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 L I B R.A FLY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 U N I VERS ITY 
 
 Of 1 LLI NOIS
 
 THE 
 
 VOLUNTARY SYSTEM: 
 
 CAN IT SUPPLY THE PLACE OF THE 
 ESTABLISHED CHURCHP 
 
 WITH RECENT FACTS AND STATISTICS FROM AMERICA. 
 
 BY 
 
 THE REV. W. C. MAGEE, B.D., 
 
 Prebendary of Wells, and Minister of the Octagon Cluipd, Bath. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 BELL AND DALDY, 187, FLEET STREET. 
 
 BATH: R. E. PEACH, No. 8, BRIDGE STREET. 
 
 1860.
 
 THE VOLUxNTARY SYSTEM: 
 
 _/ 
 
 CAN IT SUPPLY THE PLACE OF THE 
 ESTABLISHED CHURCH? 
 
 TTTHATEVER difference of opinion there may be as to the 
 * ' answer to this question, all will admit that it is a reason- 
 able one; that it is one which the defenders of the Church have 
 a right to ask, and which its assailants are bound to answer. 
 Nay more, that it is just the question which the English people 
 will ask, and let us hope will insist on having satisfactorily 
 answered, before they consent to the destruction of their 
 National Established Church. 
 
 The English are pre-eminently a practical people. They are 
 not given to making wars abroad nor yet revolutions at home 
 for an idea. They will not hastily proceed to change or to 
 abolish any one of their laws or customs merely because it is 
 not abstractedly and theoretically considered the very ideal of 
 perfection. They will persist in asking all reformers and in- 
 novators, not, " Is this institution you would have us alter the best 
 conceivable thing of its kind?" but, "Can you give us anything 
 better in its place ? and if you can, what will it cost to make 
 the change? for it is possible that your proposed improvement 
 even if it be one, may not be worth the price that we should
 
 have to pay for it, and in that case we would prefer remaining 
 as we are." 
 
 And if this be the habit, the wise and cautious habit, of the 
 English nation with respect to the smallest change in the least 
 important matter, there can be little doubt that they will so act 
 with respect to so vast a change in so important a matter as the 
 substitution of the Voluntary system for the Established Church. 
 — I say so vast a change, and so important a master, for truly 
 to hear some men talk one would suppose that this was one of 
 the simplest and safest changes imaginable. "Only abolish the 
 Establishment — only pass an act of Parliament converting all 
 its endowments to secular uses, and you will see what glorious re- 
 sults will follow." Only abolish the Establishment! And what 
 is this Establishment which it is thus coolly proposed to abolish 
 by a stroke of the pen upon the statute book ? It is an institution 
 which, whether for good or for evil, has struck its roots deep 
 down and spread them wide through all our English soil. In 
 its slow growth of centuries it has come to be connected more 
 or less closely with nearly every other institution of the realm — 
 with the Throne, with both houses of Parliament, with our 
 Universities, with our naval and military Establishments, with 
 our jurisprudence, with our great systems of popular educa- 
 tion, of poor relief and criminal reformation. It has its local 
 habitation and its home in every city and town, in every 
 village and hamlet, in our land. It has entwined itself 
 with the habits and the customs, the memories and traditions, 
 the social life, the religion, the very language of the great 
 majority of the English people. And do men really suppose 
 that an institution such as this is to be "abolished" by an act of 
 Parliament like a highway-rate or a turnpike trust ? Do they 
 imagine that they can uproot it from its place and cast it away 
 like some small weed of recent growth, or that it will come away 
 from its deep hold without a terrible upheaving of all the sur- 
 rounding soil, without leaving a deep wide scar behind, that all 
 the voluntary after-growlh of centuries will neither till up nor 
 conceal ? Have they ever paused to think of all that they may 
 tear up with the Church, or of all that it may strike down in its 
 fall? Do they really know that it is nothing less than a great 
 
 ^#o><
 
 i-ocial, moral, religious, -as well as political revolution that they 
 are preparing to effect, and one which cannot be effected without 
 an agitation and a strife that will shake England to her centre? 
 
 The English people do not love revolutions, and before they 
 will consent to make such an one as this would be, they must see 
 good and sufficient reasons — reasons amounting to an absolute 
 and imperative necessity, such as alone could justify so dan- 
 gerous and so critical an experiment upon their whole constitu- 
 tion. Those who propose it to them must be prepared to shew 
 not merely that the Established Church has its defects, nay its 
 great defects, — all things human have; nor yet that the 
 Voluntary System has some merits — few things human are so 
 very bad as to have none ; but that the Established Church is 
 .<o radically and incurably vicious, so largely and danger- 
 ously mischievous, and the Voluntary System so immensely 
 and overwhelmingly superior to it, so free from all its defects, 
 so powerful and efficient by its own evident merits, that it is the 
 manifest and imperative duty of the nation, even at the cost and 
 the risk of such a revolution as we have pictured, to make this 
 change without delay. 
 
 In stating the question therefore between the Church and the 
 Voluntary System as I have stated it, I have not done justice 
 to the cause of the Church. The real question is not whether 
 Voluntaryism could supply the place of the Church, but whe- 
 ther it could supj)ly it so much better as to make it worth the 
 while of the English people to make the exchange. While, 
 therefore, it is enough for us to shew that the Establishment is 
 equal to, or not greatly inferior to Voluntaryism, our adver- 
 saries are bound to shew that Voluntaryism is very decidedly 
 and greatly superior to our Establishment. 
 
 Now, this comparison between these two systems may be made 
 in either of two ways. We might, first, compare the principle 
 OF Voluntaryism with the principle of an Establishment, 
 and ask, which system is best calculated to do the work of the 
 Christian Church ; or we might, secondly, compare the results 
 OF Voluntaryism with the results of Establisiiiaients, and 
 ask which has best done that work. Now we do not shrink from 
 the application of either of these two tests, but we require that
 
 they be made fairly — that is to say, that theory be compared 
 with theory, and practice with practice ; not theory on the 
 one side with practice on the other ; not the one system 
 as it ouglit to be, with the other system as it is ; not the plan 
 of the architect on paper, with all the grace and finish of his 
 original design, with the realization of that plan in stone and 
 mortar, with all the defects of the material and the errors of 
 the builder, or the injuries of time and weather. And yet, 
 this is just the unfairness which the Voluntaryists are so fre- 
 quently guilty of. When they speak of Voluntaryism, it is 
 Voluntaryism according to its ideal — Voluntaryism as they 
 think it ought to be, or as they think they see it in the New 
 Testament. But when they speak of the Church Establish- 
 ment, it is the Establishment as it is, or, rather, as they see it, 
 with all its real faults magnified and coloured to the utmost, 
 and with a great many others which exist only in their own 
 imagination. A remarkable instance of this unfairness is to 
 be seen in a pamphlet on this subject by Mr. Miall, the ablest, 
 and, 1 regret to add, the bitterest and most unscrupulous of 
 our opponents. This pamphlet is entitled *' The Fixed and the 
 Voluntary Principles. Eight Letters to the Earl of Shaftes- 
 bury." After a glowing description of the Voluntary principle, 
 according to its ideal — an ideal, I venture to say, never yet 
 realized on earth — lAIr. Miall thus speaks of the "fixed 
 principle." 
 
 " I ought also to premise that by the ' Fixed Principle' I understand, not merely 
 a permanent provision in support of gospel preaching and ordinances, but that 
 provision subject to such conditions as we know by actual experience to be prac- 
 tically inseparable from it. Looking at the principle in its known tangible and 
 realized form, and not only as we may conceive of its abstractedly, my object will 
 be to show that it is out of keeping with the genius of scriptm'al Christianity." 
 (Fixed and Voluntai'y Principles, p. 15.) 
 
 " Looking at the principle in its known, and tangible, and 
 realized form." Let us do so by all means, and let us look at 
 the Voluntary Principle in the same way also. But let us not 
 compare an abstract and unrealized voluntaryism with a tangible 
 and realized establishment. Rip up, if you will, all the sores on 
 the one side ; we will do the same on the other. Keep, if you
 
 will, to the abstract principle on your side; we will do the same 
 on ours. This would be fair, but this would not suit Mr. 
 Miall's purpose. Some men love to choose their standing point 
 for the survey of any system to which they are opposed, as 
 Balak advised Balaam to choose his long ago. "Come, I pray 
 thee, with me unto another place, from whence thou mayest see 
 them : thou shalt see but the utmost part of them, and shalt 
 not see them all : and curse me them from thence." (Numbers 
 xxiii. 13.) 
 
 I propose to make this comparison somewhat more fairly ; and, 
 in order to do so, let us in the first place define the things 
 which we design to compare. What is the Voluntary 
 System? Strange to say, this simple question is one which very 
 few voluntaryists seem to have troubled themselves with asking ; 
 at least, if we may judge from the extraordinary arguments 
 which they bring for the most part in support of it, JNlr. Miall 
 hov.'ever has favoured us with more than one definition, both of 
 the Voluntary and of the Fixed Principle. I am quite content 
 to accept these, and no voluntaryist will object to my doing so. 
 
 In the tenth page of the pamphlet already referred to, Mr. 
 Miall, addressing Lord Shaftesbury, thus defines the " Fixed 
 Principle." " My lord, when you spoke of the ' Fixed,' in con- 
 tradistinction to the ' Voluntary Principle,' I imagine you must 
 be understood to have meant that system of making provision 
 for the ministry and ordinances of Christ's yospel which attains 
 the object, lohether by jniblic or private endotoment, whether in 
 whole or in part, by means irrespective of the toill of those who 
 attend upon them, and restricted in nse to a specified locality ^ 
 (Pages 9 and 10.) Now as this principle, so defined, is in 
 contradistinction to the Voluntary System, that system must be 
 understood to mean, the " making provision for the ministry 
 and ordinances, neither by public nor private endow- 
 ment, neither in whole nor in part, by means irre- 
 spective OF THE will of THOSE WHO ATTEND UPON THEM, 
 AND NOT RESTRICTED TO ANY SPECIFIED LOCALITY." 
 
 Again, in the same page, Mr. Miall, still referring to the 
 " fixed principle," says: " Here, if I understand you, you deem 
 it requisite that the ministers and ordinances of Christ's Gospel
 
 should be supported by something beyond tuk voluntary 
 CONTRIBUTIONS OF ATTENDANTS" (p. 10). Clearly there- 
 fore, if we understand Mr. Miall, the "voluntary principle" is 
 that the ministers and ordinances of Christ's Gospel should he 
 supported by nothing beyond the voluntary contribu- 
 tions OF attendants. And, accordingly, Mr. Miall defines 
 the voluntary system to be " the willing ministration, by a 
 people to their pastor, of their temporal things, in grateful 
 recompense for his spiritual things " (p. 33). 
 
 Thus, both negatively and positively, we have obtained very 
 clear definitions of the two rival systems. 
 
 Voluntaryism, as defined by Mr. Miall, is — the minister 
 
 AND ordinances OF THE GOSPEL DEPENDENT ON NOTHING 
 
 BUT THE FREE GIFTS OF ATTENDANTS. The Fixed or En- 
 dowment principle as defined, by the same author, is, the 
 
 ministers AND ORDINANCES INDEPENDENT, FOR THEIR SUPPORT, 
 OF SUCH FREE GIFTS. 
 
 Now it will be seen at once that by this simple mode of 
 definition the question between us and our opponents is 
 clearly and fairly stated, and cleared from the whole mass of 
 mis-statement and irrelevant argument, with which it has 
 been overlaid by ill-informed disputants. The question be- 
 tween Voluntaryists and the defenders of Establishments 
 is distinctly and solely a question as to the support of the 
 ministers and of the ordinances of religion. The one only 
 issue raised is. Should they, or should they not, be entirely 
 dependent upon the free-will offerings of attendants ? In other 
 words, the dispute between us is not whether there shall be free 
 gifts in the Cimrch of Christ, but only whether the ministry 
 and ordinances shall be dependent on these free gifts. Not 
 whether there shall be voluntary effort in the Church, but 
 only what is the proper direction, what the proper use and 
 function of such effort. 
 
 Now this statement of the question at once disposes of a whole 
 crowd of objections and objectors to the principle of an Estab- 
 lishment. In the first place it disposes of all that long string of 
 Concordance-gathered texts of Scripture, commanding Christians 
 to " give freely," to be " ready to give and glad to distribute,"
 
 and so on ; which, with many references to the great suc- 
 cess of our voluntary societies, are urged as overwhelming 
 proof of the unscriptural inconsistency of those who with 
 such texts in their Bibles, and such societies at work in the 
 bosom of their Church, yet venture to defend an establishment. 
 As if, forsooth, any one denied that voluntary effort was a 
 Christian duty ; — as if we did not quote and enforce these texts 
 in every charity sermon that we preach ; — as if it were not 
 part of our case against those who would secularise our endow- 
 ments, that those endowments are mainly free gifts, and that, 
 therefore, to rob us of them is a wrong both to the living and 
 the dead. There seems to be, in the minds of such reasoners, 
 a sort of confused notion that, wherever the word " free " or 
 "voluntary" occurs, it means their voluntary system; and 
 that, because an endowment is inconsistent with this, it 
 must, therefore, be inconsistent and incompatible with any 
 free gifts whatever ; or that, because we hold that free gifts 
 have their proper and their important use for many purposes 
 in Christ's Church, therefore, we must admit that they are 
 fit for all purposes. As well might it be said that, because we 
 have lately inaugurated a great volunteer movement, there- 
 fore, we are bound to " abolish " our standing army ; or that, 
 because it is the duty of Christians to give "freely" to the 
 poor, therefore, we should " abolish " our system of compul- 
 sory poor-rates ; and, that those who maintained the advan- 
 tage of a standing array and the necessity of poor-rates were 
 guilty of gross inconsistencies, because they promoted volun- 
 teering, and recommended private charity.* 
 
 * The Scriptural argument does not belong to the subject of this lecture, •which 
 professes only to deal with the practic;il results of Voluntaryism ; but I cannot 
 refrain from observing, in passing, that tliis case of poor-rates allbrds a very simple 
 reductio ad ahsiirdum of all the arguments against an Establisliment, drawn from 
 the silence of the New Testament on the subject of compulsory provision for 
 ministers. These arguments all run thus : — 
 
 The New Testament says much about the support of Christian ministers by the 
 free gifts of Christians. 
 
 But it says nothing about their compulsory support by the State. 
 
 Ergo. State support of the ministry is clearly unscriptural. 
 
 This argument will equally prove the sinfulness of poor-rates — as thus: — 
 
 The New Testament says much as to the duty of Christian liberality to the poor. 
 
 But the New Testament says nothing as to the compulsory support of the poor by 
 the State. 
 
 Ergo. The compulsoiy support of the poor by the State is clearlj' unscriptural. 
 
 B
 
 10 
 
 But secondly, The Voluntary Principle, as defined by Mr. 
 Miall, is opposed to all endowments whatever, private as well 
 as public. For it is clear that a private endowment, equally with 
 a public one, provides for " the support of the ministry and 
 ordinances by something beyond the Voluntary Contributions 
 of the attendants." A private endowment equally with a public 
 endowment places the minister in a position of independence of 
 the free gifts of his hearers. Mr. Miall, more logical than 
 most of his followers, sees this clearly enough, and accordingly, 
 he consistently denounces private as well as public endowments. 
 Besides a few passing sneers at the " piety of our ancestors," 
 who bestowed them, he devotes a page of his pamphlet to 
 pointing out all their evils, telling us " that they rest upon two 
 essentially erroneous assumptions;" that " they are a kind of 
 dogmatic taking care for posterity, that savours a great deal 
 more of human self-sufficiency, than self-sacrifice ;" and ques- 
 tioning even " whether God has given uS any right " to make 
 them. 
 
 Whatever may be thought of the good taste of these remarks, 
 they deserve the credit of logical consistency. Mr. Miall is 
 not afraid to follow out his principles to their necessary con- 
 clusions. But these conclusions are manifestly fatal to a large 
 class of objections which are brought against state endow- 
 ments, but which apply equally to all endowments whatever ; 
 for instance, all appeals to the poverty of the primitive 
 teachers of Christianity, and their ^entire dependence upon the 
 free gifts of their flocks; all complaints that a State Endowment 
 tends to make ministers " lazy," " unspiritual," " worldly," that 
 it " stereotypes error," that it " gives law courts jurisdiction 
 in questions of doctrine and Church discipline;" all, and each 
 of these, lie equally against any endowment, or the possession 
 of any property whatever. If the Apostles and their followers 
 had no state endowments, neither had they any private endow- 
 ments. If a state provision affects the spirituality of the 
 ministry by generating laziness and worldliness, so does a 
 fixed and permanent income, provided by the *' dogmatic care- 
 taking " of *' a pious ancestor." If the covenant between Church 
 and State tends to stereotype that form of belief and discipline
 
 11 
 
 upon condition of maintaining which the Church obtained 
 her endowment, equally so, do definitions of doctrine and 
 prescriptions of ritual in trust deeds, and wills of "pious" 
 founders. 
 
 And equally too, is the interpretation of these latter subject 
 to the decision of law courts, whenever a question ari-ses as to 
 whether they have been adhered to by the parties in possession. 
 Have those who profess themselves so horrified at the sight of 
 a Lord Chancellor or a committee of the Privy Council deciding 
 our doctrinal differences, forgotten the cases in which they have 
 had to call in such aid to decide their own ? Is the case of 
 I^ady Hewley's charities- — is the Cardross case, and many other 
 similar ones, in which lawyers have argued, and judges decided 
 points of doctrine or discipline for Nonconformists, in any 
 respect different from the Gorham or the Denison cases ? 
 And have not these cases all alike come before the law-courts 
 for decision, for one and the same reason, simple and sufficing, 
 that they are cases affecting the possession of property — of 
 endowment of some kind or other ; and that, because wherever 
 there is property there must be certain legal conditions affecting 
 the tenure of that property, which, as often as any question 
 arises concerning them, must be interpreted and defined by 
 the proper legal tribunals of the country. 
 
 Nay, more; it is clear that these private endowments are 
 open to the favourite objection to State endowments — that they 
 necessitate the use of fines and imprisonments, and coercion 
 in the support of religion. If by coercion for the support 
 of religion is meant fining or imprisoning a man because he 
 will not profess a given religion, the charge against the 
 State Church is a false one ; but, if it means compelling 
 him to suppo7't a given religious system by payment charged 
 upon his property, the charge lies equally against private 
 endowments. For it is to be presumed that the trustees or 
 possessors of any house or lands, or charge on house or 
 lands belonging to any nonconformist body, would not hesi- 
 tate to put the whole machinery of the law in force against 
 a refractory tenant, and to fine and imprison him, if needs 
 were, until he paid his share to the support of their religion.
 
 12 
 
 What more does a clergyman do who compels payment of 
 his tithes ? 
 
 Let our opponents, then, argue fairly. Let them say, if they 
 please, as Mr. Miall says. We consider all endowments bad ; 
 but we consider State endowments worst of all. This is, at 
 least, logical and consistent ; but let them not, while tenaciously 
 holding their own private endowments, bring against State 
 endowments arguments which apply with equal force against 
 both. 
 
 In the third place. The Voluntary system is quite distinct 
 from, and quite opposed to, another system which is frequently 
 confounded with it — I mean the Pew system. 
 
 The system of pew-rents is certainly not one in which the 
 ministers and ordinances are supported by the free gifts of the 
 attendants. The minister on this system does not first "freely 
 give '' himself and his ministrations to the people, content to 
 wait fur the " free gifts " which shall be furnished him by 
 " their affectionate solicitude," in return. He first buys or 
 hires a chapel, duly provided with comfortable accommodation, 
 pewed, cushioned, lighted, heated, and beadled; and he proceeds 
 to let out this accommodation, and his own ministry, and the ordi- 
 nances of the Gospel with it, to those who can affbrd to pay for 
 them. Tliey have actually been disposed of by auction in America. 
 Sometimes this plan is improved upon, by the chapel being 
 built or purchased by certain trustees, as a money investment, 
 who then proceed, before hiring out their sittings, to hire a 
 popular minister, to whom they pay a certain income, and then 
 hire him out with the accommodation and the ordinances. This 
 is not the Voluntary system ; this is the Commercial system. 
 On this system ministers and ministrations, accommodation and 
 ordinances, are all marketable commodities ; and their price, 
 like that of all merchandise, rises and falls with the value or 
 scarcity of the article. A fiishionable chapel, in a fashionable 
 locality, with a fashionable preacher, has a very difl^erent 
 market value, lets its sittings at a very different rate, from that 
 of an unfashionable chapel, in an unfashionable locality, with 
 an unfashionable preacher. 
 
 If this be Voluntaryism, it certainly is not the Voluntaryism
 
 13 
 
 of the New Testament, to which our opponents are so fond of ap- 
 pealing. The primitive Church, we are told, over and over again, 
 had no tithes, and no church rates; had it any pew rents? Do 
 we read that Paul was appointed by the elders to a fashionable 
 church at Ephesus ? or that James possessed an eligible pro- 
 prietary chapel at Jerusalem? Does the pew rent system 
 provide for the preaching of the gospel to the poor? Does it 
 invite all alike to come and buy its wine and milk " without 
 money and without price ?" Does it give to the poor man in '*vile 
 raiment" the same place in its assemblies that it gives to the 
 '• man with a gold ring and in goodly apparel "? Does it give to 
 every man, however poor, an equal right to the accommodation 
 and the ordinances and the ministrations of the house of God ? 
 Is it not the vice and the curse of this system that it puts the 
 temporal interests of the minister in direct antagonism to the 
 spiritual interests of the poor ? That if you allot a sufficient 
 number of sittings to furnish accommodation for the poor, you 
 do so at the expense of the clergyman, who lives by those 
 sittings; while, if you reserve a sufficient number of them to 
 give him a decent maintenance, you do so at the expense of the 
 poor, for whom those sittings should be free ? In one word, this 
 modern pew system is nothing but an unsuccessful compromise be- 
 tween the liberality and self-denial of free gifts, and the security 
 and competency of endowments; combining some of the worst 
 evils of both, and retaining none of the advantages of either ; 
 an awkward make-shift, by which the comfortable and well-to- 
 do members of society supply themselves with a religious luxury, 
 at the cost either of the half-paid ministry, or the half-taught 
 poor ! Most certainly it has nothing in common with the 
 Voluntary Principle, either as defined by Mr. ]\Iiall, or as 
 appealed for to Scripture by our modern Voluntaryists. 
 
 And this consideration disposes at once of a large class, not 
 of vhjections, but of objectors; of all those, namely, who while 
 loudly and boastfully appealing to Scripture for warrant and 
 sanction for their Voluntary System, are themselves living and 
 ministering upon the Commercial system. 
 
 We say to all such Scriptural Voluntaryists, Be scriptural ; 
 give up your private endowments; "abolish" all your pew-
 
 14 
 
 rents; go forth, like the apostles, without scrip or purse, or 
 change of raiment ; throw yourselves fully and fearlessly upon 
 the voluntary principle, as you tell us they did. Do this, one 
 and all of you — everywhere — work out your own system fully ; 
 and then, if you find it succeed, come to us, and ask us to do 
 the like. And, be it observed, this would be a far easier and a 
 far more hopeful task than the one in which you are now 
 engaged. You propose, with a kindness for which we cannot 
 be sufficiently grateful, to liberate us from the cares of wealth 
 and the patronage of power, by secularizing all our State 
 endowments. The process is a difficult, and may be a very 
 tedious one. You may never live to see it accomplished. 
 Suppose you attempt the simpler one of liberating yourselves. 
 " Zonam qui perdidit ihit." Your soldiers will mount to the 
 breach all the more bravely and fiercely, when they have freed 
 themselves from the weight of their own purses. Your assault 
 upon the Ai of our establishment will be more successful when 
 you have got rid of the wedge of gold and goodly Babylonish 
 garments of endowments, and pew-rents, and State grants for 
 schools. Meanwhile, when you talk to us of the Voluntary 
 principle, you must expect us to ask. What voluntary principle 
 do you mean ? 
 
 Do you mean Scriptural Voluntaryism ? Then give up your 
 endowments and your pew rents. 
 
 Do you mean modern Voluntaryism, with its endowments and 
 its pew rents? Then give up your appeal to Scripture. 
 
 Now as modern Voluntaryism is really little more than a sys- 
 tem of private endowments and pew rents, I might be content 
 to close this argument here, and wait until the Voluntary Sys- 
 tem, primitive, pure, and simple, had been really tried before 
 considering the question whether it could supply the place of 
 the Established Church. But, for argument sake, I will give 
 the name of the Voluntary System to modern Voluntaryism, 
 im])roperly so called, with its endowments and its pew rents, 
 and proceed to enquire whether this Voluntaryism, "known, 
 tangible, and realized," as Mr. Miall would say, can supply the 
 place of the Established Church ? 
 
 The great work of the Church of Christ, in this world, is
 
 15 
 
 two-fold. It is, first, Missionary Work. Secondly, Pastoral 
 Work. To make men Christians, and to keep them so, is the 
 mission of all Christian men, and -especially of the Christian 
 ministry. Can either of these works be done by the Voluntary 
 System, as well by an Establishment ? 
 
 First then — Can Missionary work he done upon the Voluntary 
 principle as efficiently as it can upon the Fixed principle ? 
 
 Now, in the first place, 1 assert that you cannot take the 
 first step in JVIissionary work without a violation of the pure 
 Voluntary principle. Every missionary sent out by our great 
 missionary societies, is sent out in direct and necessary defiance 
 of it. Remember what that principle is. It is " the minister 
 and ordinance dependent for support upon nothing beyond 
 the voluntary contributions of attendants." How can the mis- 
 sionary depend upon the voluntary offerings of the unconverted 
 heathen ? Does he depend upon them ? Does he not go out 
 with his "fixed" "permanent" provision by way of stipend from 
 the parent society ? Is he not to the heathen, to whom he minis- 
 ters, virtually an endowed minister ? They do not pay him. They 
 have not chosen him, nor invited him ; nor can they remove 
 him at their pleasure. He is as completely independent of 
 them, as much imposed upon them by the choice of others, as 
 ever was the nominee of a priitie minister or lay patron upon 
 an unwilling parish. 
 
 But waiving this objection, and granting that our missionary 
 societies do proceed upon the Voluntary System ; I would ask 
 in the second place, What is the gi'eat aim of all these societies? 
 What is it that they are all seeking, striving, praying to effect? 
 Is it not to cover the lands of the heathen as widely and as 
 rapidly as possible with missionaries ? Is not the cry from every 
 station abroad, and from every comraittee-roora and platform at 
 home, still "more men," and again and again, "more men"? 
 The fields, we are told on every side, are white for the harvest; 
 but where are the labourers, and where the means of sending 
 and maintaining them ? 
 
 What then have all our Voluntary efforts done to supply this 
 pressing need ? Great as those efforts have been, glorious as 
 their results have been, when measiired by the difl[iculties to be
 
 16 
 
 overcome, or by the infinite preciousness of the souls of tiie 
 converts ; yet measured against the number of unconverted 
 heathen, against the vast tracts of heathendom, in which the 
 sound of the Gospel has never been heard, they are as no- 
 thing. One lamp for all London, or one well of water for all its 
 citizens, are illustrations that have been used to convey, and but 
 faintly to convey, the utter failure of all our societies together 
 to light up the darkness of the myriad souls that are lying in 
 the shadow of death, to give the water of life to the millions 
 and tens of millions of those who are perishing for the lack 
 of it. 
 
 Now let us suppose, that some heathen ruler — say the emperor 
 of China — were converted to Christianity, and were to offer to 
 our missionary societies a grant of land in every square mile or 
 so of his vast territory, and promise to build on each of them, 
 a church, a parsonage, and a school. The Voluntaryists would 
 of course reject such an offer with pious indignation. A mis- 
 sionary would doubtless at once be sent out by them to convert 
 the Emperor to Voluntaryism ; to beseech him in the name of 
 English Christianity, at least in the name of all that was 
 purest and holiest in English Christianity, not to do this great 
 wickedness — not to interpose this grievous hindrance to the 
 spread of the Gospel ! 
 
 Well, we shall consider presently what the great evil of such 
 a sinful course would be. One thing however is clear, that it 
 would have effected what all our Voluntary efforts have not yet 
 effected, what Voluntaryism never has done since the birth 
 of Christianity until now, and what I believe it never will or 
 can do. It would have provided " means of religious instruction," 
 upon a scale commensurate with the wants of a nation. It would 
 have overtaken with a sufficient and a timely supply, the 
 spiritual destitution of an entire people. When has Volun- 
 taryism done this? Can its advocates name one race which 
 it has entirely christianized ? What nation has been born of 
 it? What kingdom has it ever brought to own the name of 
 Christ ? We know on the other hand, what the " Fixed prin- 
 ciple," and the much despised " Piety of our ancestors," has 
 done for England and for Europe. Truly, the evils of a state
 
 17 
 
 Endowment must needs be great indeed to counterbalance this 
 one great, immediate, certain good, which we know that it 
 can, and that Voluntaryism cannot, effect — the spiritual con- 
 quest, the entire and complete conversion to Christianity of 
 whole nations. Voluntaryism may have wonderful powers, but 
 it has not yet had power to produce a Christendom. 
 
 But these missionaries, whom we have supposed placed by a 
 state endowment, over the whole of a heathen country, would 
 be missionaries, not only of Christianity, but of civilization. 
 The indirect blessings of the Gospel are second, but second 
 only, to its direct blessings. When the glory of the Lord was 
 seen by the prophet, " high and lifted up," his train filled the 
 temple. When the grain of mustard seed had grown to be a 
 great tree, the birds of the air lodged in the branches of it- 
 Wherever the Gospel comes, it brings in its train unnum- 
 bered blessings, even for those who accept not its teachings : 
 its sunshine and its rain fall upon the unjust as well as upon 
 the just. Purer morals, laws more just and merciful, a nobler 
 and a gentler social life, a civilization of a type at once the 
 highest and most lasting, make the zone of dimmer light, 
 wliich, ever widening and brightening, spreads itself around the 
 Goshen of the Israel of God, and which, unlike the light the 
 ancient Goshen knew, penetrates ever deeper and deeper into 
 the Egyptian darkness of surrounding heathendom. 
 
 We contend then, that, even if the Christian missionary had 
 never yet succeeded in converting one single soul to true vital 
 Christianity, yet that it were an enterprise worthy of all, and 
 more than all, we have ever done to forward it — to plant all 
 over every heathen country the missionaries of a religion which 
 necessarily and invariably civilizes and elevates, even where it 
 does not save. Merely on the ground of philanthropy and of 
 patriotism, we assert that a national endowment of Christianity 
 is the interest and the duty even of a pagan ruler. 
 
 And, if this be true of the Christian missionary abroad, it is 
 equally true of the Christian missionary at home — for, alas! 
 our home-work is still largely missionary work. " The home 
 heathen " is a phrase with which we are but too familiar in 
 these days. To these heathen, the Gospel must be brought.
 
 18 
 
 and brought to their very doors, and pressed upon their 
 acceptance : they will not seek it ; the demand for religion, 
 unhappily, unlike that for other things men want, is in inverse 
 ratio to the supply. Those who need it most will always seek 
 it least. " He that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh 
 to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved." Now we 
 contend, and we think we can prove, that a state endowment, 
 with its territorial distribution of Christian missionaries, alone 
 can overtake the wants of this heathen population — heathen, we 
 say, mainly because the State has neglected to make such 
 provision "in timely abundance." And further, we assert, 
 that even if such missionaries never succeeded in saving one 
 human soul, yet the social and temporal benefits of their esta- 
 blishment would more than repay the cost to the State. We 
 say that the parsonage and the Church, and their inevitably 
 accompanying school, are the centres of civilization wherever 
 they are placed ; that they secure to the surrounding district 
 the presence of an educated gentleman — even if he be no more 
 — with his family, bound to be by virtue of his position — 
 expected to be by public opinion — the guide, the friend, the 
 adviser, the benefactor, the example of all around him. And 
 1 maintain that if the Church of England did no more than 
 this — and even its bitterest enemies will not deny that in the 
 immense majority of cases it does this — there is good and suffi- 
 cient reason why the English nation should hesitate ere they 
 consented to its destruction. 
 
 But here we are met with the reply — This home missionary 
 work is just the very point in which your State Endowment has 
 been found -to fail. It has not supplied religious teaching in 
 sufficient abundance to meet the wants of the people; while, 
 on the other hand, the Voluntary System has proved itself fully 
 equal to this task. This is the argument set forth at great 
 length in a pamphlet published by the so-called Liberation 
 Society, entitled, "Voluntaryism in England and Wales, or the 
 Census of 1851." This pamphlet consists of a series of tables 
 compiled from an analysis of Mr. Horace Mann's report of the 
 Religious Census of 1851, with arguments founded on them to
 
 19 
 
 prove the total failure of the Establishment, and the brilliant 
 success of Voluntaryism, 
 
 The writer puts his case thus : "At the commencement of this 
 century the Church of England supplied eighty per cent, of all 
 the sittings in places of worship, while Dissent supplied only 
 nineteen per cent. But in the year 1851 the Church supplied 
 only fifty-two per cent., and Dissent forty-eight. The total 
 number of sittings," we are told, "supplied since 1801, has been 
 5,175,000; of these, 3,927,000, or seventy-five per cent., have 
 been supplied by Dissent, while only 1,248,000, or twenty-four 
 per cent, have been supplied by the Church ; or, to put this 
 argument in another form. Dissent, in the course of fifty years, 
 has multiplied its sittings 303 per cent, above the increment of 
 tiie population, while the Church has fallen short by seventy per 
 cent, of that increase." I wish to state this argument as fairly 
 as possible, though I must do so briefly. But I am not, I think, 
 misrepresenting the pamphlet, when I say, that this is its one 
 argument. Turned and twisted in every possible way, and set 
 in every possible light, it is still one and the same, " Dissent has 
 increased its sittings in a much larger proportion than the 
 Church." 
 
 Now from this alleged fact the writer deduces the following 
 inference : — 
 
 "That the Church of England, as a State Church, has 
 totally failed — not failed as a Christian organization formed for 
 religious ministration, but as a State appliance intended to 
 maintain for the whole community means of religious instruc- 
 tion and edification, and to provide them in timely abundance, 
 as new exigencies render them necessary." 
 
 And this inference is headed in large capitals, " Failure of 
 THE State Church Principles." 
 
 It would be hardly possible to crowd into the same number 
 of words a greater number of fallacies than are contained in 
 this most extraordinary inference. 
 
 In the first place, the facts on which it professes to be based are 
 incorrectly stated. Among the Dissenting places of worship are 
 reckoned 3825 " non-separate " places, that is, schools, or rooms 
 in dwelling-places; while the Church has returned only 223.
 
 20 
 
 But if the Church had returned all its schools, licensed rooms, 
 unlicensed cottages, and lecture rooms, in which services are 
 held, how would the account have stood? To take one instance : 
 
 One Clcrgjmian \n-ites — " At St. , I had four services in addition to tliose 
 
 in the Cliurches ; at two, and sometimes three : at St. one ; and here 
 
 (his present Eectorj'), three. Thus m four of the parishes of England, ray own 
 experience would enable me to add ten places used for worship in connection with 
 the national Church, in addition to the three Churches reported by me as such." 
 
 But, even admitting these figures to be correct, I contend, 
 first, that the test here selected as decisive of the merits 
 of the two systems is an utterly fallacious one. 
 
 And, secondly, that even if it were as sound as it is worthless, 
 the inference drawn from it is egregiously false. 
 
 This test is utterly fallacious, because it is one of quantity 
 only, omitting all consideration of the quality of accommodation 
 supplied on either side. Every one knows, that an inferior 
 article may be turned out in much greater quantity, and at a 
 far quicker rate, than a superior one ; but this would be but a 
 poor reason for substituting the former for the latter. There 
 is no doubt that Mr. Miall and his friends could supply the 
 whole British army with bows and arrows in greater quantity 
 within a given time than the Government could supply it with 
 Armstrong guns and Enfield rifles. But it would not necessarily 
 follow from this one fact that the Government factories had 
 "totally failed, as a state appliance to supply" the army with 
 weapons; much less that the voluntary supply of the more 
 primitive weapons should be held to have so decidedly succeeded, 
 that Government should forthwith " abolish " all its factories 
 and arsenals. 
 
 1st, This purely arithmetical test omits all cojisideration of 
 the permanence of the sittings supplied. It takes no note of the 
 fact, that, while a large proportion of dissenting places of worship 
 are rented rooms, or buildings upon rented sites, convertible at 
 any moment to secular purposes, the immense majority of our 
 Churches arc built upon sites purchased and set apart for ever 
 by consecration to the service of God, and with some endowment 
 for the support of the minister.
 
 21 
 
 2udly. It oinits all questions as to the comparative cost 
 of these buildings, and therefore of the comparative amount 
 of voluntary effort needed to produce them. Our churches, 
 Mr. Horace Mann states, are built at the average cost of 
 £3,000 each ; and the actual amount contributed to church 
 building by churchmen in the last fifty years is upwards of seven 
 millions, to say nothing of the vast sums expended upon the res- 
 toration of all those noble cathedrals, and old parish churches, 
 which the " piety of our ancestors " raised, and which the piety 
 of their descendants keeps from the decay to which our Libera- 
 tionists would fain consign them. 
 
 3rdly. It takes no notice of the question as to the distribution 
 of these places of loorship. It does not tell us how far these are 
 locally within the reach of the poor, or how large a proportion 
 of them are respectively located amongst the dwellings only of 
 the rich. Dr. Hume, however, has answered this question. The 
 country is not likely soon to forget his startling revelations as to 
 the migratory propensities of Voluntary chapels in Liverpool. 
 He has shown us how Voluntaryism, " not fixed," as Mr. Miall 
 tells us " to any specified locality," avails itself of its greater 
 freedom to desert the localities inhabited by poverty, and to 
 hasten to those peopled by wealth. 
 
 The Rev. George Osborne, Wesleyan Minister, whose manly 
 and honest evidence before the Church Rate Committee does 
 him infinite credit, has also answered this question : 
 
 "1775 Has it come within your knowledge that dissenting cliapels have been 
 obliged to he closed, hi consequence of the richer portion of the community having 
 left the place? 
 
 "A. When the middle classes and well-to-do people, who have been in the habit 
 of attending the chapel, go away into the country, or to some suburban residence, 
 it follows ahnost as a matter of course that the seat rents fail, and another chapel is 
 erected in a suburban district, and the congregation is transferred, and the chapel 
 ceases to be occupied as it was formerly. 
 
 " 1776. You do not find in your experience that the ^joor leave the locality ? 
 
 " A. No, they are fastened to it ; and that one consideration weighs very much with 
 me as to the importance of a territorial provision, which shall he independent of the 
 fluctuations of commerce, and other cames which are constantly occurring." 
 
 A similar testimony reaches us from America. The
 
 22 
 
 Philadelphia Sunday School Times gives the following account 
 of Voluntary Migrations in New York, in 1859: — 
 
 " It is a great question what is to become of the lower wards of the city. Below 
 Canal street is a population of 100,000: in this section ai-e now less than twenty- 
 churches and chapels. If crowded to their utmost, they will hold about 21,000. 
 Some of these churches are contemplating removals tip toivn. I learn that St. 
 John's Park is to be sold for business lots; and the congregation worshipping in 
 Laight Street Baptist Chapel go up town. This Church is opposite the park, and 
 owns a part of it. Other churches are likely to follow. What shall be done for the 
 vast crowds left behind? Here are now about 190,000 persons who attend no 
 Protestant place of worship. There are in our city 60,000 young men, and 70,000 
 j'oung women, who are not in our Simday Schools ; many of these are in our lower 
 wards. From these come our rowdies and criminals of every grade. They fill our 
 prisons and penitentiaries." — Philadelphia Sunday School Times, 1859. 
 
 Voluntaryisna in America seems to eschew the company of 
 " publicans and sinners" quite as carefully as it does in England. 
 
 The Church of England builds no such locomotive places of 
 worship. Her " fixed principle " keeps her where she plants 
 herself, the constant and abiding, and often the solitary, witness 
 for God's truth, and messenger of man's charity, among the 
 poor and the outcast. Her lighthouses may be more slowly 
 built, and at a greater cost, than the cheaper constructions of 
 her rivals ; but, unlike them, they do not drift with the tide. 
 They stand where the " piety " of their builders placed them, 
 fixed and unmoved, casting out their steady light upon the 
 raging waves and dangerous quicksands of human passion and 
 of human sin, long after the slight skiffs once anchored near 
 them have been wrecked in the storm, or sought a coward 
 safety in some adjacent haven. 
 
 Lastly, this numerical test tahes no notice of the amount of 
 free sittings provided hy each system for the poor. The law of 
 England gives to every parishioner a legal title to a free sitting 
 in his parish church. He has a right to sit there, without 
 being indebted to the charity, or dependent upon the courtesy 
 of any man. And, if he is ever deprived of that right, it is by 
 an illegal encroachment, which the churchwardens of our 
 *' Law "Church are bound, at his bidding, to redress. Does 
 the Voluntary system, whether in our Church or out of it, make 
 such provision for the poor ? No : on that system, the Church
 
 23 
 
 is free to the poor man — as Home Tooke once said, the 
 London Tavern is free to him — " provided he pays for what he 
 gets there."* Or, if an attempt is made to provide him with 
 free sittings, it can only be done at the expense, not of the 
 " attendants " but of the poor clergyman, out of whose pocket, 
 and whose alone, comes all the provision of free sittings which 
 the Voluntary system allows the poor. " Thou shalt not muzzle 
 the ox that treadeth out the corn," is the liberal precept which 
 enjoins the provision of a liberal maintenance for the Christian 
 ministry. " To the poor the Gospel is preached," is declared 
 by Christ to be the distinguishing glory and excellence of his 
 kingdom. Modern Voluntaryism can only attain one of these 
 ends by the sacrifice of the other. It is only by muzzling the 
 ox, that it procures a reasonable supply of corn for the poor. 
 It is only by stinting the spiritual food of the poor, that it con- 
 tinues to give the minister his daily bread. f 
 
 * The testimony of Mr. Horace Mann on this point is most decisive. Speaking of 
 the local efforts made to provide religious accommodation in the great towns, he tells 
 us, " That it unfortunately but rarely happens that such local effort is aroused, ex- 
 cept to obtain accommodation for an increase of the middle classes, who already 
 appreciate religious ordinances, and are able and disposed to bear the pecuniary 
 burden requisite in order to obtain them. The effect has been that the considerable 
 addition made ia recent years to the religious edifices of large towns lias been in 
 very near proportion to the rapid growth, in the same interval, of the prosperous 
 middle classes; but the for more rapid increase, in this period, in the number of 
 artizans and labourers has taken place without a corresponding increase of religious 
 xneanajhr them. The only prominent examples within my knowledge, of a vigorous 
 effort to relieve a local want without waiting for local demand, is the movement 
 which, some years ago, the Bishop of London originated, and successfully, beyond 
 anticipation, prosecuted, for providing fifty new churches for the metropolitan 
 parishes. And yet, it really seems tliat, without some missionary enterprise similar 
 to this, the mighty task of even mitigating spiritual destitution in our towns and 
 cities hardly can be overcome. I am not aware of anv special agencies connected 
 with the vai-ious dissenting bodies, which attain the objects here described. Trie 
 necessarily self-siqjportin'j character of all the institutions Jbunckd by Dissenters, renders 
 it, in their case, almost indispensable to make the erection of a chapel dependent on the 
 prospiect of an adequate return. Hence, though the congregational and Baptist 
 bodies have established recently their ' Chapel Building Societies,' the operation of 
 these central boards is practically limited, if not by an actual local demand, yet by 
 the prospect of a speedy local sj'tnpathy among the middle classes." 
 
 t Mr. Morley's evidence before the Church-rate Committee of the House of Lords 
 on this point, is as valuable as it is candid. 
 
 Q. 737. — I suppose that as regards providing religious accommodation for the 
 poor, you think that ought to be left entii'ely to Voluntary effort?
 
 24 
 
 But this test is utterly fallacious, for another reason — it 
 assumes that the supply of sittings is the only " means " of reli- 
 gious instructiou. 
 
 The only question all through this pamphlet is " the number 
 of sittings ; " and from its alleged deficiency in the supply of 
 them, and from this alone, it is inferred that the State Church 
 has totally failed to supply — woione of the " means," but " means " 
 of religious instruction. 
 
 It is hardly possible to imagine anything more ingeniously 
 unfair than this dexterous substitution of a general term for a 
 particular one in this argument. Sittings are not all the 
 '• means" of religious instruction in this country, but only one 
 of the means — and that too the least important. 
 
 There are two other ''means of instruction" which this pam- 
 phleteer carefully leaves out of his calculation. One is the 
 religious education of the young in schools. Of this, the 
 Cliurch supplies eighty per cent., and Dissent only twenty per 
 cent, in the week day schools ; while the Church gives forty 
 per cent, against sixty per cent, of Dissenting teaching, in the 
 cheaper and easier work of Sunday schools. Or, in other words, 
 the Church gives six days' teaching, essentially and decidedly 
 religious ; superintending and promoting, at the same time, the 
 isecular instruction, and social improvement of four English 
 children to every one that Dissent so educates ; while, against 
 this. Dissent can only claim to give one day's religious teaching 
 to six children for every four so taught by the Church. There 
 can be little question as to which system best supplies this 
 *' means of religious instruction." 
 
 But an infinitely more important means of religious instruc- 
 tion and edification than either schools or sittings is the living 
 MINISTRY. All who know anything of the facts of the case — 
 Dissenters and Churchmen alike — testify, with one mouth, that 
 this is the great want of our times ; that in vain shall we mul- 
 tiply our churches and chapels — in vain increase our accommo- 
 
 In most of our chapels we are enabled to secure what we call free sittings. 
 Q. 738.— Can you at all state what proportion of free sittings there are? 
 The proportion is very siimU indeed. I am bound to make that acknowledgment, 
 and it is a difficulty.
 
 25 
 
 datiou, even up to and beyond the requirements of our popu- 
 lation—unless with it we supply the active, aggressive, house to 
 house visitation of a Christian pastorate. 
 
 On this head, Mr. Horace Mann's opinion will be that of 
 every man whose opinion is worth listening to : — 
 
 " What is eminently needed is, an agency to bring into the buildings thus provided 
 those who are indifferent or hostile to religious ser\-ices. The present rate of church 
 and chapel increase brings before our view the 2^'ospect, at no d'tstant period, of a 
 state of things in ichlch there luUl be small dejiciencg of structures where to worship^ 
 but a lamentable lack of tuorshippers. There is, indeed, already, even in our 
 present circumstances, too conspicuous a difference between accommodation and 
 attendance. Many districts might be indicated where, although the provision in 
 religious buildings would suffice for barely half of those who might attend, yet 
 scarcely more than half of even this inadequate provision is appropriated. Teeming 
 populations often now suiTound half-empty chui'ches, which would probably remain 
 half empty even if the sittings were all free. The people who refuse to hear the 
 Gospel in the church must have it brought to them in their own haunts. If 
 ministers, by standing every Sunday in the desk or pulpit, fail to attract the mul- 
 titudes around, they must, by some means, make their invitations heard beyond the 
 church or chapel walls. The mj-riads of our labouring population, really as igno- 
 rant of Christianity as were the heathen Saxons at St. Augustme's landing, arc as 
 much in need of missionary enterprise to bring them into practical acquaintance 
 v\nth its doctrines ; and, vmtil the dingy territories of our alienated nation are 
 invaded by aggressive Cliristian agency, we cannot reasonably look for that more 
 general attendance on religious ordinances which, with many other blessings, would, 
 it is anticipated, certainly succeed an active war of such benevolent hostilities." 
 
 Even without any appeal to statistics, common sense would 
 tell us that, if we must choose between the living ministry and 
 the brick and mortar building in which he is to minister, there 
 can be no question that we should choose the former, sure that in 
 the end the latter will follow ; and that, meanwhile, we have 
 secured some preaching of the Gospel, if it were but in the 
 open air — some ministration of the ordinances, if it were but 
 at the bed-sides of the sick and the dying. 
 
 And now, let us see whether Voluntaryism or an Establish- 
 ment best supplies this " means of religious instruction," 
 
 The number of Ciiurch of England ordained Clergymen in 
 England and Wales according to the last census, is 17,390. 
 The number of ordained Dissenting ministers of all kinds, in- 
 cluding Roman Catholic priests, is 8,696. The number of Pro- 
 testant dissenting ministers is only 6,405. But though Roman 
 
 D
 
 26 
 
 Catholic priests have very little to do vi^ith the Voluntary Sys- 
 tem, either in theory or in practice, we will give Voluntaryism 
 the benefit of them ; and it will then appear that it provides 
 exactly one half the number of ministers supplied by the Estab- 
 lishment. 
 
 Let us now see what is the ratio of ordained ministers to 
 places of worship respectively. 
 
 The number of Church of England places of worship returned 
 in the census, is 14,077; the number of clergymen, 17,390; 
 giving an excess of clergy over places of worship, of more than 
 one fourth. The number of Protestant dissenting ministers is 
 6,405 ; while the number of their places of worship, is 20,020 ; 
 giving an excess of places of worship over ministers of more than 
 two thirds. 
 
 But let us make this comparison on a smaller scale. Let us 
 compare the supply of ministers, by one large body of Voluntary- 
 ists in this country, with that given by the Church ; and this 
 will be a perfectly fair comparison ; for we are now considering, 
 not the total amount supplied (in which case of course the 
 Church should be compared as above with all the Dissenting 
 bodies together), but the ratio of ministerial provision to that 
 of places of worship. 
 
 The Year Book of the Congregationalists for 1860 — in which, 
 by the way, the Church Establishment is denounced as " a 
 blunder and a sin," and " Church of Englandism" ranked with 
 *' Popery, neology, infidelity, and Erastianism, as among 
 the enemies of Protestant and Evangelical Christianity" — thus 
 sets forth the success of that body in the great work of pro- 
 viding pastors for the flock, — the work, in attempting which, it 
 seems we have so frightfully " blundered and sinned," 
 
 The total number of Congregational Chapels in England 
 and Wales is 3,312; the total number of ministers is 2,004 ; 
 leaving the number of chapels without a settled ministry, 1,308, 
 or considerably more than one-third of the whole. But from the 
 above number of ministers should be deducted 433, who, from 
 age, infirmity, or other causes, have no pastoral charge ; and this 
 would leave the number of chapels without a settled ministry 
 no less than 1,745, or very nearly one half.
 
 27 
 
 Now, however large a reduction we may make from the 
 17,390 Church of England Clergy on the ground of age, in- 
 firmity, or other causes, preventing pastoral work, no one will 
 contend that it would reduce them even to a number not 
 exceeding that of her places of worship, much less to a 
 number falling far below that. Certainly no one can lay to the 
 charge of the " blundering and sinful " enemy of Protestant 
 Christianity that she leaves nearly one half of her flocks with- 
 out shepherds. 
 
 A less invidious comparison of the relative power of the two 
 systems to supply a sufficient ministry may be made within the 
 limits of our own church, where, as our opponents so often remind 
 us, the Voluntary System is largely at work. In the report of the 
 Committee of the House of Lords on Spiritual Destitution 
 there are returns from eight Dioceses in England, including 
 London and Manchester, of the number of parishes containing 
 more than 5,000 parishioners, and of the number of places of 
 worship, and of ministers in each. 
 
 The result from seven of these is, places of worship, 743 ; 
 number of clergy, 1 ,282 ; shewing an excess of ministers over 
 places of worship of no less than 539. 
 
 But, in the remaining diocese, the number of clergy is only 
 one more than the number of churches, being seventy-five to 
 seventy-four. Now the remarkable circumstance is, that this 
 diocese, LlandafF, in South Wales, is by far the poorest of all 
 our dioceses. But the Voluntary principle has just as full scope, 
 and is worked just as efficiently by our Pastoral Aid and Addi- 
 tional Curates Societies, in this diocese, as in any of the others. 
 What then makes this great difference in the ministerial supply? 
 Evidently this : that in the other dioceses the larger endowments 
 enable the rectors and vicars to employ curates, while in Llan- 
 daff the miserably small endowments make this an impossibility ; 
 thus throwing the Church for her supply upon the Voluntary 
 system, which here, as everywhere else, fails utterly " to meet 
 the exigencies of the case." 
 
 And the reason why it does so fail — the reason why, on 
 the Voluntary system, the supply of ministers will always 
 fall far short of its proper ratio to the supply of sittings,
 
 28 
 
 and still uioro to the wants of tlie entire population — is obvious 
 enough. 
 
 The supply of sittings is the cheaper, and the easier task of 
 the two. It is comparativaly easy, by a sudden and spasmodic 
 etfort, to gather together enough money to purchase a room, or 
 even to build a Church ; but it is a very different matter to keep 
 up that steady and continuous effort, that sustained self denial, 
 which will provide a sufficient maintenance year after year for the 
 man who is to minister there. It is one thing to rent a room, 
 and fit it up with benches and a pulpit. It is quite another thing 
 to feed and clothe a minister, and his wife, and his children, as 
 they ought to be fed arid clothed. The poor parson requires 
 something more than a coat of paint every three years, to keep 
 him and his in good repair. 
 
 And it is also to be remembered, that, in supplying this brick 
 and mortar accommodation for any district, the quality of the 
 supply may be lowered to meet the character of that district : 
 a small room, or a very humble Church, may be built to hold 
 some fifty or hundred worshippers for a small sum. But the 
 clergyman who is to minister to these worshippers ought to be 
 just as able and as well educated a man, as he who ministers to 
 five hundred or five thousand. 
 
 The expense therefore of the merely material part of the 
 supply, the sittings, may be almost indefinitely diminished ac- 
 cording to the circumstances of the case ; while the expense of 
 the mental and spiritual supply, the living ministry, ought to be 
 the same for all alike. Nay, if anything, the more expensive 
 article if we may so speak, the more highly educated and more 
 able minister, is most needed just in those places, where the 
 ignorance and poverty of the people make it impossible to 
 obtain a fitting maintenance for him upon the Voluntary system. 
 Ihat system then, 1 contend, fails in the most essential point of 
 all, the providing a sufficient and efficient ministry ; and to 
 omit the question of this provision, when comparing Voluntary- 
 ism with endowments, and to limit the test of their success only 
 to the number of sittings supplied by each, is just about as 
 rational as if, in a question of supplying Bath with gas, the con- 
 tract were to be given to a company which undertook to furnish
 
 29 
 
 us with a thousand lamps, only hve hundred of which should 
 he lighted, in preference to another company which proposed 
 to give us a slightly less number of lamps, of superior manu- 
 facture, and every one of them lighted with gas. 
 
 Lastly, this arithmetical test is utterly deceptive, because it 
 entirely leaves out the consideration of the quality of the teach- 
 ing given in the respective places of ivorship. Heterodox and 
 Orthodox, Deist and Unitarian, Wesleyan and Baptist, are 
 lumped together to weigh against what even our adversaries 
 admit to be the Orthodox Christianity of the Church of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 What would be thought of the traveller who, in reporting 
 the number of provision shops in Canton, were to reckon all 
 the opium shops, or in London, all the gin palaces? And 
 yet Christian Voluntaryists are not ashamed to reckon all 
 the poison shops of the deadliest heresies among the purer 
 teachings of orthodox dissent, as triumphs of the Voluntary 
 system. Even Mr. Horace Maun declares that such a course 
 " can be satisfactory to no one." It seems to be perfectly satis- 
 factory to the Liberation Society.* 
 
 And now, what is the case of the Church on the whole of 
 the question of the supply of means of religious instruction? 
 Briefly stated, it is this. Of the three great means of religious 
 instruction and edification in this country — viz., placing them 
 in the order of their importance, Clergy, Schools, and Sittings — 
 t'ae Church of England supplies the two first in immensely the 
 largest quantity, while of the third, she provides an equal 
 (juantity, but of a much superior quality. 
 
 But, let us suppose that the test selected by the Liberation 
 Society were as sound as I have proved it to be unsound, 
 
 * It h said, in reply to this objection, that however heterodox many of these 
 sects may be, yet that their existence proves tlie power of the Voluntary principle 
 equally witli tliat of the most orthodox. But this is to overlook the fact that the 
 Voluntary system tends to the large and rapid increase of sects, tempting as it 
 does the teacher to accommodate his doctrine to the prevailing errors of his flocK, 
 and directlj- encouraging the splitting ofl' of each new form of opinion into a new 
 and separate sect The immense increase of the number of sects in America, and 
 the extravagant heresies of some of them, give striking proof of this. Competition 
 in religion, as in everything else, leads to adulteration.
 
 30 
 
 I say that the inference they draw from it^ of the total failure of 
 the State Church principle, is egregiously false. 
 
 For, in the first place, it appears that the Church, in 1801, 
 supplied 80 per cent, of all the religious accommodation pro- 
 vided, while Dissent supplied only 20. Upon their own show- 
 ing therefore, and judging by their own test of success, the 
 Church-State principle at the beginning of this century had 
 succeeded, and the Voluntary principle had totally failed. 
 
 But, at the end of the next fifty years, this proportion is 
 reversed; and this, we are told, proves the failure of the 
 Church and State principle. So it would, if the State principle 
 had been at work all that time. But it has not; and our adver- 
 saries know that it has not. They boast of the fact that it did 
 not work — that they would not allow it to work. " The logic 
 of facts," " the opposition of dissenters," says Mr. Miall, have 
 prevented it, and led to " the total abandonment of State aid." 
 In fact, during those fifty years, the whole sum contributed by the 
 State for Church extension in England has been a million and 
 a half, against the seven and a half millions contributed by 
 private liberality ; while twenty or thirty millions would have 
 been needed to meet the exigencies of the case. The fifty years 
 then, selected by the Voluntaryists from which to prove that 
 the State Church principle has totally failed to supply means 
 of religious instruction, are precisely those fifty years in which 
 thexj themselves first impeded, and at last stopped, its working 
 altogether. Of all the instances of logical audacity on record 
 none, certainly, can exceed this. Our enemies first carefully 
 tie our hands, and then boast that we cannot fight. They 
 deliberately and carefully take ofi^ the wheels of our chariots, 
 and then taunt us because they drive heavily. 
 
 Suppose, that, on the occasion of the invention of the screw- 
 propeller, the great paddle-wheel " interest " had obtained an 
 act forbidding any increase in the size of the arms of the 
 screw beyond their first dimensions ; and that then, after the 
 lapse of fifty years, they should publish a pamphlet to prove 
 that the principle of screw propulsion had '• totally failed to 
 meet the exigencies " of our modern commerce. Or suppose 
 that a parent, after supplying his son with clothes up to the age
 
 31 
 
 of ten years, were suddenly to resolve to supply him no longer ; 
 at the end of a year or two the youth has quite outgrown his 
 last suit ; he is in rags : what is to be done ? Most people 
 would say, "Compel the unnatural parent to clothe his child." 
 " No," say Mr. Miall and his friends, " you are altogether 
 mistaken ; you see in this child a proof that the system of 
 parental supply has totally failed to provide the means of 
 decent covering in timely abundance to meet the exigencies of 
 the case. Henceforth, let the provision of little boys' clothes be 
 left to the energies of the Voluntary system !" 
 
 Indeed it is curious to see how, in this pamphlet, the writer 
 has contrived to select, as the test of the success or failure of 
 the State Church principle, precisely that point in which it is 
 absolutely impossible that it could fail if only allowed to work. 
 He has chosen the test of quantity, and of quantity only. If 
 he had chosen that of quality, he might have made out a more 
 plausible case ; he might have tried to show that State endow- 
 ments tend to deteriorate the character of the clergy. But 
 surely, if the question be only one of the amount of supply, 
 it is clear that the State could, at any moment, by one enact- 
 ment, provide sittings in ample and " timely abundance," to 
 " meet all exigencies," however great.* 
 
 The truth is, that the whole of this pamphlet is an elaborate 
 
 * The following extract from " Voluntaryism in England and Wales," is interest- 
 ing as a specimen of the reasoning powers of the Liberation society : — 
 
 " Now, if ever a theory were subjected to a fair and complete trial, theirs has been 
 during the last fifty years. A pressing necessity for tlie very aid wliich the state 
 Church ought to have supplied, and which according to that theory it alone could 
 supply, was created by the extraordinary expansion of the population. The state 
 Church did not meet it ; the non-endowed religious denominations did — and that, 
 not in stinted and madequate measure, but — fully and everywhere ! AMiat other 
 experimentum cntcis can be required ? There is only cue form in which the ?xpcri- 
 ment could be tried more decisively and conclusively^ namely, by dis-connecting 
 the Episcopal Church of England from the state, and withdrawing from it all na- 
 tional i-esources, in order to see if the Church, as a religious institution, would live 
 or die. Will they make tliat experiment, or will they be content to remain in the 
 awkward argumentative dilemma of abiding by a theory which has been disproved 
 by every test except one, which they decline to apply ?" 
 
 " If ever a theory were subjected to a fair and complete trial " — the fair trial being 
 the actual refusal to allow that theory to be tried at all ! " What other experimentum 
 cruets can be required ? " Only the experiment of trying what the state might do if 
 not hindered by Voluutaryists in carrymg out the State Church principle.
 
 32 
 
 comparison — not between Voluntaryism and an Establish- 
 ment — but between Voluntaryism in the Church and Volun- 
 taryism outside it, since the year 1801,* 
 
 We should not greatly care if the result were, what it is not, 
 in favour of Nonconforming Voluntaryism. It were only 
 to be expected that at first the Church should have been slow 
 to recognise the fact of her desertion by the State, and, 
 for some time, unconscious of the immense additional 
 burthen thrown upon her, of making all the spiritual provision 
 needed for all those yearly-increasing millions of the popula- 
 tion which Voluntaryism cannot, and the State will not, pro- 
 vide for. But the real question is, not whether Dissenting or 
 Church Voluntaryism has done most in the last fifty years ; 
 but what have the joint eiforts of Dissenting and Church 
 Voluntaryism done to meet the exigencies of the case ? How 
 far have they together succeeded in bringing the Gospel to 
 the doors of those five millions who on the Census Sunday 
 worshipped nowhere ? How far have they together penetrated, 
 
 • Not even betweeu these, strictly and properly speaking. 
 
 Voluntaryism is not entitled to the credit of the free gifts made within the Church. 
 By far the greater part of these were devoted not to the canying out of the Volun- 
 tary but to the extension and support of the Parochial system. The Churches built 
 by voluntary contributions have been mainly, either Parish Churches, properly so 
 called, or District Chu^'ches, built under special Acts of Parliament, making them for 
 all Ecclesiastical purposes parocliial. They have very few of them been built upon 
 the Voluntary system, in which the minister has only a congregaUomd not a paro- 
 chial charge. The territorial or Fixed Principle has been carried out in nearly all o^ 
 them, to say notlung of the fact that these voluntary efforts have owed, iu manj' 
 cases, their existence, and in most their success, to the unsparmg and laborious etforts 
 of the parish clergj'man. In how manj' places would there have been no new School, 
 no District Church, no District Visitors, no Church Missionary or Pastoral Aid Asso- 
 ciation, if there had not been first a pastor placed there by the State, whose duty 
 it was to set on foot all these good works ? 
 
 Tlie large sums raised by our Voluntary Associations have been strangely enough 
 quoted against our Church as a proof of the foilure of the Fixed Principle. They 
 are the clearest proof of its success. They shew that an establishment not only does 
 not repress, but that it best elicits and fosters the great Christian grace of charity. 
 Those only who confound Free Gifts with the Voluntary Sijgtem would think of 
 alleging one of the brightest triumphs of our Establishment as a proof of its utter 
 failure. If our clergj- had neglected to urge their flock to voluntary eflbrt, we should 
 have been told that the State Church principle utterly fails in the great work of pro- 
 moting Christian liberality. When they do urge it and succeed more largely than 
 the ministers of anj' other denomination, they are told, this oidy proves tliat Volun- 
 taryism is better than an Establishment.
 
 38 
 
 by missionary incursion, into the masses of that heathen popu- 
 lation which has grown up around the doors of Churches and 
 of Chapels ? What have they done to reach the densely 
 crowded poor in the back streets and lanes of our great cities, 
 where, within the sound of Chapel bells, and beneath the 
 shadow of Church spires, are living and dying tens of thousands 
 of Englishmen and women and children, who have never 
 heard a sermon or joined in a prayer ?* 
 
 Is not the fact that such a heathen population has grown up 
 around us a clear proof that something more is wanting than 
 a supply of sittings, such as Voluntaryism boasts of having 
 made ; that there is needed a large increase of that which 
 Voluntaryism never can supply, the living, active, aggressive, 
 missionary ministry ? The opinion of a Nonconformist will 
 have more weight on this point than any argument of mine. 
 The author of a pamphlet on " The Churches, the People, 
 and the Pew byslem " (a Nonconformist), thus writes: — 
 
 " That the primary want is, of pastoral agencies, not of places of worship, is the 
 unanimous testimony of all the witnesses. The districts now attached to most town 
 Churches are far too large for pastoral visitation ; for that frequent and friendly in- 
 tercourse which is needed to give the people any real knowledge of their pastor and his 
 interest in their welfare, and to bring tliem under liis influence. And thus, through 
 sheer ignorance, prejudice against religion and its ministers grows up unclieclied and 
 gathers strength day by day. The truth of this position is sliewn by the remarkable 
 effects produced in districts cut off from the original parishes, and assigned to ener- 
 getic and judicious clergymen, exhibited in the modest statements extracted from 
 some of them by the Lords' Committee. The fruits of this more extended action of 
 the clergy have shewn tliemselves in a greatly increased attendance of the people 
 upon religious ordinances, largely including the class at present most opposed to 
 religious mil uences, the superior operative class ; and in a disposition to contribute 
 liberally, for their means, to the maintenance and extension of religious worship."— 
 Churches, People, and Pew System, p. 10. 
 
 But it may be alleged in reply to this, that, if Voluntaryism 
 fails to supply a regularly educated and settled ministry, at 
 
 * On this point the testimony of Mr. Horace ]Mann is of great importance, shewing 
 as it does the utter failiure of the Voluntary principle just where its efforts are most 
 wanted, and, if we are to believe its advocates, have been most successful— in the 
 
 LARGE TOWNS. 
 
 " It seems that out of the total number of 1,G44,734 additional sittings reckoned 
 to be necessary, 1,332,992 or 80 per cent, are required for the seventy-two boroughs, 
 or rather for sixty of the most recent, the remainder, for reasons obvious when their 
 names are seen, being fortunately blessed witli more than adequate provision. This
 
 34 
 
 least it supplies a less educated and less regular agency in its 
 city missionaries and district visitors. On this point however, 
 our Nonconformist authority thus speaks : — 
 
 " But, in reality, the number of ministers provided by these missions bears a very 
 email proportion to the requirements of the population among -which they are placed. 
 And, deficient as they are in numbers, they are still more deficient in quality, and 
 are for the most part quite unequal to the work of reviving an interest in religion 
 among the masses ; with abundance of zeal, they are too generally ignorant and 
 narrow-minded, wanting in tact and christian charity required in dealing with 
 shrewd, keen-witted, often sceptical men, and for the understanding and removal of 
 their difficulties ; and they are constantly giving ofience by their ill-timed and mis- 
 directed attacks upon the prejudices of the persons they visit. 
 
 " Until the masses of the working classes outside our Churches are approached in 
 a totally different way from the present mode of cheap apostleship, and till they are 
 welcomed into all our Churches, when they do enter them, in a frank and cordial 
 spirit, indicative of satisfaction in meeting them where we may ignore those difier- 
 ences of condition which are unavoidable in the routine of daily life, but which we 
 profess to believe are as nothing in the sight of Him in whose presence we and they 
 stand, our piping will be as to those who dance not, and our mourning as to those 
 who lament not. 
 
 " Our clergy of all sects must themselves go forth to meet the outside population 
 in their own homes, and upon ground to which they will come ; and not, as our 
 dissenting clergy 'inostJy do, relegate the duty to an inferior order of ministers." — 
 Churches, Peopk, and Peio System, pp. 15, 16. 
 
 So far then from proving the failure of the State Church 
 principle, the history of the last fifty years proves exactly the 
 reverse. It proves, that precisely during the period when 
 that principle was abandoned, and the provision of ministers 
 left to the Voluntary system, that provision has failed, utterly 
 failed, '* to meet the exigencies of the case." The people 
 have lapsed in large masses into Heathenism, because Volun- 
 taryism could not give them christian pastors in " timely 
 abundance." 
 
 Would their condition have been better, if in 1801, the 
 State had done, what we are told it should do in 1851, des- 
 troyed the parochial system, divested the Church of England 
 
 gives a vivid picture of the destitute condition of our great-town population, and 
 speaks loudly of the need there is for new and energetic plans of operation having 
 special reference to towns. The absence of that local interest which leads to indi- 
 vidual benevolence, and the evident inadequacy of all that can be reasonably 
 exppcted from the great employers of industry, appear to call for the combined 
 exertions either of the whole inhabitants of a particular neighbourhood, or of the 
 Church at large, as the only other method for relieving such deplorable deficiency."
 
 35 
 
 Clergy of their territorial charges, and left them ministers only 
 of the congregations worshipping in their Churches, and de- 
 prived them of those endowments from which so large a staff 
 of missionary curates are now supported ? Or would not 
 their condition have been very different if, in 1801, the state 
 had recognised its duty of providing for its poor the means of 
 religious instruction, by extending and improving the then 
 existing parochial provision, " in timely abundance to meet 
 the exigencies of the case?" 
 
 We think it would : our opponents have got to show that 
 it would not. But, until they do, they must allow us to 
 insist that the facts of the case, upon their own shewing, all 
 go to prove that the Voluntary principle has utterly failed 
 to do the Missionary work of the Church. 
 
 IT. But, if Voluntaryism has proved itself unequal to the 
 Missionary work, has it succeeded better in the Pastoral 
 work of the Church ? 
 
 The two kinds of work are widely different. To seek out 
 and bring within the fold "Christ's sheep scattered throughout 
 this naughty world" is the task of the Missionary ; to guard 
 and feed the flock so gathered is the duty of the pastor. The 
 Missionary is commanded to go out into the high ways and 
 bye-ways, and compel men to come in to the marriage supper. 
 The pastor is charged to wait upon and minister to the 
 assembled guests. The missionary plants ; the pastor waters, 
 watches, trains, and prunes the trees within the vineyard. It 
 is clear that for such " diversities of administration" there is 
 needed a corresponding diversity of gifts. The most effective 
 missionary does not always make the best pastor ; and again 
 the most successful pastor does not always prove the most 
 successful missionary. 
 
 Now one great defect of the modern Voluntary system is, 
 that it is decidedly unfavourable to the growth of the pastoral 
 character. Tt tends always to produce preachers rather than 
 pastors. The minister who is to live by the Voluntary system 
 must be a popular preacher, a man who can " draw," one who 
 Can keep up and extend the " interest" of the body he belongs to.
 
 36 
 
 The most able and efficient pastor, the man with the highest ad- 
 ministrative gifts and the greatest aptitude for teaching, would 
 have but little chance of obtaining the suffrages of a congre- 
 gation against such attractions as these. That such is the 
 tendency of the Voluntary system appears from the testi- 
 mony of its supporters. In the life of a dissenting minister, 
 a Mr. Pritchard, written in the year 1836, I find the following 
 statement: — 
 
 " Our ministiy, speaking of the Independent denomination, has perhaps as general 
 efficiency as any. It does not, however, provide the same encouragement to talent 
 as some. A particular kind, the ready fluency, the variegated aptitude of address, 
 is in constant requisition. As useful, though not such shining abilities are too 
 commonly slighted. Because his was not the popular, the captivating art, I know 
 that a few regarded him as really a secondary man. Might not a larger share of 
 capability be drawn towards us ? at least, might it not be unrepeUed ? " 
 
 Again, the " Englishwomau in America," a most favourable 
 witness for Voluntaryism, tells us that "Love of display is 
 evidenced by the desire in some of the congregations, to vie 
 with each other in eloquence of their ministers, and rhetoric 
 will occasionally command a higher salary than more useful 
 qualifications" — Religious Aspect of America, p, 181. 
 
 Thus it appears that the tendency of this system is to sub- 
 stitute the popular " rhetoric " of the preacher for the humbler 
 but more useful gifts of the pastor. But, if it tends to super- 
 sede the pastor, still more directly does it tend to deteriorate 
 the preacher. It gives rise to a miserable and degrading sys- 
 tem of pulpit puffing, such as we see only too many signs of 
 in the present day. Sermons on every occasion, and on every 
 possible subject, advertised with clap-trap titles and inge- 
 niously startling mottoes, as drapers announce their wares 
 when they make an " alarming sacrifice," — the Star system 
 transferred from the Theatre to the Church, — the Pulpit 
 turned into the Rev. Mr. So-and-so's advertising van.* 
 
 But, secondly, the Voluntary system places the pastor in a 
 false relation to his flock. One of the duties of the pastor 
 
 • In the above remarks I do not refer to dissenting preachers exclusively. We 
 have enough, and more than enough, of this wretched touting for congregations 
 among ourselves. It will be found wherever the voluntary system is found 
 whether within or without our Chiirch.
 
 37 
 
 —one of his highest, and most important and most difficult 
 duties — is " boldly to rebuke vice." Is it wise to make him 
 whose office it is to rebuke vice, dependent for his daily 
 bread upon the alms of the vicious ? Does it help to the 
 courageous and faithful discharge of the office of a censor — 
 difficult and delicate enough at all times — to know that the 
 offisnder to be corrected has it in his power to sentence his 
 judge, in turn, to poverty or starvation? On such a system 
 as this it is to be feared that, 
 
 " The pulpiVs laws the pulpit's patrons give, 
 And those who live to preach, must preach to live." 
 
 That such is frequently the result of Voluntaryism, we 
 learn from a dissenting minister whose name is had in honour 
 alike by Churchman and Dissenter, of whom, when living, 
 many a Churchman used to say, Cum talis sis utinam noster 
 esses; and of whom, now that he is dead, there is not a 
 Churchman in England who would not say, " May my soul 
 be with the soul of John Angell James ! " He tells us : — 
 
 " In many of our churches the pastor is placed far below his level ; he may 
 flatter like a sycophant, beg like a servant, or woo like a lover ; he is not permitted 
 to enjoin like a ruler. His opinion is received with no deference; his person is 
 treated with no respect ; and, in presence of some of his lay tyrants, he is only 
 permitted to peep and mutter in the dust." 
 
 Is this the tone in which the prophet of God's violated law 
 should speak its thunders to the guilty ? or will such gentle 
 mutterings as these make hardened sinners tremble as 
 they hear? Alas, "it is Paul who now trembles before his 
 hearers — not the hearers who tremble before Paul !" 
 
 But it is objected here, that, if the Voluntary system tends 
 to make the minister timid and time-serving because it makes 
 him dependent, the Endowed system on the other hand tends 
 to make him careless and lazy, by making him independent. 
 No doubt it does. The dangers of an endowment lie in 
 this direction, though Mr. James does tell us of "lazy and 
 loitering ministers" among the Voluntaryists. But the ques- 
 tion is not, under which system ungodly and careless men
 
 38 
 
 will work best, but, under which system a really good and 
 faithful man would have most facility for working. I grant 
 that the Establishment has its worldly and careless Rectors 
 and Vicars, as Voluntaryism has its timid and time-serving 
 ministers. On the other hand, if it be alleged that a truly 
 Christian man will rise superior to the temptations of de- 
 pendence, equally will a truly Christian man rise superior to 
 the temptations of independence. 
 
 Supposing, then, the minister, in either case, to be equally 
 conscientious and equally spiritual, in which will he be best 
 placed for the performance of a most important pastoral 
 function ? Is it not clear that the endowed and independent 
 clergyman of a parish is placed in a position of tenfold 
 greater power for the authoritative rebuke of all the sinners 
 in his parish, than that occupied by the unendowed and 
 dependent minister of a congregation ? 
 
 But, thirdly. Voluntaryism fails to make adequate provi- 
 sion for the support of the ministry. The poverty of some 
 of our clergy is a fertile topic of reproach on the part of 
 Voluntaryists against our Church. They are never weary of 
 sympathizing with the wrongs of our " ill-paid and half- 
 starved working clergy," or of denouncing the system which 
 can leave such men in such destitution, while it lavishes its 
 wealth upon a few " bloated pluralists." Whether our " ill- 
 paid" clergy will thank these friends of theirs for proposing to 
 improve their condition by ** secularising" those endowments 
 from which their " scanty pittances " are derived, or whether 
 the country generally will think, that the confiscation of 
 Church property is a better remedy for the poverty of the 
 clergy, than increased endowments, or such a redistribution of 
 Church funds as the Ecclesiastical Commissioners are now 
 efiecting, are questions which may or may not have occurred 
 to these gentlemen. But one question which it ought to have 
 occurred to them they would be expected to answer, is. How 
 does your Voluntary system work in this respect ? Does it 
 provide a decent maintenance for eachpastor ? Has it no '* ill- 
 paid" half-starved, ministers ? 
 
 None whatever, if we are to believe Mr. Miall's descrip-
 
 39 
 
 tion of the Voluntary principle. " Never," he assures us, 
 " does the Church consent to lose all, that she does not 
 speedily gain all." Nay, it is ** only when she is poor, 
 when she can point to her self-devotion and her trust, 
 that she has power to operate as by a spell upon the 
 springs of liberality. Riches rush in upon her in pro- 
 portion as she is empty. All the feelings which prompt 
 to cheerful giving — ay, and to giving with a profuse muni- 
 ficence — are most susceptible when the Church is most in 
 need, and is least anxious to supply it." — Voluntary and Fixed 
 Principles f pp. 21, 22. 
 
 What a delightful picture of the blessings of Volun- 
 taryism ! Here are no such painful inequalities of income as 
 exist in our Establishment. " A profuse munificence " pro- 
 vides, only perhaps a little too sumptuously, for the wants of 
 all. The "willing ministrations" of attached flocks are ever 
 furnishing an abundant " supply of temporal things to their 
 pastors, in grateful recompense for their spiritual things." 
 It needs but to be known that a pastor is poor and pious, and 
 immediately this " spell " produces an overflowing of " the 
 springs of liberality." Indeed the only fault of this system 
 would seem to be that it tends to defeat its own object. The 
 world may, Mr. Miall tells us, " speedily place at the feet of 
 the Church more of its temporal possessions than she has the 
 grace to employ wisely." The ** bloated wealth " of Volun- 
 taryism may then, it is to be feared, ere long need the assistance 
 of the Liberation Society to reduce it again to apostolic 
 poverty; which however must unhappily, in its turn, again 
 produce an overflow of too " munificent " wealth. 
 
 Alas, for the difference between abstract principles and 
 " known, tangible, and realized " results ! Mr. Angell James 
 thus describes the condition of the real pastor under the 
 Voluntary system — a sad contrast to Mr. Miali's ideal. 
 
 "Uneasiness has often arisen between a minister and people, by the unwUUngness of 
 the latter to raise the necessary support for their pastor. They have seen him strug- 
 gling with the cares of an increasing family, and marked the cloud of gloom as it 
 thickened and settled upon his brow ; they knew his wants ; and yet, though able to 
 double his salary and dissipate every anxious thought, they have refused to advance 
 his stipend, and have robbed him of his comfort, either to gratify their avarice, or
 
 40 
 
 indulge tbeir sensuality. He remonstrates, they are offended : love departs, esteem is 
 diminished, confidence is destroyed ; while ill-will, strife, and alienation, grow apace." 
 
 Perhaps, however, the reason why the poor minister's sup- 
 ply was stinted in these cases has been that " cloud of gloom 
 which thickened upon his brow." It is when the Church is 
 most in need, but at the same time *' least anxious for supply," 
 that we are told it flows in largely. The unhappy pastor 
 " was anxious," too anxious to have any right to hope that 
 the Voluntary principle should supply his needs. Could we 
 only find a race of pastors who could struggle without 
 anxiety and starve Vv^ith gaiety, the " principle" would work 
 perfectly. 
 
 The " grateful " people of Mr. Miall's Utopia are further 
 described by Mr. James as " loving their minister dearly with 
 their lips, but hating him cordially with their pockets." " They 
 treat him like wild beasts, who are kept humble by being- 
 kept poor." "They pray for a blessing upon his basket and 
 his store, while they take care that his basket shall be empty, 
 and his store nothingness itself." 
 
 So much for Voluntaryism as it is, when compared with 
 Voluntaryism as it ought to be. The contrast reminds one 
 of the saying of Charles V., who, on being shewn in some one 
 of his Spanish towns a petty rivulet spanned by a magnifi- 
 cent bridge, is reported to have advised the municipality 
 either to "sell the bridge or to buy water." The splendid 
 arch of Mr. Miall's imagination crosses such a little trick- 
 ling stream of fact, that it might be as well if he increased 
 the latter before so boastfully pointing to the former. 
 
 But we are told, that after all, the poverty of ministers has 
 its advantages. It guarantees the sincerity of their motives 
 in entering the ministry, and it secures their spirituality after 
 they have entered it. 
 
 Never was there a greater mistake than this. You do not 
 gain more spiritual men by lowering the inducements to 
 enter the ministry ; you only obtain your supply of ministers 
 from a lower class of men. There are men to whom fifty 
 or a hundred pounds a year is relatively as great wealth, and 
 as great a temptation to take orders for the sake of gaining it,
 
 41 
 
 as five hundred a year would be to others. Cut down the 
 incomes of the clergy to the lowest point; and you will still 
 have unspiritual and worldly men ready enough to accept them. 
 The only diiFerence will be that you will have ignorant and ill 
 bred, instead of educated and well bred worldliness. I re- 
 member being told by an eminent and pious Irish prelate, that 
 he had once been in the habit of ordaining " literates," think- 
 ing that their piety ought to outweigh the defects of their 
 education, but that he had latterly given up this practice, 
 as he found the men so ordained were for the most part in- 
 ferior to the other clergy, not merely in education, but in 
 piety ; thus proving that piety and poverty are not so neces- 
 sarily connected as some people think. 
 
 But, if scanty means are so highly favorable to deep spirit- 
 uality, let us hope that the lay members of the Liberation 
 society will be as eager to secure this advantage for themselves, 
 as they are to confer it upon us. If a clergyman is the better, 
 morally and spiritually, for being poor, equally so is a layman. 
 " My kingdom is not of this world," and " seek ye first the 
 kingdom of God and his righteousness," were not spoken for 
 clergy only. Why should not the gain of a compulsory morti- 
 fication be conferred upon the christian laity, as well as upon 
 the christian clergy ? The voluntary surrender of their own 
 wealth by the Liberationists would have a very striking effect, 
 and would set a noble example to the clergy whose spirituality 
 they are so anxious to promote. At least it would have this 
 advantage, that people would give these gentlemen credit 
 for meaning what they say, in all this unctuous talk about 
 spirituality and poverty, which is simply nauseous on the lips 
 of a comfortable and luxurious apostle of modern voluntaryism. 
 
 But, after all, what a meanly cruel argument is this, that the 
 ministry must be kept poor to preserve their spirituality ; that 
 wealthy laymen are to profit by the piety which their minister 
 learns in the bitter school of poverty ; that their spiritual 
 life is to be enriched by the struggles and anxieties, the 
 blighted hopes and overtasked energies, the weary life and 
 early death of their poor pastor. Such men would fain treat 
 their ministers as we are told the Brazilian ladies treat the
 
 42 
 
 fire-flies, which they impale upon pins, and fasten to their 
 dresses, that the struggles and flutterings of the dying insect 
 may give out sparks of light for their adornment. This 
 odious argument reminds me of an anecdote I once 
 heard from a worthy and pious nonconformist, of a poor 
 minister, who went to his deacon to solicit an increase 
 of salary. " Salary ! " said the deacon, " salary ! why, I 
 thought you worked for souls." ** And so I do," replied 
 the poor minister, " but I cannot eat souls ; and, if I could, 
 it would take a good many souls of the size of yours to 
 make a dish." It would be an evil day for the Church when 
 the support of our clergy should depend upon the liberality 
 of such small-souled men ! There are plenty of them within 
 the Church, as well as out of it. Church nature differs nothing 
 from dissenting nature. Let us hope we shall never see it 
 similarly tried. 
 
 Voluntaryism also fails to make provision for the pastor in his 
 old age. So long as bodily and mental vigour remain unimpair- 
 ed, the pew-rent system may afford to the man of great abilities 
 a comfortable, to the man of ordinary abilities a decent, 
 maintenance. But what is to become of the minister when 
 ill -health or advancing years have impaired or destroyed 
 those powers by which he earned his daily bread ? It would 
 be a mockery to talk, in his case, of his *' being supported by 
 nothing beyond the contributions of the attendants." At- 
 tendants at his chapel are falling off year after year. A 
 scanty few, who knew and loved him in his better days, 
 remain faithful to the last; but the fickle public, trained 
 upon the Voluntary system to a fastidious and exacting 
 criticism, accustomed to insist upon the full value of their 
 seat-rents, in able and eloquent sermons, soon go elsewhere; 
 and the aged minister is left to poverty and to neglect. His 
 income, unlike that of any other professional man, never 
 increased in due proportion to his reputation and his 
 talents, so as to allow of his laying by a sufficiency for his 
 declining years. What is to become of him ? His now 
 small and daily lessening congregation cannot support him 
 and his family, even if he could bring himself to live a pen-
 
 43 
 
 sioner upon their alms. An endowment fund for super- 
 annuated ministers may give him a scanty stipend which 
 might suffice to keep him from actual want — though even this 
 is a direct violation of the voluntary principle ; it is " a fixed, 
 permanent, settled" provision, such as proves an utter " want 
 of faith" in those who make, or those who avail themselves of 
 it ; — but even this is not always available. What, I ask again, 
 is to become' of the superannuated minister upon the volun- 
 tary system ? 
 
 This is no imaginary difficulty. It is one already felt — 
 seriously and increasingly felt — within our own church. There 
 are, at this moment, many district churches and chapels built 
 mainly upon the pew system, with, perhaps, a very scanty 
 endowment, where the Incumbent who, on his first appoint- 
 ment in the full vigour of manhood, "filled" the church with- 
 out difficulty, is becoming gradually less and less equal to 
 the task as he advances in years. What is to be done in such 
 cases, is a question which is beginning to be very anxiously 
 asked by all who care, not only for the comfort of the pastor, 
 but for the edification of the flock. * 
 
 And now, that we have considered those points on which 
 something can be said upon both sides of the question, let us 
 note those on which all the advantage is clearly and entirely 
 upon the side of the Fixed Principle. 
 
 In the first place, then, it gives with territorial privilege, 
 territorial responsibility. The clergyman of the National 
 
 • In one case which occurred recently, a truly excellent and devoted minister 
 ■who in his best days liad been promised by the trustees of his Church £400 a year, 
 had become from old age nearly inaudible, and his congregation were dwindling rapid- 
 ly away. The pew rents ceased to produce the stipulated sura, and the trustees — in this 
 case fortunately wealthy and liberal men — made good the defliciency out of their own 
 pockets, until death released their good old pastor froni his painful dependance, and 
 them from their payments. Yet in our Cluirch this difficulty is much less severely 
 felt than it must be in others — our benefices relieving, in a great measure, the pres- 
 sure upon the Voluntary system — directly, by the promotion to them of district incum- 
 bents, or chapel ministers; and indirectly, by leaving a comparatively small number 
 of clergymen dependent upon the Voluntary system. But as the number of livings 
 remains fixed, while the number of unendowed or partially endowed district churches, 
 increases steadily every j'ear, the evil here described is a growing and a serious one, 
 and one that can only be met by large endowments, public or private. How it is 
 met in other churches I do aot know, and should be glad to learn.
 
 44 
 
 Church is not the minister of a congregation with no cure of 
 souls beyond it. He is the pastor of a parish, responsible to 
 God and man for all the souls within the district over which 
 he has been placed. He is bound to do his utmost to bring 
 the gospel, not only to those who may worship in his church, 
 but to every one of his parishioners. He must not, he does 
 not, regard himself as free to select the more pious or more 
 promising of the inhabitants to whom to minister, or to gather 
 out a little flock of godly people amongst whom, and whom 
 alone, to labour. He is the minister of all, and of all alike. 
 The whole is his field and he must, so far as he can, cultivate 
 it all. 
 
 Not so with the pastor upon the Voluntary system. 
 
 " Dissenting ministers," says tlie Nonconformist layman already quoted, " recog- 
 nize no care of souls beyond their own congregations, which contain even a smaller 
 proportion of the working classes than the Churches of the EstaLlishment. In fact, 
 the regular pastoral %-isitation of their own people is, in our large towns, the excep- 
 tion and not the rule. So that the bulk of the working classes, with the exception 
 of the Roman Catholics, are thrown for pastoral visitation, succour, and consolation, 
 vpon the Church of England, which does, at least, recognize, and attempt to dis- 
 charge, this function. That the Dissenting Churches should have thus neglected their 
 duty to carrj' the gospel to the masses around them, and at the same time, have re- 
 sisted the increase of the national provision for this purpose, argues a deplorable 
 blindness to their duties as Christian Churches. They have forgotten that their posi- 
 tion involves its duties as well as its rights ; that their claim for exemption from a 
 share in the provision, through a national Church for the religious wants of the peo- 
 ple, could only rest upon the proof that they were independently taking their own 
 share in ministering to those wants. The blame must be divided between ministers 
 and people. The laity ought not to have needed to be reminded of this duty ; and 
 their clergy ought to have kept this duty steadily before their flocks." — The 
 Churches, the People, and the Pew System, p. 11. 
 
 The reason which he gives for this failure in the pastoral 
 work of Voluntaryism, is very remarkable : — 
 
 " Too much time," he tells us, " is spent by our ministers on other than strictly 
 ministerial work. We are too exacting in our demands upon our ministers for 
 elaborate pulpit discourses, which, liowever excellent in themselves as compositions, 
 do really pretty completely exemplify " the foolishness of preaching " in the extent 
 of their practical influence on respectable steady-going congregations. By the de- 
 mands thus made upon the time of our ministers, we go far to cut them off from the 
 characteristic work of the Christian ministrj', canning the gospel to the poor and 
 needy. And wc also cut them off from, perliaps, the most fruitful source, humanly 
 speaking, of religious inspiration, by hindering them from extensive intercourse
 
 45 
 
 with the poor, their trials, their burthens, their sufferings. I would not be under- 
 stood to ignore the fact, that there are ministers of unusual vigour of body and mind' 
 who do contrive to combine, with a pretty complete fulfilment of the demands of 
 their congregations, much active labour among those who have still greater need 
 of their services. But such cases are too rare to affect the truth of the general state- 
 ment." — The C/iurcIies, People, and Peio System, p. 13. 
 
 Further, the pastor on the parochial system is free from 
 all suspicion of interested motives in the minds of tJiose 
 among whom he labours. It is but too well known how 
 jealously suspicious the ignorant poor are of those who come 
 among them as the representatives of the wealthier and better 
 classes of society. So little used are they, poor creatures, 
 to disinterested kindness, that it is hard to persuade them 
 that our benevolent efforts for their good do not conceal 
 some great benefit to ourselves. 
 
 It is no small help, therefore, to the pastor when he can say 
 to the poor man, " Come to my church ; you know it does not 
 make a penny difference to me whether you come or stay 
 away ; it is for your own sake I ask you." And it is no sniall 
 hindrance to the congregational minister that, when giving 
 the same invitation, his ignorant hearer may accuse him of 
 wishing to swell his congregation, or increase his pew-rents. 
 An endowment gives practical and tangible force to the 
 assurance, " We seek not yours, but you." 
 
 In the third place, an endowment frees the pastor from 
 the waste of time, the annoyance, the weariyiess of beg- 
 ging. The Voluntary system cannot be kept up without 
 enormous and incessant begging. The world has not yet 
 begun to " pour its treasures " at the feet of the Cliurch 
 with that " profuse nuinificcnce " which anticipates and pre- 
 vents entreaty. The world must be begged from, humbly, 
 perseveringly, eloquently, beseechingly, before it consents to 
 give; and, accordingly, our religious societies have, of late 
 days, studied with great care the science of solicitation. 
 Religious mendicity has become an important art, with 
 its fixed rules, and skilled labourers. The " getting 
 up " of a society or of a meeting ; the selection of " good 
 names" for the committee or the list of speakers; the
 
 46 
 
 advertising, the " urgent appealing," by active and impor- 
 tunate secretaries — are all brought to the highest perfection, 
 and, all together, absorb no small proportion of the contribu- 
 tions of the charitable ; and no small share of the time of 
 the ministry, which can so ill be spared from higher duties. 
 
 The Rev. Dr. Miller, of Birmingham, than whom no man 
 in England knows better what the pressure upon a popular 
 speaker and preacher is, and than whom no man in England 
 could hope to be more successful in collecting money in his 
 own locality, where his personal influence is so deservedly 
 great, in his evidence before the Committee on Church 
 Rates, tells us how the begging system works in Bir- 
 mingham : — 
 
 Chairman — " You consider that if the voluntary principle were adopted generally 
 in the parishes, it would be necessary for the clergjnnan to make appeals to the 
 parish in order to raise the money ? — A. I am quite sure of it ; I do not speak from 
 theory ; we do that in Birmingham now ; there is not a Birmingham clergyman at 
 present, who if he wants to do anything which is at all out of the way, does not sit 
 down and write appeals ; and I could count off upon the ends of my fingers the first 
 ten persons that every clergj-man would write to as a matter of course ; we should 
 begin with Lord Calthorpe, and go on ^vith the same list of persons, every one of us. 
 
 Q. '' Is not it the case at present, that whether for the building of churches or the 
 erection of schools, the clergymen are obliged to make very widely extended appeals 
 not only to their own people, but to persons verj' foreign to then- parishes ? -—A. The 
 truth is that begging is now a chief element in our duties. 
 
 Q. " Then if the provision of the funds necessary for repairing the churches were 
 thrown upon the voluntary' system, would it not oblige the clergyman to extend his 
 operations very largely .' — A. He would have to extend them ; and, as a result of 
 my own observations of Birmingham, I should say that he would extend them 
 unsuccessfully, and that the churches would go to decay. 
 
 Q. " Would it not very seriously interjh'e with the time which he ought to give to his 
 parochial duties f — A. It does now most seriomly. 
 
 Q. " Would it not add very largely to his anxieties ? — A. It does now, most 
 heavily. 
 
 Q. "And in those icays very seriously jirejudice his spiritual work? — A. We all feel 
 in Birmingham that we are becoming secularised more and more every day ; we get on 
 by constant begging! 
 
 Q. " Do you not suppose that it would lead to very largely increased exertions on 
 the part of the clergj-, to obtain the subscriptions which would be necessary for the 
 support of their churches ? — A. I think it would, and I should be verj' sorry to put 
 that upon the clergy ; I think that they do as much as they can now in raising 
 money for a great number of other objects, and I should be very sorry to impose 
 upon them the necessity of going round, cap in hand, to raise money for the repair 
 of the church.
 
 47 
 
 Q. " It would seriously interfere with their pastoral and parochial duties gene- 
 rally ? — A. I think so." • 
 
 Lastly, an Endowment gives us a learned ministry/. On 
 this head there will be little dispute. On the score of 
 learning, our Church may fairly challenge the Christian 
 world, nay, the history of Christian literature itself. What 
 church has ever produced such a body of divinity as the 
 Church of England ? What fruit of this kind has the 
 Voluntary System produced in America? Dwight (who 
 fought for Establishments), President Edwards, Channing, 
 Albert Barnes, Moses Stuart, and Cheever, are all the names 
 of note which American theological literature has given to 
 the world. Compare this with the list of names of English 
 divines, well worthy of that name, that our church can furnish 
 for the last twenty years, and ask, does Voluntaryism 
 or an Endowment best promote the study of divinity, and 
 the production of high class theological writings ? The fact 
 is. Voluntaryism uses up all its able men in preaching, setting 
 them to " supply " congregations and speak for societies, 
 at an age when a youth in our English universities is just 
 beginning to learn to think, and keepft^ them employed at 
 this work alone until old age disables them. For learning 
 there must be leisure ; for leisure there must be at least 
 competence. The minister on the Voluntary system can but 
 rarely hope to enjoy much of either. 
 
 But these are the advantages of the Establishment as 
 regards the pastor ; there are others as regards the people. 
 
 The Church Establishment is of inestimable value, as 
 a national testimony to the value of religion throughout 
 the length and breadth of the land. The poorest and most 
 ignorant of our people, whose eye, as he rises to his 
 morning work, or as he returns from his labour, rests 
 upon the tall spire of the parish church, or the parsonage 
 
 • Whoever wishes to see a most amusing but most instructive illustration of the 
 miseries and failures of clerical begging will find one in the account of the attempt 
 to raise a voluntary subscription for the repair of Lachford church, in " Twenty 
 Years in the Church." The author permits me to state that only the names in this 
 account are fictitious ; the facts really occurred as they are narrated.
 
 48 
 
 where dwells his minister, or meets that minister in some 
 of his rounds of daily visitation, and who knows that 
 all these are provided by the State for his improvement, 
 learns this great lesson, that this Christian nation regards 
 the souls of her people as of infinite preciousness — learns 
 that there is something of more importance in the eyes of 
 his rulers than commerce, or art, or manufacture — learns, 
 and teaches to his children, the great truth thus daily 
 pressed upon his own conviction, that "righteousness exalteth 
 a nation ; but sin is a disgrace to any people." 
 
 Is it a slight advantage, moreover, which the Establish- 
 ment bestows upon the poor man, in that it gives him a right 
 to come to the parish church for worship, and to the parish 
 clergyman for instruction and for counsel ? There is not a 
 parishioner in any parish in England, be he high or low, rich 
 or poor, who has not a right, as a citizen of England, to 
 command the services of the minister of the National 
 Church — to summon him to his bed-side at any hour of the 
 day or of the night to give him the ordinances of religion, 
 to console and strengthen him in his sorrow or his suffering. 
 The poor man has the same right to the services of the 
 parish clergyman, that he has to those of the parish doctor, 
 and for the same reason — both are officers of the State^ 
 appointed to minister to him gratuitously. 
 
 How large a share, too, of the endowments of our " bloated 
 parsons," find their way to the homes where poor men dwell, 
 in alms and charities that prepare the hearts of the grate- 
 ful recipients to listen all the more willingly to the " good 
 news" from the lips of the giver. And if we are told that 
 this is bribing the poor to hear the Gospel, we can only say 
 that it is such bribery as He practised who, wherever He 
 went preaching the word of His kingdom, went also " doing 
 good, and healing all manner of diseases, insomuch that 
 great multitudes were gathered to him out of every city." 
 
 Lastly, the parochial principle has this great advantage, 
 that it brings the parochial minister, on all the most impor- 
 tant occasions of the poor man's life, into necessary and 
 official relationship with him. At marriages, and burials,
 
 49 
 
 and christenings, and on all those other occasions when the 
 offices of the parish clergyman are required, there is a cer- 
 tainty that the poor will, if at no other times, be brought 
 into contact with the minister of religion, and that, too, 
 under circumstances the most favourable for speaking a word 
 in season. 
 
 For all these reasons then, both as regards the pastor and 
 the people, we hold that the territorial, fixed, parochial 
 system of the English National Church is, of all others, the 
 best calculated to produce a learned, efficient, independent, 
 influential, and pious pastorate, and to promote and maintain 
 the purity and power of religion in this country. 
 
 Abuses it may have, not a few ; defects in its working, 
 arising from the imperfections and infirmities of those who 
 work it, it must have, many and great. But, despite all these 
 abuses and all these defects, it is the noblest and the wisest 
 system of national " religious instruction and edification " 
 that the wisdom and piety of a nation ever devised. Let us 
 hope that the English people will wait before they destroy 
 it, until its assailants produce any system calculated to work 
 at least half so well. 
 
 But, with all these great advantages, our Establishment 
 is afilicted with two great evils which more than counter- 
 balance all this good. Well, what are these great prepon- 
 derating evils? — They are "State patronage" and "State 
 control." No Voluntary speech or pamphlet is complete 
 without these two sentences. I'hey come in at the end 
 of every paragraph, like the refrain after each verse of a 
 ballad. They are as familiar to every listener at a Liberation 
 Society meeting as the " unaccustomed to public speaking," 
 or " enlightened and intelligent audience," or the vote of 
 thanks to " our excellent chairman ; " and never fail to bring 
 their due rounds of cheers and loud applause. They may be 
 disposed of ver}' briefly. No one denies that State patx'onage 
 and State control have their attendant evils and abuses, 
 though these are absurdly exaggerated. But so has every 
 kind of patronage and control. Patronage and control there 
 must be somewhere. The appointment to office, and the 
 
 G
 
 50 
 
 government of the Church, must be vested in some person or 
 persons; and, in whomsoever they are vested, they will have 
 their necessarily accompanying evils. 
 
 When you come to deal with patronage, which means 
 money; when you come to deal with control, which means 
 power, you come to deal with the infirmities of our common 
 nature; and, place them where you will, there is a tendency 
 to their abuse. Without going into all the points of detail, 
 and without exposing all the extraordinary misconceptions 
 of those who really believe that the Church is the ofi*spring 
 of the State, that the State has composed our Liturgy and 
 Articles, and ordains our bishops and clergy — passing by 
 these misrepresentations, I say, whatever evils can be named 
 as arising from State patronage and State control, parallel 
 if not greater evils can be adduced, arising from popular 
 patronage and from popular control. If you have Court 
 intrigue on the one hand, you have popular canvass on the 
 other. If you have ministerial interest on the one hand, 
 you have private jobbing on the other. If you have 
 sycophancy to dukes on the one hand, you have sycophancy 
 to deacons on the other. If you have improper selections 
 by Prime Ministers on the one hand, you frequently have 
 improper elections by majorities of congregations on the 
 other. " Secret canvassing," — •" cabals, intrigues," — ** the most 
 disgusting exercise of the most disgusting tyranny," — " fires 
 of contentions," — " the greatest disorder and confusion," — 
 " peculiar and dishonourable fickleness of disposition on the 
 part of churches who soon grow tired of the man they 
 choose," — " affairs of religious societies in chancery" — "strife, 
 ill-will, confusion, and every evil work," — tyrannical deacons 
 " who are patrons of the living, bibles of the minister, and 
 wolves of the flock," — " hasty choice of unsuitable ministers," 
 *' injudicious congregations inviting ignorant and incompetent 
 pastors," — "relaxation of discipline," — "many churches 
 exhibiting the sad spectacle of a house divided against itself," 
 — " schisms at the time of choosing a minister," — " church 
 meetings exhibiting scenes of confusion, little recommenda- 
 tory of the democratic form of church government," — " dis-
 
 51 
 
 traction and division ;" — these are some of the results of 
 popular patronage, enumerated by one dissenting minister 
 alone, Mr. Angell James. Is this state of things so very free 
 from the evils alleged against State patronage in our Estab- 
 lishment as to make it seriously v^rorth our while to try the 
 experiment of making an exchange ? 
 
 It is no pleasure to a churchman to point out these defects 
 in dissenting communities. There are, we all know, faults 
 and sins enough on both sides whenever poor human nature 
 has to deal with money or money's worth. But when the 
 advocates of Voluntaryism, carefully concealing all the evils 
 of their system, are loud in their exposure of those existing 
 in ours, and clamour on the ground of these for the instant 
 abolition of the Establishment as " a blunder and a sin," 
 Churchmen have no alternative but to expose the blunders 
 and the sins of the system so boastingly offered as a sub- 
 stitute. 
 
 But we are told that it is not fair to select our instances 
 of the working of Voluntaryism in this country, where it is 
 cramped and hindered by the presence of the Establish- 
 ment; we should "look to America," whex'e Voluntaryism 
 has free scope, and see what great things it has done there. 
 The truth is that, so far from Voluntaryism being hindered, 
 it is greatly helped, in this country, by the Establishment. 
 It is no small aid to the Voluntary minister, that there is a 
 National Church which does all the rough work of the 
 ministry for him — which is bound to baptise, marry, and 
 bury the whole population, to take charge of all the poor and 
 outcast whom he does not and cannot look after — to help to 
 keep up that general respect for religion and that desire for 
 its ordinances among the middle classes, by which he so 
 largely profits — to maintain a high and uniform standard of 
 orthodoxy in its creeds and articles, by which, in no small 
 degree, the teaching of all other orthodox churches is 
 elevated and kept pure — to prevent, in a measure, that rapid 
 increase of heterogeneous and heretical sects which spring up 
 in the absence of a National Establishment. In all these 
 ways we believe that pious and orthodox nonconformity
 
 52 
 
 is greatly benefitted by the presence of an Established 
 Church. 
 
 But we will suppose that this is altogether a mistal<e on 
 our part ; and, admitting that Voluntaryism does not get 
 fair play in this country, we will " look to America," where 
 Voluntaryism, unchilled by the cold shade of our Establish- 
 ment, has had ample field, and room enough to display all its 
 powers. Here, all will admit, is a real experimentum crucis. 
 Here the Americans have done exactly what the English are 
 asked to do. They have abolished their Establishments ; 
 they have freed religion from State patronage and State 
 control, and left the "supply of religious instruction and edifi- 
 cation " to the unfettered energies of the Voluntary system. 
 Now for the results. 
 
 The Voluntary System in America. 
 
 It would be ungenerous perhaps to allude to the first efforts 
 of this great principle. It takes some time for a people to 
 change their ways, and some years must be allowed for the 
 recovery of American religion from the numbing influences 
 of its early establishment by the pilgrim fathers. We will 
 only, therefore, refer, in passing, to the case of America in 
 1827, as displayed in " Essays on the Church." We will 
 begin with Voluntaryism in 1839, some twenty years ago. 
 At that date. The Secession Magazine tells us, 
 
 " The Protestant Episcopacy have considerably more than a third of their churches 
 unsupplied Arith ministers; the Lutherans have five-sixths vacant ; the Universalists, 
 one-half; the Christian Society, three-fourths ; the Presbyterian Church, a fifth; the 
 CoDgregationalists, more than a third ; the Free-will Baptists, a fourth ; the Associate 
 Presbyterians, one-half; the Dutch Reformed, nearly two-thirds ; the Cumberland 
 Presbyterians, one third ; the Seventh Day Baptists, a fourth. Comparing these 
 vacancies with the estimated population belonging to each sect, we shall find that 
 among the Calvinistic Baptists there must be about 920,000 persons destitute of the 
 ministration of gospel ordinances ; and among the other Baptists the proportion is 
 much the same. By the same mode of calculation tlie Presbyterian Church has a 
 population of 360,000, whom it cannot supply with means of grace, though this 
 Church be, perhaps, the most flourishing of all ! " — Secession Magazine, as quoted in 
 a Speech by Lord Sandon, at Freemasons' Hall, London, 1839. 
 
 Voluntaryism does not seem to have succeeded so far *' in
 
 53 
 
 supplying means of religious instruction and edification in 
 timely abundance" in America. 
 
 But let us "look at America" sixteen years later, in the 
 year 1855. And here we shall cite a witness who will not be 
 accused of any prejudice for Establishments. *' The English- 
 woman in America " has lately published a little sequel to 
 that work, entitled " The Religious Aspect in America ; " 
 a work written with the obvious design of advocating Volun- 
 taryism. 
 
 Nothing can be more charming than the picture this writer 
 draws of religion in America. There " complete religious 
 toleration exists."* " Truth stands upon its own immutable 
 vantage ground, and the civil power is unable to interfere 
 with rights of conscience and religious worship." There is 
 " an energetic and active state of Christianity, to which we 
 have nothing comparable." " The poor are more system- 
 atically and universally sought out than under the parochial 
 system in our English cities ! " " There is a church for 
 every 656 persons in the population." " There is no person 
 in any of the settled districts who cannot have, if he desires it, 
 the privilege of religious worship !" 
 
 The truth of these statements has yet to be tested. I 
 cite them as proving the partiality of the writer for volun- 
 taryism. 
 
 Now let us take, from the testimony of this partial witness, 
 the following facts :— 
 
 Tn a chapter, " mainly devoted to a statistical account of 
 the various churches," we find the following summary of the 
 Evangelical Denominations in the United States: — 
 
 " They have a total of 42,359 churches, 29,430 ministers, 
 14,0G8 licentiates, 4,176,431 members, and a population of 
 17,762,000, wider their influence." 
 
 Now here are certainly some very startling facts. — Tn the 
 first place we find that to 42,359 Churches there are only 
 29,430 ministers; that is, there are no less than 12,829 
 Churches without any settled pastoral ministry ! Next, if 
 
 • Excepting, of course, when a minister is tarred and feathered, or shot dead for 
 preaching agaitist slavery.
 
 54 
 
 we compare the number of those who are not only members of 
 these Churches, but ** under their influence^' — a sufficiently 
 vague phrase it will be admitted — we get the following 
 result: — 
 
 The population of the United States in 1855, calculating 
 from the census of 1850, cannot have been less than twenty 
 seven millions; it was probably more. Taking it at this amount 
 and deducting from it the 17,762,000, who are under the in- 
 fluence of Evangelical teaching, we find that there are no less 
 than 9,238,000, or more than one third of the whole population 
 not even under the influence of pure Christianity, and not more, 
 be it remembered, than 4,176,4-31, ox much less than one-sixth 
 of the whole, icho are members of pure christian Churches. 
 
 But, we are told in the next chapter, that the non-Evan- 
 gelical — or as we would call them Heterodox bodies, Romanists, ' 
 Unitarians, Universalists, Mormonites, &:c., number 4,1 1 7,000, 
 of whom 3,250,000, are Roman Catholics. Now, if we add 
 these to the number of Evangelical or Orthodox christians 
 given above, we get the whole number of those who make any 
 profession of any religion whatsoever in the United States — 
 and it amounts to, 21,879,000, leaving no less than 5,121,000 
 persons who make no profession of religion whatever, who are 
 open and avowed infidels ! But of these non-Evangelical 
 sects, there are some whom the most extended charity could 
 not regard as otherwise than pure and unmixed evils, Mor- 
 monism for instance, which number 50,000; Spiritualism, 
 which our authoress describes " as either the worst of modern 
 extravagancies, or the worst of modern heresies" — " the 
 greatest disgrace of new England, bringing a slur upon the 
 influence of religion," — "ever adding to its monstrosities and 
 the number of its adherents," and " holding in terrible moral 
 captivity 650,000 persons ;" Universalism, *' which exercises 
 no reforming influence, and is chiefly agreeable to the irre- 
 ligious and immoral, and all haters of Evangelical religion, 
 and which numbers 500,000, Adding these and some similar 
 sects together, and deducting them from the total of non- 
 evangelical worshippers, we find a total of persons whom we 
 could not call Christians, of at least 6,000,000.
 
 55 
 
 Summing up all these results, we find that in the United 
 States, in the year 1855, out of a population of twenty- 
 seven millions, there were, in round numbers : — 
 
 1. Nearly twenty-three millions who were not members of 
 any pure Protestant Church. 
 
 2. Upwards of nine millions who were not even under the 
 influence of pure Christian teaching. 
 
 8. Six millions who could not properly be called Christians. 
 
 4. Upwards of five millions who did not even profess or 
 call themselves Christian. 
 
 How comes it that Voluntaryism has failed to meet the 
 tenible "exigencies" of this case? Perhaps the following 
 statement from the same writer, as to the condition of Ame- 
 rican ministers, may throw some light upon this question : — 
 
 " Possibly, WITH EcoNoiY, ALL THE ministers biay live upon their salakies; 
 
 but it is impossible that any can grow rich upon them. The American churches have 
 no inducements to offer in the shape of richly endowed benefices, or high tem- 
 poral position ; and there is no denomination which has the power to confer upon 
 its ministers that status in society which belongs, by immemorial usage, to the 
 clergy of the Church of England. Hence, it may fairly be presumed that a desire 
 to preach the Gospel is the great motive which impels men into the ministry, in the 
 orthodox churches of the United States. — Rdigious Aspect of America, p. 29. 
 
 "Whether " this may fairly be presumed," is very doubtful; 
 but it is pretty plain what is the great motive which impels 
 the 12,000 who will not enter the ministry. Possibly, they 
 think that, even with economy, they could not live upon 
 their salaries. 
 
 It has been alleged that Voluntaryism tends to multiply 
 sects. How is this in America ? No less than " one hun- 
 dred different denominations" are enumerated in the American 
 census, amongst whom the following singular names occur. 
 There are Democratic Gospel, Ebenezer Socialists, New 
 Lights, Tunkers, Superalists, Cosmopolites, Free Enquirers, 
 Children of Peace, Inspired Church, Pathonites, Believers in 
 God, Perfectionists, and Spiritualists. 
 
 Dr. Foster has given it as his opinion before the Church 
 Rate Committee, that if the Establishment were abolished, 
 a great many of the dissenters would turn Episcopalians.
 
 r>6 
 
 The abolishing of an Establishment does not seem to have 
 had this effect in America. But Dr. Foster confesses his 
 ignorance of American sects. The above list may, perhaps, 
 induce him to recal his prophecy. 
 
 Again; voluntaryism, we maintain, tends to enslave and 
 degrade the pulpit. Hear our authoress on this subject. 
 
 " The pulpit exercises a most powerful influence in America ; I doubt whether 
 any practice could stand for many years before its denunciation if prononnced 
 imauimously. And here the great crime and plague spot of the American churches is 
 seen. The great progress made hy the slave power, during the last thirty years, is mainly 
 to be attributed to them. 
 
 " Under the influence, and with the sanction of, the clergy, the South has come 
 to regard slavery as 'a patriaixhal institution, an ordinance of God, an equal 
 advantage to the master and the slave, elevating both, as strength, wealth, and 
 power; and as one of the main pillars, and controlling influences of modern civil- 
 ization." The churches are bound up with the system; they are rich inhuman 
 property ; the bishops and clergy of the denominations, the ofiice bearers, and the 
 communicants are slave holders, and buy and sell their fellow men, whom they 
 profess to recognize as 'temples of the Holy Ghost.* I have heard slavery extolled 
 in Southern pulpits as the ' only successful missionary institution which the world 
 has ever seen.' I have heard these words used in prayer in a Presbyterian church 
 by a minister of whose personal piety I entertain, no doubt — ' We thank Thee, 
 I/jrd, that from a barbarous land where idols are worshipped in blood and flame, 
 Thou hast brought a great multitude to our shores to sit at oiu-j feet, and learn Thy 
 Gospel." ' — Religious Aspect, p. 105. 
 
 Our ** stereotyped" liturgy, at least preserves us from 
 hearinof such a litany as this ! 
 
 " The sacred marriage words ' until death us do part ' are per\-erted by Southern 
 ministers in the case of slaves, into, ' until we are unavoidably separated.' And 
 ministers of the highest position not only palliate but approve of this base outrage 
 upon humanity! " 
 
 " Among the 80O ministers of New York and Philadelphia, few are found bold 
 enough to denounce the connection which many of their congregations have with 
 the slave system, or to interpret practically our Saviour's golden rule. Albert Barnes, 
 the learned commentator, and Beecher and Cheever of New York, boldly testify 
 against slavery ; but the faithfulness of the latter in condemning the sins of the churches 
 in connection with it has kept his congregation in a continual ferment, and his resignation 
 has been more than once demanded ; for no offence is less likely to meet with lenient 
 treatment than a testimony against slavery." — Jbid, p. 779. 
 
 " State control " may be a great evil in our English Church, 
 but neither Queen, Lords, nor Commons, can call upon a 
 clergyman to " resign " for denouncing any one of our national 
 sins. But while this writer thus gives evidence of the inju-
 
 57 
 
 lious working of the Voluntary principle in America, she 
 gives indirectly a striking proof of the value of an Estab- 
 lishment. 
 
 " Congi-egatioualism became the ' established ' form of Chiirch goverument 
 about 16-10 in New England, and though, in the cities, Episcopalian and other congre- 
 gations are to be found, it is stiU all powerful, and to its form of government and 
 doctrine the masses of the people are very strongly attached. On entering more 
 minutely upon the state of religion in New England we shall find some things which 
 are unsatisfactory; but, partly owing to the somewhat isolated position of these 
 States, arising from soil and climate, yet mainly to the influence of a pure faith, and 
 the upright though occasionally intolerant character of the eai'ly setilers, it is pro- 
 bable, that, as far as its morals are concerned, New England is the fairest portion of 
 the world." — Rdigious Aspect, p. 13. 
 
 So that while, in all other parts of America, there is a sad 
 decay of religion, it appears that mainly in that part ot 
 the country where there was once an Establishment, and in 
 that religious body which was formerly the Established one, 
 there is still by far the most vigorous spiritual life. 
 
 We have, however, other and more important as well as 
 later evidence from America. Our next witness shall be a 
 publication emanating from the United Presbyterian and Con- 
 gregational bodies in America. It is entitled A Plea for 
 Home Missions, and dated 1858. It shall tell us how Vol- 
 untaryism in America does the missionary work of the 
 Church. 
 
 Alarming Rkligious Destitution. 
 
 •' Our confidence in the final triumph of Christianity upon these shores, is not 
 based upon any apparent nearness of that great consummation. Indeed, we can 
 hardly contemplate the present character of our people without dismay. In high 
 places and low, among officers of state, in circles of wealth, over broad regions of 
 rich fanns and plantations, and in centres of trade, we seem to find a terrible cor- 
 ruption—an appalling faithlessness, venahty, and boldness in wrong doing. Wlien 
 we begin to inquire into the circumstances which explain the possibility of these 
 things, we discover alarming rdigions destitutions, destitutions wliich amount to 
 something worse than mere want— to an obstacle, and even a hostility— the desti- 
 tutions and the wickechiess mutually aggravating each other." 
 
 " Tlie actual condition of tliis part of the missionary field is not easily gathered 
 fi-om mere statistics, or description ; and the following extracts from recent reports 
 of agents, convey little more than a suggestion of the reality. We give, first, 
 statements of tlie destitutions in Iowa, and hi Ohio, which are somewhat more fuU 
 than those relating to the other states, and which, besides, may be viewed as, in a 
 general way, illustrative of the condition, the one of the newer, the other of the older 
 portions of the Missionary field." 
 
 H
 
 58 
 
 Iowa. 
 
 " We have between thirty and forty congregational and Presbyterian churches 
 that ought to be immediately supplied with ministers. Just now, every added month 
 of destitution involves a loss of efficiency that it will be, in many instances, a slow 
 and toilsome work to regain, and a sacrifice of power for good in the wide regions 
 over which their influence ought to extend, a power that belongs only to that brief 
 period during the process of settlement, when the unsettled elements of society are 
 comparatively plastic. Shall these churches be suiiered to languish in comparative 
 inefficiency, or, as the case may be with reference to some of them, to become 
 altogether extinct, because none appear to break unto them the bread of life, and cheer 
 ihem on in the work of the Lord?" 
 
 " A missionaiy, stationed in one of the most sparsely populated of them, says ; — 
 ' When I look over this whole section of country, I feel almost heart sick at the 
 destitution it presents. There is only one Church organization (a Baptist), and that 
 very weak, in this county, beside our oton. Something like this, every minister in tha 
 State would say, who measures his field by the limits of his county." 
 
 SiGNiFicAifT Facts. 
 
 "A correspondent has obligingly sent ns the following statistics concerning the 
 denominational relations of the members of the Iowa House of Representatives, in 
 January, 1858. The facts were furnished by the gentlemen themselves. The House 
 consisted of seventy-two members, who individually reported their religious con- 
 nections, as here given : — 
 
 Methodist 
 
 Presbyterian 
 
 Old School Presbyterian... 
 Associate ... 
 Associate Refd Pres. 
 
 Baptist 
 
 Episcopal 
 
 Lutheran 
 
 Orthodox ... 
 
 Congregational 
 
 12 
 
 Universalist 
 
 6 
 
 Universal Toleration 
 
 1 
 
 Unitarian 
 
 1 
 
 Catholic 
 
 1 
 
 Liberal 
 
 4 
 
 Golden Rule 
 
 4 
 
 Christian ... 
 
 1 
 
 Disciples 
 
 2 
 
 AU 
 
 1 
 
 None 
 
 3 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 
 2 
 2 
 3 
 1 
 9 
 16 
 
 If the',first ten of these classes be called evangelical, and the others unevangelical, 
 then thirty-three belong to the former, and thirty-nine to the latter. These figures are 
 supposed to " give a tolerably fair representation of religion in Iowa. They show 
 that opinion is free over her broad prairies." Do they not also show a lamentable 
 religions destitution? Here is a decided majority of the law-makers of this growing 
 state not so much as connected with Evangelical denominations. Let it be observed, 
 tliat in this fact, we have but a restatement of tliose destitutions already given. If 
 wliole counties are left without any stable religious influences, and other counties of 
 great importance fail of being even half supplied, we must expect this great want to 
 report itself elsewhere — in the character of all " representatives of the people " and 
 of their legislation ; in the tone of the pi'ess and of general public sentiment." 
 
 Indiana. 
 
 " At present, there are about 150 Constitutional, Presbji;erian, and congregational 
 churclies ,in Indiana; and many of these are so feeble as scarcely to have a name to 
 live. To supply tliese churches, and to make further aggression upon the kingdom 
 of darkness, there are sixty-five ministers, giving themselves wholly to the work of 
 the saci*ed office. More than half the cmmties have no resident Presbyterian, or
 
 59 
 
 congregational minister: and almost half of them hare no church connected with 
 these denominations. The O.S. Presbyterian Churches are generally in the same 
 counties with our own. 
 
 " The state of Indian^ must be accoimted, so far as our two afBliated denominations 
 are concerned, scarcely more than one vast destitution. One hundred and fifty 
 churches and seventy ministers in a population of 1,2CO,000, increasing, also, at the 
 rate of 43 per cent, in ten years, can only suffice to create a want ; they cannot meet 
 it. The worli of the Society in this state is but just begun. 
 
 '' What shall we say of such a region as is presented to our view in Lake County, 
 so accessible by land and water, with its population of 20,000 souls, and yet, with 
 the exception of two localities, all one wide waste, ' burnt over ' by spasmodic ex- 
 citements, until it now ' affords little encouragement to hope for any good thing ? ' " 
 
 Proportions of Strong and Weak Churches. 
 
 " More than one-fifth of all the churches connected with these denominations may 
 be counted as very leeah, none of them having more than twenty-five members, and 
 the average falling considerably below that number. Nearly one-fourth may be 
 counted as weah, their membership ranging between twenty-five and fifty ; and these, 
 taken together with those that are weaker yet, constitute nearly 43 per cent, of the 
 whole. More than two-thirds of all the churches do not contain over one himdred 
 members. Those that exceed one hundred are about 31 per cent, and those that ex- 
 ceed two hundred are not quite 1 1 per cent, of the entire number." 
 
 Present Supply of Ministers Inadequate. 
 
 '• The whole number of ministers is 6,130. The number of pastors and stated 
 supplies (errors excepted) is 4,336, leaving 1,814 to be classed as without charge, as 
 professors, teachers, editors, agents, secretaries, &c. 
 
 '' The number of churches ia the three denominations whose membership is reported 
 as exceeding fifty, is some five hundi-ed less than the number of pastors and stated 
 supplies. If, therefore^ each of tke^ejive hundred men were to occupy two churches, 
 more than sixteen hundred churches would still he left destitute ; and if allowance bo 
 be made for those not reporting, this number must be taken as exceeding two thou- 
 sand. Probably none of these contain more than thirty-five members." 
 
 Proportion of Weak Churches at the West. 
 
 ■' But facts are at hand which show that the relative number of feeble Churches is 
 much larger at the West than at the East. Of the Churches in Illinois and Iowa 
 connected with three leading denominations, the proportion that must be accounted 
 very weak — having not more than twenty five communicants — is almost twice as 
 great as in the same denominations taken entire, and amounts to nearly two ffths cf 
 the whole number reporting. These, again, taken with those whose membership 
 ranges between twenty five and fifty, make up nearly 70 per cent, of the whole ! " 
 
 " Furthermore, an examination of the statistics of the co-operative denominations 
 for the year 185.5-6 shows, that in Iowa, 105 Churches, out of the 126 that are con- 
 nected with these denominations, report less than fifty members ; in Wisconsin, 93, 
 out of 141; in Illinois, 148, out of 244; in Indiana, 100, out of 149; in Ohio, 174, 
 out of 344; and in Michigan, 109, out of 194; making a total of 729, in an aggregate 
 of 1,1 98 reporting— while of the 96 failing to report, the great majority, doubtless, 
 fall into the same class. It would be .safe to say, that of 1,300 churches, 
 
 800 CONTAIN less THAN 50 MEMBERS EACH."
 
 60 
 
 Ai.i. rms Weakness not Nk(;essary. 
 
 " But it is possible that some, calliug to mind the large number of weak congrega- 
 tions at the East, where denominational rivalrj' is less active ^han at the West, may 
 say that this feebleness' is wholly owing to the necessary imperfection of human 
 arrangements, that we must always have the poor with us ; and that the sectarianism 
 of the West has little responsibility for this feebleness of her Churches. It were 
 sufficient to suggest, in reply — that the weak Churches in the older states are found 
 •where the communities are weak, in ban-en or uncultivated districts; or in regions 
 depopulated by emigration ; while very many of the feeble Churches of the West are 
 in jiopulous, vigorous, groicing communities, rchere nothing hut irreligion or division 
 could keep the congregations from being numerous, and where nothing less than the 
 combination of the two coidd l-eep them so small as they are. Yonder are three 
 debilitated Churches struggling for existence against each other. Is it necessary to 
 ask, whether, if they were joined in one, and were w-ith one heart and voice contend- 
 ing for the kingdom of God, the christian strength of that community would not be 
 greater ? " 
 
 We are now in a position to appreciate the value of the state- 
 ment that " there is a Church edifice in America to every 646 
 individuals." The writer, in giving us this pleasing ratio of 
 Churches to population, forgot to give us, at the same time, 
 the ratio of members to Churches. What does it avail us to 
 know that for every six hundred and fifty persons in a 
 country there is a religious organization, unless we also know 
 how many of these persons belong to it ? There is a famous 
 case upon the law books> of a tailor who was sued by a 
 customer for embezzling nearly the whole of a piece of cloth 
 which he had given him with orders to make from it twelve 
 caps. The defendant pleaded that he had literally complied 
 with his customer's order, producing, at the same time in 
 court, twelve cloth caps, each the size of his thumb, alleging 
 that the plaintiff had said nothing in his order as to the size 
 of the caps. Our authoress has dealt in just such a way 
 with the churches which she produces as proof of the success 
 of American voluntaryism. She has said nothing as to their 
 size. We now see that there might be a church to every 
 646 persons in a community, and yet that 600 of the number 
 might still be heathens or infidels. 
 
 Indeed, mention is made in Prime's " Power of Prayer," 
 of one village in Iowa, containing nine hundred inhab- 
 itants, WITHOUT MINISTER, CHURCH, OR MEANS OF. GRACE !
 
 61 
 
 So much for averages. Well was it said that nothing is 
 more fallacious than figures, excepting facts. 
 
 But the writers in the " Plea for Home Missions " proceed 
 to assign a reason for these failures of voluntaryism, which is 
 certainly startling and striking enough, coming as it does from 
 non-conformists. It is headed : — 
 
 Weakness of Churches — Sectarianism. 
 
 '' It is but too evident that our American Christendom is prosecuting its work, in 
 some respects, at a disadvantage. True, funds have been furnished with a commend- 
 able liberality ; but, worse than a dearth of money which a few months of vigorous 
 effort, or a prosperous turn in the market, miglit remove — there is a dearth of 
 MEN. Fields are explored, openings are found, communities are fast forming, and 
 even make urgent re(iuests for ministers ; but often there are no ministers to send* 
 The great exigency of the missionary work now is, the want of capable and devoted 
 men." 
 
 "However we may charge this upon the lukewarmness of the churches, upon the 
 absence of coiTect views respecting mhiisterial support, and its consequent meagre- 
 ness, or on the prevalence among young men of a subtle scepticism, we may not 
 shut our eyes to the fact, that the want must continue as long as wtfortunate division 
 of the field continues, which must ever come from divided counsels, and sectarian rivalries. 
 Destitutions are likely to last tehile cdeniatioits last. 
 
 Number and Policy of Denominations. 
 
 "Four of these— the N.S. Presbyterians, the O.S. Presbyterians, the Congrega- 
 tionalists, and Baptists, together with the Methodists and Episcopalians — habitually 
 esteem it a matter of obligation to be represented in eveiy community where it is 
 possible to gather a church of their name; and, in establishing these churches, deem 
 it no part of their duty to consider, in the least, the welfare of any congregation of a 
 different name that may have been previously gathered. Leaving out of the account 
 all the minor sects, we have five great Evangelical Churches, each one of 
 whom feels bound to push forward its own growth, with a disregard of the interest of 
 all other churches which is equivalent to an ignoring of their existence, and, in 
 practical effect, identifies the Kingdom of God with the denomination. Every 
 denomination naluralhjj'eds that it must be strong in the centres of population ; and so, 
 tint/tout asking whether the Church of Christ needs so nuiny congregations there, we 
 crowd our five, or (n()7v-a-days) our six separate enterprises, of as many rival names, 
 i7ito a littlo place where two churches would do more good than the half dozen. 
 
 B,vc Effects. 
 
 " But a third consequence of this over-crowding of one portion of the missionary 
 field is the destitution of other portions, u-hile many villages are so well siqplied as 
 to leave jiastors and churches leisure to quarrel, many rukal districts and youno 
 COMMUNITIES ARE ^NXMOST TOTAi.iY NEGLECTED. If all the preachcrs in the United 
 States were Evangelical men, well educated, and devoted to their work, they would no 
 more than supply the real wants of the countiy, upon a sj-stem of wise distribution. 
 On a system, then, so unfortunate as this, its destitutions are not supplied ; and we hear 
 from all quarters the cry — send more labourers into the harvest !"
 
 62 
 
 A Cause of UK\^^LLINGNE33 to Ester the Ministrt. 
 
 " Again, a fourth consequence of our denominational divisions, and another cause 
 of destitution, is seen iu the difficul/i/ of persuading young men of enterprise to 
 enter the ministry. When we consider how the field of ministerial labour is cut up 
 into small parishes, affording to men of superior capacity but a limited scope for 
 some of their best quaUties, with scarcely the possibility of much improvement ; 
 promising, also, only a meagre support,* and a moderate usefulness, we cannot 
 wonder that young men who are conscious of the ability to occupy a larger sphere, 
 and whose nature thirsts after soitething stirring and an opportunity for a hopeful 
 struggle and for achievement, shoiild often shrink from the seeming narro^^iiess and 
 hopelessness of the work which is here oflferred them. We need not praise the 
 truthfulness of their appreciation, in all particulars, but have we, on the whole, a 
 right to anticipate a different decision ? Xo ! the result is manifestly one that must 
 be expected. Tliere is not the least doubt that this diminution in the size of parishes 
 is also a diminution in the attractiveness of the pastoral office. And so, this very 
 multitude of denominations which has increased the want of ministers, operates, in 
 more ways than one, to diminish the supply." 
 
 " Furthermore, it tends to keep out a class of men that is very much needed. 
 Nothing can be more obvious than that the West demands a high order of ability, 
 of education, and of character, in those who are to be founders of its churches and 
 colleges, who are to shape the morals of its people, and their religious faith and life. 
 Under men able to command respect as instructors, leaders, and organizers, as well 
 as in the more tender relations of the pastoral office, churches will rise to a quick 
 maturity, and soon become the stout allies of every good cause, though, otherwise, 
 siu"e to linger for many years in a state of dreary inefficiency and disconsolate 
 dependence." 
 
 * MlSSIONAEr EETEESCBJIKXT. 
 
 How meagre, the following letter from a Western missionary will show:— "I am in great 
 perplexity in regard to the future. But what shall be done? 'Retrenchment?' Ah! yes, 
 the re^l necessaries of life are very differently understood ; can I not economize ? I have a 
 horse, bugg}', and harness, all nearly worn out, which would bring but little if sold ; and yet 
 they are absolutely indispensable on this field of labour, where appointments and people are 
 scattered over so much tenitory. ' Tea and coffee ! ' AVe have dispensed with them long since. 
 ' Books, periodicals, and papers ! ' I did venture nearly a year since to buy ten dollars' worth 
 at a bargain, of a brother minister, because on accoimt of ill-health, he had to return eastward, 
 and I have not paid for them yet, because of poverty which I did not foresee. I do take the 
 Bibliotheca Sacra, and would stop it — yes, / tciV stop it if I can possibly spare the money to pay 
 the arrearage of one year's subscription, before the issue of the next number. I took out a 
 policy of Life Insurance, but I can no longer pay the premium, and have written to surrender 
 the policy to the Company. This retrenchment and economizing must be done, but still I fear 
 it will not be sufficient. What is rfui^/ luider these circumstances? ' Owe no man anything." 
 ' He that providcth not for his own house,' <fcc. I wonder if these texts were intended to 
 include home missionaries? " 
 
 THIRTT MILES. 
 
 " As an illustration of the important position we occupy in this region, permit me to state 
 that last week t«-o families — or rather one family and half of another (the father being left 
 at home, sick) — came thirty miles with an ox team, to get their two infant children baptized. 
 They urged upon me a donation of one dollar each, as a thank-offering to God for the Messing 
 of this service to them and their children. These sheep in the wilderness I could not search 
 out, for two reasons : first, I have had more on my hands here than I could well attend to ; and 
 second, I am too poor to keep or hire a horse. 
 
 "The fee was a 'God-send.' We had been, for some time, borrowing, and the last doUar was 
 spent, the flour-barrel was empty, and over every store door is now written, in large letters, 
 ' Ttrms Cash ! ' "
 
 63 
 
 Waste of Resources. 
 
 " Now it is obvious, upon first inspection, that a system, (say, rather, a confusion) 
 characterised by such an unfortunate distribution of labour — in some localities mul- 
 tiplying churches to excess, and leaving other regions destitute ; making the town 
 congregations weak from their very multitude, and losing the happy moment in 
 communities that are just forming, from the want of the right men to occupy them; 
 and so stimulating sectarian rivalries, tliat ministers frequently abuse as much time 
 and strength in workmg against each other, as they use in working for Christ ; that 
 such a system must result in a great waste of powe}\ and this, of all kinds. Accord- 
 ingly we find that Churches are born weak, and cotnjyelled to worry through a long and 
 fretful infancy, are kept on a diet irritatingly low, and comjjelled to sti~uggk with slow 
 and uncertain growth, toward a maturity which must come late, and may come never." 
 
 The foregoing extracts — and they are a very small portion 
 of what might have been given — yield sad but unanswerable 
 proof that Voluntaryism in the United States "has totally 
 failed to supply means of religious instruction and edification 
 in timely abundance to meet the exigencies of the case." It 
 has utterly failed to provide the supply of missionary minis- 
 ters needed to overtake the growing population of the States. 
 It has left that population in a state of spiritual destitution 
 which those who know it best describe as " awful," ** alarming," 
 *' sickening." It has left thousands of churches without pastors 
 — whole districts without churches — tens of thousands of the 
 population without any means of grace whatever. 
 
 And the causes of this terrible failure are stated — not by 
 English Churchmen^ but by American Voluntaryists — to be : 
 " poverty of ministers, and deficiency of talent in those who 
 are ordained," arising from "inadequate inducements to enter 
 the ministry," and this again from "sectarian rivalries." 
 
 No words of mine could add force to this terrible picture 
 of the results of Voluntaryism drawn by the hands of Volun- 
 taryists themselves. 
 
 But it may be said, You have drawn your instances from 
 the Western States, where the population is as yet scanty, 
 and the people rude and barbarous. You should see what 
 Voluntaryism can do in the older and more settled States. 
 If this were so, it would only prove that Voluntaryism 
 cannot do missionary work just where that work is most 
 needed, in young rising communities, which it is all-impor- 
 tant to leaven as soon and as thoroughly as possible with
 
 64 
 
 Gospel truth. But even this poor plea has been anticipated 
 in the statement above quoted, that the terrible spiritual 
 destitutions of the West are to be found in its cro^vded and 
 prosperous communities quite as much as in its thinly-peopled 
 country districts. 
 
 We have, however, another witness to cite, who shall tell 
 us how Voluntaryism does pastoral work in the older and 
 more settled States. 
 
 There exists in America an association composed of mem- 
 bers of nearly all the evangelical denominations, including 
 Episcopalians, the object of which is to distribute religious 
 publications by an extensive system of colportage all over 
 the country. In the Twenty-Fourth Annual Report of the 
 American Tract Society, for last year, I find the following 
 statements : — 
 
 Twenty-fourth Axnual, Report of the Aicericax Tract Society, 
 May 11th, 1859. 
 
 " In stating the adsutted fact that at le^vst one third of our population 
 HABITUALLY NEGLECT THE PREACHING OF A TRUE GosPEL, aud are therefore hasten- 
 ing unreconciled to the judgment bai% vre but half present to the christian heart, a 
 thought ■which should move that heart to its depths. The saddest aspect of this fact is, 
 that mci/iy ten ikoiisamk of the^e unevangelized ones, hace no Gospel preaching within 
 their reach, no one to warn them of a coming judgment, or incite them to a gracious 
 Saviour — no book, no Bible. In the newer portions of our constantly expanding 
 settlements — a selvage on the western border of that vast robe of population spread- 
 ing over this mighty continent, a hundred miles iu breadth, extending from the 
 northern verge of our country to the southern seas, and flowing ofi' to California, and 
 high up to the Pacific coast — are these out-dwellers found ; many thousands of whom 
 are beyond the reach as yet, and for the next generation, of regular Sabbath services 
 — although the Church in her distinct ecclesiastical form is pressing on, taking possession 
 of the more prominent points, and gathering to her sanctuaries the less scattered settle- 
 ments, unblessed multitudes must remain Jor gears beyond her benefcient embrace." 
 
 " In addition, there are manj- portions of the more denselj* settled states, where, 
 from the poverty of the soil, unheixlthiuess of locality, chai'acter of the institutions, 
 or other causes, the population is scarce, and without Bibles, books, schools, or 
 chm-ches to reach and save the inhabitants in these by-ways and mountain fast- 
 nesses, cypress swamps aud wide prairies; there is urgent necessity of such an agency. 
 
 " All this would remain true, even if there were no " regions beyond " the com- 
 pass of our thirty-three States. But when we note the startlhig fact, that we have 
 a territori;il area more extensive than that covered by all the States already fonned, 
 and thus catch a glimpse of the expansion of our population for ages to come, the 
 necessity, present and prospective, becomes still more imperative. That wide nu- 
 merous perishing destitutions do now exist, destitutions of a preached gospel, of a printed 
 gospel, of the living epistles as read in the holy lives oj pious men — that myriads of 
 youth are growing tip in our land tcithout ever hearing a gospel sernton — tliat in
 
 65 
 
 many places where a few Christians have located, there is 'a famine in the land, no 
 a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the word of the Lord ' — 
 that in these wastes, ignorauue, vice, and infidelity prevail; and that great multitudei 
 of these souls will be lost etenuilly unless some outgoing, aggressive, personal, oer- 
 severi/ig effort he made to rextch them, is too sadly true to admit of a question. Noi 
 less trne nor less sad is the fact that many viight hear the gospel who utterly neglect 
 it, and who wiU never hear it unless it is carried to them and urged upon them." 
 
 Statistics for the last Year. 
 
 " That in visiting only one-eighth of our population there should have been found 
 445,690 souls destitute of the divine Record is a fact as startling as it is sad. There 
 is revealed m another column the still stronger fact that in this land of a Iree press, 
 with its multitudinous wide-spread issues, there should be found in one single year, 
 and by a few colporteurs, 44,990 families, or 224,980 souls, without a single page of 
 religious truth in their hands to warn them of a coming judgment, and point them 
 to a gracious Savioiur. Yet it must be admitted that over large districts of our newer 
 states and territories, no book stores ai"e found, and no means of procuring religious 
 truth, if ever so much desired." 
 
 CoNNfcCTICUT AND RuODK ISLAND. 
 
 " While the great field of operation for the Tract Society is in the new and more 
 sparsely settled and destitute parts of the land, yet I am more and more convinced 
 that in this field in Connecticut and Rhode Island there is a demand for just that 
 kind of instrumentality wliich our Society seeks to employ. Neakly one half tub 
 
 POPULATION OK THESE STATES ARE RARELY PRESENT IN ANY SANCTUARY OF GoD. 
 
 They are rarely sought out, rarely addressed on the great subject of the soul's salvation." 
 
 Compare this last statement with that made in the " iie- 
 ligious Aspects" : — ■ 
 
 " Under the Voluntary system in the United States, the 
 poor are more systematically ' sought out' than under the 
 Parochial system in our English cities." 
 
 New York and Canada West. 
 
 " There is reason to believe that frotn one-third to one-half of the whole population 
 maintain no regular attendance upon the means of grace. The official census of the 
 State presents a still darker picture than tliis, i^iving the amount of Clmrch accom- 
 modation as sufficient for only two-thirds of the population, and one-third only as 
 regular attendants on divine worship. Instituting more particular inquiries, we find 
 whole neiglibourhoods in the very heart of the State, as well as many more in the 
 newer settled portions, wliose destitutions are very great, and not to be soon supplied 
 l)V ordinary means. 
 
 " I have found an unusual amount of destitution and irreligion, and whole settle- 
 ments that entirely neglect the sanctuarj' : modern Spiritualism and Universalism 
 huvii blinded the people ; and many have become the victims of these delusions." 
 
 ■' In one neighbourhood I found 15 or 20 families, nearly all of whom are iieglecters 
 ol religion. They told me they had not had any preaching in that place, except at 
 tuneraU, Jor thirteen years. Witliiu four or five miles there are four churches all 
 
 I
 
 66 
 
 having stated ministry, and yet that destitute portion was unvisited by ministers or 
 church members, and they themselves wickedly neglecting to attend upon the means 
 ol grace. 1 hope I have done something for their good, and to induce Christians, and 
 especially the ministers, to go and preach the gospel to them." 
 
 "7ft many parts of my field they are quite destitute of religious privileges. I find 
 many in my visits who seldom if ever attend a religious meeting ; and were it not for 
 tlie institution of colportage they, to all human appearance, would live and die almost 
 like the heathen, without the Bible, or any religious books, or a knoivledge oj 
 salvation. 
 
 NEGLECT or THE S.VNCTUARY. 
 
 One colporteur says, '' From the best of my judgment I should think that one- 
 half of the entire population neglect evangelical preaching." Another says, 
 '■ While few will acknowledge that they habitually neglect attending some religious 
 meeting on the Sabbath, it is apparent that not one half the community at large 
 attend regularly." Another writes, "About one in seven are habitual neglecters 
 ot evangelical preaching, but a much larger proportion attend but a very small part 
 ot the time. " A German colporteur says, " About three-fourths attend no evan- 
 gelical preaching." Another German, in one of the cities, writes, " The tenth part 
 ol tlae German population neglect evangelical preaching." " It is thought," say^ 
 another, " that one-half of the people neglect the preached Gospel ; yet many of 
 them hear, occasionally, a funeral sermon, and rather extol themselves for so 
 doing." " Two-thirds of the entire population on my field, which is about thirty 
 thousand," writes another, " are very irregular in their attendance on evangelical 
 preaching, or neglect it altogether." "Judging the most favourably," says another, 
 " I think that not more than one-half of the people attend worship, and many of 
 these only occasionally ; probably not more than one-third are regular attendants." 
 
 Neglect of the MejVns of Grace. 
 N. S , in Pennsylvania, writes : — 
 
 " From one-third to one-half habitually neglect evangelical preaching." 
 
 D. H. S , in Pennsylvania: — 
 
 " Fully one-fifth of the entire population are habitual neglecters of the house of 
 God. " 
 
 J. M , in Ohio: — 
 
 '•Two-fifths neglect the house of God." Another writes, "About one-fifth 
 habitually neglect the sanctuary." 
 
 H. S , in Pennsylvania: — 
 
 " From one-fourth to one-third arc habitual neglecters of evangelical preaching, 
 but the number is decreasing. A part o/ this neglect a7-ises from want of oppor- 
 tunity." 
 
 O. J. F , Ohio :— 
 
 '•About one-third of the neglect* is could not ntttnd evangelical preaching, o* 
 they have not the opportunity."
 
 67 
 
 J. W. R , in Pennsylvania, writes: — 
 
 " About one-fourth of the habitual neglecters of the preached Gospel lu thia 
 county could not hear it if they desired to." 
 
 And it is in the face of such facts as these that the 
 " Englishwoman in America" asks us to believe that *' there 
 is no person in any of the settled districts, who cannot have, 
 if he desires it, the privilege of religious worship." The 
 observations of a lady must not be roughly criticised: had the 
 writer been a man, one might have been tempted to quote 
 Bishop Butler's famous saying, " It is a matter of great 
 patience to hear some men talk." 
 
 " The field is one of marked spiritual destitution. It is just such, however, as the 
 Society was formed to cultivate. That hundreds of thousands are living on 
 the territory occupied hi) this hranch, without Sabbath and sanctuary influences, without 
 the pastor, with no one to care for their souls, forms the strongest argument for 
 prosecuting and expanding the work. The field it is true is not self-sustaining. This, 
 however, affords no plea for neglecting it, or diminishing expenditure needed for its 
 cultivation. To mete out the bread of life to such communities only as can or will 
 bear the pecuniary expenditure involved, is a principle of action, the legitimate 
 operation of which would make the very existence of tliis Society a questionable 
 subject, would cut the sinews of every benevolent enterprise, paralyze the aggressive 
 energies of the Church, and lead to the abandonment of all strictly missionary 
 efforts." 
 
 Virginia. 
 
 " There is a valley, about 40 miles in length, that lies between two mountains in 
 
 C County, containing a settlement of at least forty-five families. There is not 
 
 a single church in this valley, nor any pennanent school. Occasionally, and at long 
 intervals, a stray teacher makes his appearance, and stays a few months during the 
 winter season, and then leaves. This winter they have two schools. The Jamilies 
 average over four and a half to the household, yet there are but fifteen professing 
 Christians in the whole community. One of these is a distiller, and another sell.s 
 liquor, and all drink more or less. Not one of their number had the Society's books. 
 Not one of their children had ever i"ead, and many of them never heard of the ten 
 commandments. 
 
 "It has been my great aim to instruct these poor ignorant people. They ought not 
 to be ranked with those who neglect Evangelical preaching, for they are anxious to 
 enjoy it. A lady, the mother of nine children, told me that, during her married life, 
 she has neard but three sermons, and only one of her children had ever heard a 
 sermon." 
 
 " I visited a family, that for some reasons, I thought were destitute of the Bible. 
 I asked the mother, ' Have you a Bible ? ' 'Oh yes, sir — yes, indeed ! ' She 
 brought it out ; it was the adventures of Genernl Tom Thumb. I said, ' That i* 
 not a Bible.' She replied, that ' she thought any book was a Bible.'"
 
 68 
 
 NtiRTH Cakouna. 
 
 " More thau five hundred families said they never had a religious visit and prayer 
 at their homes before. I think there are two principal reasons for this :— First 
 almost every minister of eveiij denominatim, has as much as he can do, after preach- 
 ing, to visit the members of his charge; and in frequent instances, such are tie 
 circumstances, that he caunot visit his, own memlers, having him cmnparatioely no 
 time to go in the ' regions beyond,'' to visit and pray with ungodly families, who 
 certainly should be kindly reached at their homes that the Gospel may be preached 
 to • every creature.' Secondly, because a large majority of the laity neglect the 
 daily reading of the Bible and prayer in their own fixmilies: consequently compa- 
 ratively few are prepared or willing to talk on religion, and pray with their 
 neighbours." 
 
 " lu view of such facts, which I fear are true in more or less of our counties, how 
 can every family have a religious visit, and the ' preaching of the word ' be accom- 
 plished ' everywhere ' and to ' every creature,' the sick, the poor, the ignorant, and 
 wicked, whether they be at our doors, or at a distance in the swamps and moimtains? 
 
 " How can the word be preached to every creature ?" A 
 sad question, in a country where Voluntaryism cannot, and an 
 Estabh'shment must not, " reach the poor, and iEfnorant, and 
 wicked," even at men's doors ! " 
 
 ClNCDfNATI. 
 
 " Our great want as a state is, that the truth be both brought in contact ■with indi- 
 vidual destitute souls, and more extensively diffused among the whole population. 
 Notwithstanding the healthful and indispensable action of our several church organ- 
 izations, it is quite e^'ident that large portions, if not the bulk, of our people feel not 
 their direct influence. What is required in conjunction with our church centres of 
 light seems to be just some such moral apparatus as this Society furnishes for forcing 
 out light and truth over the whole surface of society, and at the same time bringing 
 it home to thousands of isolated souls, now hid away from the light because their 
 • deeds are e\Tl.' 
 
 "Christians in the older portion of our country can scarcely imagine what is the 
 true condition of the Church in certain uncultivated quarters, where large accessions 
 are periodically made, and those admitted to the Church then left to live on as b:st 
 they may, surrounded by all untoward influences, and no adequate pro^^sion for their 
 iucreasc in knowledge, without which their growth in grace and usefulness is nest 
 to impossible. There are regions where darkness covers the Church, and gross dark- 
 ness the people at large." 
 
 " On making enquiries as to the foreign population in our Western cities, I have 
 been startled by the fact that the great mass of them have no church privileges, at 
 least are not attendants at church, are largely under the influence of infidel clubs 
 and books, and are in general almost as ignorant of saving truth as Hindoos. Tiii« 
 is an appalling fact; and there is no agency, nor can there be for years to come, to mecf 
 this large class of perUhing souls, save that used by this Society ! " 
 
 Such is Voluntaryism in America !
 
 69 
 
 And now I claim to have proved my case. I claim to have 
 proved that Voluntaryism is not so infinitely superior to 
 an Establishment that the English people should be called 
 upon to exchange the one for the other. This is all that we 
 Churchmen are bound to shew. But the facts of the case 
 prove much more. The facts from America alone give clear 
 and unmistakeable evidence, that the Voluntary principle 
 under the most favourable circumstances can do neither the 
 Missionary nor yet the Pastoral work of the Church upon 
 anything like a national scale. Voluntaryism in America is 
 simply a complete and disastrous failure ; why should we 
 suppose that in England it would prove a brilliant and 
 triumphant success ? 
 
 And now that we have, as we think, thus proved our case — 
 now that we have at least shewn how doubtful and how dan- 
 gerous would be the experiment which we are asked to try of 
 Americanizing our English Church — we make our appeal to 
 all those with whom really rests the decision of the momen- 
 tous question — Shall England preserve or destroy her National 
 Church ? From the noisy clamour and unreasoning prejudice 
 of ignorant and unreflecting men — from the vulgar and virulent 
 libels of Liberation Societies and their itinerating agents — 
 from the bitter and undisguised hatred of the infidel and the 
 irreligious — we make our solemn appeal to the intelligent, the 
 reflecting, the religious portion of our community, of whatever 
 creed or sect or party. With such alone we care to argue our 
 great cause. Happily it is with such alone it lies to give a 
 final judgment upon it. England is not yet so far American- 
 ized either in Church or in State that the shout of ignorant 
 multitudes can overbear the calm deliberations of wise and 
 thoughtful men. 
 
 We appeal to the Statesmen of England, not to mere 
 Members of Parliament, but to those among them who have 
 won the name and hold the place of the men of the St> to. 
 Men to whom we look for something more than the reflect'on 
 in our national councils of the wishes or the whims cl a 
 majority of their constituencies. Men who have higher a'ms 
 than the tenure of a seat, and a higher principle of action than
 
 70 
 
 that of " bowing to the public opinion" of the hour. To 
 such men we would say — you at least hold it to be your duty 
 to care for and provide for the moral well-being of the people 
 of this realm. You do not believe that the highest functions 
 of the rulers of a Christian State are only those of the police- 
 man on a larger scale. You feel that the education, the 
 civilization, the moral elevation of the masses should claim 
 in your thoughts and in your aims, at least as prominent a 
 place as the punishment of their offences or the promotion 
 of their wealth. You hold that the prevention of crime and 
 the reformation of the criminal should go hand in hand with 
 its repression. 
 
 We ask you then — which of the great moral and social 
 agencies now at work for the improvement of the people have 
 you thought it safe to leave entirely to the Voluntary princi- 
 ple ? You are giving the stimulus and the guidance of State 
 patronage and control to poor relief, to education, to the 
 cultivation of art and science, and even of taste. For these 
 purposes you have poor-rates and educational grants, and 
 grants for libraries and museums and picture galleries. Must 
 then all other means and helps to the moral and social happiness 
 of the nation have their State support, and yet that support be 
 refused to, or withdrawn from, the most effectual of them all ? 
 May art and science, and education, and charity have their 
 national endowments, and yet the art of holy living and of 
 holy dying — the science that reveals the knowledge of God — 
 the education that prepares for eternity — the charity that 
 supplies the bread of life to immortal souls, be thought 
 unworthy of all aid from a Christian State ? Is a picture 
 gallery so evidently superior a social and moral agency to 
 a church ; — is the curator of a museum so manifestly a 
 better public instructor than a Clergyman, that it is a 
 duty to endow the one and a folly to endow the other ? 
 Are Titian, and Kubeus, and Etty such invaluable teachers 
 of morals that you must furnish places in which the people 
 may crowd to learn the lessons which they teach ; and are 
 Isaiah and Jeremiah, and Paul and John, of so little value 
 that it is not worth your while to provide places where the
 
 71 
 
 people may come to gaze upon the pictures they pourtray ? 
 Why should a place among the public instructors of the 
 nation be refused to the pastor, which is given to the school- 
 master and the painter, and the sculptor ? 
 
 Will it be said that in the case of the former, the variety of 
 opinion is so great, that it is impossible to please all in your 
 patronage, and therefore you must aid none ? Do you proceed 
 upon this principle in those other departments of public in- 
 struction which you are promoting by State aid ? Do you leave 
 it to the people to decide what works of what masters shall 
 be purchased for their galleries, or what qualifications shall be 
 required in their school teachers ? Have you not out of many 
 conflicting plans and theories, and tastes, selected those 
 which seemed to you the best, and acted on them, regardless 
 of the " infinite variety of opinion" which might differ from 
 you, or the number of persons who might complain that tbeir 
 tastes had not been consulted ? Why should you hesitate to 
 do the like in the matter of religious instruction ? 
 
 Or must we argue, before you, the wretched pleas that no 
 man should be asked to contribute to a system of which he dis- 
 approves, or an institution from which he himself derives no 
 benefit. Surely you do not need to be told that the first of 
 these would simply make all taxation impossible — the plea 
 of conscientious objection being of course one of universal 
 application — and one which, once admitted, would be sure 
 to be nearly universally made ; while the second is too 
 nakedly and undisguisedly selfish, too transparently absurd 
 to be listened to ; according to it, no childless man should 
 be called upan to pay taxes for education, no rich man for a 
 poor-rate, no blind man for a national gallery. You at 
 least know well that the principle of all taxation is that it is 
 levied, not for the good of each particular tax-payer by 
 each particular item of expenditure, but for the general good 
 of all, and that those who pay for what they do not personally 
 need, yet receive a large though indirect return in the general 
 prosperity and well-being of the whole. 
 
 Nor surely will you repeat that oft-refuted but still oft- 
 reiterated assertion, that the people may safely be left to
 
 72 
 
 supply themselves with religious teachers, and that the religion 
 which cannot obtain their support is not worth supporting. 
 You have, in all your State provision for Education and for 
 Art, proclaimed your belief that in all that concerns the mental 
 and the moral wants of a people, a taste must be first created, 
 a sense of need awakened, before there can be any demand for 
 its gratification. You do not hold that the Education or the 
 high art which cannot win public support is not worth sup- 
 porting ; on the contrary, you aid them because you believe 
 thnt they are so good, so much above the appreciation of the 
 masses, that they cannot be left to win their way among them 
 unaided, but must be endowed that they may live. Are 
 ignorance and prejudice less formidable foes to the religious 
 teacher than they are to all other teachers ? Must the test of 
 purity and worth in his case be made exactly the opposite of 
 that of all the rest ? Are they to be held unpopular in pro- 
 portion to their excellence, and he excellent only in proportion 
 lo his popularity ? 
 
 Surely if our Church is to be overthrown, it will not be 
 by the force of such arguments as these. Surely these will not 
 be the reasons which you, at least, could condescend to give 
 as those which compelled you to decree her destruction. 
 
 There is one, and as it seems to us, only one other motive 
 which may weigh with you — reason we cannot call it ; motive, 
 but too powerful, it unhappily too often is — "Public Opinion" 
 may seem to you to call for such a cause ; political expediency 
 may seem to demand it. Against such considerations as these 
 even the bravest of our modern statesmen are not always 
 proof. But if you think such an event possible, it rests mainly 
 with you to make it impossible. Your words have power, 
 great and deserved power, in forming that very opinion that 
 you fear. The public utterance of your mature and deliberate 
 conviction, the clear expression of your fixed determination to 
 maintain the Church of this realm, would go far to silence the 
 clamour of noisy agitators, and to strengthen the resolution 
 of timid and wavering friends. But if you will not do this; 
 if you prefer waiting to see how the current flows — resolved 
 only to swim with it, never to stem it; if you are prepared
 
 73 
 
 when the time comes, to bow in slavish terror before a cry 
 which, loud and fierce as it might be, would not be the voice of 
 wisdom or of patriotism ; then you must be prepared for more 
 and larger concessions. Tlie day that sees the statesmen of 
 England yield to popular clamour the property and rights of the 
 national Church, will see all other property and all other rights 
 receive a shock that shall full surely and full speedily result in 
 their destruction too. Those who refuse to defend the Church 
 may soon be called upon to defend the last fragments of the 
 State. Meanwhile, in proportion as you withdraw State aid and 
 countenance from the national Church, you must be prepared 
 to increase all other State appliances for the moral well-being 
 of the nation. You will have to add to your police, to mul- 
 tiply your reformatories, to enlarge your workhouses, to pull 
 down and rebuild your gaols, and if, at last, you complete the 
 work of destruction, and sweep away, as you are exhorted to 
 do, " the very dust of an Establishment," you will have ouly 
 succeeded in destroying a cheap defence of order, a mighty 
 agency for the civilization and peace and prosperity of your 
 country, that all the wealth of your State ten times told can 
 never replace. 
 
 But still more earnestly, still more solemnly do we appeal to 
 the truly religious and conscientious among our opponents — 
 that there are such we know — they are the salt and strength of 
 their party — they are selected by the rest to lead the assault 
 upon our church, well knowing as they do that such men alone as 
 yet have any power really to injure us. To such really honest 
 and conscientious Dissenters, we would say : — You believe, 
 really and sincerely believe, that in destroying the Establish- 
 ment, you would be increasing the power and efficiency of the 
 Church as a religious organization in the land. Are you indeed 
 quite sure of«this ? Do the facts of the case where Voluntary- 
 ism has been tried bear out your theory so fully ? has Volun- 
 taryism in America, for instance, displayed such power and 
 efficiency as to leave no doubt in your mind that it would be 
 wise and safe to trust all to it here ? And if this be not abso- 
 lutely certain ; if there be room for doubt on this question, 
 ask yourselves, is this a tinip fur tryinq- doubtful experiments 
 
 K
 
 74 
 
 in Church or State ? Is it at the moment when the tide of 
 irreligion and infidelity and the wild, reckless, restless love 
 of change, rising higher and higher, is dashing with unwonted 
 violence against all the barriers of order, and of law, and 
 of religion, that you would proceed to pull down the mole that 
 your forefathers built, and that has braved the storms of so 
 many centuries, only that you might replace it by some novel 
 breakwater, of at best uncertain value, if not of proved ineffi- 
 cacy. Is it when the great hailstones are beginning to fall, 
 that you would pull down the strong and stately building 
 within which the piety of generations has found a shelter 
 and a home, to build it again with what may prove too 
 late to be the untempered mortar of a weak and vicious 
 principle ? 
 
 Pause, Christian brethren ! we entreat you to pause and to 
 consider well what you are doing, when you lend your powerful 
 aid to such a work We will not urge on you those lower argu- 
 ments which we use with men less earnest, less deeply and truly 
 conscientious than yourselves. We will not argue with you 
 of the legal rights of the Church, nor of the close connection 
 of those rights with all other rights of property in the country. 
 We will not talk to you of your obligation to pay a charge 
 upon property which you purchased at a cheaper rate in 
 consideration of that charge. We will not insult you by sup- 
 posing that you object to any impost in support of the Church 
 on the purely selfish ground that you derive no direct and 
 personal benefit from its ministration. We give you credit 
 for higher motives in your oppositon to our Church, as we 
 know you give us credit for higher motives in the defence of it, 
 than those of personal gain or loss. We believe you when 
 you say that you mean the advancement of the cause of God 
 and the kingdom of Christ in all you say and do against us. 
 We will but ask you, who think so, one question ; Who are 
 your allies in this work ? If you can for one moment turn 
 your eyes from the fortress you are assailing, let them rest upon 
 the soldiers who are fighting by your side. Who are they ? 
 Socialists, Chartists, Deists, Infidels, Atheists. Are they the 
 friends of religion — the men whom you would expect to find
 
 75 
 
 around you in any other enterprise for good ? Do you sup- 
 pose that these men believe that the destruction of the 
 Establishment would tend to the furtherance of the cause 
 of true religion among us ? They know better. The chil- 
 dren of this world are wiser in their generation than the 
 children of light. With an unerring instinct taught them of 
 their master, they choose for attack, not the weakest, but the 
 strongest part of the fortress. Like wolves, they spring right 
 at the throat ; for there they know flows the life-blood. Is it 
 with such men as these as your followers — is it with the 
 cheers of such a host as this to encourage you — that you 
 take the post they are only too glad to give you in the van 
 of the assault upon our Zion ? The people of God once 
 refused the help of Samaritans to build the Temple of their 
 nation ; will you invite such help to pull our Temple 
 down ? 
 
 Surely you will not contend that the differences between us 
 are so wide, so vital, as to justify you in such a course. 
 Surely you will not adopt the plea that you cannot but refuse 
 to support a different religion from your own. Is then ours 
 indeed a different religion from yours, or is it only another 
 form of the same religion ? A different ritual and discipline 
 if you will, but surely not so widely differing a creed, that it 
 need strain your consciences to contribute to its support. We at 
 least entertain no such scruples. Churchman as I am from 
 the bottom of my heart. Churchman as I mean to live, and 
 Churchman as I hope to die — if the question was to be put to 
 me to-morrow : shall the endowments of the Church be secu- 
 larized, or shall they be handed over to any one of the orthodox 
 though rival sects ? — I would answer, and the vast majority 
 of Churchmen would I am convinced answer with me, — Take 
 them all and do with them what good you can. If we may 
 have them no longer, at least we rejoice to know they will bo 
 still employed for the support of pure religion, though the out- 
 ward form of that religion differ from our own — better this a 
 thousand times than that the country should be deprived of the 
 blessings of a national provision for a Gospel ministry. Take 
 our places to morrow and you would not find the majority of
 
 76 
 
 Churchmen scrupling or refusing to pay rates or tithes to 
 Orthodox Dissent — * 
 
 Why then should you object so strongly to contribute to the 
 support of the Church ? You tell us, and we rejoice to believe 
 it, that old animosities are dying out between us — animosities, 
 in the production of which every candid Churchman will own 
 with regret that his Church had no small share, why then renew 
 them in the most painful form ? If the Fathers of Noncon- 
 formity, at a time when Nonconformity was enduring real 
 wrongs and great indignities, could yet, even while smarting 
 under their sufferings at the hands of an Established Church, 
 defend the principle of an Establishment and insist upon the 
 great duty of a national provision for religion ; why must 
 you, their descendants, now that Nonconformity has been 
 released from all penalties and disabilities and stands the 
 rival, but no longer necessarily the enemy of the Cliurch ; 
 why must you demand, what they held it sacrilege even to 
 think of, her spoliation ? Judah has long since ceased to vex 
 Ephraim ; is it not time that Ephraim should cease to envy 
 Judah ? 
 
 One word to Churchmen. Brethren, you who are devotedly 
 attached to our Church, let that attachment be an increasingly 
 intelligent and religious attachment. Let Church and State 
 be linked together in your minds, not as men join them over 
 their cups, but as men join them in their prayers, in fervent 
 and solemn entreaty, " that peace and happiness, truth and 
 justice, religion and piety, may be established among us." 
 Learn to value your Church, her rights and privileges, not 
 because they are hers or yours, but because she holds them in 
 sacred trust for the good of all the English people. 
 
 Stand up for the defence of your Church because you believe 
 in your hearts and consciences that she is set for the defence 
 of the Gospel in this realm of England. Love your church, 
 for the principles which she inherits from our reformers and 
 our martyrs ; for the scriptural doctrines she has enshrined in 
 
 * This is no idle boast. In Scotland, where nine-tenths of the land is in the 
 possession of Episcopal, heritors, tithes are freely paid for both Kirk and Manse. Who 
 ever heard of an ICpiscopalian agitation against the Scotch Establishment P
 
 77 C 
 
 lier creeds and lier articles ; for the battles she lias fought iu 
 days past, for truth against error, for liberty against despotism, 
 for England against Rome ; love her for the good fight she is 
 fighting now against the sin and suflFeriug, the ignorance and the 
 crime that must be fought with and conquered if England is 
 to be saved from an invasion infinitely worse than that of any 
 foreign foe. Shew your love to her not only by upholding her 
 on the hustings or in Parliament, but by helping her in the great 
 work for which she is even now girding herself and going 
 forth in the name and the power of her Lord and Master. 
 Do this, and you need have no fear for the result. The Church 
 of England has not yet become in this country " as the salt 
 that has lost its savour" that we should dread her being " cast 
 out and trodden under foot of men." Never was there a time 
 when she displayed more vigour, more zeal, more spiritual 
 life and activity. Never was the Spirit of God seen more 
 visibly, more mightily, working in her, moving her to still 
 greater and greater effort iu the cause of Christ. Day by 
 day we see her regaining lost ground and conquering new. 
 She is to be seen standing, as she was ever wont to stand, 
 in the fore-front of the great Christian battle with the error 
 and the unbelief of the day ; opposing to the enemies of truth 
 the shield of her scriptural creeds and ritual, and the sword 
 of her learned and able theology ; she is making her voice to 
 be heard among the rich and the great, and winning them to 
 enlist with her in works of piety and charity : she is sending 
 out her ministers to tell the story of the Gospel of peace 
 among the poor and the ignorant and the outcast. All over 
 the land she is being more and more felt and recognized 
 as a great power for good and for God. 
 
 Let her but continue steadily in this career of self-improve- 
 ment and of noble and strenuous effort. Let her but go on as 
 she has been doing of later years, increasing her efficiency, 
 removing her defects, spreading wider and wider the boundary 
 of the influence she wields, and of the blessings she 
 conveys, and you will soon cease to need "Church Defence 
 Associations." The defence of the Church will be the <i-ood 
 sense, the justice, the piety of the English people. The strong-
 
 78 
 
 deep current of a nation's reverent love, will flow yet deeper 
 and stronger in the old accustomed channel ; the hlustering 
 breeze of agitation may ripple its surface, it never shall have 
 power to turn back the tide. From the country at large will 
 come the demand for her preservation ; from the throne to 
 which she has been ever so unswervingly loyal ; from the 
 legislature, whose best ends and aims she is so faithfully pro- 
 moting; from the learned, and the great, and the good, she 
 has trained and nurtured ; from the poor to whom she has 
 ministered ; from the outcasts she has reclaimed ; aye, and at 
 last, even from many a generous and converted opponent, 
 there will come in answer to those who may demand her 
 overthrow, one universal, loud, united, grateful voice — 
 " Destroy her not : she is a blessing in the midst of 
 us !"
 
 APTENDIX 
 
 TESTIMONY TO THE NECESSITY OF ENDOWMENTS. 
 
 Some valuable evidence as to the evils and difficulties of 
 Church extension without proper endowment for the Minis- 
 try has been given by very competent witnesses before the 
 Committee of the House of Lords on the *' Deficiency of 
 Means of Scriptural Instruction." 1858. 
 
 The Bishop of Ripon, in answer to the question whether 
 the miserable destitution " of some parts of his Diocese did 
 not arise, in a very great degree, from the want of proper 
 endowments for the Vicarages, the great tithes having been 
 in days of yore lost," says : 
 
 " I am not able to answer that question. I think one great 
 cause of it is this, that persons are so much more ready to 
 build a Church than to provide for the wants of the Clergy- 
 man afterwards. I find no difliculty in getting funds to build 
 a Church ; hut wheti you remind persons that the Clergyman 
 must live, and ask for an endowmenty there is the greatest 
 possible difficulty in ohtaining it!' 
 
 187. If those Churches had not been built, the endowment 
 would not have been greater ? 
 
 " No ; but I think there is a general impression among 
 people that, when a Church is built, the Church can take care 
 of itself. I think, in certain circumstances, if the facts of the 
 spiritual destitution were to be pressed upon the people to a 
 greater extent before a Church was built, perhaps they would 
 be more willing to provide an endowment." 
 
 188. You conceive that the building of a Church may 
 have operated against the making of such provision as other- 
 wise might have been made through the false impression it 
 creates that a provision has been made, where it really is want- 
 ing as much as ever ? 
 
 " Yes. I think that one corrective of the evil would be to 
 point out the necessity of a clergyman being located among 
 the people, as a prior necessity to the erection of a Church,
 
 80 Al'I'llNlUX. 
 
 I think the principle of Sir Robert Peel's Act is an invaluable 
 principle, to place a Clergyman in a district, first; let him 
 evangelise the district, and then the Church will follow. If 
 you build the Church Jirat, it will ijenerally happen that the 
 poor Cleryijman must get on as he can afterwards." 
 
 W. EiviNGTON, Esq., a gentleman very " conversant with 
 the Church Building Societies of the Metropolis," is asked : 
 
 3087. Have you considered the question of Endowments 
 at all ? 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 3038. As bearing upon the efBciency of the Clergy ? 
 
 "Yes ; I think that our great diflficulty, as to Church exten- 
 sion, is the want of endowments ; I think, if we could only 
 provide a sufficient income for all the new parishes or dis- 
 tricts which we create, the main difficulty of Church extension, 
 even npou the voluntary system, would be got over." 
 
 The Rev. T. F. Stocks, Honorary Secretary to the London 
 Diocesan Church Building Society, is asked : 
 
 1309. Is it necessary, in your estimation, as the best 
 course, to try to procure additional clergy ? 
 
 " Certainly, in the first instance." 
 
 1310. You feel that the great want is that of Clergy ? 
 " Yes ; the crying want is of Clergy." 
 
 1311. With an increase of the Clergy, the auxiliary 
 buildings would be much better filled ? 
 
 " Yes ; and I also believe that the new ones would follow 
 more easily." 
 
 The Hon. and Rev. G. Yorke, Vicar of St. Philip's, 
 Birmingham, having stated that the clergy of Birmingham 
 are very indifferently provided for, is asked : 
 
 4397. By iudifi'ereutly, do you mean poorly ? 
 
 "Very poorly indeed ; they are chiefly dependent upon seat 
 rents. In some cases, where the Clergyman is very popular, 
 and attracts a large number of hearers, his Church is well 
 filled, and his seat-rents are tolerably large : but it is a very 
 uncertain and very precarious income ; when a man's strength 
 fails, and his powers are deteriorated, the whole thing falls off." 
 
 4431. If the Ecclesiastical Commissioners were to give a 
 large sum of money, proportionate to the population and 
 wants of Birmingham, do you think that that would encourage 
 contributions from the inhabitants? 
 
 " I think if it were possible to borrow another £600,000,
 
 Ari'EXDIX. S.] 
 
 auil to have a renewal of Sir Robert Peel's Act, endowments 
 could be provided for a certain portion of Clergymen for the 
 new districts; and I think that the Church-building spirit 
 would rise up again in Birmingham. But I think that the 
 idea most deeply impressed upon the people now is, that we 
 want to endow Clergymen rather than to build Churches ; 
 forgetting that under our present circumstances the only way 
 by which we can endow a Clergyman is by building a Church 
 and giving him the pew-rents." 
 
 4432. You are aware that by the Peel Act the Clergyman 
 was endowed, trusting that the Churches would follow ? 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 4433. That would be in favour of taking care to endow the 
 Clergyman, rather than giving money for a Church ? 
 
 " Yes; and I say that the endowment of the Clergy would 
 raise up the church-building spirit again." 
 
 4434. Do you think that persons are more ready to build 
 a Church than to endow a Clergyman ? 
 
 " Yes ; and for this reason : i/o/i obtain a Clergyman at a 
 much more economical rate by buildiwj a Church than hij 
 contributing towards an endowment." 
 
 The Venerable Archdeacon Jones is requested (58(50) '•' to 
 give some suggestions to the Committee, to assist them in 
 meeting the difficulties arising from the present state of 
 things." 
 
 "From the experience! have had as far as concerns Liverpool, 
 wherever there is a mass of poor people, or indeed a mixed 
 population, the first thing to do is to apportion a district to a 
 clergyman, with a small endowment, as under Sir Robert Peel's 
 plan. I think that is the very best. If the object is to build 
 Churches on a large scale, you must have immense revenues 
 to accomplish that object ; and, when you have accomplished 
 the object, you have only done good in part : the Church is 
 worthless without a zealous active Clergyman: then the question 
 is, how is he to be paid? It is very difficult indeed to raise 
 funds to support a Clergyman, and a very delicate matter. 
 There is no difficulty in raising funds to erect a Church ; the 
 great thing is to secure the Clergyman a small income, and then 
 he will soon work his way. If a Church is needed, it will 
 be raised in almost any locality by the aid of societies 
 and of wealthy men. / think the error in Liver jtool has been 
 the (joing in the reverse way, and erecting a Church first, 
 white the Clergyman is left to starve, and he must have luiv- 
 rents to keep liim in existence." 
 
 L
 
 82 APPENDIX. 
 
 EFFECT OF VOLUNTAllYISM ON THK EPISCOPATE IN AMERICA. 
 
 One injurious effect of Voluntaryism not noticed in the 
 previous pages is the undue and dangerous preponderance it 
 gives to wealth, especially in the selection of persons to fill 
 prominent and important posts in the Church. On this head 
 the testimony, given by an American Bishop, is very striking. 
 
 Dr. Alonso Potter, Bishop of Pensylvania, in one of his 
 charges thus writes : 
 
 " As to the support of the Episcopate, if the efficiency of the office is to be greatly 
 increased in the older States, it must be through arrangements which will leave to a 
 Diocese full freedom to select the best man for its peculiar wants, and to a Bishop full 
 opportunity to devote all his time and energies to the duties proper to his office. 
 Neither of these conditions can be so well attained as when this support is furnished 
 by the Diocese at large, as contra-distiuguished from any particular parish on the one 
 hand, and from private sources on the other. If it be a condition of his election that 
 he hold the cure of a large and wealthy parish as the means of his support, then the 
 exigencies or tastes of that parish, rather than the wants of the Diocese, will have to 
 be consulted, not only in his selection, but also iu the disposal of his time and strength. 
 On the same principle, he should be the stipendiary of no one portion'of his flock to 
 the neglect or exclusion of the rest. If, on the other hand, he is to be sustained out 
 of his own private property, not only will his sense of accountability to his Diocese 
 be impaired, but the preference given to him over other candidates for the office, will 
 run the chance of being governed by the very last consideration which ought to rule 
 in a question touching so closely the dearest interests of Christ's Church. ^There is 
 no danger that wealth shall not be held in sufficiently high estimation in this country, 
 and in our branch of the Christian world. It will bode only evil if it^ shall ever 
 come to be considered as a necessary qualification for the highest office and honors of 
 a Diocese. Disqualification it surely ought not to be. But all the Church's ministers 
 will, as it seems to me, best serve and most honor her when they are 'examples and 
 pattern.s of simplicity and frugality iu all her habits ; and such they can hardly be 
 expected to be if they are preferred before others mainly on the ground of personal 
 affluence." 
 
 Bishop Potter, in another chai-ge, testifies -to another 
 great evil arising out of the Voluntary system, namely : 
 
 UNSETTLED RELATIONS BETWEEN PASTOR AND PEOPLE. 
 
 " It is a melancholy fact, that some of the most useful clergymen who have left 
 us during the past year have been constrained to do so by the entire inadequacy of 
 their means of subsistence. I have much fear that we are destined to suH'er still 
 severer losses from the same cause. With these facts forced upon me as I travel over 
 the Diocese, and having myself tried in vain for months, and even in one or two 
 instances for more than two years, to supply some vacant parishes with ministerial 
 services, because I have been unable to liold out to men with families the prospect 
 of adequate support. I conceive that I should be wanting in my duty if I did not 
 entreat the renewed attention of the laity to this subject. Where the standard of 
 compensation is highest, there we must expect that talent and efficiency will be carr'el; 
 and we cannot allow other Dioceses to excel us in this respect without being in danger 
 of 8uffeiinp a constant drain upon our best and most cherished resources."
 
 APPENDIX. 83 
 
 " In the report which has heeu made of clergymen removing from one parish to 
 anotlier, or retiring altogether from the Diocese, the Convention will see renewed 
 occasion to deplore the instability which marks the pastoral relation. I will not 
 attempt to specify all the causes of this instability. In some cases it may be regarded 
 as the fault of a restless age. lu others it must certainly be attributed to the in- 
 efficiency or imprudence of ministers ; in others, to the unreasonable and captious 
 temper of the people. Deducting these cases, however, there will still remain too 
 many in which the parties profess the utmost mutual regard and satisfaction, and the 
 separation is occasioned only hy insufficiency of support. This must he regarded as 
 a chief reason why so many of our pari shea, when vacant, find it difficult to obtain 
 a clergyman ; and why, when stipplied with a zealous and capable ministry, so many 
 are obliged to relinquish it. the number of earnest and TnoKouGHLT 
 
 EFFICIENT MEN IS INADEQUATE TO THE DEMAND; AND THEY WILL UNAVOID- 
 ABLY BE CAEBIED WHEKE THEY WHO PEEACH THE GOSPEL CAN LIVE BY THE 
 GOSPEL." 
 
 VOLUNTARYISM IN THE COLONIES. 
 
 Letter from the Bishop of Newcastle, Sydney. 
 
 " I do not hesitate to declare that, if State Aid be at once 
 abolished, many parts of this colony will return to a state of 
 heathenism. In many districts where the black heathen, the 
 poor aboriginal, has almost ceased to exist, the white man 
 would soon be reduced to a state of practical atheism. Super- 
 ficial observers may appeal to the Sustentation Fund of the 
 Free Church in Scotland ; or even, as some do, to the success 
 of our own Newcastle Church Society, as proofs that all which 
 is necessary or desirable with respect to religion, may be pro- 
 vided by voluntary contributions. But they are greatly de- 
 ceived. The annual amount contributed to the Free Church 
 in Scotland is, considered by itself, a large sum ; but, when 
 compared with what is really required for the support of 
 religious worship in that communion, is small indeed : so 
 much so, that many wise and influential members of that 
 Church are known to desire earnestly some endowment from 
 the State, and to have consulted how such State Aid could be 
 obtained. In fact, the attempt to support the Free Church of 
 Scotland on the Voluntary principle is acknowledged to be a 
 failure. 
 
 "With respect also to the Newcastle Church Society, while 
 we are bound to acknowledge w'ith thankfulness the success 
 which, by the blessing of the Lord, has been granted to it, 
 we must in all truthfulness declare that any person who would 
 depend upon the funds of that Society to maintain, without 
 State Aid, the Clergy who are at present labouring in this 
 Diocese, to say nothing of the additional Clergy who are 
 urgently required, must know but little of the working of that 
 Society ; how much anxious thought and pc^'sonal exertion 
 has been required to obtain its present amount of annual
 
 81 APPENDIX. 
 
 contributions ; and how little these contributions could be 
 increased, if State Aid were withdrawn. In fact, if State Aid 
 were now withdrawn, there is not one of the country districts 
 to the south of this Diocese, which could support its Clergy- 
 man. Neither Ml? Hawkeshnry, nor Brisbane Water, nor the 
 Wollombi, nor Hexham, nor Raymond Terrace, nor the 
 Williams River, nor the Paterson, nor the Manning, nor 
 Port Macquarie could be depended upon for contributing 
 £300, or even £200 a-year, for the maintenance of its Clergy- 
 man. [Many Clergymen would, therefore, have to be with- 
 drawn from districts, which have for years enjoyed their 
 ministrations, and in vast tracts of the colony the white man 
 would rapidly sink down into a state of heathenism." 
 
 VOLUNTARYISM IN CANADA. 
 
 The Kev. John Stannage, of Welland, Canada West, in a 
 letter to an English clerical friend on this subject, writes as 
 follows : 
 
 '• March 5th, 1859. 
 
 " The Voluntary System is a dreadful failure. For 
 
 my part I cannot possibly conceive how it can be defended. In large towns 
 and cities, where wealth and influence are closely combined, a good deal is done ; but 
 80 much remains undone both in towns and in the rural parts, that party spirit alone, 
 or the most culpable ignorance of facts, can be the cause that the system still finds 
 advocates. Why is it that every Clergyman of the Church, nay, every other sort of 
 Minister in these provinces, has three, or four, or five congregations at great distances 
 from each other under his sole charge ? Why is it that I have myself, at this moment, 
 four townships under my charge, and work enough to employ four ox five Clergymea 
 constantly? Why is it that there are 50 townships at this moment, in the Diocese 
 of Huron, as lately declared by the Bishop, without one single Clergyman, and not 
 even a travelling missionary? Why is it that thousands of large settlements in all 
 North America are left destitute of the means of grace, and the people becoming so 
 accustomed to do without public worship that I am told everywhere by such persons 
 that they must confess both themselves and their neighbours have almost forgotten 
 the first principles of religion, and they are now more heathens than Christians ? 
 Surely it need not be said that the want of Clergy, of Churches, and of 
 Christian Schools, caused by the want of pecuniary means, or by the total 
 inefficiency of the Voluntary System, is the sole reason for all this deplorable 
 state of things. Since the " Clergy Reserves" were taken from us we have not been 
 able to fill up the vacancies which have occurred ; hut would you believe it ? The 
 richly endowed Roman Church has increased its number of Clergy in Upper Canada 
 alone, during that time, above 100. These are facts well established and published, 
 though I have not the documents at hand. JCnglish travellers passing through the 
 chief towns or cities in the United States and in Canada may carry a different 
 impression to England : but what have they seen ? They should visit our poorer 
 population, our back wood settlements, and our fishing shores. I must pass by the 
 other still greater evil of the Voluntary System : I mean the evil effect which must be
 
 APPENDIX. 85 
 
 tbe natural consequence of the want of independence iu the Clergy themselves, upon 
 the doctrines of the Gospel. The multitude of sectarian creeds produces a very geueial 
 indifference to all Keligioa. 
 
 Believe me, your affectionate brother in Christ, 
 
 JOHN STANNAGE. 
 
 THE FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 
 
 Voluntaryists sometimes appeal to the case of the Free 
 Church of Scotland as a proof of the success of their system. 
 But with their system it has do connection whatever. The 
 Free Kirk of Scotland has raised a noble sum by free 
 contributions ; but these contributions are not applied to the 
 support of the Ministry, upon the Voluntary, but upon the 
 Fixed Principle. The Ministers of the Free Kirk do not 
 depend upon "nothing beyond the voluntary contributions of 
 attendants." They are paid from a general Sustentation Fund, 
 "fixed, settled, and permanent;" and are provided with manses. 
 That is to say, the members of tlie Free Church have adopted 
 the principle of endowments so far as they possibly could, 
 and have carefully and wisely avoided the attempt to support 
 their minister and ordinances on the pure Voluntary 
 System. Their endowment is a private one ; but it is an 
 endowment " fixed and settled," and therefore, Mr. Miall 
 would tell us, " out of keeping with the genius of Scriptural 
 Christianity." Indeed Mr. Miall, while inconsistently giving 
 the name of the " Voluntary Principle" to this arrangement 
 — directly in the teeth of his own repeated definition of 
 that principle — tells us that he has " no sufficient means of 
 judging whether the benefit of it predominates over its 
 obvious evils." 
 
 It may perhaps save Mr. Miall the trouble of further 
 enquiry or thought upon the subject, to be reminded that, 
 with the Voluntary Principle, as defined by himself, the Free 
 Kirk of Scotland has nothing wliatever to do. Its " obvious 
 evils" and its " benefits" alike belong to the Endowment or 
 Fixed Principle. They may furnish matter of debate between 
 the advocates of private and the advocates of public endow- 
 ments ; but between the supporters of endowments and the 
 voluntaryists they do not come into question at all. 
 
 THE OFFERTORY SYSTEM. 
 
 The system of entirely free sittings with a weekly offertory 
 instead of pew rents bus been tried in a few instances, both 
 iu this country and America, and for the most part with
 
 ^G APPENDIX. 
 
 considerable success. This is unquestionably pure Voluntary- 
 ism ; and the cases, so far as they go, seem to show that in 
 these instances it was superior to the Pew System in pro- 
 viding for the Ministers and Ordinances ; but on all other 
 points it shares those disadvantages of the Voluntary System 
 which I have pointed out. It proceeds upon the assumption 
 of there being a congregation already gathered and sufficiently 
 under the influence of Christian principle to be willing to give 
 liberally in support of their pastor. It can never, therefore, be 
 effectually missionary in very poor or thinly-peopled districts : 
 it could never, as the history of early Christianity proves, evan- 
 gelize the villages. It needs equally with the Pew System men 
 of great pulpit power to draw a congregation ; it leaves the 
 Minister still dependent upon the gifts of those whom it is 
 his duty to rebuke ; it fails to make provision for his old age ; 
 it gives no territorial charge ; it suffers from nearly all the 
 evils of the "democratic" system, as described by Mr. James. 
 In short, though possibly in particular instances superior to 
 the Pew System, it is still far below the National and 
 Parochial System of the Church of England. 
 
 That it does not always succeed, even financially, appears 
 from the following letter : — 
 
 ' Mectory, January 11, 1860. 
 
 Dbae Sir, 
 
 "Mj- income at ■ arose almost entirely from seat rents ; and these were 
 
 obliged to be let very low, as the people were nearly' all belonging to the working 
 classes. When I went theie, I found the old Clmrchwavdens out of pocket; and to 
 one, who had become reduced in circumstances, I subscribed towards his deficiency. 
 During the six years that I teas incumbent there, the congregational collections 
 never equalled the congregational expenses, and every Churchwarden to his antioy- 
 ance was considerably out of pocket. I may add that when 1 went there the Church 
 was in a ruinons state ; this was rectified through my becoming " a beggar" far and wide: 
 htit it broke me down in health and spirits, and took me from my proper work. The 
 population was about 3,500. My congregations were good ; and generally, 1 believe, 
 I had the goodwill and sympathy of my parishioners ; so that the failure arose from a 
 break down of the Voluntary System, not from any particular circumstances beyond 
 the poverty of the people. 
 
 In the adjoining parish of , from which — — — was taken, theVolun- 
 
 tarj' System in the maiu answered ; but there they had a wealthy community. 
 
 Faithfully yours, 
 
 Printed by K. E. Pbach, 8, Bridge Street, Batb.
 
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