FURTHER HINTS ON HOME MISSIONS, AND THE ELEVATION OF THE MASSES.

In a former article, we threw out some hints on what we consider the most efficient plan of forming new congregations in large towns from the careless portions of the community. The more thorough development of the plan then sketched we would reserve for another occasion, our object in the present paper being to submit to our readers a few other thoughts on the great subject of home missions, and on the best means of bringing the masses under the saving and sanctifying influence of the gospel.

1. When the Church awoke to a sense of her missionary duty, the field of foreign missions was the first she endeavoured to break up. Missionary operations among the heathen at home date their commencement more recently. The thoughts and energies of most missionary minds have been occupied on the foreign field, and the scientific method of cultivation has been investigated chiefly with a view to that field. Now it strikes us, that any thing that may be said to have been ascertained, from these investigations, of the science of missions, though equally applicable to the home field, has been hitherto applied almost exclusively to the foreign. One of the most valuable results of inquiry into the best mode of conducting foreign missions, is the immense advantage of using all lawful and available methods for gaining the affections of the people. Our Saviour's miracles were not merely evidences of his divine authority, and proofs of his benevolence-they were likewise the means of establishing a hold upon the affections of the people, and creating a lively interest in the doctrine which he taught. For similar ends, the power of working miracles was conferred on the apostles. In more modern times, Eliot, the apostle of the North American Indians, Oberlin, Williams, Moffat, and a host of others, have first found a way to the affections, by interesting themselves in those temporal matters where the people could appreciate their kindness; and, from the vantage-ground thus secured, have preached the gospel with much more acceptance and success. The same principle lies at the foundation of the scheme of medical missions. It is likewise an element in the plan of Dr Duff at Calcutta. Connaught and Madeira alike attest its power. In short, almost all missionaries acknowledge the importance of the principle, and, by affording palpable evidence of the profitableness of godliness to the life that now is, try to convince the people that the same godliness is profitable to the life that is to come. The abuse of the principle by priests and Jesuits is no argument whatever against its legitimate application. Indeed, the neglect of it would be a positive sin; for as Christianity is partly intended, and is the only system thoroughly fitted, to promote the temporal well-being of man, it is plain that one of its great beauties and excellences would be sinfully concealed, if it were not actively and prominently directed to this end.

Our impression, then, is, that this principle has not been brought into sufficiently active operation in the home missionary field. Something has certainly been done in this way. The mere act of visiting the poor in a kindly and friendly spirit has done some good; and administering to their wants in sickness, comforting them in their sorrows, and helping them in their difficulties, have often had a beneficial effect. The sagacity of Dr Chalmers led him to see the importance of gaining the hearts of the people he visited;

and, besides urging other means towards this end, he was always most anxious to impress upon his agents that they should constantly seek to give the people proofs of their good-will and active benevolence. There is, however, a certain vagueness in this mode of working the principle in question, which makes its results uncertain and unsatisfactory. Besides, in the very excess of their zeal and benevolence, visitors of the poor are apt to do injury by assisting them in wrong ways. Money and clothing given to undeserving objects, only serve to increase their profligacy. In vain do the benevolent givers look for the gratitude, and the interest in divine things, which they expected as the return for their beneficence. Too late they discover, that the bread which they thought they had cast on the waters, where they would find it after many days, has only been thrown into the bottomless pit of insatiable mendicancy, and is therefore irrecoverably lost.

We have another reason for being not altogether satisfied with the extent to which the principle we advert to has hitherto been applied in home missionary schemes. The mode of application is too contracted to reach several of the classes whom it is desirable to reach. Many persons seem to think that the careless part of the community may be separated by a distinct line of demarcation from the rest. They seem to think that all who are neglecting gospel ordinances are as degraded in intellect as they are indifferent to religion, and as far sunk in sensuality as neglectful of godliness. This is a great mistake. There are large numbers of the working classes greatly in need of home missionary efforts, but whose outwardly respectable circumstances render them less accessible than others to the ordinary modes of exertion. A respectable house, tenanted by a family respectable in appearance, but careless about religion, is usually a puzzle to ordinary home missionary agents. They feel out of their element in it, and want the freedom and plainness of speech which they are able to use in poorer and more degraded dwellings. A weekly visit from an ordinary visiting agent is not the way to gain the affections, and awaken an interest in the truth, among such persons. We are persuaded, too, that the class is a large one. Between the class of degraded sensualists on the one hand, and of hearty, pious members of the Christian Church on the other, lies a large proportion of our operative population. Many of them are thinking men. They see the disorders of society; they feel that the hard-working classes have not their just share of the comforts of life; they see that their privations meet with little sympathy from the upper ranks; the minister and the missionary seem to take little interest in the peculiar hardships of which they complain-they make no special exertions for the improvement of their social state: hence the hearts of these parties are cooled to the cause of Christianity; and they become an easy prey to any who may profess an interest in their peculiar trials, no matter how wild soever the mode by which they propose to provide a remedy.

Some ministers have tried, by taking a prominent interest in party politics, to secure the sympathies of this class of the population. The result is generally admitted, not only to have been a failure as regards the end proposed, but to have operated injuriously on the vitality and spirituality of those who have taken that course. But, apart altogether from party

politics, there is a class of questions coming rapidly into prominence, connected with the welfare of the operative classes, in which it seems exceedingly desirable that ministers and others should take an active interest. We refer to measures of sanitary reform, and others of a similar kind, bearing on the social improvement of the working classes. The providing of suitable dwellings for the working classes; the removal of the close, unventilated hotbeds of disease and crime; the procuring of public greens and gardens, for innocent sports and manly recreations; the procuring of a sufficient supply of clean water, at a moderate charge, for the houses of the poor; the encouragement of benefit societies on a safe footing, making provision for sickness and old age-are samples of the kind of questions in which an interest should now be taken by those who aim at promoting the welfare of the masses. Granting that ministers may not be able to do much in the active furtherance of these objects; yet, by occasionally holding week-night meetings to point out the advantages of such things, and, generally, to dwell in a friendly and familiar way on what tends to the comfort and elevation of the working classes, they may achieve a large amount of good. The writer of these remarks has tried the experiment of delivering a series of addresses to the working classes on the improvement of their condition, and, so far as he has yet gone, the success of the experiment has exceed ed his most sanguine expectations.

We would by no means have ministers to force themselves to take up these subjects, whether they felt an interest in them or not. That would be a dishonest course, or at least dishonourable. But we are persuaded that no one can attend to the actual physical condition of the masses in our large towns, without being roused to the most lively interest in the questions that we have adverted to. Let any one merely read Mr Chadwick's General Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population-it will be impossible for him not to feel a peculiarly fresh and lively interest in measures of sanitary and social reformation. He will be most deeply impressed, too, with the conviction, that it is vain to attempt to plant morality and religion in districts where they can no more live than flame can live without air. How can you have morality with eight in a bed? Where is secret devotion to be maintained by a dozen of individuals in ten feet square? In the atmosphere of filth and fever, where cabbages will not grow, and tadpoles become larger tadpoles, but do not attain to the condition of frogs, how can you counteract that debility of body and depression of spirits, which produce indisposition to work, and carelessness about consequences, and make it about as vain to forbid the whisky shop as to forbid bread to the hungry or sleep to the weary? We are only beginning to see these things now; but Dr Chalmers was a-head of us-his West Port experiment, if we remember rightly, was not to be complete without its washing-house, baths, and bleaching-green. What we have now urged harmonizes thoroughly with the views of the apostle of home missions.

2. Another thing which we consider well worthy of being pondered in connexion with home missionary enterprise, and the cause of social advancement in general, is the importance of trying to stimulate and strengthen the natural relations of society. The weakening or even superseding of natural ties, and forming artificial ones in their room, is one of the tendencies

of modern society, and one of the temptations of modern benevolence. There is scarcely one of the natural relations which modern systems have not attacked and weakened. As a first example, let us take the relation between proprietors and their dependants. Many properties are now so large and scattered, that, even when they are willing, the proprietors are unable to take a personal oversight of them, or a personal interest in their dependants. Not a few proprietors, besides, are too intent on their pleasures to mind these things. The natural tie, binding proprietors and dependants, is consequently weakened, and all those pleasant feelings and duties which should reciprocate between them lose their stimulus and their strength. An agent takes the proprietor's place, with a head to attend to his rights, but not always a heart to attend to his duties. In large joint-stock companies there is a tendency to a similar evil-no heart to mind the duties of property. Our poor-law system, again, strikes at the natural relation between rich and poor. The end for which Providence ordains unavoidable poverty in a community, is to stimulate the benevolent feelings of the rich, and the grateful feelings of the poor, and so make even poverty a source of moral wealth, and of salutary, genial feeling. Our pocr-law system puts a stop to this. It forces its assessments from the rich without fostering benevolence, and spends them on the poor without implanting gratitude. Its almoners are generally as proverbial for inhumanity, as gravediggers for indifference to the solemnities of death. It is curious, too, to mark how it deals with the most sacred of earthly relations, husband and wife. We observed lately, that at some poor-law board the question was discussed, whether the husband and wife should be together or separate in the workhouse, and our impression is, that it was decided—separate! Then, to weaken the relation between parent and child, we have the hospital system, for which Edinburgh is now so notorious. Really the difference between us and the communists is not so great, after all. By one comprehensive stroke the communists would get rid of many of the relations of na ture, and provide artificial ligaments for society: we are doing the same thing by degrees. It is surely unnecessary to set about proving that nature's ties are preferable to artificial ones. We would as soon think it necessary to prove that the natural structure of our bodies is preferable to bones of gutta-percha, or joints of india-rubber. It follows that the preservation and improvement of society must depend on a vigorous effort to confirm and strengthen the relations of nature, and that this effort must be strong in proportion as the tide is setting in the contrary way. It was partly with a view of fostering a natural relation that we advocated the plan of home missionary operations sketched in our former article, believing that there was more of the natural when the missionary agents of a district belonged to the congregation of the district, than when they belonged to another. But perhaps the bearing of this view upon home missionary work and upon the elevation of the masses, may be rendered more distinct by a short statement of good which we know to have actually attended two cases in which the idea was carried out.

Not long since, a most devoted elder, who holds the office of cashier in an extensive joint-stock ironwork, resolved to institute a prayer meeting, in his house, of heads of families connected with the work.

He went through the work a day or two before, and invited the men to attend. The writer of this paper was asked to be present at the first meeting. It was a delightful autumn evening, when even a congregational prayer-meeting would have been thin, and any ordinary attempt to get up such a meeting as this would have been an utter failure. To our surprise and delight we found the room crowded—about thirty heads of families, several in their working jacketshard-featured sons of Vulcan not a few of them-listening most attentively. The psalmody was hoarse and rough, but there was a moral melody in it that fine voices could not have imparted. We mentioned the circumstance to a neighbouring minister, and soon after he informed us that he had, on a Sabbath evening, opened a similar meeting at the office of one of his elders. This gentleman employs forty-two individuals, men, women, and children; and on the evening in question all were present in the countingroom, to hear the Word of God and join with their employer in prayer. By thus cultivating the relation between employer and employed, what an immensity of good might easily be done, and done at no expense! And surely we have many Christian employers who are quite able and quite willing to take this method of exercising a beneficial influence on the minds and hearts of their people.

And if other natural relations were more cultivated -if the proprietors of dwelling-houses, for example, took more interest in the moral and sanitary condition of their property *—if domestic servants were more attended to by their masters and mistressesand, above all, if parents could be made to feel a deeper responsibility for their children-not only would the painful and expensive efforts of benevolence, struggling through artificial channels, be rendered to a great extent unnecessary, but more good would actually be done, and society would be on a simpler footing and in a healthier state. A larger blessing, too, might be expected on benevolent exertions. When a minister is too busy with his official work to attend to the training of his own childrenwhen a lady is so full of her district as to have no time to instruct or pray with her servants-or when a benevolent gentleman is so engrossed with charitable societies as to leave the whole management of his houses or property to his agent-it is as if the service of the God of nature must be neglected, to pay homage to another god; and the lament of the Song of Solomon is erected into a precedent: "They made me the keeper of the vineyards, but mine own vineyard have I not kept."

3. We are sliding away from what is technically called home missions; but, believing that that term is not misapplied when used with a comprehensive reference to the Christian regeneration of society, we remark further, that it is important to bear in mind that many of the benevolent schemes of the present day are mere patches on old garments-provisional arrangements, into which we have been forced by the pressure of immediate evils, or by the hopelessness of effectually healing the sources or fountains of disorder and suffering. Even ragged schools, with which Mr Guthrie has connected the motto, "Pre

*In connexion with this subject we are glad to observe, that, at a late meeting of the governors of Heriot's Hospital, Mr Gray gave notice of a motion, that the sale of spirits on the property of the Hospital be entirely prohibited. There is very great need for such a resolution. We are acquainted with a district, the property of Heriot's Hospital, where there are four spirit shops to less than forty families, and three of the four open on Sabbaths!

vention is better than cure," are, in reality, but a cure applied at an earlier stage of the disease than former physicians were accustomed to attend to. Very many of our benevolent societies can only be compared to plasters or bandages applied externally to cover or relieve unseemly sores. When a new sore is discovered in the social body, a new society is organized; in other words, a new bandage or plaster is provided for the wound-when a fresh rent is detected in the social garment, a new patch is made to cover it. Most certainly, we would not discourage these exertions of benevolence, provided one thing were attended to: They would have our most hearty support and encouragement if it were clearly understood that they do not supersede, but only render more urgent, the necessity for more comprehensive, searching, and pervading measures of improvement. There is a danger of our becoming so well satisfied with the patchwork as to be blind to the necessity of a new garment. We may be like the Jews, who were so accustomed to the provisional and temporary dispensation, as to oppose most stoutly the permanent and complete one. And when we find it written, that new patches on old garments only make the rents worse-when we find from experience that patchwork is far more expensive in the end than new garments-we have great cause to consider, what comprehensive measures can be carried out with a view to the ultimate superseding of patchwork and temporary reform. Our readers are familiar with the large-hearted and comprehensive schemes of Dr Chalmers-how, in his plan, the gospel of Jesus Christ was to be the great lever for elevating the masses of society-how, to bring the gospel to bear on all, the territorial principle was to be carried out, each district having its church, and schools, and active visiting agency-how the poor were to be attended to through this agency, and the evils of a compulsory poor-law averted-how other agencies of good were to work in subordination to this, the main part of the machinery-how Christian sentiments and genial feelings were to be fostered, and industry, self-respect, and forethought encouraged among the most degraded of the population-how society was to make a mighty advancement, and

"Time run back and fetch the age of gold." We cannot say that, since the removal of our venerated father, we see much appearance of advancement towards the fulfilment of his views. The new poor-law advancing with tremendous strides, and measuring its progress by hundreds of thousands of pounds; the West Port experiment, with all its success, not free from embarrassment in consequence of the apathy of the community; few, if any, new missionary stations arising with any fair hope of permanent success; the Sustentation Fund unable to reach the point at which provision for the extension of the Church was to commence; and the noble and comprehensive educational scheme of the Free Church struggling to subsist on a miserably inadequate income;-these, we confess, are not very hopeful symptoms. On the other hand it is plain, that the improvement of the condition of the masses is rapidly becoming one of the leading questions of the day. Revolutionary movements in other countries, the more their details are understood, are proving the necessity of vigorously grappling with that subject, and are demonstrating, likewise, that paltry patchwork measures will not do. In

parties if they did attend, but that there might be that species of private and individual superintendence by the pastor over the flock that would induce them to go to a place of public worship. Now, it may be perfectly true that, in contemplating the means by which this leading object was to be carried into effect, they did contemplate the establishment of distinct parishes; but to say that that was the object, the main object, they had in view, that which induced the parties to subscribe their money, does seem to me to be confounding the means by which the object was to be carried into effect with the object

itself."

Again

"They have failed, in the first proposition, in showing that the entire separation of the parishes, so as to detach them for sacred purposes from the mother Church, was the leading object of those who met together and subscribed their money. I think they have also entirely failed in establishing the second proposition, to show that the object cannot now be carried into effect."

Lords Brougham and Campbell speak to the same effect. First, The money was subscribed, they say, to give increased church accommodation in connexion with the Establishment. One of the means by which this was to be accomplished was the parochial machinery; but though it turned out that the Church had not the power of applying that instrumentality, the great end may be obtained in another way. But, secondly, it is not impossible that the chapels should be converted into parishes yet, and the conditions be all fulfilled. We have printed in italics the expres sions which show that the judges concede the substance of our premises, that the parochial machinery constituted part of the scheme.

As to the first: Perhaps it was not to be expected that English lawyers should appreciate fully the difference between a chapel of ease and a parish church; but certain it is, that the Scottish Presbyterians, who gave of their substance to build these churches, understood it well. The first printed proposal, issued by Mr Collins, proposing the subscription, contains ample evidence on this point. It is made a condition, without which the money then subscribed was not to be paid, that the act then expected should be passed by the Assembly, converting the chapels into parish churches. It is true, that to make them parish churches was but a means of accomplishing the great end; but it was a means so essential, that, without it, not one of these churches would have been built, or, if built, they would not have been attached to the Establishment. This is well understood in Scotland: we are not aware that any one will venture to deny it. We own, it is difficult to maintain a due measure of patience in dealing with the arguments of the noble lords. This distinction between the leading object and the means of obtaining it, might be employed to break any bargain that ever was made. A man marries a wife, not only of amiable character, but of comely appearance. No one has a right to say that he married her for her nose; but it is true, nevertheless, that if she had wanted the nose he would not have married her. To say that we did not build the churches for the sake of the parochial machinery, is nothing to the purpose, while it can be proved that, without it, we certainly would not have built them. It seems that it is the law, that a contract holds good although one of the contracting parties be found unable to employ the stipulated means of effecting the proposed object, provided only they say they will try to work out the same end as best they can, in another way. We submit to this law; but, we confess, we would like to see it amended by the proper authorities. How

would it be relished if applied to ordinary transactions? Suppose a number of benevolent men, of the generation now passing away, weary of the slow conveyance from one great city to another, in flyboats on a canal, which regularly ran at the rate of three and a half miles an hour, not including stoppages suppose these benevolent men to form a society, and raise money, for the purpose of building boats for the accommodation of the public. They build twenty good boats, and fit them up with steamengines and paddles, so that they are capable of running ten miles an hour. Finding an old corporation plying the fly-boats on the canal, and enjoying certain rights and immunities from the proprietors, the society enter into a contract by which the boats are handed over to that corporation, on condition that they shall work them for the benefit of the public, the express reason given on all the intercourse for the whole enterprise being, that boats propelled by steam would be a greater boon to the community. Soon after the new corporation have put the new boats on the route, the canal proprietors raise an action against them, and prohibit them from using steam-engines on the canal, on the ground that the banks were injured by the swell. The corporation unship the engines and paddles, and, finding the boats to be superior craft, call out the old horses, and begin to ply at the three-and-a-half mile rate as before. The society object to this. The corporation answer, "We were willing to continue to propel by steam, but the courts of law found we had no power." The society reply, "We do not blame you on that ground, but, since you cannot keep the bargain, give us back our boats." "No," say the corporation, "we are trustees; we must hold the property. It is bound to us in the deed." "Yes," the society reply, "the boats are bound to you, but on condition that you propel them by steam-engines." Well, the case goes into court; and, in giving judgment on appeal, a noble lord remarks-" The main object which the boat-building society had in view was, not to set up steam-engines on the canal, but to accommodate the public. True, they contemplated the engines as the means of effecting their object. The corporation in possession of the boats have not been able to employ that means, but the end may be accomplished in another way. See how smoothly they glide along, drawn by two horses." The decision of the judge is sacred; but the reasoning of the lawyer is not particularly strong.

As to the second point in the argument of the noble lords, viz., that the chapels in the hands of the Establishment may yet be made parish churches by law, and so the conditions be fulfilled, we have just to remind our readers that, before they can go into the Court of Teinds even to apply for the erection of any chapel into a parish church, they must endow it in perpetuity to the extent of £120 a-year; and, in sober sadness we say it, that no man who knows the Residuary Establishment will be inclined to class these endowments among things possible. If they could get the endowment from the public purse they would take it; but they will not take it out of their own. We concede that they could contribute sufficient endowments, but we affirm confidently that they will not; and if any one demand our reasons, we are prepared to give them. We shall give a specimen of them now.

If the members of the Establishment wince under the facts we are about to state, they have to thank the judges who, on their behalf, affirmed