The Sun.
London, England, 1835-01-24 00:00:00

EXTRACT FROM THE TABLES :-

Age. One Year. Seven Yeard Whole Term of Life.
Premium. Premium. AnnAnn ual I,2rueamrcieurml y 1-11,
ra
el f,..nyieuamr
PAr
eniziam.l
16 15 2 £Ol6 9 £0 7 3 £011• 4 .£1 S 4
1.11 017 4 018 0 0711 • 015 9 11l 2
80 1 1 3 1 2 1 0 10 2 I 1) 2 1 19 10
40146162013 9 1 7 4 2 13 9
50 1 13 5 1 19 0 1 0 4 2 0 4 3 l9 3

A Board of Directors meet daily, by whom Policies can be ef-
fected in a few hours: Premiums may be paid quarterly or half-
yearly. References and personal attendance unnecessary when the
medical reports are satisfactory. Distinct tables, at very moderate
rates, for all climates, including sea risk, for military and naval
officers, and for persons afflicted with disorders not attended with
immediate danger to life.

S. BARRETT, Resident Director.

CHURCH REFORM.

The end to be proposed in any plan of Church Reform,
must be the extension of the means of religious instruction
and consolation to the whole people.: The only "means by
which this end can be accomplished, humanely speaking, is
the providing an efficient minister for every parish in the king-
dom ; and, in the use of the word parish, we rather mean
what parishes ought to be, than what many are. By every
parish in the kingdom, we mean every district, be it great or
small, the spiritual wants of the population of which a minister
can supply. The providing of a resident, accessible, and effi-
cient religious teacher for every family in England and Wales,
whether those families are congregated in manufacturing
towns, or dispersed through agricultural districts, must be the
cardinal object of every really useful Church Reform • and we
can safely say that it is the cardinal object of the Plan now
under consideration with Ministers.
When the frame-work of the Church of England was laid,
our ancestors knew little of manufactures, or of great towns.
Nearly two centuries after the Reformation, Sir William
Petty was deemed a visionary, for predicting that the city
of London would, at about the time in which we live, con-
tain a population of millions. London was, in Sir William
Petty's day, almost the sole seat of commerce and manufac-
tures in the island: the growth of Manchester, Birming-
ham, Liverpool, Leeds, and those other great towns in
the north-west, which have almost converted a fourth of the
kingdom into a continuous city, was not dreamed of by
ally one. Yet, notwithstanding these prodigious drains of
commerce and population— notwithstanding the great colonial
efflux of the last century and a half, London does now contain
nearly its millions. Why do we mention these things ? To
show how little they who laid the frame-work of the temporal
Church, could have anticipated the present statistical condi-
tion of the country, and as a consequence, how much is neces-
sary to be done in reforming that frame-work, in order to adapt
the religious establishment to the actual position of the peo-
ple. It is a great mistake to suppose that dissent has ex-
tended in consequence of any growing dislike to the doctrines
of the establishment, or even of its discipline or order. It is
the inadequacy of the present constitution of the Church to
afford religious instruction and consolation to all, which has
swollen the number of Dissenters to its present amount. In
the manufacturing districts, more particularly, the population
has long outgrown, in an enormous degree, the available
means of Church instruction. In such a town as Manchester
a generation grows up almost without the power of once dur-
ing their lives setting foot within a Church door I Unfor-
tunately, persons so reared are not likely to originate of them-
selves a plan of religious instruction : for it is ever the ease
that the men who most need such teaching are most indif-
ferent about it. Happily, however, and a happy circumstance
it is, in such a case, with whatever inconveniences it may be at-
tended—happily the principle of Dissent interposes to save
this manufacturing population from being left without any re-
ligious knowledge. In the district abdicated by the Church
the Dissenting minister rears his chapel. His object may be
sometimes pious, and we fondly hope it is in the majority of
cases, and sometimes sordid. Sometimes he may be friendly
to the Church, sometimes an enemy ; but in every case, the
Christian will rejoice with the Apostle, that whether with good
will, or of " envy and strife, the Gospel is preached." Hun-
dreds of the best Churchmen in the country are thus found
promoting and protecting the increase of Dissenting worship,
not because it is Dissenting, but because it is a substantially
Christian worship, where before there was none.
The multitudes in our manufacturing districts, who receive
their first religious impressions from Dissenters, necessarily
retain them, with all their peculiarities of creed, and of notions
of discipline through after-life, whithersoever they may re-
move : the manufacturing districts consequently supply a pe-
rennial fountain of Dissent for the whole island. One of the
leading provisions of the plan under contemplation will be di-
rected, we have reason to believe, to affording an ample sup-
ply of religious instruction in the Church, to all the manufac-
turing districts.
So much for what we consider, and what, we doubt not, the
country will consider, the cardinal object of the proposed re-
form—the providing adequate religious instruction for the
whole population, by the residence of an efficient minister in
every parish or district. This is an object which cannot be
accomplished without involving extensive changes. An effi-
cient minister cannot be had, nor, indeed, whatever his pious
and self-denying position, cannot maintain his efficiency with-
out a competent income. It was well said, long ago, that
"scandalous livings would produce scandalous ministers ;" and
the reform which should merely provide 10,000 or 16,000 mi-
nisters, or whatever the numbers, without securing these
teachers from want or dependence, would ill deserve the name ;
it would destroy the efficiency of the Church where it is effi-
cient, without supplying its inadequacies in any case. But
how is a considerably increased number of ministers to be pro-
vided for, without 'violating existing interests, and, of course,
existing interests must be protected from violation ; for a
Church reform, involving robbery, would inflict more moral
evil by its example than could ever be repaired by its arrange-
ments ? The first step, then, to increasing the efficiency of
the Church, must be a provision for the ultimate extinction,
and for the present diminution, as far as respect for existing
interests will permit, of the practice of pluralism. We trust
that the very name of pluralism will, ere long, be known to
our Church only as matter of historical reference.
In the next place, respect being still had to existing in-
terests, the funds of chapters, and other collegiate institutions
not connected with the Universities, may be rendered available
to a certain extent ; still reserving enough to provide for the
rewards of learning, exertion, and piety. If, in the end, these
funds do not prove sufficient, the fact will be made obvious to
a people at length satisfied, that the revenue provided for the
Church of 4,000,000 or 5,000,000, may prove inadequate to
the Church of 15,000,000. So far we may expect that the
Ministerial measure of Reform, to be brought forward by Sir
R. Peel's Government, will secure, if the thing is possible, a
resident and competently paid Clergy. But the efficiency of
Clergy must always, more or less, depend upon the super-
intending care of the Bishops. In order, however, to enable
these Fathers of the Church to exercise heir superintending
care with useful effect, some provision, still respecting exist-
ing interests, must be made to equalise the labours of the
several Prelates, and to adjust their incomes in due propor-
tion to these equalised duties. It is impossible that any plan