THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN

ENGLAND.

"I BELIEVE," said Merle D'Aubigné, at the Presbyterian breakfast given him last month in London, "I believe that the Presbyterian Church has a mission in England." This is a belief we have entertained for years-a belief withal, which has sustained us under trials when our friends were fewer and farther between, and cheered us onwards to exertions when our hopes were fainter and feebler in the good providence of God, they are a belief, moreover, which we have taken, and will continue to take, every opportunity of inculcating upon our friends.

than now,

One great element of success in any enterprise is to feel that God has sent us where we are; that he has allotted us our work, and given us well-grounded hopes of success. In the ministry what a comfort it is to be able to apply to one's self the passage, "No one taketh to himself this office but he who has been ordained as Aaron was." And how many perplexing questions are solved, doubts hushed, and hopes enkindled, when one can firmly believe that we have not rushed into the warfare unsent, and that he who has sent us into the field will himself bear our charges and ensure our ultimate triumph! Courage kindles at the thought; hope glows at the prospect. We have only to do our duty in the strength of the Lord, and our success is certain. We believe then-most firmly believe, with most unfaltering faith, that God has assigned a mission to the Presbyterian Church in England.

In the present divided state of the Church of Christ, it unfortunately happens that one cannot praise his own system but he is immediately suspected of depreciating the systems of others; nor advocate the interests of his own communion, or rather the interests of truth in connexion with the extension of his own Church, but he is forthwith accused of attempting

ib. ib.

to proselytize the members of other denominations; and the consequence is, what might be anticipated from poor fallen human nature, that sectarian rivalry and angry passions are excited against him and the cause he advocates. Now, while we totally and from our heart disclaim all sectarian rivalry with our brethren of other denominations; while we would deplore all attempts at proselytism for mere Presbyterian purposes, and heartily desire to cultivate the most brotherly feelings, and live on the most amicable terms with all who love the truth and hold the Head, which is Christ, we yet must be permitted to repeat, that of nothing are we more certain than that the Presbyterian Church has a mission in England.

This belief is founded upon a variety of reasons, greater in number than can be even alluded to in this paper, but some of which may be mentioned.

1st. This is an age of inquiry, reorganization, and revival. Every denomination appears anxious to reconstruct its system after the most approved models. "Men run to and fro, and knowledge is increased." Systems are analyzed to their component elements. Principles and facts-in other words, philosophy and history-are mutually employed to test one another's decisions. It is an eclectic age. Every denomination is falling back upon its historic, primary, and distinctive elements; but, at the same time, adopting from others such portions of their machinery as may complete the system, without, however, violating its own fundamental principles. Such being the character of the age, is it not proper that England should have an opportunity of witnessing in living, active operation, a system-Presbyterianism-which all the Reformers, with hardly an exception, regarded as primitive, apostolic, and scriptural, which for three centuries has secured the undivided and enthusiastic affection of Scotland, is enshrined in the heart and embalmed in the memory of

that country, and which, by the admission of all, has made it what it is; a system which is identified with the peace, the religion, and the Protestantism of Ireland; which is synonymous with the Reformation itself throughout all the kingdoms of the Continent and almost throughout the world; which at one time overspread the whole of England, and is still indissolubly associated with the glory of its Puritanism; which preserved the light of truth in the valleys of Piedmont, when darkness covered the rest of the earth, and thick darkness the people; and which, in fine, can number a greater and more glorious host of martyrs than any other system, yea, than all other systems that ever appeared on earth? Surely the Presbyterian Church, which embodies that system, has a mission in England.

But secondly, Presbyterianism is associated with certain great principles, which ought to be presented to the English mind.

(1.) Its creed is Calvinistic. There is, it is true, apparently, no necessary connexion between Presbyterianism and Calvinism. Still they have been always associated; and, account for it as we may, Presbyterianism is the only form of Church government, that has uniformly allied itself with Calvinistic doctrines. Presbyterians, then, stand out distinctly before the world as avowed Calvinists; still subscribing, in all their integrity, the Westminster Confession of Faith, the revered symbol of English Puritanism, Irish Protestantism, and Scottish piety; a creed, which, however, much it may be spoken against by those who know it not, is at once the most philosophic and scriptural, and the most civilizing and sanctifying, the Church of Christ has yet possessed. And with such a creed in her hand, has not the Presbyterian Church a mission in England?

(2.) The Presbyterian Church while maintaining, that it is the duty of the State to endow the Church, asserts, at the same time, the Church's absolute inde

London not even the one-tenth of the inhabitants statedly attend any place of worship. Is there not a call, then, trumpet-tongued, to all who honour their God or love their species, to rouse them to redoubled exertions? And are we to be accused of bigotry or sectarianism when we aver and repeat that the Presbyterian Church has a mission in England? Our only desire is that souls may be saved. We come to the help of our brethren of other denominations who are fainting under the heat and burden of the day. We unfurl another banner, it is true, but it is on the side of truth. We come as auxiliaries into the field. Our study shall be to keep the unity of the spirit in the bonds of peace with all that love the Lord. Our triumphs shall be theirs also. In their success we shall rejoice as it redounds to the glory of our common Master. And is not the land wide enough for us all? Have we not enemies enough to encounter, work enough to perform, without drawing our swords against one another? Among the thousands who prefer her forms, among the millions who need her services, has not the Presbyterian Church a mission in England?

We have already said that it is our most anxious desire to cultivate the most amicable relations with all that love the Lord Jesus. No difference in rites or polity will we suffer to interfere with the unity of spirit and co-operation of action which ought to characterize the subjects of the kingdom of heaven. Our only warfare, and that without concession, compromise, or truce, will be with sin, whether doctrinal or practical. Still we wish our members to know, and to appreciate their own peculiar privileges, to love and to admire their own Church, to apprehend and realize the responsibilities of their position, and the glories of their ecclesiastical prospects. We have been hitherto too cautious, supine, timid. May we henceforward be found worthy of our Covenanting and Puritan ancestry, and of the cause committed to our trust! MANSE BUILDING SCHEME.-ENERGY AND LIBERALITY OF THE FREE

CHURCH.

THE Free Church has introduced a new era into ecclesiastical matters; she has revolutionized our old established order of things, and rendered obsolete our venerable antiquarian ideas. What Napoleon did for military tactics, that the Free Church has done for ecclesiastical economics. There is a unity, energy, celerity, and boldness in all her measures and all her movements, that must sorely puzzle and offend all the admirers of the wisdom of our ancestors, and the advocates of things as they are. But what are these antiquarian conservatives to make of the success that attends all her plans? That is the sorest puzzle of all, and the most offensive, as it demonstrates

the scientific accuracy of the modern | purchased a site, and has in hand upwards system. Never have too many irons in of 30,000l. for the erection of a college. the fire, said our prudent grandfathers to She has increased the number of her their vivacious sons. You cannot have foreign missionaries; has added about a too many, says the Free Church; "poker, third to her congregations; has supported tongs and all, keep them all going." all her missionaries and ministers from You will offend the people, says a her own resources; has expended altocanny moderate, if you ask them too gether upwards of 700,000l.; has funds often for money. You never can ask in hand to meet any unforeseen emerthem too often, answers the Free Church gency; and has machinery in operation man; "the cow that is seldom milked not only to meet her enormous annual ceases to yield." Limit your enterprises demands, but even to increase her by your resources, interposes a prudent finances to an extent which no man, friend; right, but I shall first summon however bold, would at this moment dare forth all my resources, responds the to estimate. The whole thing appears energetic financier. "Finish one thing more like a dream than a reality. before you begin another," says an admirer of "old saws and antiquated instances." But, says the advocate of the modern system, while I finish one thing with one hand, the other must not be idle. No part of my capital must lie unproductive in my coffers. My forces must be all in active service in the field. I will, as you recommend, finish the one thing, but I will at the same time carry on the other, and that, too, with increased facility and more assured success.

The success that has crowned all the efforts of the Free Church makes nothing appear impossible. She has only to will a thing, as Dr. Candlish once expressed it, and the thing is accomplished. Nor does she remain satisfied with a victorythat only opens up a richer harvest to her ambition. Every successful enterprise only emboldens her to further exertions: and she owes her triumphs not less to this persevering prosecution of her schemes than to the wise counsels that first devised them.

Who that remembers the condition and prospects of the Free Church at the disruption, could anticipate that she would, in the short space of two years, occupy her present position? Without a farthing in her coffers, and no machinery for supplying them, she had to build five hundred churches and five hundred schools, and found a theological college, and to support some seven hundred missionaries, professors, and ministers. Without experience in ecclesiastical economics, with habits all formed in the school of Establishments, in the face of the persecution of the great, and with only the support of the middle classes of a poor country, without organization or machinery, she was required at once to solve problems in ecclesiastical finance hitherto deemed inexplicable, and perform feats in ecclesiastical economics never previously attempted, and apparently impossible. And yet she has succeeded in all her enterprises to a degree which not only rebukes the calculations of the timid, but outstrips even the anticipations of the most sanguine. She has erected five hundred churches, some of them like cathedrals, and all free of debt. She has five hundred schoolhouses in process of erection. She has

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But the Free Church is not satisfied with this success. She yet wants one thing to render her institutions complete. Her ministers have no manses. want must be supplied; and, taking counsel only from her own faith, undeterred by the maxims of prudent, feeble policy, she resolves that every minister shall have a manse and garden; and the thing is done. We say the thing is done; for although it was commenced only last month, the success that has attended it puts failure altogether out of the question. Glasgow in three days contributed 13,000l.; and the amount by this time is little short, we understand, of 20,000l. The deputation went to Rothsay, we believe, on a Saturday. Next day a new church was opened, and the collection to pay off the remaining debt upon the building, amounted to upwards of 7007.

After such a collection, in a small town too without manufactures or any other source of commercial wealth, were the deputation to make an appeal, at least at that very time, for the manse scheme? Oh, said a timid friend, or would have said, we are sure had the thing happened in England, the people's finances are exhausted as well as their disposition to give. Do not, at least at the present, press upon them for more. Depend upon it, I know them well, you will not only be disappointed, but you will offend them. Take my advice, come back some six months hence, and then-perhaps then you may get a few hundreds. Mr. Guthrie's patience was sorely tried while listening to this harangue. He knew the people too. He knew what human nature, when sanctified by grace, is capable of achieving, and he determined to take his own way of it; and his own way he took. A public breakfast of the friends of the Church was announced. Mr. Guthrie made his spirit-stirring appeal in favour of the poor country ministers. He told in his own strains, now melting into the tenderest pathos, now flashing with the most scathing indignation, the miseries they had suffered at the hands of their ruthless persecutors. He painted the hovels in which they endured a living martyrdom, terminating in several instances in premature death, all necessarily

But this is not the only difficulty that a Central Fund has to grapple with. The selfishness of human nature, and the temptation to throw our own burdens on the shoulders of our neighbours, have here full scope for their exercise. The idle, the parsimonious, the selfish, will give as little, and take as much as they possibly can, and thus the dronish congregations will live on the resources, and so cripple the energies, of the active and liberal. This is felt and complained of even in Scotland, and threatens to ruin, or at least to modify, the principles of the Sustentation Fund. But we think this evil may be counteracted. Let there be a graduated scale by which each congregation receives out of the Central Fund a sum proportioned to what they pay into it. This, indeed, destroys the principle of the Scottish Sustentation Fund, for it makes what is there termed the Supplemental to be the basis, or at least the measure, of the grants from the Central Fund. Still, however, this plan would compel every congregation to contribute a due proportion, and that is the only difficulty that we have at this moment before us.

But could a general Sustentation Fund be made compulsory on all our congregations? Most assuredly, with the modifications already stated. Let our present ministers receive all they have hitherto enjoyed. Let our trustees pay their own ministers all they have stipulated in their bonds or trust-deeds, and let the surplus be paid into the Central Fund, and then let new terms be entered into with all succeeding incumbents. We can see no objections to this plan. And, as to our having the power to make such a general law for the management of our Churches, this no man who knows Presbyterianism will ever question. Those who would refuse to concur could be easily dealt with.

It will be seen, from the spirit of these remarks, that we are rather in favour of a modified Central Sustentation Fund, from which each congregation receives in proportion to what it pays. We are aware, however, that some of our most judicious members seem to prefer a Supplemental Fund. We may, therefore, take the liberty of offering some observations on that scheme.

By a Supplemental Fund, we mean a fund contributed by our wealthier congregations, out of which a sum, regulated according to circumstances, would be paid over to the poorer congregations to supplement their own contributions for the maintenance of Gospel ordinances among them. Now there are several objections to such a fund, as compared with a Central Sustentation Fund. Some of these objections are self-evident, and need only be alluded to.

1st. It would need a machinery as cumbrous and complicated as the other. On this score, therefore, it can claim no advantage.

2d. The great objection to a Central Sustentation Fund is, that it cripples local efforts by leading congregations to slacken their own exertions through trusting to the efforts of others. But if a Central Fund deprives of motives to local exertions, so does a Supplemental Fund to at least as great an extent. And if it be replied that local efforts could be stimulated in connexion with a Supplemental Fund, by paying over to each congregation only in proportion to what they supplied, the same advantage could be secured, as has already been shown, by introducing the same principle of proportion into the Central Sustentation Fund. As little, then on this score can a supplemental claim any advantage over a Central Fund.

But, 3d, a Supplemental Fund can never amount to the same sum with a Central Fund. Wealthier congregations, who derive no advantage from it, cannot be expected to contribute as liberally as if they were themselves to receive part of the proceeds.

5th. A Supplemental Fund would destroy the unity which ought to exist in our Church, while a Central Fund would knit us together into living and felt oneness. All would feel their mutual dependence on one another, by all being paid in common, by certain proportions, out of one

6th. A Supplemental Fund could never extend our Church over the length and breadth of the land, which could be easily done by a Central Fund. A few individuals in a wealthy town, having a Central Fund to back them, could easily be induced to commence local efforts to establish a mission, soon to assume the consolidation of a Church. But if they were told that before receiving aid they must prove that they had exhausted their own resources, it can be easily seen how their spirits must be damped. The very fact that there was a Central Fund to aid them would encourage congregations to start up on every hand. The knowledge also that if their contributions were falling off, the causes would be enquired into, would stimulate them to. increased exertions, and thus the Central Fund would, though indirectly, yet most powerfully advantage the spiritual interests of each congregation.

7th. A Central Fund would encourage the members of other Churches to join us. Those who have been in England for years are aware that the endowments of the Scottish Church tended strongly to prevent her ministers and probationers from accepting cures in England, and though it may not be so well known, yet it is no less true, that the Sustentation Fund of the Free Church, and the Regium Donum of the Irish, operate powerfully in the same directions. Ministers of other denominations in England also who are disposed to join us, would be encouraged by knowing that they would not be left dependent upon the mere voluntary contributions of their own individual congregations. To meet all these exigencies we must have a Central Sustentation Fund.

8th. We must make some permanent provision for our aged and disabled ministers. Nature and grace, brotherly love and Christian duty, demand this at our hands. Our ministers cannot save money. If they can keep out of debt it is to the credit of many of them. And when laid aside by age or sickness, what are they, and those dearer to, them than their own selves, to do? If any reply, Turn them out, and put another minister in their place were that man in our congregation, we would turn him out of the communion of the Church, as he too manifestly proved himself destitute, not only of the spirit of Christianity, but