suppers is to tighten the bonds of union between high and low, and that they, the low, ought to be very much obliged for the interest which their betters take in them. Of course they are, and of course they will be, provided the obligation be not crammed as it were down their throats. This is, however, not all. ̧^\\t!

We have fallen into a practice of insisting that in matters of charity the whole community shall take part in every effort. Such a mode of action has, no doubt, its proper field. In science, to learn what has been effected is to learn what remains to do what realms are still unconquered. Thus the meetings of the British Association stimulate fresh men to fresh exertions. But those who have attended one of the religious and philanthropic meetings which London is accustomed to witness in every month of May, and have gone away after learning from a few well-chosen speakers, what need there is in some parish, or in some dis trict, or in the metropolis itself, or possibly throughout the world at large, of a hospital, or of schools, or of churches, or of copies of the Holy Scriptures, or of missionaries, and after making their donations, great or small, according to the importance which they attach to the object recommended to them," or the extent to which their feelings have been wrought upon by the eloquence of the speakers, simply feel that some part of what had to be done has now been effected, that they at least have done as much as they conveniently could, that the rest of the work lies upon the promoters of the movement. They go home satisfied that they have done their duty, and they dismiss the matter from their thoughts. Video 12. ad mihiw n

But, it will be asked, is it not to these public appeals, and to the multiplication, through them, of small donations and annual subscriptions, that we owe the flourishing condition of the religious societies, which are accomplishing so much good in the world? Is this an attempt to make the poor ashamed of throwing their mites into the treasury, and the rich unwilling to share with the poor the luxury of doing good? Quite otherwise. We are far from holding cheap a principle of action, which, besides being approved by universal experience in our own day, is, when properly applied, consonant to primitive usage, and in agreement with the teaching of the New Testament. And very sorry should we be to grudge to the poor the happiness which never fails to accompany an act of self-denial practised at the call of duty. But we do hold cheap the philanthropy which leads individuals to throw upon the community at large obligations personal to themselves.

Nobody will deny that on the occurrence of a famine, such as

that

that which desolated Ireland a few years ago, it is the duty of all who may themselves be raised above starvation-point to contribute, as far as they are able, to the necessities of their neighbours. This is an obligation recognized and enforced by the legislatures of most civilized countries, where, in some shape or another, provision is made for cases of urgent distress. And, if recognized by law, the principle of a diffused benevolence may, in extreme cases, be advocated with still greater propriety at public meetings and through the press. The same rule holds good when the special trade of towns or of localities suddenly fails, as the trade of Coventry seems to have failed at this time. Nor can it be objected to when the necessity arises for providing dispensaries, Magdalen asylums, penitentiaries," and hospitals. For the whole community is interested in reclaiming its fallen members from vice, and in restoring its siek members to health and vigour Neither do we question the fit ness of appealing to the voluntary liberality of all Christian men for the means of diffusing the truths of Christianity through the world, for this is the obvious duty of the Church universal. But the moment we come within this circle, and it is a very wide one, we do our best, as it seems to us, to throw upon the public the work of individuals and to relieve the latter from their proper responsibilities. Take, as an apt illustration, the want of adequate provision for the moral and religious instruction of the people of England, particularly in large towns, and most of all in the metropolis. To what causes may this admitted evil be attri buted? To the enormous increase, we shall be told, of the population within the last century-a never-failing consequence of a nation's growth in greatness and to the lack of public funds out of which to supply the people with churches and teachers according to their need. Is this a satisfactory answer? We do not think that it is. Churches and religious teachers have never, as far as we know, been supplied to the people of this country out of any public fund. From time to time exceptional cases present themselves, of which we shall not fail to take notice. But, as a general rule, the people of England owe both their churches and their religious teachers to the operations of an unwritten law; the force of which, up to comparatively recent times, no one thought of disputing, and which rendered it obligatory upon the owners of property, whether kings, or nobles, or burghers, to see that their tenants and dependents had places of worship to repair to and ministers to instruct them in their duty to God and man.* How far it may be possible to make modern proprietors understand

*The admonitory exhortation of the Bishops to the people, A.D. 1008, urged the duty of building churches in all parts of the country.-Soames's Anglo-Saxon Church, pp. 212, 213.

that

"

that the moral obligation which their predecessors acknowledged is still binding upon them, we shall not here venture to say. But it appears to us that the time has come when the truth ought to be spoken, and we shall address ourselves to it the more readily because the history of the subject happens to be not only instructive, but interesting. lt of zero frigong to go »J The reign of Edward III, is generally admitted to be, among those of the ancient English monarchs, in every point of view the most important. It was then that Parliament began to assert its proper influence in the State, and that, even on religious subjects, the disposition to think for themselves began to be manit fested strongly by the people. We shall therefore take this reign as a starting point. And first with respect to population; we find that in the 51st year of Edward's reign, that is in 1377, a census was taken, which (upon a computation of which we need not here state the details) gives a gross total, for all England and Wales, of 2,323,802 souls, being rather less than the population of London as shown by the census of 185ked zooming

2

I

Whatever may have been the origin of the division of counties into parishes, we know that it had taken effect in England long before the accession of Edward III. Neither is there any reason to doubt, that at the outset the boundaries of parishes were co extensive with the boundaries of manors. Such at least is the opinion of Blackstone, who assigns as his reason, That it very seldom happens that a manor extends itself over more parishes than one, though there are often many manors in one parish, The same high authority informs us, Thats the old parish churches of England were universally built at their own expence by the Lords of these Manors.' The Lords, he says,qrasi Christianity spread itself, began to build churches, upon their own demesnes and wastes, to accommodate their tenants in one or two adjoining lordships, and, in order to have divine service regularly performed therein, obliged all their tenants to appropriate their tithes to the maintenance of the one officiating minister, instead of leaving them at liberty to distribute them; among the clergy of the diocese in general; and this tract of land, the tithes whereof were so appropriated, formed a distinct parish, Which will well enough account for the frequent intermixture of parishes one with another. For if a Lord had a parcel of land, detached from the main of his estate, but not sufficient to form a parish of itself, it was natural for him to endow his newly erected church with the tithes of those disjointed lands; especially if no church was then built in any. lordship adjoining to those outlying parcels.' f

* Vol. i., p. 112, edition 1809.

bo Before the Council of Lateran, in 1179, the English clergy had ceased to be paid out of a common diocesan fund, and parochial distinctions, as well for ecclesiastical as for secular purposes, were recognized generally. It is true that, as the rage for founding monastic establishments increased, the rights of the parochial clergy to their endowments were more and more encroached upon. Still the fact remains untouched, t that whatever was done to ensure to the people of England the benefits of publie worship and religious instruction was done, in old-times, by wealthy individuals; who believed that they were fulfilling a duty to God, and consecrating, so to speak, the residue of their property to themselves, when they dedicated a fixed portion of it to His glory, and to the edification in morals and religion of their poorer countrymen. el 93 or tadt bait >>The work of church building and church endowment was not completed in a day, either here or anywhere else. It went on gradually, as the need made itself felt, or as the consciences of princes, barons, and rich burghers moved them to seek the pardon of their past sins by purchasing the prayers of the Church in all time coming. There might be as much of superstition as of true piety in all this, but its results were in the highest degree beneficial to society! But, as might be expected in a rude age, arrangements excellent in themselves soon began to be abused. Not content with maintaining the sacred edifices and continuing the endowments which their predecessors had established, dying nobles began to bequeath the manors themselves to the Church; and the consequence was the growth of a state of things which at length became intolerable. The wealth' heaped upon monasteries and priories was soon withdrawn from its proper uses. The lands with which they were endowed claimed exemption from the common burdens of the State; and the regulars, as the inmates of these religious houses were called, gradually absorbed all the influence and much of the property which belonged of right to the parochial clergy. Hence, indeed, the growth among us of vicarages, perpetual curacies, and poor stipendiary donatives, more especially in towns within or near which abbeys or monasteries arose. For the inmates of these abbeys, bringing the tithes of their manors to the common stock, employed one or more of their own body to serve the parish churches of which they were the patrons and paid for the I duties so performed in money, or with such proportions of the fruits of the earth as the heads of each conventual establishment considered expedient. Still churches and chapels continued to! multiply. In the reign of Stephen they appear to have num bered between 5000 and 6000; in that of Edward III. they had Vol. 109.-No. 218.

97615

increased

་་

increased to 7000; in that of Henry VIII., just before the Reformation, to 9407, besides 645 religious houses.* Taking then the population at these two latter periods respectively, in 1377 at 2,323,802, in 1509 at 5,000,000, we find that in the reign of Edward III. there was in all England one church for about every 332 of the people; in the reign of Henry VIII. one church for every 500.

Look next to London, and observe to what extent its inhabitants were provided all this while with spiritual teachers and pastors, and with places in which to worship Almighty God and to receive religious instruction. In the reign of Edward III. the population of London, within and without the walls, taking a radius of eight miles from Paul's Cross, seems to have amounted to 34,371 souls. Its parish churches numbered 126; its conventual chapels 13; making in all 139; the exact number specified by Stowe, when at a later period he fixes the population at 45,000. Here, without doubt, was a perfect superfluity of church accommodation; but the excess became year by year less marked. In 1509 Stowe's 45,000 Londoners had increased to 200,000; in 1603 to upwards of 300,000; and in 1696, as we learn from Gregory King, Lancaster Herald-at-Arms, to 479,000, Other events had besides occurred, tending, even more than this steady increase of numbers, to alter the proportions between the space afforded in the London churches and the number of persons resident in and around the City. The Reformation, vast as were the benefits which it conferred upon us, created no desire to build new churches, far less to restore to the parochial clergy the endowments of which the religious houses had robbed them. On the contrary, as, abbeys, with their manors and tithes, fell to the Crown and were by the Crown made over to Court favourites, many of the chapelries previously served by the monks were suppressed; while, in appointing incumbents to impropriate bene fices, their endowments were most iniquitously, and, for the Church, most ruinously, kept down to the scale at which the deposed abbots or priors had settled them.

In this direct diminution of places of worship London did not participate. It retained its full number till 1666, when the great fire occurred, which, besides consuming about 13,000 dwellinghouses, many public halls, gaols, bridges, and St. Paul's Cathedral, burned down not fewer than 89 parish churches. Of these 85 had stood within the walls, and 4 without, though the latter,

Cardinal Wolsey's Journal.

+ Camden tells us that in his day the churches which Cardinal Wolsey had estimated at 9407 were reduced to 9284. But besides this, not fewer than 2374 chantries and free chapelries had been swept away.