I E. RA RY 
 OF THL 
 U N IVLR^SITY 
 or ILLINOIS
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED BY WILUAM CLOWES AKD SONS, DUKE STREET, STAMFORD STREET, 
 AND CHARING CROSS.
 
 A PLEA FOB, 
 
 CHFECH DEFENCE; 
 
 OE, 
 
 WHAT HAVE THE DISSENTERS TO OFFER 
 
 AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR THE CHURCH WHICH THEY 
 
 SEEK TO DESTROY? 
 
 BY A 
 
 DISSENTINa MINISTEE. 
 
 A LECTURE DELIVERED IN THE CORN EXCHANGE, PRESTON, 
 FEBRUARY 10th, 1873, 
 
 BY 
 
 I THE EEY. EGBERT CHEISTISON, 
 
 '^: Independent Minister, Oekell, Near Wigan, Lancashire. 
 
 PRICE TAVOPENCE. 
 
 Published by the Author, Clarence Chambers, Wallgate. 
 
 1873. 
 [entered at stationers' hall.]
 
 LECTURE. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, ladies, and gentlemen,— I suppose it is not a very 
 usual tiling to find a Dissenting Minister on a Church of England 
 platform, and that, too, for the purpose of lecturing in defence of the 
 Church. AUow me, therefore, at the outset to offer a word or two 
 by way of explanation. 
 
 Although through a sort of concurrence of circumstances, which 
 
 delicate health had much to do with, I came to be associated 
 
 with the Pissenters, I cannot say that ever I have been a very 
 
 hard and fast one, i, e., after the modern English type of them. 
 
 The Dissenterism of the Baxters, and Owens, and Henries, and 
 
 Howes of other days I could sympathise with, but the Dissenterism 
 
 of Mr. Miall and his followers I do not and never could agree with. 
 
 Moreover, I have of late been more carefully examining the 
 
 whole of this subject. I have had my eyes open on the working 
 
 of Dissent around me for the last ten years, and have learned a 
 
 good deal of what it is elsewhere in this country ; and while I 
 
 freely grant that Dissenters do, and have done, much good in their 
 
 way, and that there are a great many excellent people among 
 
 tbem people for which our country and our Christianity have 
 
 cause to be proud of— people from whom I myself have experienced 
 personal kindness, and whom I will regard with feelings of gratitude 
 and respect as long as I live — yet I have arrived at the conviction 
 
 the honest conviction — that the principles on which their system 
 
 ig founded are erroneous, and that the policy which so many of 
 them are at present pursuing towards the Established Church is 
 altogether wrong — that it is unwise and rash, unfair and unjust, 
 unprovoked, and uncalled for, and that were it carried out, would 
 ere long bring about a rehgious state of things in this country so 
 sad that I believe many of the wisest and the best people among 
 themselves, would be the first to deplore.
 
 With these convictions I feel it a duty to oppose them in their 
 attack upon the National Church, and this all the more that the 
 system which they have to offer as a substitute for an Endowed 
 Estabhshed Church is so faulty and defective, as I will this evening 
 endeavour to show. In the third place, if in what follows I may 
 seem a Httle severe on Dissent, my only apology can be this — that 
 were I to tell you one-half the suffering that I and my family have 
 quietly and for years endured under that system, and this simply 
 and solely because I honourably stood my ground against the 
 tyranny of a few imperious leading Dissenters, who attempted to 
 trample my rights into the dust, and outraged their own professed 
 principles — were I to tell you this, your only surprise would be, how 
 I could possibly deal so leniently with a system under which I ^had 
 suffered so much. But enough of these personal allusions, they are 
 not agreeable, and I shall not trouble you with another to-night. I 
 now proceed with my lecture, which is entitled — 
 
 " A Flea for Church Defence ; or, what have the JDitseniers to 
 offer in room of the Church which they seek to destroy .^" 
 
 It is in vain then, for Churchmen any longer to shut their eyes 
 to the fact that there is a deep and wide-spread hostility to the 
 Church, both as a Church, and especially as an Established Church 
 existing in this land. And here, at the outset, it may not be amiss 
 to take a glance at the various parties of which the Church's foes 
 are comjDosed. 
 
 First, there is a large class of persons, who know nothing, or 
 next to nothing, and care as Httle, about religion at all, but who 
 have an average inteUigence about other things. They seldom, or 
 never, darken the door of any place of worship. Religion to them 
 is a thing of no account whatever. But these people, while they 
 may look with no favour on the Dissenting chapel, look with a 
 jealous eye upon the Church. They have a sort of idea, however 
 erroneous, that the Church is somehow eating up a good deal of 
 the fat of the land, which, as they think, might go for another and 
 better purpose. Now these people, while not the first to move in 
 the matter, will be ready enough to follow and join in the cry, 
 "Down with the Church," and apply her revenues to other 
 purposes. 
 
 , UIUC \,
 
 5 
 
 Then there is a large class of infidels and sceptics of all sorts — 
 especially in our cities and large towns — men who deny the truth 
 of the Bible, and hate the very name of Christ and Christianity, 
 and who would rejoice to have the opportunity of joining any class 
 of men to pull down the Established Church. These, the enemies 
 of all rehgion, have their organized societies, paid agents, and 
 publications, for disseminating their pernicious principles all over 
 the country. They are bold and active, as they are unscrupulous 
 and profane, and headed by such men as Bradlaugh and others, 
 these men will work with a will to destroy the Church, in order to 
 destroy the Christian religion itself Then there is the whole body 
 of the Eoman Catholics. Sorely grieved that their own religion is 
 not the established religion of this country, they will almost to a 
 man join in the crusade against the Church. Unfortunately, too, 
 there are some within the Church itself, who, whatever their 
 motives may be, are most unwisely, and I should think sinfully, 
 taking part with her enemies. Then lastly, there are the 
 Dissenters, or Nonconformists, who form by far the larger and 
 more important class of the assailants of the Church. These are 
 the leaders in the attack, and seem to have taken an oath that 
 they will never lay down their arms tiU their object is gained, and 
 the Church is broken into fragments and laid in ruins. 
 
 The enemies of the Church are therefore composed of a strange 
 medley and mixture of people, of aU shades of opinion and religious 
 creed, and people of no creed, together with all the infidels and 
 open enemies of rehgion in the land. But while sadly disagreeing 
 amongst themselves over most things, yet just like Pilate and Herod 
 of old, who, being at enmity between themselves, became good 
 friends over the condemnation and crucifiction of Jesus Christ ; so 
 these people — the Dissenters and Eoman Catholics, and all the 
 waifs and infidels of the land— are ready to shake hands and make 
 friends over the disestablishment and ruin of the National Church. 
 This being the case, surely it is time, and more than time, that 
 the friends of the Church everywhere were also bestirring themselves 
 and putting on their armour of defence, for the attack has already 
 commenced. 
 
 I would not attempt to defend the Church, nor would I advise 
 any of her friends to do it, simply on the ground that she is an
 
 6 
 
 old and venerable Institution, or because I believe lier to be 
 altogether perfect or anything like it. Some institutions are old 
 and venerable, but are neither true nor good, and as for perfection, 
 in any institution that men in their imperfect state have got much 
 to do with, it is in vain to look for it beneath the sun. But I 
 would defend the Established Church for these reasons: First, 
 because I believe her to be a true Church of Christ. 2nd, because 
 that \vith all her faults I believe that she has been and is 
 still one of the greatest blessings as well as the chief glory of 
 England. And 3rd, because I believe that to disestablish and dis- 
 endow her would be one of the greatest mistakes that the people 
 of this country ever committed, and nothing less than a great 
 national calamity. 
 
 Notwithstanding the tendency towards Eomanism on the part 
 of some, and towards infidelity on the part of others of her ministers, 
 which is deeply to be deplored : yet there can be no question, that 
 for the last 300 years the Church of England has been, and is still, 
 the great bulwark against both Popery and infidelity in this land ; 
 and there can be as little question that she has been, and is still, 
 the great Protest antizer and Christianizer of the mass of the 
 people of this country, and at the present time is more alive, 
 doing more good, and more for the glory of God and the salvation 
 of men than ever, and is therefore more than ever worthy of the 
 countenance and support of all good men. 
 
 To disestablish and disendow her would be to rob her of her 
 rightful inheritance, given at various times by her own children to 
 enable her to hold forth the lessons of Christianity to the people 
 in every parish and corner of this land, and that the poor might 
 have the Gospel preached to them without money and without 
 price. It would be to rend her in pieces, and reduce the frag- 
 ments to so many more additional sects in the land, of which there 
 are far too many already. It would, moreover, mean that by and 
 by thousands and tens of thousands, if not millions of the people 
 in the parishes, villages, and rural districts of the country, and the 
 poorer and more densly populated parts of our towns, would be left 
 without the means of grace and religious instruction altogether — 
 left to relapse and five and die in a state of practical heathenism. 
 
 Supposing, then, that the Church were disestabhshed and des-
 
 troyed, let us see what the Dissenters have to offer the people of 
 England as a substitute for all the benefits and blessings she is now 
 the means of bestowing. Surely they have, or at least they ought 
 to have, something at all events equally good if not better, or it is 
 simply outrageous in them to attempt to pull down and sweep away 
 the National Church. When I speak of Dissenters you will under- 
 stand me to mean chiefly the Independents and Baptists, for these 
 are out of sight the more clamourous and formidable enemies of the 
 Church. As for the Methodist bodies, who are doing ten-fold more 
 than the Independents and Baptists to reclaim the poor and the 
 ignorant from vice and heathenism, they are taking but little or no 
 part in this matter at all. As a matter of course the Dissenters 
 consider their own system better than yours, and no doubt would 
 hke to see it embraced by you and by all. Let us see then what 
 they have to offer. 
 
 In the first place they have to offer you what is called the 
 " Voluntary Principle." Now this voluntary principle has a very 
 wide signification, and in the lips and writings of debaters and 
 agitators frequently means something hke this : — They believe, or 
 at least they say they believe, that if it is a sin to have an 
 Established Church at all, seemingly forgetting that for some 1,000 
 or 1,500 years the Jewish Church of old existed as an Estabhshed 
 Church, by the express appointment and command of God himself. 
 Nevertheless, they have somehow discovered that an Estabhshed 
 Church is a sin, and altogether wrong ; that it is wrong for the 
 Government of a nation, as such, to give any pecuniary support to 
 the cause of religion in any shape or form whatever, and that it is 
 wrong for a Christian Church to accept any such aid to support 
 the ministers of the gospel and promote the glory of God in a 
 land, or in the world, Yea, this voluntary principle says that it is 
 wrong to give any of the nation's money to help to support the 
 nation's schools, i. e., if the Bible is read in these schools, and the 
 first principles of rehgion are taught to the nation's children. One 
 would have though that a little of the nation's money could not- have 
 been given for a better or nobler purpose than this ; but the 
 voluntary principle saj's no, and therefore opposes it with all its 
 might. 
 
 But this voluntary principle goes a step yet farther and it says
 
 8 
 
 tKat it is wrong for tlie Government of a nation, as sucli, to take 
 any notice of religion at all, " that religion has nothing to do with 
 the State, and the State has nothing to do with rehgion." The 
 Voluntaries seem not to understand that the world itself, with all 
 its states and nations, belong to the Lord as well as the Church, 
 and that surely the first duty of every Government of a nation 
 where God is known, is to acknowledge Him as " King of Kings 
 and Lord of Lords," and to govern in His fear and according to His 
 word. But the voluntary principle says no. 
 
 Now, if this is not an atheistical sort of principle it certainly 
 looks very like it, for it is an ignoring of God and all His claims in 
 the highest councils and tribunals of the land, and in all the nation's 
 actings as a nation. According to this principle, so far as the 
 ofiicial actings of the Queen, Parliament, judges and magistrates of 
 our land are concerned, this might be a nation of heathens or 
 atheists, without either the knowledge or the fear of God in it. 
 "Where this principle was first got I know not, but there is one 
 Book from which I am sure it was not got, and that is the Bible. 
 It has no place there, unless to be reprobated and emphatically 
 condemned. 
 
 Then voluntaryism, and perhaps in its more ordinary sense (for 
 it has two or three senses, or there are two or three kinds, or parts 
 of it), means, that as religion ought not in any sense or degree to 
 be supported by the State, no, nor even as it appears, by the bequests 
 of our ancestors, or the property set apart from time immemorial 
 for that purpose, but solely and wholly by the voluntary or free 
 will offerings of those that care, and are able to pay for it, or on 
 the "free trade" principle of demand and supply. 
 
 Well, I am one of those who believe that religion is a thing 
 worth paying for, and so did all those who centuries ago voluntarily 
 gave their property to endow the church ; but then what of the 
 thousands and tens of thousands all over the land, and over all the 
 world, who do not consider religion a thing worth paying for, and 
 to whom, unless they are to be left to live and die in vice and 
 heathenism, the gospel must be sent and offered to them without 
 money and without price, at the cost of others than themselves. 
 What of these ? A time may indeed come when there may be no 
 need for endowed churches — a time when the spirit of true religion
 
 9 
 
 will so pervade all classes of society, and the tide of liberality flow 
 so freely and fully that there will be enough and to spare for the 
 support of all the ministers and ordinances of rehgion, and to carry 
 on all the works of Christain beneficence and missionary enterprise 
 without the aid of anything either from the State, or from the pre- 
 sent rightful heritage of the Church. I could conceive of such a 
 state of things as this. But the Dissenters themselves being 
 witnesses, we are yet a long, long way from it at least in this land 
 — the richest land in the world. 
 
 The Dissenters have now had a long and a fair trial of the 
 voluntary system. It ought by this time to be nearly if not 
 altogether in its perfection with them. What then has it done ? 
 Has its success really been so great as to make it wise and safe to 
 at once sweep away the endowments of the National Church and 
 leave the whole Christianity of the country to its mercy ? It has 
 erected a great many chapels of one sort or other, and a number of 
 schools, that is true. It is, however, one thing to build a chapel or 
 school — a spasmodic effort on the part of a few individuals in 
 almost any locality wiU accompHsh that ; but it is quite another 
 and a very different thing from year to year, to maintain in 
 decency and comfort, a minister for the chapel and a teacher for 
 the school. What then has the voluntaryism of the voluntaries 
 done in the way of maintaining its own ministers ? It has done 
 this : it has given some few of thom something like a prize — a 
 £700, £800, or £1,000 a year. It has given perhaps a third of 
 them, what might be called a respectable living, while the remain- 
 ing two-thirds it has kept and is still keeping at a point next to 
 starvation itself, or at least, on a pittance so miserably small that 
 it is simply impossible for men to live in any degree of comfort 
 and respectability as becomes teachers of rehgion ; of this there 
 can be no doubt whatever. 
 
 Then what has the voluntaryism of the Dissenters done in the 
 numberless localities and districts, especially of the poorer sort both 
 in to"\vn and country, whose populations have outgrown the pro- 
 vision of the Church, and which were perfectly open to their 
 enterprise ? It has simply all but let them alone ; it ilees from 
 such localities and leaves them to the Church, or to the Methodists, 
 or a prey to the evil one himself, because they won't pay. Yea,
 
 10 
 
 probably nearly one-third of the chapels it has built are without 
 ministers altogether, and this simply and solely because there are 
 not means to support them, not even at the starving point. There 
 are men enough to fill them all, if the voluntaries would only out 
 with the money. Such an idea of the voluntary system, the all 
 sufficiency of which the Dissenters so frequently boast, and which 
 they have to offer as a substitute for the sure provision which the 
 endowments of the Church make for her ministers and ordinances 
 even in the poorest corners of the land, and but for which the 
 voluntaryism of the Dissenters would have left in benighted 
 heathenism to this day, if not to the end of time. 
 
 Let us now look at the system of Church policy or Grovernment 
 which they have to offer you. It is what is called "Congregational 
 or Independent," i.e., each chapel, congregation, or society of 
 Dissenters stands, or at least ought to stand by itself, independent 
 of all others. It manages all its own affairs, elects and instals its 
 ministers and officers, and each member or the society, old and 
 young, learned and ignorant, wise and foolish, have an equal right 
 to vote and decide on all matters, from the election of the minister, 
 what he is to receive as his hire, whether he is to be retained or 
 dismissed, down to the sweeping of the chapel, and who is to do it, 
 and from this vote of the society there is no appeal. It may be 
 right or it may be outrageously wrong, as it often is, but no matter. 
 It is the voice or decision of the Church, they will tell you, and 
 this means much the same, as if it were the voice of God, and 
 therefore it is decisive and final. 
 
 Now this system of Congregationalism or independency might 
 do very well in a society or world of angels, but unfortunately for 
 it, this is a world of men, and not of angels ; and unfortunately too, 
 the angehc spirit is by no means not much more prominent in the 
 societies of Dissenters than amongst other people I have said that 
 the vote of the majority is called the voice or decision of the 
 Church, which would seem to mean something of very serious im- 
 port if we did not happen to know a little more particularly about 
 it. Well, this voice or decision of the Church in the great majority 
 of cases just means the voice or votes of one, two, or three dozen, 
 or score of people, often by no means very remarkable for either 
 their intelligence or piety, headed or presided over by some well to do
 
 11 
 
 grocer or draper, who generally manages to get things very much 
 his own way, or there is rough work, and to whom the minister, if 
 there is one, must be ready to bow, or it will not be so well for him. 
 
 No doubt in larger and well to do congregations, numbers of 
 which are found chiefly in the larger towns, and where there are 
 a number of sensible persons, the voice of the Church may have a 
 little more sense and importance in it. But in every case it 
 just means the vote or decision of the majority of each separate 
 society entirely by itself Each congregation or society has the 
 fullest liberty to carry out its own views or notions of doctrine, 
 worship, and discipline, and everything else without being amenable 
 in any degree to any authority whatever for its doings, be they 
 right or be they wrong. This then is Independency, or Congre- 
 gationalism pure and simple. It is the principle on which all the 
 Independent and Baptist, and a number of other Dissenting places 
 of worship is founded. 
 
 Such being the principle or theory on which English Dissent is 
 founded, let us next advert for a little to its practical working. As 
 each separate congregation, whether great or small, is considered a 
 complete Church in itself, and can make or break its own laws at 
 pleasure, and as each member of the society, even the most 
 ignorant and stupid, has and claims an equal right and power with 
 the most intelligent and discreet, as might be expected, wranglings 
 and heart burnings are hardly ever at an end in these societies. 
 A Church Meeting, e.g.^ is held say once a month. The members 
 assemble and proceed to business, and too often the affair is some- 
 thing like this : — Jones, the shoemaker, must have things his way, 
 and Hardy, the draper, must have things his way, and Williams, 
 the tailor, sides with Jones, and Wilkes, the grocer, sides with 
 Hardy, and Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Hardy are exchanging anything 
 but kindly looks, and Miss Meek, the dressmaker, and Miss Moses, 
 the confectioner, are winking and smiling to one another — and so 
 these dear brethre n and sisters are all at it in right earnest. Such 
 is but a too faithful representation of many, many of these Dis- 
 senting Church meetings. 
 
 Although their congregations, at least the majority of them are, 
 comparatively speaking, but handfuls, yet they generally manage 
 to form two or three different cHques or parties in each, and
 
 12 
 
 too often over the most wretched trifle they will fall out, and 
 then the contention is for the mastership. CHque against clique, 
 and party against party, they will sometimes insult and ahuse one 
 another in such a manner as would disgrace the market-place. In 
 course of time matters are again made up, only, however, to again 
 by and bye fall out over some other affair ; and such is the history 
 of vast numbers of these Dissenting places of worship during their 
 whole existence. I have said that after they have thrashed each 
 other to their hearts content, it may be for months or years before 
 the rival parties agree to make matters up, and work together 
 again ; but often they never. A ten, twenty, or thirty of them 
 will bid the others good bye, as if in sworn hate for ever. They 
 will then go, as if for the glory of God and the good of the souls of 
 men, and set up a new interest or chapel of their own, and christen it 
 Salem, Zion, Bethel, Ebenezer, or some Scriptural name, and then 
 the two parties will go on in holy rivalry, speaking ill of each 
 other so long as they live, and hand down their mutual ill 
 feehng as a legacy to their children when they die. Now this 
 is no caricature of Dissent that I am giving, it is no false report 
 that I am raising, as Dissenters themselves well enough know. I 
 shall doubtless be called, yea, I am called already, anything but a 
 gentleman, for publishing it ; but I hold it to be but right that 
 Church people should know the sort of thing that the Dissenters 
 have to offer you in place of your Church which they seek so 
 earnestly to see disestablished and destroyed. They say all manner 
 of hard things, and not a few false things against the Church, and 
 therefore they have no reason to complain if a Httle of the truth is 
 told about themselves. 
 
 Another thing that deserves notice in the system of Dissent, is 
 the position and standing of its ministers. Each congregation 
 being independent of the others, as a matter of course the minister 
 is all but entirely in the hands of the people. It is they alone that 
 give him his position, so that at any time, or under any pretext 
 they can deprive him of it, or render it so unhappy that often he 
 is only but too glad to give it up of his own accord, even though 
 poverty and want are staring him and his family in the face. The 
 truth is, that an Independent or Baptist minister has hardly any 
 standing at all, or if he has, it is the most insecure and precarious
 
 13 
 
 of any class of men I know. Instead of being placed in a position 
 in which he can faithfully and fearlessly proclaim the truth of God 
 without the fear of suffering from the consequences, as the 
 ministers of the Estabhshed Church happily are, and as every 
 minister of religion ought to be, he poor man must take good care 
 what he says and how he says it, least he offend his hearers, and 
 especially the lords of his congregation, and they be revenged on 
 him, either in the way of castigating him, reducing his income, or 
 giving him notice to quit, a thing by no means unknown among 
 them. 
 
 The Dissenting minister is regarded very much as the mere 
 paid agent of the society, whose services may be retained or dis- 
 pensed with at pleasure. The Scriptural idea of the position of a 
 minister of Christ, is that he is over the people in the Lord, to 
 teach, rule, warn, and rebuke them when needful, according to the 
 word of God ; and the people's part is to hold him in honour, to 
 obey and submit themselves to him according to the same divine 
 word. But amongst the Dissenters, instead of the minister being 
 over the people he is actually under them, so that the divine order 
 is just completely reversed — that instead of the shepherd guiding 
 and ruling the flock, with them, it is the sheep that guide and rule 
 the poor shepherd — yea, and very often the goats, much more than 
 the sheep. 
 
 Such being the Dissenting minister's position, if he is a man at 
 all, he sometimes cannot help giving offence in speaking the truth; 
 for the lords of his congregation are seldom all of them angels. But 
 then wo© be to him, when the truth cuts a proud hypocritical 
 sinner to the quick. This often seals a faithful Dissenting Pastor's 
 doom. Then when tyrannized over, and unjustly and cruelly 
 wronged, as he often is, by the members of his flock, there is 
 simply no help for the Dissenting minister. He has neither 
 Bishop, Council, Presbytery, Synod, nor law nor justice of any 
 kind to appeal to, or take his part. Pie must just quietly submit, 
 and in the silence and bitterness of his own soul, or the bosom of 
 his own family, bear it all, without uttering a complaint. Or 
 should he be provoked to speak out and tell the world his wrongs, 
 then he is immediately a marked man through the whole denomi- 
 nation, or the lords at head-quarters will strike off his name from
 
 14 
 
 the list altogether, and he is but too glad to betake himself to some 
 other employment. Or, if he is advanced in hfe and fit for nothing 
 else, then he longs for the time to lie down in the grave to be 
 away from his troubles and tormentors. 
 
 Through the merciless tyranny and ill usage to which they are 
 often subjected, many good and noble-hearted men in the Dissenting 
 ministry, are actually robbed of all their manliness and independence 
 of mind, and reduced to the pitiable condition of a set of crushed, 
 downtrodden, browbeaten serfs, and not a few are sent with broken 
 hearts to untimely graves. This is strong language, but 1 tell 
 you it is not one whit stronger than true. God knows, and scores 
 and hundreds of Dissenting ministers in England, in their sad and 
 bitter experience know, that it is but too true, although they 
 hardly dare even to whisper it. 
 
 Under such a state of things as this, the constant removing 
 from one place to another on the part of Dissenting ministers 
 need hardly excite any surprise. Although when first settled at a 
 place, the understanding is, that all things going well, the settle- 
 ment is for life ; yet through the quarrels and persecutions, that 
 are so rife among their flocks, the average duration of their 
 ministry in one place cannot be more than five or six years, and in 
 multitudes of cases not more than two, three, or four years. Lest 
 it might be supposed that I am giving an unfair representation of 
 the state of things, I will just give an illustration of the truth of 
 what I have said, from the locality with which I am best 
 acquainted. 
 
 In the town of Wigan and its immediate neighbourhood, there 
 are fourteen Dissenting places of worship, or ministerial charges. 
 Well, in seven and a half years' time, with the exception of my 
 own, I saw every one of these Dissenting pulpits emptied of their 
 occupants, and several of them twice over. I saw eighteen re- 
 movals of ministers from thirteen of the chapels, and only two of 
 these by the hand of death ; and it is known to me that not a few 
 of these men were " of all men most miserable," before they left. 
 
 As to how the Dissenters sometimes go about the work of 
 getting quit of their ministers when they take a spite at them, or 
 want to get a fresh hand, the following cases will give an idea : — A 
 respectable elderly minister was going about his duties as usual,
 
 IS 
 
 with no other thoughts in his mind than that all was right between 
 him and his flock. One evening, however, when the old gentleman 
 went to a neighbouring chapel for the purpose of installing a young 
 brother in ofiice (I saw him there), that same evening the mem- 
 bers of his beloved flock quietly took the opportunity of meeting 
 together in his absence, and passed a resolution to the effect that 
 his services were no longer desired. 
 
 Another case, the truth of which was vouched to me by a 
 neighbouring minister, is as foflows : — A minister in the prime of 
 hfe was settled in a chapel, at which a rich man who drove his 
 carriage attended, and who of course was the lord of the concern. 
 The minister had laboured away to the best of his ability for some 
 time, seemingly with very considerable success, and had no idea 
 but that all things were going on well with him. One evening, 
 however, when the rich man had invited him to tea, and the ladies 
 had withdrawn and left them alone, the rich man coolly told the 
 minister " that as Mrs. So and So (meaning his own wife) felt 
 that she was not quite so well edified with his sermon as she 
 could wish, he had better take his notice and leave as early as 
 convenient. 
 
 Now just fancy what a position is this for men sustaining the 
 office of ministers and embassadors of Christ to be placed in ! — 
 a position which is not safe for a single week, hardty even a day, 
 for on any day a squabble may arise in the Dissenting chapel 
 which is sure in one way or other to involve the minister, and 
 perhaps end either in his abrupt dismissal or in rendering his position 
 so utterly unbearable that he is but too glad to escape from it 
 of his own accord. 
 
 Another thing that here deserves notice is that now-a-days, 
 Dissenting ministers must be strong political partizans, or they 
 are almost nowhere. The quiet, earnest, godly men among them 
 — the men who attend only to their spiritual duties, and who 
 shrink from appearing and speechifying on political platforms — as 
 a general rule are but of small account in their ranks ; whereas 
 the noisy men — the men who accustom themselves to pour forth 
 from pulpit and platform bitter invectives against the Church — 
 soon become men of mark, and stars of the first magnitude in the 
 horizon of Dissent. These are the men who, for the most part,
 
 16 
 
 find their way into all the best paid pulpits, and other places of 
 influence and power in their denominations, and then when they 
 get there (as in various ways they have in their power) these men 
 often become nothing less than hard, imperious, unmerciful tyrants 
 over their poorer and less fortunate brethren, as hundreds of these 
 brethren feel and know. The hard, unjust, and cruel things that 
 the rulers of Dissent, both lay and clerical, are capable of doing 
 would to me have been utterly incredible but for my too certain 
 knowledge of them, and I may add my too severe experience of 
 them. 
 
 I have said that Dissenting ministers must now become political 
 partizans, or they may reckon on being almost nowhere ; they are 
 driven to it by the principal men in their congregations, many of 
 them, I believe, against their will. The truth — the sad truth — is 
 this, that the political element is now fostered to such an extent 
 that many congregations of Dissenters are becoming nothing better 
 than a sort of mere half religious, half political clubs. The earnest 
 piety that characterised many of the Dissenters of former days is 
 evidently fast dying out, and a state of things setting in among 
 them which would hold but poor prospects indeed for the future 
 religious condition of this country were it to be shaped and fixed by 
 them. 
 
 Were those worthy men, the Baxters, and Owens, and Howes, 
 and Henries of other days again to appear amongst us, they would 
 most assuredly disown the great bulk of the Dissenters of this 
 generation as their representatives, yea, they would accuse and 
 condemn them as being traitors to their principles, as most cer- 
 tainly they are in the course they are pursuing towards the 
 National Church. These men, the brightest ornaments of Non- 
 conformity, held fast and firm by the principles of a national 
 establishment of religion, and the duty of kings and rulers as such, 
 to uphold and promote the insterests of the true religion among 
 their subjects, and thus honour and obey " Him who is king of 
 kings and lord of lords." Alas, that those who claim to be their 
 children should have degenerated so far from their piety and 
 principles. 
 
 Just fancy then the state of things which those reckless men 
 who are crying for disestablishment and disendowment would
 
 17 
 
 introduce, and tlien judge if it would be for the good of religion 
 and the good of this country to sweep away the National Church. 
 We have referred to the principles on which their whole system is 
 founded, and have seen something of its practical working in their 
 own hands. It is the worst suited imaginable, either for preserving 
 uniformity of doctrine, supplying religious ordinances to the mass 
 of the people, or for promoting that peace, harmony, and concord 
 which ever ought to characterise those who profess the religion of 
 Christ. From the very constitution of their societies, quarrellings 
 and heartburnings are hardly ever at an end, nor need ever be 
 expected, and for this it is the system more than the people that 
 is to blame. 
 
 They object to the Church they say because there is deadly 
 error as well as Grod's truth taught from numbers of her pulpits. 
 A pity they should have such a thing to say — a pity there should 
 be a single pulpit in the Church of England from which anything 
 but the pure truth of God's word should be heard, and a pity that 
 such reforms had not long ago been effected, by which unsound 
 ministers could have been more easily reached, and either corrected 
 or expelled from the Church altogether, and it is fain to be hoped 
 that this may ere long be the case. 
 
 But then, if the Dissenters themselves came with clean hands 
 in this matter, or anything like it, their objection might have had 
 some more sense in it. The fact, however, is that there is hardly 
 a vagary in religious doctrine under the sun which you will not 
 find among themselves. Their hands are anything but clean in the 
 matter of doctrine. 
 
 Or again, what to them is, perhaps, the most serious objection 
 of all, is this. They say that so long as there is an EstabHshed 
 Church, there is not religious equality, and this inequahty is an 
 injustice to them which they cannot bear. From this it would 
 almost appear as if they meant to take up the programme of the 
 old Chartists and Sociahsts and level all distinctions. Now 
 what does this religious equality really mean ? If I understand, it 
 means something Hke this — they are envious beyond measure at tlie 
 respectable and independent position in which the ministers of the 
 Estabhshed Church are happily placed ; and they want to see them 
 levelled down to the same dependent and humiliating condition in
 
 18 
 
 which tliey place their own, and this, so far as I can understand it, is 
 just about the sum and substance of the sore grievance of the rehgious 
 inequaUtj. Now, I would humbly submit that this great question 
 of a National Endowed Church, ought never to be treated on 
 such low, I had almost said unworthy grounds, as a question of 
 mere equality as regards a number of rival sects, goading one 
 another almost to atoms and to rehgious death ; but rather as a 
 great question of religious justice to the mass of the people — the 
 toiling milhons of our British population — whose rights and ever- 
 lasting interests seem to have Httle or no place in the programme 
 of those who have raised the cry of rehgious equality. 
 
 Then they would banish the Bible from the National Schools, 
 which, so far as they are concerned, would leave the great mass of 
 the youth of our land, to grow up without any knowledge of the 
 God that made them, and the Saviour that redeemed them, which 
 most assuredly is the highest and most important part of all right 
 education, and especially the education that should be given in a 
 professed Christian land. They would pull down and rend in 
 pieces the National Church, which so far as they are concerned, 
 would soon leave millions upon millions of the people in the 
 parishes, villages, and rural districts of the country, and the 
 densely populated poorer parts of our towns, without the stated 
 means of grace altogether ; or to be ministered to only by the 
 stray local preacher, the shoemakers, drapers, and grocers of the 
 towns, or the still more untutored, though well enough meaning, 
 coal miners and day labourers of the country. 
 
 This in fact then, is just the sort of religious provision which a 
 leading Nonconformist minister was not long ago recommending 
 for the villages and rural districts. Finding that the wealthier 
 congregations in the towns selfishly expended nearly all the money 
 they raised upon themselves, and left the country and poorer 
 congregations to sink or swim for aught that they cared or did to 
 help them — in other words, finding that their boasted voluntaryism 
 either would not, or could not, supply means to support ministers 
 in any degree of decency and comfort in villages and rural districts, 
 he recommended that the thing should not be attempted at all ; 
 that, instead of having ministers in such places as these, that can- 
 not afford to decently support them, the members of the nearest
 
 1^ 
 
 town cliurclies who had got the gift of holding forth, should go out 
 on the Sabbath days, and undertake the rehgious instruction and 
 pastoral care of our village and rural populations. In this age of 
 progress, what a nice exchange would this be for the regular 
 ministrations of religion by an educated resident minister of the 
 Gospel. 
 
 Now, while I have no doubt at all, that many of these lay 
 preachers are good men, if not much learned men — who out of 
 love to God really desire to do good to then* fellow men. Yet 
 there can be as little doubt that there are not a few rather strange 
 fish among them — men who, it is feared, would be quite as anxious 
 to draw the villagers' custom to their shops during the week, as to 
 impart spiritual instruction to them on the Sabbath. As an illus- 
 tration of what some of these lay preachers can do, what I am 
 about to tell you will give an idea. In a Dissenting place of 
 worship, with v/hich I am but too w^ell acquainted, a preaching 
 draper was one day officiating, and, as the people themselves told 
 me, when he descended from the pulpit at the close of the Sabbath 
 evening service, what did he do think you ? He actually displayed 
 and offered for sale certain goods which he had brought with him 
 and, if my memory serves me right, several bargains were struck 
 that evening. 
 
 To the preaching laymen, then, it is proposed to hand over the 
 religious instruction and sj^iritual care of the millions of our 
 village and rm-al population, as the best provision that voluntaryism 
 can make for them. So much, then, for the supposed sufficiency 
 of the voluntary system, or rather so much for its confessed 
 failure, and hence so much stronger the reason for upholding and 
 defending the Established Church. 
 
 We are frequently asked to look at America, and there behold 
 the triumphs of voluntaryism in the multitudes of its thriving and 
 overflowing congregations, and the magnificence of its Bible, 
 Tract, and Missionary Societies, &c. Now we are quite aware of 
 all this and rejoice in it. But then how little do we hear of the 
 millions upon millions of the people of that land who are known 
 to be living entirely estranged from all rehgious ordinances — multi- 
 tudes of them living in localties where no place of worship is within 
 their reach, and hardly ever hearing a gospel sermon in their Uves—
 
 20 
 
 and multitudes more of them repelled from the existing churches by 
 the system of high pew rents, because they have no endowments. 
 
 Without wearying you with a multitude of extracts from 
 American publications, showing the sad state of things there, I 
 shall just give jovl a few sentences from a writer not long 
 ago in the J}feto York Christian Examiner, and who may 
 be supposed to know something about what he is wi-iting. 
 Referring to the working of the voluntary system in the towns of 
 New England, that part of America which has been considered 
 by far the best part of it as respects rehgion and morality, and for 
 this reason, too, because till within the last forty or fifty years 
 religion there had all the advantages of ^being established by law 
 and endowed out of the taxes of the country. Speaking only of 
 the towns, and it is well known that the country districts and 
 villages are in a much worse condition, he says, " The voluntary 
 system has been tried in our New England towns — tried but 
 imperfectly and in part — tried under a thousand helping influence 
 of old association — tried in a community unusually sober, intelli- 
 gent, and self-restrained — tried for a generation only ; and already, 
 as we have seen, it has gone far to undermine the institutions 
 fortified by centuries of sacred and unchallenged custom, and 
 renders the future extremely doubtful. The multitude of petty 
 sects are goading one another to atoms, not only logically but also 
 financially. What started in rehgious fervour, or passion, or pique, 
 will scarcely command the personal sacrifice of a second generation 
 to keep it going. These voluntary institutions at the best secure 
 only for a few individuals — and those the richest, the most privi- 
 leged and cultured — something of that privilege which should be 
 the aim of religion to bestow upon all. The chm-ches supported 
 by exorbitant pew rents, and fitted up like splendid parlours for 
 the comfort and luxury of the rich, existing side by side with the 
 unchurched masses, are at once the most gorgeous and painful 
 proofs that the voluntary system has failed to do its work." Look 
 to America, say our voluntary and disestabUshment friends. Yes, 
 we reply, and look ye also to America, one glance of which might 
 well suffice to close your mouths for ever. 
 
 Such then is. an idea of the sort of thing which the Dissenters have 
 to offer the people of England, in room of the Church which they are
 
 seeking to disestablish and destroy. If they had had anything 
 decent or feasible to offer — anything equally good, or better, than 
 that which they wish to take away, one might not have wondered 
 quite so much at their conduct. But to come forward with such 
 an affair as they have to offer, their proposal is simply outrageous, 
 and indicates a recklessness and want of enlightened patriotism, not 
 to speak of reHgion, that is truly astonishing, as it is lamentable. 
 
 If for nothing else, one wonders how for very shame they could 
 hold up their heads and ask the people and Government of this 
 country to sweep away the Established Church — a Church which 
 is dear to what may be called the head, the heart, and the feet of 
 the Enghsh nation — and which at the present time is more aHve 
 than ever to the great work of preaching the everlasting Gospel 
 to the mass of the people at home, and sending it abroad among 
 the millions of the heathen in foreign lands — a Church under whose 
 shadow many even from among themselves are glad to take refuge 
 from the bitter animosities, the strife, anarchy, and tyranny that 
 ever reign in the ranks of Dissent. I say the wonder is how that 
 for very shame, and under pretence, too, of love to God and good to 
 man, these people could hold up their heads and join with all the 
 Papists and infidels of the land to clamour and agitate for the 
 overthrow of the National Church. I only trust the people of 
 this country will have more sense, more patriotism, and reHgion, 
 too, than ever Hsten to their overtures and clamo urs. 
 
 I have aheady spoken of the practical failure of the voluntary 
 system, after a long trial and a fair field. I have referred to the 
 many locaHties ^d moral waste of our land unprovided for by the 
 Church, and invitingly open to the Dissenters to take up and 
 display the triumphs of their voluntaryism, but which they have 
 failed to do. I have referred to the failure of the system in so far 
 as one half or two-thirds of Dissenting ministers are doomed 
 to live on salaries so small as can hardly afford the necessaries and 
 decencies of life, and often received by them, too, under circum- 
 stances of the most humiliating character — salaries so miserably 
 smaU that the coal miners and mechanics of our land would utterly 
 scorn to accept as the price of their daily labour. 
 
 I have referred to the fact that not less than one fourth of their 
 chapels all over the country, and especially in villages and rural
 
 districts, and places where they are most needed, are without 
 ministers altogether, and this simply and solely because of the 
 want of means to support them. They have men in abundance to 
 fill them all, but the everlasting cry and lament is the want of 
 means to suppoi-t them. 
 
 Now, if all this does not prove something ; if it does not pro- 
 claim, as with trumpet voice, in the ears of all men, and especially 
 in the ears of Churchmen, that the voluntary system is a failure ; 
 if it does not do this, it can only be said that the logic of facts 
 is no longer understood. And all this failure, too, must be patent 
 to the eyes of those who are crying for disestablishment. They 
 cannot be ignorant of it, and, therefore, we say the more shame to 
 them for seeking to pull down the Church and bring about the 
 same pitiable state of things over all the land as exist among 
 themselves. 
 
 They say too, that it is for the good of reHgion, and the 
 good of the Church herself, that they are seeking to disestablish 
 and disendow her. It would be a strange and a new way to 
 do a man good, to throw him to the ground and rob him of his 
 property ; and it would be quite as strange a way to do the Church 
 good to take away her property, the very means by which she 
 is enabled to maintain her ministers and their families in decency 
 and comfort, and uphold the ordinances of religion in every parish 
 of the land. The longer I live and the more I see and know, the 
 less do I believe that the great majority of those who are crying 
 for disestabHshment are actuated by pure religious principle at all. 
 There may be a mistaken few ; I simply don't believe there are 
 many. 
 
 At all events, so far as the Dissenters are concerned — and these 
 form the great majority of the assailants of the Church — with 
 such a manifest failure of the voluntary system in their own hands, 
 before their own eyes, and before the eyes of the people of this 
 country, it appears to me that for the sake of decency alone, they* 
 ought to be the last people in the world to attempt to tear down 
 the framework of the Church, and sweep away the material 
 support of her ministrations. 
 
 As Dr. Chalmers said many years ago, — " We must first behold 
 the moral triumphs of voluntaryism in the many surplus localities
 
 which are before our eyes, ere we can consent to give up 
 the whole territory into their hands ; and do think that men who 
 have evinced so Httle their power to build, should be somewhat 
 less fiery and precipitate in their zeal to destroy." 
 
 To disestabHsh and disendow the Church — at least imtil things 
 are in a very different condition than they are at present, or are 
 Hkely to be, perhaps, on this side the millenium — would be one of 
 the greatest mistakes that the people and ParHament of this 
 country ever committed. It would manifestly be both a great 
 national sin, and a great national calamity. 
 
 By aU means let the Church be reformed where this is needed, 
 so as to adapt her more to the altered state of society, and the 
 moral and spiritual wants of the country. Repair and improve the 
 great machine, and put it in better working order, but do not tear 
 down the framework, do not take away the supports. It is easier 
 to pull down than to build up ; and this machine of the Church, 
 with a Httle adjusting of its parts, is capable of becoming a far 
 more powerful engine for good than ever. 
 
 Let her ministers awake to a sense of the solemn responsibihties 
 of their high and sacred calling, as many of them are doing, and let 
 a pure Gospel be preached from all her pulpits, and she has nothing 
 to fear. The millions of her own friends and adherents all over the 
 land, will love her more dearly and chng to her more firmly than 
 ever, and multitudes even of those who have left her pale will again 
 be seen flocking to her gates, and God will bless her and make her 
 a greater blessing to this nation and people in the future than in 
 the past. Reform the Church, we say, but for Heaven's sake, 
 until you have something better to put in her place, save and 
 protect her from the hands of those who, in a mistaken and fiery 
 zeal, would waste and destroy her. 
 
 Let those who cannot conscientiously worship within her pale be 
 satisfied to worship in theii' own chapels, and work for the glory of 
 God outside. There is room enough for them and to spare. This 
 would be far more creditable and honourable to them, as it certainly 
 would be far more Christian, than to sound the trumpet of war and 
 summon to their aid all the Papists, Infidels, and waifs] of the 
 land for an onslaught on the National Church — the only reHgious 
 institution of their country about which there is any real per-
 
 24. 
 
 nianency and stability, and which alone has the the capability of 
 supplying the mass of our population with the lessons of 
 Christianity, and is showing in so many unmistakeable ways her 
 desire to accomplish her great mission 
 
 Mr. Lowe, in his memorable speech for the disestabHshment of 
 the Irish Church, compared that Church to an exotic, i.e., to a 
 plant or tree brought from a foreign land and planted in a soil and 
 cHmate in which it would not grow, and hence he cried, "Cut 
 it down ; why cumbereth it the ground ? " 
 
 But neither Mr. Lowe nor any one else can say the same thing 
 respecting the English Church. The Church of England is not an 
 exotic. She is rather like a noble tree which, springing up in its 
 own native soil, whose roots having been watered with the blood of 
 many of England's noblest sons, the confessors and martyrs of 
 primitive times, and the Eidleys, and Cranmers, and Latimers, 
 and the hundreds and thousands of the excellent of the earth who 
 suffered and died for the protestant faith in Eeformation days; 
 the tree has taken deep root, and grown and prospered, and spread 
 out its branches till they have reached over the whole land, and 
 under the shadow of which the people of England have assembled 
 in peace and comfort to eat the bread and drink the waters of 
 life, and worship the God of their fathers for the last 300 years 
 under a reformed Christianity. 
 
 The Church of England is therefore not Hke a sickly dying 
 plant from a foreign cKme. England is her birthplace and her 
 home. If there are some sour grapes on her branches, yet on the 
 whole she is bringing forth more good fruit — there are more life and 
 vigour and usefulness in her now than perhaps for the last 
 200 years, and with a little adjusting of her parts and machinery 
 she is capable of becoming far more useful than ever. 
 
 Englishmen, then, we would say, be up and defend your Church. 
 It would be unnatural and unwise, it would be unholy work, 
 to cut down such a tree ; and it would be nothing less than 
 unpatriotic, un-EngHsh, and cowardly to stand idly by and see 
 it done. Prune, trim, and beautify the sacred tree where it is 
 needful, but for the glory of God and the highest welfare of 
 the people of this land, even for generations to come, spare it — 
 spare it, protect it, and wisely and nobly defend it from the violence 
 of those who would so rudely and cruelly lay the axe to its roots. 
 
 STEOWGEE AKD SOK, PEINTEES, WIGAIf.