The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1868-07-11 00:00:00

MR. SPURGEON AND THE BISHOP
OF OXFORD.

The following letter, from Mr. Spurgeon, appeared in The
Times ot Saturday last:—

I have asserted frequently the superiority of the '
Voluntary minciple to that of State support in the I
matter of religion, and I have also at other times la- '
mented the poverty of many ministers whose stipends
are subscribed upon the system which I prefer. The
two things appear to me to be quite consistent, but
several of the newspapers judge otherwise, and one or
two of them have printed my two statements in
parallel columns, as if they contained a self-evident t
contradiction. The Bishop of Oxford was evidently
much amused with the now well-worn paragraph, and, I
being in a facetious vem, felt moved to read quotations
from my two letters for the delectation of the Peers of
the realm. lam happy to have afforded some little
mirth to the grave and reverend bishop, and would
willingly share in it, but lam quits unable to see the ,
point of the joke. Perhaps a parallel case may ,
render my obtuseness less remarkable. If the Bishop
of Oxford, after having, in such a becoming manner,
with such solid reasoning, defended the union of Church
and State, should nevertheless be found at some future ,
day pleading for starving curates, or even preaching ,
for the excellent society which relieves distressed
clerks in Holy Orders with pecuniary grants and
bundles of cast-off clothing, or if we should hear him
deploring that a clergyman should, according to adver-
tisement in the Bork, be subsisting upon buttermilk
and potatoes, would his lordship be charged with in-
consistency, and would it be commendable for some ,
humorous member of the venerable Bench, in tones of
mimicry, to make him the subject of public ridicule?
The case is precisely parallel to mine, but if there were
any fun in it it would surely lie in the fully of the
person who should imagine the non-existent incon-
sistency. The poverty it of some Dissenting ministers is
only an argument against the voluntary' principle as
far as the extreme distress of a considerable number of
the Anglican clergy is an argument against State
support. The painful evil of clerical poverty exists
under both forms of maintenance, and it ought
not to be made the ground of mutual attack or
recrimination, but should be deeply deplored and
manfully grappled with. From reasons not essential
to either system a great evil wises ; a zealous
emulation as to which shall sooner rid itself of
the mischief would be most honourable, but to
twit each other with sorrows is 'as unwise as it is un-
generous. Every man who speaks freely what he be-
lieves, and follows truth with a confident unreeerve,
will be open to the charge of inconsistency, and yet
there will be only an apparent ground for the accusa-
tion. Such, lam sure, is the fact in this case. If I
advocate the Voluntary system, must I shut my eyes
to its failures, or be impeached for folly? Must I
defend its working, as absolute perfection, or else be
grossly unreasonable in preferring it? If I point out
its shortcomings in order to amend them, am I self-
convicted of inconsistency? It may seem as to the
Bishop of Oxford, but I claim the right to differ from
him without being ridiculous. One illustration, and
I will not further occupy your space. Suppose that
two farms in Ireland are put in comparison. I declare
my preference for No. 2, and yet regret that it is much
depreciated in value by a piece of incorrigible
bog. A gentleman who vehemently advocates
the superiority of farm No. 1, hearing my two
statements, resolves to make me his laughing-stock
at the next agricultural dinner, and being in the
full swing of his oratory exclaims, "This Mr.
Spurgeon, to whom usume people look up so much, has
spoken in a certain letter most glowingly of the farm
which he is weak enough to admire, and yet I will read
to you from a document in which he admits that there
is a horrible and irreclaimable bog upon it. Ladies
and gentlemen, the absurdity is manifest even to the
blind ; but shiat a prospect is before you if his judgment
is followed ! What say you to universal quagmires?
flow would you feel if your homesteads and estates
were all turned into quivering morasses, and if the tine
propoty of his lordship in the chair should be trans-
formed into a vast Slough of Despond?" In from
uncivilised rural nook there may hen benighted popula-
tion sufficiently moonstruck to admire the logic and
applaud the humour of ouch observations; but even
with so congenial an audience the acclamations would
soon be silenced when the conveniently forgetful
orator Was reminded that his own favourite farm, about
which he could not utter sufficient laudation, was
afflicted with a bog equally bottomless with that which
, he so much decried. It is probable that our imaginary
, orator would scarcely have sense enough to wish that
, he had not spoken u in this only does his case differ
from that of Mi. Samirel Wilberforce.