Sketches of Reforms and Reformers, of Great Britain and Ireland Part 11

Hume--Unjust Treatment of Mr. Hill by the Government--The National Testimonial.

A sketch of recent British Reforms, even as imperfect as that I am attempting, would be defective without some notice of one of the greatest blessings of the age--CHEAP POSTAGE. Not only Britain, but Europe and America, (for they have in some degree partaken of its benefits,) are indebted to Mr. ROWLAND HILL for this measure of human improvement and enjoyment. There are two aspects for contemplating this reform. The one, to go into heroics on its vast social, political, commercial, and moral advantages; the other, to go into tables of figures. The former may be called the poetic, the latter, the mathematical, view. I shall avoid both of these extremes.

The high rates of British postage, down to 1840, and which were adjusted much on the same scale as ours, were a dead weight on correspondence.

For thirty years previous to that time, the gross receipts of the post-office had remained nearly stationary. Thus, the amount of correspondence by mail continued about the same during a period in which the population of the country increased fifty per cent., commerce and wealth in a nearly equal proportion, and knowledge among the ma.s.ses, and the facilities of transmission, to even a larger degree. These facts arrested the attention of many minds. But the sagacious Rowland Hill probed to causes and devised remedies. He published his scheme for postal reform in 1837. Its outlines were these. The controlling idea of the post-office establishment should be, the convenience of the people, and not Governmental revenue. It was extortionate for the Government to tax as much for carrying a letter from London to Edinburgh, as a merchant charged for transporting a barrel of flour. The chief labor being expended in making up, opening, and delivering mails, therefore the fact, whether a letter was carried one mile or one hundred miles made comparatively little difference in the expenditures of the department. The number of pieces of which a letter was composed should not regulate the rate of postage, but weight should control. As much postage was lost on letters which were never called for, therefore there should be a distinction between prepaid letters and others; and in large towns there should be a free distribution of prepaid letters, by postmen. There should be no privileged cla.s.s, with permission to use the post-office free of charge. Guided by these principles, Mr. Hill recommended a uniform rate of postage for all distances--a postage of a penny per half ounce, on letters, if prepaid, irrespective of the number of pieces, and two pence if not paid till delivered, the rate increasing as the weight advanced--a free delivery of prepaid letters in large towns--total abolition of the franking privilege. His scheme embraced great improvements in other respects, such as envelopes, stamps, post-office money-orders, &c. He also insisted, that the increase in the number of letters under his scheme would be sufficient in a few years to carry the net income as high as under the old system.

Now, all this seems very simple and plain--so simple and plain, that those who hourly enjoy its benefits never think of the times when it absorbed a day's wages of a poor Irish laborer in London to send a letter to his wife in Cork, informing her that he was well, and hoped these few lines would find her enjoying the same blessing--when a commercial house in Liverpool paid a yearly tax to the post-office sufficient to discharge the salaries of its clerks--when an editor, happening to be absent from the metropolis, wrote his leaders, to avoid triple postage, on very thin folio post, with very close lines, to the great disgust and vexation of compositors and proof readers--when love letters and money letters were peered into by gossiping and rascally postmasters, to see whether they were double--when a manufacturer, who could send a ream of paper a hundred miles for six pence if it went in the coach box, must pay a s.h.i.+lling per sheet if it went in the coach bag--when a luckless neighbor, about to take a journey of business or pleasure, must conceal his departure to the last moment, or be laden with a portmanteau full of letters, to "save postage"--when--but there is no end to the absurdities, annoyances, and extortions of the old system. And who thanks the genius and perseverance of Rowland Hill for exposing and exploding this relic of the times of the Stuarts, and introducing a reform worthy of the noon of steamers, railways, and electric telegraphs? It is so simple! Columbus is almost as sure of immortality for teaching a bevy of courtly buffoons how to make an egg stand on end, as for giving a new world to Ferdinand and Isabella. It looked very simple--especially _after it was done_. So did the discovery of the magnetic needle and the new world. It is the capacity which conceives how simple things, which produce great results, can be _done_, that is ent.i.tled to be called genius. He is both a genius and a practical man who can first conceive and then execute. And such a man is Rowland Hill.

His pamphlet, of 1837, soon attracted the attention of the nation. The next year, several hundred pet.i.tions in favor of his plan were presented to Parliament--a select committee was appointed to collect facts--a hundred witnesses were examined--and a report, embodying a great variety of important information, was published, filling three volumes of the Parliamentary papers. After much deliberation, his scheme, having suffered considerable mutilation, was adopted in 1839, to take effect early in 1840. In its actual workings, though crippled by half-hearted officials, it has exceeded the expectations of almost everybody except its sagacious originator, working out, during nine years, before millions of eyes, the problems he solved twelve years ago in his closet.

In 1839, the last year of the old system, the letters pa.s.sing through the British post-office numbered about eighty millions. The average postage was seven pence per letter. The first year of the new system, the number reached one hundred and seventy millions. It steadily advanced, till, in 1848, it had risen to three hundred and fifty millions. The gross receipts of the department in the latter year about equaled those of 1839. The net income of 1839 was about a million and a half sterling; that of 1848, about three-fourths of a million. The increased expense, and consequent diminution of net revenue, under the new system, are owing to the increase of business on old post routes, the opening of new routes, and great improvement on both. The net revenue increased from 1840 to 1848, a period of eight years, one-fourth of a million. Hence, it is safe to presume, that in a few years more, it will equal that of 1839. What a demonstration have we here of the much controverted proposition, that a great diminution in the cost of that which the public needs will so increase consumption, that revenue will not be the loser, while convenience will vastly gain? But, discard the principle of revenue, and make the post-office simply support itself, and England might probably in a few years reduce the rate of postage one-half, while transmitting a ma.s.s of letters which would almost defy enumeration. This more than realizes the brightest visions of Mr. Hill.

But, the money view of this great reform is a paltry view. It is well said by Mr. Joshua Leavitt, in his admirable American pamphlet on Cheap Postage: "The people of England expend now as much money for postage, as they did under the old system; but the advantage is, that they get a great deal more service for their money, and it gives a spring to business, trade, science, literature, philanthropy, social affection, and all plans of public utility."[7] Probably the corn laws were repealed two years sooner, because of cheap postage.

[7] Mr. Leavitt is probably better acquainted with this subject than any other man in America, and his valuable writings are doing much to prepare the public sentiment to demand the full measure of this reform.

Nothing can exceed the convenience of the money-order, the stamp, and the envelope branches of the system. The money-orders are drafts by one post-office upon another, for sums not exceeding 5. They are a sort of post-office bill of exchange, and are largely employed in the transmission of small sums by mail. In 1847, the number issued in England alone was 810,000, amounting to 1,654,000. The department charges a trifling commission for the order--say 3_d_ for 2. In a country where the brokers are Jews, and the smallest Bank of England notes are 5, this arrangement is very beneficial to the poor. The label stamps, which prepay letters, are convenient to all cla.s.ses. They are of all rates, and, being first prepared by the department, are kept on sale, not only at all the post-offices, but by shop-keepers of all sorts. They are used, not only to pay postage, but as small change.

Indeed, they are used as a kind of circulating medium. The number sold in a year is counted by millions. The envelopes, stamped by the department, and sold like simple stamps, are used not only to enclose letters, but by all sorts of persons and a.s.sociations, for circulars, advertis.e.m.e.nts, &c., these being printed on the inside of the envelopes after they are stamped. The great majority of letters are prepaid, because of the diminution in the rate of postage. _Gentlemen_ everywhere always pay their own postage, when writing on their own business. In England, they also enclose a stamp to prepay the answer. Large commercial houses cause their address to be printed on stamped envelopes, and then send packages of these to their correspondents, to be used when needed.

The free delivery of prepaid letters in the large towns is astonis.h.i.+ngly perfect. Almost a stranger among the two millions of London, I once received a letter at my lodgings, from a correspondent to whom my city address was unknown, in three hours after its arrival at the post-office. The postman, when I was in London three months before, had delivered letters to my address, and he now recollected the name and number. Besides the "General Post," which delivers letters coming from the country and foreign parts, there is connected with the department in London, a machine of curious contrivance, and great exploits, called the "District Post." It covers a circle of some twelve miles, from the center, and delivers letters which originate and end within the circle, ten times a day, at dwellings, shops, and offices. In 1848, the number delivered by this post was nearly fifty millions. To these must be added at least a hundred and twenty millions for the General Post, making an aggregate of a hundred and seventy millions of letters delivered in London annually, by the post-office department, a large proportion of which, being prepaid, are delivered free! But there is no end to those statistics, and I leave them.[8]

[8] I have not attempted in this chapter to do more than give _statistics_ in "round numbers," nearly approximating to precision.

The committee, when presenting to Mr. Hill, in 1846, the National Testimonial, had ample grounds for p.r.o.nouncing his reform "a measure which has opened the blessings of a free correspondence to the teacher of religion, the man of science and literature, the merchant and trader, and the whole British nation, especially the poorest and most defenseless portion of it--a measure which is the greatest boon conferred in modern times on all the social interests of the civilized world." The veteran reformer, Joseph Hume, in a letter to Mr. Bancroft, then our minister at St. James, dated in 1848, says: "I am not aware of any reform, amongst the many reforms I have promoted during the last forty years, that has had, and will have, better results toward the improvement of this country, morally, socially, and commercially."

And how has the benefactor of a great and powerful nation been treated by the British Government? He has shared the general fate of useful inventors and reformers. At the outset he was ridiculed as a dreamer, an enthusiast. After a conviction of the utility of his plan had penetrated the ma.s.ses of the people, Parliament mutilated it, supplying the exscinded parts with uncongenial inventions of its own. When even thus much of his plan was adopted, he was permitted to have but slight influence in working it out in practice. He should have been appointed Postmaster General; but that station belonged, by prescription, to the n.o.bility--to some Lord Fitztoady or Earl Muttonhead, who could hardly tell a mail bag from a handsaw. Liberal Whig though he was, the great reformer was placed, by a Whig administration, in a minor place, where he could exert only a subordinate influence over postal affairs. And after six years of incessant labor and anxiety, which had impaired his health and wasted his fortune, the Peel government turned him out, though he entreated the Premier to allow him, at any pecuniary sacrifice to himself, to remain and aid in working out his plan. Being now embarra.s.sed in his circ.u.mstances, a national subscription in his behalf was started, the net proceeds of which amounted to 13,360. It was presented to him, in 1846, at a public dinner, accompanied by many honeyed words. The reply of Mr. Hill was modest. He gave ample credit for the aid he had received from others in carrying his plan through Parliament, and specially named Messrs. Wallace and Warburton, members of the committee of 1838, Mr. Baring, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Lords Ashburton and Brougham. He delicately alluded to his proscription by the Peel administration, and pointed out the improvements necessary to give complete efficiency to his reform.

Thirteen thousand pounds, for devising and introducing a measure which has carried blessings to every princely mansion and peasant cabin in three kingdoms! Why, if Rowland Hill had patented a first cla.s.s was.h.i.+ng machine, he could hardly have made less money out of it. Thirteen thousand pounds from a people that smothered the "Divine-f.a.n.n.y-show-her-legs," as George Thompson called her, with bouquets and bank notes. But if his cotemporaries do not requite his services, posterity will do justice to his memory.

CHAPTER XXII.

Disruption of the State Church of Scotland--Its Causes--The Veto Act of the a.s.sembly of 1834--Mr. Young Presented to the Church of Auchterarder--Is Vetoed by the Communicants and Rejected by the Presbytery--Resort to the Civil Courts--The Decision--Intrusionists and Non-Intrusionists--The Final Secession of 1843--The Free Church--Dr. Chalmers--Dr. Hill.

One of the most important ecclesiastical occurrences of our times is the disruption of the State Church of Scotland. We see a venerable establishment, founded in the religious affections of a great people, sustained by the arm of secular power, rent in twain, and five hundred of its ministers, possessing a moiety of its talents and piety, and drawing in their train a proportional share of their congregations, secede in obedience to the dictates of conscience, and, under the leaders.h.i.+p of one of the most learned, eloquent, and celebrated divines of the age, a.s.sume the position of Voluntaries. The difficulties which caused this result arose somewhat in this wise:

In consequence of some controversy as to the right of "patrons" to "present" pastors to churches, a majority of whose members were unwilling to receive them, Lord Moncrieff, in the General a.s.sembly of the Church, in May, 1834, moved a resolution declaring that the disapproval of a majority of the male heads of families, being communicants, should be deemed sufficient ground for a Presbytery rejecting any person presented as a clergyman to a parish in Scotland.

After a warm debate, it was carried, 184 to 138. It was sent down to the Presbyteries, and, being sanctioned by a large majority of them, was confirmed by the General a.s.sembly of 1835. This was known as the _Veto Act_. It was intended to declare the existing law. Whether legal or not, (for on this point, when the trouble arose, lawyers and judges of course differed, and the books, as usual, furnished precedents on both sides,) the veto had generally been acquiesced in for a long period.

In October, 1834, Lord Kinnoul presented Mr. Young, a licensed probationer, to the Church of Auchterarder. Of the heads of families, being communicants, 287 out of 330 protested against the admission of Mr. Young to be their pastor. The Presbytery of Auchterarder, in obedience to the resolution of the a.s.sembly of 1834, rejected him. A suit was commenced in the civil courts, by Lord Kinnoul and Mr. Young, against the Presbytery. After great displays of learning and acrimony, the Court of Session, in 1838, by a majority of 8 judges to 5, decided that the rejection of the presentee was illegal, and that the Presbytery was bound to take Mr. Young "on trials."

Presbyterian Scotland, from John O'Groat's to Gretna Green, was violently agitated with the question. It divided into parties known as Intrusionists and Non-Intrusionists--Doctors Macfarlane, Cook, and Hill, being conspicuous among the former, and Doctors Chalmers, Welsh, and Candlish, among the latter. Every Presbytery was rent with discussion, while the debates in the venerable General a.s.sembly were hardly less violent than in the East India Company Court of Proprietors, when Mammon strives with Mercy for the rule of Hindostan, or when political chiefs in the House of Commons struggle for mastery in the councils of Europe.

The majority of the a.s.sembly having sustained the Presbytery of Auchterarder, the Presbytery appealed from the decision of the Court of Session to the House of Lords. In 1841, I believe, the Lords dismissed the appeal--thus, in effect, affirming the judgment of the Court below, and p.r.o.nouncing the Veto Act illegal. Upon this, the Court of Session made a further order, directing the Presbytery to take Mr. Young on trials. Whereupon, the a.s.sembly, after a violent debate, in which the Veto was sustained by a power of Caledonian eloquence that John Knox would have gloried to hear, resolved, by a majority of 49, that the principle of Non-Intrusion could not be abandoned, and that no presentee should be forced upon a parish contrary to the will of the congregation.

Acting under this vote of the a.s.sembly, the Presbytery still refused to receive Mr. Young; and, thereupon, the Court of Session gave damages to Lord Kinnoul and Mr. Young in the sum of 10,000, and prohibited the Presbytery from settling any minister over the Church of Auchterarder, though he were to be maintained by the Non-Intrusion portion of the congregation.

Matters had now reached a point from which there seemed to be no retreat for either party. The Non-Intrusionists, though they had prevailed in the a.s.sembly of the saints, had altogether failed in the court of the unbelievers. In the mean time, other similar cases had arisen, especially those of Strathbogie, Culsalmond, and Gla.s.s, where obnoxious pastors, who had been obtruded upon churches, were marched into the pulpits on the Sabbath, guarded by police and soldiery, and the people compelled to receive the gospel with batons over their heads and bayonets at their hearts. These spectacles aroused the spirit that fired the same people a century before, when, in the piquant language of Sydney Smith, the persecuted Scotchman, "with a little oatmeal for food, and a little sulphur for friction, allaying cutaneous irritation with the one hand, and holding his Calvinistic creed in the other, ran away to his flinty hills, sung his psalm out of tune his own way, and listened to his sermon of two hours long, amid the rough and imposing melancholy of the tallest thistles." The same spirit, in 1842-3, refined by a higher civilization, and tempered by a more liberal learning, made the same people prompt in deciding, that when the decrees of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Lord Chancellor of England came in conflict, the latter must be repudiated and the former obeyed. The interdicts of the Courts were not merely disobeyed--they were literally torn in pieces and trampled under foot by incensed a.s.semblies, amidst the applause of mult.i.tudes.

But, though other instances of intrusion had arisen, that of Auchterarder was the case on which the question turned. That question, stated in its simple form, was, whether the will of the patron or the will of the communicants should prevail, in making the presentee the pastor of the parish; and whether the members of a Presbytery were liable to damages to the patron for rejecting his presentee on the veto of the people. But the points involved penetrated far deeper. They touched not only the right of the Church of Scotland to be supreme in her ecclesiastical affairs, but they involved the whole subject of a union of the Church with the State. They reached beyond this. They raised the question of the right of the people to be supreme in religious affairs. They stopped not here. They leaped the boundary that divides spiritual and civil authority, and mooted the question of the supremacy of the popular will--the question, whether the people are the legitimate source of all power--an inquiry which stops not in its researches till it has explored the foundations of human government in their broadest aspect. Not only, then, were the rights of the communicants of Auchterarder, of the Presbytery of Auchterarder, of the Church of Scotland at issue, but the decision of this case involved principles which might shake the minarets of the Metropolitan Cathedral, the towers of Parliament House, the walls of the Throne Room of St.

James.

Looking to the possibility of such consequences, it is no wonder that the "Moderates" attempted to soothe the irritation by that dernier panacea of conservatives and cowards--a compromise. The Scotch Church question had already found its way into Parliament. In 1840, Lord Aberdeen had introduced a bill to settle the difficulties. It slept in the archives of the Peers till the Tories came into power. Dr. Chalmers was now consulted by the Government. He gave his opinion as to what would satisfy the Non-Intrusionists. He was promised a bill that would justify a Presbytery in rejecting a presentee on even the most frivolous objection--as red hair or a black skin, for instance. But, instead of this, a bill was introduced which did not allow the Church judicatories to reject unless on grounds satisfactory to the civil court. The tergiversation of the Government wrung from Dr. Chalmers the exclamation, that "the morality of politicians was the morality of horse-jockies."

The General a.s.sembly of May, 1842, met. It was opened by the Lord High Commissioner of Her Majesty, with unusual pomp, blandness, and hypocrisy. All hope of reconciliation had not fled. The friends of the Veto cherished the delusion that purity and peace, that non-intrusion and non-resistance might yet walk hand in hand; and, not being prepared to break with the Government, they suffered the a.s.sembly to adjourn without taking any decisive action. During the ensuing summer and autumn, Sir James Graham, the Home Secretary, endeavored to cajole the Non-Intrusionists, and succeeded in inducing 40 or 50 conservative clergymen of that party to express their approval of a settlement of the question on the basis of a compromise, which should give a great deal of power to the people and the Kirk, and a little more to the Court of Session. The battle was fought, on popular grounds, in the House of Commons, in the winter and spring of 1843. A deputation of Non-Intrusion clergymen was present. Remaining in London till hope had abandoned them, they returned to Scotland, and prepared for the final disruption of the Church. An act was subsequently pa.s.sed--such an one as would have been gladly accepted in 1840--but it came too late.

The General a.s.sembly of 1843 met on the eighteenth of May. An immense throng crowded the floor, the galleries, the aisles of the edifice, eager with expectation. The Lord High Commissioner went through the ceremony of opening the a.s.sembly, in a style of chilling pomp. Dr.

Welsh, the Moderator of the last a.s.sembly, rose, read the solemn protest of his brethren, and the disciples of John Knox quietly left their seats, and shook the dust from their feet on the threshold of the church of their fathers. When the crowd outside saw the venerable forms of Chalmers, Welsh, and their followers, emerging from the ancient edifice, they lifted their hats and bowed their heads, with bosoms too full for the utterance of a cheer. But, as the ejected presbyters wended their way toward the high rock in the vicinity of the Castle where glittered the spires of the New a.s.sembly Hall, thousands of acclamations rent the air, mingled with the waving of hats and handkerchiefs, from streets, windows, roofs, and balconies. They entered the house, followed by a throng, in which emotions of enthusiasm and solemnity struggled for the mastery. The a.s.sembly immediately organized, by placing its great founder, Dr. Chalmers, in the chair. Having uttered a sublime prayer, he gave out the psalm, "G.o.d is our refuge in distress," so often sung in the b.l.o.o.d.y days, in the glens of Scotland, by the hunted Covenanters, when

"Leaning on his spear, The liart veteran heard the word of G.o.d By Cameron thundered, or by Renwick poured In gentle stream."

The Free Kirk was now launched. The crew was zealous, but untried; the pilot, though skillful, was about to explore an unknown and tempestuous sea. But a voice was heard above the raging of the elements, saying, "Peace! be still!" The a.s.sembly vigorously entered on the work of bringing order out of confusion, symmetry out of chaos. The five hundred clergymen who soon rallied round its altars, made n.o.ble sacrifices for conscience' sake. They had to leave the greater part of their churches, their glebes, their manses; many, literally, abandoning their _livings_. Their flocks followed them to their cost; for new church edifices were to be erected, and salaries to be raised, not from t.i.thes, stipends, and ecclesiastical funds--for these had been left behind in the Exodus--but out of the pockets of those who, for the first time, found themselves Seceders in fact, and Voluntaries in position. They were prepared for this. Congregations met in groves, in barns, in lofts, in halls, and heard the Word. They raised funds, and built churches.

They appealed for aid to their brethren in England and America. They soon ama.s.sed a fund of 300,000, for the support of poor pastors and parishes. They encountered great difficulties in obtaining sites for churches. Many of the Intrusion landlords would neither give nor sell them building spots. They would lease or sell lands for c.o.c.kpits, horse-races, gambling-houses, dram-shops, and even for Methodist or Baptist places of wors.h.i.+p; but they would not permit a chapel of the Free Kirk of Scotland to pollute the soil. In process of time, Parliament and public opinion brought these refractory landlords to their senses. Excluded in a great measure from the current public newspapers, they established journals of their own. Denounced by Blackwood, looked coldly upon by the Edinburgh, though the Westminster gave them two or three able and hearty articles, they set up the North British Review, which at once took rank with the first quarterlies in the kingdom. Shut out from the theological schools of the old Kirk, they founded a seminary of their own, placing Dr. Chalmers at its head, as professor of divinity. During the six years of the existence of the Free Church, it has drawn to itself a large share of the numbers and vitality of the Presbyterian body of Scotland. The Old Kirk has a great deal of wealth, a great many churches, and a great deal of pomp. It also enjoys a great deal of languor, a great deal of vacancy, and a great deal of chagrin.

Yet it must be confessed that this secession, so extraordinary in its immediate results, so congenial to the liberal tendencies of the times, so far-reaching and powerful in its remote and collateral consequences, has never excited that enthusiasm in the ma.s.s of ecclesiastical reformers in Great Britain, which might have been antic.i.p.ated. The reasons given for this apathy are, that a body which had so long wielded ecclesiastical power over others, by virtue of State laws, ought in its turn to yield obedience to those laws--that the Seceders had held on upon their power so long as they could exert it in their own way--that, in the exercise of spiritual authority, they had been far from tolerant of Dissenters--and that, at the very moment of their egress from the Kirk, they repudiated Voluntaryism as a principle, and offered incense to State-church establishments.

There was, no doubt, solid ground for some of these charges. As to the course of the Seceders, while members of the State Kirk, many of their acts were no doubt oppressive. The deeds of May, 1843, are broad enough to cover a mult.i.tude of such sins. As to the repudiation of Voluntaryism, while in the very act of Secession, it was a concession to that tempting expediency which, in a crisis when principle and numbers are both important, yields some of the former to gain more of the latter. The Free Church has outgrown this folly of its infancy, and in riper years has repudiated the repudiation. It is now, both in position and profession, a Voluntary body. Learning wisdom from experience, and acting on the maxim, alike pure and profitable, that honesty is the best policy, long may it bless the land of Knox, Renwick, and Chalmers!

To attempt a sketch of the talents, genius, and virtues of DR. CHALMERS, would be a work of supererogation. It is ample eulogy to say, that he was the Moses of the Exodus, the Luther of the Reformation, I have faintly described. The sublimity of that position dims even the splendor of those productions of his pen and tongue which have made his name familiar in two hemispheres. His memory lives on memorials more enduring than monumental bra.s.s or marble--the hearts of a whole people.

I have somewhere seen a portrait of REV. DR. HILL, Professor of Moral Philosophy in Glasgow University, and a leader of the Intrusion party, sketched in the General a.s.sembly of 1840, which I transcribe from memory, bearing witness to its faithfulness to the subject. Dr. Chalmers had just resumed his seat, after a powerful speech, when a tall, thin gentleman, on the other side of the house, distinguished for an uncommon length of neck and face, with a complexion inclining to sallow, and an imperturbable gravity of countenance, caught the eye. Never before had there been seen so prodigious an extent of white neckcloth, a figure so immovably rigid, an expression so inveterately grave. He sat so bolt upright, that the spectator was curious to know whether he ever s.h.i.+fted his position or moved a feature. He rose to address the a.s.sembly. He opened his mouth, and his words came marching out, dressed in the somber hues and with the melancholy tread of a funeral procession. It was evident that great truths were for the first time to be communicated to mankind. He laid down his premises. They reminded one of the lawyer in the farce, who, when pressed for a definition, thundered out, "Law is--law!" "Judgment," exclaimed Rev. Dr. Hill, "judgment is an act of the mind." There was a suppressed laugh from the Non-Intrusion side of the house. The Doctor drew himself up more stiffly, and looked across the house in dignified astonishment, as if desirous to single out the men who disputed first principles. "I am in the right," he solemnly reiterated--"judgment, Moderator, is an act of the mind!" He went on with his speech. It was a dead skeleton of logical phraseology, divested of the muscle, flesh, and blood of living argument; the speech of a man whose father, perhaps, could argue, and who, without a particle of causality, tried to argue too, sheerly through the exercise of filial imitation. As he spoke, a nervous torpor crept over the a.s.sembly--the spectators began to nod--the reporters dropped their pens--the older divines, sinking under the weight of their dinners, rested their heads on the front boards--the very gas seemed to burn with a rounder and a dimmer flame--and when, after a long infliction, the last sentence of the peroration died away in the far galleries, and the spell was broken, there was a stretching of limbs and jaws, and a raising of hands over the benches, and a straining to collect and concentrate scattered thoughts, till by and by the members seemed to realize that they were actually sitting in a General a.s.sembly; whereupon, a gentleman moved an adjournment, and all retired with the conviction, that whoever might doubt whether Dr. Hill was a profound philosopher and ecclesiastical historian, he possessed most astonis.h.i.+ng _mesmeric_ qualities and powers.

CHAPTER XXIII.

The Established Church of England--Its Revenues--Its Ecclesiastical Abuses--Its Sway over Political Parties--Rev. Dr. Phillpotts--Rev.

Dr. Pusey--Rev. Mr. Noel--Anti-State Church Movement.

The Established Church of England is one of the foulest sores on the body politic of the kingdom. I shall examine it mainly in its political bearings.

The King is the "Supreme Head of the Church," and appoints, through the chapters, the bishops, besides a great number of lesser dignitaries. The bishops license and ordain the inferior clergy. The owners of estates charged with the payment of the salaries of pastors, have the right to nominate or "present" them to the parishes. There are some 12,000 parochial churches under the control of the Establishment. Of these the crown presents to 952; the bishops to 1248; the deans and chapters to 787; other ecclesiastical dignitaries to 1851; the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge to 721; the n.o.bility and gentry to 5096; and the residue are disposed of by others.

The annual revenue of the whole body of the clergy is more than $42,000,000; a sum greater than is received by the Established Clergy of all the world besides. The income of the twenty-eight bishops amounts to about $800,000. The Archbishop of Canterbury receives $75,000, and of York $50,000. The Bishop of London $50,000, of Durham $40,000, of Winchester $35,000, and so on. Previous to the act of 1837, the income of the sees mentioned was much larger. Said the late Rowland Hill, himself a clergyman of the Establishment, at a missionary meeting in Exeter Hall, a few years ago: "Would, my lord, that I had the bishops of this realm tied up by the heels to that chandelier, and could direct the stewards to hold the plates under their pockets and catch the falling guineas; what a collection we should raise!" One of the worst features of this inst.i.tution is the gross inequality in the distribution of its favors. Of its clergy, fifteen hundred receive an average annual income of about $5000 each; while another fifteen hundred (and they are the working and valuable portion) receive only an average of about $400; and many of these last do not get $200. Sydney Smith has aptly asked, "Why is the Church of England nothing but a collection of beggars and bishops? the right reverend Dives in the palace, and Lazarus in orders at the gate, doctored by dogs and comforted by crumbs?"

The revenues of the Establishment are mostly drawn from t.i.thes. But large sums are realized from other sources. And in addition to these, the clergy (whose numbers far exceed those of the parochial churches) hold all the professors.h.i.+ps, tutors.h.i.+ps, masters.h.i.+ps, and fellows.h.i.+ps, of the universities and public state schools; all the chaplains.h.i.+ps in the emba.s.sies, army and navy, and corporate and commercial companies; worm their way into nearly all the profitable offices in educational and charitable inst.i.tutions, as librarians, secretaries, treasurers, and trustees; are constant waiters upon Divine Providence and the Public Treasury; standing candidates for all places of light work and heavy pay; and show their zeal for the Crown and the Miter by promptly furnis.h.i.+ng recruits for the great army of sinecurists in the realm.[9]

[9] A commission inst.i.tuted some years ago by the House of Commons, to inquire into the abuses of charitable trusts, found a clergyman at the head of a school, with a salary of 900 a year, and _one_ pupil. Another received 500, had not a single scholar, and rented the school-room for a saw-pit.

It is not my purpose to speak particularly of the religious character and influence of the Establishment. But, a few facts in this department may be given to show that Paul the tent-maker, and Peter the fisherman, are not very closely copied by some of their English successors. It is a notorious fact that a large body of the clergy do not compose their own sermons, but purchase them in ma.n.u.script at depots in London, and other large towns, as they do their stationery and wines. There is no very serious objection to this, provided the sermons are better than they could write themselves. A good purchased sermon is preferable to a bad home-made one. But, it is equally notorious that they are often written as marketable commodities by grossly irreligious men. Here is an advertis.e.m.e.nt from a newspaper, which will serve as a specimen of its cla.s.s. "Ma.n.u.sCRIPT SERMONS. To clergymen who, from ill health, or other causes, are prevented from composing their own sermons, the advertiser offers his services on moderate terms. Original sermons composed on any given texts or subjects. N. B. A specimen sent if required. Address L.

S. W., Post-Office, Winchester."

The Church "livings" being property, they are, of course, marketable articles. English newspapers frequently contain advertis.e.m.e.nts offering them for sale. In describing their desirable qualities it is often stated that "the income is large and the duties light," or, that "the present inc.u.mbent is very aged," or, "in very feeble health;" and I have seen them represented as being in the midst of a fine sporting country, surrounded by a most agreeable society of n.o.bility and gentry, &c. I select an advertis.e.m.e.nt from a number lying before me. "ADVOWSON.

Perpetual Patronage and Right of Presentation to be disposed of, subject to the life of an inc.u.mbent, now sixty-eight years old. The benefice consists of an excellent rectory-house, lately built at a considerable expense; abounding with conveniencies, and capitally fitted, good out-offices, pleasure-grounds, garden, &c., farm-yard, and forty acres of glebe. The t.i.thes are commuted. Annual value upward of 600_l._ per annum, independent of surplice fees, and is well situated in a pleasant and luxuriant country, four miles from a large town, to which there is railway conveyance."