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Untitled Article
The nation once brought into such a ' blessed condition , ' would find such means of perpetuating the good which had been produced as would not burden future generations very heavily . But nothing of this sort has been done by the Establishment . It once had the entire population in its fold ., and it has lost nearly a
moiety . Thousands and millions , born into it and taxed for it , are yet compelled to seek elsewhere the religious instruction which it ought to furnish , and for which they are so desirous as to tax themselves over again sooner than go without it . How a large proportion of the remainder are taught , and what the Church does
for their improvement , we need not describe . The clergy themselves will not boast of their success . The institution is a failure , a gross and obvious failure . Nor can it be otherwise . It is like the razors with which Hodge scarified his chin , and which were not made to shave but to sell . The Church is not framed for popular instruction , but for clerical gain . There would be a miracle in the case if its ministers were appropriate agents for the moral guidance of the people . They are trained to a craft . The office of a minister of religion requires a peculiar aptitude , mental and moral , which would very early in life manifest itself , and without which none should be allowed to fill that office . Not
a step should be taken towards it unless the mind of the individual be strongly imbued with the religious principle or feeling . Otherwise he is condemned to hypocrisy for life . He should be a man of warm and expansive sympathies , of strong benevolence ; and heshould possess that facility of entering into the minds of others , and adapting himself to their diversified modes of thought , without which his conversations or his sermons can never generally
benefit his nock . These dispositions and qualities are seldom acquired in mature life . Our finding them in the youth is the security for the hope of their being possessed by the man . The first
thing done by a church which honestly intended to furnish a succession of spiritual guides , and not to keep up a corporation of craftsmen , would be to inquire after these qualities in candidates for the sacred office , and sternly to close its doors of admission against all who were deficient in them . Is any investigation of this kind ever made , to any useful purpose , in the Church of Kngland ? Whatever may be the formalities gone through with the bishop ' s chaplain , may not , and do not continually , persons obtain ordination who are notoriously destitute of these essential
pre-requisites ? Promotion in the Church does sometimes follow what is called merit ; but the merit is of quite a different description from that which makes a good priest . And , moreover , the promotion takes a man out of the very semblance of active and useful service in his vocation . What trade , art , or science could flourish under this total neglect of original aptitude ? Suppose thai in order to cultivate the public taste , professorships of painting were richly endowed , and the nomination to them left with indi-
Untitled Article
Churchcraft . 791
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1833, page 791, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2626/page/59/
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