SIR,-Among other causes which have led to secession from the church, the injustice done to the poor in the distribution of church seats is one of the most obvious. Before the Reformation, the whole area without the cancelli, or skreen, was used by parishioners of all ranks. Every one had access to long, low seats, which were open at both ends, without any other distinction of persons than was wanting to promote good order among the whole congregation. Private aisles for the lord of the manor, or some other principal landholder, sometimes formed exceptions to the general rule; and these, it may be presumed, were appurtenant to their mansions, solely because they were built at their entire charge. In a few parishes this arrangement exists at the present time; but many more, within my recollection, bore similar proofs of the general principle on which the great body of the people had equal claim to every other part of the church. It is, then, with serious alarm that I have witnessed the effects of a very injurious system that has long prevailed in a part of the kingdom with which I am (officially) connected. In the extensive district to which I allude, there are few parishes where the lower classes have not, in this way, had fair ground for complaint. For open seats have been substituted large square or oblong pews, which, for the most part, have been exclusively appointed to the richer inhabitants, whilst the labouring classes, too poor to appeal in form to the ordinary, and hopeless of redress from the churchwardens, have either reluctantly acquiesced in an arrangement that has driven them to benches in the aisles-to dark and dirty corners in remote parts of the church, or, justly offended at being displaced, they have turned to the meetinghouse. It may be said that this is an abuse of power; that the law does not allow it; that the highest ecclesiastical authorities have held that every inhabitant has a right to a sitting in his parish church; that when this is not sufficient for the accommodation of all, the churchwardens are bound to enlarge it. This may be all true, but how is it to be enforced by the aggrieved parties? To them such a principle of law is a dead letter. The evil calls loudly for redress; and, if authority to correct be not vested in our ecclesiastical superiors, their hands should be strengthened by the legislature. Objectionable as it was, on many accounts, had Lord Althorp's Church Repair Bill passed into a law, the plausible pretexts by which this particular abuse has been supported would have fallen to the ground. The repair and maintenance of the fabric would have become a national charge; no one could then have said, "I am entitled to more accommodation than my neighbour;" and I am persuaded it would have led, at no distant period, to throwing open the whole body of our churches to the parishioners-to restoring to all classes their equal right of access to the house of God. Had more Haggen's Consistory Reports, p. 194: Gruer and Wright v. Rector of Hornsey. accommodation been required for the richer portion of the community than this plan would have given them, where would have been the hardship of their being obliged to provide it at their own cost? In advocating these popular rights, I am sure I am recommending a (bit of church) reform that would carry with it immediate and intelligible benefits-such as would tend most materially to the increase of religion, and restore much of the good feeling by which the bands of society are strengthened. F. TESTIMONY TO WATERLAND. SIR,—There are, I presume, none of your readers who have not heard persons of liberal sentiments declaiming against orthodox bigotry and intolerance, and few perhaps who have not heard the name of Waterland given as a most decisive instance. At least, if he be not quoted, it is not the fault of his two celebrated cotemporaries, Middleton and Pope, who triumphed over the dead lion for his having refused, in his last journey from Cambridge to London, not, as it is alleged, without some expressions of irritation, the assistance of a medical gentleman, who wanted to compliment him as the author of the "Divine Legation of Moses." Mr. Pope, speaking of this "instructive story," as he calls it, says in a letter to Warburton, his informant, "I am sorry he had so much of the modern Christian rancour, as I believe he may be convinced by this time [about six weeks after the man's death] that the kingdom of heaven is not for such."-(Bowles's Edition, vol. ix. p. 381; or Van Mildert's Works of Waterland, vol. i. p. 325.) It may not be amiss then to lay before your readers the testimony of Samuel Crellius. He was, if I err not, the nephew, certainly of the family of John Crellius, who stands eminent among the Fratres Poloni; and Samuel yielded not to him in learning or zeal. The reader then can hardly need to be told that he would exult in what he considered the certain prospect of delivering St. John from the disgrace of having called three witnesses to prove that his Master was "the only begotten Son, before he cited three others to prove that he was sent into the world to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John iv. 9, 10.) Waterland had received very flattering compliments for his alleged joining in this scheme; but he had as decidedly declined that honour, as he did afterwards what was designed for him by the Hodsden Doctor, so as to draw down the celebrated sarcasm of Mr. Porson on "the excellent Dr. Waterland." (Letters, p. 20, note.) But this was not the only favour that Samuel Crellius intended for St. John. He published a thick octavo to clear the apostle from having said that the Word [the second of the heavenly witnesses] was God. Such was the man who writes in the following manner to La Croze : "I became acquainted with only four divines of the church of Eng land during my stay in that country, as I was very much engaged in bringing out my book. These were Bennet; Reading, who had the management of the library of Sion College, to which I was a frequent visitor; Venn, the minister of the parish in which I resided thirteen months; and the celebrated Daniel Waterland himself, the chief defender of Athanasianism among them. If we may form a judgment of the other orthodox divines in England from these four, you would find but very few indeed any where else in the whole world so affable and courteous to the heterodox. Venn introduced me to Waterland, when we had some amicable conversation at his house, which lasted four hours; and he kept me to supper. When I went to take leave of him at my quitting England, though he had then read over my book, he received me with the same, if not greater, politeness. He spoke to more than one of his friends of my book without shewing any displeasure, and declared, notwithstanding the disagreement there must be between us on the principal subject of it, that there were several other discussions in it, of which he thought very highly, that made him desirous of seeing published what I had there intimated that I had by me. He added that I had acted very properly in bringing forward such subjects in Latin for the examination of the learned. If,' said he, 'Dr. Samuel Clarke had published his book on the Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity in the Latin language also, he would not have given such offence to the clergy of England.' He requested me, if I should ever return to England, to pay him a visit. And thus, after we had mutually offered a prayer for each other's welfare in all respects, I took my leave of him." We may be assured that this was not mere common-place civility, for the Unitarian immediately adds, "This is not the way in which Photinus, much less Arius, would have taken leave of Athanasius." The original will be found in the Thesaurus Epistolicus Lacrozianus, i. ep. 84, p. 104. FRANCIS HUYSHE. CHURCH OF IRELAND. SIR,-In a former letter, inserted in your Number for the present month (January), I laid before your readers the result (so far as it was then completed) of the survey which is now being made of the property of the Irish church, with the view of ascertaining the proportion in which the different religious denominations contribute towards it. Since that letter was written, returns have been sent in from a great many more parishes, and I am now enabled to exhibit the condition, in these respects, of 467 parishes in Ireland. Those parishes contain, collectively, 4,154,102 acres 1 rood and 11 poles of land; and the gross amount of tithe-composition which is levied from them, is 166,6611. 6s. 24d. Now, observe the proportion in which these acres are divided between protestant and Roman catholics, and also the amount of tithe composition which is paid by the adherents of the two religious persuasions respectively: Acres. Land of which the proprietor or chief lessor is protestant... 3,985,253 Amount of tithe composition paid by protestant landlords ditto From this table it is evident-first, that of the land in these 467 parishes, (which I believe will be found to constitute about two-fifths of the whole of Ireland,) that portion which belongs to Roman catholics is little more than one-twenty-fourth part of that which belongs to protestants; and, secondly, that the amount of tithe composition paid by Roman catholic proprietors is little more than one-thirty-second part of that which is paid by protestants. And what are the general inferences which we are enabled to deduce from these two propositions with respect to the established church in Ireland? If the result of the whole survey, when it shall have been completed, shall correspond (as there is every reason to think that it will) with the expectations which these returns naturally lead us to form, it will be obvious, first, that the established religion of Ireland, which is so often represented as the religion of a very small fraction of the people, is, nevertheless, the religion of a very large majority of the proprietary of the country, while the Roman catholic is the religion of a mere fraction of that proprietary; and, secondly, that the established clergy, instead of being paid and supported (as it is so often asserted that they are) by the Roman catholics, derive almost the whole of their income from the property of pro testants. Other inferences are deducible from the above returns, to which, although they are far from being unimportant, I will not now particularly advert. In the meantime I trust, Sir, that you will agree with me, that the returns themselves cannot be too soon laid before the public. There is no topic in which the people of England require more to be informed, than respecting the real circumstances of the established church in Ireland, of which many of them, who can yet talk (and that too in public) on the subject, know about as much as they do of the church of Japan. Let accurate information, however, be diffused amongst them, (and the greatest pains I believe have been taken to render these returns as accurate as possible,) and they will cease to be any longer misled either by the mis-statements of interested and hireling agitators, or by the misrepresentations of those who are made the dupes of such agitators, and whose highest ambition it seems to be, to be subservient to their purposes, and to acquire an ephemeral notoriety by speaking on subjects on which they have not taken ordinary pains to inform themselves. I have the honour to be, Sir, Your obedient servant, A. B. C. Jan. 16th, 1835. NATIONAL SCHOOLS. SIR,-It is a common observation, that the benefit which might reasonably have been expected from national schools has not been obtained from them; and it seems to be a matter of the greatest importance to know, first, why a reasonable benefit has not been obtained from national schools; and, secondly, how they may be conducted so as to ensure, as far as human means can ensure, that improvement in the minds and manners of the scholars which the founders and supporters of these schools are justified by reason in expecting from them. The answer to the first question, "Why has not that improvement in the manners of the scholars been obtained which it was supposed would have been produced by national schools?" is plain and easily given. The masters of these schools have not been what they ought to have been, not so much in regard to their moral character as to their ability to teach; and those who have had the appointment and, in a certain degree, the direction of those masters have not themselves had a clear and distinct idea of the means proper and necessary to be used to obtain that improvement which they had hoped to see in the scholars. To the second question, "How may national schools be conducted so as to produce, under God's blessing, the proper effects on the minds of the children in those schools?" the answer is equally easy. Provide a proper master, and then do not unnecessarily interfere with him in his school. But there are no proper masters to be had. Then let clergymen (who ought to have the superintendence of the national schools) make each for his own school a proper master. But how are these masters to be made? In the answer to this question lies all the difficulty; and, to the best of my ability, I answer as follows: But, first, let me say that the making a schoolmaster is an undertaking requiring great self-denial, patience, and constancy; it is sure to cause anxiety, and very probably disappointment: but, at the same time, the good effects produced on the mind of the person who endeavours by proper means to make a schoolmaster, will more than recompense him for his labour. It is also an undertaking which, above every other, cannot be done in a hurry, but requires a length of time to bring it to a moderate degree of excellence. age; Let, then, the clergyman who wishes to have a proper person for his national schoolmaster, choose out of his own neighbourhood four or five young men of from eighteen to twenty-two years of let them meet him, at a fixed hour, five days in the week, for about an hour at one time. For the first six months, let the clergyman himself teach them the first five chapters of Genesis* for half-an-hour each day, and the Creed and the Lord's Prayer for the other half-hour. And for the next six months, let him teach the next six chapters I say Genesis because children cannot be taught the New Testament to advan tage till they have read Genesis. |
