The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-10-30 00:00:00

CHURCH PASTORAL AID SOCIETY

The following letter was quoted at the meeting on Mon-
day night, in the report, and forcibly commented on by the
Rev. F. Ould in his speech. Through want of space we
were obliged to omit it in our last publication. In present-
ing it to the public, we feel sure it will awaken their sympa-
thies towards the benighted poor of the town. It strikingly
shews the necessity and utility of the Church Pastoral Aid
Society. Every townsman should be acquainted with the
fact, that while the society annually expends £6OO
r our
nts to
spiritual improvement, the return made scarcely a
£l5O.
" To THE REV. C. J. LAWRENCE, SECRETARY TO THE
LIVERPOOL AUXILIARY.
"My dear Brother,—l much regret I did not know pre-
vious to Friday you wished for a return of the state of my
district, to enable you to form a report for the Liverpool
Auxiliary to the Church Pastoral Aid Society. You must,
therefore, excuse brevity, and the frequent use of the mono-
syllable I. The information I purpose giving you shall be
arranged under five heads :
".1. The Church of St. Simon ; 2. Thep opulation ; 3.
The morality ; 4. The state of religion ; and 5. The means
of doing good, in the district.
" 1. The Church of St. Simon is a small building off
Dale-street. The pillars of its support, under God, are this
society, who allow £lOO per annum to provide a minister,
and that friend of God, Mr. Rigby, who collects £9O to pay
the rent and expenses.
" 2. The population I estimate at 5,000 ; the exact amount
cannot be told. I have had a census taken of some of the
streets, but, on account of the number of lodgers in almost
every house, I cannot answer for its correctness. The ma-
jority of the people are Irish, of the very lowest grade. The
following is the return of Peter-street, one of the best streets
in the district :-379 adult residents, 250 children ; of the
379 adults, 29 regularly attend a place of worship, 31 profess
to go occasionally, leaving 319 who never attend the house
of God at all. In this street there are 40 families without
the Word of God.
"3. Of the morality of the district. I cannot dip my pen
in ink sufficiently dark to give you an idea of the immorality
of the people. God's name is fearfully blasphemed,
The
by the
old and the young. The Sabbath is sadly neglected.
extent to which drunkenness is carried is beyond conception.
The daughter has been known to deprive her dying father of
his last shirt, wash it carefully, and then pawn it to obin
drink. If this is the state of morals, you will expect to hetaar
but little of vital religion.
" 4. Of religion, I regret to say, it is at its lowest ebb.
The majority of the population, being of the lower order of
Irish, are Popish ; and where Popery is, there is ignorance
and intolerance. Bigotry and persecution are in every house.
My reader has had the clothes torn off his back ; the Sabbath
school is despised ; the tracts distributed are torn or de-
faced, and the word of exhortation treated with scorn. Pro-
testants are only so in name : the churchman, who should
be a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of
the kingdom of heaven,' shews by his evil deeds he has no
life in him. Old Protestants are to be found in gross dark-
ness : one aged couple grounded their expectations of heaven
on their prayers, and the saying of grace before their meals;
and, when spoken to, added, that if this would not do, a
person called weekly and prayed with them. Aged females
are to be found despising the Bible—denying a future state.
One poor old woman confessed this sad creed in the presende
of a party of mourners, who were gathered round the corpse
of one suddenly cut off. She spoke with fearful curses, and
drove the Word of God from her door. There are children
who know nothing of the existence of the soul, nor of heaven
or hell—much less of Jesus Christ, the living way. But,
amidst all this gloom, this moonless moral night, there are
instances to cheer the heart. A child goes from the Sabbath
school, and reproves with weeping her parent whom she
found profaning God's holy day. Another child has been
known to invite, nay urge, her parent to attend church.
There is more than one, whose hoary locks proclaim their
lengthened years, declaring they were in darkness, but,
through attending St. Simon's Church, have come to a
knowledge of the truth. There are sick people, who have
embraced the offers of mercy I made to them in Christ's
name, and, as they departed, shewed death was their gain.
There are careless ones who never entered God's house, but
now they love what once they hated. And, though last, not
least, there is one who spent forty years in drunkenness,
but now he is given to taste a Saviour's love ; and his testi-
mony is, that he knows faith to be not merely the assent of
the understanding, but the confidence of the heart reposing
in Jesus, through the power of the Holy Spirit.
"5. Of my means of doing good. I have to lament the
want of daily schools, having merely a Sabbath school, where
the attendance averages 110 children. I derive much help
from a band of young men who distribute tracts, invite chil-
dren to school, and search for sick persons : these young
men assemble twice on the Sabbath, to implore a blessing
ohTnabvrteohuebgecbeolnig the
er engaation and unworthy minister of their church.
liberalitybledto oureomfploy a
everr-igenerousad nearearcthaansatlsa,ryl
of £5O per annum. His whole time is spent in the district,
reading God's holy word from house to house. His assist-
ance is of the utmost value to me ; and being a younc, man
of known piety, I have no doubt of his being the meanste of
doing much good.
" Duly considering all these things, I feel I have great
cause for thankfulness—encouragements preponderate; and
in submitting this report of my little district, I sincerely
hope the town of Liverpool will so assist the society, that
the liberality and benefits it has reaped may be extended to
other large towns, and continued to it.
" Believe me to be, in much haste,
" Faithfully yours in Christ,
J. R. CONNOR,
" Minister of St. Simon's, Liverpool.
" Monday, Oct. 26th, 1840."

The Irish representative bishops for the session of 1841
are—the Archbishop of Armagh, the Bishop of Kilialee and
Cloufert, the Bishop of Kihnoro, and the Bishop of Clogher.