APPENDIX.

SINCE the present edition of this work was put- | walk in the fields on a Sabbath day at the time of ting to press, I have seen a review of it by the divine service, and the very same man indulging Christian Instructor, and the following are the im- without remorse his propensity to throw ridicule or mediate observations which the perusal of this re-discredit on an absent character. His actual review has suggested.

I meant no attack on any body of clergy, and I have made no attack upon them. The people whom I addressed were the main object on which my attention rested; and any thing I have said in the style of animadversion, was chiefly, if not exclusively, with a reference to that perverseness which I think I have witnessed in the conceptions and habits of private Christians.

morse on the commission of all that he feels to be sinful, might lead a man to mourn over sin in the general; but surely this general direction of his can have no such necessary influence, as the reviewer contends for, in the way of leading him to renounce what he does not feel to be sinful. But this is what he should be made to feel; and it may be done in two ways—either in the didactic way, by a formal announcement that the deed in question is conI have alluded, no doubt, to a method of treat-trary to the law of God; or in the imperative way, ment on the part of some of the teachers of Chris-by bidding him cease from the doing of it,-a way tianity, and which I believe to be both inefficient no less effective and scriptural than the former, and and unscriptural. But have I at all asserted the brought to bear in the New Testament upon men extent to which this method prevails? Have I ven- at the earliest conceivable stage of their progress tured to fasten an imputation upon any marked or from sin unto righteousness. general body of Christian ministers? It was no object of mine to set forth or to signalize my own peculiarity in this matter; and if I rightly understand who the men are whom the reviewer has in his eye when he speaks of the evangelical clergy, then does he represent me as dealing out my censures against those whom I honestly believe to be the instrumental cause of nearly all the vital and substantial Christianity in the land.

Again, is it not possible for a man to have an awakened and tender sense of the sinfulness of one sin, and to have a very slender and inadequate sense of the sinfulness of another? Might not the first circumstance beget in his mind an honest and a general desire to be delivered from sin; and might not the second circumstance account for the fact, that with this mourning for sin in the gross, he should put forth his hand without scruple to the commission of what is actually sinful? I do not know a more familiar exhibition of this, than of a man who would be visited with remorse were he to

I share most cordially in opinion with the reviewer, that he might extend his observations greatly beyond the length of the original pamphlet, were he to say all that might be said on the topics brought forward in it. I believe that it would require the compass of an extended volume to meet every objection, and to turn the argument in every possible way. I did not anticipate all the notice that has been taken of this performance, and am fearful lest it should defeat the intended effect on the hearts of a plain people. With this feeling I close the discussion for the present; and my desire is, that in all I may afterwards say upon this subject, I may be preserved from that tone of controversy, which I feel to be hurtful to the practical influence of every truth it accompanies; and which, I fear, may have in so far infected my former communications, as to make it more fitted to arouse the speculative tendencies of the mind, and provoke to an intellectual warfare, than to tell on the conscience and on the doings of an earnest inquirer.

THE

INFLUENCE OF BIBLE SOCIETIES,

ON THE

TEMPORAL NECESSITIES OF THE POOR.

ARGUMENT.

1. The Objection stated. 2. The Radical Answer to it. 3. But the Objection is not true in point of fact. 4. A former act of charity does not exempt from the obligation of a new act, if it can be afforded. 5. Estimate of the encroachment made by the Bible Society upon the funds of the country, 6. A Subscriber to the Bible Society does not give less to the Poor on that account. 7. Evidence for the truth of this assertion. 8. And explanation of its principle. (1.) The ability for other acts of charity nearly as entire as before. 9. (2.) And the disposition greater. 10. Poverty is better kept under by a preventive, than by a positive treatment. 11. Exemplified in Scotland. 12. The Bible Society has a strong preventive operation. 13. And therefore promotes the secular interests of the Poor. 14. The argument carried down to the case of Penny Societies. 15. Difficulty in the exposi tion of the argument. 16. The effects of a charitable endowment in a parish pernicious to the Poor. 17. By inducing a dependance upon it. 18. And stripping them of their industrious habits. 19. The effects of a Bible Association are in an opposite direction to those of a charitable endowment. 20. And it stands completely free of all the objections to which a tax is liable. 21. A Bible Association gives dignity to the Poor. 22. And a delicate reluctance to pauperism. 23. The shame of pauperism is the best defence against it. 24. How a Bible Association augments this feeling. 25. By dignifying the Poor. 26. And adding to the influence of Bible Principles. 27. Exemplified in the humblest situa tion. 28. The progress of these Associations in the country. 29. Compared with other Associations for the relief of temporal necessities. 30. The more salutary influence of Bible Associations. 31. And how they counteract the pernicious influence of other charities. 32. It is best to confide the secular relief of the Poor to individual benevolence. 33. And a Bible Association both augments and enlightens this principle.

1. WITHOUT entering into the positive [tion of the money when it is transferred claims of the Bible Society upon the gene-from this object to the higher and more rosity of the public, I shall endeavour to do useful objects of feeding those among them away an objection which meets us at the who are hungry, clothing those among them very outset of every attempt to raise a sub- who are naked, and paying for medicine or scription, or to found an institution in its attendance to those among them who are favour. The secular necessities of the poor sick. We make bold to say, that if money are brought into competition with it, and for the purpose could be got from no other every shilling given to the Bible Society is quarter, it would be a wiser distribution still represented as an encroachment upon that to withdraw it from the objects last menfund which was before allocated to the re-tioned to the supreme object of paying for lief of poverty. the knowledge of religion to those among 2. Admitting the fact stated in the objec-them who are ignorant; and, at the hazard tion to be true, we have an answer in readi- of being execrated by many, we do not ness for it. If the Bible Society accomplish hesitate to affirm, that it is better for the its professed object, which is, to make those poor to be worse fed and worse clothed, than who were before ignorant of the Bible bet- that they should be left ignorant of those ter acquainted with it, then the advantage Scriptures, which are able to make them given more than atones for the loss sus-wise unto salvation through the faith that tained. We stand upon the high ground, is in Christ Jesus.

that eternity is longer than time, and the 3. But the statement contained in the obunfading enjoyments of the one a boon jection is not true. It seems to go upon the more valuable than the perishable enjoy-supposition, that the fund for relieving the ments of the other. Money is sometimes temporal wants of the poor is the only fund expended for the idle purpose of amusing the poor by the gratuitous exhibition of a spectacle or show. It is a far wiser distribu

which exists in the country; and that when any new object of benevolence is started, there is no other fund to which we can re

pair for the requisite expenses. But there very small, that it is not entitled to make are other funds in the country. There is a its appearance in any abstract argument prodigious fund for the maintenance of go- whatever, and were it not to do away even vernment, nor do we wish that fund to be the shadow of an objection, we would have encroached upon by a single farthing. There been ashamed to have thrown the argument is a fund out of which the people of the land into the language of general discussion. are provided in the necessaries of life: and What shall we think of the objection when before we incur the odium of trenching told, that the whole yearly revenue of the upon necessaries, let us first inquire, if there Bible Society, as derived from the contribube no other fund in existence. Go, then, to tions of those who support it, does not all who are elevated above the class of mere amount to a half-penny per month from labourers, and you will find in their pos- each householder in Britain and Ireland? session a fund, out of which they are pro- Can this be considered as a serious invasion vided with what are commonly called the upon any one fund allotted to other destisuperfluities of life. We do not dispute their nations, and shall the most splendid and right to these superfluities, nor do we deny promising enterprise that ever benevolence the quantity of pleasure which lies in the was engaged in, be arrested upon an objecenjoyment of them. We only state the ex-tion so fanciful? We do not want to oppress istence of such a fund, and that by a trifling any individual by the extravagance of our act of self-denial on the part of those who demands. It is not in great sums, but in possess it, we could obtain all that we are the combination of littles, that our strength pleading for. It is a little hard, that the com- lies. It is the power of combination which petition should be struck between the fund resolves the mystery. Great has been the of the Bible Society and the fund for reliev-progress and activity of the Bible Society ing the temporal wants of the poor, while since its first institution. All we want is, the far larger and more transferable fund that this rate of activity be kept up and exfor superfluities is left out of consideration entirely, and suffered to remain an untouched and unimpaired quantity. In this way, the odium of hostility to the poor is fastened upon those who are labouring for their most substantial interests, while a set of men who neglect the immortality of the poor, and would leave their souls to perish, are suffered to sheer off with the credit of all the finer sympathies of our nature.

4. To whom much is given, of them much will be required. Whatever be your former liberalities in another direction, when a new and a likely direction of benevolence is pointed out, the question still comes back upon you, What have you to spare? If there be a remainder left, it is by the extent of this remainder that you will be judged; and it is not right to set the claims of the Bible Society against the secular necessities of the poor, while means so ample are left, that the true way of instituting the competition is to set these claims against some personal gratification which it is in your power to abandon. Have a care, lest with the language of philanthropy in your mouth, you shall be found guilty of the cruelest indifference to the true welfare of the species, and lest the Discerner of your heart shall perceive how it prefers some sordid indulgence of its own to the dearest interests of those around you.

tended. The above statement will convince the reader, that there is ample room for the extension. The whole fund for the secular wants of the poor may be left untouched, and as to the fund for luxuries, the revenue of the Bible Society may be augmented a hundred-fold before this fund is sensibly encroached upon. The veriest crumbs and sweepings of extravagance would suffice us; and it will be long, and very long, before any invasion of ours upon this fund shall give rise to any perceivable abridgement of luxury, or have the weight of a straw upon the general style and establishment of families.

6. But there is still another way of meeting the objection. Let us come immediately to a question upon the point of fact. Does a man, on becoming a subscriber to the Bible Society, give less to the secular wants of the poor than he did formerly? It is true, there is a difficulty in the way of obtaining an answer to this question. He who knows best what answer to give will be the last to proclaim it.. In as far as the subscribers themselves are concerned, we must leave the answer to their own experience, and sure we are that that experience will not be against us. But it is not from this quarter that we can expect to obtain the wished for information. The benevolence of an individual does not stand 5. But let me not put to hazard the pros-out to the eye of the public. The knowperity of our cause, by resting it on a ledge of its operations is confined to the standard of charity far too elevated for the little neighbourhood within which it expageneral practice of the times. Let us now tiates. It is often kept from the poor themdrop our abstract reasoning upon the re-selves, and then the information we are in spective funds, and come to an actual spe- quest of is shut up with the giver in the sicification of their quantities. The truth is, lent consciousness of his bosom, and with that the fund for the Bible Society is so God in the book of his remembrance.

7. But much good has been done of late by the name of pocket-money, can, geneyears by the combined exertions of indi- rally speaking, provide for the whole viduals; and benevolence, when operating amount of the donation in question. There in this way, is necessarily exposed to pub-are a thousand floating and incidental exlic observation. Subscriptions have been penses, which can be given up without started for almost every one object which almost the feeling of a sacrifice, and the dibenevolence can devise, and the published version of a few of them to the charity we lists may furnish us with data for a par- are pleading for, leaves the ability of the tial solution of the proposed question. In giver to all sense as entire as before. point of fact, then, those who subscribe 9. But the second element is subject to for a religious object, subscribe with the other laws, and the formal calculations of greatest readiness and liberality for the re-arithmetic do not apply to it. The dispolief of human affliction, under all the vari-sition is not like the ability, a given quanous forms in which it pleads for sympathy.tity, which suffers an abstraction by every This is quite notorious. The human mind, new exercise. The effect of a donation by singling out the eternity of others as the upon the purse of a giver, is not the same main object of its benevolence, does not with the moral influence of that donation withdraw itself from the care of sustaining upon his heart. Yet the two are assimithem on the way which leads to eternity. It lated by our antagonists, and the pedantry exerts an act of preference, but not an act of computation carries them to results which of exclusion. A friend of mine has been are in the face of all experience. It is not indebted to an active and beneficent patron, so easy to awaken the benevolent principle for a lucrative situation in a distant country, out of its sleep, as, when once awakened in but he wants money to pay his travelling behalf of one object, to excite and to interexpenses. I commit every reader to his est it in behalf of another. When the bar own experience of human nature, when I of selfishness is broken down, and the floodrest with him the assertion, that if real gates of the heart are once opened, the kindness lay at the bottom of this act of pa- stream of beneficence can be turned into a tronage, the patron himself is the likeliest thousand directions. It is true, that there quarter from which the assistance will come. can be no beneficence without wealth, as The man who signalizes himself by his re- there can be no stream without water. It ligious charities, is not the last but the first is conceivable that the opening of the floodman to whom I would apply in behalf of gates may give rise to no flow, as the openthe sick and the destitute. The two prin- ing of a poor man's heart to the distresses ciples are not inconsistent. They give sup- of those around him may give rise to no act port and nourishment to each other, or of almsgiving. But we have already proved rather they are exertions of the same prin- the abundance of wealth. [Sec. 8.] It is ciple. This will appear in full display on the selfishness of the inaccessible heart the day of judgment; and even in this dark which forms the mighty barrier, and if this and undiscerning world, enough of evidence could be done away, a thousand fertilizing is before us upon which the benevolence of streams would issue from it. Now, this is the Christian stands nobly vindicated, and what the Bible Society, in many instances, from which it may be shown, that, while has accomplished. It has unlocked the its chief care is for the immortality of others, avenue to many a heart, which was before it casts a wide and a wakeful eye over all inaccessible. It has come upon them with the necessities and sufferings of the species. all the energy of a popular and prevailing 8. Nor have we far to look for the ex- impulse. It has created in them a new taste planation. The two elements which com-and a new principle. It has opened the bine to form an act of charity, are the abi-fountain, and we are sure that, in every dislity and the disposition, and the question trict of the land where a Bible Association simply resolves itself into this, "In how far exists, the general principle of benevolence these elements will survive a donation to is more active and more expanding than the Bible Society, so as to leave the other ever. charities unimpaired by it?" It is certainly 10. And after all, what is the best meconceivable, that an individual may give thod of providing for the secular necessievery spare farthing of his income to this ties of the poor? Is it by labouring te institution. In this case, there is a total meet the necessity after it has occurred, or extinction of the first element. But in point by labouring to establish a principle and a of fact, this is never done, or done so rarely habit which would go far to prevent its exas not to be admitted into any general ar- istence? If you wish to get rid of a noxious gument. With by far the greater number stream, you may first try to intercept it by of subscribers, the ability is not sensibly en-throwing across a barrier; but in this way, croached upon. There is no visible re- you only spread the pestilential water over trenchment in the superfluities of life. A a greater extent of ground, and when the very slight and partial change in the direc-basin is filled, a stream as copious as be tion of that fund, which is familiarly known fore is formed out of its overflow. The

If

Each

most effectual method, were it possible to | you foster the diseased principle which gives carry it into accomplishment, would be to birth to poverty. On this subject, the people dry up the source. The parallel in a great of England feel themselves to be in a state measure holds. If you wish to extinguish of almost inextricable helplessness, and they poverty, combat with it in its first elements. are not without their fears of some mighty you confine your beneficence to the re- convulsion, which must come upon them lief of actual poverty, you do nothing. Dry with all the energy of a tempest, before up, if possible, the spring of poverty, for this devouring mischief can be swept away every attempt to intercept the running from the face of their community. stream has totally failed. The education 12. If any thing can avert this calamity and the religious principle of Scotland have from England, it will be the education of not annihilated pauperism, but they have their peasantry, and this is a cause to which restrained it to a degree that is almost in- the Bible Society is contributing its full credible to our neighbours of the South. share of influence. A zeal for the circulaThey keep down the mischief in its princi- tion of the Bible, is inseparable from a zeal ple. They impart a sobriety and a right for extending among the people the capasentiment of independence to the character city of reading it; and it is not to be conof our peasantry. They operate as a check ceived, that the very same individual can be upon profligacy and idleness. The main- eager for the introduction of this volume tenance of parish schools is a burden upon into our cottages, and sit inactive under the the landed property of Scotland, but it is a galling reflection, that it is still a sealed cheap defence against the poor rates, a bur- book to many thousands of the occupiers. den far heavier, and which is aggravating Accordingly we find, that the two concerns perpetually. The writer of the paper knows are keeping pace with one another. The of a parish in Fife, the average mainten- Bible Society does not overstep the simpliance of whose poor is defrayed by twenty- city of its assigned object: but the memfour pounds sterling a year, and of a parish, bers of that Society receive an impulse of the same population, in Somersetshire, from the cause, which carries them to prowhere the annual assessments come to mote the education of the poor, either by thirteen hundred pounds sterling. The pre- their individual exertions, or by giving ventive regimen of the one country does their support to the Society for Schools. more than the positive applications of the The two Societies move in concert. other. In England, they have suffered po- contributes an essential element in the busiverty to rise to all the virulence of a form-ness of enlightening the people. The one ed and obstinate disease. But they may as furnishes the book of knowledge, and the well think of arresting the destructive pro- other furnishes the key to it. This division gress of a torrent by throwing across an of employment, as in every other instance, embankment, as think that the mere posi- facilitates the work, and renders it more eftive administration of relief, will put a stop fective. But it does not hinder the same indito the accumulating mischiefs of poverty. vidual from giving his countenance to both; 11. The exemption of Scotland from the and sure I am, that the man whose feelings miseries of pauperism is due to the educa- have been already warmed, and whose purse tion which their people receive at schools, has been already drawn in behalf of the one, and to the Bible which their scholarship is a likelier subject for an application in behalf gives them access to. The man who sub- of the other, than he whose money is still unscribes to the divine authority of this sim-touched, but whose heart is untouched also. ple saying, "If any would not work nei- 13. It will be seen, then, that the Bible ther should he eat," possesses, in the good Society is not barely defensible, but may be treasure of his own heart, a far more effec- plead for upon that very ground on which tual security against the hardships of indi-its enemies have raised their opposition to gence, than the man who is trained, by the it. Its immediate object is neither to feed legal provisions of his country, to sit in the hungry nor to clothe the naked, but in slothful dependence upon the liberalities of every country under the benefit of its exthose around him. It is easy to be elo-ertions, there will be less hunger to feed, quent in the praise of those liberalities, but and less nakedness to clothe. It does not the truth is, that they may be carried to cure actual poverty, but it anticipates eventthe mischievous extent of forming a de-ful poverty. It aims its decisive thrust at praved and beggarly population. The hun the heart and principle of the mischief, and gry expectations of the poor will ever keep instead of suffering it to form into the pace with the assessments of the wealthy, obstinacy of an inextirpable disease, it and their eye will be averted from the ex-smothers and destroys it in the infancy of ertion of their own industry, as the only right its first elements. The love which worketh source of comfort and independence. It is no ill to his neighbour will not suffer the quite in vain to think, that positive relief will ever do away the wretchedness of poverty. Carry the relief beyond a certain limit, and

true Christian to live in idleness upon another's bounty; and he will do as Paul did before him, he will labour with his hands