surplus amounts to £50,000, and I am credibly informed that it is likely to be increased to the extent of 75 per cent. by Voluntary contributions, the whole being expended on the augmentation of poor benefices. I say, then, you have everything to encourage you in seeking to apply the Voluntary principle in aid of the Establishment." He subsequently expressed his conviction that Church-rates would be abandoned, "because by the Voluntary efforts of those who belonged to the Church it would be found possible to maintain the sacred fabric."

66

While these facts are full of encouragement to those who prefer voluntary to compulsory effort for the support and extension of the kingdom of Christ, how far larger might not be the results attained by the exercise of a more entire faith in these spiritual resources. Long before now," says Mr. Miall," the work of evangelization, even in our large cities, would have overtaken the need, if, instead of depreciating the resources of spiritual earnestness and a loving faith, the leaders of the English Establishment had stirred up their own clergy, and enforced their admonition by their own example, to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and to believe that all other things would be added unto them. This they have almost invariably denounced as enthusiasm. Yet, in spite of their unbelieving pertinacity, in spite of their avowed desire to walk by sight rather than by faith, the liberality of the Church has burst its cerements, and the spirit of godliness has emerged from the sepulchre over which man's wisdom had rolled a stone, and has walked into the darkest places of our country, to diffuse through them the health-giving light of God's gospel. And but that the Church, even now, walks timidly, and has more reliance on endowments than on zeal and love, and trust and devotedness, and but that she is supposed to be the wealthiest Church in all Christendom, she would be able to command tenfold the means which now flow in upon her."

But if Voluntaryism within the Establishment has done much, Voluntaryism outside the Establishment has accomplished far more, and without this the provision for religious worship would be mournfully deficient. In the year 1801 the number of sittings provided by Episcopalians was 4,069,281, and in 1851 there were 5,317,915; but while all other denominations had in 1801 only 963,169 sittings, these had augmented in fifty years to 4,890,482 sittings. So that, if we take the proportion of sittings as representing the denominational strength of the Conformist and Nonconformist bodies, we discover that in 1801 the former comprised four-fifths of the whole population, and that now it includes only a little more than one-half. During this period the following was the relative increase of each body :

Episcopal Church.
Society of Friends
Unitarians

VOL. III.

:

Per Cent.

30.6

42

46.5

I I

The increase of the population during this period was 101 per cent., so that we find there were four denominations which had fallen below the ratio of the augmentation of the population, and nine that had exceeded it. The actual number of sittings furnished during the half century by each body was as follows:

But while a proportion of the increased accommodation which had been provided by Episcopalians was the product of Voluntaryism, it must be remembered that the entire outlay by Nonconformists was supplied from this resource alone. If, therefore, we assume, on the data of Mr. Edward Baines, M.P., that of the 16,689 places of worship thus provided, only 10,000 are separate buildings, and that each of them has cost only £1,500, the total amount is not less than £15,000,000. Hence, if we add together the church building expenditure of Conformists and Nonconformists the result is as follows:

Contributed by Government. Episcopalian Churches ......... £1,663,429 Nonconformist

Nil.

£1,663,429

By Voluntaryism.

£7,428,571

15,000,000

£22,423,571

Thus there has been about a million and a-half of State money expended in church erection, but no less than twenty-two millions sterling of Voluntary contribution! Had we the means of ascertaining what were the amounts given during this period to all other purposes-to the repair, enlargement, and decoration of churches and chapels-to the support of the clergy in the district churches of the Establishment, and in all other denominations-to the sustentation of the various religious and benevolent institutions which have sprung into existence during the last sixty years, and which are the glory of the Christian Church-we believe the total would form an amount which would surpass the anticipations of the most sanguine, and astound even those who are most sceptical of the capabilities of the Voluntary principle.

We need scarcely point to the Principality as a decisive indication of the power of Voluntaryism. When its opponents have been compelled to admit its sufficiency in large towns, they have averred that it would inevitably fail among thinly-peopled districts. But Wales refutes the allegation. There, amid a poor and scattered population, the required amount of religious accommodation has been provided, and this only part of the kingdom of which this can be said, and nearly all the work of Voluntaryism. "But for the efforts of Dissenters," says an Episcopalian, "Wales would have been a colony of the devil."* The increase of sittings from 1801 to 1851 was as follows:

Episcopalians

Other denominations

Total

31,818

498,438

520,256

Or, again, we might advert to the working of this principle in Scotland. There the Free Church alone obtains by Voluntary contribution an annual revenue of £300,000, from a population of about 1,000,000 who are in connection with that body. Well may Dr. Guthrie say, in reference to these facts, "If we, in a poor country-poor as compared with England-raise such a sum as that from our share of the population, amounting to about 1,000,000, what might the Church of England do, did she put forth her vast resources?.... Were Voluntary offerings universal in your English churches, as they should be, you could raise an immense revenue for the glory of God and the service of the Church."

Such are some of the results of the principle of self-support, even amid circumstances in which it cannot be said ever to have had a fair trial, since it has always had to contend against the rivalry of an Establishment that has both sapped its strength and frowned upon its exertions. But if it has secured these successes amid discouragement, it will win still richer triumphs when altogether

Rev. William Howels.

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unfettered. Nor should this be matter of astonishment. "On the contrary," as the leading journal remarked, when recounting the achievements of Voluntaryism in Victoria, we ought to be very much surprised if it were not so. Here is a religion which professes to supply an actual want in human nature, so that man feels himself destitute and forlorn without it. Its hopes are his appointed solace under the difficulties of life and the fear of death, and yet we are to suppose that the very persons who believe in this religion will not give what is simply necessary for the external fabric of it, and the decent support of its ministers! This is the extreme anti-voluntary view, which, as we say, is refuted by facts. It is too shrewd, suspicious, and mercantile a theory; it has too little reliance upon the strength of the religious principle in man, too little faith in the force of truth. It wants confidence and moral courage."

We have thus endeavoured to establish our first proposition, namely, that there is a growing conviction in the heart of the Christian church in this country that the kingdom of Christ is not of this world, that its revenues should be drawn from the free offerings of its spiritual subjects, that

"Our voluntary service He requires,
Not one necessitated,"

and that, as Milton elsewhere says, "forced consecrations, out of another man's estate are no better than forced vows, hateful to God, 'who loves a cheerful giver.'" Or, as Archbishop Whately declares, that in proportion as any man has a right understanding of the Gospel, "will he perceive that the employment of secular coercion in the cause of the Gospel is at variance with the true spirit of the Gospel." In other words, the mighty and increasing tide of Christian activity is pouring forth through the channel of Voluntaryism,one of the twin principles which constitute the polity of Congregationalism.

But self-support necessarily involves the second principle to which we have referred self-government; and while Voluntaryism is recognised by other denominations, self-control pre-eminently cha racterises Congregationalism. We accept the definition given in the nineteenth Article of the Established Church, which declares that "the visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure Word of God is preached, and the sacraments duly ministered: not several congregations, but one; not of mere attendants upon public ordinances, but of "faithful," that is godly men; not united by legal enactments or ceremonial rites, but voluntarily associated together for Christian communion and action, invested with all the prerogatives of discipline, and refusing all authoritative interference by other bodies, secular or sacred. We adopt the statement of Archbishop Whately, that in the constitution of the primitive churches each was "a distinct, independent com munity on earth, united by the common principles on which they

were founded, and by their mutual agreement, affection, and respect, but not having any recognised head on earth; and as for so-called general councils, we find not even any mention of them, or allusion to any such expedient." We endorse the view of Dr. Isaac Barrow, that "each church did separately order its own affairs, without recourse to others;" and that the apostolic writings assume individual churches to be " able to exercise spiritual power for establishing decency, removing disorders, correcting offences, deciding cases, &c.' We have now to show how this principle of self-government is exercising an increasing power far beyond the immediate confines of Congregationalism, and especially in that denomination, which, by its alliance with the State, has less of self-support, and therefore of self-control, than any other section of the Christian church in this country.

Pecuniary obligation involves personal dependence. The least obedient creature will fawn upon the hand that brings its daily meat, and the most tameless nature will grow compliant to an authority which so nurtures it as to render its own labour needless. But the very act which lifts the pauper from the dust makes him conscious of the indignity of the abjectness to which he had submitted, and inspires him with a love of self-government. The self-supported must eventually become the self-controlled. We shall find that in the three great bodies who in this country recognise the principle of a centralised authority, there have been within the past few changes which illustrate this fact.

years

It is shown in the Presbyterian body. Frequent have been the divisions in that church, each of which have in a greater or less degree been the product of this principle of self-control, and the last of which displayed to the view of Christendom a large number of their most learned and venerable men leaving the Hall of Session of the Annual Assembly of the Scottish Establishment in the assertion of the principle that the authority hitherto exercised over them was intolerable, that they held themselves free to manage their own affairs. But though this was only a step in the direction of Independency, it logically involved the whole question of the right of self-administration. "It was a manifestation of a desire and a want which another set of circumstances might call forth in reference to other things. It avowed a principle which would have been equally valid in the mouth of a single congregation against the decree of the Synod, as it was in the mouth of the Synod against the decree of the Crown. It was in our eyes the symptom that the religious mind of Scotland was ripening for a truer estimate of the Church's proper relation to secular power, and possibly for a truer idea as to the management of their own internal affairs."*

Thus, too, it has been with Methodism. In this instance it has not been the authority of the State that has been questioned; but the validity of central boards who exercised an irresponsible control

Rev. G. W. Conder.