TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE TUB TO THE IVIIALE : TORY CHURCH REFORM.
TIIE vast increase in the numbers of the Dissenters during the last fifty years, is a fact that cannot be controverted; but there may be different opinions as to the cause of it. The zealous Standard maintains, that if there were more churches there would be fewer chapels—that people go to chapel for want of room in church.
" The capricious growth of towns, arising from the no less capricious distri- bution of the seats of commerce and manufactures, has withdrawn a great part of the population from the rustic churches in which their fathers worshipped, and from the successors of those ministers by whom their fathers were taught; as well as calling into existence avast additional number of the people ; and both the emigrants from the country and the new-born race are placed in districts fog which the Church had made no adequate provision."
The Standard is aware, that in country places and villages the churches arc frequently all but empty ; and endeavours to guard
against any inference from this fact unfavourable to the Church,
by assuming that a great part of the agricultural population has been withdrawn from the country to the large towns. But has the rustic population declined ?—Quite the contrary. The ratio of increase is less than in the manufacturing distric!s, but still the population of the exclusively agricultural counties has prodigiously increased along with the progress of Dissent in the same counties: Men who reside in the same parishes that their forefathers in- habited, do not now attend the parish-church, but the Methodist or Independent meeting-house. The church is empty and the chapel crowded. How is this ? It is not because the clergyman is ignorant, inattentive, austere, or profligate. He may be, and assuredly is, in a vast majority of cases, the reverse of all this; but nevertheless, the Methodist or Independent minister carries off the mass of the villagers. One main cause of the superior popu- larity of the latter, originates in the absence of that education, and refinement of manner and feeling, which are generally pos- sessed by the clergy of the Church of England; who, on their part, want that sympathy for the poor which the Methodist in England, the Catholic in Ireland, and the Presbyterian minister in Scotland, find the principal tie between them and their flocks. It is plain that no increase in the number or size of churches will put the church of England clergymen on a par with their com- petitors in this respect. If these remarks are well-founded in respect of:the rustic popu- lation, they hold good in towns also. And the facts we believe to be corroborative of their truth in almost every populous district. It may be that in sonic manufacturing districts there is not suffi- cient church-room. Where the clergyman belongs to the class usually denominated Evangelical, it often happens that the church is crowded. Suppose, however, that his successor is a High Churchman—the congregation will drop off. They will per- haps attend prayers in church, and adjourn to a Calvinistic chapel to hear the sermon. We have more than one congregation in our eye in making this observation. Here the Dissenters have the advantage of Churchmen : they will not choose a preacher whose services they dislike, but in the Church there are thousands of Armiuians who offend Calvinistic congregations. In manufacturing towns, as well as in the country, the middle and lower classes will attend the preachers whose ministrations in the pulpit, and in their families, they prefer. The splendid churches that were built by the million grant are in many places half empty. It is not long since one in Birmingham, wherein free seats for 1500 were provided, besides rented pews, held a con- gregation that a moderate-sized room would have accommodated. It may perhaps be better filled now ; but we doubt. The fact is, that a different class of ministers is wanted to fill the churches. The highly-educated collegians are not the men to preach the gospel to the poor, and to live among them, as the Catholic priests and Dissenting ministers dwell among their flocks. A powerful and wealthy Establishment will not gain proselytes below a certain rank in society.
It seems therefore a hopeless attempt to multiply Churchmen by building more churches. Yet this, we are given to understand, is the aim of those who are now busied, or pretending to be busied,
in measures of Church Reform. The Dissenters are to be called upon once more to vote their money for the support of an Esta- blishment whose doctrines and discipline they quarrel with, and which is already by far the richest church in the world. This is a scheme worthy of the men who propound it. Under pretence of spreading the doctrines of the Church, more livings are to be created fin the favourites of Bishops, who of course will have the appointment of the clergymen. This is a sly way of providing for the Aristocracy. If any one should deem this imputation uncharitable, let him reflect for a moment on the characters of the men from whom the projected Reform of the Church proceeds, and ask if it is cre- dible that they will act honestly by the public in this matter ? Has the Ethiopian changed his skin? Were Tory Ministers and Bishops miraculously converted into sincere Ecclesiastical Re- formers on the 15th of November last? Up to that day they op- posed every thing in the shape of effectual Church Reform. The more that this Tory project is sifted, the more do we feel assured that there is deception and trickery at the bottom of it. Them is a pretence of abolishing siuecures and non-re;
sidence, to cheat the honest RefOriners : there is a prospect of a vote of public money for building new churches, held out to the graspers of patronage. But the Tories will Bat stab their party in its vitals, by abolishing clerical sinecures : the House of Com- mons will not grant more money to the richest church in Europe —the church of only half the population. Ministers know this -very well; but their end is gained, if in the dust and smoke which the discussion of this shadowy scheme of English Ecclesiastical Reform occasions, other dreaded realities are lost sight of fur a time.
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