The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-10-27 00:00:00

CHURCH PASTORAL AID SOCIETY

The following report of the speech of the Rev. Hugh
M'Neile at Bristol, on Tuesday, in aid of this valuable
society, we take from the Bristol Mirror.
The rev. gentleman, referring to the terms and tone of
the preceding resolution, said—lt invited them to humble
themselves before God ; it invited them to look at His
dealings with them ; it called them to a penitential state
of mind, and from that position. where alone a fallen
creature could gather strengtb, it invited them to rise up
and serve Him mote faithfully, more devotedly. There
were two sorts of sorrow spoken of in scripture. The
sorrow of the world which worked unto death, and a

godly sorrow which worked repentance unto salvation, not
to be repented of. They should learn that their present
afflictions, which are but for a moment, worked for theuta
far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, when they
were looking not to the things which were seen, but to the
things which were not seen. The rev. speaker proceeded
to say that there was nothing existing upon earth in which
evil was not mixed with the good. A national establish-
ment and endowment of religion was a good, a great
duty on the part of a government, a great blessing to a
country. But it was not an unmixed good. Where
in such a world could they find one? It tended to pro-
duce an evil and a very serious one. It had caused this
country for many years to consider that the ordinances

of religion were matters with which no persons had
any concern to procure or supply; that it was a matter
for the state entirely ; that it was the duty of govern-
ment to supply churches and ministers; and English-
men had grown up with the feeling that there was no
necessity for their doing anything individually, since it
was all done, or ought to be done, by the state.
The national church was national only in name ;
it had ceased to be national in its character. Its
power of expansion was not adequate to meet the growing
wants of the population. What had been the result?
While the state, by the operation of extraneous elements,
had been prevented making national grants, the people of
this country, long used to have the means of grace provided
for them, had not awakened to the necessity of providing
for themselves. Therefore the members of the church of
England, in proportion to their wealth and numbers, had
done less, by means of voluntary contributions, than any
others. The Church Pastoral Aid Society had come at the
right crisis to invite them to do what was their duty.
Suppose no Dissenters had arisen,no Romanists,tbat there
had been no clamour to open the legislature to such people,
and the legislature had remained as a body of churchmen,

into which no man could be admissible who had not re
ceived the communion of the English Churc
would have been no difficulty in obtaining grants from
the legislature to build churches and supply pastors, and
they would not have to be called upon to make efforts, and

voluntary exertion would have been required or

But the demand of the Church for rigid

le. The stringent provisions of the Act of Uniformity
prived 3000 parishes in England of faithful pastors.