CHAPTER II.

VOLUNTARY SACRIFICE OF THE

CHURCH.

THE treatment of this subject is the most difficult task we have proposed to ourselves.* In whatever way it is handled, it must give offence to a great many. The superstitious will join the worldly-minded to crush us with reproof, and silence us with hostility and slander. We wish to refrain from making an attack upon the Church. But how is it to be done? Every text we quote, every fact we bring to witness, will be found condemnatory, if not misapplied. Their application, however, we will leave in great measure to the sense of the nation. Conscious of the grave nature of our

Is

* Rear Admiral Sir Charles Napier has just appeared in the character of a well-meaning but bold Reformer of abuses, which none can question. His motive has been patriotic and his pen determined as his sword, relying as he does on the sacred nature of his cause. not the treatment of Sir Charles Napier a recent sacrifice upon the shrine of humbug and wanton abomination, which ought to disgust all England? His high-minded exposures of a corrupt system have only succeeded in laying up in ordinary one of England's most gallant seamen, viz., himself. His discretion, forsooth, is impugned; but with a mischievous art, which leaves the insinuation open that his tactics afloat are indiscreet, as well as his righteous assertions inconvenient to the respectable "owlery;" against which the glories of England have to wage a more arduous conflict than they have to oppose against the cannon of her enemies.

undertaking, before we begin to argue, we feel the necessity of citing the few following sentences from the mouth of Christ himself, to give us courage to speak out, in opposition to a powerful hierarchy and a priestridden community, sentiments, in whose very truth lies their danger, as they are subjected to the cruel misinterpretation of malignity, to which interest alone supplies the venom of slander.

In his various charges to His disciples, and condemnation of riches and the pomps of pharisaical conduct and deportment, we find, amongst many others, the following passages :

"Distribute unto the poor, and seek treasures in Heaven." "In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." "I have compassion on the multitude, because they have nothing to eat." "He that is not against us is on our part." "Go thy way: sell whatever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven, and come, take up the cross, and follow me." "And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved, for he had great possessions." "And Jesus saith unto His disciples, How hardly shall they that have riches enter the kingdom of God.""" Which devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayers, these shall receive the greater damnation." "Then He called His twelve disciples together, and gave them power and authority, and He said unto them, 'Take nothing for your journey: neither staves, nor scrip, nor bread, nor money; neither have two coats a-piece.' "Rather give alms of such things as ye have." "But woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye tithe mint, and rue, and all manner of herbs, and pass over

judgment and the love of God." Woe unto ye, also, lawyers, for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne." "Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass, in your purses.' "And He commanded them

"Give

that they should take nothing for their journey: no scrip, no bread, no money in their purse. Carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes." "Beware of covetousness, but seek the kingdom of God." alms; provide yourselves a treasure in Heaven." "Take care that your hearts be not charged with surfeiting and drunkenness and the cares of this life."

Thus, by the very words preached from, every Sunday, throughout the churches of the land, we judge them. Is not the fact of the Christian Protestant Church in the nineteenth century a lie, in the face of these? Have words a meaning, and do sentences convey a sense to hearing?

We might now proceed to quote the fathers of the Primitive Church, who bear an equally severe testimony to her duty, and we leave to the sense of all, whom interest does not affect with a voluntary blindness of Ananias and Sapphira, to make the application true and identify the meaning. But it is sufficient to observe, that, during the first ages of the Church, she was voluntarily supported. The Council of Antioch expressly forbade the bishops to have a part to themselves of the goods of the Church, which were given them to distribute. The commencement of tithing was in the corruption of the Primitive Church. The ancient canon enjoins them to be content with food and raiment alone.

So much for self-condemnation. We doubt not that, amid her schisms and struggles, enough has been

said lately, even by the modern sectarians of the Church herself, to illustrate our position; but we take, we trust, higher ground in leaving these to prey upon the common vitals, without exacting any due from the frankness of violence, or stealing one argument in the confusion of prelatical controversy and the sway of the "Abbot of Unreason." Let us not in this

manner, at least, turn their own hands against themselves. To us it is a spectacle too melancholy even to be edifying; for we lose in the view of this childish rancour and this self-immolating intolerance, our sense of its furtherance of the plans and ideas we now herald to the public.

When, however, we see this ancient inveteracy, this "vetus atque antiqua simultas" assuming the form of a new contest on an infinitesimal point of faith, we can scarcely shut our eyes to the fact, that if Christ himself should re-appear amid the money-changers in his English Protestant Temple to censure and reprove the conduct of the Established Church, the greater and wealthier part of that church would prosecute him for libel, challenge the purity of his motives, contradict his interpretation of his own mission, and call the Son of God himself an Infidel and an Atheist !

Let us leave these high grounds of censure for awhile, to revert briefly to them towards the end of our chapter, after first regarding the worldly justice and reason of our plans. First, as to the probable fate of the Church, should it continue in the enjoyment of its present revenues and position; and, secondly, as to the secular right of the Church to maintain* an oppo

*We do not by this mean an allusion to the present episcopal con

sition to the dictum of government and the demands of the nation. In the speedily approaching general ruin, which, on looking around us, we cannot help anticipating, should the same line of conduct be pursued much longer by the selfish ignorance of party sciolists, there can exist little doubt that the Church will fall the first and greatest victim. If the country and her rulers have not sufficient moral force to achieve their own redemption, physical force will step in to assist them by bloody and terrible means. A war, with our land out of corn cultivation, and consequently a famine-nay, even the silent working of our present rash measures, will soon lead to a revolution of the belly. The text of Isaiah will not apply to the English people. It did not to the French,* even under a fourth, nay, in our opinion, a tenth part of the pressure which threatens us. And, my hand hath

flict about the regeneration of baptism, and the defiance of a part of the Church to her Majesty's authority in Council; but the spiritual right of the Church to keep its tithes and benefices when they are recalled by the givers into their own possession.

* The amount of tyranny to be borne by a people, when they are not represented by an assembly, in some shape, of their own, is inconceivable. But they cannot bear famine. The causes of famine do not produce revolutions; for the majority of the people care little how they are governed. Give a nation food and comfort, and you may enslave it; but no amount of freedom, actual or fanciful, will compensate for starvation. The French were frightfully and disgustingly tyrannized over; but the actual and immediate cause of their first Revolution, which was the parent of those which followed, was the "belly." By Revolution we do not mean Reform, or a change of dynasty; but a social earthquake, when property, and consequently life, become entirely insecure; and yet, at the very moment that we are writing, the Legislature is disputing whether Ireland shall have a £12 or an £8 qualification leaving the more important questions of the social condition and the distress of the sister country untouched.