BEST CHURCH PATRONAGE.

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misled into the imagination, that her security lies in her stillness; and that should the warmth of restless sectarianism be, in any semblance or measure, imported into her bosom, it will burn up and destroy her.

Does Dr. Chalmers exhibit these facts and observations, to show forth the beneficial tendencies and influences of the existing system of patronage, in the Anglican Church establishment? It was the patronage of the British government, which manufactured those very formal bishops, who scowl with the darkest frowns, upon the apostolic labours of their evangelical brother of Gloucester; those very formal bishops, who, if report speak truth, laboured by unanimous petition, both archiepiscopal and prelatical, to prevent Dr. Ryder from ascending to his present elevation; their righteous petition only failing in its object by the force of family, and fraternal effort.

We believe the best system of church patronage to be, the election of the clergyman by the people, who pay him his stipend, and to whom he administers in spiritual things. In these United States, and among the evangelical dissenters in Britain, where the people actually call and elect their own ministers, a much greater proportion of vital religion, and active practical piety, are found, than in the churches of the Anglican, the Hibernian, and the Scottish establishments; in which, the civil government, the lay nobility and gentry, the bishops, and the corporate bodies, both secular and clerical, dispose of all the ecclesiastical dignities and benefices.

It is also worthy of remembrance, that the mere possession of large funds and revenues, cannot render a church flourishing and prosperous. If it could, the established church of England, with an annual income greater than the whole permanent capital of all the American churches put together, would infallibly crush the efforts of all other sects; instead of continually clamouring about her own danger of perishing, from the rapid and increasing growth of so many various denominations of dissenters.

308

BEST CHURCH TREASURY.

By far the wealthiest of all the religious bodies in these United States, is the protestant episcopal communion, in the city of New-York; supposed to possess real estate to the amount of six millions of dollars in value; though not yielding an income corresponding with so large a capital. Yet the American-Anglo-Church halts very far behind many other denominations, in numbers, and activity, and influ

́ence.

The real, the only secret of a church's prosperity, is to be found in her clergy preaching the Gospel, and performing the duties of their pastoral office conscientiously and well.

Scarcely any of the greatest and most powerful Christian corporations in the Union, to wit, the presbyterians, the congregationalists, the baptists and the methodists, possess large permanent funds; yet they increase and multiply on all sides; and their wants are supplied by the contributions of a willing people, attached to their faithful ministers, who preach evangelically. A pious clergy generally makes a pious laity; and men really religious, are always ready to give of their temporal substance to promote the interests of the Redeemer's kingdom; to give a part of that gold and silver, all of which belongs to God, as sole proprietor of the universe; for the purpose of erecting temples to his worship and honour.

An able evangelical preacher will do incalculably more for the best interests of religion, out of the voluntary contributions of an attached people, than a formal drone can do, out of the permanent funds of a largely endowed church, in conjunction with the contributions of that congregation, to which he deals out his weekly dole of Sabbatical snowbroth.

The best ecclesiastical treasury is a Gospel ministry; which will always be able, both to build churches and to fill them with hearers; whereas a formal clergy, even when churches are already built for them, can

AMERICAN OBJECTS.

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seldom, if ever gather together either people or money, sufficient to forward any ecclesiastical scheme, that might be considered necessary. This twofold fact is verified by the daily and hourly experience of all our large cities, throughout the whole of the Atlantic seaboard.

Nevertheless, Mr. Wilks earnestly recommends the American legislature, forthwith to make provision for the establishment of a national church. But, in the first place, the federal constitution prohibits the general government from having recourse to such a measure. And, secondly, if that obstacle were removed; the representatives of the people; in Congress assembled, would hardly venture to impose the burden of a state church upon their fellow-citizens; seeing, that such a proceeding would be in direct hostility to the whole scope and genius of all the social institutions in these United States.

Without entering into any detail of facts, as to how the objects of these social institutions are practically pursued in particular instances; without descending to any investigation of the machinery and movements of various political parties, from which I have always stood aloof, as cordially as I would from the yellow fever, or the plague; it is sufficient for our present purpose to notice, that the two main, avowed objects of American policy are: first, to carry on the government with as little expense, pressure and interference with the pursuits and comforts of the people, as is compatible with executive efficiency; and, secondly, to give as much possible personal liberty to individuals, as is consistent with social safety.

If this great experiment in favour of human happiness and improvement, shall, in future, and permanently, be as successful as it has hitherto proved, it will be of immense moment, not only to this country, but to the other nations of the earth; by eventually inducing them also, to lean with a less heavy hand, in the shape of government expenditure, and government restraint, upon their respective people.

America 'would, undoubtedly, pause, before she burdened herself with an annual tax of fifty millions of dollars, to support a state church; when she does not now expend one half of that sum yearly, in carrying on the whole of her general government, civil, naval, military, and including the appropriation of eight millions for the sinking fund; which had, on the first of January, 1822, worn down the whole public debt of the nation to ninety-three millions of dollars, and a fraction; making a little more than twenty millious sterling, or, about half the amount of the annual interest on the public debt of Britain.

Now, in England, every third sovereign of the whole national income goes into the exchequer; or, in other words, every third person in the British isles, works altogether for the government, and is himself entirely supported by the other two. If, in these United States, every third dollar of the whole annual income of the country, went into the public treasury at Washington, the American people would be apt to ask, what equivalent they received for giving up one-third of all their property, time, talent and labour, to be consumed by government. And, beyond all question, they would not find the equivalent in an expensive national church, made up out of one dominant sect, whose chief ecclesiastical functionaries were appointed by the existing secular administration; and whose dignitaries, generally, and systematically, proscribed all evangelical religion, and persecuted all personal piety; more especially, if found within the pale of their own established com

munion.

Will the British government, with an unpaid public debt of four thousand millions of dollars; a weight of taxation, deducting one-third of the whole yearly income of the nation; a prostrate agriculture, an embarrassed commerce and struggling manufactures; a system of game laws, which erects every landed gentleman into a petty tyrant on his own domain; and creates a regular army of keepers and poaching

SALARIED SINECURES.

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banditti, who fill the whole country with depredation, violence and blood; a scheme of poor laws, that ensures and perpetuates a degraded, demoralized, discontented population; persist in being the great political arsenal for forging formal prelates; persist in bestowing bishoprics and benefices on worldly, irreligious clerks? persist in secularizing that national church, of which they are the appointed legal patrons, protectors and guardians? and thus inflict a deadlier evil upon the British empire, than all the combined ills of debt, taxation, game laws, poor laws, a penal code, at once sanguinary and ineffectual, and languishing manufactures, commerce and agriculture; by alienating the hearts of the people from their rulers, and by diffusing the horrors of infidelity and profligacy, throughout all the ranks and orders of the community?

And this, too, at a time when the chiefs of the British cabinet avow openly in the house of commons, that it is necessary to keep up useless, sinecure places, in order to balance the influence of the crown against the growing weight of popular opinion; and to carry on, with sufficient facility and force, the machinery of government. This audacious declaration was made in March, 1822, during the discussion of a motion for the reduction of one of two postmasters general, each of whom receives a salary of 2,500l., upwards of eleven thousand dollars, a year; though it was not denied, that one of these offices is altogether a sinecure.

The main ground upon which the administration contended that this salaried sinecure ought to be retained, was, that in these days of increased light, when public opinion has gained a force unknown to former times, such appointments are absolutely necessary to maintain the due preponderance of the

crown.

Now, if this argument be sound, the British government ought not to have made any reductions; but to have kept up the expenditure to the war-pitch