestley, might
have shrouded the face of the record, both from
the natural and spiritual discernment of other
men. It is possible, both to know what the doc-
trine of the Bible is, and most skilfully and irre-
sistibly to argument it, without having caught
the impress of the doctrine upon one's own soul.
It is possible for a man not to have come himself
into effective personal contact with the seal of Ho-
ly Writ, and yet to demonstrate the characters of
the seal, and to purge away its obscurity, and
make it stand legibly out, which it must do, ere
S16
it can stand impressively out, to the view of others.
There are many who look with an evil eye to the
endowments of the English Church, and to the
indolence of her dignitaries. But to that Church
the theological literature of our nation stands in-
debted, for her best acquisitions; and we hold it
a refreshing spectacle, at any time that meagre
Socinianism pours forth a new supply of flippan-
cies and errors, when we behold, as we have of-
ten done, an armed champion come forth, in full
equipment, from some high and lettered retreat
of that noble hierarchy; nor can we grudge her
the wealth of all her endowments, when we think
how well, under her venerable auspices, the bat-
tles of orthodoxy have been fought,—that, in this
holy warfare, they are her sons and her scholars
who are ever foremost in the field,—ready, at all
times, to face the threatening mischief and, by
the might of their ponderous erudition, to over-
bear it.
But, if human talent be available to the pur-
pose of demonstrating the characters of the seal,
it is also, in so far, available to the purpose of
judging on the accuracy of the impression. The
work, perhaps, which best exemplifies this, is
that of President Edwards, on the conversions of
New England, and in which he proposes to esti-
mate their genuineness, by comparing the marks
that had been left on the person of the disciple,
with the marks that are inscribed on the Book of
the law and of the testimony, He was certainly
"317
much aided, in his processes of discrimination
upon this subject, by the circumstance of being a
genuine convert himself, and, so, of being fur.
nished with materials for the judgment, in his
own heart, and that stood immediately submitted
to the eye of his own consciousness. But yet
no one could, without the metaphysical faculty
wherewith nature had endowed him, have con-
ducted so subtle, and at the same time, so sound
and just an analysis, as he has done; and no one,
without his power of insight among the mysteries
of our nature,—a power which belonged to his
xnind, according to its original conformation,—
could have so separated the authentic operation of
the Word upon the character, from the errors
and the impulses of human fancy. It is true that
none but a spiritual man could have taken so mi-
nute a survey of that impression which the Holy
Ghost was affirmed to have mad^e, through the
preaching of the Word, upon many, in a season
of general awakening. But few, also, are the spi-
ritual men, who could have taken so masterly a
surveys and that, just because they wanted the
faculties which could accomplish their possessor
for a shrewd and metaphysical discernment among
the pemtralia of the human constitution. It is
thus that, by the light of nature, one may trace
the characters which stand out upon the seal,;
and, by the light of nature, one may be helped,
at least, to trace the characters that are left upon
the human subject, in consequence of this super-
318
nal application. Fanaticism is kept in check by
human reason, and the soberness of the faith is
vindicated. The extravagance of all pretenders
to a spiritual revelation is detected, and made ma-
nifest; and the true disciple stands the test he is
submitted to, even at the bar of the natural under-
standing.
We cannot take leave of Edwards, without tes-
tifying the whole extent of the reverence that we
bear him. On the arena of metaphysics, he stood
the highest of all his cotemporaries, and that, too,
at a time, when Hume was aiming his deadliest
thrusts at the foundations of morality, and had
thrown over the infidel cause the whole eclat of
his reputation. The American divine affords,
perhaps, the most wondrous example, in modern
times, of one who stood richly gifted both in na-
tural and in spiritual discernment: and we know
not what most to admire in him, whether the deep
philosophy that issued from his pen, or the
humble and child-like piety that issued from his
pulpit; whether, when, as an author, he deals
forth upon his readers the subtleties of profound-
est argument, or when, as a Christian minister,
he deals forth upon his hearers the simplicities of
the gospel; whether it is, when we witness the
impression that he made, by his writings, on the
schools and high seats of literature, or the im-
pression that he made, by his unlaboured address-
es, on the plain consciences of a plain congrega-
tion. In the former capacity, he could estimate
319
the genuineness of the Christianity that had be-
fore been fashioned on the person of a disciple;
but it was in the latter capacity, and speaking of
him as an instrument, that he fashioned it, as it
were, with his own hands. In the former capaci-
ty, he sat in judgment, as a critic, on the resem-
blance that there was between the seal of God's
Word, and the impression that had been made on
the fleshly tablet of a human heart; in the latter
capacity, he himself took up the seal, and gave
the imprinting touch, by which the heart is con-
formed unto the obedience of the faith. The former
was a speculative capacity, under which he acted
as a connoisseur, who pronounced on the accor-
dancy that obtained between the doctrine of the
Bible, and the character that had been submitted
to its influence; the latter was an executive ca-
pacity, under which he acted as a practitioner,
who brought about this accordancy, and so han-
dled the doctrines of the Bible, as to mould and
subordinate thereunto the character of the people
with whom he had to deal. In the one, he was
an overseer, who inspected and gave his deliver-
ance on the quality of another's work; in the
other, he was the workman himself; and while,
as the philosopher, he could discern, and discern
truly, between the sterling and the counterfeit, in
Christianity, still it was as the humble and devot-
ed pastor that Christianity was made, or Christi-
anity was multiplied, in his hands.
Now, conceive these two faculties, which were
320
exemplified in such rare and happy combination,
on the person of Edwards, to be separated, the
one from the other, and given respectively to
two individuals. One of these would then be so
gifted, as that he Could apply the discriminating
tests, by which to judge of Christianity; and the
other of them would be so gifted as that, instru-
mentally speaking, he could make Christians.
One of them could do what Edwards did, from
the pulpit; another of them could do what Ed-
wards did, from the press. Without such judges
and overseers as the former, the faith of the Chris-
tian world might be occasionally disfigured by
the excesses of fanaticism; but without such
agents as the latter, faith might cease to be formed,
and the abuses be got rid of only by getting rid
of the whole stock upon which such abuses are oc-
casionally grafted. It is here that churches, un-
der the domination of a worldly and unsanctified
priesthood, are apt to go astray. They confide
the cause wherewith they are entrusted to the
merely intellectual class of labourers, and they
have overlooked, or rather have violently and
impetuously resisted, the operative class of la-
bourers. They conceive that all is to be done by
regulation,, and that nothing, but what is mis-
chievous, is to be done by impulse. Their mea-
sures are generally all of a sedative, and few or
none of them of a stimulating tendency. Their
chief concern is to repress the pruriencies of reli-
gious zeal, and not to excite or foster the zeal
321
itself. By this process they may deliver their Es-
tablishment of all extravagancies, so as that we
shall no longer behold, within its limits, any
laughable or offensive caricature of Christianity.
But who does not see that, by this process, they
may also deliver the Establishment of Christianity
altogether; and that all our exhibitions of genu-
ine godliness may be made to disappear, under
the same withering influence which deadens the
excrescencies that occasionally spring from it* It
is quite a possible thing for the same church to
have a proud complacency in the lore, and argu-
ment, and professional science, of certain of its min-
isters; and, along with this, to have a proud con-
tempt for the pious earnestness, and pious activi-
ty, of certain other of its ministers. In other words,
it may applaud the talent by which Christianity
is estimated, but discourage the talent by which
Christianity is made. And thus while it continues
to be graced by the literature and accomplish-
ment of its meinbers, may "it come to be reduced
into a kind of barren and useless inefficiency as to
the great practical purposes for which it was or-
dained.
To judge of an impression requires one species
of talent, to make an impression requires another.
They both may exist, in very high perfection,
with the same individual, as in the case already
quoted. But they may also exist apart; and often,
in particular, may the latter of the two be found,
in great efficiency and vigour, when the former
T
322
of the two may be utterly awanting. The right
way for a church is to encourage both these ta-
lents to the uttermost; and not to prevent the
evils of a bad currency, by laying such an arrest
on the exercise of the latter talent, as that we
we shall have no currency at all. It must be
produced, ere it can be assayed; and it is pos-
sible so to chill and to discourage the productive
faculties in our Church, as that its assaying facul-
ty shall have no samples on which to sit in judg-
ment. This will universally be the result in eve-
ry church where a high-toned contempt for what
it holds to be fanaticism is the alone principle by
which it is actuated: and where a freezing; ne^a-
tive is sure to come forth on all those activities
which serve to disturb the attitude of quiescence,
into which it has sunk and settled. The leading
measures of such a church are all founded on the
imagination that the religious tendencies of our
nature are so exuberant, as that they need to be
kept in check, instead of being, in fact, so dor-
mant as that they need work, and watchfulness, and
all that is strenuous, and pains-taking, in the of-
fice of an evangelist, for the purpose of being
kept alive. The true Christian policy of a church
is to avail itself of all the zeal, and all the energy,
which are to be found both among its ecclesias-
tics and its laymen, for the production of a posi-
tive effect among our population; and then,
should folly or fanaticism come forward along
with it, fearlessly to confide the chastening of all
323
this exuberance to the sense, and the scholarship,
and the sound intellectual Christianity, for the
diffusion of which over the face of our Establish-
ment, the Establishment itself has made such
ample provision. Such is our impression of na-
ture's lethargy, and deadness, and unconcern, that
we are glad when any thing comes forward,—that
we are pleased to behold any symptom of spiri-
tual life or vegetation at all,—and so far from be-
ing alarmed by the rumour of a stir, and a sensa-
tion, and an enthusiasm, in any quarter of the
land, we are ready to hail it as we would the pro-
mise of some coming regeneration. A policy the
direct opposite of this is often the reigning policy
of a church; and, under its blasting operation,
spurious and genuine Christianity are alike obli-
terated; and the work of pulling up the tares is
carried on so furiously, that the wheat is pulled
up along with it,—the vineyard is rifled of its good-
liest blossoms, as well as of its noxious and pesti-
lential weeds; and thus the upshot of the process
for extirpating fanaticism may be to turn the
fruitful field into a wilderness, and to spread de-
solation and apathy over all its borders.
A church so actuated does nothing but check
the excrescencies of spiritual growth, and may do
it so effectually as to reduce to a naked trunk
what else might have sent forth its clustering
branches, and yielded, in goodly abundance, the
fruits of piety and righteousness. There is no
positive strength put forth by it, on the side of
324
vegetation, but all on the side of repressing its
hated overgrowth. It makes use of only one in-
strument, and that is the pruning-hook; as if, by
its operation alone, all the purposes of husbandry
could be served. Its treatment of humanity pro-
ceeds on such an excessive fertility of religion in
the human heart, that all the toil and strenuous-
ness of ecclesiastics must be given to the object
of keeping it down, and so confining it within
the limits of moderation; instead of such a natu-
ral barrenness that this toil and this strenuousness
should rather be given to the various and ever-
plying activities of an evangelist, who is instant in
season and out of season. It is thus that the out-
field of sectarianism may exhibit a totally differ-
ent aspect from the inclosed and well kept garden
of an Establishment. In the former, there may
be a positive and desireable crop, along with the
weeds &nd ranknesses which have been suffered
to grow up unchastened; in the latter, there may
be nothing that offendeth, save the one deadly
offence of a vineyard so cleaned, and purified, and
thwarted in all its vegetative tendencies, as to
offer, from one end to the other of it, an unvaried
expanse of earthliness.
We, therefore, do wrong, in laying such a
weight of discouragement on the labourers who
produce, and throwing the mantle of our protec-
tion and kindness only over the labourers who
prune. And what, it may be asked, are the in-
gredients of mightiest effect, in the character and
325
talent of a productive labourer? They are not his
scholarship, and not his critical sagacity of dis-
cernment into the obscurities of Scripture, and
not his searching or satirical insight among the
mysteries of the human constitution. With these
he may be helped to estimate the Christianity
that has been formed, and to lop off its unseemly
excrescencies; but with these alone we never
shall positively rear, on the foundation of nature,
the edifice itself. This requires another set of
qualifications which may or may not exist along
with that artificial learning to which, we trust, an
adequate homage has been already rendered by
us, and qualifications which, whether they are
found among endowed or unendowed men, ought
to be enlisted on the side of Christianity. They
may exist apart from science, and they may most
usefully and productively be exerted apart from
science. The possessors of them are abundantly
to be found in the private or humble walks of so-
ciety, and may be the powerful instruments of
propagating their own moral and spiritual like-
ness, among their respective vicinities. We are
aware of the jealousy and disdain in which they
are regarded by many a churchman,—that, held
to be empirics, who invade the province of the
regular faculty, there is, it is thought, the same
mischief done by them, in theology, which is
done by quacks in medicine,—that the diseases of
the soul are liable to the same sort of injurious
mismanagement, in the hands of the one, as the
326
diseases^of the body are, in the hands of the other;
and this is very much the feeling of the great ma-
jority of our ecclesiastics, whether they look to
the efforts of unlettered Methodism, in England,
or to the Sabbath teaching, and the lay itineran-
cies, and the gratuitous zeal of the unofficial and
the unordained of our own country.
Now, this parallel between physic and theolo-
gy does not hold; nor is the power of working a
given effect on the corporeal system arrived at
by the same steps, with the power of working a
given effect on the moral or spiritual system.
To be a healing operator upon the body, one
must be acquainted with the manifold variety
of effects which the agents and applications in-
numerable of matter have upon the maladies
equally innumerable, to which the body is ex-
posed. To be a healing operator upon the
soul, there is one great application revealed to us
in Scripture, which, in every instance where it
does take effect, acts as an unfailing specific for
all its moral disorders. In the former profession,
every addition of knowledge is an addition of
power; and the best guarantees for an effectual
exercise of the art medical are the science, and
study, and experience, of a finished education.
In the latter profession, these are useful too, for
estimating the effect that has been made upon the
character, but not indispensable for working that
effect. That mighty truth, the belief of which
is the power of God, and the wisdom of God, un-
327
to salvation, may be deposited, by one man, in
the heart of another, without the aid of any scho-
lastic art, or scholastic preparation. It is too
simple to be illustrated by human talent, and the
mode of its conveyance from one bosom to ano-
ther depends on certain influences which are as
much beyond the reach of a philosopher as of a
peasant, and as much within the reach of a pea-
sant as of a philosopher. Grant that the one has
just as much of personal Christianity, and as much
of devotedness, in the cause of human souls, and
as much of the spirit of believing intercession
with God, in behalf of those among whom he is
labouring,—and then is he in possession of just
as powerful instruments as the other, for bringing
them under the dominion of the truth, as it is in
Jesus. So that it is not with bodily as it is with
spiritual innoculation. To work the one aright
there must be the contact of a right matter with
the material subject to which it is applied; and
one must study the properties of that which is
without them, ere they are qualified to make the
application. To work the other aright, there
must be the contact of a right mind with the mo-
ral subject to which it is applied; and the posses-
sor of such a mind has simply to put its desires
and its tendencies into movement, that the wish-
ed for effect may follow; has to act on the im-
pulse of its affections for others; and to pour
forth its Christian regards for their welfare; and
to gain them over by the exhibition of its worth,
328
and kindness, and piety; and to hold out that
Word of life, in which there is nothing dark, but
to those who love darkness; and to vent itself in
prayer for the saving illumination of those whom
it never ceases, so long as hope and prudence
warrant the exertion, to ply, with its most unweari-
ed activities. To work a moral effect, such as
love, on the heart of another, one cannot fail to
perceive that mere science, even though it should
be the science of our own nature, were utterly
unavailing; and that the man who bears this af-
fection in his own heart would do more to call
out a return of it, from the heart of his neighbour,
than he who, without love himself, has, at the
same time, a most intelligent discernment into
the law of its operation. And it is the same with
a Christian effect. He who can best work it on
another's mind is a Christian himself. It is the
sympathy of his kindred feelings—it is the obser-
vation of his actual faith, and of its bright and
beautiful influences upon his own character—it is
the winning representation of a doctrine that
may be read a thousand times over, without ef-
fect, in the written epistles of the New Testa-
ment, but which is armed with a new power to
engage and soften the heart of an inquirer, when
he sees it exemplified in the person of that be-
liever who is a living epistle of Christ Jesus—it is
the melting tenderness by which he presses home
the overtures of the gospel on his fellow sinners,
and, above all, the efficacy of his prayers for grace
329
to turn and grace to enlighten them; these are
what may accomplish a man who is unlettered in
all but his Bible, to be a far more efficient Chris-
tianiser than the most profound or elaborate theo-
logian; these are what essentially constitute that
leaven by which, either with or without philoso-
phy, a fermenting process for the growth and
the diffusion of Christianity is made to spread far
and wide among our population.
This is the reason why, though ecclesiastics
should be accomplished in the whole lore and
scholarship of their profession, they should not
discourage the effort and activity of lay operatives,
in the cause. They may inspect their work, but
they should not put a stop to it. When they dis-
cover a union of intelligence and piety in an indi-
vidual, even of humble life, they should patronize
his attempts to spread around him the moral and
spiritual resemblance of himself. They else may
freeze into utter dormancy the best capabilities
that are within their reach of Christian useful-
ness: and thus it is possible for a clergyman, by
the weight of his authority, to lay an interdict on
a whole host of Christian agency, whom he should
have summoned into action, and of whom it is
possible that each may be far beneath him in the
literature of Christianity, and yet each far be-
fore him in the instrumental power of making
Christians.
Were the families of a city lane wholly over-
run with the foul spirit of radicalism, it would not
330
be on the services of him who could best dissert
on the ethics of patriotism and good citizenship
that I should most build my hopes of reclaiming
them. I should look for a far more important
and practical reformation from the simple pre-
sence and contiguity among them, of one their
equal, perhaps, in station, and who himself was a
sound and a leal-hearted patriot. There would
be a weight of influence in the mere exhibition of
his wholesome and well-conditioned mind, which
no argument however skilful, and no penetration
however subtle into the casuistry of public and
political virtue, could have power to carry along
with them. The living exemplification of a sober,
and judicious, and regulated spirit, maintaining its
loyalty in the midst of surrounding fury and fer-
mentation, would go farther to calm the tempest
than the most ingenious political sermon that
was ever framed: and more especially if the indi-
vidual who so held forth among his neighbours
was one in whose friendship they had long trust-
ed, and to whose consistency and good conduct
they could all testify. There is no series of lec-
tures delivered in any hall of public resort that
would have half the force which lay in the mere
personal communications of such a man with his
next-door associates; and what could not have
been done by the didactic efforts of any political
reasoner, will be far more readily done by the
present example and the untaught effusions of
him who simply realised, in his own character,
331
the worth and the practical wisdom of a good cit-
izen.
Or, in some other cluster of families, did jeal-
ousy and dislike alienate the heart of each individ-
ual from all his fellows, it would not be to him
who best understood the mysteries of our moral
nature, that I would look, as the likeliest instru-
ment for restoring peace and confidence among
them. Through his insight into the arcana of
the human constitution, he may be able both to
perceive and to proclaim, that when there is good
will to others in the bosom of one, this calls forth
a reciprocal good will to him back again. It is
not by sermonizing on the operation of this prin-
ciple, that the wished for effect is carried: it is
by actually having the principle, and operating
therewith. Or, in other words, the simple pre-
sence of a man, humble it may be, in rank, but
richly endowed either with Christian or with con-
stitutional benevolence,—it is this, unaccompa-
nied with all metaphysical discernment, or the
power of metaphysical explanation, that will do
more to expel the spirit of rancour from a neigh-
bourhood, and to substitute the spirit of charity
in its place, than any theoretical exposition of
principles or processes can possibly accomplish.
It is not the man who best lectures on the opera-
tion of the moving force, but the man who is pos-
sessed of the moving force, and actually wields it
—it is he who works the practical consequence
on the temper and mind of the neighbourhood
332
over which he expatiates. And thus it is that
the man of Christian love operates more power-
fully as a leaven, in his vicinity, than the man of
Christian learning: and it is altogether a mistake,
that a long and laborious routine of scholarship
must be described, ere the exertions of a religious
teacher shall, with efficacy, tell on the moral
and spiritual habit of the disciples who repair to
him.
For, it is just in Christianity as in the cases we
have now quoted. All the essential truths of it
can be easily apprehended; insomuch, that on the
ground of mere intelligence with respect to its
most vital and important doctrines, the peasant
and the philosopher are upon a level. But to ap-
prehend the truth with the natural understanding
is one thing, and it is another so to realise and so
to appropriate it, as that it shall bear, with power
and with personal influence, upon the character.
Now, we shall meet with instances of the latter
as readily in the humble as in the lofty walks of
society; and there we shall as soon find an indivi-
dual who can hold forth a living picture of Chris-
tianity, and bring the whole moving force of its
affections and its virtues to bear on the vicinity
around him. It were bad philosophy, to con-
fine the work of propagating a Christian influence
throughout a population to the adepts of a univer-
sity; and just as strong a transgression against
the true philosophy of our nature, to confine it to
the regularly bred and ordained clergy, whether
333
of our city or our country parishes. And, how-
ever offensive it may be to the official pride and
the official intolerance of churchmen, it is not, on
that account, the less true, that, among the very
humblest of the flock, individuals may be found,
who, with no pretensions to the science of Chris-
tianity, yet, from the attractive sympathy that
there is in its virtues and in its graces, will
form into a more powerful as well as a purer lea-
ven than is the minister himself: insomuch, that
the very best service which he is capable of ren-
dering to the cause may be, to give freedom and
encouragement to the working of this leaven, in
every part of the mass, where it is known to exist.
Perhaps, the deadliest obstacle to the Christianity
of his parish is the rancour that he feels towards
the zeal and the activity of lay operatives,—the
contemptuous resistance, not less unphilosophical
than it is unscriptural, with which he is ever
bearing down the nascent piety of his neighbour-
hood, and stifling, in embryo, all those various
expedients of Sabbath schools, and fellowship
meetings, and assemblages for prayer and religious
conversation, wherewith the Christianity of the
few might diffuse and multiply'its own image over
the whole of that parochial territory which is as-
signed to him.
In every church let securities be provided for
the highest attainments of Christian literature, _so
as that many ecclesiastics shall be found in it,
rich in all the deep and varied erudition of theo-
334
logy. We know not a nobler intellectual emi-
nence than that which may be gained on the
neglected walks of sound and scriptural philoso-
phy, by one who, with a mind stored both in the
criticism and antiquities of his profession, further
knows how to impregnate his acquisitions with
the liberal and experimental spirit of our aa*e;
and who, without commuting the orthodoxy of
God's imperishable record, could so far moder-
nize the science, of which he was, at the same
time, both the champion and the ornament, as to
envolve upon the world, not its new truths, but its
new applications. Christianity never changes,
but the complexion and habits of the species are
always changing: and thus may there be an ex-
haustless novelty both of remark and illustration,
in our intellectual treatment of a science which
touches at almost every point in the nature of
man, and bears, with decisive effect, on the
whole frame and economics of civil society. In
such a tract of literature as this, study, and spe-
culation, and scholarship, may be carried to the
uttermost extent: and he who has done so may
well take his place with all that is dignified and
great, whether in moral or political philosophy.
But it were giving* the last finish to the character
of his mind, if, amid the pride and the prowess
of its rare accomplishments, he could appretiate
aright the piety and the practical labours of an
unlettered Christian: and it would confer upon
him that very thing which is so touching, in the
335
simplicity of Newton, or in the missionaryfzeal
and devotedness of Boyle, if, while surrounded by
the trophies of his own successful authorship, he
could be made to see, that, however profound in
the didactics of Christianity, yet, in the actual
work of giving a personal spread to Christianity,
there is many a humble man of privacy and of
prayer who is far before him.
According to our beau ideal of a well going and
a well constituted church, there should be among
its ecclesiastics the very highest literature of
their profession, and among its laymen the most
zealous and active concurrence of their personal
labours in the cause. The only check upon the
occasional eccentricities of the latter should be
the enlightened judgment of the former: and
this, in every land of freedom and perfect tolera-
tion, will be found enough for the protection of
a community against the inroads of a degrading
fanaticism. It is utterly wrong, that because zeal
breaks forth, at times, into excesses and devia-
tions, there should, therefore, be no zeal; or, be-
cause spiritual vegetation has its weeds as wrell as
its blossoms, all vegetation should, therefore, be
repressed. The wisest thing, we apprehend, for
adding to the produce of the Christian vineyard
is to put into action all the productive tendencies
that may be found in it. The excrescencies
which may come forth will wither and disappear,
under the eye of an enlightened clergy: so that
while, in the first instance, the utmost space and
336
enlargement should be permitted, for the mani-
fold activities of Christian love, upon the one
hand, there should be no other defence ever
thought of, against the occasional pruriencies
that may arise out of this operation, than the
mild and pacific, but altogether efficacious correc-
tive of Christian learning, upon the other.
There are two sets of clergy, in every establish-
ment; and it were curious to observe how each
of them stands affected to the two questions,
whether the ministers of the gospel shall be more
richly furnished with Christian literature, and,
whether the laymen who are under them shall be
permitted to supplement the duties of the clerical
office, with Christian labour. There is one class
of our ecclesiastics, both in England and Scotland,
who have a taste for popular agency, and lay en-
terprises, and the whole apparatus of religious
schools and religious societies, which are so mul-
tiplying around us, in this busy age of philanthro-
pic activity and adventure. Now, what we would
ask of such ecclesiastics is, whether they would
feel a relish or repugnance towards those mea-
sures, the effect of which is to exalt the clergy
of the church to a higher pre-eminence than they
even now occupy, for all the accomplishments of
sacred literature? Will they come forward and
say that they are afraid of literature?—that a cler-
gy too enlightened would not suit them?—that,
loving to breathe in the muddy atmosphere of
popular ignorance and popular folly, they want
337
no science and no scholarship, whose hateful
beams might disperse the congenial vapours where-
with the effervescence of plebeianism has filled and
overspread the whole scene of their ignoble labours?
Do they tremble, lest the light of philosophy should
penetrate|into the dark unknown of their own in-
glorious sculking places? And are they really
conscious, after all, that what they have headed
and patronised is a low paltry drivelling fanati-
cism, which would shrink before the full gaze of
a lettered and intellectual church, where every
minister were a luminary of science as well as a
luminary of the gospel? These are the degrad-
ing imputations they will bring upon themselves, v
by any resistance they shall make to the learning
of the clergy: and such a resistance, if offered, is
the very thing that will propagate the timely alarm
to another quarter, and will cause, we trust, the
friends of learning to rally, and to form into
strength elsewhere. Those ministers who, whe-
ther under the name of the high church, or of the
moderate, or of the rational party, feel a strong
disrelish towards the active interference of laymen
in the work of religious instruction, will know how
to act should they perceive, in the party of their
antagonists, an equally strong disrelish towards
any measure that goes to augment the professio-
nal literature of all our future ecclesiastics. They
cannot be blind to the fact, that, at this moment,
there is a fermentation, and a brooding activity,
x
338
and an unexampled restlessness, and a busy
movement of schemes and of operations, before
unknown in the walks of popular Christianity;
and if, additional to all this, they should further
see a dread, on the part of zealous champions and
overseers, lest the lamp of Christian literature
should be lighted up into greater brilliancy than
before, we trust that this will be felt and un-
derstood by those who nauseate what they term
the missionary and methodistical spirit of our
age, as the intimation of what they ought to do.
It is not by putting forth the arm of intolerance,
that they will reach it its exterminating blow.
It is not by fulminating edicts that they* will
smother it. It is not by raising and strengthen-
ing all the mounds of exclusion, that they will be
able to guard our Establishment against what
they deem, and honestly deem, to be the inroads
of a pestilence. These are not the legitimate de-
fences of our Church against hateful fanaticism:
and they who have set themselves in array against
this hydra, whether she be indeed a reality or on-
ly a bugbear of their own imagination, can do
nothing better than to rear a literary and enligh-
tened priesthood, under the eye of whose vigi-
lance all that is truly noxious and evil will be
most effectually disarmed also.
But should the friends of this so called fanaticism
among the clergy be also the friends, and not the
enemies, of scientific and theological accomplish-
339
ment in their own order; should they dare their an-
tagonists to the open arena of light and of liberty;
should their demand be that the torch of learning
shall be blown into a clearer and intenser flame, and
be brought to shine upon all their opinions and
all their ways; should the cry which they send
forth be for more of erudition, and more of philo-
sophy, and that not one single labourer shall be
admitted to the ministerial field, till our universi-
ties, those established luminaries of our land, have
shed upon his understanding a larger supply of
that pure, and chaste, and academic light, the
property of which is to guide, and not to bewil-
der, to clarify the eye of the mind, and not to
dazzle it to the overpowering of all its faculties;—
if this be the beseeching voice of fanaticism, and
it be left to pass unregarded away, then shall the
enemies of fanaticism have become the enemies
of knowledge; and our Church, instead of exhi-
biting the aspect of zeal tempered by wisdom,
and of a warm, active, busy spirit of Christian
philanthropy, under the control and guardianship
of accomplished and well educated clergymen,
may, at length, desolated of all its pieties, be
turned into a heartless scene of secularity, and
coarseness, and contempt for vital religion, where
the sacredness of Christianity has fled, and left
not behind it one redeeming quality in the sci-
ence of Christianity among its officiating minis-
ters; and, alike abandoned by the light of the Di-
vine Spirit, and the light of human philosophy, it
340
will offer the spectacle of a dreary and extended
waste, without one spot of loveliness or verdure
which the eye can delight to rest upon.*
But, it is now time to enter on the more fami-
liar objections which have been alleged against
Sabbath schools: and there is none which floats
so currently, or is received with greater welcome
and indulgence, than that they bear with adverse
and malignant influence, on family religion,—that
they detach our young from the natural guardian-
ship of their own family; and come in place of
that far better and more beautiful system which,
at one time, obtained over the whole Lowlands
of Scotland,—when almost every father was, at
the same time, the Sabbath teacher of his own
* We have been insensibly led to some of the above remarks, by the cir-
cumstance of a measure being now in progress, for augmenting the acade-
mic preparations of our students, ere they shall be admissible to the ministerial
office in Scotland. There can be no doubt as to the fact of a very wide diversity
of sentiment between two bodies of clergy, about the expediency of enlisting,
as subsidiary teachers, laymen who have not had the advantage of a university
education. We think, on the one hand, that, without such education, there
is many a private Christian, who might thus be most usefully and most ef-
fectively employed; but, on the other hand, we would have this education
rendered far more complete, and perfect among the regular teachers of the
Establishment. And we therefore conceive that the measure in question
should have friends and zealous supporters from both sides of the Church.
They who see ground for fear, lest, in the novel institutions of Sabbath
teaching, and lay agency, the Church shall be trodden under foot by a sort
of fanatical usurpation, should wish for a more accomplished clergy, as the
most effectual barrier against this mischief. And it is for tjie credit of
those again who patronise such institutions, to manifest their utter fearless-
ness of light and learning; but rather to court its approaches, and prove,
by their doing so, that they regarded their own practice as accordant with
the doctrines of revelation, and the sound philosophy of our nature.
341
offspring; when the simple voice of psalms was
heard to ascend from our streets and our cot-
ages, and the evening of God's hallowedJlay was
consecrated, in many a mansion of domestic piety,
to those holy exercises which assembled the chil-
dren of each household around their venerable
sires, and transmitted the Christian worth and
wisdom of the former to its succeeding genera-
tion. It is some such picture as this which kin-
dles the indignation of many a sentimentalist
against the institutions that we are pleading for;
and they have to combat not merely the uncon-
cern and enmity which obtain with the many,
towards all schemes of Christian philanthropy
whatever, but also the generous emotions, and
even the pious recollections, of a few men, who
are disposed, at least, to give the question a re-
spectful entertainment.
Now, it ought to be remembered, that to come
in place of a better system is one thing, and to
displace that system is another. Is it possible for
any man, at all acquainted with the chronology of
Sabbath schools, to affirm that they are the instru-
ments of having overthrown the family religion of
Scotland? Have they operated as so many ruth-
less invaders, on what, at the time of their entrance,
was a beauteous moral domain, and swept away
from it all that was affecting or graceful in the ob-
servations of our forefathers? Whether did they
desolate the territory, or have they only made their
lodgement on what was already a scene of desola-
342
tion? The truth is, that for many years previous
to the extension of this system, a woful degene-
racy was going on in the religious habit and char-
acter of our country;—that, from the wanton out-
rages inflicted by unrelenting patronage on the
taste and demand of parishes, the religious spi-
rit, once so characteristic of our nation, has
long been rapidly subsiding—that, more particu-
larly in our great towns, the population have so
outgrown the old ecclesiastical system, as to have
accumulated there into so many masses of practi-
cal heathenism:—and now the state of the alter-
native is not, whether the rising generation shall
be trained to Christianity in schools, or trained to
it under the roof of their fathers; but whether
they shall be trained to it in schools, or not trained
to it at all. It is whether a process of deterioration,
which originated more than half a century ago, and
hasbeen rapid andresistless in its various tendencies
ever since—whether it shall be suffered to carry our
people still more downward in the scale of moral
blindness and depravity; or whether the only re-
maining expedient for arresting it shall be put into
operation. Were it as easy a task to prevail on
an irreligious parent to set up the worship and
the instruction of religion, in his family, as to get
his consent, and prevail upon his children, to at-
tend the ministrations of a Sabbath school, there
might then be some appearance of room for all
the obloquy that has been cast upon these institu-
tions. But as the matter stands, in many a city
343
and in many a parish, the Christian philanthropist
is shut up to an effort upon the young, as his last
chance for the moral regeneration of our country.
In despair (and it is a despair warranted by all
experience) of operating, with extensive effect, on
the confirmed habit and obstinacy of manhood, he
arrests the human plant, at an earlier and more
susceptible stage, and puts forth the only hand
that ever would have offered for the culture and
the training of this young immortal. In the great
majority of instances, he does not withdraw his pu-
pils, for a single moment, from any Christian in-
fluence that would have descended upon them
in another quarter, but showers upon their heads
and their hearts the only Christian influence they
ever are exposed to. He is, in fact, building up
again that very system, with the destruction of
which he has been charged, and rearing many
young, who, but for him, would have been the
still more corrupt descendants of a corrupt paren-
tage, to be the religious guides and examples of a
future generation.
It is not true that family religion is superseded by
these schools, so as to make Christianity less the
topic of mutual exercise and conversation between
parents and children, than before the period of
their institution. Instead of banishing this topic
from families, they have been known, in very ma-
ny instances, to have first introduced it into dwell-
ing-places where before it was utterly unknown.
The most careless of parents are found to give
344
their ready and delighted consent to the proposal
which comes to them from the Sabbath teacher,
for the attendance of their children. And the
children, instead of carrying off from their own
houses an ingredient of worth which truly had no
place in them, do, in fact, impart that very ingre-
dient from the seminaries which have been brand-
ed as the great absorbents of all the family religion
in the land. Parents, in spite of themselves, feel
an interest in that which interests and occupies
their children; and through the medium of na-
tural affection have their thoughts been caught to
the subject of Christianity; and the very tasks and
exercises of their children have brought a theme to
their evening circle, upon which, aforetimes, not a
syllable of utterance was ever heard; and still
more, when a small and select library is attached
to the institution, has it been the mean of circu-
lating, through many a household privacy, such
wisdom and such piety as were indeed new visi-
tants upon a scene, till now untouched by any
print or footstep of sacredness.
We have one prophecy in the Bible, that many
shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be in-
creased. It was thus at the outset of Christiani-
ty, when apostles itinerated from one country to
another; it is thus still with missionaries who go
abroad; and it is also thus, though in a greatly
more limited degree, with Sabbath teachers, who
go forth on the errand of Christianising, each
stepping beyond his own threshold, and travell-
345
ing his benevolent round among other families.
In the natural progress of things, the loco-motive
operation will gradually contract itself within nar-
rower boundaries. Christianity, by a more ex-
tended set of movements, will first be established,
in a general way, throughout all lands. Then, by
a busy internal process among towns and parish-
es, will there be a filling up of each larger terri-
tory. The local system of Sabbath schools may
be regarded as a step, in this transition, from a
wore widely diffusive to a more intense and con-
tracted style of operation. So far from supersed-
ing the household system of education, its direct
consequence is to establish that system in places
where it was before unknown, or to restore it in
places, where, through the decay of Christianity,
for one or more generations, it had, for some
time, been suspended. We shall not affirm, at
present, whether it is destined to continue a
wholesome institution, to the end of time; or,
whether, like the general enterprise of missionar-
ies, it too may come to be dispensed with, having
served its own important but temporary purpose
of conducting the world onward to that state, for
the arrival of which we have another prophecy of
the Bible, when " they shall not teach every
man his neighbour, and every man his brother,
saying, c know the Lord;' for all shall know him,
from the least to the greatest."
Meanwhile, we not only see that the Sabbath
school system tends directly to the establishment
346
of thehousehould system of education, but that,
even in those families where the latter is in full
operation, the former does not interfere with it.
There are many who concede the advantage of
Sabbath schools, in those cases where the parents
are neither able nor willing to teach their chil-
dren, but who regard them as a bane and a nui-
sance, when they come into contact with our re-
ligious and well ordered families. In this state
of opinion, it is impossible to conduct a Sabbath
school, without a feeling of very awkward embar-
rassment, on the part both of the teacher and of
the people among whom he expatiates. No chil-
dren can be admitted, without a severe reflection
against their parents being implied by it; and if
such be the prevalent style of sentiment respect-
ing these institutions, no parent will consent to
send his children, without feeling, that by this
step, he brings down upon his own character and
respectability the heaviest of all imputations. For
our own parts, we feel ourselves to be clear of
this embarrassment altogether. We would make
no distinction in the invitation that we offered to
families for their attendance on our schools, be-
tween religious and irreligious parents. In large
towns, where the church accommodation is still
in such wretched scantiness, we know that, with
respect to the great majority of children, such a
school affords the only opportunity they have,
through the day, for meeting in a place of public
worship or instruction,—and that attendance upon
347
it would no more interfere with household exer-
cises, than does attendance upon the ministrations
of a regular clergyman, in a well provided coun-
try parish. This argument for the sufficiency
and the superiority of family instruction would
aPPbr> with as great force, against the attendance
of children on a church, as against their atten-
dance on a Sabbath school, in all those cases
where there is no church open to receive them.
The truth is, that these schools afford the only
supplement we can at present command, in a
large town, for the defects of its ecclesiastical
system. They come in place of the churches yet
to be provided, and the existing number of which
we have already demonstrated to be so fearfully
short of the needs of the population. Nor does
the time in which a Sabbath school keeps its
children detached and at a distance from their
natural guides and protectors, exceed the time
at which, under a better economy, these same
children would be sitting, from under the paren-
tal roof, in a chapel, or meeting-house.
But, even granting the case of parents altoge-
ther religious, and granting them to be fully ob-
servant of all the ordinances, and that, in parti-
cular, their well-filled family pew holds out, Sab-
bath after Sabbath, the pleasing aspect of a well-
conditioned and a well disciplined household;
still we do not hold a Sabbath school for the chil-
dren of such parents to be at all hurtful, or even
superfluous, There is time both for the house.
348
hold and the school exercises, during the curren-
cy of a Sabbath evening, consisting, at the very
least, of four hours; and it is, on many accounts,
better that this time should be so partitioned, than
that it should all be spent by the children, in
what they are apt to feel the weary imprisonment
of their own dwelling places. It is well that there
should be such a variety to keep up and enliven
their attention, among religious topics. It is
well that the parent should guide their prepara-
tions for the teacher; and that a judicious teach-
er should lead on the parent to a right track of
exercise and examination, for the children. There
is time, under such a system, both for the lessons
and the prayers of the family; and it is further
right that there should be time for the heads of
the family to have their own hours of deeper sa-
credness, not to be interrupted even by the reli-
gious care of those who have sprung from them.
The seminaries we plead for, instead of having
any effect to mar, do, in fact, harmonise, at all
points, with the spiritual complexion of our most
decent and devoted families. Nor can we con-
ceive any degree of piety, or Christian wisdom,
on the part of parents, that should lead them to
regard a well conducted Sabbath school in any
other light than as a blessing and an acquisition
to their children.
And here it may be remarked of a local school,
that it possesses a peculiar advantage over a gen-
eral school, in the attraction which it holds out
349
to all sorts of families. It lies either within its
own little district, or in its own immediate vicin-
ity; and, separated only by a few houses from
each dwelling-place, the whole line of distance
which is described by each of the scholars from
his home, can, both in going and returning, be
easily followed or overseen by his parents. Thus
will there be no corruption to meet him on his
path, and no possibility, between the parent and
the teacher, to eVade the attendance of a single
evening, on any excursion of vice or idleness.
The shield and the security of domestic guardian-
ship are thus thrown over the system; and even
the children of the religious and irreligious
mingle together only under the eye of their
teacher, and may be separated instantaneously at
the breaking up of the juvenile congregation.
They mix only at the season when the example
and proficiency of the good have a predominating
influence over the depraved and the careless;
and passing, in a single moment, from the eye of
the teacher to the eye of the parent, there is no
time for the influence of the depraved to assume
its natural ascendency. Through a Sabbath
school, as through a conduit, the spirit and char-
acter of the better families may send a moralising
influence upon the others; while, in their passage
to and from the schools, all the guards of paren-
tal jealousy might be put forth, to intercept the
stream that else might flow in an opposite direc-
tion. It is thus that the presence and the exer-
350
tions of a Sabbath teacher may bring about just
such a composition of the families as to give scope
for the assimilating power of every good ingredi-
ent, and, at the same time, to check the assimi-
lating power of every bad one. He may hasten
inconceivably the fermentation of that leaven, by
the working of which it is that we are taught to
expect, at length, the spread of Christianity
throughout the whole population. Nor are we
aware of a single office, within the regular limits
of any ecclesiastical constitution, from the pious
and faithful discharge of whose duties so signal a
blessing may be anticipated, both for the present
and for future generations.
We are glad, however, that so much has been
said, in Scotland, about the invasion of the Sab-
bath school system on family religion. It will
have a salutary re-action both on teacher and
parents, and make all who are religiously dis-
posed be careful, lest so interesting a vestige of
the Christianity of other days should be any fur-
ther defaced or trampled upon, by an institution
the design of which is to restore our population to
all that was pious, and venerable, and affecting,
in the style and habit of the olden time. And
there is one thing that may be said to those who
urge this objection most vehemently. In so do-
ing they give up the principle of the former ob-
jection. By admitting the competency of parents
to teach Christianity to their children, they admit,
that part of this work, at least, may be confided
351
to other hands than those of regular and ordained
clergy. They admit that a father, in humble life,
may be the instrument of transmitting Christian
wisdom and Christian worth to his own children,
—and that though it were quackery for each par-
ent to undertake the cure of family diseases, it is
not quackery for each to undertake the work of
family instruction. Thus the comparison between
the efforts of the unlicencecl in theology and me-
dicine is, by them at least, practically given up.
We hold this to be a signal testimony, and from
the mouths of adversaries too, to the power of
unlettered Christianity, in propagating its own
likeness, throughout the young of our rising gen-
eration,—a power which most assuredly would not
all go into dissipation, though, for a short time
every Sabbath evening, it were transported from
its place in the family to a new place in such a
seminary of religious instruction as we have at-
tempted to advocate.
And there is one point of superiority which a
Sabbath teacher, humble in circumstances, has
over one who is much and visibly raised above
the level of the families among whom he labours.
It is true that the latter has an advantage, in the
mere ascendency of rank, and in that peculiar
homage which the very exhibition of piety, when
conjoined with affluence, is ever sure to draw
from the multitude. But the former has his
compensation in the more unmixed influence of
his ministrations. His presence awakens no sor-
352
did or mercenary expectation among the poor.
The welcome he gets from them is altogether dis-
interested: and, as we have already attempted to
evince, in the proportion that the acceptance of
a religious visit is untainted, in respect of its
character, is the visit itself unimpaired in re-
spect of its practical efficacy. To us the purity
of the ministration appears indispensable to the
power of it: and it is to him who is the bear-
er of Christianity and nothing else, among the
habitations of the common people, that we would
look for the most ready and rapid diffusion of
its principles. This is a circumstance which goes
far to counteract any loss that may be conceived
to arise from the defect of a more regular or re-
fined scholarship. Let there be sincere piety unit-
ed with plain but good intelligence, and we
would have no scruple, but the contrary, in em-
ploying, as Sabbath teachers, men from the very
humblest classes of life. The weight of an exalt-
ed character will ever carry it over the Want of an
exalted condition: and it is, indeed, a striking
testimony to the worth and importance of the
poor, that among them the best capabilities are
to be found for transforming a corrupt into a
pure and virtuous community.
This holds out a very brilliant moral perspec-
tive to the eye of a philanthropist. In a few
years, many of the scholars at our present semi-
naries will be convertible into the teachers of a
future generation. There will be indefinite addi-
353
tions made to our religious agency. Instead of
having to assail, as now, the general bulk of the
population, by a Christian influence from with-
out, the mass itself will be penetrated, and,
through the means of residing and most effective
teachers, there will be kept up a busy process of
internal circulation. It is thus that he who can
patiently work at small things, and be content to
wait for great things, lends by far the best con-
tribution to the mighty achievement of regener-
ating our land. Extremes meet; and the san-
guine philanthropist, who is goaded on by his
impatience to try all things, and look for some
great and immediate result, will soon be plunged
into the despair of ever being able to do any
thing at all. The man who can calmly set him-
self down to the work of a district school, and
there be satisfied to live and to labour without a
name, may germinate a moral influence that will,
at length, overspread the whole city of his habi-
tation. It is rash to affirm of the local system
that it is totally impracticable in London; while
most natural, at the same time, that it should ap-
pear so to those who think nothing worthy of an
attempt, unless it can be done per saltimi^—unless
it at once fills the eye with the glare of magnifi-
cence, and it can be invested, at the very outset,
with all the pomp and patronage of extensive
committeeship. A single lane, or court, in Lon-
don, is surely not more impracticable than in
other towns of this empire. There is one man
z
354
to be found there, who can assume it as his loca-
lity, and acquit himself thoroughly and well of
the duties which it lays upon him. There is ano-
ther who can pitch beside him, on a contiguous
settlement, and, without feeling bound to specu-
late for the whole metropolis, can pervade, and do
much to purify his assumed portion of it. There
is a third who will find that a walk so unnoticed
and obscure is the best suited to his modesty;
and a fourth, who will be eager to reap, on the
same field, that reward of kind and simple grati-
tude, in which his heart is most fitted to rejoice.
We are sure that this piece-meal operation will
not stop for want of labourers,—though it maybe
arrested, for a while, through the eye of labour-
ers being seduced by the meteoric glare of other
enterprises, alike impotent and imposing. So
long as each man of mediocrity conceives himself
to be a man of might, and sighs after some scene
of enlargement, that may be adequate to his fan-
cied powers, little or nothing will be done; but
so soon as the sweeping and sublime imagination
is dissipated, and he can stoop to the drudgery of
his small allotment in the field of usefulness, then
will it be found, how it is by the summation of
many humble mediocrities, that a mighty result
is at length arrived at. It was by successive
strokes of the pickaxe and the chisel that the
pyramids of Egypt were reared: and great must
be the company of workmen, and limited the task
which each must occupy, ere there will be made
355
to ascend the edifice of a nation's worth, or of a
nation's true greatness.
In this laborious process" of nursing an empire
to Christianity, we know not, at present, a readi-
er or more available apparatus of means than
that which has been raised by Methodism. In
every large town of England, it owns a number
of disciples, and, through a skilful mechanism that
has been long in operation, there is a minute ac-
quaintance, on the part of their leaders, with the
talents and character of each of them. Why
should not they avail themselves of their existing
facilities for the adoption of this system, and so,
thoroughly pervade that population by their Sab-
bath schools, which they only, as yet, have par-
tially drawn to their pulpits? It would be doing
more, in the long run, to renovate and multiply
the chapels of Methodism, than all that has yet
been devised by them: and thus might they both
extend religious education among the young, and
a church-going habit throughout the general po-
pulation. We doubt not that, with this new style
of tactics, they would mightily alarm the Estab-
lishment. But so much the better. This is just
the salutary application which the Establishment
stands in need of. And, from all that we have
learned of the catholic and liberal spirit of this
class of dissenters, we guess that, though they
did no more than simply stimulate the Church of
England to do the whole work, and to do it
aright, they would bless God and rejoice.
356
Such is the good will we bear to sectarians,
that we should rejoice in nothing more than to
behold their instantaneous adoption of an expedi-
ent which, we honestly believe, would add ten-
fold to their resources and their influence. Let
them operate in large towns, on the principle of
locality. Let them enter on the territorial pos-
session of this peopled wilderness. Let them er-
ect as many district schools and district chapels
as they find that they have room for; and if the
Establishment will not be roused by this manifold
activity, out of its lethargies, then sectarianism
will, at length, earn, and most rightfully earn,
all the honours and all the ascendency of an Es-
tablishment. It is, indeed, a most likely thing
that the Church would be put into motion; and
this, of itself, were an important good rendered
to the country, by the industry and zeal of dis-
senters. But when we look to the fearful defi-
ciency of our ecclesiastical system, there is no
fear lest all the galley-boats of sectarianism, with
the slow and ponderous Establishment in tow,
will too soon overtake the mighty extent of our
yet unprovided population. Nor do we know of
any common enterprise that wrould promise fairer,
atjength, for embodying the Church and the dis-
senters together, by some such act of comprehen-
sive union, as has lately reflected so much honour
on the two most numerous classes of dissenters in
our country.
357
NOTE.
Since the publication of the chapters on Church
Patronage, the Author has been kindly honoured
by a specific communication from Mr. Gladstone,
respecting the returns of the churches that were
endowed by him.
One of them is in the town of Liverpool, and
there is attached to it a school for the education,
at present gratuitous, of 280 children. The cost
and annual expense of this establishment form a
heavy deduction from the surplus of seat rents
that would otherwise have accrued out of the ca-
pabilities of the church alone; and, accordingly,
the return is only between three and four per
cent per annum, on the whole cost.
The other church is at Seaforth, a small dis-
tance from Liverpool, where there is likewise a
school attached to the church. In both cases
there are also school-houses. It is obvious that
the circumstance of the church at Seaforth beinsr
smaller than the other, is unfavourable to the
amount of surplus return upon the capital; and,
accordingly, though the schools there be only
endowed partially, whereas it is still a wholly en-
dowed school in Liverpool, the return upon the
whole cost is about two and a half per cent.
358
The Author thinks it necessary to supplement,
by these details, the information of the text; and
he does so, not at the desire of Mr. Gladstone,
who kindly left him to his own discretion, in this
respect, but to prove how small the hazard of
such a speculation is, in populous cities, and with
large churches, provided only, however, that the
subscribers restrict themselves to the single object
of a church, and not, as has been most benevo-
lently done in the instances at Liverpool, extend
the charity of their enterprise to additional ob-
jects.
END OF VOL. I.
DR. CHAJLMERS'
Christian and Civic Economy of Large Towns.
PUBLISHED QUARTERLY, BY CHALMERS Sf COLLINS, ON THE FIRST OF
JANUARY, APRIL, JULY, AND OCTOBER. SVO. PRICEls. EACH NUMBER.
In the prosecution of his Work on the " Christian and Civic Economy of
Large Towns/' the Author'has two leading objects in view. The first is, to
point out the way in which the fearful deficiency, both of common and of Chris-
tian Education, among the people, may be repaired; and also, the likeliest ar-
rangements both for recovering and perpetuating their habit of attendance upon
the' Schools and Churches that may be instituted.
The chief matters that stand connected with this subject are embraced in
the First Volume, the contents of which are as follow :—
No I. The Advantage and Possibility of Assimilating a Town to a Coun-
try Parish.
No. II. On the Influence of Locality in Towns.
No. III. Application of the Principle of Locality to the Work of a
Christian Minister.
No. IV. The Effect of Locality in adding to the Useful Establishments
of a Town.
Nos. V. and VI. On Church Patronage.
No. VIL On Church Offices.
No. VIII. On Sabbath Schools.
There is another object distinct from the former, and certainly of subordinate
importance to it, yet more fitted, we believe, to attract general notice, than any
argument which can be delivered on the subject of a right ecclesiastical system
for our Large Towns. What we advert to is the economic condition of their
people, with the peculiar kind of influence to which it is exposed, from the fail-
ure and fluctuations of trade, and from that habit of careless expenditure, to
which there are so many temptations in every crowded society. This will lead
directly to the consideration of those artificial expedients of relief, in the shape
of Poor's Rates, Assessments, and Public Subscriptions, all of which have aggra-
vated the evils which they were intended to remedy. Blended as this matter
is with the question of Pauperism, and the way in which, by Saving Banks,
and other Institutions for fostering the providential habits of the people, their
whole subsistence may safely be devolved on their own capabilities, aided, when
occasion requires, by the charity of individuals, it is thought that the whole of
the Second Volume will be required for the purpose of doing full justice to so
wide and interesting an argument.
The progress which the Work may subsequently take cannot yet be an-
nounced with precision. But the probability of a Third Volume, on the policy
and influence of many of our distinct City Institutions, is contemplated.
Among these, Prisons, Penitentiaries, Infirmaries, and Asylums for the various
kinds of impotency and disease, hold a foremost place. The Author regrets
the necessity which lies upon him, of coming forward with quarterly Numbers,
instead of being able to accomplish the whole by one act of publication.
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