The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-04-19 00:00:00

of one thousand clergymen

num. England
was blessed, because of her profession of the Christian
church ; let that church be efficiently worked, and a supply
of faithful pastors be continued to her, and those blessings

would be perpetuated. The best method then of manifesting
an attachment to the church was by hearing the truths which
she taught, and exerting ourselves as we had opportunity and
ons of
behalf
motto

ight well be." the harvest is great, and the labourers are
6v, pray ye to the Lord of the harvest, that he may send

The resolution was then put and carried unanimou

e of th,

,city which
storal Aid

not hear without deep concern that its

state did not justify the committee in extending aid to many
applications, the consideration of which they were obliged to
postpone, arid therefore they called for increased exertions.
After some preliminary remarks the reverend gentleman said
that although he had not to congratulate ti

Society

in London upon one of the fullest meetings he had ever seen,
ht congratulate it upon one of the most intelligent and
hich it had been.his pleasure to address, and still

tentive

more might he. congratulate it upon the meeting being pre-
sided over by the Chancellor of the Diocese. The Church
Pastoral Aid Society was not a new society, buL at the same
time it required in some respect an apologist. Ile did not
allude to the old objections. to those storms which raged
against it, or to that bluster which, instead of destroying it
had only had the effect of making it take deeper
strengthening its branches, and of enabling it to allot
and sustenance to many a perishing family. He alluded tone
grounds
and reasons of the misconceptions which, he feared,
had prejudiced its cause in this neighbourhood. From the
want of a general understanding of the mode of its operations
inns sometimes appeared anomolous, and some-
In some way or other the operations of the

its ;pro

1110 eb CLA,cia.a ..• ,
society were orderly in themselves, though they were liable to
be misconceived. Fot• instance, there might be a population
of large amount which had no grant, and there might be in
the immediate neighbourhood of it a much smaller popula-
tion which had a grant. To him who was unacquainted with
the principle of the operations of the society this might ap-
pear anomalous. But it was forgotten that the society might
not be able to act upon the large population—that according
to its principle it could not send a minister or lay assistant
into that large population until the incumbent had applied
for a grant. When the society commenced it was appealed
to from many quarters; the committee was aware there were
more pressing cases which might be brought before them,
but because the incumbents did not choose to apply, the

ociety w

not at liberty to interfer

Hence the

rent anomaly of grants being made to small populations in
the neighbourhood of large populations which were without
a grant. There were other circumstances which made the
operations of the society appear unjust, and which required
close scrutiny to be fully understood, but the meeting might
depend that the society did not misapply its funds. It de-
pended of course upon the representations made by the cler-
gyman applying of the nature and character of the place, and
if those representations misled the society, surely it was
not the society which was in fault. (Hear, hear, hear.) He
could answer for this on the part of the society, that if they
had reason to believe that a grant was ill bestowed they
would take the earliest opportunity of having the
defect remedied. They would not, however, act upon
mere representation, but upon full investigation ; therefore
he would ask any one who objected to the grant to dlow the
matter to be brought before the committee, and if they would
cive information he would ensure that the matter should be
righted. He liiul deemed it right to occupy I.
the attention of the meeting on this point, becaus
matter of wonder why the support of Liverpool to this society
was not greater than it had been. The population of the
country had increased since the commencement of the society
upwards of six millions ; but there had been no commensu-
rate spiritual provision made. The consequence was, that
there was now in this country a population larger than
the entire kingdom of Scotland without spiritual provision.
In the large towns, it was presumed, there were a mil.
lion of human beings destitute of pastoral supervision.
In London there was only one minister to 15,000 of the po-
pulation ; and the population in the manufacturing districts
and the large towns were. equally unprovided for. It was
almost within the memory of some persons when letters used
to be addressed to " Birmingham, near Wednesbury ;" but
so rapidly had the population of the former increased, that
while Wednesbury had hat little above 11,000, Birmingham
had upwards of 200,000. This increase had taken place
without any corresponding increase in the means of grace.
But he would not detain the meeting by enlarging on this
topic. It might be said, " Why clues not the Church, with
her ample endowmentS, provide-for these things ?" She was

otne portion of
it was a

Her endowments were exalt

gerited. The in

some of all the benefices in England was only three and a half
millions, and if this sum were equally distributed among all
the beneficial clergy it would only yield an average income
to each of £215 per annum. There were 3535 livings under
£l5O per annum ; and it was a fact that there were benefices
and vicarages in England under the value of £5 a year; but
in addition to all this there was a large amount of new
churches which were not called benefices, the endowments of
which were still smaller than the average of the benefices.
For these the church had no means of making provision.
But it was said if the church is not able to supply this
deficiency the dissenting body were. Now, giving the dis-
senting body full credit for the best motives, and the
greatest exertions, they were not able to supply it. On
the authority of a dissenting publication he would state
that the whole amount of their places of worship in Eng-
land, and those embracing the deistical, Socialist, and
the idolatrous Romanist, were only a little 'valn

some they were stated at 6000. But take them at the larger
number, there were in England 10,500 benefices—and if one
dissenting chapel were given to each l
still be 2500 benefices—unsupplied

lefiee, there would

What, :too,

The dissenting chapels were not equally dist

ibuted

In part of the county of Lancaster there was a considerable
proportion of the whole, leaving the other parts of the county
totally destitute of spiritual provision. Making every allow-
ance for prejudice and conscience, and giving every credit
for the . best motives, he must say that dissenting teachers
were not pastors ; he knew it from his own experience,
when in charge of a neglected people, for he had never
found them visiting the sick or the poor. They were removed
periodically, and this circumstance made them the ministry
of the congregation rather than of the district. He repeated,
he had never found them exercising pastoral supervision.
Now, to supply these deficiencies which the church could
not supply, and which dissent was neither able nor willing to
supply, the Church Pastoral Aid Society stepped in. It was
obliged to interfere, but it interfered not with the order of
the church in any degree ; it mearly supplied the means to
overburdened ministers of assistance, whether they chose
order
employ clerical or lay aid according to the canonical o,rd
of the church. From its first institution it had supilied of
as-
sistance to 470 incumbents, operating upon the population
two millions. Its operations did not at present extend to so
large a number ; but from the first it had supplied that as.
h the
sistance. He would not detain the meeting
num-
ber of school-rooms and cottage lectures s
y
of the society, but he would bring before thenPnwPileieetdinbgytimvoalo
three instances of overburdened clergymen..
tleman then relattd the manner in ichseerhale argeeva cgleenr:
gymen, some 80 years of age had beenw.n compelled to apply to
the society for aid, particularly intepda,risthheesreofmsumsalt,l
necessa-
rily, in which, if aid had not been, granted,
services of the church.
have been intermissions in
He also described from correspondence with the parties, the
excellent effects produced by the assistance of the society,