chapels alleged to have been produced by the abolition of a public provision for the clergy in New Hampshire, he proceeds to say:

"Certain it is that in other places of the Union, even in those which have been settled so long as now to have reached a high state both of wealth and population, there is abundant proof of an extremely feeble demand for the lessons of Christianity. The rapid increase of human beings is followed up at a very sluggish and unequal pace by an increase in the means of religious instruction. The effect of this lethargy is, that whole breadths of territory are in a state of spiritual desolation; and the families by whom they are occupied, almost utter strangers to the habits or the decencies of a Christian land, are represented as being scarcely above a state of practical heathenism *."-p. 111.

The difficulties of providing for the religious worship and instruction of the thinly scattered inhabitants of newly cleared districts are very great, whatever system of payment may be adopted; and it appears that, on the verge of the advancing population, both in Canada and the United States, there is always a certain tract of country in which there is a practical neglect of reli

* The only authority to which Dr. Chalmers appeals is an extract from the narrative of a tour by the Rev. Sam. J. Mills, which begins as follows:-" Never will the impression be erased from our hearts that has been made by beholding those scenes of wide-spreading desolation. The whole valley, from Lake Erie to the Gulf of Mexico, is as the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Darkness rests upon it. Only here and there a few rays of gospel light pierce through the awful gloom."-p. 189. Nothing definite can be inferred from such language as this. A stranger, unacquainted with the strong expressions of the enthusiastic religious writers of this country, might infer that Christianity had only been recently introduced into certain districts of England, and was quite unknown in a large part of Ireland, if he construed literally the statements of the Evangelical and Methodist Magazines.-See the Edinburgh Review, vol. xi., p. 350. The Voluntary System, by a Churchman, p. 160.

gious observances *. But the recent travels of Messrs. Reed and Matheson have proved beyond a doubt, by precise and detailed statements, that generally throughout the United States an ample provision exists for the public worship of all persuasions, and that a strong religious feeling is at least as prevalent there as in any other civilized country. Without entering into details as to the provision for religious worship in different towns and states of the Union, it will be sufficient to state the general results from the table appended to the work just mentioned, which may probably be taken as a fair approximation to the truth. The free population of the twenty-four states, of which the religious statistics are given, amounted in 1830 to 12,719,941 persons; the number of ministers was 11,079; of churches, 14,511. This gives 1148 persons to each minister, and 876 persons to each church. In Ireland, where the provision for the members of the Established Church is confessedly too large, there were, in 1834 852,064 members of the Established Church, 2086 ministers, and 1338 churches, which gives 408 persons to each minister, and 636 persons to each church. There were at the same time in Ireland, 642,356 Presbyterians and 452 Presbyterian places of worship, which makes 1421 persons to each place of worship. Among the Roman Catholics of Ireland the provision is still more scanty, the ratio being 3053 to each place of worship. From this general comparison, as well as from the detailed accounts of the several localities, it appears established beyond controversy that religious institutions may be adequately supported on the voluntary system, and that the ministers may receive from

*

See Reed and Matheson, vol. ii. pp. 338, 344, 349.

voluntary payments such a stipend as may enable them to move in a respectable condition of life *. It is singular, however, that before a statistical account of the religious institutions of the United States was obtained, the case of the Irish Catholic Church should not have been adverted to in reference to this question. The Irish Catholic clergy have been, since the Reformation, supported exclusively on the voluntary principle, and we never heard it alleged that there was a want of Catholic clergymen in Ireland, or that (since the abrogation of the penal laws) the people were not instructed in their religious duties; and in this case the voluntary principle has had to contend with peculiar difficulties, which are absent in the United States, inasmuch as the Irish Catholics belong, with few exceptions, to the middle and poorer ranks, and the great mass of them are in a state of extreme poverty; whereas, in the United States, every persuasion contains its fair proportion of the wealthier classes.

Other objections have likewise been made to the voluntary system, which properly apply, not to the principle of supporting the clergy by the contributions of their flocks, but to the defects in the government of those religious communities which happen to be supported on the voluntary system. Such are, for example, the evils alleged to flow from the want of proper places of education for clergymen ; the want of a regular ordination; the want of a regular hierarchy; the insufficient education of the clergy; the changeability of ministers. So far, indeed, as these evils are connected with the mode of payment, they may be considered as the vices of the voluntary system; but if they might be removed without introducing the

* See Reed and Matheson, vol. ii. pp. 452, 455, 466.

principle of endowment, it is clear that they have no necessary connexion with that system. This confusion has arisen from the circumstance that the Protestant Dissenters of England, whose ministers are supported on the voluntary system, and who are in this country the great advocates of that system against the friends of the Established Church, have also very lax systems of church government, in which the defects above pointed out prevail in different degrees, according to the different persuasions. The author of an able controversial work on the voluntary system*, recently published, has fallen into this error; and at the same time that he has pointed out many evils springing from the mode of payment, he has added others, which, whether evils or not, are at any rate altogether unconnected with the payment of the ministers, but grow out of the system of church government. In order to perceive that the absence of ordination and of hierarchy is no inseparable concomitant of the voluntary principle, it is only necessary to cast our eyes upon the Irish Catholic church, which, though its clergy are solely supported by the gifts of their flocks, yet is governed with the same strictness of discipline, and the same subordination of powers, as in countries where Catholicism is the religion of the state, and where the standard of orthodoxy is maintained by the terrors of the Inquisition t. For this purpose the Irish Catholic Church

* The Voluntary System. By a Churchman. In Seven Parts. Published by Rivington.

+ The Commissioners of Public Instruction, in their late perambulation of the country, appear to have only met with one schismatic Roman Catholic chapel in all Ireland. This was in the parish of Birr, in King's County, in the diocese of Killaloe. See their First Report, p. 218. The attendance is stated to be considerably less than at the orthodox chapel in the same parish.

i

furnishes a test, an instantia crucis, to detect what are the consequences of the voluntary system, and what of a lax church government; if any evils are found in the English dissenting churches which are wanting in the Irish Catholic Church, it is clear that they either arise from the defective church government of the former, or that they are counteracted by the good church government of the latter.

On the other hand, some advantages have been stated to belong exclusively to the voluntary system, which do not seem necessarily limited to it. Thus it has been said that this system has a great superiority to the opposite system, in its power of adapting itself to the wants of the people. "The principle of adaptation, (says Mr. Reed,) the want of which a high authority has lately admitted to be the great defect of an establishment, is certainly the life and virtue of the voluntary system. Whatever may otherwise be its character, its adversaries cannot disallow its inherent power of adaptation; and if they did, America would confound them. The school-house and the church are seen to accommodate themselves precisely to the state of the people, never behind them, never too much in advance. Their very form and structure pass through the gradations of wood, brick, and stone, as do the residences of the people." It is true that, as established churches have been governed, their institutions have for the most part been ill adapted to the wants of the people, inasmuch as the protecting state has consulted its own good rather than that of the church, and has sacrificed ecclesiastical to political interests. The Irish Established Church is a striking instance of this want of

* Vol. ii. p. 280.