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deeming power in Christianity , which is adequate to the emancipation of the millions of the poor , suffering slaves , who call our countries their own , but to whom almost nothing of all God ' s blessings is their own , except the air which they breathe , and of which no one feels it to be his interest
to deprive them . But that Christianity may exert this power , there must be a new ministration of it . What , in truth , have our pulpits done , or what are they doing , for the poor , the prisoner , the outcasts of society ? Society owes , indeed , a great debt to Methodism ; for it has carried our religion , — though not in the form in which we should have wished that it might have
been carried , —to many hundreds of thousands , who would otherwise neve * r have heard of Jesus Christ , or of their Father in heaven ; and it has
imparted light , and strength , and comfort , and peace , which they would otherwise never have known . But I am not more solicitous that Christianity should be preached to the poor , than I am that a Christian sense of their relation and duties to the poor and ignorant should be understood and felt by the cultivated and by the rich . I have no wish , my dear Sir , to confound any of the distinctions which God has instituted , and which Christianity recognizes . Nay , I would concede , on this ground , more
than I believe may be fairly claimed ; and leave untouched political institutions and distinctions , which I am entirely convinced could not be maintained against the prevalence of pure Christianity . But I would that the intelligent , the rich , and the nobles of the earth , should understand and feel that they possess a common nature with the poorest , the most debased of their race . I would that all should possess those rights , of which no man , and no government , acting upon Christian principles , may deprive them , I would that a class of men should arise who will stand between the
extremes of society , as a medium of kind and Christian communication between them ; who , while they are the teachers and the friends of the poor , will make known their wants , and sufferings , and exposures , to those who will sympathize with them , and who have the means to comfort and to bless them . And is there any extravagance in all this ? Let there be such a ministry as I propose for the poor , and this ministry and its supporters will be this intermediate class of men . What a field of thought and labour , my dear Sir , is open to us in that great moral wilderness , the world of wealth , and of political and literary ambition ; in the world of luxury , and extravagance , and vanity , and fashion ! Here are the deep and abounding sources of that flood of ignorance , sin , and misery , which are overwhelming the multitudes of the poorer classes of our fellow-beings . I am , indeed , greatly solicitous to obtain a permanent ministry for the poor of cities . But I would have a ministry of intelligent and philanthropic men , who will devise the measures of reform , which will approve themselves to intelli gent supporters of this ministry ; for we shall accomplish comparativel y little in our cause , if we confine our thoughts and purposes to the poor *
Untitled Article
L > r . Tuckerman on City Missions . 6 S 7
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1831, page 667, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2602/page/15/
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