pair for the requisite expenses. But there very small, that it is not entitled to make are other funds in the country. There is a its appearance in any abstract argument prodigious fund for the maintenance of go- whatever, and were it not to do away even vernment, nor do we wish that fund to be the shadow of an objection, we would have encroached upon by a single farthing. There been ashamed to have thrown the argument is a fund out of which the people of the land into the language of general discussion. are provided in the necessaries of life: and What shall we think of the objection when before we incur the odium of trenching told, that the whole yearly revenue of the upon necessaries, let us first inquire, if there Bible Society, as derived from the contribube no other fund in existence. Go, then, to tions of those who support it, does not all who are elevated above the class of mere amount to a half-penny per month from labourers, and you will find in their pos- each householder in Britain and Ireland? session a fund, out of which they are pro- Can this be considered as a serious invasion vided with what are commonly called the upon any one fund allotted to other destisuperfluities of life. We do not dispute their nations, and shall the most splendid and right to these superfluities, nor do we deny promising enterprise that ever benevolence the quantity of pleasure which lies in the was engaged in, be arrested upon an objecenjoyment of them. We only state the ex- tion so fanciful? We do not want to oppress istence of such a fund, and that by a trifling any individual by the extravagance of our act of self-denial on the part of those who demands. It is not in great sums, but in possess it, we could obtain all that we are the combination of littles, that our strength pleading for. It is a little hard, that the com- lies. It is the power of combination which petition should be struck between the fund resolves the mystery. Great has been the of the Bible Society and the fund for reliev-progress and activity of the Bible Society Thing the temporal wants of the poor, while since its first institution. All we want is, the far larger and more transferable fund that this rate of activity be kept up and exfor superfluities is left out of consideration entirely, and suffered to remain an untouched and unimpaired quantity. In this way, the odium of hostility to the poor is fastened upon those who are labouring for their most substantial interests, while a set of men who neglect the immortality of the poor, and would leave their souls to perish, are suffered to sheer off with the credit of all the finer sympathies of our nature.

tended. The above statement will convince the reader, that there is ample room for the extension. The whole fund for the secular + wants of the poor may be left untouched, and as to the fund for luxuries, the revenue of the Bible Society may be augmented a hundred-fold before this fund is sensibly encroached upon. The veriest crumbs and sweepings of extravagance would suffice us; and it will be long, and very long, before any invasion of ours upon this fund shall give rise to any perceivable abridgement of luxury, or have the weight of a straw upon the general style and establishment of families.

4. To whom much is given, of them much will be required. Whatever be your former liberalities in another direction, when a new and a likely direction of benevolence is pointed out, the question still comes back upon you, What have you to spare? If 6. But there is still another way of meetthere be a remainder left, it is by the extent ing the objection. Let us come immediately of this remainder that you will be judged; to a question upon the point of fact. Does and it is not right to set the claims of the a man, on becoming a subscriber to the Bible Society against the secular necessities Bible Society, give less to the secular wants of the poor, while means so ample are left, of the poor than he did formerly? It is that the true way of instituting the compe- true, there is a difficulty in the way of obtition is to set these claims against some taining an answer to this question. He personal gratification which it is in your who knows best what answer to give will power to abandon. Have a care, lest with be the last to proclaim it. In as far as the the language of philanthropy in your mouth, subscribers themselves are concerned, we you shall be found guilty of the cruelest must leave the answer to their own expeindifference to the true welfare of the spe- rience, and sure we are that that experience cies, and lest the Discerner of your heart will not be against us. But it is not from shall perceive how it prefers some sordid this quarter that we can expect to obindulgence of its own to the dearest interests tain the wished for information. The beof those around you. nevolence of an individual does not stand 5. But let me not put to hazard the pros-out to the eye of the public. The knowperity of our cause, by resting it on a ledge of its operations is confined to the standard of charity far too elevated for the little neighbourhood within which it expageneral practice of the times. Let us now tiates. It is often kept from the poor themdrop our abstract reasoning upon the re-selves, and then the information we are in spective funds, and come to an actual spe- quest of is shut up with the giver in the sicification of their quantities. The truth is, lent consciousness of his bosom, and with that the fund for the Bible Society is so God in the book of his remembrance.

9. But the second element is subject to other laws, and the formal calculations of arithmetic do not apply to it. The dispo

7. But much good has been done of late by the name of pocket-money, can, geneyears by the combined exertions of indi- rally speaking, provide for the whole viduals; and benevolence, when operating amount of the donation in question. There in this way, is necessarily exposed to pub-are a thousand floating and incidental exlic observation. Subscriptions have been penses, which can be given up without started for almost every one object which almost the feeling of a sacrifice, and the dibenevolence can devise, and the published version of a few of them to the charity we lists may furnish us with data for a par- are pleading for, leaves the ability of the tial solution of the proposed question. In giver to all sense as entire as before. point of fact, then, those who subscribe for a religious object, subscribe with the greatest readiness and liberality for the relief of human affliction, under all the vari-sition is not like the ability, a given quanous forms in which it pleads for sympathy. tity, which suffers an abstraction by every This is quite notorious. The human mind, new exercise. The effect of a donation by singling out the eternity of others as the upon the purse of a giver, is not the same main object of its benevolence, does not with the moral influence of that donation withdraw itself from the care of sustaining upon his heart. Yet the two are assimithem on the way which leads to eternity. It lated by our antagonists, and the pedantry exerts an act of preference, but not an act of computation carries them to results which of exclusion. A friend of mine has been are in the face of all experience. It is not indebted to an active and beneficent patron, so easy to awaken the benevolent principle for a lucrative situation in a distant country, out of its sleep, as, when once awakened in but he wants money to pay his travelling behalf of one object, to excite and to interexpenses. I commit every reader to his est it in behalf of another. When the bar own experience of human nature, when I of selfishness is broken down, and the floodrest with him the assertion, that if real gates of the heart are once opened, the kindness lay at the bottom of this act of pa-stream of beneficence can be turned into a tronage, the patron himself is the likeliest thousand directions. It is true, that there quarter from which the assistance will come. can be no beneficence without wealth, as The man who signalizes himself by his re- there can be no stream without water. It ligious charities, is not the last but the first is conceivable that the opening of the floodman to whom I would apply in behalf of gates may give rise to no flow, as the openthe sick and the destitute. The two prin- ing of a poor man's heart to the distresses ciples are not inconsistent. They give sup- of those around him may give rise to no act port and nourishment to each other, or of almsgiving. But we have already proved rather they are exertions of the same prin- the abundance of wealth. [Sec. 8.] It is ciple. This will appear in full display on the selfishness of the inaccessible heart the day of judgment; and even in this dark which forms the mighty barrier, and if this and undiscerning world, enough of evidence could be done away, a thousand fertilizing is before us upon which the benevolence of streams would issue from it. Now, this is the Christian stands nobly vindicated, and what the Bible Society, in many instances, from which it may be shown, that, while has accomplished. It has unlocked the its chief care is for the immortality of others, avenue to many a heart, which was before it casts a wide and a wakeful eye over all inaccessible. It has come upon them with the necessities and sufferings of the species. all the energy of a popular and prevailing 8. Nor have we far to look for the ex- impulse. It has created in them a new taste planation. The two elements which com- and a new principle. It has opened the bine to form an act of charity, are the abi-fountain, and we are sure that, in every dislity and the disposition, and the question simply resolves itself into this, "In how far these elements will survive a donation to the Bible Society, so as to leave the other charities unimpaired by it?" It is certainly 10. And after all, what is the best meconceivable, that an individual may give thod of providing for the secular necessievery spare farthing of his income to this ties of the poor? Is it by labouring to institution. In this case, there is a total meet the necessity after it has occurred, or extinction of the first element. But in point by labouring to establish a principle and a of fact, this is never done, or done so rarely habit which would go far to prevent its exas not to be admitted into any general ar- istence? If you wish to get rid of a noxious gument. With by far the greater number stream, you may first try to intercept it by of subscribers, the ability is not sensibly en-throwing across a barrier; but in this way, croached upon. There is no visible re- you only spread the pestilential water over trenchment in the superfluities of life. A a greater extent of ground, and when the very slight and partial change in the direc-basin is filled, a stream as copious as betion of that fund, which is familiarly known fore is formed out of its overflow. The

trict of the land where a Bible Association exists, the general principle of benevolence is more active and more expanding than ever.

you foster the diseased principle which gives birth to poverty. On this subject, the people of England feel themselves to be in a state of almost inextricable helplessness, and they are not without their fears of some mighty convulsion, which must come upon them with all the energy of a tempest, before this devouring mischief can be swept away from the face of their community.

most effectual method, were it possible to carry it into accomplishment, would be to dry up the source. The parallel in a great measure holds. If you wish to extinguish poverty, combat with it in its first elements. If you confine your beneficence to the relief of actual poverty, you do nothing. Dry up, if possible, the spring of poverty, for every attempt to intercept the running stream has totally failed. The education 12. If any thing can avert this calamity and the religious principle of Scotland have from England, it will be the education of not annihilated pauperism, but they have their peasantry, and this is a cause to which restrained it to a degree that is almost in- the Bible Society is contributing its full credible to our neighbours of the South. share of influence. A zeal for the circulaThey keep down the mischief in its princi- tion of the Bible, is inseparable from a zeal ple. They impart a sobriety and a right for extending among the people the capasentiment of independence to the character city of reading it; and it is not to be conof our peasantry. They operate as a check ceived, that the very same individual can be upon profligacy and idleness. The main- eager for the introduction of this volume tenance of parish schools is a burden upon into our cottages, and sit inactive under the the landed property of Scotland, but it is a galling reflection, that it is still a sealed cheap defence against the poor rates, a bur- book to many thousands of the occupiers. den far heavier, and which is aggravating Accordingly we find, that the two concerns perpetually. The writer of the paper knows are keeping pace with one another. The of a parish in Fife, the average mainten- Bible Society does not overstep the simpliance of whose poor is defrayed by twenty-city of its assigned object: but the memfour pounds sterling a year, and of a parish, bers of that Society receive an impulse of the same population, in Somersetshire, from the cause, which carries them to prowhere the annual assessments come to mote the education of the poor, either by thirteen hundred pounds sterling. The pre- their individual exertions, or by giving ventive regimen of the one country does their support to the Society for Schools. more than the positive applications of the The two Societies move in concert. Each other. In England, they have suffered po- contributes an essential element in the busiverty to rise to all the virulence of a form-ness of enlightening the people. The one ed and obstinate disease. But they may as well think of arresting the destructive progress of a torrent by throwing across an embankment, as think that the mere positive administration of relief, will put a stop to the accumulating mischiefs of poverty.

furnishes the book of knowledge, and the other furnishes the key to it. This division of employment, as in every other instance, facilitates the work, and renders it more effective. But it does not hinder the same individual from giving his countenance to both; 11. The exemption of Scotland from the and sure I am, that the man whose feelings miseries of pauperism is due to the educa- have been already warmed, and whose purse tion which their people receive at schools, has been already drawn in behalf of the one, and to the Bible which their scholarship is a likelier subject for an application in behalf gives them access to. The man who sub- of the other, than he whose money is still unscribes to the divine authority of this sim-touched, but whose heart is untouched also. ple saying, "If any would not work nei- 13. It will be seen, then, that the Bible ther should he eat," possesses, in the good Society is not barely defensible, but may be treasure of his own heart, a far more effec- plead for upon that very ground on which tual security against the hardships of indi- its enemies have raised their opposition to gence, than the man who is trained, by the it. Its immediate object is neither to feed legal provisions of his country, to sit in the hungry nor to clothe the naked, but in slothful dependence upon the liberalities of every country under the benefit of its exthose around him. It is easy to be elo-ertions, there will be less hunger to feed, quent in the praise of those liberalities, but and less nakedness to clothe. It does not the truth is, that they may be carried to cure actual poverty, but it anticipates eventthe mischievous extent of forming a de- ful poverty. It aims its decisive thrust at praved and beggarly population. The hun- the heart and principle of the mischief, and gry expectations of the poor will ever keep instead of suffering it to form into the pace with the assessments of the wealthy, obstinacy of an inextirpable disease, it and their eye will be averted from the ex-smothers and destroys it in the infancy of ertion of their own industry, as the only right its first elements. The love which worketh source of comfort and independence. It is no ill to his neighbour will not suffer the quite in vain to think, that positive relief will ever do away the wretchedness of poverty. Carry the relief beyond a certain limit, and

true Christian to live in idleness upon another's bounty; and he will do as Paul did before him, he will labour with his hands

dispensers of charity, we may lay our account with the opposition being still more clamorous.-We undertake to prove, that this opposition is founded on a fallacy, and that, by interesting the great mass of a parish in the Bible Society, and assembling them into a penny association for the support of it, you raise a defence against the

15. We feel a difficulty in this undertaking, not from any uncertainty which hangs over the principle, but from the difficulty of bringing forward a plain and popular exhi

rather than be burdensome. Could we reform the improvident habits of the people, and pour the healthful infusion of Scripture principle into their hearts, it would reduce the existing poverty of the land to a very humble fraction of its present extent. We make bold to say, that in ordinary times there is not one-tenth of the pauperism of England due to unavoidable misfor-extension of pauperism. tune. It has grown out of a vicious and impolitic system, and the millions which are raised every year have only served to nourish and extend it. Now, the Bible Society is a prime agent in the work of coun-bition of it. However familiar the princiteracting this disorder. Its mode of pro- ple may be to a student of political science, ceeding carries in it all the cheapness and it carries in it an air of paradox to the mulall the superior efficacy of a preventive titude, and it were well if this air of paradox operation. With a revenue not equal to were the only obstacle to its reception. But the poor-rates of many a county, it is do-to the children of poesy and fine sentiment, ing more even for the secular interests of the principle in question carries in it an air the poor than all the charities of England of barbarity also, and all the rigour of a pure united; and while a palling and injudicious sympathy is pouring out its complaints against it, it is sowing the seeds of character and independence, and rearing for future days the spectacle of a thriving, substantial, and well-conditioned peasantry.

and impregnable argument has not been
able to protect the conclusions of Malthus
from their clamorous indignation. There is
a kind of hurrying sensibility about them
which allows neither time nor temper for
listening to any calculation on the subject,
and there is not a more striking vanity
under the sun, than that the substantial in-
terests of the poor have suffered less from
the malignant and the unfeeling, than from
those who give without wisdom, and who
feel without consideration;

Blessed is he that wisely doth
The poor man's case consider.

16. Let me put the case of two parishes, in the one of which there is a known and public endowment, out of which an annual sum is furnished for the maintenance of the poor; and that in the other there is no such endowment. At the outset, the poor of the first parish may be kept in greater comfort than the poor of the second; but it is the lesson of all experience, that no annual sum, however great, will be able to keep them permanently in greater comfort. The certain effect of an established provision for the poor is a relaxation of their economical habits, and an increased number of improvident marriages. When their claim to a provision is known, that claim is always

14. I have hitherto been supposing, that the rich only are the givers, but I now call on the poor to be sharers in this work of charity. It is true, that of these poor there are some who depend on charity for their subsistence, and these have no right to give what they receive from others. And there are some who have not arrived at this state of dependence, but are on the very verge of it. Let us keep back no part of the truth from them, "If any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." There are others again, and these I apprehend form by far the most numerous class of society, who can maintain themselves in humble, but honest independence, who can spare a little and not feel it, who can do what Paul advises,* lay aside their penny a week as God hath prospered them, who can share that blessedness which the Saviour spoke of when he said, It was more blessed to give than to receive; who, though they cannot equal their rich neighbours in the amount of their donation, can bestow their some-counted upon, and it were well, if to flatter thing, and can, at all events, carry in their bosom a heart as warm to the cause, and call down as precious a blessing from the God who witnesses it. The Bible Society is opposed on the ground of its diverting a portion of relief from the secular necessities of the poor, even when the rich only are called upon to support it. When the application for support is brought down to the poor themselves, and instead of the recipients, it is proposed to make them the

1 Corinthians xvi. 2.

their natural indolence, they did not carry the calculation beyond the actual benefit they can ever receive. But this is what they always do. When a public charity is known and counted upon, the relaxation of frugal and provident habits is carried to such an extent, as not only to absorb the whole produce of the charity, but to leave new wants unprovided for, and the effect of the benevolent in stitution is just to create a population more wretched and more clamorous than ever.

17. In the second parish, the economical habits of the people are kept unimpaired,

and just because their economy is forced to take a higher aim, and to persevere in it. The aim of the first people is to provide for themselves a part of their maintenance: The aim of the second people is to provide for themselves their whole maintenance. We do not deny, that even among the latter we will meet with distress and poverty, just such distress and such poverty as are to be found in the average of Scottish parishes. This finds its alleviation in private benevolence. To alleviate poverty is all that can be done for it; to extinguish it, we fear is hopeless. Sure we are, that the known and regular provisions of England will never extinguish it, and that, in respect of the poor themselves, the second parish is under a better system than the first. The poorrates are liable to many exceptions, but there is none of them more decisive with him who cares for the eternity of the poor, than the temptation they hold out to positive guilt, the guilt of not working with their own hands, and so becoming burdensome to others.*

18. Let us conceive a political change in the circumstances of the country, and that the public charity of the first parish fell among the ruin of other institutions. Then its malignant influence would be felt in all its extent; and it would be seen, that it, in fact, had impoverished those whom it professed to sustain, that it had stript them of a possession far more valuable than all it had ever given, that it had stripped them of industrious habits, and left those whom its influence never reached, wealthier in the resources of their own superior industry, than the artificial provisions of an unwise and meddling benevolence could ever make them.

expenditure, and they are brought, permanently and irrecoverably brought into a state of pauperism. In the second parish, the income, generally speaking, is even with the habits of expenditure. In the third, the income is above the habits of expenditure, and above it by the annual sum contributed to the Bible Society. The circumstance of being members to such a Society, throws them at a greater distance from pauperism than if they had not been members of it.

20. The effect on the economical habits of the people would just be the same in whatever way the stated annual sum was obtained from them, even though a compulsory tax were the instrument of raising it.* This assimilation of our plan to a tax may give rise to a world of impetuous declamation, but let it ever be remembered, that the institution of a Bible Society gives you the whole benefit of such a tax without its odiousness. It brings up their economy to a higher pitch, but it does so, not in the way which they resist, but in the way which they choose. The single circumstance of its being a voluntary act, forms the defence and the answer to all the clamours of an affected sympathy. You take from the poor. No! they give. You take beyond their ability. Of this they are the best judges. You abridge their comforts. No! there is a comfort in the exercise of charity; there is a comfort in the act of lending a hand to a noble enterprise; there is a comfort in the contemplation of its progress; there is a comfort in rendering a service to a friend, and when that friend is the Saviour, and that service the circulation of the message he left behind him, it is a comfort which many of the poor are ambitious to share in. Leave them to judge of their comfort, and if in point of fact, they do give their penny a week to a Bible Society, it just speaks them to have more comfort in this way of spending it than in any other which occurs to them.

19. The comparison between these two parishes paves the way for another comparison. Let me now put the case of a third parish, where a Bible Association is instituted, and where the simple regulation of a penny a week, throws it open to the bulk 21. Perhaps it does not occur to those of the people. What effect has this upon friends of the poor while they are sitting in their economical habits? It just throws judgment on their circumstances and feelthem at a greater distance from the thrift-ings, how unjustly and how unworthily lessness which prevails in the first parish, they think of them. They do not conceive and leads them to strike a higher aim in how truth and benevolence can be at all the way of economy than the people of the objects to them, and suppose, that after they second. The general aim of economy in have got the meat to feed, the house to humble life, is to keep even with the world; shelter, the raiment to cover them, there is but it is known to every man at all familiar nothing else that they will bestow a penny with that class of society, that the great upon. They may not be able to express majority may strike their aim a little higher, their feelings on a suspicion so ungenerous, and in point of fact, have it in their power but I shall do it for them; "We have souls to redeem an annual sum from the mere as well as you, and precious to our hearts squanderings of mismanagement and care- is the Saviour who died for them. It is true lessness. The unwise provisions in the parish have had the effect of sinking the income of the poor below their habits of

* Acts xx. 35. 1 Tim. v. 8.

*I must here suppose the sum to be a stated one, and a feeling of security on the part of the people, that the tax shall not be subject to variation at the caprice of an arbitrary government.