Those who would maintain that the reasoning of Dr. Chalmers leads fairly to this conclusion, must have forgotten the whole train of his previous remarks on the blighting effect of compulsory relief on all the kindly feelings both of the giver and receiver, aud on the influence, in calling forth the affection and gratitude of the recipient, of aid given in the spirit, and prompted by the motive, of Christian love. He had already dwelt at such length on the vital distinction between these two modes of charity, that he might reasonably have considered himself excused from reiterating his observations. He has, however, even in the present chapter, been at pains to guard his argument from misapprehension on this point. In various parts of it, he pleads for a return to the "old system of Scottish pauperism," when its expenses were defrayed by voluntary collections," administered by ecclesiastical agents; and though he distinctly states that it would be interfering with the immediate object he has in hand, to shew at length why this change would produce" a happier state of things

99

and a more diffused comfort and sufficiency among our people;" yet he adds, "In the mean time, let the thing be tried instead of argued ; and though" there would still be a remainder of the mischief that we have attempted to expose," it would be "far more innocent in point of effect," &c. (p. 266.) But even to this modification of the present system, Dr. Chalmers would infinitely prefer the entire substitution of private charity. And can it for a moment be supposed, that, when the very main spring of his civic economy is a spirit of Christian liberality excited in the people by the evangelical labours of their minister, he should have it in contemplation that the minister himself should be the last person to exemplify his own lessons? But on this point, it is

fair that our author should speak for himself. The passage we produce is taken from the chapter under review; and though the matter in hand is touched upon only incidentally, yet what is said upon it sufficiently vindicates the views of the author from the objection to which we have adverted.

"An elder who is implicated with pauperism, or the agent of a charitable society who is known to be such, will most certainly light up a thousand mercenary expectations, and be met by a thousand mercenary

demands, in the course of his fre But let him stand out to the general quent visitations among the people. eye as dissociated with all the concerns of an artificial charity; and let it be his sole ostensible aim to excite the religious spirit of the district, or to promote its education-and he may, every day of his life, walk over the whole length and breadth of his territory, without meeting with any demand that alarm him. The truth is, that there is is at all unmanageable, or that needs to a far greater sufficiency among the lower classes of society than is generally imagined; and our first impressions of their want and wretchedness are generally by much too aggravated; nor do we know a more effectual method of reducing these impressions than to cultivate a closer acquaintance with their whole domestic economy. resources, and their habits, and their tainly in the power of artificial expediIt is cerents to create artificial desires, and to call out a host of applications, that would never have otherwise been made. And we know of nothing that leads more directly and more surely to this state of things, than a great regular provision for indigence, obtruded, with all the characters of legality, and cerof the people. But wherever the setainty, and abundance, upon the notice curities which nature hath established for the relief and mitigation of extreme distress are not so tampered with, where the economy of individuals, and the sympathy of neighbours, and a sense of the relative duties among kinsfolk, are

left, without disturbance, to their own found that there is nothing so formidasilent and simple operation; it will be ble in the work of traversing a whole mass of congregated human beings, and of encountering all the clamours,

many

1hem, we will take the liberty of borrowing for all, whether of the clergy or laity, who are anxious to cultivate the high graces of the Christian character. If Dr. Chalmers chances to possess a few such elders as he has sketched, we are the less surprised at his otherwise almost incredible success in his parish. In that case, our poor solitary ministers may indeed find reason to covet the handed machinery by which his schools and societies are worked. But we can suppose a case where these elders must be a grievous incumbrance on the shoulders of the clergy; where worldliness, like a monsoon, must set in from this quarter, and threaten to sweep away every vestige of spirituality from the face of the church, We sincerely hope, that if any such cases exist to the annoyance of our Scottish brethren, the evil may find its remedy in the admirable counsels of Dr. Chalmers; and that every elder may fairly merit his important station and title by his ripe experience, and mellowed temper, and purity of conduct, and unwearied assiduity in welldoing. But let us hear Dr. Chal.

mers.

"Those who have entered on the important and honourable office of the eldership, should have a full impression of its sacredness. We are fully aware that there is not a professing Christian who does not forfeit all title to the name and character of a Christian, if he do not honestly, and with all the energies of his soul, aspire at being not merely almost, but altogether a disciple of the Lord Jesus. It is the duty of the obscurest individual in a congregation, to be as heavenly in his desires, and as peculiar in the whole style of his behaviour, and as upright in his transactions, and as circumspect in his walk, and as devoted, in heart and in service, to the God of his redemption, as the minister who labours amongst them in word and in doctrine, or as the elders that assist him in the administration of ordinances, or as the most conspicuous among the officebearers of the church with which he is

connected. But they should remember that the very circumstance of being conspicuous forms a double call upon their attention to certain prescribed duties of the New Testament. It is this which gives so peculiar an importance making their light shine before men, to their example. It is this which, by renders it a more powerful instrument for glorifying God. And it is this, too, which stamps a tenfold malignity upon their misconduct. And under the impression of this, should they be careful lest their good be evil spoken of to be, in all things, an example to the flock the overseers-to remember that their over which God hath appointed them conduct has a more decided bearing upon others than it had formerly—and that, as it is their duty to look, not to their own things, but to the things of others also, so it is their most solemn and imperious obligation, to take heed, and give no just offence, in any thing, declared and the visible functionaries, that the religiou of which they are the

greater outrage can be practised on Christianity, we know not how a deadlier wound can be given to its interest and its reputation in the world, we know not how a sorer infliction can be devised on a part of greater tenderness, than for a man to usurp a place of authority and of lofty standing, in the church of our Redeemer, and then to exhibit such a life, and to maintain such a lukewarm indifference, and to hold out such a conformity to the world, as to all the levities, and all the secula rities which abound in it, and above all, so to deform the path of his own personal history, by what is profane, and profligate, and unseemly, that the report of his misdoings shall spread itself over the neighbourhood, and, into whatever company it may enter, it shall scandalize the friends of Jesus, and become matter of triumph and of bitter derision to his enemies." pp. 297,

be not blamed. We know not how a

298.

There is another passage in this Essay which we cannot persuade ourselves to withhold from our readers; though we quote it, not as it is introduced by the author for the encouragement of elders, but for the encouragement of those thousands of laborious ministers, who, compelled to pick up the bread of carefulness upon

a meagre curacy, are sometimes tempted to despair of all success in their spiritual labours, from the pressure of want, and the scantiness of their worldly resources.

"All the dispensations of Providence, and all the great events in the train of human history, are on the side of the Christian philanthropist. He has only to watch his opportunity, and there is not a family so hardened in the ways of impiety, where he may not, in time, establish himself. The stoutest-hearted sinner he may have to deal with must, in a few little years, meet with some thing to soften and to bring him down. Death may make its inroads upon his household, and disease may come, with its symptoms of threatening import, upon his own person; and, in that bed of sickness which he dreads to be his last, may the terrors and reproaches of conscience be preparing a welcome for the elder of his district; and he who was wont to laugh the ministrations of his Christian friend away from him will, at length, send an imploring message and supplicate his prayers. Such is the omnipotence of Christian charity! At the very outset of its enterprise, it will find a great and an effectual door opened to it; and, in the course of months, its own perseverance will work for it; and Providence will work for it; and the mournful changes which take place in every family will work for it; and all the frailties of misfortune and mortality to which our nature is liable, will work for it; and thus mayone single individual, acting in the capacity of a Christian friend, and ever on the alert with all the aid of Christian counsel, and all the offices of Christian

sympathy, in behalf of his assigned

population, be the honoured instrument of reviving another spirit, and setting up another style of practice and observation, in the midst of them. Thus may he obtain a secure hold of ascendency over the affections of hundreds; and, like unto a leaven for good, in the neighbourhood which has been entrust ed to his care, may he, by the blessing of God, infuse into that mass of human immortality with which he is associated the fermentation of such holy desires, and penitential feelings, and earnest aspirations, and close inquiries after the truth, as may, at length, issue in the solid result of many being called

out of darkness into light, of many being turned unto righteousness.

"The Christian elder who has resigned the temporalities of his office should not think that, on that account, he has little in his power. His presence has a power. His advice has a power. His friendship has a power. The moral energy of his kind attentions and Christian arguments has a power. His prayers at the bed of sickness, and at the funeral of a departed parishioner, have a power. The books that he recommends to his people, and the minister whom he prevails on them to hear,' and the habit of regular attendance upon the ordinances to which he intro-' duces them, have a power. His sup plications to God for them, in secret, have a power. Dependence upon him, and upon his blessing, for the succsss of his own feeble endeavours, has a power. And when all these are brought to bear on the rising generation; when the children have learned both to know and to love him; when they come to feel the force of his approbation, and, on every recurring visit, receive a freshimpulse from him to diligence at school, and dutiful behaviour out of it; when the capabilities of his simple Christian, relationship with the people thus come to be estimated;-it is not saying too much, to say that, with such as him, there lies the precious interest of the growth and transmission of Christianity, in the age that is now passing over us; and that, in respect of his own selected neighbourhood, he is the de pository of the moral and spiritual destinies of the future age." pp. 292 295.

what he meant, in his celebrated. Mr. Burke is said, when asked eulogy on the Age of Chivalry, by

the

cheap defence of nations," to have replied jestingly, "Lieute nants upon half pay." The term appears to us to be still more applicable to the curates of many of our 11,000 parishes, whose pay is quite as scanty, as their labours are far more important than those of their military compatriots. We can conceive such a passage as that just extracted to be a real solace to one of those meritorious individuals. What a consolation is it to remember, with' Dr. Chalmers, that those dispensations of Providence, which seem to