BY CHARLES R. HENDERSON 
 
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 THE CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC 
 ECONOMY OF LARGE TOWNS
 
 THE CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC 
 ECONOMY OF LARGE TOWNS 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 ABRIDGED AND WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 CHARLES R. HENDERSON 
 
 PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 1900
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 TROW DIRECTORY 
 
 PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY 
 NEW YORK
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC 
 ECONOMY OF LARGE TOWNS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. BIOGRAPHICAL ......... 1 
 
 II. ANALYSIS OF THE CHRISTIAN AND Civic ECONOMY OF 
 
 LARGE TOWNS AND OF THE POLITICAL ECONOMY . 8 
 
 III. CRITICISM OF CERTAIN SOCIAL TEACHINGS OF CHALMERS . 24 
 
 IV. SOME OF THE IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTIONS OF DR. CHAL- 
 
 MERS TO MODERN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS OF THOUGHT 
 AND ACTION . . . . 53 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY OF LARGE 
 TOWNS 
 
 PREFACE 79 
 
 VOLUME I 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. THE ADVANTAGE AND POSSIBILITY OF ASSIMILATING A 
 
 TOWN TO A COUNTRY PARISH 81 
 
 II. ON THE INFLUENCE OF LOCALITY IN TOWNS . . .98 
 
 III. APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF LOCALITY IN TOWNS 
 
 TO THE WORK OF A CHRISTIAN MINISTER . . .112 
 vii 
 
 2004321
 
 viii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 IV. THE EFFECT OF LOCALITY IN ADDING TO THE USEFUL 
 
 ESTABLISHMENTS OF A TOWN 122 
 
 V. ON CHURCH PATRONAGE 134 
 
 VI. ON CHURCH PATRONAGE, CONTINUED .... 143 
 
 VII. ON CHURCH OFFICES 148 
 
 VIII. ON SABBATH-SCHOOLS . 164 
 
 VOLUME II 
 
 IX. ON THE EELATION THAT SUBSISTS BETWEEN THE CHRIS- 
 TIAN AND THE Oivic ECONOMY OF LARGE TOWNS . 181 
 
 X. ON THE BEARING WHICH A RIGHT CHRISTIAN ECONOMY 
 
 HAS UPON PAUPERISM ...... 188 
 
 XI. ON THE BEARING WHICH A EIGHT Civic ECONOMY HAS 
 
 UPON PAUPERISM 204 
 
 XII. ON THE PRESENT STATE AND FUTURE PROSPECTS OF 
 
 PAUPERISM IN GLASGOW ...... 219 
 
 XIII. ON THE DIFFICULTIES AND EVILS WHICH ADHERE EVEN 
 
 TO THE BEST CONDITION OF SCOTTISH PAUPERISM . 228 
 
 XIV. ON THE LIKELIEST MEANS FOR THE ABOLITION OF PAU- 
 
 PERISM IN ENGLAND ....... 239 
 
 XV. ON THE LIKELIEST PARLIAMENTARY MEANS FOR THE 
 
 ABOLITION OF PAUPERISM IN ENGLAND . . . 249 
 
 XVI. ON THE LIKELIEST PAROCHIAL MEANS FOR THE ABOLI- 
 TION OF PAUPERISM IN ENGLAND . . 260
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 VOLUME III 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE 2G9 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 XVII. ON THE WAGES OF LABOR 271 
 
 XVIII. ON THE EFFECT OF A POOR-RATE, WHEN APPLIED IN 
 
 AID OF DEFECTIVE WAGES 284 
 
 XIX. ON SAVINGS-BANKS 297 
 
 XX. ON THE COMBINATIONS OF WORKMEN FOR THE PURPOSE 
 
 OF RAISING WAGES ....... 30C 
 
 XXI. THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED . . . . .314 
 
 XXII. ON CERTAIN PREVALENT ERRORS AND MISCONCEPTIONS 
 WHICH ARE FOSTERED BY ECONOMIC THEORIES, AND 
 WHICH ARE FITTED TO MISLEAD THE LEGISLATURE 
 IN REGARD TO LABOR AND THE LABORING CLASSES 324 
 
 XXIII. ON THE EFFECT WHICH THE HIGH PRICE OF LABOR IN 
 
 A COUNTRY HAS UPON ITS FOREIGN TRADE . . 329 
 
 XXIV. ON MECHANIC SCHOOLS, AND ON POLITICAL ECONOMY 
 
 AS A BRANCH OF POPULAR EDUCATION . 333
 
 PREFATORY NOTE OF THE EDITOR 
 
 IN the collection and examination of the materials and 
 references for the Introduction, especially in relation to 
 the Scottish Poor Law, I wish to gratefully acknowledge 
 the kind help of Rev. W. C. MacNaul, D.B., Mr. Hew 
 Morrison, of the Edinburgh Public Library, and of A. "VV. 
 Smith, Esq., Edinburgh. 
 
 In regard to the treatment of the text of " The Chris- 
 tian and Civic Economy of Large Towns " it should be 
 said, that the body of the book is copied carefully from 
 a text printed at Glasgow by William Collins; that the 
 text is simply a reproduction of the exact words of that 
 edition ; that omissions due to the frequent repetitions of 
 the author or to merely local and transitory interest are 
 indicated; that no important idea is omitted, but only 
 illustrations ; that the bracketed additions are designed to 
 indicate the transitional thoughts or to explain some point 
 which might otherwise be left in obscurity. 
 
 The material presented in the Introduction is intended 
 to be a criticism of the obsolete doctrines of the author 
 and an appreciation of those teachings which have con- 
 temporary interest. If the reader prefers to agree with 
 the author rather than with the editor, he will do so at 
 least upon information and consideration of a different 
 standpoint. 
 
 C. R H.
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE CHRISTIAN 
 
 AND CIVIC ECONOMY OF 
 
 LARGE TOWNS 
 
 I 
 BIOGKAPHICAL 
 
 THOMAS CHALMEES was born March 17, 1780, and 
 died May 30, 1847. His public life covered nearly all 
 of the first half of the nineteenth century. At the age 
 of eleven years we find him. at the University of St. 
 Andrews. During this period he gave most of his at- 
 tention to mathematics. Later (1799-1800) he attended 
 lectures at Edinburgh under Stewart, Playfair, Robison, 
 and Hope. His ordination occurred in 1803, and his 
 first pastoral service was in the rural parish of Kilmany. 
 He taught mathematics to enthusiastic classes during the 
 week and preached on Sundays. At one time he gave 
 popular lectures on chemistry. He aspired to a chair as 
 teacher of mathematics at Edinburgh (1805), but failed 
 in this ambition. His early interest in economic and 
 political problems is evidenced by the publication (1808) 
 of an " Enquiry into the Extent and Stability of National 
 
 Resources." 
 
 1
 
 2 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Bereavement and personal illness turned his thoughts 
 into new channels and deepened his spiritual insight. His 
 article on Christianity, published in the " Edinburgh En- 
 cyclopaedia," marks a stage in his personal development. 
 His preaching became more evangelical, powerful, and 
 earnest. In 1815 he was elected by the Town Council 
 of Glasgow, by a bare majority, and after intense oppo- 
 sition on the part of certain politicians and ecclesiastics, 
 as pastor of Tron church and parish, and he at once be- 
 came popular as a preacher. The antagonism shown to 
 him at the time of his election, and the political hin- 
 drances thrown in his way by civil officers opened his eyes 
 to the evils of an ecclesiastical establishment; but it re- 
 quired the bitter experiences of many more years to cause 
 him to break the fetters which galled him and impeded 
 his labors. 
 
 His intense evangelical spirit and his conscientious de- 
 votion to pastoral service did not choke his abiding interest 
 in natural science. While he toiled among the poor and 
 depraved, he kept in touch with university men and their 
 intellectual interests. In 1817 he gave to the world his 
 famous " Astronomical Discourses." 
 
 He was transferred to the parish of St. John's in 1819, 
 and during his ministry there he published a series of 
 articles which came to form a book entitled " The Chris- 
 tian and Civic Economy of Large Towns." This book, 
 not completed until 1826, is republished in this volume 
 in a condensed form. 
 
 In 1823 Chalmers returned to academic life as pro- 
 fessor of moral philosophy in the University of St. An-
 
 CHALMERS' BIOGRAPHY 3 
 
 drews. While he occupied this office he published (1827) 
 his treatise on " The Use and Abuse of Literary and 
 Ecclesiastical Endowments." While he was still at St. 
 Andrews he began a series of lectures to students and 
 pastors on economic subjects which were afterwards 
 (1832) published under the title " Political Economy." 
 
 He was appointed professor of theology at Edinburgh 
 in 1828. In 1833 he published one of the Bridgewater 
 treatises " On the Adaptation of External ISTature to the 
 Moral and Intellectual Constitution of Man." 
 
 The organizing and administrative ability of the man 
 was already well known, and in the years 1834-1841 he 
 led, with persuasive and commanding eloquence, the 
 movement which issued in adding to the resources of the 
 state church 300,000 and 220 new edifices. 
 
 For many years Chalmers had felt the pressure of po- 
 litical interference with the appointment of pastors and 
 the conduct of parishes. All this time he had loyally 
 defended the Establishment, had believed that it could 
 be made a means of spiritual blessing to Scotland, and 
 that its defects could be remedied by reforms within the 
 body. But at last he came to the conviction that the 
 struggle to secure an earnest ministry by political ap- 
 pointment cost too much effort and contest. He had 
 also learned that the voluntary liberality of earnest faith 
 may be counted on to give generous resources for the 
 support of a faithful ministry. Even while he was yet 
 a prominent figure in the state church he had shown a 
 liberal and courteous spirit toward dissenters, and at one 
 time went so far as to take a pew for his family in a
 
 4 INTRODUCTION 
 
 chapel at St. Andrews, where a simple and pure gospel 
 was preached and taught. At last Chalmers found the 
 yoke of legal authority too heavy for him, and, on a mem- 
 orable day, May 18, 1843, in company with four hundred 
 and seventy other clergymen, he withdrew from the 
 church of his fathers and of his beloved country, and 
 they formed the Free Church of Scotland. In the Gen- 
 eral Assembly of this body Dr. Chalmers became the first 
 moderator. He planned and worked, with great success, 
 for the raising of a fund to support and promote the work 
 of this denomination, whose first ministers gave up manses 
 and church edifices, and all the material advantages of 
 their former connection with the state, for the sake of a 
 principle. 
 
 From the books cited below, and especially those of 
 Hanna and Blaikie, this bare outline may be filled out. 
 Enough has been here set down to indicate the honors 
 and the confidence shown to him by his contemporaries, 
 and to suggest the value of his deliberate expression of 
 convictions and the reasons on which they were based. 
 
 One of the latest undertakings of Chalmers was so 
 characteristic that a brief statement of the famous en- 
 terprise may be useful at this point. "When age had be- 
 gun to tell on his strength, and he was full of the cares 
 of a professorship, he sought to demonstrate once more 
 the value of the social theory of his life-work. July 
 26, 1844, fourteen months after the great Disruption, 
 he wrote to Mr. Lenox, of New York, founder of Len- 
 ox Library: "I have determined to assume a poor dis- 
 trict of 2,000 people and superintend it myself, though
 
 CHALMERS' BIOGRAPHY 5 
 
 it be a work greatly too much for my declining strength 
 and means. Yet such do I hold to be the efficiency of 
 the method with the divine blessing that, perhaps, as 
 the concluding act of my public life, I shall make the 
 effort to exemplify what as yet I have only expounded." 
 
 He would make that work simply Christian and human, 
 not sectarian. " Who cares about the Free Church com- 
 pared with the Christian good of Scotland? Who cares 
 about any church but as an instrument of Christian 
 good? For be assured that the moral and religious well- 
 being of the population is of infinitely higher importance 
 than the advancement of any sect." 
 
 Of this West-Port (Edinburgh) experiment Dr. Blaikie 
 says: " The district selected was of the worst description 
 a fourth part of the population being paupers, and an- 
 other fourth street beggars, thieves, and prostitutes. The 
 population amounted to upward of 400 families, of whom 
 300 had no connection with any church. Of 411 chil- 
 dren of school age, 290 were growing up without any 
 education. 
 
 " The plan of Dr. Chalmers was to divide the whole 
 territory into twenty districts, containing each about 
 twenty families. To each district a visitor was appointed, 
 whose duty was to visit each family once a week, under 
 directions printed by Dr. Chalmers to show the specific 
 object of the visitation. A school was provided, and 
 the visitors were instructed, in the first instance, to show 
 an active interest in the young, and exhort their parents 
 to send their children to the school. A small fee was 
 exacted, on the principle that what was paid for would
 
 G INTRODUCTION 
 
 be more valued, and that a more regular attendance would 
 be secured. The visitors were instructed to meet with 
 Dr. Chalmers every Saturday evening, the first meeting 
 to take place in July, 1844." 
 
 Public worship was opened in a tan-loft. In 1845 
 Rev. W. Tasker was secured as a missionary minister. 
 A library, a savings bank, a washing-house, and a female 
 industrial school were added to the parochial equipments. 
 The church came to number 1,300 communicants. It 
 has often been imitated. The " institutional " churches 
 have copied many features, and social settlements have 
 received suggestive impulses from the same source. The 
 territorial principle lies at the basis of the parish work. 
 The district visitor and the scheme of co-operation are 
 factors in the Elberf eld system of German municipal poor 
 relief, of the Charity Organization Society in Great Brit- 
 ain and America, of the Federation of Churches, and of 
 the earlier experiments of the Evangelical Alliance in 
 the United States. 
 
 These enterprises of Chalmers attracted the attention 
 and won the admiration of Carlyle, who said : " What a 
 wonderful old man Chalmers is ! or, rather, he has all the 
 buoyancy of youth. When so many of us are wringing 
 our hands in hopeless despair over the vileness and 
 wretchedness of the large towns, there goes the old man, 
 shovel in hand, down into the dirtiest puddles of the 
 West-Port of Edinburgh, cleans them out, and fills the 
 sewers with living waters. It is a beautiful sight."
 
 CHALMERS' BIOGRAPHY 7 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 A few selected titles are given here for those who wish 
 to learn more of the life and work of our author. Fur- 
 ther references will be found in the book of Professor 
 Blaikie. 
 
 Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Thomas Chalmers. By W. 
 Hanna. 
 
 Thomas Chalmers. By W. G. Blaikie. New York, 1897. 
 
 Zwei Biicher zur socialen Geschichte Englands. By A. Held. Leip- 
 zig, 1881. S. 233.
 
 n 
 
 ANALYSIS OF THE CHRISTIAN AND CIV- 
 IC ECONOMY OF LAKGE TOWNS AND OF 
 THE POLITICAL ECONOMY 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY OF LARGE 
 TOWNS 
 
 THE theme of this work touches the essence of Chal- 
 mers' own life : the social welfare of the laboring classes ; 
 the obstacles to that welfare ; the means of promoting it. 
 
 Chapter I. Religion and science should be united in 
 the service of man. Institutions are important to happi- 
 ness and character. The country parishes of Scotland 
 present certain advantages and produce a worthy type 
 of character. The city parish may be so organized as 
 to secure these advantages. We must provide for a nu- 
 merous and well-appointed agency. The power of per- 
 sonal influence must be felt. Ministers of the church 
 should be free from the excessive burdens of varied secu- 
 lar offices that they may have time and energy for their 
 specific, intellectual, and practical duties. 
 
 Chapter II. On the influence of locality in towns. 
 Most philanthropic societies err in seeking to cover a 
 whole city by one scheme. It were better for an asso- 
 ciation to attack a small area and till it thoroughly. If
 
 CHALMERS' TEACHINGS ANALYZED 9 
 
 a successful and fruitful plan has demonstrated its value 
 in a limited district it will be imitated, and at last the 
 entire city will be covered. 
 
 Chapter III. Application of the principle of locality 
 to the work of a Christian minister. An argument for 
 a state church based on the ground that people need but 
 do not desire religion and education. Material goods 
 they do desire and will voluntarily seek. The church 
 policy of emanation is superior to the passive policy of 
 attraction. 
 
 Chapter IV. The effect of locality in adding to the 
 useful establishments of a town, and especially in respect 
 to schools for the laboring classes. Gifts for popular 
 education are the best form of charity. 
 
 Chapters Y. and VI. On church patronage. The 
 popular religious taste for evangelical doctrine is sound, 
 and should be regarded by those persons who have legal 
 power to appoint pastors. The competition of sects is 
 not altogether an evil. Dissenters should be treated with 
 tolerance, since they spur the Established Church to its 
 duty. Germs of the social settlement idea are found 
 here. 
 
 Chapter VII. On church offices. The organization 
 of Scottish churches. Objections to a fund for the poor. 
 The modern idea of friendly visitors finely treated. 
 
 Chapter VIII. On Sabbath schools. Their function 
 and relation to family and church. The social settlement 
 idea again. 
 
 Chapter IX. On the relation between the Christian 
 and the civic economy of large towns. The same relig-
 
 10 INTRODUCTION 
 
 ious ministrations which Christianize and spiritualize a 
 few do more obviously and on a wide scale refine and 
 civilize. 
 
 Chapter X. On the bearing which a right Christian 
 economy has upon pauperism. Objections to out-door 
 official relief, by church or state : chiefly because it tends 
 to suppress the graces and virtues. 
 
 Chapter XI. On the bearing which a right civic econ- 
 omy has upon pauperism. Criticism of centralized ad- 
 ministration of relief. Plea for a close neighborhood 
 bond between almoner and people. St. John's parish 
 experiment. 
 
 Chapter XII. On the present state and future pros- 
 pects of pauperism in Glasgow. The idea of the more 
 recent Charity Organization Society and its fundamental 
 principles. 
 
 Chapter XIII. On the difficulties and evils which 
 adhere even to the best condition of Scottish pauperism. 
 Illustrations from the " Gorbals " at Glasgow. 
 
 Chapter XIV. On the likeliest means for the aboli- 
 tion of pauperism (that is, out-door official relief) in Eng- 
 land. Evils of the English Poor Law. Out-door official 
 relief is both unnecessary and hurtful. Mitigation of its 
 evils not possible. Gradual abolition the only remedy. 
 
 Chapter XV. On the likeliest parliamentary means 
 for the abolition of pauperism in England. Law should 
 simply permit localities to try the experiment of aboli- 
 tion. A form of referendum recommended. 
 
 Chapter XVI. On the likeliest parochial means for 
 the abolition of pauperism in England. Practically,
 
 CHALMEKS' TEACHINGS ANALYZED 11 
 
 Charity Organization Society methods in parishes which 
 had voted for abolition. 
 
 Chapter XVII. On the wages of labor. We pass 
 at this point from the consideration of paupers to the 
 economic conditions of the wage-earning class. Adopting 
 the " wage fund theory " of his day, the author traces 
 a clear mathematical ratio between the supply of laborers 
 and the demand for them. Accepting the doctrine of 
 Malthus, he teaches that a small surplus of laborers will 
 produce a great fall in wages; and that a small defi- 
 ciency in the supply of laborers will cause a considerable 
 rise in wages. Hence the " lower classes " can control 
 the rate of wages by marrying later and having smaller 
 families. 
 
 Chapter XVIII. On the effect of a poor rate, when 
 applied in aid of defective wages. It increases the num- 
 ber of the dependent, encourages early marriages, and 
 induces idleness, vice, and revolt. 
 
 Chapter XIX. On savings banks. A fund in hand 
 enables the workmen to hold out for better wages. 
 
 Chapters XX. and XXI. On the combinations of 
 workmen for the purpose of raising wages. His doctrine 
 of the wage fund led Chalmers to believe that combina- 
 tions cannot affect the rate of wages. But he deprecated 
 the legal suppression of trades-unions. Non-union men 
 must be protected by police if they choose to work for 
 wages offered. 
 
 Chapter XXII. On certain prevalent errors which are 
 fostered by economic theories. There is no danger that 
 combinations of laborers will too greatly reduce the sup-
 
 12 INTRODUCTION 
 
 ply of labor or drive capital from the country. Economic 
 forces are too strong for artificial unions. 
 
 Chapter XXIII. On the effect which the high price 
 of labor in a country has upon its foreign trade. The- 
 ory of international trade. No real manufacturing or 
 commercial interest will suffer because workmen are well 
 paid. 
 
 Chapter XXIV. On mechanic schools, and on politi- 
 cal economy as a branch of education. Popular educa- 
 tion, especially in economics, tends to pacify rather than 
 to excite working people. When they see that strikes do 
 no good they will seek other means of bettering their 
 condition. They will act on the advice of Malthus and 
 limit their numbers in order to raise their wages. 
 
 Professor Blaikie sums up the social teaching of Chal- 
 mers in these words: " On the basis of the gospel, he 
 could not separate the social from the personal, the gen- 
 eral from the particular, the temporal from the spiritual. 
 He had always an Arcadia, a Utopia, a new spring-tide 
 of his country in his vista ; but a spring-tide to be realized 
 in one way only by the coming of the spirit from on 
 high." 
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY 
 
 Before offering criticisms and estimates of the social 
 teachings of the volume here presented, it will be well 
 to consider the system of economic thought which grew 
 up in the mind of Chalmers. Fortunately, we have a 
 synopsis of this system in the very words of our author.
 
 CHALMEKS' TEACHINGS ANALYZED 13 
 
 It is found in his work on " Political Economy," pub- 
 lished in 1832: 
 
 " It has not been our object to deliver a regular sys- 
 tem of political economy. It has been to establish the 
 following specific proposition : That no economic enlarge- 
 ments in the wealth and resources of a country can ensure 
 aught like a permanent comfort or sufficiency to the fami- 
 lies of a land. Followed up as these enlargements are 
 by a commensurate, or generally by an over-passing, in- 
 crease of the population, the country, while becoming 
 richer in the aggregate, may continue to teem with as 
 great, perhaps a greater, amount of individual distress 
 and penury than in the humble and earlier days of her 
 history. In these circumstances the highway to our secure 
 and stable prosperity is not so much to enlarge the limit 
 of our external means as so to restrain the numbers of 
 the population that they shall not press too hard upon 
 that limit. But the only way of rightly accomplishing 
 this is through the medium of a higher self-respect and 
 higher taste for the comforts and decencies of life among 
 the people themselves. It is only a moral and voluntary 
 restraint that should be aimed at, or that can be at all 
 effectual the fruit, not of any external or authoritative 
 compulsion, but of their own spontaneous and collective 
 will. This is evidently not the achievement of a day, 
 but the slow product of education, working insensibly, 
 yet withal steadily and surely, on the habits and inclina- 
 tions of the common people; begetting a higher cast of 
 character, and, as the unfailing consequence of this, a 
 higher standard of enjoyment; the effect of which will
 
 14 INTRODUCTION 
 
 be more provident, and hence both later and fewer, mar- 
 riages. Without this expedient no possible enlargement 
 of the general wealth can enlarge the individual comfort 
 of families; but, as in China, we shall behold a general 
 want and wretchedness throughout the mass of society. 
 With this expedient, no limitation in the way of further 
 increase to our wealth will depress the condition, though 
 it will restrain the number of our families; but, as in 
 Norway, we shall behold the cheerful spectacle of a thriv- 
 ing, independent, and respectable peasantry." 
 
 The leading principles of the economic theory are thus 
 stated : 
 
 1. The division of the laboring population into the agri- 
 cultural, the secondary, and the disposable. . . . ~No 
 ground will be cultivated (unless by the interference of 
 some artificial and compulsory legislation) that is not at 
 least able to feed the agricultural population employed 
 on it, and their secondaries. Hence the higher the stand- 
 ard of enjoyment is among the people at large, the greater 
 will be the secondary, and the less will be the disposable 
 class; or, corresponding to this, the greater will be the 
 wages, and the less will be the rent, while, at the same 
 time, the more limited will be the cultivation, because of 
 the larger produce that will be required from the soil last 
 entered on, to feed the larger number of secondaries. 
 
 2. That the great aim of every enlightened philan- 
 thropist and patriot is to raise the standard of enjoyment, 
 even though it should somewhat lessen the rent and some- 
 what limit the cultivation. 
 
 3. That there is no other method by which wages can
 
 CHALMERS' TEACHINGS ANALYZED 15 
 
 be kept permanently high than by the operation of the 
 moral preventive check among the working classes of so- 
 ciety; and that this can only be secured by elevating 
 their standard of enjoyment, through the means both of 
 common and Christian education. 
 
 4. That however menacing the aspect of a policy 
 whose object is to raise the condition of the working 
 classes may have on the interest of the landlords, by 
 encroaching on the rent of land, yet they have a security 
 for a great and growing revenue notwithstanding. Such, 
 in the first place, is the strength of the principle of popu- 
 lation, that there is no danger but wages will be kept 
 sufficiently low, and cultivation be carried down among 
 the inferior soils sufficiently far. And besides, every im- 
 provement in the methods of husbandry, by lessening the 
 agricultural population needed for the work of farms 
 and every improvement in the powers of manufacturing 
 industry, by lessening the population needed for prepar- 
 ing the second necessaries of life will serve to increase 
 the disposable population who are at the service of the 
 landlords, and, along with this, the rent out of which 
 this third class of laborers is maintained. The improve- 
 ments which are ever taking place in the powers of labor 
 will greatly more than countervail any diminution ef- 
 fected by the moral check on the number of laborers. 
 
 5. That high wages are not necessarily confined to the 
 period when the wealth of society is in a state of pro- 
 gressive increase; and neither does it follow that, when 
 this wealth has attained its maximum, and become sta- 
 tionary, the wages of labor must be low. That it remains
 
 16 INTRODUCTION 
 
 in the collective power of laborers to sustain their wages 
 at as high a level in the ultimate as in the progressive 
 stages of the wealth of a country. That the moral pre- 
 ventive check on population can achieve and perpetuate 
 this result; but nothing else will do it. 
 
 6. That in every country, where the laws are efficient 
 and equitable, and the people are industrious, the culti- 
 vation of the soil will, under the guidance of personal 
 interest and enterprise, be carried to the extreme limit 
 of its being profitable. 
 
 7. That this contemplation suggests two distinct limits 
 one, the extreme limit of a profitable, another the ex- 
 treme limit of a possible, cultivation. That, by abstain- 
 ing from schemes of pauperism, and, instead of these, 
 giving the whole strength and wisdom of government to 
 the best schemes of popular education, we shall keep 
 within the former limit; and, with an untouched dis- 
 posable population, whether for the luxury of proprietors, 
 or for the public objects of a sound and enlightened pa- 
 triotism, we may have, at the same time, the general pop- 
 ulation in a state of respectable comfort and sufficiency. 
 But if, transgressing the former limit, we enter, with our 
 home colonists, on unprofitable soils, and so make way 
 to the latter limit from that moment, in thus making 
 room for a larger, we are on the sure road to a greatly 
 more wretched society than before. 
 
 8. That no trade or manufacture contributes more to 
 the good of society than the use or enjoyment which is 
 afforded by its own commodities; hence the delusiveness 
 of that importance which has been ascribed to them, as
 
 CHALMERS' TEACHINGS ANALYZED 17 
 
 if they bore any creative part in augmenting the public 
 revenue, or as if, apart from the use of their commodities, 
 they at all contributed to the strength or greatness of 
 the nation; and hence, also, the futility of the common 
 distinction between productive and unproductive labor. 
 
 9. We are not to imagine, though any given branch 
 of trade or manufacture should be extinguished, that it 
 will sensibly throw back agriculture. 
 
 10. There is a misplaced and exaggerated alarm con- 
 nected with the decay and loss of trade. 
 
 11. They are chiefly the holders of the first necessaries 
 of life, or landed proprietors, who impress, by their taste 
 and demand, any direction which seemeth unto them 
 good, on the labors of the disposable population. 
 
 12. Grant but industry and protection, and their cap- 
 ital will be found to have in it as great an increasing 
 and restorative power as population has. 
 
 13. That the diminution of capital, occasioned by ex- 
 cessive expenditure, whether public or private, is not re- 
 paired so much by parsimony as by the action of a di- 
 minished capital on profits; and that the extravagance 
 of government or of individuals, which raises prices by 
 the amount of that extravagance, produces only a rotation 
 of property, without any further diminution of it than 
 what arises from the somewhat higher rate of profit which 
 an increased expenditure brings along with it ; and which 
 higher rate of profit must, to a certain extent, limit the 
 cultivation of land. 
 
 14. That trade is liable to gluts, both general and par- 
 tial; that no skilful distribution of the capital among
 
 18 INTRODUCTION 
 
 particular trades can save the losses which ensue from 
 a general excess of trading; and that the result is the 
 same whether the undue extension has taken place by 
 means of credit or from an excess of capital. 
 
 15. That the rate of profit is determined by the collec- 
 tive will of capitalists, just as the rate of wages is by the 
 collective will of laborers the former, by the command 
 which they have, through their greater or less expendi- 
 ture, over the amount of capital; the latter by the com- 
 mand which they have, through their later or earlier 
 marriages, over the amount of population. That by rais- 
 ing or lowering, therefore, the standard of enjoyment 
 among capitalists, profit is raised or lowered; that in this 
 way both classes may encroach on the rent of land and 
 share its produce more equally with the landlords. 
 
 16. That when the agricultural produce of a country 
 is equal to the subsistence of its population, its foreign 
 trade is as much directed by the taste and upheld by the 
 ability of its landed proprietors as the home trade is. 
 
 17. That it is not desirable that the commerce of Brit- 
 ain should greatly overlap its agricultural basis, and that 
 the excrescent population, subsisted on corn from abroad, 
 yields a very insignificant fraction to the public revenue. 
 
 18. That, nevertheless, there should be a gradual relax- 
 ation of the corn laws, and ultimately a free corn trade 
 with the exception of a small duty on importation, for 
 the single purpose of a revenue to government, by which 
 to meet the expenses to which it is subjected, from the 
 addition made by the excrescent to the whole population. 
 
 19. That the abolition of this monopoly in corn would
 
 CHALMERS' TEACHINGS ANALYZED 19 
 
 not be injurious to the British landlords, seeing that the 
 increase thereby given to the value of money might create 
 an inequality between them and the fund-holders, which 
 inequality, however, could be rectified by means of an 
 adjusted taxation. 
 
 20. That probably a free corn trade would not burden 
 the country with a large excrescent population. 
 
 21. That Britain has little or nothing to apprehend 
 from the loss of her colonies and commerce; but that 
 change of employment to the disposable population, and 
 enjoyment to their maintainers, would form the whole 
 result of it. And that, though, historically, foreign trade 
 did, at the termination of the middle ages, stimulate agri- 
 culture, yet that now, under all the possible fluctuations 
 of trade, there is perfect security for the cultivation of 
 land, on that point at which it ceases to yield any sur- 
 plus produce to the landlord. 
 
 22. That, with the exception of their first brief and 
 temporary effect on wages and the profits of circulating 
 capital, and of their more prolonged effect on the profits 
 of fixed capital, all taxes fall upon land, the interest of 
 its mortgages being included. 
 
 23. That this doctrine, though now regarded as one 
 of the exploded errors of the French economists, should 
 not share in the discredit attached to their school, if up- 
 held by other reasonings, and made to rest on other prin- 
 ciples than those of the economists. That the grounds 
 on which our convictions in this matter are established 
 were never once recognized by these economists that is, 
 the dependence of wages on an element over which la-
 
 20 INTRODUCTION 
 
 borers, collectively, have the entire control, we mean pop- 
 ulation ; and the dependence of profit on an element over 
 which traders, collectively, have the entire control, we 
 mean the capital. 
 
 24. That, to estimate the whole effect of taxes upon 
 land, we should add to the effect of them, in aggravating 
 the expenditure of landlords, the effect of them in lessen- 
 ing the receipts. That every tax which bears on the profit 
 or'maintenance of the agricultural capitalists, and which 
 bears on the wages or maintenance of the agricultural 
 and their secondary laborers, and, generally, which en- 
 hances the expenses of farm management, creates a reduc- 
 tion pro tanto, from the rent. That, for the commutation 
 of all taxes in a territorial and funded impost, there would 
 be a full equivalent to the landlords; first, in the lessened 
 expenses of their living, and secondly, in the enlarged rent 
 of all the land now under cultivation. And that they, 
 over and above, would obtain more than an equivalent 
 in the new rent which would accrue from the more ex- 
 tended cultivation of their land, now unburdened of all 
 those taxes by which the cultivation had formerly been 
 limited. 
 
 25. That the effect of tithes, in contracting the agri- 
 culture of a country, is the same with that of taxes on 
 capitalists, or laborers, or the instruments of husbandry; 
 and that the abolition of both would, in the first instance, 
 enlarge the comforts of the general community, but, at 
 least, would prove exclusively a boon and an enlargement 
 to the landlords. 
 
 26. That tithes and taxes ought not to be abolished, but
 
 CHALMEKS' TEACHINGS ANALYZED 21 
 
 commuted, as there ought to be a more liberal provision 
 for various branches of the public service, and more espe- 
 cially for the support of the literary and ecclesiastical 
 establishments, the endowment of which is indispensable 
 to high scholarship and to the full Christian instruction 
 of the people. 
 
 27. That the extreme limit of taxation is the landed 
 rental of the kingdom; and that, were taxation carried 
 to this limit, it would place the great bulk of the dis- 
 posable population in the service of the state. 
 
 28. That the capabilities of the nation for defensive 
 war are greatly underrated, they being at least commen- 
 surate to the extent of the disposable population. 
 
 29. That the superior influence of Britain over other 
 nations in distant parts is due to her exports; and that 
 if, instead of her lighter manufactures, she had to export 
 raw produce, her power in offensive war would be les- 
 sened, while she might continue as strong in defensive 
 war as before ; and that, therefore, the balance of power 
 is a topic of needless and misplaced anxiety on the part 
 of British statesmen. 
 
 30. That the national debt is tantamount to a general 
 mortgage on the land of the kingdom, and that it has 
 occasioned no diminution of capital, the absorption of capi- 
 tal by the government loan of any particular year being 
 replaced next year by the operation of the diminished 
 capital upon profits. 
 
 31. That if the expenses of a war are raised within the 
 year, they do not enhance general prices; but that, in 
 as far as they are defrayed by loans, prices rise, and so
 
 23 INTRODUCTION 
 
 that the excess upon the whole is equal to the sum 
 borrowed. 
 
 32. That the national debt is therefore a double burden 
 upon the community, having already been paid once in 
 the excess of those higher prices which are consequent 
 upon each loan, and to be paid a second time, either by 
 a perpetual interest or by the liquidation of the principal. 
 
 33. That the nation is able to pay the expense of any 
 war by taxes within the year, as by taxes and loans to- 
 gether, seeing that, in point of fact, it does pay the loans 
 within the year, too, in the higher prices which these 
 loans have occasioned. 
 
 34. That the law of primogeniture is essentially linked 
 with the political strength and other great interests of the 
 nation. 
 
 35. That, on the w T hole, no enlargement of our eco- 
 nomical resources will suffice for the wants of a popula- 
 tion who are under no moral or prudential restraint on the 
 increase of their numbers. That the effect of each suc- 
 cessive addition to the means of our subsistence will, in 
 that case, be only a larger, but not more comfortable or 
 better conditioned, society. That, however numerous or 
 however successful the expedients may be for adding to 
 the amount of national wealth, they will be nullified, in 
 point of effect on the sensible comfort of families, by the 
 operation of but one expedient more, which shall ensure 
 a proportional, or beget a tendency toward a greater than 
 proportional, addition to the national population. That 
 a law of compulsory relief for the poor is precisely such 
 an expedient, and that, so long as it is in operation, every
 
 CHALMERS' TEACHINGS ANALYZED 23 
 
 other device which philanthropy can suggest, or even an 
 enlightened political economy can sanction, will turn out 
 to be futile and abortive. 
 
 36. That, but for this disturbing force, which so un- 
 settles the prudential habits of the people and so under- 
 mines every principle, whether of nature or of Christian- 
 ity, to the spontaneous operation of which the care of the 
 poor ought always to have been confided, society might 
 undergo a very speedy amelioration. Because that a very 
 small excess in the number of laborers effects a very large 
 and disproportionate reduction in the price of labor, and 
 therefore, by a reverse process, it might only require a 
 very insignificant fraction of relief from the numbers of 
 the people to operate a very large relief on their circum- 
 stances and comforts. That emigration for the lessening 
 of the number, and the various other economical expedi- 
 ents for the enlargement of the means, will be of but slight 
 or temporary effect so long as the law of pauperism shall 
 maintain the population in a state of perpetual overflow. 
 But that, if these were related to a scheme for the gradual 
 abolition of the pauperism, they would smooth the transi- 
 tion from a system of compulsory to one of natural and 
 gratuitous relief; after which it were in the power of 
 common, and more especially of Christian, education, in- 
 definitely to raise the habits and tastes, and, along with 
 these, to raise the economical condition of the people.
 
 Ill 
 
 CEITICISM OF CERTAIN SOCIAL TEACH- 
 INGS OF CHALMERS 
 
 MORE than half a century has passed since the great 
 man of faith, wisdom, and good works passed away from 
 earth. During the intervening time the civilized world 
 has been urged forward upon a path which the wisest 
 philosopher could not foresee and foretell. A science is 
 the explanation of a system of facts, and the facts have 
 changed. By a division of mental labor and a process 
 of critical discussion, the economists have sifted good 
 grain from the chaff of error. We may believe that if 
 Dr. Chalmers could have lived to our day and followed 
 the course of experience and academic discussion, he 
 would issue a new edition of his " Christian and Civic 
 Economy of Large Towns," and he would have made it 
 shorter, out of respect for the more rapid movement of 
 our age. He might justly still claim that the funda- 
 mental principles of his work are valid. Some of his 
 theoretical positions and practical recommendations he 
 would modify. 
 
 In the body of the text of this edition of his work 
 his very words remain undisturbed. But the reader 
 should not permit himself to be carried along with the 
 torrent of eager and impetuous argument without hints 
 
 34
 
 CHALMERS' DOCTRINES EXAMINED 25 
 
 of needed caution and amendment. Even that august 
 instrument, the Constitution of the United States, pro- 
 vided for changes in its own articles. The thinkers and 
 guides of one generation cannot lay down minute rules 
 for later generations. The study of history, philosophy, 
 and science does not take the place of tact, technical 
 training, and ability to meet new conditions. The criti- 
 cism of a powerful book is itself a valuable method of 
 preparing the mind for theoretical comprehension and 
 practical understanding of the elements of a contempo- 
 rary social situation. 
 
 The criticism which is here offered does not claim to 
 cover all the defects of the book nor to deal with any 
 particular point exhaustively. The chief purpose is to 
 raise cautionary signals and start the reader on indepen- 
 dent lines of reflection and reconsideration. 
 
 DEFECTS IN ECONOMIC THEORY AND PRACTICAL 
 RECOMMENDATIONS 
 
 In Chapter XVII. our author says: " Wages form the 
 price of labor; and this price, like that of every other 
 commodity, is determined by the proportion which ob- 
 tains between the supply of it in the market and the 
 effective demand for it. Should the supply be dimin- 
 ished, or the demand increase, the price rises. Should the 
 supply be increased, or the demand slacken, the price 
 falls." From this fundamental position it is argued: 
 " That no economic enlargements in the wealth and re- 
 sources of a country can ensure aught like a permanent
 
 26 INTRODUCTION 
 
 comfort or sufficiency to the families of a land. Followed 
 up as these enlargements are by a commensurate, or gen- 
 erally by an over-passing increase of population. . . . 
 In these circumstances the highway to our secure and 
 stable prosperity is not so much to enlarge the limit of 
 our external means as to restrain the numbers of the 
 population." 
 
 We are here at once involved in an economic contro- 
 versy, not yet closed, in respect to the " wages fund " and 
 the theory of population as taught by Malthus. It would 
 require a large volume to discuss the various aspects of 
 these problems.* 
 
 The Malthusian doctrine in Chalmers' teaching. The 
 core of this teaching is declared to be sound by the most 
 important economists. It ever remains true that it is 
 possible for population to multiply beyond its power to 
 provide the means of existence, efficiency, and comfort. 
 The theory has been pronounced false and immoral. It 
 has been ridiculed and buried under contemptuous epi- 
 thets. But both in economic science and in practice, even 
 in the practice of those who refuse to accept the economic 
 theory, it has held the ground in all civilized countries. 
 
 Those who point to the fact that wealth has increased 
 faster than population, and use this well-established fact 
 as a triumphant disproof of Malthus's doctrine of popu- 
 lation, seem to overlook two aspects of the history. The 
 
 * Some recent discussions of these topics may be found in : Marshall, 
 Principles of Economics, I., p. 572, etc.; F. A. Walker, The Wages 
 Question; Political Economy (Advanced Course), p. 364, 3d ed. ; North 
 American Review, Jan., 1875; F. W. Taussig, Wages and Capital; A. 
 T. Hadley, Economics, Chap. X. ; Webb, Problems of Modern Indus- 
 try, p. 161.
 
 CHALMERS' DOCTRINES EXAMINED 27 
 
 educated classes, including the higher ranks of mechan- 
 ics and artisans, have acted on the advice of Malthus and 
 Chalmers, and they multiply less rapidly than persons 
 of the same classes early in the century, while the pro- 
 ductive power of machinery and of industrial and com- 
 mercial organization have vastly increased the national 
 income. The best proof that Chalmers was right is that 
 those who have followed his advice have reaped the re- 
 ward in a larger average income. The other aspect of 
 the history is tragic and pathetic : the population of the 
 feeble, the defective, and the improvident has kept level 
 with the means of subsistence only by means of theft, 
 beggary, vice, and an enormous mortality, especially of 
 infants. Those who believed Malthus and Chalmers have 
 increased comfort, health, wealth, intellectual progress, 
 and higher morality. Those who have not yet come un- 
 der the sway of these ideas suffer the consequences and 
 pass on the evil to their offspring. 
 
 But the doctrine needs modification; it is not alto- 
 gether right, and it is not the only matter of importance. 
 Chalmers laid emphasis on a single remedy of restricting 
 population, and did not adequately consider its shortcom- 
 ing. He did not, on one side, foresee the tremendous 
 additions to the productive forces of the nation; on the 
 other side he did not give sufficient weight to the pressure 
 of population from the lower ranks and from distant 
 countries. 
 
 To all that he says an intelligent wage-worker might 
 reply with anger and scorn: " Of what value will it be 
 to ordinary laborers to marry late if cheap labor may
 
 28 INTRODUCTION 
 
 constantly come up from the proletariat or be imported 
 from countries where poverty is prolific? Those who 
 have a partial monopoly of positions because of unusual 
 skill may be protected from this competition by belong- 
 ing to what Professor Cairnes called the ' non-competing 
 groups.' But in many callings machinery reduces all 
 to a low level and breaks down these barriers and dykes 
 of skill. Dr. Chalmers himself actually advises the im- 
 portation of cheap laborers from Ireland in order to over- 
 whelm strikers and ' teach them a lesson ' of the use- 
 lessness of trades-unions under the conditions of ' free 
 competition ' and ' natural economic laws.' Chalmers 
 denounced any ' artificial ' legislative or associated ef- 
 fort on behalf of the wage-workers; but the importation 
 of half-starved Irishmen or Belgians or negroes, in time 
 of strike, would seem to his mind perfectly natural and 
 in accordance with the divine harmonies of political 
 economy! " 
 
 Again, Chalmers did not and could not be expected 
 to foresee the numerous artificial obstructions to compe- 
 tition devised by capitalists patent and copyright privi- 
 leges, the power of vast corporations, combinations, pools, 
 trusts, which have been enabled to derive exceptional 
 profits by means of charter privileges from public busi- 
 ness, until the modern world is perplexed to know how 
 to protect itself from these creatures of law.* The poor- 
 est, most shiftless and feeble of the population have many 
 children and crowd the more careful, skilful, and provi- 
 dent workmen with their competition. In such circum- 
 * See Webb, Industrial Democracy, II. , p. 644.
 
 CHALMERS' DOCTRINES EXAMINED 29 
 
 stances it is false and cruel to charge the wage-workers 
 with the entire responsibility for inadequate wages, as 
 Chalmers does when he says that their immoral and ex- 
 cessive child-breeding is the sole cause of low wages. 
 Neither individual continence, nor a custom of late mar- 
 riages in the higher classes of industrials, nor trade-union 
 action, can prevent the invasion of numbers, so long as 
 the poorest and weakest are so prolific. 
 
 Nor can society suffer these weaker members to perish 
 without help. Modern nations base their customs and 
 their poor laws on the assumption that every human 
 being has a right to the means of existence, once he is 
 born. No Christian state permits any citizen to starve. 
 If private charity fails, public relief is provided. 
 
 If society thus accepts the responsibility for support- 
 ing those who fail to support themselves by that act, it 
 gains the right to say how they shall be supported and 
 how many children they shall have after the dependence 
 begins. So long as a man takes care of himself he is 
 legally free to live where he chooses and marry whom 
 he will. But the moment he asks society to care for him 
 he surrenders this liberty. The community, under all 
 poor laws, has long asserted the right to say whether the 
 paupers shall live in families and be permitted to mul- 
 tiply their kind, or in closed institutions. For those who 
 are manifestly defective, as the feeble-minded, some 
 states have already provided rural, non-competing, self- 
 supporting celibate colonies. It seems probable that dur- 
 ing the next half century this principle will be greatly 
 extended. Such an extension of social control could not
 
 80 INTRODUCTION 
 
 have been understood before the days of Charles Darwin 
 and the other biologists. 
 
 As to the actual historical facts of population, our dis- 
 tinguished author, like many other writers of his time, 
 was altogether too absolute. In his " Political Economy " 
 he wrote : " The great historical fact remains unshaken 
 that, let the means of subsistence be increased however 
 largely and suddenly, this is sure to be followed by a 
 corresponding increase of population. . . . Every 
 increase of food is followed up by an increase of popu- 
 lation. . . . Through the medium of the stimulation 
 given to population, it does what no other articles of 
 merchandise can do; it multiplies its own consumers. 
 A plenty of the first necessaries is the only species of 
 plenty which surely and largely tells on the population." 
 
 Now the historical fact already alluded to is that wealth 
 has greatly outgrown the general population.* 
 
 It is also a mistake of serious practical importance to af- 
 firm that specific information in regard to the law of popu- 
 lation is of no value. Chalmers says : " We can imagine 
 nothing more preposterous than the diffusion, for this 
 purpose, of tracts on population, among the families of 
 the land." Why, then, does the author himself continue, 
 year after year, to publish, as widely as possible, just such 
 tracts? Does he not distribute, wholesale and broadcast, 
 the teaching of Malthus as almost the sole means of 
 social salvation, economically and morally, of the poor? 
 Did he imagine that none but physicians and magistrates 
 would read his works? 
 
 * Nitti, La Population.
 
 CHALMERS' DOCTRINES EXAMINED 31 
 
 It was just because this doctrine was published and 
 popularized, under various forms of practical advice, that 
 the rate of increase of population fell off in all modern 
 countries.* 
 
 Trades-Unions. In the earlier decades of this century 
 economists of distinction taught that combinations of 
 wage-earners to raise wages were useless. Chalmers was 
 in advance of many leaders of society in his time, because 
 he strongly opposed the suppression of such associations 
 by arbitrary legal force, and he held that they would 
 gradually disappear before the march of economic ex- 
 perience and knowledge. His argument was a part of 
 his general theory of the conditions which determine the 
 rate of wages. The great economists of our age, having 
 rejected or essentially modified the " wage fund " theory, 
 no longer assume a hostile attitude to the unions, and 
 very generally approve them. Extravagant expectations 
 are sobered by economic science, but reasonable measures 
 are encouraged. 
 
 The very general and bitter antagonism to trades- 
 unions on the part of capitalist managers is in large part 
 due to their discovery of the extreme efficiency of union 
 methods of making bargains. The annals of the labor 
 
 * This table will show the tendency in the United States : 
 
 1850 Number of persons per family. 5.55 
 
 1860 " " " . 5.28 
 
 1870 " " " . 5.09 
 
 1880 " " " . 5.04 
 
 1890 " " " . 4.93 
 
 Here is shown a decrease of 11.17 per cent. The average duration of 
 life seems to have increased about 10 per cent. The standard of life 
 has risen. See C. D. Wright, Practical Sociology, p. 69.
 
 32 INTRODUCTION 
 
 movement furnish only too many illustrations of the 
 questionable and often cruel measures employed to de- 
 stroy these associations, so dear to wage-workers. Many 
 economists and statesmen are convinced that workingmen 
 will need the protection of law to prevent their employers 
 from discharging those who belong to unions. 
 
 Chalmers predicted, on the basis of his theory, that 
 hired laborers would, if left entirely free, soon weary 
 of spending energy and money on a useless organization. 
 But three-quarters of a century have passed and the hired 
 laborers of all modern countries cling to their unions 
 and make fraternal sacrifices for them as their best reli- 
 ance in bargaining for the best possible terms. If this 
 universal belief of educated workmen, after this long 
 and costly trial, is a pure delusion, it would seem diffi- 
 cult for great bodies of men to learn anything from 
 experience. 
 
 The opposition of Chalmers to unions was natural for 
 him. He lived soon after the modern states had suc- 
 ceeded in breaking down the narrow monopolies and op- 
 pressions of the antiquated mediaeval guilds and feudal 
 privileges. The world was entering upon the magnifi- 
 cent enterprises of modern industry under a regime of 
 freedom. Manufactures and commerce had begun to 
 flourish as these ancient chains fell to the earth. The 
 ruling members of society have generally looked upon 
 combinations of wage-workers with class dislike, born 
 of class interest. This instinct survives and is inevitable. 
 
 When Chalmers wrote, the capitalists were seeking to 
 destroy the unions by legal enactment and police power.
 
 CHALMERS' DOCTRINES EXAMINED 33 
 
 For this there was some pretext. The unions, yet with- 
 out the discipline of experience, were sometimes guilty 
 of shameful and criminal acts which made a defence of 
 their cause and principle exceedingly difficult. Some 
 of the worst of these outbreaks occurred while the book 
 was going through the press in the serial form. The 
 strong manufacturers and their friends were bent on 
 reactionary legislation, eager to make simple combina- 
 tion itself, apart from evidence of violence, a penal 
 offence. 
 
 Chalmers urged, on economic ground, that such laws 
 were entirely unnecessary. The criminal laws should be 
 enforced, and they were adequate for the purpose. Act- 
 ual attacks on persons, on liberty of labor, on property, 
 should be severely punished. Trades-unions would die 
 if left alone. They could not stand before " economic 
 laws," those deities of the capitalists and economists. As 
 a matter of policy it would be better for the workmen to 
 discover the futility of unions by experience, and then 
 they would not feel that their plan of protection had 
 been suppressed by arbitrary and oppressive action. 
 
 Our prophet was wise, but he was not omniscient. He 
 distinctly foretold the speedy dissolution of the unions, 
 and yet they have actually grown in all civilized lands 
 and become one of the most powerful and necessary ele- 
 ments in the regulation of industrial relations. Their 
 existence is a mark of social progress. They hold a le- 
 gally recognized position, and ethical sanctions have been 
 given by society to all their essential aims and methods. 
 
 Those earlier trades-unions, even in their acts of vio-
 
 34 INTRODUCTION 
 
 lence, have found defenders among recent conservative 
 economists. In reference to those very outbreaks of 
 which Chalmers speaks, President F. A. Walker * says : 
 " For myself, I entertain no doubt that the early strikes 
 in England, which followed the repeal, in 1824, of the 
 Combination acts, were essential to the breaking up of 
 the power of custom and fear over the minds of the work- 
 ing classes of the kingdom. For centuries it had been 
 a crime, by statute, for workmen to combine to raise 
 wages or shorten the hours of labor, while masters were 
 left perfectly free to combine to lower wages or lengthen 
 the hours of labor. The beginning of the century found 
 the laboring classes of England almost destitute of po- 
 litical franchises, unaccustomed to discussion and the free 
 communication of thought, tax-ridden, poverty-stricken, 
 illiterate. What else than the series of fierce revolts, the 
 rebellions of down-trodden labor, which followed Hus- 
 kisson's act of 1824, could, in any equal period of time, 
 or, indeed, at smaller cost, have taught the employers 
 of England to respect their laborers, and have taught the 
 laborers of England to respect themselves; could have 
 made the latter equally confident and self-reliant in press- 
 ing home a just demand, or made the former equally 
 solicitous to refuse no demand that could reasonably be 
 conceded? Nothing quickens the sense of justice and 
 equity like the consciousness that unjust and inequitable 
 demands or acts are likely to be promptly resented and 
 strenuously resisted. ' Nothing is so potent to clarify the 
 judgment and sober the temper, in questions of right or 
 * Political Economy (Advanced), p. 377.
 
 CHALMERS' DOCTRINES EXAMINED 35 
 
 wrong, as to know that a mistake will lead to a hard and 
 a long fight." 
 
 The philanthropist believed in friendly societies and 
 savings banks as means of individual thrift. He admits 
 the principle of individual bargaining of laborer with 
 employer, and, in admitting this, he gives large place 
 to the objects of trades-unions. " Could they merely af- 
 ford to slacken their work in a season of depressed wages, 
 or to cease from working altogether, the overstocked mar- 
 kets would be far more speedily cleared away, and the 
 remuneration for labor would again come back to its 
 wonted or natural level." 
 
 The wage-workers of the higher ranks have made a 
 discovery which is gradually being communicated to 
 lower ranks of labor, and they learned their lesson by 
 instinct and bitter trial, without help of philanthropists 
 or economists, and in face of almost universal disapproval 
 and contempt among the " upper classes." This discov- 
 ery was that collective bargaining has all the advantages 
 of individual bargaining, and with powerful elements in 
 addition. If fifty thousand men have a single fund, un- 
 der one direction, it is far more effective as an argument 
 with employers than ten times the same sum scattered 
 about in fifty thousand insignificant hoards. 
 
 The economists have gradually come around to admit 
 into their theory what the humble and often illiterate 
 wage-workers of England found out under the stern 
 tuition of the struggle for existence, that " in union there 
 is strength." No economist would now approve this lan- 
 guage of our author : " For the purpose of working a
 
 36 INTRODUCTION 
 
 good effect it is not necessary that there should be any 
 combined or co-operate movement. . . . The thing 
 works far best when it works naturally." All will agree, 
 and capitalists most of all, that collective bargaining is 
 like the bundle of rods firmly bound together and diffi- 
 cult to break, while individual bargaining is the single 
 rod which a child's hand can snap. 
 
 A few quotations and references will illustrate the posi- 
 tion of present-day economics in relation to trades-unions. 
 The honored president of Yale University says : " At 
 the beginning of the present century the law and the 
 public sentiment among the property owning classes were 
 both unfavorable to the organization of labor. This was 
 conspicuously the case in England. To say that laborers 
 were not allowed to combine in defence of their rights 
 is to put the matter altogether too mildly. The slightest 
 attempt at concurrent action to increase the price of their 
 services was visited by the severest penalties. As late as 
 1834, six Dorchester laborers were sent as convicts to 
 Botany Bay for the mere act of forming a labor organiza- 
 tion which had not even asked for an advance of wages. 
 But, with the growth of democratic power, a more liberal 
 policy began to prevail. Not the least among the series 
 of English factory acts were those which gave increasing 
 recognition of the right of laborers to combine. 
 
 " The change in public sentiment toward trades-unions 
 has not quite kept pace with changes in the law. In 
 the minds of a large section of the public, labor unions 
 are chiefly associated with strikes. It is believed by many 
 who ought to know better that such organizations exist
 
 CHALMERS' DOCTRINES EXAMINED 37 
 
 for the purpose of striking, and that if the organizations 
 were suppressed, industrial peace would be secured." 
 
 The distinguished professor of economics at Harvard 
 has written, in a classic work: " Much has been said 
 of late years in regard to ... the importance of his 
 [the laborer's] strength in bargaining. Recurrently 
 as a rule, at short intervals the contract on which his 
 income depends must be renewed. If he stands alone, 
 if he has no savings from past income which would en- 
 able him to wait and see what the market offers, if he 
 is ignorant and generally helpless, he bargains at great 
 disadvantage. If he is banded with his fellows, if he 
 possesses the wherewithal to make a trial of strength, and 
 if he has shrewd and well-informed leaders, he bargains 
 to the best advantage. The strength which the trades- 
 union gives the hired laborer in dealing with his em- 
 ployers was not doubted even in the days of greatest 
 faith in the natural laws which were supposed to regulate 
 economic phenomena in general, and wages in particular. 
 ~No one would question it in these less conservative 
 times." f We have seen that Chalmers and others did 
 question at least the final issue of the attempt to get a 
 better bargain by artificial organization. 
 
 The eminent professor of economics at Cambridge Uni- 
 versity, England, gives a carefully guarded but outspoken 
 approval of the legitimate function of trades-unions:^: 
 " The power of unions to raise general wages by direct 
 
 * A. T. Hadley, Economics, p. 352. 
 
 |F. W. Taussig, Wages and Capital (1895), p. 79. 
 
 j Alfred Marshall, Economics of Industry (1892), p. 408.
 
 38 INTRODUCTION 
 
 means is never great; it is never sufficient to contend 
 successfully with the great economic forces of the age, 
 when their drift is against a rise of wages. But yet it 
 is sufficient materially to benefit the worker, when it is 
 so directed as to co-operate with and to strengthen those 
 general agencies which are tending to improve his posi- 
 tion morally and economically." 
 
 To the same effect writes one of the foremost econo- 
 mists of the greatest German university, Professor A. 
 Wagner.* 
 
 The late President F. A. Walker f may again be 
 quoted : " With a body of employers, few, rich, and 
 powerful, having a friendly understanding among them- 
 selves and acting aggressively for the reduction of wages 
 or the extension of the hours of work, and, on the other 
 side, a body of laborers, numerous, ignorant, poor, mut- 
 ually distrustful, while each feels under a terrible neces- 
 sity to secure employment, who shall say that such a body 
 of laborers might not be better able to resist the destruc- 
 tive pressure from the employing body if organized and 
 disciplined, with a common purse and with mutual obli- 
 gations enforced by the public opinion of their class? " 
 
 The economic theory which controlled the earliest 
 thinkers and capitalists, rejected the so-called " paternal " 
 legislation which has grown with the political power of 
 the wage-workers, and is certain to be extended by the 
 same force. We have advanced so far as to demand, in 
 the name of humanity and general welfare, a certain 
 
 *See Unternehmergewinn und Arbeitslohn (1897), S. 7. 
 t Political Economy (Advanced, 1898), p. 376.
 
 CHALMERS' DOCTRINES EXAMINED 3!) 
 
 minimum standard of sanitary regulation. Hours have 
 been shortened where the longer periods of toil were 
 found injurious to the health and industrial efficiency 
 of children and women, and even of men. The minimum 
 space for air and the minimum provision for light have 
 been fixed by statute. In prisons the labor and diet of 
 criminals are determined, independent of wardens and 
 contractors, by the physician. The state has a right to 
 deprive of liberty, but, for less than capital crimes, does 
 not wish to deprive of health and life. One step more 
 in the same direction and for the same reasons, and we 
 shall have a legal regulation of the minimum wage at 
 which employers will be permitted to hire labor, that 
 minimum being determined by medical authority as 
 necessary for health and industrial efficiency. 
 
 Such a step would at once reveal sharply the line, now 
 confused, which divides pauper labor from real self-sup- 
 porting labor, and would make evident that many manu- 
 facturers and tradesmen are now partly supporting their 
 business and profits out of the poor fund. Such a sug- 
 gestion seems to many persons chimerical now; much 
 more was it impossible for Chalmers to conceive. 
 
 It seems probable that Chalmers never clearly realized 
 the existence of a considerable class who could not under 
 any circumstances produce the entire cost of their own 
 support. Rapid machinery has made manifest to all that 
 many of the " unemployed " are also " unemployable." 
 All schemes for providing work for the latter class in 
 ordinary industry must be shattered on the rock of in- 
 capacity.
 
 40 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Certain movements for the amelioration of the condi- 
 tions of laborers were not within the vision of the age 
 of Chalmers. Friendly societies had long existed, but had 
 not begun to assume the immense importance of recent 
 years.* The capacity of workingmen to secure advan- 
 tages through their own organization of industry through 
 salaried officers was not suspected. The Rochdale Pio- 
 neers and the Christian Socialists had not yet taught, by 
 prophecy and practical demonstration, that a system of 
 co-operation can be built up by wage-earners which can 
 command the attention and respect of the business 
 world. 
 
 Factory legislation is hardly mentioned by Chalmers. 
 He was not looking in that direction. His conscience 
 had not been aroused to feel the evils of the factory 
 system in crowded cities. His political theory of the 
 functions of government might have stood in his way 
 to invent legal means of promoting the national welfare. 
 The life-work of another great philanthropist, of differ- 
 ent theory and training, was needed to supplement the 
 service of the Scotch reformer, f 
 
 Municipal ministrations have helped to improve the 
 physical, intellectual, and aesthetic life of urban work- 
 men beyond all the possibilities of individual enterprise 
 or voluntary associations. And these efforts have been 
 put forth upon a theory of the proper function of local 
 
 * See Baernreither, English Associations of Workingmen; H. D. 
 Lloyd, Labor Co-partnership ; Beatrice Potter (Mrs. Webb), The Co- 
 operative Movement in Great Britain ; B. Jones, Co-operative Produc- 
 tion ; G. J. Holyoake, The History of Co-operation in England. 
 
 t See Hodder's Life of the Earl of Shaftesbury.
 
 CHALMERS' DOCTRINES EXAMINED 41 
 
 government which was formerly regarded with detesta- 
 tion.* 
 
 The benevolence of our author in his attitude to wage- 
 workers is unquestionably sincere. He really desired 
 to see them happy and properly educated to fit them for 
 their station in life. But he did not sympathize with, 
 he could not understand, the aspirations of democracy. 
 He did not appreciate the meaning of the social current 
 which bears that name. He had much of the spirit of 
 the magnanimous patron and aristocrat. He speaks of 
 " the lower orders " in a way which would provoke re- 
 volt in a modern audience. His use of the epithet " ple- 
 beian " sounds very offensive to modern ears. 
 
 One of the propositions of the " Political Economy " 
 is " that the law of primogeniture is essentially linked 
 with the political strength and other great public inter- 
 ests of the nation." Modern democracy, where it has 
 come to power, totally rejects this feudalistic doctrine 
 and all that it implies. Each child is placed on a basis 
 of equal legal advantage in the inheritance of family 
 property. The individual is not to be sacrificed to fam- 
 ily, or especially to an oldest son. 
 
 We discern ecclesiastical bias and clerical limitations. 
 "We should acknowledge the tolerant spirit of Chalmers 
 in relation to dissenters. He appreciated and generously 
 praised their services. He defended them from aspersion 
 and legal persecution. He associated with them on 
 friendly terms, and worshipped with them as a brother. 
 But he never could quite rise above the tone and feeling 
 * See A. Shaw, Municipal Government in Great Britain.
 
 42 INTRODUCTION 
 
 of one who is brought up in a State establishment. Tol- 
 eration is not the treatment which the members of a 
 self-supporting religious body ask for themselves. Entire 
 equality of rights before the law, and abolition of all 
 legal privileges for any, are the demands of so-called 
 dissenters in modern democracy.. The word " tolera- 
 tion " is intended to mean something very kind, but to 
 a modern dissenter it is an insult. The writings of Chal- 
 mers mark the transition from the old attitude of hostil- 
 ity and contempt to the modern position of equality in 
 the State. He probably never suspected that the very 
 words which he meant to be kind sounded with a tone 
 of arrogance and pity which gave pain to many who 
 admired him. 
 
 The clergyman's bias is also only too apparent. He 
 never quite succeeded in looking at government and busi- 
 ness as a man of the world sees things. Held comments 
 on this fact and marks it as a limitation. 
 
 The apparent failure of Chalmers' scheme of poor re- 
 lief must be considered. With all the energy of his active 
 nature, urged by the most benevolent motives and clear- 
 est convictions as to purpose and way, the author pleaded 
 and toiled, to the end of his days, for the abolition of 
 public and official out-door relief that is, the aid of poor 
 families in their homes by funds raised by taxation. He 
 organized parishes of the poor to show that such relief 
 is not necessary. He gave illustrations of the evils of 
 the English system of " pauperism," which was creeping 
 into Scotland. 
 
 And most men would say that he failed. Scotland
 
 CHALMERS' DOCTRINES EXAMINED 43 
 
 rejected his message * on this point and introduced the 
 English system, and adheres to it up to this day, with 
 no apparent prospect of any serious change of policy. 
 Germany has since then extended and perfected a sys- 
 tem based on the very principle which Chalmers fought 
 that the State is under obligation to aid and support 
 the helpless poor. Even Catholic countries, as France 
 and Italy, have moved far in the direction of admitting 
 a legal " right to live," by extending the legal measures 
 for relief of dependent families. The great labor move- 
 
 * The main facts are summed up in a note to Sir George Nicholls' 
 History of the English Poor Law, I. , p. 8, note. " In Scotland, down to 
 1579, there was little difference in principle from the practice pursued 
 in this country [England], Scotch legislation following English ex- 
 ample at intervals sometimes of forty or fifty years, and the important 
 Act of James VI., cap. 74 (on which the Scotch Poor Laws mainly 
 rested for a long time), closely resembling the English Act of 14 Eliza- 
 beth, cap. 5. Thenceforward, however, the two systems tended to 
 diverge, particularly in respect of the provision of funds. The Scotch 
 Law permitted, indeed, the raising of money by compulsory assess- 
 ment, but only if voluntary contributions should be insufficient ; and, 
 as a matter of fact, the power of assessment was rarely employed. 
 Funds were collected and administered principally by quasi-ecclesias- 
 tical machinery, the amount of relief being proportioned to the amount 
 of money available; and this fact, combined with a denial to the able- 
 bodied, of any right to relief under any circumstances, and with the 
 general absence of properly constituted workhouses, in which adequacy 
 of relief might be secured, led to a rigid ecouomy which entailed some- 
 times very great suffering and privation among the poorer classes. In 
 consequence of this state of things, and also, no doubt, owing to the 
 example of the new English Poor Law, the Scotch Poor Law Amend- 
 ment Act, 1845, was passed. This act was directed mainly to the 
 supersession of the voluntary system of assessment, and to the estab- 
 lishment of workhouses, or rather k poorhouses,' the adoption of 
 either course being, however, still optional. The immediate result 
 was a steady rise in the amount of poor relief, in proportion to the 
 spreading of the operation of the act. This was, nevertheless, to be 
 expected ; and although the fluctuations of poor law expenditure have 
 sometimes caused alarm, the principle of the workhouse test, with 
 compulsory assessment, has been more and more accepted, and at the 
 present day may be said to be firmly established by experience." 
 
 See also R. P. Lamond, The Scottish Poor Laws, 1892, pp. 227, 228.
 
 44 IXTKODUCTION 
 
 ment, with its strong socialistic tendencies, is op- 
 posed to the substitution of private charity for public 
 relief. 
 
 What are the chief reasons for the apparent failure of 
 the voluntary system of private and church poor relief? 
 (1) The parochial system broke upon the rocks of sec- 
 tarian divisions.* The parochial system of the Scotch 
 clergyman was inspired by the rural ideal of a simple 
 community where the state church commands the entire 
 field, and where dissent is almost a negligible quantity. 
 But modern cities have a different character, especially 
 American cities. No one denomination is dominant. 
 There are as many methods as there are pastors. The 
 sole institution which all regard as common property is 
 the state, or its local representative, the municipality. 
 The confusion of Babel reigns in the conflict of tongues, 
 and every distinct language carries with it conflict of 
 ecclesiastical methods. 
 
 Whether the experiments now being tried to secure 
 a federation of churches of all denominations are to suc- 
 ceed, time alone will reveal. Certain it is that the 
 churches can never have anything like a conspicuous 
 share in the direction of poor relief so long as they re-' 
 main without common and unified organization for the 
 purpose. 
 
 The reforms of the English Poor Law and of its ad- 
 ministration, in 1834 and later years, removed some of 
 
 * James Bonar, Malthus and His Work, p. 180 : " His (Chalmers') 
 parochial system would have been an admirable substitute for the 
 Poor Law on the (unfortunately untrue) hypothesis of an absence of 
 sects."
 
 CHALMEKS' DOCTKIXES EXAMINED 45 
 
 the most objectionable features and cut the ground from 
 under some of the most severe criticisms. Pauperism 
 diminished under the application of the severe workhouse 
 test, more rigid investigation, and centralized supervision 
 of local administration. Chalmers prophesied an increase 
 of the burden even if the system should be modified, and 
 he thought it full of incurable evils; but a more careful 
 and rational management falsified his expectations in 
 some measure and broke the force of his appeal. 
 
 The exposure of actual suffering of the poor in Scot- 
 land about 1844 stirred the national heart and conscience 
 and led to the adoption of the English system of com- 
 pulsory poor relief from taxation. Of course, the system 
 which Chalmers had in mind was never fairly and fully 
 tried. Perhaps the country was not yet ripe for it. At 
 any rate, the public could not and would not endure 
 the spectacle of unrelieved misery in cities where the 
 demoralized and inadequate church charity left thou- 
 sands to starve. What might have happened if the 
 churches had all united in working a voluntary system 
 in all parts of the great towns, we can never tell. But 
 the actual fact was that investigation revealed a mass 
 of distress most startling and shocking, and led to the 
 adoption of legal measures to extend relief to all who 
 were in peril of starvation. 
 
 The argument for the abolition of official relief, on 
 the ground that a fund raised by compulsory tax is not 
 true charity, since it is compelled by legal force, was 
 shown to be weak at the point where Chalmers admitted 
 a public support of defectives the blind, deaf-mutes, in-
 
 46 INTRODUCTION 
 
 sane, feeble-minded, the sick and injured.* Chalmers 
 objected to the relief of the aged poor on the ground 
 that old age can be foreseen and should be provided for 
 during the earning period, and because children should 
 care for aged parents. Sickness and accidents cannot be 
 foreseen, he said, and therefore they may properly be 
 the occasion of relief from public funds. But we now 
 know that sickness and accident can be foretold and the 
 average risk for a trade or group can be approximately 
 calculated. And we also know that, with, the present 
 rates of wages, there is a very large class of the poor 
 who are not able to provide by individual saving either 
 for sickness or for old age; that social organization of 
 some kind is essential. For the most needy and miserable 
 class, where the capacity for voluntary organization is 
 very low, no agency short of the government can cope 
 with the difficulty.f 
 
 The doctrine of state duty to the aged poor which is 
 rapidly growing in the modern mind is thus stated in 
 the preamble to the Old- Age Pensions Act of New 
 Zealand: "Whereas, it is equitable that deserving per- 
 sons who, during the prime of life, have helped to bear 
 the public burdens of the colony by the payment of taxes, 
 and to open up its resources by their skill and labor, 
 should receive from the colony a pension in their old age, 
 Be it enacted . . ." 
 
 The fact is that the conception of the state held by 
 
 * See Chapter XIII. , Christian and Civic Economy, 
 t See Webb, Problems of Modern Industry, p. 156 ff. ; Charles 
 Booth, The Aged Poor, and Pauperism and the Endowment of Old Age.
 
 CHALMERS' DOCTRINES EXAMINED 47 
 
 Chalmers is obsolete. He shared the common belief of 
 his time. Government was thought to be something im- 
 posed on the people, and at best a necessary evil. We 
 have come to believe that government by the people, 
 for the people is their common organ for securing wel- 
 fare. We are returning to the Pauline conception that 
 government is of the good God, a ministry of good, 
 a terror to the evil only, and for the help of man. Jus- 
 tice, benevolence, and education may properly be pro- 
 moted through this agency as well as through the Church, 
 and it is simply a practical question which is the best 
 organ in given circumstances for the purpose. An act 
 is not necessarily good because the Church does it, and 
 there are many acts of government which are good even 
 when judged from the highest standards. The social 
 democrat naturally prefers the government agency, be- 
 cause there is no patronage. The Christian may co-op- 
 erate with the unbelieving democrat in legal measures, 
 because the State to him is providential and clothed with 
 religious sanctions. 
 
 The parochial system under consideration had a fatal 
 weakness; it was based on the idea that the people of 
 a city district should provide altogether for the depen- 
 dent families of that district. This principle is suitable 
 for a rural parish where there is little abject poverty and 
 where the resources of the neighborhood are ample. But 
 our modern cities pack their very poor in wretched neigh- 
 borhoods, while the comfortable and rich families reside 
 in elegant quarters and delightful suburbs, as far as pos- 
 sible from the filthy streets and squalid tenements of
 
 48 INTRODUCTION 
 
 the poor. The purely parochial system, under such con- 
 ditions, is a mockery. It lays the burden of the miser- 
 able all upon those who are already almost submerged. 
 It would relieve the well-to-do from all sense of responsi- 
 bility for those whose income is, for any reason, inade- 
 quate for support, and it would encourage them to forget 
 the destitute who belong in another parish. There is 
 enough of the spirit of suburban cowardice and selfish- 
 ness already; it does not require help from high philan- 
 thropic authority. 
 
 Dr. Chalmers started from the right principle, that it 
 is well to cultivate a small field thoroughly and hope for 
 imitation. But his plan did not provide for, and actually 
 rejected in express terms, central organization for an 
 entire city. The German municipal system and that of 
 the Charity Organization Society have avoided this error. 
 They both retain his valuable principle of " locality," but 
 they also provide for a central office which may serve 
 as a mediating agency for all the separate districts, and 
 they ask financial and personal help from those most 
 competent and responsible. The history of municipal life 
 emphasizes the solidarity and community interest of the 
 city as one organism, one united society. 
 
 The Parochial System of Elementary Schools. Chal- 
 mers was led by the circumstances of contemporary so- 
 ciety to look to local voluntary associations and the fee 
 system for the support of primary education. His dis- 
 trust of state interference clouded his judgment on this 
 point, and, indeed, governments were not yet ripe for 
 the full task of universal free education of the people.
 
 CHALMEKS' DOCTRINES EXAMINED 49 
 
 He thought that each parish in a city could not only 
 provide for all its poor, but also pay a part of the cost 
 of tuition, and he believed that the families of the poor 
 will make better use of schools if they make a partial 
 provision for support out of their own scant means. This 
 doctrine has still some able exponents. But the entire 
 tendency of democracy is in the direction of absolutely 
 free tuition, with regulations of compulsory attendance. 
 Society protects the common interest by preventing pau- 
 perism, vice, and crime. A suitable elementary educa- 
 tion is absolutely necessary for social defence, and it is 
 cheaper than reformatories and prisons. Democracy be- 
 lieves that the community is under moral obligations to 
 offer equal opportunities of education to all young citi- 
 zens. Universal suffrage gives this demand the force of 
 the entire population. The wealth of a people must sup- 
 port and educate the people, and there is no such thing 
 as absolutely private property. Public necessities must 
 be met from public funds. These must be raised equi- 
 tably, according to the financial ability of the owners 
 of wealth, and not by excessive drafts on a small number 
 of willing philanthropists. 
 
 Chalmers has made some wise and suggestive remarks, 
 of permanent value, in respect to the function of volun- 
 tary associations and of wealthy philanthropists in edu- 
 cation. The pioneer and experimental movements are 
 the suitable field for private benevolent enterprise. Illus- 
 trations may be drawn from the early establishment of 
 primary schools in Great Britain and America ; from the 
 
 movements for establishing kindergartens, day nurseries, 
 4
 
 50 INTRODUCTION 
 
 workingmen's clubs, social settlements, college and uni- 
 versity extension, and other forms of frontier experimen- 
 tation and leadership. "When a movement has passed the 
 stage of hypothesis and experiment to assured success, it 
 may be " taken over " by the municipality or common- 
 wealth, if it can be reduced to a degree of routine, is 
 supported by public sentiment, and is otherwise adapted 
 to the machinery of governmental administration. 
 
 State Support of the Church. Chalmers was born 
 into the State Church. He was brought up to believe that 
 it is natural, just, and desirable to support religious agen- 
 cies by funds derived from taxation. In several of his 
 works he employs arguments to justify and enforce this 
 belief. To American readers this argument is a historic 
 curiosity, but it is by no means obsolete in Europe. Our 
 author is quite confident that the State has no right to 
 regulate manufactures and trade, or to aid the laborer, 
 because all men actually desire and voluntarily seek 
 such material goods as food, clothes, houses and various 
 comforts. 
 
 But the people, he claims, do not want religion, at least 
 until it has been urged upon them by the ruling classes. 
 Therefore the government, which then meant the " up- 
 per classes," should provide ministers and edifices. 
 
 Before his death Dr. Chalmers learned many things 
 on this subject. By experience with politicians who rep- 
 resented legal authority, he found that a government will 
 not maintain the Church without control of the manner 
 in which the public funds are used. This implies control 
 of the appointment of ministers. Bitter personal expe-
 
 CHALMERS' DOCTRINES EXAMINED 51 
 
 rience demonstrated that this inevitable and logical action 
 of government is fatal to that freedom of life which is 
 essential to an aggressive, sincere, and successful evan- 
 gelical service. A free church must be a self -supporting 
 church. 
 
 Another lesson came to Chalmers as a joyful surprise: 
 that the people, even very poor people, will cheerfully 
 and liberally support their own churches if they believe 
 in them; and that a faithful, energetic, popular ministry 
 need have no fear of being abandoned. Even before he 
 left the Establishment, Dr. Chalmers led in a great and 
 successful movement to augment the financial resources 
 of the Church from voluntary contributions, after many 
 appeals to government had brought meagre results. 
 
 It is curious to observe that the positions held by Dr. 
 Chalmers have been exactly reversed. He pleaded for 
 support of religion by taxation, but rejected State help 
 for industry and relief of the poor. Our generation is 
 inclined to leave church support entirely to voluntary 
 gifts of believers, but aids the workingman with factory 
 legislation, with relief of dependents, and with free 
 schools. 
 
 Change in the Character of Urban Populations. Dr. 
 Chalmers draws a picture of the pastor or Sunday-school 
 teacher going forth among the poor of a large Scotch or 
 English town to invite the children of the poor to the 
 local assembly of worship. They meet everywhere a cor- 
 dial welcome and reverential treatment. This was his 
 experience. The religious meeting could be made a cen- 
 tre of common life in the large town.
 
 52 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Within certain limits this is still true. Kindness and 
 courtesy are generally met by a friendly response, where 
 the visitor is not an intruder and is tactful. But the 
 modern workingmen, especially in American cities of the 
 Northern States, in this generation, manifest quite dif- 
 ferent traits. Our people are no longer homogeneous 
 in language, in customs, in religious beliefs. A " down- 
 town " district will reveal to the canvasser that the fami- 
 lies are Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and Confucian; 
 English, Irish, German, Italian, Polish, Hebrew. It is 
 not unusual for the most tactful and zealous missionaries, 
 even when they understand the languages of the district, 
 to be utterly unable, after years of earnest labor, to make 
 much visible impression on certain elements of the popu- 
 lation. They will not mingle; they will not make the 
 " mission " a place of common resort. They are quickly 
 sensitive and watchful in respect to patronage, and refuse 
 to be obsequious. To prove that they are " just as good 
 as anyone " they will sometimes send the visitor away 
 with a stinging rebuke. Agnosticism has taken deep root 
 in some places, but the chief obstacle is religious, lin- 
 guistic, and social differences. The discovery of this dif- 
 ficulty has promoted the establishment of social settle- 
 ments which seek to shake off suggestions of " charity " 
 and " missions," and to bring people into genuinely dem- 
 ocratic relations.* 
 
 * See C. R. Henderson, Social Settlements.
 
 IV 
 
 SOME OF THE IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTIONS 
 OF DR. CHALMERS TO MODERN SOCIAL 
 MOVEMENTS OF THOUGHT AND ACTION 
 
 IN the Field of Political Economy. It cannot be 
 claimed that our author made any very important origi- 
 nal contribution to economic or political theory. He does 
 not rank among the creative men in these departments 
 of science. In an individual and independent spirit he 
 uses the works of Adam Smith, Malthus, and Ricardo. 
 He is a popularizer of the economic orthodoxy of his 
 time, and his purpose is, as he himself declares, entirely 
 practical. He has not in mind the organization of a 
 system of explanatory thought, but of a system of action 
 for the betterment of the character and condition of the 
 working classes and of the very poor. This direct prac- 
 tical purpose is explicitly stated in both the works which 
 are here under more immediate consideration. The pur- 
 pose of writing determines the selection and the arrange- 
 ment of materials. His books are pleas with church 
 leaders, special arguments to persuade them to adopt a 
 specific policy of teaching, city missionary service, and 
 relief of the destitute. He also seeks to influence the 
 associations of workingmen, the legislators, and the parish 
 
 53
 
 54 INTRODUCTION 
 
 and urban administrators of poor relief. He has an am- 
 bition to overturn the English system of poor laws; and 
 this wider outlook compels him to seek for general prin- 
 ciples, social laws which have a more than provincial 
 significance. 
 
 While Chalmers is not an original authority in eco- 
 nomic theory, he is an independent thinker and a power- 
 ful writer. He has been recognized with respect in the 
 history of the science as one who has brought out certain 
 elements into clearer light than any other author. The 
 necessity of making himself understood by a popular 
 audience gave an advantage in point of style and manner 
 of statement which reacted on thinking itself and made 
 it more precise at some points, although the exactness of 
 technical language had sometimes to be sacrificed. 
 
 An article in the " Handwb'rterbuch der Staatswissen- 
 schaften " expresses this judgment: " By laying strong 
 emphasis on the importance of Christianity in industrial 
 life, Chalmers has earned credit in our field. In general, 
 however, he follows the reigning economic views. He 
 is a follower of Bicardo, but above all a zealous advocate 
 of Malthus' doctrine of population. He recommends 
 the transformation of all taxes into the single land-tax, 
 without, however, accepting the physiocratic basis for 
 his demand." 
 
 The opinion of Dr. Hanna, technically not so valuable 
 as that just quoted, is more favorable : " As a political 
 economist he was the first to unfold the connection that 
 subsists between the fertility of the soil and the social 
 condition of the community, the rapid manner in which
 
 CHALMERS' CONTRIBUTIONS TO MODERN THOUGHT 55 
 
 capital is reproduced, and the general doctrine of a limit 
 to all the modes by which national wealth may accumu- 
 late." * 
 
 John Stuart Mill, after giving an explanation of the 
 rapid reproduction of wealth destroyed by fire, wars, and 
 other great calamities, adds a remark which gives his esti- 
 mate of our author: " This simple explanation was never 
 given (so far as I am aware) by any political economist 
 before Dr. Chalmers, a writer many of whose opinions I 
 think erroneous, but who has always the merit of studying 
 phenomena at first hand and expressing in a language of 
 his own, which often uncovers aspects of the truth that the 
 received phraseologies only tend to hide." f 
 
 In his valuable treatise, " A History of Political Econ- 
 omy," Dr. Ingram has this to say: " Thus Chalmers re- 
 views seriatim and gravely sets aside all the schemes 
 usually proposed for the amelioration of the economic 
 condition of the people, on the ground that an increase 
 of comfort will lead to an increase of numbers, and so 
 the last state of things will be worse than the first." This 
 does not seem to be an adequate statement, although it 
 is partly justified by some expressions of Chalmers. It 
 is true that the " orthodox " economists who followed 
 Malthus were very sceptical as to the result of an increase 
 of wages, because they feared that the members of the 
 working-classes would match increased production with 
 more than corresponding supply of consumers. But full 
 
 * Article Chalmers, in Encyclopaedia Britannica. 
 
 t Principles of Political Economy, I., p. 110. New York, 1884. Com- 
 pare L. Cossa, The Study of Political Economy, pp. 329, 333. New 
 York, 1893. Boscher, Political Economy, Sees. 216, 217, 242.
 
 56 INTRODUCTION 
 
 justice requires us to add that Chalmers did not regard 
 this conduct as necessary. He shows that in Scotland, 
 among the poor peasants, just such continence as he ad- 
 vised was common in the days before poor laws injured 
 their self-reliance and foresight, and he wrote on purpose 
 to persuade the working-people that the low condition 
 of wages was not inevitable and fatal, and that they could, 
 by determining the supply of laborers, set the rate of 
 their income. He demonstrates his confidence in the 
 hopefulness of their cause by developing a system of edu- 
 cational, religious, and economic devices for improving 
 character, conduct, and material prosperity. 
 
 A Social Science Anticipated. It may fairly be 
 claimed that Chalmers assisted, in some degree, in pre- 
 paring the way for sociology as the science which seeks 
 to co-ordinate the results of special social sciences, espe- 
 cially economics, politics, ecclesiastical polity, educational 
 and charitable administration. In seeking a systematic 
 basis of principles for social reform he was compelled to 
 abandon the method of abstraction often employed in eco- 
 nomics and politics, and look at the actual concrete com- 
 plex of social relations in their unity and synthesis. The 
 word " sociology " had not yet been suggested, but, in the 
 effort to select a word to describe his scientific aim, he 
 happily hits more than once upon the epithet " politics " 
 and employs it almost in the Greek sense to cover the 
 entire unity of social relations and associations in a com- 
 munity something far more comprehensive and deeper 
 than government, law, or administration. This defini- 
 tion of " politics " makes it very nearly equivalent to 
 " sociology."
 
 CHALMERS' CONTRIBUTIONS TO MODERN THOUGHT 57 
 
 Sometimes he employs the expression " moral " to dis- 
 tinguish the idea of community obligations domestic, 
 political, educational, ecclesiastical. The time was not 
 yet ripe for the clear discovery of a method or discipline 
 for the co-ordination of the data supplied by the subordi- 
 nate sciences biology, psychology, economics, politics, 
 comparative religion, philology, anthropology, ethnology, 
 because these sciences were themselves in an early stage 
 of formation, as sociology is now. 
 
 But it was much to show the need for this larger 
 outlook and to assist in attaining it. Every science has 
 had its beginnings in practical efforts to gain certain 
 goods or desirable results, to remove obstacles and avoid 
 evils, and to find a way through a new environment. In 
 this practical struggle the law of the process reveals itself 
 to men of philosophic mind, and then theory helps to 
 illumine the road for all succeeding workers; science pays 
 the debt it owes to the practical man, and pays with gen- 
 erous interest. 
 
 The Scotch divine possessed, in very high degree, the 
 gifts of the pioneer practical worker and the reflective 
 philosopher. Mr. Quick, in his " Educational Reform- 
 ers," says: "It is rather jumping at conclusions to as- 
 sume, with some of our countrymen, that if a man does 
 not think, he does act. ... A good many men who 
 do not expend energy in thought are by no means strong 
 in action. In education they have no desire either to 
 think the best in thought or to do the best that is done. 
 They won't inquire about either, and they show the most 
 impartial ignorance of both." Happy is the nation and
 
 58 INTRODUCTION 
 
 age whose influential leaders combine the love of social 
 science with the love of man ; who seek truth for truth's 
 sake, and also for man's sake, with the reasonable belief 
 that no permanent good can rest on falsehood, and that 
 all really great discoveries in theory must eventually min- 
 ister to the welfare of the race. Chalmers certainly as- 
 sisted in the creation of a science of social welfare by 
 the largeness of his views and the rich contents of his 
 ideals. 
 
 In the Science and Art of Charity. Here we may 
 claim a distinguished place for Dr. Chalmers. In the Ger- 
 man literature of the Inner Mission and of the Elberfeld 
 system of municipal poor relief we frequently come upon 
 his name, and it is mentioned always with profound re- 
 spect. The Inner Mission, as an organized system, dates 
 from the epoch-making speeches of Johann Wichern at 
 the revolutionary period of 1848-49.* 
 
 The Elberfeld system was organized in 1852 by a 
 magistrate and a parson. It was a development of earlier 
 German methods, with improvements; but it owed much 
 to the then well-known experiments of Chalmers in .as 
 parochial labors in Glasgow and Edinburgh. 
 
 The Charity Organization Society was first established 
 in London in 1868, and its methods were introduced into 
 the United States at Buffalo, by an English clergyman, 
 Rev. S. H. Gurteen, in 1877. 
 
 Each of these great social movements naturally grew 
 
 * See articles on the German Inner Mission, American Journal of 
 Sociology, 1896, by C. R. Henderson ; Schaefer, Leitfaden der inneren 
 Mission; Wurster, Die Lehre von der inneren Mission; Williams, 
 Church and State in Germany.
 
 CHALMERS' CONTRIBUTIONS TO MODERN THOUGHT 59 
 
 out of the past, and drew suggestions from many sources. 
 But at certain points they were indebted directly to Chal- 
 mers not only for hints of method, but also for the clear 
 demonstration of successful experiment. The power of 
 the example is by no means near exhaustion, and it will 
 be better appreciated by the public in the coming cen- 
 tury than it ever has been in the past. 
 
 After having explained the failure of Chalmers in 
 the preceding pages, it may seem at first sight absurd 
 now to present his parochial system as the model for 
 church and charity workers. The fact is, he did not fail. 
 His plan was a local success. His principles were sound 
 and enduring. His personal administration was marvel- 
 lous. It was society which failed, because it was not yet 
 ripe for his noble ideal of a world without a pauper. 
 Economic conditions are too low for the complete work- 
 ing of his method. Compromises must be made with 
 inferior machinery. The time may come when the vital 
 principles of the system will be triumphantly vindicated, 
 and already they are commanding increasing assent and 
 imitation. 
 
 Social conditions are ever changing. Particular 
 schemes and devices must regard these changes. But 
 permanent laws direct the movements and great ideals 
 shine aloft like stars. We must ever distinguish between 
 the abiding principles and the transitory methods. With- 
 out claiming entire originality for Chalmers, we may 
 affirm that he placed them in clear light, urged them 
 with persuasive eloquence, and demonstrated their value 
 by the scientific process of verification by costly and self- 
 sacrificing experiment.
 
 60 INTRODUCTION 
 
 One of the most fruitful ideas in the literary and pas- 
 toral work of Chalmers was that of the " principle of 
 locality." He urged, by word and deed, that the best 
 philanthropic service is rendered to a community by those 
 who map out a small district and cultivate it intensively 
 and thoroughly. This principle is an essential factor in 
 the German system of municipal relief, in the Charity 
 Organization Society, in the Social Settlements, and in 
 the Federation of Churches. They all aim at a thorough 
 pervasion of the entire life of the families in a limited 
 district. Dr. E. Muensterberg, head of the relief ad- 
 ministration of Berlin, urges " decentralization " of 
 charities and the building up of groups of trained 
 visitors who are thoroughly acquainted with a given 
 area. 
 
 Closely connected with the principle of locality is that 
 of personal service " friendly visiting," in recent phrase. 
 His message on this subject is still vital, fresh, and neces- 
 sary. People who live in an age of absorbing mercan- 
 tile interest are only too apt to be swayed by the feeling 
 that money can buy any form of good; that material 
 relief is all that the poor need and want; that purely 
 spiritual service has no value and will not be appreciated. 
 There is a constant tendency in the undiscriminating 
 popular mind to identify " charity " with gifts of soup, 
 meat, clothes, and rent payments. Chalmers had learned 
 from the Scriptures, from church history, and from suc- 
 cessful pastoral labors, that we may win the confidence, 
 the gratitude, and the devotion of multitudes of the peo- 
 ple without coarse bribes; and that the distributor of
 
 CHALMEES' CONTRIBUTIONS TO MODEKN THOUGHT 61 
 
 alms is very apt to attract the indolent and hypocritical 
 while he repels those who struggle nobly with hard con- 
 ditions in order to avoid dependence and have a little over 
 for spiritual ends. He showed by trial that good men 
 and gracious women could draw to themselves and their 
 cause great companies of wage-earners, in the most 
 wretched quarters of a city, simply by visiting their 
 homes as neighbors on errands for savings-banks, local 
 libraries, Sunday-schools, and other common social in- 
 terests. 
 
 Even in such purely mechanical parts of charity work 
 as making investigations and records, Chalmers showed 
 great sagacity and practical sense. In recent forms of 
 philanthropic organization, the value of complete knowl- 
 edge and registration of information is recognized. These 
 methods enabled the parish officers to reduce the burden 
 of relief and to act directly and wisely instead of stum- 
 bling about in the dark. 
 
 The great and absorbing purpose of Chalmers was to 
 " abolish pauperism," that form of poor relief which 
 draws its funds from taxation and is administered by 
 government. In previous paragraphs we have seen the 
 immediate failure of this vast design. In a certain sense 
 the immediate abolition of this out-door public relief is 
 impracticable. Under present conditions it is very gen- 
 erally necessary to prevent great suffering, and it will 
 probably be a long time before modern communities will 
 be ready to cut it off altogether. And yet the world is 
 making progress toward the goal which Chalmers held be- 
 fore his mind. He was right in declaring that the relation
 
 62 INTRODUCTION 
 
 of dependence upon public charity is essentially degrad- 
 ing. It is at best only a little better than death or crime, 
 at least for many who depend upon it. The administra- 
 tors of the English and of the German system have al- 
 ways sought methods of reducing this most dangerous 
 form of relief to its lowest terms. They restrict the help 
 to those who are actually unable to work. In England 
 the disagreeable alternative of the workhouse is offered 
 to able-bodied dependents who seek relief, in order to 
 make it as distasteful as possible. In Germany less re- 
 liance is placed on the rude and severe workhouse test 
 and more on the influence and tactful help of visitors who 
 strive to induce and assist the poor to avoid resting upon 
 public funds. 
 
 But these negative and individual schemes for reduc- 
 ing out-door relief are not entirely satisfactory. It is 
 demonstrable that much of the dependence of the pau- 
 pers is due to excessively low wages, to evil sanitary con- 
 ditions, and to unusual calamities. Hence modern states 
 are seeking in all possible ways to provide by insurance 
 funds for times of accident, sickness, and old age, with- 
 out application to public charity. A great part of the 
 motive in establishing workingmen's insurance is to re- 
 strict the extent of relief, on the ground that it is de- 
 grading, even when kindly administered. 
 
 Of course, it is found that many of those who become 
 paupers have really led a criminal career. The problem 
 of caring for these should be carefully distinguished from 
 that of poor relief, and especially from the problem of 
 wage-workers. The correctional and custodial activity
 
 CHALMERS' CONTRIBUTIONS TO MODERN THOUGHT 63 
 
 of government should control the life of those who arc 
 addicted to vice and crime. A system of workhouses, 
 agricultural colonies, and asylums for the perverted and 
 feeble-minded is gradually being developed in Europe 
 and America. When this system has been made com- 
 plete and effective through police administration, a very 
 considerable part of the pauper class will be removed 
 from the rolls of charity. 
 
 That the abolition of public out-door relief in Ameri- 
 can cities is practicable, and by no means visionary, is 
 shown by the fact that Brooklyn, New York City, and 
 Philadelphia several years ago closed up this department 
 of relief and have found private charity entirely com- 
 petent to meet all needs of this kind, with no more suf- 
 fering than would occur under the old system. It is too 
 early to predict the ultimate outcome of these tendencies. 
 But the fundamental principle of Chalmers is meeting 
 wider and wider acceptance: the income of an industry 
 ought to be the support of the industrious members of 
 that industry; upon all who steal and beg, corrective 
 discipline should be enforced. After that, local charity, 
 carefully organized, would meet all needs. While the 
 leaders of the " labor movement " are opposed to the 
 substitution of private almsgiving for public relief, they 
 are not in antagonism to any promising method of abol- 
 ishing the economic conditions which make pauperism 
 necessary. The " industrials " the world over declare 
 that they do not want charity, but are seeking justice. 
 This intense and deepening hatred of dependence is a 
 sign of manliness, vigor, sound moral health. Every
 
 64 INTRODUCTION 
 
 patriot and philanthropist should greet this sentiment 
 with joy and hope. The social state in which pauperism 
 would be no factor was the one for which Chalmers 
 worked. In a limited space, under the most trying and 
 discouraging circumstances, he proved that it could be 
 approximately realized. Such an ideal will not die out 
 of social consciousness and memory. It will persistently 
 reassert itself after every temporary defeat. It will be 
 a steady force always pressing in the right direction. 
 
 The morbid element in societ} r is not necessarily per- 
 manent. Social pathology is a subordinate and eva- 
 nescent side of social science. Pauperism must not be 
 regarded as inevitable. There are even now higher func- 
 tions for charity than material relief of dependents. If 
 a nation were absolutely without a vagabond or a thief, 
 it could then go forward with a freedom and lightness 
 of step which is impossible while we must carry the bur- 
 den of abnormal men and families. This is the deep 
 design of the book at whose portal we are standing. 
 
 There is a limitless field for the discovery of truth, 
 for the creation of beauty, for education of the spirit, 
 for worthier worship. The institutions which men have 
 erected to fulfil these ends are the real and lasting field 
 of social science. The close and climax of our book is 
 a discussion, not of pauperism, but of the sublime pros- 
 pect of universal education. 
 
 The educational ideal of John Locke was the training 
 of a " gentleman " for the pleasures and occupations of 
 a privileged class. Comenius, the famous educator of 
 the seventeenth century, a Christian minister, a votary
 
 CHALMERS' CONTRIBUTIONS TO MODERN THOUGHT 65 
 
 of science, a precursor of true democracy, had said : " Not 
 only are the children of the rich and noble to be drawn 
 to the school, but all alike, gentle and simple, rich and 
 poor, boys and girls, in great towns and small, down to 
 the country villages. And for this reason: Everyone 
 who is born a human being is born with this intent 
 that he should be a human being, that is, a reasonable 
 creature, ruling over the other creatures and bearing the 
 likeness of his Maker." 
 
 And the great Pestalozzi's educational confession runs 
 thus : " From my youth up I felt what a high and in- 
 dispensable human duty it is to labor for the poor and 
 miserable, . . . that he may attain to a consciousness 
 of his own dignity through his feeling of the universal 
 powers and endowments which he possesses awakened 
 within him; that he may not only learn to gabble over 
 by rote the religious maxim that ' man is created in 
 the image of God, and is bound to live and die as a 
 child of God,' but may himself experience its truth by 
 virtue of the divine power within him, so that he may 
 be raised not only above the ploughing oxen, but also 
 above the man in purple and silk who lives unworthily 
 of his high destiny." To this democratic group of edu- 
 cational reformers the somewhat aristocratic Chalmers 
 was related by virtue of his creed, his devotion, his as- 
 pirations, his ideals. 
 
 The Influence of Chalmers on Modern Methods of 
 Church Work, Especially in Cities. During the early 
 decades of the nineteenth century the effects of the " great 
 industry " were seen in the rapid growth of towns. Man-
 
 66 INTRODUCTION 
 
 ufactures were gathering the people into large masses and 
 crowding them together in vast hives. The capitalistic 
 organization of industry was breaking down the class of 
 independent hand-workers who made goods in their homes 
 and was building up a separate economic class of wage- 
 workers who were " stripped of property and tools, and 
 had nothing to sell but their labor." The familiar social 
 divisions of rural communities, those which separated and 
 distinguished the members of the land-owning class from 
 laborers on the farms, were fading. The wage-earners 
 were already coming to " class consciousness " and op- 
 posing their interests to those of the upper classes who 
 still reserved to themselves the suffrage, the function of 
 government, and the privileges of education. 
 
 Chalmers shows distinctly that this new class of wage- 
 workers had already broken away from the Church and 
 had become bitter, hostile, alienated from the governing, 
 privileged, and professional classes. The Church must 
 win them back or see them become practically heathen 
 and foreigners. 
 
 Chalmers did not regard this class hostility as desir- 
 able or tolerable; he sought to make religion a moral 
 bond by personal mediation of living representatives of 
 the sacred and elevated influences of the higher life. The 
 central principle of his evangelizing scheme was the same 
 as that of his relief method the " principle of locality." 
 He saw the significance of the neighborhood for philan- 
 thropy, education, and religion. The teacher and the 
 pastor must be identified with the people of a definite 
 district. No one must be an absentee spiritual landlord
 
 CHALMERS' CONTRIBUTIONS TO MODERN THOUGHT 67 
 
 who draws his revenue from an office, but does not give 
 his whole life to the people of his field. 
 
 Another principle on which our author insisted was 
 that a numerous ministry, clerical and lay, must be pro- 
 vided for these neglected districts of cities. The hen's 
 brood must not be too large for her wings to cover with 
 protection, warmth, and maternal care. The flock must 
 not be so large that the shepherd cannot call each sheep 
 by name. The voice of the stranger will they not follow. 
 Hence the great significance of the army of Sunday-school 
 teachers whom Chalmers boldly defended against the 
 " moderates " the " ice-cream of society," who raised 
 a fashionable outcry of disdain against these " methodist- 
 ical " schemes. In our modern urban churches, especially 
 among the poor, we are learning the necessity of having 
 assistant pastors, visitors, nurses, deaconesses, mission- 
 aries, Bible readers, and voluntary teachers. The pastor 
 of a large congregation in a parish of several thousand 
 souls is discouraged and dismayed to see the thoughtless, 
 impulsive and tempted straying away from the fold, and 
 he utterly unable to watch over them personally, when 
 a single wise word from a friend, at the right moment, 
 might win them back to safety and honor. 
 
 Chalmers established what would now be called " in- 
 stitutional " churches. He recognized the solidarity of 
 human interests. To him the day-school, the savings- 
 bank, the library, the sociable assembly were ministra- 
 tions which the Church owed to those whose lives were 
 bare and meagrely supplied with spiritual goods. 
 
 Social Settlements. The social settlement movement
 
 68 INTRODUCTION 
 
 owes much to the teaching and work of Chalmers. In 
 charity, education, and evangelization his " principle of 
 locality " or neighborhood relationship, was dominant and 
 directive. He also urged the importance of actual resi- 
 dence of the spiritual leader among the people of a neigh- 
 borhood, so that they may be actually and sympathetically 
 in touch with all the factors which affect the people. 
 
 The Influence of Chalmers on the Curriculum of 
 Theological Seminaries. The teaching opportunity of 
 the Church is great beyond calculation. While the com- 
 mon school has many advantages, the Church has access 
 to the public mind and heart in a multitude of ways pe- 
 culiarly its own. It is true that the newspaper, the li- 
 brary, the lecture, the reading-room, and the club have 
 absorbed much of the intellectual life, and that the pul- 
 pit no longer has that monopoly of attention and that 
 singular authority which it once enjoyed. The spiritual 
 interests of society are more varied and divided than in 
 any former age. We must also make allowance for the 
 facts of scepticism, anti-clerical feeling, and a lower esti- 
 mate of the saving efficacy of rites and ceremonies. 
 
 But, after making all fair admissions, it remains true 
 that the ministry of the Church holds professional leader- 
 ship which involves responsibility of the highest order. 
 The decay of unquestioning obedience to dogmatic au- 
 thority really marks an advance in the real influence of 
 the clergy. Since they are aware that they cannot rely 
 upon the unthinking acceptance of anything ordained lips 
 may chance to utter, the preacher and pastor must him- 
 self value more highly the nobler evidences of right to
 
 CHALMERS' CONTRIBUTIONS TO MODERN THOUGHT 69 
 
 * 
 
 a hearing, as character, learning, and wisdom. This new 
 requirement tends to produce a higher type of man and 
 of service. The indolent, selfish, ignorant parson becomes 
 obsolete. The enterprising, devoted servant of the best 
 life of the people is nearer the hearts of all than he could 
 be if his office and his garb marked him off as a ghostly 
 visitant from a distant and shadowy world. The min- 
 istry must minister, or it denies the faith, and it is un- 
 worthy of the title. The pastor must earn his salary by 
 real service. 
 
 This being admitted, the conscientious and consecrated 
 pastor comes upon a very perplexing problem: What is 
 his social function, and, therefore, what is his duty? He 
 is a herald of the Gospel, first of all, through all, above 
 all, or he is nothing but an intruder and pretender. This 
 he is by the call of God in his own soul, by the solemn 
 vows of ordination, and by the reasonable expectation of 
 the Church. This he is by the social law which requires 
 a man to specialize his activity and make himself an effi- 
 cient workman in a single field for which he is especially 
 adapted by nature, and for which he has directly fitted 
 himself by education. 
 
 At the same time, all can see that this Gospel has a 
 universal application; that it has a spirit which should 
 pervade all social activities, a law which should dominate 
 all conduct ; and that the preacher and pastor must make 
 his flock constantly aware of the supreme right of religion 
 and its ethical code to govern all men in all things. The 
 special function of the preacher and pastor touches uni- 
 versal law and supreme principles of love, justice, good-
 
 70 INTRODUCTION 
 
 ness, social order, human welfare, and every element and 
 application of these. 
 
 If the minister neglects the central and vital essence 
 of religion he descends to the level of the newspaper and 
 the politician ; he dissipates his physical and spiritual en- 
 ergies; his professional studies become superficial and 
 unfruitful; his sermons lack point, fervency, and spirit- 
 ual power; his pastoral hours are wasted away along 
 trickling streams in endless committee meetings and desk 
 drudgery, with activities for which persons of other tem- 
 perament and training are better fitted; his public utter- 
 ances smack of the charlatan. 
 
 If, on the other hand, he construes his mission nar- 
 rowly, if he confines his studies and teaching absolutely 
 to the development of exegesis of texts and the enforce- 
 ment of a theological system; if he shows that he has no 
 sympathy with the daily and hourly struggle of men for 
 bread and culture; if the school, the hospital, the labora- 
 tory, the caucus, the council, the legislature, the army 
 and navy, the recreations and the domestic conduct are 
 utterly indifferent to him, unknown to him; if ecclesias- 
 tical rites and synods and conferences and meetings are 
 all the world to him then he becomes a mere profes- 
 sional chaplain, and he loses his manhood, his humanity. 
 As a recluse he may be useful by contributing to theo- 
 logical learning. As a devoted churchman he may have 
 a large congregation and a growing membership. He 
 may win a denominational reputation for being " success- 
 ful." But is he wholly a disciple of Christ? Has he 
 done his full duty to mankind?
 
 CHALMERS' CONTRIBUTIONS TO MODERN TIIOl'CJIIT 71 
 
 In reconciling these stubborn contradictions and .solv- 
 ing these perplexities of conscience, the work of Chal- 
 mers offers important help. This eminent pastor and 
 preacher saw the difficulty, was conscious of the dangers 
 on both sides, and he reflected and wrote much on the 
 solution of the problem. 
 
 Chalmers first of all made central truths central in his 
 studies, teaching, and pastoral labors. He discriminated 
 between essentials and subordinate elements. As a Chris- 
 tian leader he placed his Lord in the focus of every light- 
 beam of sermon and action. All conduct was to be judged 
 by this perfect standard; all organizations must have 
 Christ's will for their informing purpose; all sermons 
 must carry the soul into the divine presence. He early 
 found this regulative principle, and it brought harmony, 
 order, system, and cumulative power into his life and 
 writings. 
 
 Chalmers knew, as an economist, the social signifi- 
 cance of division of labor in society, and he pleaded for 
 leisure for clergymen, and immunity from the unreason- 
 able secular claims of urban life. He resented the de- 
 mands made in his day upon city pastors for municipal 
 and other official clerical services which could be better 
 done by persons of technical training for the task. In 
 his plans of poor relief he was careful to make a division 
 of labor between almoners of material relief and spiritual 
 counsellors and guides. 
 
 But, having thus protected the ministry from dissi- 
 pation and diversion, he also urged the principle that the 
 preacher should study social relations and social duties,
 
 72 INTRODUCTION 
 
 and the method by which religion can sway and direct the 
 life of the people in daily life. It is a small thing if the 
 minister controls the acts of people during the hour of 
 formal ceremony and worship on one day, if they are not 
 made to see and feel that all days and all activities are 
 subject to the same law. 
 
 Arnold of Rugby said: " It is clear that in whatever 
 it is our duty to act, those matters also it is our duty 
 to study." Wisely or foolishly, helpfully or hurtfully, 
 the pastor must act not only in respect to the poor and 
 the vicious, but also in respect to the moral discipline 
 of the rich and the powerful. Therefore, he ought to 
 study the best that is known, that he may perform his 
 duty in the best light. He is sure to influence education, 
 because the Church owns schools, colleges, and immense 
 endowments. He must deal with religious instruction, 
 and he must study the aims and laws of pedagogy, science, 
 and art, and the social requirements of the age in respect 
 to higher culture. 
 
 The famous " Astronomical Discourses " and the 
 " Commercial Discourses " are examples of the way in 
 which the eminent Scotch preacher at once gave instruc- 
 tion and turned this information into parables of the 
 highest spiritual life. Whether other men should attempt 
 a similar task depends very much on the contents of their 
 minds. 
 
 Chalmers was a pioneer in the movement to introduce 
 social studies into the curriculum of training of pastors. 
 He was not absolutely the first. The Bible is full of his- 
 torical materials and of practical treatment of social re-
 
 CHALMERS' CONTRIBUTIONS TO MODERN THOUGHT 7:5 
 
 lations and duties. Some of the early church fathers 
 had no fear of becoming " unspiritual " by giving heed 
 to domestic and civil institutions. Augustine was a man 
 of profound devotional life, and his " City of God " is 
 a social philosophy, an attempt to interpret Jesus's idea 
 of the Kingdom of God to the men of his age. The 
 chief theologian of the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas, 
 presents a system of economics, politics, and social ethics. 
 His social writings are authoritatively commended by 
 popes of this century to the Roman Catholic clergy, and 
 they are drawing the entire body of these ecclesiastics 
 into touch with the " labor movement." 
 
 Pietism fled from a perishing and hateful world. Chal- 
 mers thought real piety should stay at its post of duty in 
 the world, fight its evils, enhance its good, with the 
 fervor of pietism, the exactness of orthodoxy, and the 
 devotion of martyrs. He was a living proof and example 
 that a minister may have all these qualities and also 
 be acquainted with the essential doctrines of contempo- 
 rary social science. He urged upon all ministers the 
 duty and advantage of these studies. 
 
 In his preface to the " Political Economy," Chalmers 
 wrote : " Political Economy, though not deemed an es- 
 sential branch of education for churchmen, touches very 
 closely, notwithstanding, on certain questions, in which 
 both the interest and the duty of ecclesiastics are deeply 
 concerned. The questions of pauperism and of a Relig- 
 ious Establishment, though no others could be specified, 
 would of themselves justify a reference to the lessons 
 and principles of this science, even in a theological course.
 
 74 INTRODUCTION 
 
 . . . Some of the text in this volume was recently 
 delivered in lectures to the students of the Theological 
 Hall in Edinburgh. We gladly transfer them from the 
 chair to the press, were it for no other reason than to 
 relieve our academic work, in all time coming, even from 
 the semblance of aught that is extra-professional." 
 
 There is thus a tone of half apology in these words 
 and in the note : "It may be right to mention that all 
 which we did deliver upon this subject was in a separate 
 lectureship of one hour in the week, distinct from the 
 regular lessons of the theological course, though prepara- 
 tory to our views on the treatment of pauperism, and 
 other questions in parish economics which enter largely 
 into the duties and attentions of the pastoral care. It, 
 besides, formed the natural precursor to another lecture- 
 ship which we have begun, on the methods and the ma- 
 chinery of Christian education." 
 
 The apologetic tone may be excused in the light of 
 his example in giving so wide an interpretation to " par- 
 ish economics." The following words deepen the im- 
 pression of his valuation of social studies: " We cannot, 
 however, bid adieu to political economy, without an ear- 
 nest recommendation of its lessons to all those who enter 
 upon the ecclesiastical vocation. They are our church- 
 men, in fact, who could best carry the most important 
 of these lessons into practical effect. If sufficiently en- 
 lightened on the question of pauperism, they might, with 
 the greatest ease, in Scotland, clear away this moral lep- 
 rosy from their respective parishes. And, standing at 
 the head of Christian education, they are the lone effect-
 
 CHALMERS' CONTRIBUTIONS TO MODERN THOUGHT 75 
 
 ual dispensers of all those civil and economical blessings 
 which would follow in its train." 
 
 Even now his earnest prayer has place and meaning: 
 " May God of His infinite mercy grant that whatever 
 the coming changes in the state and history of these 
 nations may be, they shall not be the result of a sweep- 
 ing and headlong anarchy, but rather, in the pacific march 
 of improvement, may they anticipate this tremendous evil 
 and avert it from our borders. There is a general im- 
 pression upon all spirits that something must be done. 
 But, to be done well, it must not be by the hand of 
 violence, but by the authority of legitimate power, under 
 the guidance of principle ; by a government having both 
 the wisdom and righteousness to direct and the strength 
 to execute."
 
 THE 
 
 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 OF LARGE TOWNS 
 
 ABRIDGED] 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OP MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THERE is a great deal of philanthropy afloat in this 
 our day. At no period, perhaps, in the history of the 
 human mind did a desire for doing good, so earnest, meet 
 a spirit of inquiry so eager, after the best and likeliest 
 methods of carrying the desire into accomplishment. 
 Amid all that looks dark and menacing, in the present 
 exhibitions of society, this, at least, must be acknowl- 
 edged that never was there a greater quantity of 
 thought embarked on those speculations which, whether 
 with Christian or merely economic writers, have the one 
 common object of promoting the worth and comfort of 
 our species. 
 
 It must be confessed, at the same time, that much of 
 this benevolence, and more particularly, when it aims 
 at some fulfilment by a combination of many individ- 
 uals, is rendered abortive for want of a right direction. 
 Were the misleading causes to which philanthropy is ex- 
 posed, when it operates among a crowded assemblage 
 of human beings, fully understood, then would it cease 
 to be a paradox, . . . why there should either be a 
 steady progress of wretchedness in our land in the midst 
 of its charitable institutions, or a steady progress of 
 profligacy in the midst of its churches, and Sabbath 
 schools, and manifold reclaiming societies. 
 
 79
 
 80 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 The author of the following work has been much 
 in the habit of comparing the habitudes of a city with 
 those of a country population, and he cannot more 
 fitly express its subject than by assigning to it the 
 title of " The Christian and Civic Economy of Large 
 Towns. ."
 
 THE CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECON- 
 OMY OF LARGE TOWNS 
 
 VOLUME I 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE ADVANTAGE AND POSSIBILITY OF ASSIMILATING 
 A TOWN TO A COUNTRY PARISH 
 
 THERE are two classes of writers whose prevailing topics 
 stand intimately connected with the philosophy of human 
 affairs, but who, in almost all their habitudes of thinking, 
 have hitherto maintained an unfortunate distance from 
 each other. There are political economists, who do not 
 admit Christianity as an element into their speculations; 
 and there are Christian philanthropists who do not admit 
 political science as an element into theirs. The former 
 very generally regard the professional subject of the 
 latter, if not with contempt, at least with unconcern ; and 
 the latter as generally regard the professional subject 
 of the former with a somewhat sensitive kind of preju- 
 dice, bordering upon disapprobation and dislike. It is 
 thus that two classes of public laborers, who, with a mutual 
 respect and understanding, might have, out of their united 
 contributions, rendered a most important offering to so- 
 6 81
 
 82 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 ciety, have, in fact, each in the prosecution of their own 
 separate walk, so shut out the light and so rejected the 
 aid which the other could have afforded, as either, in 
 many instances, to have merely amused the intellectual 
 public with inert and unproductive theory, on the one 
 hand, or as to have misled the practically benevolent 
 public into measures of well-meaning but mischievous 
 and ill-directed activity on the other. 
 
 And, indeed, it is only in the later w r alks of political 
 science that the aid of Christianity has obviously be- 
 come of practical importance to her; nor did this aid 
 appear to be at all requisite for the purpose of giving 
 effect to her earlier speculations. Till within these last 
 fifteen years, the great topic of inquiry among our ab- 
 stract politicians was the theory of commerce, and the 
 moral habit of the laboring classes, as founded on their 
 religion, did not enter as an element or as a component 
 part into that theory. . . . But the case is widely dif- 
 ferent with respect to the later contributions which have 
 been rendered to this science. We allude more especially 
 to the essay of Mr. Malthus, whose theory of population, 
 had it been present to the mind of Mr. Smith, would, 
 we think, have modified certain of those doctrines and 
 conclusions which he presented to the world in his essay 
 on the " Theory of Commerce." It is true that govern- 
 ment, by her obtrusive interferences, has put the country 
 into a worse condition, in respect of her population, than 
 it would have been in had this branch of its economy 
 been also left to itself. There are certain artificial en- 
 couragements to population which government ought
 
 TOWN AXD COUNTRY PARISHES ASSIMILABLE 83 
 
 never to have sanctioned, and which it were the wisdom 
 of government, with all prudent and practicable speed, 
 to abolish. There are certain bounties that the law has 
 devised upon marriage, in every way as hurtful and im- 
 politic as her bounties upon trade, and which it were 
 greatly better for the interests of all classes, and more 1 
 especially of the laboring classes, that she should forth- 
 with recall. There is a way in which, by stepping be- 
 yond her province and attempting to provide for that 
 which would have been more effectually provided for 
 without her, by the strong principle of self-preservation, 
 on the one hand, and the free but powerful sympathies 
 of individual nature on the other; there is a way in 
 which she has lulled the poor into improvidence and 
 frozen the rich into apathy toward their wants and their 
 sufferings, and this way it were surely better that she 
 had never entered upon, and better now that she should 
 retrace with all convenient expedition. Now all this may 
 be done, and with a certain degree of benefit, even in 
 the midst of an unchristian population. Their comfort 
 would be advanced so far, merely by the principles of 
 nature being restored to their unfettered operation; and 
 this is desirable, even though we should fall short of that 
 additional comfort which would accrue from the prin- 
 ciples of Christianity being brought more prevalently 
 among them than before. And thus it is a possible 
 thing that government, acting exclusively in this tem- 
 per and with the views of the wisdom of this world, may 
 exert itself with beneficial influence on that great branch 
 of political economy which relates to the population of
 
 84 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 a state, just as she may on that other great branch of it 
 which relates to the commerce of a state. . . . 
 
 But there is one wide and palpable distinction be- 
 tween the matter of commerce and the matter of popu- 
 lation. Government may safely withdraw from the for- 
 mer concern altogether, and abandon it to the love of 
 gain and the spirit of enterprise, and the sharp-sighted 
 sagacity that guides almost all the pursuits of interest, 
 and the natural securities for justice between man and 
 man in society. . . . And it were also well, that govern- 
 ment withdrew from the concern of ordinary pauperism 
 altogether which stands so nearly associated with the ques- 
 tion of population. She would in this way do much to 
 call forth a resurrection of those providential habits 
 which serve both to restrain the number and to equalize 
 the comforts of our people ; and she would also do much 
 to bring out those otherwise checked and superseded sym- 
 pathies that, in the flow of their kindly and spontaneous 
 exercise, are more fitted to bind the community in gen- 
 tleness together than all the legalized charities of our 
 land. But though she may do thus much, she cannot 
 do all, and there will still be left a mighty reversion of 
 good that can only be achieved by the people themselves. 
 For, though the unfettered principles of nature may suf- 
 fice for carrying all that interest which is connected with 
 the state of a country's commerce onward to the condi- 
 tion that is best and safest for the public weal, the mere 
 principles of nature will not suffice for carrying the in- 
 terest that is connected with the state of a country's pop- 
 ulation onward to the condition that is best and safest
 
 TOWN AND COUNTRY PARISHES ASSIMILABLE 85 
 
 for the public weal. ... So long as profligacy remains 
 the pressure in question will, though lessened in amount, 
 remain along with it. So long as the sensual predomi- 
 nates over the reflective part of the human constitution 
 will there be improvident marriages and premature fami- 
 lies, and an overdone competition for subsistence, and 
 a general inadequacy in the wages of labor to the fair rate 
 of human enjoyment, and, in a word, all the disorder 
 and discomfort of an excessive population. So long as 
 there is generally a low and grovelling taste among the 
 people, instead of an aspiring tendency toward something 
 more in the way of comfort and cleanliness and elegance 
 than is to be met with in the sordid habitations of a 
 rude and demi-barbarous country, will they rush with pre- 
 cipitation into matrimony and care not how unable they 
 are to meet its expenses, and forfeit the whole ease and 
 accommodation of the future to the present ascendency 
 of a blind and uncalculating impulse. . . . The ten- 
 dency to excessive population can only find its thorough 
 and decisive counteraction among the amended habits, 
 and the moralized characters, and the exalted principles 
 of the people themselves. . . . It is necessary to go 
 forth among the people, and there to superinduce the 
 principles of an efficient morality on the mere principles 
 of nature, and there to work a transformation of tasto 
 and of character, and there to deliver lessons which of 
 themselves will induce a habit of thoughtfulness that 
 must insensibly pervade the whole system of a man's de- 
 sires and doings, making him more a being of reach and 
 intellect and anticipation than he was formerly raising
 
 86 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 the whole tone of his mind and infusing into every prac- 
 tical movement, along with the elements of passion and 
 interest, the elements of duty and of wisdom and of self- 
 estimation. 
 
 It is thus that the disciples of political science, however 
 wisely they may speculate upon this question, are, if with- 
 out the element of character among the general popula- 
 tion, in a state of impotency as to the practical effect 
 of their speculation. So long as the people remain either 
 depraved or unenlightened, the country will never attain 
 a healthful condition in respect of one of the great 
 branches of her policy. This is an obstacle which stands 
 uncontrollably opposed to the power of every other ex- 
 pedient for the purpose of mitigating the evils of a re- 
 dundant population ; and, till this be removed, legislators 
 may devise and economists may demonstrate as they will, 
 they want one of the data indispensable to the right 
 solution of a problem which, however clear in theory, 
 will, upon trial, mock the vain endeavors of those who 
 overlook the moral principles of man, or despise the mys- 
 teries of that faith which can alone inspire them. 
 
 It is thus that our political writers, if at all honestly 
 desirous of obtaining a fulfilment for their own specula- 
 tion, should look toward the men who are fitted to ex- 
 patiate among the people in the capacity of their most 
 acceptable and efficient moralists. It is evident that they 
 themselves are not the best adapted for such a practical 
 movement through a community of human beings. It 
 is not by any topic or any demonstration of theirs that 
 we can at all look for a general welcome and admittance
 
 TOWN AND COUNTRY PARISHES ASSIMILABLE 87 
 
 among families. Let one of their number, for example, 
 go forth with the argument of Maltlms, or any other of 
 the lessons of political economy, and that for the purpose 
 of enlightening the practice and observation of his neigh- 
 borhood. The very first reception that he met with would, 
 in all likelihood, check the farther progress of this moral 
 and benevolent adventure, and stamp upon it all the folly 
 and all the fruitlessness of Quixotism. People would 
 laugh, or wonder, or be offended, and a sense of the ut- 
 terly ridiculous would soon attach itself to this expedi- 
 tion and lead him to abandon it. Now, herein lies the 
 great initial superiority which the merely Christian has 
 over the merely civil philanthropist. He is armed with 
 a topic of ready and pertinent introduction with which 
 he may go round a population and come into close and 
 extensive contact with all the families. Let his errand 
 be connected with religion, and, even though a very ob- 
 scure and wholly unsanctioned individual, may he enter 
 within the precincts of nearly every household and not 
 meet with one act of rudeness or resistance during the 
 whole of his progress. Should he only, for example, in- 
 vite their young to his Sabbath school, he, with this for 
 his professed object, would find himself in possession of 
 a passport upon which, and more especially among the 
 common ranks of society, he might step into almost every 
 dwelling-place and engage the inmates in conversations 
 of piety, and leave at least the sensations of cordiality 
 and gratitude behind him, and pave the way for succes- 
 sive applications of the same influence, and secure this 
 acknowledgment in favor of his subject, that it is worthy
 
 88 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 of being proposed on one side, and worthy of being enter- 
 tained and patiently listened to on the other. It is not 
 of his final success that we are now speaking. It is of 
 his advantageous outset. . . . 
 
 It would save a world of misconception were it kept 
 distinctly in mind that, for the purpose of giving effect 
 to the lessons of the economist, it is not necessary for 
 him who labors in the gospel vineyard, either to teach 
 or even so much as to understand these lessons. Let him 
 simply confine himself to his own strict and peculiar busi- 
 ness; let him labor for immortality alone; let his single 
 aim be to convert and to christianize, and, as the result 
 of prayer and exertion, to succeed in depositing with 
 some the faith of the New Testament, so as that they 
 shall hold forth to the esteem and the imitation of many 
 the virtues of the New Testament, and he does more 
 for the civil and economical well-being of his neighbor- 
 hood than he ever could do by the influence of all secular 
 demonstration. ... It were worse than ridiculous, and 
 it most assuredly is not requisite for him, to become the 
 champion of any economic theory with the principle of 
 which he should be constantly infusing either his pulpit 
 or his parochial ministrations. His office may be upheld 
 in the entire aspect of its sacredness, and the main desire 
 and prayer of his heart toward God in behalf of his breth- 
 ren may be that they should be saved, and the engrossment 
 of his mind with the one thing needful may be as com- 
 plete as was that of the apostle who determined to know 
 nothing among his hearers save Jesus Christ and Him 
 crucified; and yet, such is the fulness of the blessing of
 
 TOWN AND COUNTRY PARISHES ASSIMILABLE 89 
 
 the gospel with which lie is fraught, that while he ren- 
 ders the best possible service to the converts whom, un- 
 der the Spirit of God, he has gained to its cause, he also, 
 in the person of those converts, renders the best possible 
 contribution to the temporal good of society. It is 
 enough that they have been rescued from the dominion 
 of sensuality; it is enough that they have become disci- 
 ples of that book which, while it teaches them to be fer- 
 vent in spirit, teaches them also to be not slothful in 
 business; it is enough that the Christian faith has been 
 formed with such power in their hearts as to bring out 
 the Christian morals into visible exemplification upon 
 their history; it is enough that the principle within them, 
 if it do not propagate its own likeness in others, can at 
 least, like the salt to which they have been compared, 
 season a whole vicinity with many of its kindred and 
 secondary attributes. There is not a more familiar ex- 
 hibition in humble life than that alliance, in virtue of 
 which a Christian family is almost sure to be a well-con- 
 ditioned family. And yet its members are utterly un- 
 versant either in the maxims or in the speculations of 
 political science. They occupy the right place in a rightly 
 constituted and well-going mechanism ; but the mechan- 
 ism itself is what they never hear of and could not com- 
 prehend. Their Christian adviser never reads them a 
 lesson from the writings of any economist, and yet the 
 moral habit to which the former has been the instrument 
 of conducting them is that which brings them into a state 
 of practical conformity with the soundest and most valu- 
 able lessons which the latter can devise. . .
 
 90 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 If we revert to the habit of the last generation in 
 Scotland, which is still fresh in the remembrance of many 
 who are now alive, we shall find an ample verification of 
 all these remarks. At that time Malthus had not written, 
 and his speculations had little more than an embryo ex- 
 istence in the pages of Wallace; and certain it is that 
 in the minds of our solid, regular, and well-doing peas- 
 antry it had no existence at all. It was acted upon, but 
 without being at all counted upon. It was one of the 
 cherished and domestic decencies of a former age trans- 
 mitted from every matron to her daughters not to marry 
 without a costly and creditable provision; and the delay 
 of years was often incurred in the mighty work of piling 
 together the whole materiel of a most bulky and laborious 
 preparation, and the elements of future comfort and 
 future respectability behooved to be accumulated to a 
 very large extent ere it was lawful, or at least reputable, 
 to enter upon the condition of matrimony. And thus 
 the moral preventive check of our great economist was 
 in full and wholesome operation long before it was of- 
 fered by him to public notice in the shape of a distinct 
 and salutary principle. . . . Not till we recall the, 
 Christianity shall we ever recall the considerate sobriety, 
 the steady, equalized comfort, the virtuous independence 
 of a generation, the habit and the memory of which are 
 so fast departing away from us. ... 
 
 So much for the prevailing tendency of the civil to 
 underrate or disregard the labors of the Christian philan- 
 thropist. But there is no less prevailing a tendency, on 
 the part of the latter, to neglect many of the principles
 
 TOWN AND COUNTRY PARISHES ASSIMILABLE 91 
 
 and to underrate many of the propositions of the former. 
 It is certainly to be regretted that many of our most 
 pious and even our most profound theologians should 
 be so unfurnished as they are with the conceptions of 
 political economy. But it is their active resistance to 
 some of its clearest and most unquestionable principles, 
 it is their blindly sentimental dislike of a doctrine which 
 stands on the firm basis of arithmetic, it is their misrepre- 
 sentation of it as hostile to the exercise of our best feel- 
 ing, when, in fact, all its hostility is directed against such 
 perverse and unfortunate arrangements as have served 
 to chill and to counteract the sympathies of our nature; 
 it is the dogmatism of their strenuous asseverations against 
 that which experience and demonstration are ever ob- 
 truding upon the judgment as irrefragable truth; it is 
 this which is mainly to be regretted, for it has enlisted 
 the whole of their high and deserved influence on the 
 side of institutions pernicious to society; and what, per- 
 haps, is still worse, it has led a very enlightened class 
 in our land to imagine a certain poverty of understand- 
 ing as inseparable from religious zeal, thus bringing down 
 our Christian laborers from that estimation which, on 
 their own topic, so rightfully belongs to them, and de- 
 ducting from the weight of' that professional testimony 
 which it were the best interest of all classes most pa- 
 tiently to listen to and most respectfully to entertain. 
 
 But the mischief which has thus been inflicted on the 
 good of humanity is not to be compared with the still 
 deadlier mischief of a certain error which has received 
 the utmost countenance and support from a large class
 
 92 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 of religionists. What we allude to is their distaste to- 
 ward all kinds of external machinery for the furtherance 
 of any Christian enterprise, founded on their misapplica- 
 tion of an undoubted doctrine, that all the ebbs and all 
 the revivals of Christianity are primarily to be traced 
 to the alternations of a direct influence from heaven. 
 They look, and they rightly look, to the Spirit of God 
 as the agent of every prosperous revolution in the Chris- 
 tianity of our land. ... It were folly to think that 
 by the mere erection of a material framework the cause 
 of Christianity can be advanced by a single hair-breadth, 
 should there be a withholding of that special and sanctify- 
 ing grace. . . . And hence with many there is a total 
 indolence and unconcern as to all outward arguments, 
 and everything like a visible apparatus appears insignifi- 
 cant in their eyes: and with something like the compla- 
 cency of one who fancies himself in possession of the 
 recondite principle of a given operation do they view 
 with contempt all that man can do externally and with 
 his hands for the purpose of achieving it. And thus do 
 they hold in a kind of ineffable disdain the proposal of 
 building more churches for the increase of Christianity 
 in our land. And this is only one out of many instances 
 in which, under a sense of the utter impotency of all 
 mechanism, they would restrain human activity from 
 putting itself forth on any palpable subject, and would 
 sit in a sort of mystic and expectant quietism till there 
 come down upon us from the skies the visitation of that 
 inspiring energy which is to provide for all and to do 
 all.
 
 TOWN AND COUNTRY PARISHES ASSIMILABLE 93 
 
 [Examples of the use of means in all ages of the 
 Church are given, from Apostolic times down to the 
 schools of Scotland.] 
 
 In this we see the good of what may be called a mate- 
 rial organization. It survives all the ebbs and alterna- 
 tions of the spirit which gave it birth, and who can fail 
 to perceive that, in virtue of its existence, when this 
 spirit reappears in the country, it finds channels for a 
 readier and more abundant access into all the families 
 than it would do in a country where there was no paro- 
 chial endowment and no regular or universal habit of 
 scholarship among the population ? . . . 
 
 We hold the possibility, and we cannot doubt the 
 advantage of assimilating a town to a country parish. We 
 think that the same moral regimen which, under the 
 parochial and ecclesiastical system of Scotland, has been 
 set up, and with so much effect, in her country parishes, 
 may, by a few simple and attainable processes, be intro- 
 duced into the most crowded of our cities, and with as 
 signal and conspicuous an effect on the whole habit and 
 character of their population. ... So that, while 
 the profligacy which obtains in every crowded and con- 
 centrated mass of human beings is looked upon by many 
 a philanthropist as one of those helpless and irreclaimable 
 distempers of the body politic for which there is no rem- 
 edy, do we maintain that there are certain practicable 
 arrangements which, under the blessing of God, will stay 
 this growing calamity, and would, by the perseverance 
 of a few years, land us in a purer and better generation. 
 One most essential step toward so desirable an assimi-
 
 94 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 lation in a large city parish is a numerous and well-ap- 
 pointed agency. The assimilation here does not lie in 
 the external framework; for, in a small country parish 
 the minister alone, or with a very few coadjutors of 
 a small session, may bring the personal influence of his 
 kind and Christian attentions to bear upon all the fami- 
 lies. Among the ten thousand of the city parish this is 
 impossible; and therefore, what he cannot do but par- 
 tially and superficially in his own person must, if done 
 substantially, be done in the person of others. And he, 
 by dividing his parish into small manageable districts, 
 and assigning one or more of his friends, in some capacity 
 or other, to each of them, and vesting them with such a 
 right either of superintendence or of inquiry as will 
 always be found to be gratefully met by the population, 
 and so raising a ready intermedium of communication 
 between himself and the inhabitants of his parish, may 
 at length attain an assimilation in point of result to a 
 country parish, though not in the means by which he 
 arrived at it. ... Out of the simple elements of 
 attention and advice and civility and good-will conveyed 
 through the tenements of the poor by men a little more 
 elevated in rank than themselves, a far more purifying 
 and even more gracious operation can be made to de : 
 scend upon them than ever will be achieved by any other 
 of the ministrations of charity. . . . 
 
 In a manufacturing town . . . the poor and the 
 wealthy stand more disjoined from each other. It is true 
 they often meet, but they meet more on the arena of 
 contest than on a field where the patronage and custom
 
 TOWN AND COUNTRY PARISHES ASSIMILABLE 95 
 
 of the one party are met by the gratitude and good-will 
 of the other. . . . We do not aim at the most distant 
 reflection against the manufacturers of our land; but 
 it must be quite obvious, from the nature of the case, that 
 their intercourse with the laboring classes -is greatly more 
 an intercourse of collision, and greatly less an intercourse 
 of kindliness, than is that of the higher orders in such 
 towns as Bath, or Oxford, or Edinburgh. In this way 
 there is a mighty unfilled space interposed between the 
 high and low of every large manufacturing city, in con- 
 sequence of which they are mutually blind to the real 
 cordialities and attractions which belong to each of them, 
 and a resentful feeling is apt to be fostered, either of dis- 
 dain or defiance, which it will require all the expedients 
 of an enlightened charity effectually to do away. Nor 
 can we guess at a likelier or a more immediate arrange- 
 ment for this purpose than to multiply the agents of 
 Christianity among us, whose delight it may be to go 
 forth among the people on no other errand than that of 
 pure good-will, and with no other ministrations than 
 those of respect and tenderness. 
 
 There is one lesson that we need not teach, for expe- 
 rience has already taught it, and that is, the kindly influ- 
 ence which the mere presence of a human being has upon 
 his fellows. Let the attention bestowed upon another be 
 the genuine emanation of good-will, and there is only one 
 thing more to make it irresistible. The readiest way of 
 finding access to a man's heart is to go into his house and 
 there to perform the deed of kindness, or to acquit our- 
 selves of the wonted and the looked-for acknowledgment.
 
 96 CHEISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 By putting ourselves under the roof of a poor neighbor 
 we in a manner put ourselves under his protection; we 
 render him for a time our superior; we throw our recep- 
 tion on his generosity, and we may be assured that it is a 
 confidence which will almost never fail us. ... This 
 is the home-walk in which is earned, if not a proud, at 
 least a peaceful, popularity the popularity of the heart, 
 the greetings of men who, touched even by the cheapest 
 and easiest services of kindness, have nothing to give out 
 but their wishes of kindness back again; but, in giving 
 these, have crowned such pious attentions with the only 
 popularity that is worth aspiring after the popularity 
 that is won in the bosom of families and at the side of 
 death-beds. 
 
 [The author protests against the custom of civil au- 
 thorities of that day in Scotland who crowded upon city 
 pastors a great many distracting clerical duties which nat- 
 urally belonged to secular offices of government. He 
 urges that this custom interfered with the efficient per- 
 formance of parish duties; that it exhausted the pastor 
 with a round of petty tasks; that it interfered with that 
 scholarly leisure which is necessary for the development 
 of a strong theological literature.] 
 
 In the country there is time for the prosecution of a 
 lofty and laborious walk ; but there is not the excitement. 
 In the town there is the excitement; but, under the prog- 
 ress of such a system as we have attempted to expose, 
 there will not be the time. There is a constant with- 
 drawment of the more conspicuous members of our es- 
 tablishment from the solitude of their first parishes; but
 
 TOWN AND COUNTRY PARISHES ASSIMILABLE 97 
 
 it is withdrawment into a vortex which stifles and de- 
 stroys them. Those towns which, with a few most simple 
 and practicable reformations, might be the instruments 
 of sustaining the cause of theology and of sending abroad 
 over the face of our country a most vigorous and healthful 
 impulse toward the prosecution of theological learning, 
 may, under that yearly process of distinction which is 
 now going forward, depress the whole literature of our 
 profession. . . . And we have only to look to the 
 last fifty years and think of the new direction to our 
 habits which has taken place in that period, in order to 
 compute how soon our national establishment may, by 
 the simple cause of its ministers being turned to the 
 drudgery of other services, be shorn of her best and most 
 substantial glories, and how soon that theology of which 
 she is the appointed guardian may come to sink both in 
 vigor and illustration beneath the spirit and literature 
 and general philosophy of the times. 
 
 Should any reader think that we have drawn the above 
 picture with too faithful, or even with too strong, a hand, 
 we ask him, further, to think that it is such a picture as, 
 by its very exhibition, may scare away the realities which 
 it anticipates. The case, we are persuaded, requires only 
 to be understood, and then it will be provided for, since 
 the restoration of the clergy to their own proper and 
 peculiar influence over the hosts of a city population must 
 appear both to the Christian and the general philanthro- 
 pist one of the most important of our national desiderata.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 ON THE INFLUENCE OF LOCALITY IN TOWNS 
 
 WE do not know how the matter is ordered in London ; 
 but in the second-rate towns of our empire it will often 
 be found that when a philanthropic society is formed 
 in them for any assigned object, it spreads its operations 
 over the whole field of the congregated population. This 
 holds generally true both of the societies for relief and 
 of the societies for instruction. Take a clothing society, 
 or an old man's friend society, or a destitute sick society, 
 as examples of the former; or take a Sabbath-school 
 society as an example of the latter; and in by far the 
 greater number of instances will it be seen that instead 
 of concentrating their exertions upon one district or de- 
 partment of the city, they expatiate at large and over 
 the face of its entire territory, recognizing no other boun- 
 dary than that which lies indefinitely but fully beyond 
 the final outskirts of the compact and contiguous dwell- 
 ing-places. . . . 
 
 [Usually a Sabbath-school draws its teachers from all 
 parts of the city and children from many localities. The 
 better way would be to assign a small and definite area 
 to a teacher and make him feel responsible for all the 
 persons within this limited district. The advantage and 
 charm of this intensive and thorough method can be real- 
 ized only by those who have given it an adequate trial.]
 
 INFLUENCE OF LOCALITY 99 
 
 The first effect of it which falls to be considered is 
 that which it has upon the teacher. . . . He, with a 
 select and appropriate vineyard thus lying before him, 
 will feel himself more powerfully urged than when un- 
 der the common arrangement, to go forth among its fami- 
 lies. . . . When the subject on which he is to operate 
 thus offers itself to his contemplation in the shape of one 
 unbroken field or of one entire and continuous body, it 
 acts as a more distinct and imperative call upon him to 
 go out upon the enterprise. He will feel a kind of prop- 
 erty in the families ; and the very circumstance of a mate- 
 rial limit around their habitations serves to strengthen 
 this impression by furnishing to his mind a sort of asso- 
 ciation with the hedges and the landmarks of property. 
 . . . There is a very great difference in respect of its 
 practical influence, between a task that is indefinite and 
 a task that is clearly seen to be overtakable. The one has 
 the effect to paralyze, the other to quicken, exertion. . . . 
 It serves most essentially to spirit on his undertaking 
 when, by every new movement, one feels himself to be 
 drawing sensibly nearer to the accomplishment of it. ... 
 He can go over his families, too, with far less expense 
 of locomotion than under the common system of Sab- 
 bath-schools, and, for the same reason, can he more fully 
 and frequently reiterate his attentions, and it will charm 
 him onward to find that he is sensibly translating himself 
 into a stricter and kinder relationship with the people 
 of his district; and, if he have a taste for cordial inter- 
 course with the fellows of his own nature, he will be 
 gladdened and encouraged by this growing familiarity
 
 100 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 with them all, and thus will he turn the vicinity which 
 he has chosen into a home-walk of many charities; and, 
 recognized as its moral benefactor, will his kindness and 
 his judgment and his Christianity be put forth, with a 
 well-earned and well-established influence, in behalf of 
 a grateful population. . . . 
 
 The next is its effect in calling out the attendance 
 of the taught. The invitation comes upon them with 
 far greater power when it is to attend the weekly lessons 
 which are given out in the close vicinity of their own 
 habitations than were it to attend at some distant place 
 where children are assembled from all quarters of the city. 
 . . . There is also much in the juxtaposition of the 
 taught to one another. This brings what may be called 
 the gregarious principle into fuller play. What children 
 will not do singly they will do with delight and readiness 
 in a flock. . . . 
 
 The third peculiar benefit of this local arrangement 
 is its effect on the population of the district. . . . One 
 great desideratum in large towns is acquaintanceship 
 among the contiguous families. And to promote this 
 every arrangement, in itself right, should be promoted 
 which brings out the indwellers of one vicinity to one 
 common place of repair, and brings upon them one com- 
 mon ministration. . . 
 
 [The ordinary system lacks these advantages.] 
 
 Under a local system the teachers move toward the 
 people. Under a general system such of the people as 
 are disposed to Christianity move toward them. To esti-
 
 INFLUENCE OF LOCALITY 101 
 
 mate the comparative effect of these two, take the actual 
 state of every mixed and crowded population, where there 
 must be many among whom this disposition is utterly 
 extinguished. The question is, How shall the influence 
 of a Sabbath-school be brought most readily and most 
 abundantly into contact with their families? "Which of 
 the two parties, the teacher, or those to be taught, should 
 make the first advances to such an approximation? To 
 meet this question, let it ever be remembered that there 
 is a wide and mighty difference between the wants of our 
 physical and those of our moral and spiritual nature. In 
 proportion to our want of food is our desire for food; 
 but it is not so with our want of knowledge, or virtue, or 
 religion. The more destitute we are of these last, the 
 more dead we are to any inclination for them. A gen- 
 eral system of Sabbath-schooling may attract toward it 
 all the predisposition that there is for Christian instruc- 
 tion, and yet leave the majority as untouched and as un- 
 awakened as it found them. ... It is both a possible 
 thing that schools may multiply under a general system 
 and that out of the resources of a mighty population an 
 overflowing attendance may be afforded to each of them, 
 while an humble fraction of the whole is all that is over- 
 taken; and below the goodly superficies of a great ap- 
 parent stir and activity may an unseen structure of baser 
 materials deepen and accumulate underneath, so as to 
 furnish a solution of the fact that with an increase of 
 Christian exertion among us there should, at one and the 
 same time, be an increase of heathenism. . . . 
 
 The schools, under a general system, are so many cen-
 
 102 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 tres of attraction for all the existing desire that there is 
 toward Christianity; . . . the schools under a local 
 system are so many centres of emanation from which 
 a vivifying influence is actively propagated through a 
 dead and putrid mass. . . . The general system draws 
 around it the young of our more decent and reputable 
 families. . . . It is the pride of the latter or local 
 system, while it refuses not these, that it also fetches out 
 from their obscurities the very poorest and most profligate 
 of children. It may have a painful encounter at the out- 
 set with the filth, and the raggedness, and the other rude 
 and revolting materials which it has so laboriously exca- 
 vated from those mines of depravity that lie beneath the 
 surface of common observation. But it may well be 
 consoled with the thought that while much good has 
 been done by its predecessor which, we trust, it is on the 
 eve of supplanting, it holds in its own hands the materials 
 of a far more glorious transformation. 
 
 [Crime and disorder may be increasing side by side with 
 the striking advance of the Church and of culture. The 
 methods of attraction display victories in one quarter, 
 while, in the absence of methods of emanation and per- 
 vasion, the lower quarters are sinking into deeper de- 
 pravity.] 
 
 In these circumstances do we know of no expedient 
 by which this woful degeneracy can be arrested and 
 recalled, but an actual search and entry upon the terri- 
 tory of wickedness. A mere signal of invitation is not 
 enough. . . . We must do with the near what we
 
 INFLUENCE OF LOCALITY 103 
 
 are doing with the distant world. We do not expect to 
 Christianize the latter by messages of entreaty from the 
 regions of paganism. But we send our messages to them. 
 Neither do we give a roving commission to the bearer, 
 but assign to each of them their respective stations in 
 that field, which is the world. . . . There must just 
 be as aggressive a movement in the one case as in the 
 other. There is not the same physical distance, but there 
 is nearly the same moral distance, to be described with 
 both. . . . 
 
 Any one, or, at most, two philanthropists, may set 
 forth upon such an experiment. They will soon, in the 
 course of their inquiries, be enabled to verify the actual 
 state of our city families, and, at the same time, their 
 openness to the influence of a pervading operation. Let 
 them, for this purpose, make their actual entrance upon a 
 district which they have previously chalked out as the 
 ground of their benevolent enterprise ; and it were better 
 that it should be in some poor and neglected part of the 
 city. Let the one introduce the other to every family, 
 and on the simple errand that he meant to set up a Sab- 
 bath-school, to be just at hand, and for the vicinity around 
 him. With no other manner than that which Christian 
 kindness would dictate, and just such questions as are 
 consistent with the respect which every human being 
 should entertain for another, we promise him not merely 
 a civil, but a cordial reception in almost every house, 
 and a discreet answer to all his inquiries. The first thing 
 which, in all likelihood, will meet his observation, is the 
 mighty remainder of good that is left for him to do
 
 104 CHKISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 amid the number and exertion of the general Sabbath- 
 schools that are on every side of him. It may be other- 
 wise in some few accidental districts; but, speaking 
 generally, he will assemble a sufficient school out of a 
 population of three hundred. Parents of all characters 
 will accept his proposition with gratitude. And if, on his 
 first meeting with their children in some apartment of the 
 district, he should be disappointed by the non-attendance 
 of some he was counting on, a few calls of inquiry on 
 the subject will generally at length secure the point of 
 their attendance; and, by following up every case of 
 absence with a week-day inquiry of the parents, he will 
 secure the regularity of it, and thus may he bring his 
 moral and personal influence into contact with their 
 young for a few hours of every recurring Sabbath, and 
 also keep up an influence through the whole week by 
 the circulation of books from a small library attached 
 to his institution. It will prove a mighty accession to 
 the good that he is doing if he hold frequent intercourse 
 with the families. . . . 
 
 A few months of perseverance will thoroughly engage 
 him to the cause he has undertaken. He will feel a com- 
 fort in this style of philanthropy which he does not feel 
 in the bustle and distraction of manifold societies. He 
 will enjoy both the unity and the effectiveness of his 
 doings. And instead of pacing, as he does now, among 
 dull committees, and perplexing himself among the ques- 
 tions of a large and laborious superintendence, will he 
 expatiate, without encumbrance, upon his own chosen 
 field, and rejoice in putting forth his immediate hand
 
 INFLUENCE OF LOCALITY 105 
 
 on the work of reclaiming it from that neglected waste 
 of ignorance and improvidence by which it is surrounded. 
 To be effective in such a walk of benevolence as this 
 it is not necessary to be rich. 
 
 [The visitor might build up a school, in the absence 
 of free public schools, by soliciting small contributions 
 for a teacher. He might train the people to thrift by 
 collecting their pennies and forming a fund against times 
 of need.] 
 
 The weapons of this warfare are advice, and friendship, 
 and humanity at all times ready, without [being] at any 
 time impertinent, and the well-earned confidence which is 
 ever sure to follow in the train of tried and demonstrated 
 worth these, when wielded for a long time by the same 
 individual on the same contiguous families, will work 
 an effect of improvement which never can be attained 
 by all the devices and labors of ordinary committeeship. 
 
 There are so many philanthropists in this our day that 
 if each of them who is qualified were to betake himself 
 in his own line of usefulness to one given locality, it 
 would soon work a great and visible effect upon society. 
 . . . But there is a temporary hindrance to it, in the 
 prevailing spirit of the times. The truth is that a task 
 so isolated as that which we are now prescribing does not 
 suit with the present rage for generalizing. There is an 
 appetite for designs of magnificence. There is an im- 
 patience of everything short of a universal scheme land- 
 ing in a universal result. Nothing will serve but a mighty 
 organization with the promise of mighty consequences;
 
 106 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 and let any single person be infected with this spirit, and 
 he may decline from the work of a single court or lane 
 in a city as an object far too limited for his contemplation. 
 He may like to share with others in the enterprise of 
 subordinating a whole city to the power of some great 
 and combined operation. And we may often have to 
 deliver a man from this ambitious tendency ere we can 
 prevail upon him to sit humbly and perseveringly down 
 to his task; ere we can lead him to forget the whole and 
 practically give himself to one of its particulars; ere 
 we can satisfy him that, should he moralize one district 
 of three hundred people, he will not have lived in vain; 
 ere we can get him to pervade his locality and quit his 
 speculation. 
 
 This spirit has restrained the march of philanthropy 
 as effectually as, in other days, it did that of philosophy. 
 In the taste for splendid generalities it was long ere the 
 detail and the drudgery of experimental science were 
 entered upon. There is a sound and inductive method 
 of philanthropy as well as a sound and inductive method 
 of philosophizing. A few patient disciples of the ex- 
 perimental school have constructed a far nobler and more 
 enduring fabric of truth than all the old schoolmen put 
 together could have reared. And could we prevail on 
 those that are unwearied in well-doing, each to take his 
 own separate slip or portion of the vast territory that lies 
 before us and to go forth upon it with the one prepara- 
 tion of common-sense and common sympathy; and, re- 
 signing his more extended imaginations, actually to work 
 with the materials that are put into his hand, we would,
 
 INFLUENCE OP LOCALITY 107 
 
 in this inductive way of it, arrive at a far more solid as 
 well as striking consummation than ever can be realized 
 by any society of wide and lofty undertakings. 
 
 The individual who thus sits soberly down to a work 
 that is commensurate with the real mediocrity of human 
 powers will soon meet with much to reconcile him to the 
 enterprise. He will not fail to contrast the impotency 
 of every general management, in reference to the whole, 
 with the efficacy of his own special management, in 
 reference to a part. . . . He loses a splendid de- 
 ception, and he gets, in exchange for it, a solid reality, 
 and a reality, too, which will at length grow and brighten 
 into splendor by the simple apposition of other districts 
 to his own. . . . 
 
 There is an impatience on the part of many a raw 
 and sanguine philanthropist for doing something great; 
 and, akin to this, there is an impatience for doing that 
 great thing speedily. They spurn the condition of driv- 
 elling among littles; and unless there be a redeeming 
 magnificence in the whole operation, of which they bear 
 a part, are there some who could not be satisfied with a 
 humble and detached allotment in the great vineyard 
 of human usefulness. 
 
 A Sabbath-school for one city parish has a greatly 
 more limited aim than a Sabbath-school society for the 
 whole of Scotland. And yet, in opposition to the maxim 
 that union is power, would we strongly advise the man- 
 agers of every parochial society to refuse every other 
 alliance than that of good-will with any wider associa- 
 tion; to maintain within its own limits the vitality and
 
 108 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 spirit of a wholly independent existence; to resist every 
 offered extension of its mechanism, and rather leave the 
 contiguous parish to follow its example than lay upon it 
 a chain of fellowship which will only damp the alacrity 
 and impede the movements of both. Not that we at all 
 admire the narrowness of an unsocial spirit which cares 
 for nothing beyond the confines of its own territory. It 
 is simply that we hold it to be bad moral tactics thus to 
 extend the field of management, thus to bring a whole 
 city or a whole province under one unwieldy jurisdic- 
 tion, thus to weaken by dispersion the interest which we 
 think is far more vivid and effective when concentrated 
 upon one given locality, thus to exchange the kindliness 
 of a small appropriated home for the cold lustre of a 
 wider and more public management, thus to throw our- 
 selves abroad, over an expanse of superficiality, instead 
 of thoroughly pervading and filling up each of its sub- 
 ordinate sections. We have, in fact, somewhat of the 
 same antipathy to a general society for matters spiritual 
 that we have to a general session for matters temporal; 
 and we are most thoroughly persuaded that the less we 
 are linked and hampered with one another the more ef- 
 fective will be all our operations. 
 
 In the work of filling up a parish with Sabbath-schools 
 we would recommend the local system in its purest form; 
 that is, that a small separate district should be assigned 
 to each teacher, and that it should no more be his prac- 
 tice to draw the young from all parts of the parish in- 
 discriminately than to draw them from all parts of the 
 city indiscriminately. There are many parishes in the
 
 INFLUENCE OF LOCALITY 109 
 
 empire of a population that would require fifty teachers 
 for their thorough cultivation; and the danger is that 
 in the hurry of an ambitious desire to get up a com- 
 plete apparatus there may be a rapidity, and a regard- 
 lessness of qualification in the admissions of new agency. 
 It were greatly better that the promoters of such an 
 undertaking should begin with one extremity of the 
 ground upon which they have entered, cautiously pro- 
 vide for each department as they move onward toward 
 the other extremity, and leave a portion for a time in 
 an outfield state rather than precipitate the appointments 
 or assign to any a larger allocation than he can com- 
 fortably or effectually pervade. 
 
 [A scheme for covering the whole city at once pro- 
 vokes dissension and ends in speechifying and neglect 
 of practical work. A good example of right method is 
 that of the Saltmarket Sabbath-school Society, which 
 undertook labors in a population of 3,624 souls. It be- 
 gan with four teachers, and soon had pervaded the en- 
 tire district and had 420 scholars in fourteen schools, 
 more than one-ninth of all. Of the success of this dis- 
 trict he says:] 
 
 We never witnessed so rapid a cultivation; and when, 
 on visiting the school a few months after its establish- 
 ment, we beheld the dress and decency of their exterior, 
 and marked the general propriety of their manners, and 
 observed the feeling that was evident in the replies of 
 some, and the talent and promptitude that shone forth 
 in the replies of many; when, along with all this, we 
 were made to rejoice in the greetings of the assembled
 
 110 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 parentage, and shared their triumph and satisfaction in 
 the proficiency of their own offspring, whom, poor as 
 they were, they, out of their own unaided resources, had 
 so respectably arrayed; when we further reflected that 
 the living scene before us was not made up of the scant- 
 lings of a w r hole city, but was formed by the compact 
 population of one small but thoroughly explored vicin- 
 age, with our eyes open to what had thus been done by 
 the moral force of care and kindness on the part of one 
 individual, we could not miss the inference that, with 
 a right distribution, it was in the power of a number of 
 individuals to throw another aspect over the habit and 
 character of another generation. 
 
 It is not to the labors of those who are universalists in 
 science that she stands indebted for her present solidity, 
 or her present elevation, but to the separate labors of 
 many, each occupying his own little field, and heaping, 
 on the basis of former acquisitions, his own distinct and 
 peculiar offering. And it is just so in philanthropy. 
 The spirit of it has gone marvellously abroad among 
 us of late years, but still clouded and misled by the be- 
 wildering glare which the fancy of ambitious man is 
 apt to throw around his own undertakings. He would 
 be the sole creator of a magnificent erection, rather than 
 a humble contributor to it, among a thousand more, each 
 as necessary and important as himself. And yet, would 
 he only resign his speculations and give himself to the 
 execution of a task to which his own personal faculties 
 were adequate, he would meet with much to compensate 
 the loss of those splendid delusions which have hitherto
 
 INFLUENCE OF LOCALITY 111 
 
 engrossed him. There would be less of the glare of 
 publicity, but there would be more of the kindliness of 
 a quiet and sheltered home. . . . He could not, by 
 his own solitary strength, advance the little stone into 
 a great mountain, but the worth and efficacy of his labors 
 will be sure to recommend them to the imitation of 
 many, and the good work will spread by example from 
 one individual and from one district to another; and, 
 though he may be lost to observation, in the growing 
 magnitude of the operations which surround him, yet 
 will he rejoice even in his very insignificance, as the be- 
 fitting condition for one to occupy among the many mill- 
 ions of the species to which he belongs; and it will be 
 enough for him that he has added one part, however 
 small, to the great achievement which can only be com- 
 pleted by the exertions of an innumerable multitude, and 
 the fruit of which is to fill the whole earth.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF LOCALITY IN 
 TOWNS TO THE WORK OF A CHRISTIAN MINISTER 
 
 IT is perhaps the best among all our more general 
 arguments for a religious establishment in a country 
 that the spontaneous demand of human beings for re- 
 ligion is far short of the actual interest which they have 
 in it. This is not so with their demand for food and 
 raiment, or any article which ministers to the necessi- 
 ties of our physical nature. The more destitute we are 
 of these articles the greater is our desire after them. In 
 every case where the want of anything serves to whet 
 our appetite instead of weakening it, the supply of that 
 thing may be left with all safety to the native and pow- 
 erful demand for it among the people themselves. . . . 
 It is wise in government to leave the care of the public 
 good, wherever it can be left safely, to the workings of 
 individual nature, and, saving for the administration of 
 justice between man and man, it were better that she 
 never put out her hand, either with a view to regulate 
 or to foster any of the operations of common merchan- 
 dise. -... 
 
 [On this condition of a deep human interest in relig- 
 ion, without an imperative demand for it until the spir- 
 
 112
 
 PRINCIPLE OF LOCALITY IN PASTORAL SERVICE 113 
 
 itual nature is aroused by missionary effort, he bases an 
 argument for a state supported church. But he would 
 not restrict the free activity of dissenters by law, and 
 for these he asks tolerance.] 
 
 At the same time we hope that no restriction what- 
 ever will be laid on the zeal and exertion of dissenters, 
 and that any legal disability under which they still labor 
 will at length be done away. The truth is that we know 
 not a better remedy against the temporary and inciden- 
 tal evils of an establishment than a free, entire, and 
 unexcepted toleration; nor how an endowed church can 
 be more effectually preserved, either from stagnation or 
 decay, than by being ever stimulated and kept on the 
 alert through the talent and energy, and even occasional 
 malignity and injustice of private adventurers. 
 
 In order that men may become Christians there must 
 either be an obtruding of Christianity on the notice of 
 the people, or the people must be waited for till they 
 move themselves in quest of Christianity. We appre- 
 hend that the former, or what may be called the aggres- 
 sive way of it, is the most effectual. Nature does not 
 go forth in search of Christianity, but Christianity goes 
 forth to knock at the door of nature, and, if possible, 
 awaken her out of her sluggishness. This was the way 
 of it at its first promulgation. It is the way of it in every 
 missionary enterprise. . . . 
 
 [Here follows the conclusion, so alien to primitive and 
 to American Christianity, that the government must be 
 depended on, and not the Church, for the spiritual initi- 
 ative in this missionary effort.] 
 8
 
 114 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 In our last chapter we made a comparison between 
 local and general Sabbath-schools. Now a church is, or 
 easily might be, in effect, a local Sabbath-school. Its 
 district is, or ought to be, the parish with which it stands 
 nominally associated, and its sitters ought to be the in- 
 habitants of that parish. 
 
 The influence of locality may be resolved into two 
 influences; first, that which operates on the agent to 
 whom the locality is assigned; and, secondly, that which 
 operates on the people who reside within the field of his 
 undertaking. 
 
 In the first place, then, it is not so likely that a min- 
 ister will go forth on his share of the population, when 
 spread at random over the whole city, as when they lie 
 within the limits of a space that is overtakeable. He 
 feels an incitement to move in the latter way of it, 
 which he does not feel when his attentions are dispersed 
 over a wide and bewildering generality. He, under the 
 one arrangement, may have a rare and rapid and tran- 
 sient intercourse with the individuals of a diffused mul- 
 titude; but this can never ripen into solid acquaintance- 
 ship with more than a very few. Under the other 
 arrangement he may, at a greatly less expense, attain to 
 terms of confidence with some, and of familiarity with 
 many. And it would add prodigiously to this operation 
 were his hearers on the Sabbath also his parochial ac- 
 quaintances through the week. 
 
 The second influence of locality is that by which the 
 people obtain a more intense feeling of their relation- 
 ship to their minister. It is incalculable how much this
 
 PRINCIPLE OF LOCALITY IN PASTORAL SERVICE 115 
 
 last is promoted by the mere juxtaposition of the people 
 to one another. . . . There is nothing fanciful in 
 the charm which we thus ascribe to locality. It is the 
 charm of tact and of experience. It is better when the 
 people who live beside each other are under one com- 
 mon impression of good from their minister than when 
 these same people live asunder from each other. It is 
 not known how much that impression is heightened by 
 sympathy. Did each of a thousand who attend a dra- 
 matic performance satisfy himself with reading the com- 
 position at home, the total impression among them were 
 not half so powerful as when, within the infection of 
 one another's feelings, they sit together at its represen- 
 tation in a theatre. This is, in part, due to the power 
 of sensible exhibition in the acting. But it is also due, 
 in great part, to the operation of sympathy. And when 
 contiguous families hear the same minister on the Sab- 
 bath, or come within the scope of the same household 
 attentions on other days, there is between them, through 
 the week, a prolonged and often a cherished sympathy 
 which, were the families widely apart in distant places 
 of a town, would have no operation. ... It would 
 draw next-door families into closer and nearer relation- 
 ship with each other, and shed a mild, moral lustre over 
 many vicinities, now crowded with human beings, but 
 desolate in respect of all those feelings which go to 
 sweeten and solace human bosoms. It would, in fact, 
 go a certain way to transplant into our larger towns the 
 kindliness of select and limited intercourse, so that, even 
 though the minister could be the visitant of as many
 
 116 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 families, and the friend of as many individuals, on the 
 general as on the local system, yet the very circumstance 
 of their being scattered, instead of being contiguous, 
 makes a heavy deduction from the amount of his influ- 
 ence upon them. 
 
 But, after all, the argument of greatest strength for 
 a strictly parochial system in towns is identical with the 
 argument for a religious establishment all over the coun- 
 try. People will not be drawn in such abundance to 
 Christianity by a mere process of attraction, as Christi- 
 anity can be made to radiate upon them by a process of 
 emanation. . . . It is not mere Sabbath preaching 
 that will retain, or far less recall, a people to the ordi- 
 nances of Christianity. It is not even this preaching, 
 seconded by the most strenuous week-day attentions, to 
 hearers lying thinly and confusedly scattered over a wide 
 and fatiguing territory. With such a bare and general 
 superintendence as this, many are the families that will 
 fall out of notice; and there will be the breaking out of 
 many intermediate spaces, in which there must grow 
 and gather, every year, a wider alienation from all the 
 habits of a country parish; and the minister, occupied 
 with his extra-parochial congregation, will be bereft of 
 all his natural influence over a locality which is but nom- 
 inally his. The reciprocal influence of his Sabbath and 
 week-day ministrations on each other is entirely lost un- 
 der such an arrangement. The truth is, that let him 
 move through his parish, he may not find so much as a 
 hundred hearers within its limits out of more than ten 
 times that number who attend upon him. . . . Un-
 
 PRINCIPLE OF LOCALITY IN PASTORAL SERVICE 117 
 
 der the paralyzing influence of the present system it is 
 not to be wondered at that the urgency for seats should 
 have fallen so greatly in the rear of the increasing rate 
 of population, and that the habit of attendance on any 
 place of religious instruction whatever should have gone 
 so wofully into desuetude, and that the feeble operation 
 of waiting a demand, instead of stimulating, should be 
 so incompetent to reclaim this habit ; and that the labor- 
 ing classes in towns should have become so generally 
 alienated from the religious establishment of the land; 
 and, what is worse than the desertion of establishments, 
 that a fearful majority should be now forming, and likely 
 to increase every year, who are not merely away from all 
 churches, but so far away as to be beyond the supple- 
 mentary operation of all meeting-houses, a majority that 
 is fast thickening upon our hands, and who will be sure 
 to return all the disorders of week-day profligacy upon 
 the country, because that country has, in fact, abandoned 
 them to the ever-plying incitements and opportunities 
 of Sabbath profanation. 
 
 In a country parish the number who should be in at- 
 tendance upon church is computed at one-half of the 
 whole population. In towns, where the obstacle of dis- 
 tance is not to be overcome, a larger proportion than 
 this is generally fixed upon. We think it, however, over- 
 rated at two-thirds, and shall therefore assign the inter- 
 mediate fraction of five-eighths as the ratio which the 
 church-going inhabitants of a town should bear to the 
 total number of them.
 
 118 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 [He takes a district of Glasgow for illustration. This 
 district had a population of 10,304, of whom less than 
 one-fifth attended church. He pays a tribute to the zeal 
 of dissenters who helped to attract many who had neg- 
 lected the established church. As to the social conse- 
 quences of this neglect he proceeds to say:] 
 
 When we contemplate the magnitude of those suburb 
 wastes, which have formed so rapidly around the me- 
 tropolis and every commercial city of our land; when 
 we think of the quantity of lawless spirit which has been 
 permitted to ferment and to multiply there, afar from 
 the contact of every softening influence, and without one 
 effectual hand put forth to stay the great and the growing 
 distemper; when we estimate the families which, from 
 infancy to manhood, have been unvisited by any message 
 from Christianity, and on whose consciences the voice of 
 Him who speaketh the word that is from heaven has 
 never descended, we cannot but charge that country, 
 which, satisfied if it neutralize the violence, rears no 
 preventive barrier against the vices of the people, with 
 the guilt of inflicting upon itself moral if not a political 
 suicide. . . . 
 
 [After reciting the story of failure in a district where 
 a church was established and a series of able preachers 
 came to deliver sermons at the people without parish 
 ministrations, he adds:] 
 
 It is not with rare and extraordinary talent conferred 
 upon a few, but with habits and principles which may
 
 PRINCIPLE OF LOCALITY IN PASTORAL SERVICE 119 
 
 be cultivated by all, that are linked our best securities 
 for the reformation of the world. This is a work which 
 will mainly be done with every-day instruments operat- 
 ing upon every-day materials; and more, too, by the 
 multiplication of laborers than by the gigantic labor of 
 a small number of individuals. 
 
 And here let it be remarked how effectually it is that 
 Sabbath-evening schools subserve the prospective ar- 
 rangement which we are now contemplating. It requires 
 a much harder struggle than most of us are aware of to 
 prevail on grown-up people, who never have attended 
 church, to become the members either of a day or an 
 evening congregation. . . . But the compliance 
 which cannot be won in manhood for attendance on a 
 church, we win in boyhood for attendance on a school; 
 and when the boy becomes a man, a second effort is not 
 necessary. . . . 
 
 It is felt by many as a deduction from the good of 
 the local system in towns that the poorer among the 
 families so frequently change their places of residence, 
 and that there must not only be the same parish but 
 also the same parishioners, else the acquaintanceship 
 which is formed will be constantly liable to be broken 
 up by the constant dispersion of its members. The quan- 
 tity of fluctuation is greatly overrated. . . . The 
 truth is that the movement is far more a vibratory than 
 a successive one. The families that leave a parish this 
 year are, in a great measure, the very families that came 
 to it last year. There is a certain number, and those 
 chiefly of the worse-conditioned of the population, who
 
 120 CHEISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 are constantly upon the wing: and they alternate from 
 one parish to another, over the heads of the stable popu- 
 lation. A locally parochial system would serve, in the 
 long run, to retain even these; but, even in their pres- 
 ent amount, they leave the great bulk of the inhabi- 
 tants of every parish in a fixed and permanent state for 
 any species of cultivation that might be applied to 
 them. . . . 
 
 There is nothing in the mere circumstance of being 
 born in a town, or of being imported into it from the 
 country, which can at all obliterate or reverse any of the 
 laws of our sentient nature. That law in virtue of which 
 a feeling of cordiality is inspired, even by a single act 
 of recognition, and in virtue of which it is augmented 
 into a fixed personal regard by many such acts, operates 
 with just as much vigor in the one situation as it does 
 in the other. In towns everything has been done to 
 impede the reiteration of the same attentions upon the 
 same families. The relationship between ministers and 
 their parishes has, to every moral and to every civilizing 
 purpose, been nearly as good as broken up. Everything 
 has been permitted to run at random; and, as a fruit of 
 the utter disregard of the principle of locality, have the 
 city clergyman and his people almost lost sight of each 
 other. It is the intimacy of connection between these 
 two parties which has impressed its best and most pe- 
 culiar features on the Scottish nation; and it were giv- 
 ing way to a mystic imagination altogether did we not 
 believe that the treatment of human nature which leads 
 to a particular result in the country would, if transplanted
 
 PRINCIPLE OF LOCALITY IN PASTORAL SERVK '!: 121 
 
 into towns, lead to the same result on their crowded 
 families. 
 
 There must be a previous operation upon the people 
 ere the desire or the demand for Sabbath accommodation 
 can guarantee to the builders of churches that their 
 churches shall be filled. For this purpose we hold the 
 strict and, as nearly as may be, the exclusive union of 
 churches with their parishes to be indispensable; and, 
 even with this advantage, do we think that the existing 
 habit of alienation from ordinances, instead of being al- 
 together reclaimed by exertion, will, in part, need to be 
 removed by death ; and that it is mainly to an operation 
 upon the young, and that through the medium of Sab- 
 bath-schools, that we have to look for the coming in of 
 a better order of things with the coming up of another 
 generation.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE EFFECT OF LOCALITY IN ADDING TO THE USEFUL 
 ESTABLISHMENTS OF A TOWN 
 
 IT were, perhaps, a sanguine anticipation to expect 
 that the gradual process unfolded in the last chapter for 
 reclaiming the people of our cities to a habit of attend- 
 ance on the ordinances of Christianity should be com- 
 pleted in the course of one, or even of two, generations. 
 
 [Even with a rapid gain of the State Church there 
 would be as much room as ever for dissenters, and their 
 help would be needed; so that envy is unreasonable.] 
 
 There is a direct and arithmetical style of computation 
 which often fails when it is applied to the phenomena 
 or the principles of human nature. It is thus, for ex- 
 ample, that many conceive an alarm lest one benevolent 
 society should suffer in its revenues when another benevo-. 
 lent society is instituted in the same town and among 
 the same people. They calculate by a mere process of 
 subtraction upon the money of subscribers, and they do 
 not calculate on the moral impulse which every new 
 scheme of philanthropy is calculated to send into their 
 hearts. They seem not aware that the mere habit of 
 
 liberality in behalf of one object renders them more ac- 
 
 122
 
 LOCALITY AS AN AID TO TOWN ESTABLISHMENTS 123 
 
 cessible to the claims of a new object, than if the habit 
 had not previously been called into existence. The 
 truth is that, after all which is given away in liberality, 
 there is still left, in the fund for such luxuries as may 
 easily be dispensed with and in the fund which goes to 
 the loose and floating expenses of pocket-money, an am- 
 ple remainder for meeting fresh and frequent applica- 
 tions. . . . 
 
 [There follows an argument which shows that Chal- 
 mers was already gaining an insight into the evils of a 
 State Church. He shows that towns were neglecting 
 local enterprise because they had come to look up to and 
 depend upon the government for support. He reaches 
 a conclusion since substantiated in the main by Amer- 
 ican experience:] 
 
 "We contemplate a great national effect, not as the 
 result of any corporate movement or any legislative 
 operation, but as the result of a slow accumulative proc- 
 ess, helped forward mainly by the growth and expansion 
 of Christian philanthropy in our land, and at length com- 
 pleted into a whole by the simple apposition of parts 
 done separately and done independently. 
 
 It is the misfortune both of a civic and of a national 
 legislator that he deals so much in generalities. He casts 
 a hurried glance over the whole field of contemplation, 
 and the influence of what he does or of what he devises 
 is thinly spread along the face of the territory before 
 him. He is seldom arrested by that dull and humbling 
 arithmetic which casts up to him the utter insignificance
 
 124 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 of all that he has attempted on the general mass and 
 habit of society. He vainly tries by his one enactment 
 to measure strength with the needs or the immoralities 
 of a vast population. Nor will he submit to the morti- 
 fication of being told that though the sound of it has 
 gone forth among all the sensible and pervading influ- 
 ence of it is scarcely felt among any. It is the wideness 
 of his survey which makes him overlook particulars, and 
 with his habit of largely expatiating does he neglect 
 completely and minutely to fill up. This it is which 
 accounts for the utter futility of many projects splendid 
 in promise, and vanishing away into a meagre accom- 
 plishment. This it is which explains the abortive 
 magnificence of many of our great national undertak- 
 ings. . . . 
 
 The prevailing tendency hitherto has been to attempt 
 great things rather than do small things thoroughly and 
 well; to set up a mechanism which will work for the 
 whole city, rather than reduce the city into manageable 
 parts, and seek for the accomplishment that is proposed, 
 by the mere apposition of these parts to each other; to 
 aspire, and that by the energies of one grand associa- 
 tion, after some universal result, which never will be 
 reached but by the summing up of the separate achieve- 
 ments of many lesser associations. It may look a strange 
 way of proposing a universal good, either for a city or 
 for a nation, to bid our active philanthropists never to 
 admit the town as a whole into any of their speculations. 
 But we are quite satisfied that much of that effort which 
 would else have been productive is wasted.
 
 LOCALITY AS AN AID TO TOWN ESTABLISHMENTS 125 
 
 Our object at present is to guide to its highest produc- 
 tiveness the benevolence of him whose station and op- 
 portunities restrain him more to his own vicinity. His 
 best contribution to the interest of the world is to do 
 the humble and practicable task which his hand findeth 
 to do, and to do it with all his might, till he has finished 
 it off. A single obscure street, with its few divergent 
 lanes, may form the length and the breadth of his enter- 
 prise ; but far better that he, with such means and such 
 associates as are within his reach, should do this thor- 
 oughly than that, merging himself in some wider asso- 
 ciation, he should vainly attempt in the gross that which 
 never can be overtaken but in humble and laborious de- 
 tail. Let him not think that the region which lies beyond 
 the limits of his chosen and peculiar territory is to wither 
 and be neglected because his presence is not there to 
 fertilize it. Let him not proudly imagine himself to be 
 the only philanthropist in the world. Let him do his 
 part, trusting at the same time that there are others 
 around him who have zeal enough to do theirs. . . . 
 The institutions which are most wanted in our great 
 towns and populous villages are those the object of which 
 is the Christian education of our laboring classes. This 
 object embraces schools for ordinary scholarship through 
 the week and churches for the delivery of gospel doctrine 
 and exhortation on the Sabbath. 
 
 [Here follows a scheme for equalizing schools to the 
 necessities of the population. On this subject Dr. Chal- 
 mers had published a treatise on the " System of Paro- 
 chial Schools in Scotland." The plan had reference to
 
 126 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 Scottish conditions, and many details must here be 
 omitted.] 
 
 It is with common as with Christian education. There 
 is not such a native and spontaneous demand for it in 
 any country as will call forth a supply of it at all ade- 
 quate to the needs of the population. If the people are 
 left to themselves they will not by any originating move- 
 ment of their own emerge out of ignorance at the first ; 
 nor will they afterward perpetuate any habit of educa- 
 tion to which they may have been raised in the course 
 of one generation if, in all succeeding generations, they 
 are left wholly to seek after scholarship and wholly to 
 pay for it. To keep up popular learning there is just 
 the same reason for an Establishment as we have already 
 alleged in behalf of an establishment for religion. The 
 article must be obtruded upon them, and, in some de- 
 gree, offered to them. . . . 
 
 [Dr. Chalmers did not think absolutely free public 
 schools desirable.] 
 
 We have attempted to expose the defects both of a 
 wholly gratuitous and of a wholly unendowed system 
 of education; affirming that, under the one scheme, the 
 article is undervalued, and that under the other it is not 
 sought after to the extent to which it would be beneficial. 
 
 [Having proposed to raise a fund adequate to provide 
 schools for all children of each parish, with tuition at a 
 rate so low as to be within reach of the poor, the author 
 meets the objection that this is a visionary theory.]
 
 LOCALITY AS AN AID TO TOWN ESTABLISHMENTS 127 
 
 There are certain of our mere operatives in public 
 business who, however plentiful their reproach of others 
 as visionaries, never dream that they are visionaries them- 
 selves. They seem to regard it as their sufficient exemp- 
 tion from such a charge that their hand is so wholly 
 occupied in practice and their mind so little, if at all, 
 occupied with principle. ... It would look that 
 to escape from being a theorist upon any given topic it 
 were altogether necessary to abstain from thinking of it; 
 and that, to stamp a sound and experimental character 
 on a man's notions, it is quite enough that he personally 
 bustle and spend all his time among the mere matters 
 of manipulation and detail. Such men, perhaps, in the 
 whole course of their lives have given one hour of medi- 
 tative solitude to the question at issue, and perhaps think 
 that the whole effect of such a season of loneliness would 
 be to gather around them the spectres of vain imagina- 
 tion. They have no other conception of a student than 
 as of one that muses all day long over the inapplicable 
 abstractions of an ideal and contemplative region; nor 
 do they see how, in calm and collected retirement, it is 
 possible for the mind to calculate and to recollect, and 
 to be altogether conversant among the realities of the 
 living world, over which it may have cast a most obser- 
 vant regard and the well known familiarities of which 
 it is able to turn into the materials of a just view and a 
 just anticipation. In these circumstances it ought not 
 to be wondered at that practical men have engrossed the 
 credit of all the practical wisdom that there is in society; 
 and that they have missed the self-discernment which
 
 128 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 might have led them to perceive that the possessor of a 
 body which moves its dull and unvarying round through 
 the duties of public office and of a mind that is eifeher 
 profoundly asleep to the rationale of public affairs or 
 catches its occasional view of them by rapid and con- 
 fused glances that he, with all the confidence which a 
 kind of coarse and hackneyed experience has given to 
 him, may very possibly be the most blundering and be- 
 wildered of all visionaries. 
 
 [When the government gives aid the announcement 
 should go forth that this aid is utterly inadequate; then 
 voluntary associations will come to supplement the state 
 gift with local contributions. These voluntary associa- 
 tions have already begun excellent educational enter- 
 prises, but have generally fallen short of the highest 
 success through the error of attempting more than their 
 means could compass. They usually plan beyond their 
 ability to execute.] 
 
 Instead of a semblance of education for the whole, let 
 there be the substance of it in one part, and this will at 
 length spread and propagate its own likeness over all 
 the other parts. It will serve like the touch of a flame 
 to kindle the whole mass into a brilliancy as luminous 
 as its own. . . . Our earnest advice is that no be- 
 nevolent society for education shall undertake a larger 
 space of the city than it can provide for, both completely 
 and perpetually, by reclaiming its families to a habit 
 of scholarship forever, through the means of a permanent 
 endowment, attached exclusively to the district of its 
 operations. It is far better to cultivate one district well,
 
 LOCALITY AS AN AID TO TOWN ESTABLISHMENTS 129 
 
 though all the others should be left untouched, than to 
 superficialize over the whole city. . . . Let none of 
 us think to monopolize all the benevolence of the world, 
 or fear that no future band of philanthropists shall arise 
 to carry forward from that point at which we have ex- 
 hausted our operations. If education is to be made uni- 
 versal in towns by voluntary benevolence, it will not be 
 by one great, but by many small and successive, exer- 
 tions. The thing will be accomplished piecemeal, and 
 what never could be done through the working of one 
 vast and unwieldy mechanism may thus be completed 
 most easily in the course of a single generation. . 
 
 It is not known how precious and how productive a 
 thing the operation of this local interest is, even in the 
 poorest of our districts. The capabilities of humble life 
 are yet far from being perfectly understood or turned 
 to the full account of which they are susceptible. We 
 certainly invite, and with earnestness, too, the man of 
 fortune and philanthropy to assume a locality to himself 
 and head an enterprise for schools in behalf of its here- 
 tofore neglected population. But little is it known to 
 what extent the fund may be augmented by pains and 
 perseverance among the population themselves. With a 
 little guidance in fact may the poor be made the most 
 effective instruments of their own amelioration. The 
 system which could raise a single penny in the week 
 from each family would of its own unaided self both 
 erect and perpetuate a sufficient apparatus for schooling 
 over the whole empire, or any part into which it was 
 introduced, in about twelve years. This is a mine which 
 9
 
 130 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 has lately been entered upon for tlie purpose of aiding 
 those excellent religious charities that have so signalized 
 our nation; and more is extracted from it than from all 
 the liberalities of the opulent. In a cause so near and 
 so exciting as that of home education, it could, by dint 
 of strenuous cultivation, be made to yield much more 
 abundantly. So that, should the rich refuse a helping 
 hand to a cause so closely associated with the best in- 
 terests of our country, we do not despair of the poor 
 being at length persuaded to take it upon themselves, 
 and of thus leaving the higher classes behind them in 
 the career of an enlightened patriotism. 
 
 Yet it were well that the rich did step forward and 
 signalize themselves in this matter. Amid all the tur- 
 bulence and discontent which prevail in society do we 
 believe that there is no rancor so fiery or so inveterate 
 in the heart of the laboring classes but that a convincing 
 demonstration of good-will on the part of those who are 
 raised in circumstances above them could not charm it 
 most effectually away. It is a question of nicety, how 
 should this demonstration be rendered? Not, we think, 
 by any public or palpable offering to the cause of in- 
 digence, for this we have long conceived should be left, 
 and left altogether, to the sympathies of private inter- 
 course; it being, we believe, a point of uniform experi- 
 ence that the more visible the apparatus is for the relief 
 of poverty, the more is it fitted to defeat its own object, 
 and to scatter all the jealousies attendant upon an imag- 
 inary right upon those who might else have been sweet- 
 ened into gratitude by the visitations of a secret and
 
 LOCALITY AS AN AID TO TOWN ESTABLISHMENTS 131 
 
 spontaneous kindness. Not so, however, with an offer- 
 ing rendered to the cause of education, let it be as public 
 or as palpable as it may. The urgency of competition 
 for such an object is at all times to be hailed rather than 
 resisted; and on this career of benevolence, therefore, 
 may the affluent go indefinitely onward till the want 
 be fully and permanently provided for. We know no 
 exhibition that would serve more to tranquillize our coun- 
 try than one which might convince the poorer classes 
 that there is a real desire on the part of their superiors 
 in wealth to do for them anything which they believe 
 to be for their good. It is an expression of an interest 
 in them which does so much to soothe and to pacify the 
 discontents of men; and all that is wanted is that the 
 expression shall be of such a sort as not to injure, but to 
 benefit those for whom it is intended. 
 
 Ere the apparatus shall be raised which is able, not 
 faintly to skim, but thoroughly to saturate the families 
 of our poor with education, there will be room for large 
 sums and large sacrifices; nor do we know on whom the 
 burden of this cause can sit so gracefully and so well as 
 on those who have speculated away their feelings of at- 
 tachment from all societies for the relief of indigence 
 . . . and who are now bound to demonstrate that this is 
 not because their judgment has extinguished their sensi- 
 bilities, but because they only want an object set before 
 them which may satisfy their understanding, that, with- 
 out doing mischief, they may largely render of their 
 means to the promotion of it. 
 
 We are sensible that to look for a universal result, in
 
 132 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 the way that we have now recommended, is to presup- 
 pose a very wide extension of Christian zeal, seconded 
 by an equal degree of Christian liberality all over the 
 land. If it be visionary to look for this, then do we 
 hold it alike visionary to look for any great moral im- 
 provement in the economy of our national institutions 
 without this. We see not our way to any public or 
 extended amelioration save through the medium of 
 greater worth in the character of individuals, and a 
 greater number of such individuals in the country; and 
 but for this would we give up in despair that cause on 
 which both politicians and moralists have embarked so 
 many sanguine speculations. It is not, we think, on the 
 arena of state partisanship that a victory for this cause 
 is to be decided; but that, similarly to the growth of 
 the small prophetic stone which at length attained to the 
 size of a mountain that filled the whole earth, will it 
 gradually proceed onwards, just as the spirit and prin- 
 ciples of the gospel find a numerical way through hu- 
 man hearts and multiply their proselytes among human 
 families. If it be here that a contemptuous scepticism 
 discovers the weak side of our argument, and proclaims 
 it accordingly, it is also here that prophecy lifts up the 
 light of its cheering countenance on all our anticipations. 
 Meanwhile its best and brightest fulfilments are not to 
 be without human agency; and even already do we see 
 a rising philanthropy in our day which warrants our 
 fondest hopes both of the increase of learning and virtue 
 among our population. For a time it may waste a por- 
 tion of its energies among the by-paths of inexperience.
 
 LOCALITY AS AN AID TO TOWN ESTABLISHMENTS 133 
 
 Ambition may bewilder it. Impatience may cause it to 
 overrun itself. A taste for generalities may dazzle it 
 into many fond and foolish imaginations; and tlie ridi- 
 cule of an incredulous public may await the mortifying 
 failures which will ever mark the enterprise of him whose 
 aim. is beyond the means of his accomplishment. But 
 the spirit of benevolence will not be evaporated among 
 all these difficulties. It will only be nurtured into 
 greater strength, and guided into a path of truer wisdom, 
 and sobered into a habit of more humble and at the same 
 time far more effective perseverance. Man will at length 
 learn to become more practical and less imaginative. He 
 will hold it a worthier achievement to do for a little neigh- 
 borhood than to devise for a whole world. . . . The 
 glory of establishing in our world that universal reign 
 of truth and righteousness which is coming will not be 
 the glory of any one man, but it will be the glory of 
 Him who sitteth above and plieth His many millions of 
 instruments for bringing about this magnificent result. 
 It is enough for each of us to be one of these instru- 
 ments, to contribute his little item to the cause, and 
 look for the sum-total as the product of innumerable 
 contributions, each of them as meritorious, and many of 
 them, perhaps, far more splendid and important than 
 our own.
 
 CHAPTEK V 
 
 ON CHURCH PATRONAGE 
 
 [THIS chapter deals almost entirely with phases and 
 problems of life peculiar to Scotland, and now radically 
 changed even there. The separation of Church and 
 State in our country makes obsolete a discussion of the 
 way of adjustment of powers of State and Church un- 
 der one government. 
 
 The author recommends that local schools should se- 
 cure suitable teachers by making part of the teacher's 
 income depend on his pleasing the families who send 
 their children and who pay part of the cost in tuition. 
 In the same way he thinks the rich and influential should 
 not have absolute power of appointing pastors, but that 
 the people should have a share in selecting those who 
 are to minister to their spiritual needs. If the pastor is 
 popular, his support is assured out of the gifts of the 
 attendants. " That the house be well filled, the great 
 and sufficient step is that the pulpit be well filled." 
 
 It must be remembered that Chalmers has in mind a 
 population of laboring people who have inherited the tra- 
 ditions of one race and one religion and one language. 
 He is not thinking of cities like our American cities, 
 which have in some quarters vast colonies of Roman 
 Catholics of various races and tongues, and other colonies 
 of Jews, distinct by race and religion from the Protestant 
 Christians, who, themselves, are divided into many sects, 
 and these not always ready to co-operate or to treat each 
 
 134
 
 ON CHUKCH PATKONAGE 135 
 
 other with cordial sympathy in labors for a common 
 end. But even under our greatly different conditions, 
 some of Chalmers' suggestions are of high value and 
 permanent application. The conflict between the polit- 
 ical authorities and the earnest element in the State 
 Church is very apparent in this chapter, and we can 
 already see the plain signs of that struggle which finally 
 led Chalmers, with great pain and sorrow, to lead a party 
 out of the Establishment in order to escape from the 
 control and patronage of men who had no sympathy with 
 an aggressive and devoted kind of Christianity, such as 
 he believed in.] 
 
 Instead of a respectful deference to the popular opin- 
 ion, there is often a haughty, intolerant, and avowed 
 defiance to it, and we then see the longings of the public 
 sorely thwarted by the resolute and impregnable deter- 
 mination of the patron. It may easily be conceived, 
 therefore, how wide the disruption is between the rul- 
 ing and the subject party when a spirit altogether ad- 
 verse to the prevailing taste is seen to preside over the 
 great bulk of our ecclesiastical nominations. If power 
 and popularity shall ever stand in hostile array against 
 each other, we are not to wonder though the result should 
 be a church on the one hand, frowning aloof in all the 
 pride and distance of hierarchy upon our population, and 
 a people on the other, revolted into utter distaste for 
 establishments, and mingling with this a very general 
 alienation of heart from all that carries the stamp of 
 authority in the land. 
 
 We should like, even for the cause of public tran- 
 quillity and good order, that there were a more respect-
 
 136 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 ful accommodation to the popular taste in Christianity 
 than the dominant spirit of ecclesiastical patronage in 
 our day is disposed to render it. We conceive the two 
 main ingredients of this taste to be, in the first place, 
 that esteem which is felt by human nature for what is 
 believed to be religious honesty; and, in the second place, 
 the appetite of human nature, when made in any degree 
 alive to a sense of its spiritual wants, for that true and 
 Scriptural ministration which alone can relieve them. 
 
 [The author thinks that the civil rulers have been mis- 
 led and misinformed by a certain party of ecclesiastics 
 whose theological views are out of sympathy with those 
 of the people. In consequence of the appointments 
 made under this influence the people have deserted the 
 churches, refused to listen to the preachers set over them, 
 and have become all the more irritated against the gov- 
 ernment itself because it sets their tastes and preferences 
 at scorn. This is a serious cause of peril to the common- 
 wealth and to social security and order. 
 
 An objection to the popular selection of pastors is 
 made on the ground of their occasional apparent prefer- 
 ence of preachers who delight them with fantastic and 
 trifling conceits, and who measure the sermons and ser- 
 vices by their length and loudness. The author thinks 
 that these vagaries of the people are upon the surface 
 and easily corrected by independent and earnest men. 
 The popular taste is not a mere fantastic relish, but a 
 " deep and strong aspiration of conscious humanity, feel- 
 ing, and most intelligently feeling, what the truths and 
 who the teachers are that are most fitted to exalt and 
 moralize her." Chalmers shows, though with some false 
 notes, a genuine respect for democracy and a hope of its 
 future, akin to that of Lincoln.
 
 137 
 
 A second objection against the popular selection of 
 ministers is noticed: that the doctrine which they like 
 to hear is immoral in its theory and tendencies. There 
 were many in places of authority who believed that the 
 " evangelical " doctrines which were the fire of Chal- 
 mers' eloquence tended to undermine morality. The 
 message which went to the heart of the poor was that 
 all men are sinners alike before the perfect God; that 
 all alike must repent of sin ; that all alike must be saved 
 by a pure act of grace. Many think that this obliterates 
 distinctions of character and leads to disregard for the 
 value of character. Chalmers answers these objections 
 by showing the relation between the doctrine of free 
 grace and a holy life. ] 
 
 The gospel maintains a most entire consistency with 
 itself. It unfolds that provision by which atonement 
 has been made for the guilt of sin, but it never ceases 
 announcing as its ulterior object to exterminate the be- 
 ing of sin from the heart and the practice of all its dis- 
 ciples. Its office is not merely to reconcile the world, 
 but to regenerate the world; and there is not an honest 
 believer who rejoices in pardon and does not, at the same 
 time, aspire after moral excellence; knowing that to 
 prosecute a strenuous departure from all iniquity is his 
 expressly assigned vocation, and that he who, from Christ 
 as a redeemer, has obtained deliverance from the pun- 
 ishment of sin, must, under him as a captain, hold an 
 unsparing war with the power and the existence of it. 
 The gate of reconciliation, through the blood of Christ, 
 is not merely the gate of escape from a region of wrath, 
 it is the gate of introduction to a field of progressive and
 
 138 CHEISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 aspiring virtue; and it is the growth of this virtue upon 
 earth which constitutes its full and its finished beati- 
 tude. . . . And, as if to shut out all possibility of 
 escape from the toils and the employments of virtue, 
 does it make known a day of judgment, wherein man 
 will be reckoned with, not for his dogmata, but for his 
 doings; and when there will be no other estimate of his 
 principles than the impulse which they gave to his prac- 
 tical history in the world they who have done good 
 being called forth to the resurrection of the just, and 
 they who have done evil unto the resurrection of dam- 
 nation. 
 
 The integrity of such a creed is the best guarantee 
 for the integrity of his relative and social conduct. And 
 it is only in proportion to the prevalence of this derided 
 orthodoxy that the honesties and sobrieties of life will 
 spread in healthful diffusion over the face of the coun- 
 try. That system of doctrine which is stigmatized as 
 methodism, and against which government are led to 
 array the whole force of their overwhelming patronage; 
 and on the approaches of which ecclesiastics are often 
 seen to combine as they would against the inroads of 
 some pestilential visitor; and which, when it does ap- 
 pear within the well-smoothed garden of the Establish- 
 ment, is viewed as a loathsome weed that should be cast 
 out and left to luxuriate in its rankness, among the wilds 
 and the commons of sectarianism what a quantity of 
 undesigned outrage must be inflicted every year on the 
 best objects, both of principle and of patriotism, should 
 this, indeed, be the alone system that has the truth of
 
 ON CHURCH PATRONAGE 139 
 
 heaven impressed upon it, and the alone system that can 
 transform and moralize the families of our land! 
 
 If, then, evangelical Christianity be popular Christi- 
 anity; if its lessons are ever sure to have the most at- 
 tractive influence upon the multitude; if, whatever the 
 explanation of the fact may be, the fact itself is unde- 
 niable, that the doctrine of our first Reformers, consist- 
 ing mainly of justification by faith and sanctification 
 through the Spirit of God, is the doctrine which draws 
 the most crowded audiences around our pulpits; and 
 this doctrine is, at the same time, the most powerful 
 moralizing agent that can be brought to bear upon them, 
 then does it follow that the voice of the people indicates 
 most clearly, in this matter, what is best for the virtue 
 of the people; that the popular taste is the organ by 
 which conscious humanity expresses what that is which 
 is best fitted both to exalt and console her; and that, 
 by the neglect and the defiance which are so wantonly 
 rendered to its intimations, are our statesmen withhold- 
 ing the best aliment of a people's worth, and therefore 
 the best specific for a nation's welfare. 
 
 But we now proceed to the third great prejudice which 
 requires to be combated. In the mind of many of our 
 politicians there is a conceived alliance between the fer- 
 vor of the popular demand for that religion which is 
 most palatable and the fervor of the popular demand 
 for those rights which form the great topic of disaffec- 
 tion and complaint among the restless spirits of our 
 community. . . .
 
 140 CHKISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 [This view, the author thinks, rests on a misconcep- 
 tion and misrepresentation of the spirit of the evangelical 
 people. One may think that entire contentment with in- 
 dustrial conditions is not altogether so admirable as Dr. 
 Chalmers supposed. In the next lines he seems to touch 
 another false note:] 
 
 But there are other causes for the delusion that we 
 are now attempting to expose; and, perhaps, the most 
 powerful of them is that insignificance in which a spir- 
 itual and devoted adherent of the evangelical system will 
 generally hold all the common objects of partisanship. 
 He cannot, with a heart preoccupied by eternal things, 
 let himself down to a keen interest in the rivalry of 
 this world's politics. Like a man intent on the prosecu- 
 tion of a journey, and with a mind absorbed by the ob- 
 jects of it, he cannot mingle any great earnestness or 
 intensity of feeling with the disputes of his fellow-trav- 
 ellers, and especially if they relate to matters connected 
 with the mere comfort and accommodation of the few 
 days in which they are to keep together. 
 
 [Thus the most worldly and self -seeking ministers, de- 
 voted to the interests of some State party, and least faith- 
 ful in the discharge of parish duties, may be precisely 
 those who are promoted in the State Church by the 
 leaders of politics. 1 
 
 The minister who had earned the confidence of his 
 people by urging the faithful exposition of all Scripture 
 upon them, stands on a high and secure vantage ground 
 when, out of that indelible record, he bids them honor
 
 ON CHUECH PATRONAGE 141 
 
 the king, and obey magistrates, and meddle not with 
 those who are given to change, and lead a quiet and 
 peaceful life, in all godliness and honesty. These ac- 
 cents would fall utterly powerless from the lips of one 
 who, on an arena of partisanship, had manifested the 
 heat or the worldliness of a mere political clergyman. 
 But they would carry another influence along with them 
 when recognized as the effusions of the same honest prin- 
 ciple which took the whole round of Scripture and 
 brought forth of its treasury all the truths and lessons 
 that are to be found in it. . . . A church tilled 
 with the zealous friends and retainers of one leading 
 political interest can have no authority over a popula- 
 tion whom the very character of its priesthood has alien- 
 ated from its services. A church teeming with zealous, 
 and holy, and well-principled evangelists, that has drawn 
 largely of its hearers from the multitude, and won largely 
 on their veneration and regard, such a church, without 
 one offering at the shrine of any party whatever, but 
 mixing her lessons of loyalty with all the other lessons 
 of the Christian law, will be found, in the fiercest day 
 of a nation's trial, to be its best and surest palladium. 
 
 But the partisanship of clergymen is just as hurtful 
 on the one side of politics as the other. The spirit of 
 their office should raise them above this arena altogether 
 and lead them to refrain from taking any share in the 
 contest at all. We believe that the fancied alliance be- 
 tween the party of Whiggism in the State and the Evan- 
 gelical party in the Church has tended, in Scotland, to 
 the discouragement and depression of the best of causes.
 
 142 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 It has helped to direct the whole power and patronage 
 of government against the more acceptable clergy of our 
 land, and so multiplied the topics of heartburning and 
 irritation between the people and their rulers.. A few 
 political clergy standing prominently forth, on either 
 side of the Church, will suffice to fasten a political im- 
 putation on the whole body that is represented by them. 
 A priesthood strictly devoted to their own pro- 
 fessional objects, and keeping aloof from the contest of 
 this world's politics, and neither servile in their loyalty 
 nor boisterous in their independence, and ardently prose- 
 cuting the literature of their order or the labor of love 
 in their parishes, the intent and engrossing aim of such 
 a priesthood is to rear a generation for eternity. But 
 still the blessings which they would scatter along the 
 path of time are also incalculable. The promise of the 
 life that now is, as well as of the life that is to come, is 
 attendant upon all their exertions.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 ON CHURCH PATRONAGE, CONTINUED 
 
 [DR. CHALMERS alludes to the English Established 
 Church and the effort of statesmen and prelates to sup- 
 press evangelical fervor, which they called " method- 
 ism," and which our author regards as essential to the 
 popularity and social usefulness of the legal Church. He 
 insists that lawlessness is the result of popular infidelity, 
 not of evangelical zeal; and that the exclusion of the 
 people from all voice in the selection of their pastors 
 tends to alienate them still further from both religion 
 and government. Under this undemocratic policy he 
 fears that " the alienation of the people will widen every 
 year from the bosom of the Establishment; and the 
 Establishment, reft of all spiritual virtue, will at length 
 be reduced to a splendid impotency of noble edifices, and 
 highly gifted endowments, and stately imposing cere- 
 monial. . . ." 
 
 He reminds the reader that in Scotland the ecclesias- 
 tical authorities have the power to prevent the active 
 ministrations of a pastor nominated by a patron if he 
 seems to them on any ground unsuitable. If in the past 
 the Scotch Church has yielded to the demands of patrons 
 and surrendered her privileges, it still has the legal right 
 to assert its veto power and secure suitable appointments.] 
 
 It is on these principles that there are not a few of the 
 clergy who cleave to the Establishment, in spite of all 
 
 143
 
 144 CHK1STIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 the partial corruptions that sectarianism has alleged 
 against her. They see in the bosom of their own Church 
 an open avenue to every desirable reformation. They 
 honestly believe that there is not a better range of Chris- 
 tian usefulness to be found over the whole face of the 
 country than within her walls; and that a man of prin- 
 ciple and zeal, when backed by the independence which 
 she confers, and shielded about by the amplitude of her 
 securities and her power, stands on the highest of all 
 vantage ground for the work of honest and faithful 
 ministrations. They trust that she is the destined instru- 
 ment for the preservation and the revival of Christianity 
 in our land, and would tremble for her overthrow as the 
 severest blow that, in this quarter of the island, could 
 be inflicted on the cause of the gospel. . . 
 
 With the great majority of dissenters the appoint- 
 ment of ministers is by popular election. The right of 
 suffrage is more or less extended, however, being some- 
 times vested in the sitters of a congregation, at other 
 times restricted to the members of it or those who have 
 been admitted to the ordinances, and, in no small num- 
 ber of instances, being exclusively in the hands of pro- 
 prietors, or trustees, who own the chapel and bind them- 
 selves to defray, from the proceeds of it, all the expenses 
 of the concern. We do not hold the last of these ar- 
 rangements to be different, in point of effect, from either 
 of the two former. It affords, no doubt, the example 
 of a patronage shared among so many individuals, but 
 still of a patronage controlled by the hearers and in a 
 state of dependence on the popular will. It is the ob-
 
 ON CHURCH PATRONAGE 145 
 
 vious and direct interest of the electors to fix on the 
 man who, by his talents and doctrine, shall secure a full 
 attendance upon his ministrations, and so secure, at least, 
 a sufficient rental for meeting all the engagements. This 
 state of things is tantamount to a right of patronage 
 vested in a few, with the power of veto on each nomina- 
 tion vested in the many, a power which will be exercised 
 on each successive appointment, till that one individual 
 is brought forward in whom the patronage and the popu- 
 larity come to an adjustment with each other. . . . 
 
 After all, it must often happen that, even under the 
 most democratic economy of a congregation, the min- 
 ister virtually obtains his office by the appointment of 
 a few, and only with the acquiescence of the many. In 
 every assemblage of human beings this is the method 
 by which all their proceedings are really carried for- 
 ward. The ascendency of worth, or talent, or station, 
 or some other natural influence, is ever sure to vest the 
 power of originating in the few, and to leave nothing 
 with the many but the power of a veto; nay, even, in 
 many instances, to disarm them of that power. The work 
 of choosing their minister in a dissenting congregation 
 is, we doubt not, in the great majority of instances, most 
 wisely and most peaceably conducted. But, on looking 
 to principles as well as to forms, we have as little doubt 
 that, in very many instances, the appointment is the 
 result of a harmonized meeting between what may be 
 called a virtual deed of patronage, on the one hand, and 
 the power of a negative on the other. . . . 
 
 10
 
 146 CHKISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 [The author argues that the patronage of a State 
 Church may be so regulated that it will be a source of 
 good. At the same time he insists that dissenters should 
 be treated with kindness and be left free to compete 
 with the Establishment in a fair and earnest rivalry of 
 good works. When all have done their utmost, multi- 
 tudes will still be neglectful and neglected. The argu- 
 ment for toleration of dissent was made long before 
 Chalmers left the Establishment, and one can see how 
 his mind was being prepared, unconsciously, for a radi- 
 cal step which was taken years later. In reality he was 
 making a plea for that dissenting party which he did 
 not yet foresee, and of which he was to be the leader. 
 The evils of patronage finally came to appear to him 
 incurable and intolerable, and he went out from under 
 its yoke. 
 
 Urging again the principle of locality and of a resi- 
 dent minister for each parish, in terms which reveal the 
 very roots of the " Social Settlement " idea, the author 
 pleads for an adequate supply of houses of worship for 
 the neglected population of cities, rapidly becoming 
 alienated from religion, morality, and good order. He 
 asserts that of all those who had been charged with riot 
 and sedition not one had been found to be a member of 
 the dissenting churches.] 
 
 The best arrangement for a town that has only ten 
 churches, and would need thirty, is, in supplementing 
 the deficiency, to descend from spires to belfries; and, 
 besides observing the utmost simplicity in the buildings, 
 to assign such an income to the clergyman as that the 
 whole expenses, both of the erection and endowment, 
 may, as nearly as possible, be met by the proceeds of 
 attendance. This would give confidence, and call forth
 
 ON CHURCH 1'ATRONAGE 147 
 
 a much more productive effort, in the way of private 
 subscription for the cause, or even enable magistrates 
 to take the cause into their own hands. But, in every 
 possible way, it is a cause which ought to be carried 
 forward; and those are the most patriotic and enlight- 
 ened rulers who, laying aside the prejudices which have 
 hitherto kept popularity and patronage at so heartless 
 a distance from each other, shall now give their prompti- 
 tude to the great object of so multiplying churches as 
 to meet the necessities of the people, and of so appoint- 
 ing churches as to draw them to a willing attendance 
 on the ministrations of Christianity.
 
 CHAPTEE VII 
 
 ON CHURCH OFFICES 
 
 BY the constitution of the Church of Scotland it is 
 provided that in each parish there shall be at least one 
 minister whose office it is to preach and dispense the 
 ordinances of Christianity on the Sabbath, and to labor 
 in holy things among the people through the week ; and 
 elders, whose office it is to assist at the dispensation of 
 sacraments, to be the bearers of religious advice and 
 comfort among the families, and, in general, to act as 
 purely ecclesiastical laborers for the good of human 
 souls; and, lastly, deacons, to whom it belongs, not to 
 preach the word or administer the sacraments, but to 
 take special care in administering to the necessities of 
 the poor. In the course of time the last of these three 
 offices has fallen into very general desuetude. The duties 
 of it have been transferred to the eldership, the members 
 of which body have thus been vested with a plurality 
 of cares, it being both their part to labor in matters 
 connected with the religious good of the people and to 
 share in the administration of those funds which the law 
 or custom of the country has provided for meeting the 
 demands of its pauperism. 
 
 In the great majority of our Scottish parishes the sum 
 148
 
 ON CHURCH OFFICES 149 
 
 expended on pauperism is raised by voluntary collection, 
 and still maintains the character of a ministration of 
 kindness. It is so very small in amount as not to have 
 come very sensibly or extensively into contact with the 
 lower orders of society, who, in those parts of the coun- 
 try where the method of legal assessments for the poor 
 has not been established, still retain the veteran hardi- 
 hood and independence of their forefathers, and among 
 whom the condition of known and public dependence is 
 still regarded in the light of a family misfortune or a 
 family degradation. 
 
 [The case of the elder who acts as deacon of poor 
 funds is considered. The custom of raising this fund 
 by taxation was growing in Scotland, and Chalmers re- 
 garded this tendency with dread. He felt that it would 
 degrade the poor and increase class hostility by chang- 
 ing relief from private generosity to public and legal 
 compulsion.] 
 
 He goes forth among them as an elder when he goes 
 forth to pray with them, or to address them on the sub- 
 ject of Christianity, or to recommend their attention to 
 its ordinances, or to take cognizance of the education of 
 their children. There are indeed a thousand expedients 
 by which he may attempt a religious influence among 
 the people, and, in plying these expedients, he acts purely 
 as an ecclesiastical laborer. And, did he act singly in 
 this capacity, we might know what to make of the wel- 
 come which he obtains from the families. But they 
 recognize him to be also a dispenser of temporalities;
 
 150 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 and they have an indefinite imagination of his powers, 
 and of his patronage, and of his funds; and their sordid 
 or mercenary expectations are set at work by the very 
 sight of him; and thus some paltry or interested desire 
 of their own may lurk under the whole of that apparent 
 cordiality which marks the intercourse of the two parties. 
 It were a great satisfaction to disentangle one principle 
 here from another, and this can only be done by sepa- 
 rating the one office from the other. It were desirable 
 to ascertain how much of liking there is for the Chris- 
 tian and how much for the pecuniary ministration with 
 which this philanthropist is charged. The union of these 
 two throws an impenetrable obscurity over this question 
 and raises a barrier against the discernment of real char- 
 acter among the people with whom we deal. 
 
 But this combination does more than disguise the 
 principles of the people. It serves also to deteriorate 
 them. If there be any nascent affection among them 
 toward that which is sacred it is well to keep it single, 
 to defend it from the touch of every polluting ingredient, 
 and most strenuously to beware of holding out encour- 
 agement to that most subtle of all hypocrisies, the 
 hypocrisy of the heart; which is most surely and most 
 effectually done when the lessons of preparations for an- 
 other world are mixed up with the bribery of certain 
 advantages in this world. . . . Simplicity of desire, 
 or the want of it, makes the whole difference between 
 being full of light and full of darkness. It is thus that 
 Christ refuses to be a judge and a divider; and that the 
 apostles totally resign the office of ministering to the
 
 ON CHURCH OFFICES 151 
 
 temporal wants of the poor; and that Paul, in particular, 
 is at so much pains both to teach and to exemplify among 
 his disciples the habit of independence on charity to the 
 very uttermost, denouncing the hypocrisy of those who 
 make gain of godliness, and even going so far as to 
 affirm that the man who had joined their society with 
 a view to his own personal relief, out of its funds, from 
 the expense of maintaining his own household, was worse 
 than an infidel. . . 
 
 [The elder who earnestly seeks to perform both of- 
 fices, spiritual and temporal, is in a trying position.] 
 
 What a bounty he carries around with him on the 
 worst kind of dissimulation. Like a substance where 
 neither of the ingredients taken singly is poisonous, and 
 which assumes all its virulence from the composition of 
 them, what a power of insidious but most fatal corrup- 
 tion lies in the mere junction of these two offices ! . . . 
 What a mortifying indifference to the topic he has most 
 at heart, under all the constrained appearance of atten- 
 tion which is rendered to it. With what dexterity can 
 the language of sanctity be pressed into the service when 
 their purpose requires it, and yet how evident, how mor- 
 tifyingly evident often, is the total absence of all feeling 
 and desire upon the subject from the hearts of these 
 wily politicians. . . . 
 
 There may be no great harm done by putting this 
 administration into the hands of an eldership so long 
 as the money is raised in the shape of a free-will offering 
 from the giver . . . or so long as they have to deal
 
 152 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 only with moderate sums among moderate expectations. 
 But, when the fund is raised in a legal and compulsory 
 way by assessment, and when that which wont to be 
 petitioned for in the shape of charity is demanded in the 
 shape of justice, and when the people are thus armed 
 with the force and impetus of an aggressive legality, 
 upon the one side, and are not met in the firm and reso- 
 lute spirit of a defensive legality upon the other, there 
 will in time be among us a far more rapid acceleration 
 of pauperism than ever has been exemplified in England. 
 
 [If a church officer, taking a severe attitude, refuses 
 expected relief from the tax fund, then he is hated and 
 distrusted by the clamorous poor, and his religious coun- 
 sels are met with bitterness. The country should return 
 to the old method by which relief came from voluntary 
 offerings.] 
 
 But should this plan be adopted it were greatly better 
 that the Church should be altogether dissevered from 
 the ministrations of public charity. We shall never cease 
 to regret the introduction of a legal spirit into the work 
 of human benevolence, and to regard the establishment 
 of a compulsory provision for the poor as one of the 
 worst invasions ever made on the olden habit of our 
 country, and as one of the deadliest obstacles to its moral 
 regeneration. But if this curse is to be perpetuated upon 
 our land, let elders and deacons, and all who hold any 
 ecclesiastical character among us, cease from this mo- 
 ment to be implicated in a business so mischievous. . . 
 Nor let these laborers in the cause of Scotland's piety
 
 ON CHURCH OFFICES 153 
 
 and Scotland's worth be charged with any distribution 
 of a quality so poisonous, and at the same time so allur- 
 ing, that they can neither withhold it without alienating 
 many hearts from them nor spread it freely around with- 
 out insinuating corruption into these hearts and scatter- 
 ing the seeds of a great and pernicious distemper over 
 the land. . . . 
 
 There is a delusive fear to which inexperience is liable 
 upon this subject, as if there were a very general rapac- 
 ity among the families of the poor, which, if not ap- 
 peased out of the capabilities of the public fund, would 
 render it altogether unsafe for any private individual in 
 the upper walks of society to move at large among their 
 habitations. . . . 
 
 The truth is that there is a far greater sufficiency 
 among the lower classes of society than is generally 
 imagined; and our first impressions of their want and 
 wretchedness are generally by much too aggravated, nor 
 do we know a more effectual method of reducing these 
 impressions than to cultivate a closer acquaintance with 
 their resources and their habits and their whole domestic 
 economy. It is certainly in the power of artificial ex- 
 pedients to create artificial desires, and to call out a host 
 of applications that would never have otherwise been 
 made. And we know of nothing which leads more di- 
 rectly and more surely to this state of things than a 
 great regular provision for indigence, obtruded with all 
 the characters of legality and certainty and abundance 
 upon the notice of the people. But wherever the se- 
 curities which nature hath established for the relief and
 
 154 CHEISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 mitigation of extreme distress are not so tampered with, 
 where the economy of individuals, and the sympathy of 
 neighbors, and a sense of the relative duties among kins- 
 folk are left, without disturbance, to their own silent 
 and simple operation it will be found that there is noth- 
 ing so formidable in the work of traversing a whole mass 
 of congregated beings, and of encountering all the 
 clamors, whether of real or fictitious necessity, that may 
 be raised by our appearance among them. . . . We 
 know not, indeed, how one can be made more effectually 
 to see with his own eyes the superfluousness of all public 
 and legalized charity than just to assume a district and 
 become the familiar friend of the people who live in it, 
 and to do for them the thousand nameless offices of Chris- 
 tian regard, and to encourage, in every judicious and 
 inoffensive way, their dependence upon themselves and 
 their fellow-feeling for one another. Such a process of 
 daily observation as this will do more than all political 
 theory can do to convince him with what safety the sub- 
 sistence of a people may be left to their own capabilities, 
 and how the modern pauperism of our days is a super- 
 structure altogether raised on the basis of imposture and 
 worthlessness a basis which the very weight of the 
 superstructure is fitted to consolidate and to extend. 
 
 It is not the materiel of benevolence given to those 
 few of his families who may require it that will bind to 
 him the population he has assumed. This may be neces- 
 sary to indicate the honesty of his principles. But it is 
 the morale of benevolence, it is the unbounded and uni- 
 versal spirit of kindness felt by him for all the families,
 
 ON CHURCH OFFICES 155 
 
 and expressing itself in numberless other ways besides 
 the giving of alms it is this which will raise him to his 
 chief and useful ascendency over them. It is seldom 
 adverted to how much a simple affection, if it be but 
 authentically manifested in any one way, is fitted to 
 call forth affection back again. It is little known how 
 open even the rudest and wildest of a city population 
 are to the magic of this sweetening influence. There is 
 here one precious department of our nature which seems 
 not to have been so overspread as the rest of it by the 
 ruins of the fall. Perhaps vanity and selfishness may 
 enter as elements into the effect; but certain it is that 
 if one human being see in the heart of another a good- 
 will toward himself, he is not able, and far less is he 
 willing, to stifle or to withhold the reciprocal good-will 
 that he feels to arise in his own bosom. This is a phe- 
 nomenon of our nature which the hardy administrators 
 of a poor's house have little conception of; and they 
 may be heard to predict that if you disjoin an elder from 
 all the patronage which he shares with them you take 
 away from him the only instrument by which he can 
 ever hope to conciliate his families. . . . The hos- 
 tility of the people, or the hypocrisy of the people, may 
 be abundantly nourished out of the elements of the pres- 
 ent system, but it is by the play of finer elements alto- 
 gether that the hearts of the people are to be won. We 
 are quite aware of the incredulity of practical men upon 
 this subject; but it is just because they are not practical 
 enough that they are blind to the truth and cannot per- 
 ceive it.
 
 156 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 This is a question which it is better to try than to 
 argue. And yet it ought to be a palpable thing, even 
 with our most every-day observers, that humanity is so 
 constituted as to derive a sensation of pleasure from an- 
 other's love as well as from the fruit of another's liber- 
 ality. . . . This is a world which, gross and sensual 
 as the general nature of its inhabitants may be, and 
 keenly directed as their appetites are toward silver and 
 gold, or such materials of enjoyment as these can pro- 
 duce, it is still a world where, through all its generations, 
 the charm even of simple kindness is not unfelt, even 
 when it has nothing to bestow; . . . it is a world 
 where we affirm that good-will, though unaccompanied 
 with wealth, can spread a higher and more permanent 
 felicity, even among its poorer vicinities, than ever 
 wealth can, in all its profusion, unaccompanied with 
 good-will. . . . 
 
 The man who has nothing to give but the expression 
 of his friendly regard may, in fact, be dealing out among 
 his fellows the materials of real enjoyment. It will not 
 be difficult to convince of this truth the members of an 
 affectionate family, in the transference of whose kindly 
 feelings from one to another they intimately know, that 
 there is a sensation far more precious to the heart than 
 can be wrought there by the transference of gold or 
 silver. Neither will it be difficult to convince a man 
 of ever-flowing cordiality in the walks of social inter- 
 course who, whether at the festive board or even in his 
 hurried passage through the bustle and throng of a street 
 teeming with acquaintances, is most thoroughly con-
 
 ON CHURCH OFFICES 157 
 
 scious of the pleasure that is both given and received by 
 the smile and the rapid inquiry, and even the most 
 slight and momentary token of deference and good-will. 
 Neither will it be difficult to make the truth of this 
 lesson be recognized by him who has had frequent experi- 
 ence and fellowship among the abodes of poverty, and 
 who can attest how pure and how delicious that incense 
 is which arises from the simple acknowledgments of 
 those who, save their regard and the expression of their 
 honest attachment, have positively nothing to bestow. 
 
 And neither will it be difficult to make this whole 
 matter plain to the reflection of the poor themselves, 
 upon whose humble vicinities the wealthy have seldom 
 or never entered, and who well know that, within the 
 narrow compass of their own intercourse, a bright and 
 gladdening influence may be conveyed from one hum- 
 ble tenement to another; and that if the next-door 
 neighbor bear an affection to them, it throws a light 
 into their bosoms which would not be there if he bore 
 against them a grudge or a displeasure; and that the 
 difference in point of feeling between an atmosphere of 
 kind agreement and an atmosphere of fierce and fiery 
 contention is just as distinct as will be the difference 
 between heaven and hell; insomuch that, after all, it 
 is not so much the occasional liberality of him who makes 
 the transient visit and leaves behind him some token of 
 his abundance it is not this which so cheers and al- 
 leviates the lot of poverty, as that more steadfast and 
 habitual blessedness which, by the kindness of immediate 
 neighbors, may be made to shine and to settle around
 
 158 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 its habitation. All this is abundantly obvious among 
 the various conditions of society, in the bosoni of the 
 family, or among the rich, as to the sweetness which 
 they have themselves experienced in a simple offering 
 of affection from the poor; or, among the poor, in all 
 that they know and feel of the relationship in which 
 they stand with the members of their own neighborhood. 
 And the only difficulty, in completing this proof, which 
 we have to contend with is when we attempt to con- 
 vince the rich that, while it is their duty to give of their 
 gold and silver to those who stand in need of them, it is 
 their kindness which, if actually perceived to be genuine, 
 is more valued and more enjoyed by the poor than even 
 the fruit of their kindness; it is the principle which 
 prompted the offering that, after all, affords a truer relish 
 of their feelings than the offering itself; it is the com- 
 munity of hearts which raises and delights them more 
 than even the community of goods. If the one be es- 
 tablished between the various classes of society it will 
 no doubt bring the best and fittest proportion of the 
 other along with it. But the thing of importance to be 
 remarked just now is that nature, even when sunk in 
 abject poverty, and, therefore, relieved in her more press- 
 ing wants by an act of almsgiving, is still more soothed 
 and conciliated by an exhibition of good-will on the part 
 of the giver than by the whole material product of the 
 beneficence that he has rendered; that it is a gross, and 
 in every way an injurious, misconception of the poor to 
 think them beyond the reach of those finer influences 
 which reciprocate between pure sympathy on the one
 
 ON CHURCH OFFICES 159 
 
 hand and a simple sense and observation of that sym- 
 pathy on the other. . . . 
 
 This ascendency of the moral over the material part 
 of our constitution is no romance and no fabrication of 
 poetry. It is exemplified every day in the living and 
 the ordinary walk of human experience. There is not 
 on the face of our world one neighborhood of contiguous 
 families either so poor or so profligate as to withstand 
 these repeated demonstrations; and that sullenness of 
 character which no bribery could reduce, and which 
 gathers a deeper and more determined gloom when the 
 hand of authority is applied to it, has been rendered as 
 tractable as childhood under the mighty and the magi- 
 cal spell of a meek and endearing and undissembled 
 charity. 
 
 The law of reciprocal attraction between one heart 
 and another is a law of nature as well as of Christianity, 
 insomuch that no sooner does the regard of a philan- 
 thropist for the people of his district come to be recog- 
 nized than their regard for him, and that, too, both from 
 the converted and the unconverted, will attest of what 
 kind of material humanity is formed. . . . 
 
 Let suspicion be but once dissipated, and the enmity 
 of nature be disarmed by the true and touching demon- 
 strations of a real principle of kindness, and ridicule 
 have ceased from its uproar, and contempt have dis- 
 charged all its vociferations, and the man's worth and 
 benevolence become manifest as day; then, though the 
 ministration of gold and silver be that which fortune 
 hath altogether denied him, it is both very striking and
 
 160 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 very encouraging to behold how, in spite of themselves, 
 he steals the hearts of the people away from them; how, 
 as if by the operation of some mystic spell, the most 
 restless and profligate of them all feel the softening in- 
 fluence of his presence and of his doings; and how, in 
 the cheap and humble services of tending their children, 
 and visiting their sick, and ministering in sacred exer- 
 cises at the couch of the dying, and filling up his oppor- 
 tunities of intercourse with the utterance of holy advice 
 and the exhibition of holy example, there is, in these 
 simple and unaccompanied attentions, a charm felt and 
 welcomed, even in the most polluted atmosphere that 
 ever settled around the most corrupt and crowded of 
 human habitations. 
 
 This is not credited by many of our citizens ; and men 
 who deliver themselves in a tone of grave and respectable 
 and imposing experience may be heard to affirm, that, 
 unless an elder be vested with a power of administration 
 over the public money, he will be an unwelcome visitor 
 with the general run of families; that he will meet with 
 few to bid him God-speed on the single and abstract 
 errand of Christianity; and that, while the old system 
 of payments without prayers was acceptable enough, the 
 new system of prayers without payments will banish the 
 whole host of eldership in our city from the acceptance 
 and good-will of its inhabitants. Surely this is a mat- 
 ter of proof and not of probability; a thing that may 
 be committed to the decision of experience, instead of 
 being left to the contentions of reason or of sophistry. 
 
 Let an elder count it his duty to hold a habitual in-
 
 ON CHURCH OFFICES 101 
 
 tercourse of kindness with the people of his district, and 
 for this purpose devote but a few hours in the week to 
 their highest interests; out of the fulness of a heart ani- 
 mated with good-will to men, and in particular with 
 that good-will which points to the good of their eternity, 
 let him make use of every practical expedient for spread- 
 ing among them the light and influence of the gospel; 
 let it be his constant aim to warn the unruly, to comfort 
 the afflicted, to stimulate the education of children, to 
 press the duty of attending ordinances, to make use of 
 all his persuasion in private and of all his influence to 
 promote such public and parochial measures as may for- 
 ward the simple design of making our people good and 
 pious and holy then, though he should go forth among 
 them stripped of power and patronage and pecuniary 
 administrations; though his honest and Christian good- 
 will be all he has to recommend him; though the various 
 secularities by which the offices of our Church have been 
 polluted and degraded shall be conclusively done away, 
 and the whole armory of our influence among the peo- 
 ple be reduced to the simple element of good-will, and 
 friendship, and personal labor, and unwearied earnest- 
 ness in the prosecution of their spiritual welfare; yet, 
 with these, and these alone, will any of our elders at 
 length find a welcome in every heart and a home in 
 every habitation. Others may then take up the minis- 
 tration which he has put away. But it will be his pres- 
 ence which will awaken the finest glow of kindly and 
 reverential feeling among our population. Though out of 
 any public treasury he neither has gold nor silver to give, 
 11
 
 162 CHKISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 yet let him just do with his means and his opportunities 
 as every Christian should do, and feel as every Chris- 
 tian should feel, and he will rarely meet with a family 
 so poor as to undervalue his attentions, or a family so 
 profligate as to persist in despising them. 
 
 The Christian elder who has resigned the temporali- 
 ties of his office should not think that, on that account, 
 he has little in his power. His presence has a power. 
 His advice has a power. His friendship has a power. 
 The moral energy of his kind attentions and Christian 
 arguments has a power. His prayers at the bed of sick- 
 ness and at the funeral of a departed parishioner have 
 a power. The books that he recommends to his people, 
 and the minister whom he prevails on them to hear, and 
 the habit of regular attendance upon the ordinances to 
 which he introduces them, have a power. His suppli- 
 cations to God for them in secret have a power. De- 
 pendence upon him and upon his blessing for the suc- 
 cess of his own feeble endeavors has a power. And 
 when all these are brought to bear on the rising genera- 
 tion; when the children have learned both to know and 
 to love him; when they come to feel the force of his 
 approbation, and, on every recurring visit, receive a 
 fresh impulse from him to diligence at school and duti- 
 ful behavior out of it; when the capabilities of his sim- 
 ple Christian relationship with the people thus come to 
 be estimated; it is not saying too much to say that with 
 such as him there lies the precious interest of the growth 
 and transmission of Christianity in the age that is now 
 passing over us, and that, in respect of his own selected
 
 ON CHURCH OFFICES 163 
 
 neighborhood, he is the depository of the moral and spir- 
 itual destinies of the future age. 
 
 [The author here urges that the elders of the Church, 
 as respected laymen, by taking small districts, might ren- 
 der valuable help to the pastors of parishes, and he 
 regards with regret the increasing neglect of this service 
 on the part of business men. He adds a few suggestions 
 to deacons, the laymen of the Church who had the care 
 of the poor fund. He urges that they should act upon 
 the principles just urged upon the elders.] 
 
 We know not a more interesting case that can be sub- 
 mitted to a deacon than when an applicant proposes, for 
 the first time, to draw relief from a public charity. This 
 he is often compelled to do from some temporary dis- 
 tress that hangs over his family; and if the emergency 
 could be got over without a public and degrading ex- 
 posure of him w r ho labors under it, there would both be 
 a most substantial saving of the public fund and a most 
 soothing act of kindness rendered to the person who is 
 applying for it. If by the influence of the deacon, or 
 that of his friends, work could be provided for a man 
 in such circumstances, or some private and delicate mode 
 of relief be devised for him, then we know not in what 
 other way he could more effectually establish himself 
 as the most valuable servant of the public and the best 
 and kindest friend of his own immediate population. 
 
 [The deaconship is regarded as a temporary make- 
 shift; the author having the conviction that ultimately 
 public relief in homes will be abolished and charity left 
 to individual benevolence.]
 
 CHAPTEK VIII 
 
 ON SABBATH-SCHOOLS 
 
 IT is well that in the various religious establishments 
 of Europe provision should have been made for the 
 learning as well as for the subsistence of a regular clergy. 
 It is well when a teacher of the gospel, in addition to 
 the strict literature of his own profession, is further ac- 
 complished in the general literature of his times. We 
 do not hold it indispensable that all should be so accom- 
 plished. But that is a good course of education for the 
 Church, which will not only secure the possibility that 
 every minister may be learned in theology, but also a 
 chance, bordering upon certainty, that some of them 
 shall attain an eminence in authority and respect in the 
 other sciences. Christianity should be provided with 
 friends and defenders in every quarter of human society ; 
 and there should be among them such a distribution of 
 weapons as may be adapted to all the varieties of that 
 extended combat which is ever going on between the 
 Church and the world. And there is special reason why 
 the prejudices of philosophy against the gospel should, 
 if possible, be met and mastered by men capable of 
 standing on the very same arena and plying the very 
 
 same tactics with the most powerful of its votaries, 
 
 164
 
 ON SABBATH-SCHOOLS 165 
 
 and that, not so much because of the individual benefit 
 which may thereby be rendered to these philosophers, as 
 because of their ascendent influence over the general 
 mind of society, and because of the mischief that would 
 ensue to myriads beside themselves, could an exhibition 
 so degrading be held forth to the world as that of Chris- 
 tianity which laid claim to the light of revelation, re- 
 tiring abashed from the light of cultivated nature, and 
 not daring the encounter, when men rich in academic 
 lore or lofty in general authorship came forth in hos- 
 tility against her. 
 
 [The learned ministers are useful to the unlearned 
 laborers by upholding the honor of the gospel in high 
 places and by furnishing materials for thought. Yet the 
 layman and the untaught may render most useful service 
 by teaching and witnessing to the vital truths of relig- 
 ion. The illumination of the divine spirit is not denied 
 to those who have moral reverence and holy purpose 
 and have not spent early years in academic halls. Jona- 
 than Edwards, the American philosopher and theologian, 
 is praised as a man who had not only the power and 
 training of the scholar, but also the earnest and practical 
 piety of the pastor.] 
 
 It is here that churches, under the domination of a 
 worldly and unsanctified priesthood, are apt to go astray. 
 They confide the cause wherewith they are entrusted to 
 the merely intellectual class of laborers, and they have 
 overlooked, or rather have violently and impetuously re- 
 sisted, the operative class of laborers. They conceive 
 that all is to be done by regulation, and that nothing but
 
 166 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 what is mischievous is to be done by impulse. Their 
 measures are generally all of a sedative, and few or none 
 of them of a stimulating, tendency. Their chief concern 
 is to repress the pruriencies of religious zeal, and not to 
 excite or foster the zeal itself. . . . It is quite a 
 possible thing for the same church to have a proud com- 
 placency in the lore and argument and professional sci- 
 ence of certain of its ministers; and, along with this, 
 to have a proud contempt for the pious earnestness and 
 pious activity of certain other of its ministers. It may 
 applaud the talent by which Christianity is estimated, 
 but discourage the talent by which Christianity is made. 
 . . . To judge of an impression requires one species 
 of talent, to make an impression requires another. They 
 both may exist in very high perfection with the same 
 individual. But they may also exist apart. . - . . The 
 right way for a church is to encourage both these talents 
 to the uttermost. It is possible so to chill and to dis- 
 courage the productive faculties in our Church as that 
 its assaying faculty shall have no samples on which to 
 sit in judgment. 
 
 [There follows a further plea for those who plough 
 as well as for those whose only instrument of husbandry 
 is the pruning-hook ; for those who are familiar with the 
 heart-truths of the gospel, even if they cannot read 
 Hebrew and Greek. Trained theologians should inspect 
 the labor of unlettered but vital workers, but they should 
 not put a stop to it. A clergyman should not lay an 
 interdict upon a host of Christian agency of those who 
 may be beneath him in literature but far before him in 
 the instrumental power of making Christians. It is not
 
 ON SABBATH-SCHOOLS 167 
 
 by lectures on law and politics that a restless and law- 
 less population can be induced to become good citizens, 
 but rather by the presence among them of some who, 
 in their own character, realize the worth and the practi- 
 cal wisdom of the good citizen.] 
 
 The simple presence of a man, humble it may be in 
 rank, but richly endowed either with Christian or with 
 constitutional benevolence it is this, unaccompanied 
 with all metaphysical discernment or the power of meta- 
 physical explanation, that will do more to expel the spirit 
 of rancor from a neighborhood, and to substitute the 
 spirit of charity in its place, than any theoretical expo- 
 sition of principles or processes can possibly accomplish. 
 It is not the man that best lectures on the operation of the 
 moving force, but the man who is possessed of the moving 
 force, and actually wields it . . . it is he who works 
 the practical consequence on the temper and mind of the 
 neighborhood over which he expatiates. And thus it is 
 that the man of Christian love operates more powerfully 
 as a leaven in his vicinity than the man of Christian 
 learning; and it is altogether a mistake that a long and 
 laborious routine of scholarship must be described ere 
 the exertions of a Christian teacher shall, with efficacy, 
 tell on the moral and spiritual habit of the disciples who 
 repair to him. . . . 
 
 In every church let securities be provided for the 
 highest attainments of Christian literature, so as that 
 many ecclesiastics shall be found in it rich in all the 
 deep and varied erudition of theology. We know not 
 a nobler intellectual eminence than that which mav be
 
 168 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 gained on the neglected walks of sound and Scriptural 
 philosophy by one who, with a mind stored both in the 
 criticism and antiquities of his profession, further knows 
 how to impregnate his acquisitions with the liberal and 
 experimental spirit of our age, and who, without com- 
 muting the orthodoxy of God's imperishable record, 
 could so far modernize the science of which he was, at 
 the same time, both the champion and the ornament, as 
 to evolve upon the world, not its new truths, but its new 
 applications. Christianity never changes, but the com- 
 plexion and habits of the species are always changing; 
 and thus may there be an exhaustless novelty both of 
 remark and illustration in our intellectual treatment of 
 a science which touches at almost every point on the 
 nature of man, and bears with decisive effect on the whole 
 frame and economics of civil society. 
 
 But it were giving the last finish to the character of 
 his mind if, amid the pride and the prowess of its rare 
 accomplishments, he could appreciate aright the piety 
 and the practical labors of an unlettered Christian; and 
 it would confer upon him that very thing which is so 
 touching in the simplicity of Newton, or in the mission- 
 ary zeal and devotedness of Boyle, if, while surrounded 
 by the trophies of his own successful authorship, he 
 could be made to see that, however profound in the 
 didactics of Christianity, yet, in the actual work of 
 giving a personal spread to Christianity, there is many 
 an humble man of privacy and of prayer who is far 
 before him. 
 
 There are two sets of clergy in every Establishment,
 
 ON SABBATH-SCHOOLS 169 
 
 and it were curious to observe how each of them stands 
 affected to the two questions, whether the ministers of 
 the gospel shall be more richly furnished with Christian 
 literature, and whether the laymen who are under them 
 shall be permitted to supplement the duties of the clerical 
 office with Christian labor. There is one class of our 
 ecclesiastics, both in England and Scotland, who have a 
 taste for popular agency and lay enterprises and the 
 whole apparatus of religious schools and religious socie- 
 ties, which are so multiplying around us in this busy 
 age of philanthropic activity and adventure. Now, 
 what we would ask of such ecclesiastics is whether they 
 would feel a relish or repugnance toward those meas- 
 ures, the effect of which is to exhort the clergy of the 
 Church to a higher pre-eminence than they even now 
 occupy, for all the accomplishments of sacred literature? 
 Will they come forward and say that they are afraid of 
 literature? that a clergy too enlightened would not suit 
 them? that, loving to breathe in the muddy atmosphere 
 of popular ignorance and popular folly, they want no 
 science and no scholarship, whose hateful beams might 
 disperse the congenial vapors wherewith the efferves- 
 cence of plebeianism has filled and overspread the whole 
 scene of their ignoble labors? Do they tremble lest the 
 light of philosophy should penetrate into the dark un- 
 known of their own inglorious skulking places? And 
 are they really conscious, after all, that what they have 
 headed and patronized is a low, paltry, drivelling fanati- 
 cism, which would shrink before the full gaze of a let- 
 tered and intellectual Church, where every minister were
 
 170 CHKISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 a luminary of science as well as a luminary of the gos- 
 pel? These are the degrading imputations they will 
 bring upon themselves by any resistance they shall make 
 to the learning of the clergy; and such resistance, if 
 offered, is the very thing that will propagate the timely 
 alarm to another quarter, and will cause, we trust, the 
 friends of learning to rally and to form into strength 
 elsewhere. Those ministers who, whether under the 
 name of the high church, or of the moderate, or of the 
 rational party, feel a strong disrelish toward the active 
 interference of laymen in the work of religious instruc- 
 tion, will know how to act should they perceive, in the 
 party of their antagonists, an equally strong disrelish 
 toward any measure that goes to augment the profes- 
 sional literature of all our future ecclesiastics. They 
 cannot be blind to the fact that, at this moment, there 
 is a fermentation, and a brooding activity, and an un- 
 exampled restlessness, and a busy movement of schemes 
 and of operations, before unknown in the walks of popu- 
 lar Christianity; and if, additional to all this, they 
 should further see a dread on the part of zealous cham- 
 pions and overseers lest the lamp of Christian literature 
 should be lighted up into greater brilliancy than before, 
 we trust that this will be felt and understood by those 
 who nauseate what they term the missionary and meth- 
 odistical spirit of our age as the intimation of what they 
 ought to do. It is not by putting forth the arm of in- 
 tolerance that they will reach it its exterminating blow. 
 . . . These are not the legitimate defences of our 
 Church against hateful fanaticism; and they who have
 
 ON SABBATH-SCHOOLS 171 
 
 set themselves in array against this hydra, whether she 
 be indeed a reality or only a bugbear of their own imag- 
 ination, can do nothing better than to rear a literary 
 and enlightened priesthood, under the eye of whose 
 vigilance all that is truly noxious and evil will be most 
 eifectually disarmed. 
 
 But should the friends of this so-called fanaticism 
 among the clergy be also the friends, and not the ene- 
 mies, of scientific and theological accomplishment in 
 their own order; should they dare their antagonists to 
 the open arena of light and liberty; should their de- 
 mand be that the torch of learning shall be blown into 
 a clearer and intenser flame, and be brought to shine 
 upon all their opinions and all their ways; should the 
 cry which they send forth be for more of erudition and 
 more of philosophy, and that not one single laborer shall 
 be admitted to the ministerial field till our universities, 
 those established luminaries of our land, have shed upon 
 his understanding a larger supply of that pure and chaste 
 and academic light, the property of which is to guide, 
 and not to bewilder, to clarify the eye of the mind, and 
 not to dazzle it to the overpowering of all its faculties; 
 if this be the beseeching voice of fanaticism, and it be 
 left to pass unregarded away, then shall the enemies of 
 fanaticism have become the enemies of knowledge; and 
 our Church, instead of exhibiting the aspect of zeal tem- 
 pered by wisdom, and of a warm, active, busy spirit of 
 Christian philanthropy under the control and guardian- 
 ship of accomplished and well educated clergymen, may 
 at length, desolated of all its pieties, be turned into a
 
 172 CHEISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 heartless scene of secularity and coarseness and contempt 
 for vital religion, where the sacredness of Christianity 
 has fled and left not behind it one redeeming quality 
 in the science of Christianity among its officiating min- 
 isters; and, alike abandoned by the light of the Divine 
 Spirit and the light of human philosophy, it will offer 
 the spectacle of a dreary and extended waste, without 
 one spot of loveliness or verdure which the eye can de- 
 light to rest upon. 
 
 [It was objected to the Sabbath-school that it detaches 
 the young from family worship and the sacred influ- 
 ences of domestic piety. There follows this powerful 
 plea for the institution:] 
 
 Is it possible for any man at all acquainted with the 
 chronology of Sabbath-schools to affirm that they are 
 the instruments of having overthrown the family relig- 
 ion of Scotland? Have they operated as so many ruth- 
 less invaders on what, at the time of their entrance, was 
 a beauteous moral domain, and swept away from it all 
 that was affecting or graceful in the observations of our 
 forefathers? Whether did they desolate the territory, 
 or have they only made their lodgment on what was 
 already a scene of desolation? The truth is that for 
 many years previous to the extension of this system, a 
 woful degeneracy was going on in the religious habit 
 and character of our country; that, from the wanton 
 outrages inflicted by unrelenting patronage on the taste 
 and demand of parishes, the religious spirit, once so 
 characteristic of our nation, has long been rapidly sub-
 
 ON SABBATH-SCHOOLS 173 
 
 siding; that, more particularly in our groat towns, the 
 population have so outgrown the old ecclesiastical sys- 
 tem, as to have accumulated there into so many masses 
 of practical heathenism: and now the state of the al- 
 ternative is not whether the rising generation shall be 
 trained to Christianity in schools, or trained to it under 
 the roof of their fathers, but whether they shall be 
 trained to it in schools or not trained to it at all. It is 
 whether a process of deterioration which originated more 
 than half a century ago, and has been rapid and resistless 
 in its various tendencies ever since, whether it shall be suf- 
 fered to carry our people still more downward in the scale 
 of moral blindness and depravity, or whether the only 
 remaining expedient for arresting it shall be put into op- 
 eration. Were it as easy a task to prevail on an irreligious 
 parent to set up the worship and instruction of religion in 
 his family, as to get his consent, and prevail upon his 
 children to attend the ministrations of a Sabbath-school, 
 there might then be some appearance of room for all the 
 obloquy that has been cast upon these institutions. But 
 as the matter stands, in many a city and in many a 
 parish, the Christian philanthropist is shut up to an ef- 
 fort upon the young as his last chance for the moral 
 regeneration of our country. In despair (and it is a 
 despair warranted by all experience) of operating with 
 extensive effect on the confirmed habit and obstinacy 
 of manhood, he arrests the human plant at an earlier 
 and more susceptible stage, and puts forth the only hand 
 that ever would have offered for the culture and the 
 training of this young immortal. In the great majority
 
 174 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 of instances he does not withdraw his pupils, for a sin- 
 gle moment, from any Christian influence that would 
 have descended upon them in another quarter, but 
 showers upon their heads and their hearts the only Chris- 
 tian influence they ever are exposed to. He is, in fact, 
 building up again that very system with the destruction 
 of which he has been charged, and rearing many young 
 who, but for him, would have been the still more cor- 
 rupt descendants of a corrupt parentage, to be the re- 
 ligious guides and examples of a future generation. . . . 
 Parents, in spite of themselves, feel an interest in 
 that which interests and occupies their children, and 
 through the medium of natural affection have their 
 thoughts been caught to the subject of Christianity; and 
 the very tasks and exercises of their children have 
 brought a theme to their evening circle, upon which, 
 aforetimes, not a syllable of utterance was ever heard; 
 and still more, when a small and select library is at- 
 tached to the institution, has it been the means of cir- 
 culating, through many a household privacy, such wis- 
 dom and such piety as were indeed new visitants upon 
 a scene till now untouched by any print or footstep of 
 sacredness. . . . 
 
 [It would not be wise to provide Sabbath-schools 
 merely for the children of irreligious families, for then 
 even these, being marked out as singular and inferior, 
 would cease to attend a place whose pupils were known 
 to be socially inferior. The Sabbath-school can, with 
 all safety to the children of the better families, bring 
 all together under the care of teachers, so that the higher
 
 ON SABBATH-SCHOOLS 175 
 
 influences of a neighborhood are brought into saving 
 contact with all others, to the common advantage. An 
 argument ad hominem is introduced in reply to those 
 who objected to lay teaching and yet decry the Sabbath- 
 school because it interferes, as they assert, with family 
 instruction.] 
 
 By admitting the competency of parents to teach 
 Christianity to their children they admit that part of this 
 work, at least, may be confided to other hands than those 
 of regular and ordained clergy. They admit that a 
 father in humble life may be the instrument of trans- 
 mitting Christian wisdom and Christian worth to his own 
 children, and that, though it were quackery for each 
 parent to undertake the cure of family diseases, it is not 
 quackery for each to undertake the work of family in- 
 struction. Thus the comparison between the efforts of 
 the unlicensed in theology and medicine is, by them at 
 least, practically given up. We hold this to be a signal 
 testimony, and from the mouths of adversaries, too, to 
 the power of unlettered Christianity, in propagating its 
 own likeness throughout the young of our rising gen- 
 eration a power which most assuredly would not all 
 go to dissipation, though for a short time every Sabbath 
 evening it were transported from its place in the family 
 to a new place in such a seminary of religious instruc- 
 tion as we have attempted to advocate. 
 
 [Persons in humble circumstances, even without the 
 prestige of social rank, have a certain advantage in Sab- 
 bath-school teaching, since they do not excite any mer-
 
 176 CHEISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 cenary expectations in the poor, and are regarded for 
 their character alone.] 
 
 This holds out a brilliant moral perspective to the eye 
 of the philanthropist. In a few years many of the schol- 
 ars at our present seminaries will be convertible into the 
 teachers of a future generation. There will be indefinite 
 additions made to our religious agency. Instead of hav- 
 ing to assail, as now, the general bulk of the population 
 by a Christian influence from without, the mass itself 
 will be penetrated, and, through the means of residing 
 and most effective teachers, there will be kept up a busy 
 process of internal circulation. It is thus that he who 
 can work patiently at small things, and be content to 
 wait for great things, lends by far the best contribution 
 to the mighty achievement of regenerating our land. 
 Extremes meet, and the sanguine philanthropist, who is 
 goaded on by his impatience to try all things and look 
 for some great and immediate result, will soon be plunged 
 into the despair of ever being able to do anything at all. 
 The man who can calmly set himself down to the work 
 of a district school, and there be satisfied to live and to 
 labor without a name, may germinate a moral influence 
 that will at length overspread the whole city of his 
 habitation. 
 
 A single lane or court in London is surely not more 
 impracticable than in other towns of this empire. There 
 is one man to be found there who can assume it as his 
 locality and acquit himself thoroughly and well of the 
 duties it lays upon him. There is another who can pitch
 
 ON SABBATH-SCHOOLS 177 
 
 beside him, on a contiguous settlement, and, without 
 feeling bound to speculate for the whole metropolis, can 
 pervade and do much to purify his assumed portion of 
 it. There is a third who will find that a walk so un- 
 noticed and obscure is the best suited to his modesty, 
 and a fourth who will be eager to reap, on the same 
 field, that reward of kind and simple gratitude in which 
 his heart is most fitted to rejoice. ... So long as 
 a man of mediocrity conceives himself to be a man of 
 might, and sighs after some scene of enlargement that 
 may be adequate to his fancied powers, little or nothing 
 will be done; but as soon as the sweeping and sublime 
 imagination is dissipated, and he can stoop to the drudg- 
 ery of his small allotment in the field of usefulness, 
 then will it be found how it is by the summation of 
 many humble mediocrities that a mighty result is at 
 length arrived at. ... 
 
 In this laborious process of nursing an empire to Chris- 
 tianity we know not at present a readier or more avail- 
 able apparatus of means than that which has been raised 
 by methodism. In every large town of England it owns 
 a number of disciples, and, through a skilful mechanism 
 that has been long in operation, there is a minute ac- 
 quaintance on the part of their leaders with the talents 
 and character of each of them. Why should not they 
 avail themselves of their existing facilities for the adop- 
 tion of this system, and so thoroughly pervade that 
 population by their Sabbath-schools, which they only as 
 yet have partially drawn to their pulpits? It would be 
 doing more, in the long run, to renovate and multiply 
 12
 
 178 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 the chapels of methodism than all that has yet been 
 devised by them; and thus might they both extend re- 
 ligious education among the young and a church-going 
 habit throughout the general population. We doubt not 
 that with this new style of tactics they would mightily 
 alarm the Establishment. But so much the better. This 
 is just the salutary application which the Establishment 
 stands in need of. And, from all that we have learned 
 of the catholic and liberal spirit of this class of dis- 
 senters, we guess that, though they did no more than 
 simply stimulate the Church of England to do the whole 
 work, and to do it aright, they would bless God and 
 rejoice. 
 
 Such is the good-will we bear to sectarianism that we 
 should rejoice in nothing more than to behold their in- 
 stantaneous adoption of an expedient which, we hon- 
 estly believe, would add tenfold to their resources and 
 their influence. Let them operate in large towns on the 
 principle of locality. Let them enter on the territorial 
 possession of this peopled wilderness. Let them erect 
 as many district schools and district chapels as they find 
 that they have room for; and if the Establishment will 
 not be roused by this manifold activity out of its leth- 
 argies, then sectarianism will at length earn, and most 
 rightfully earn, all the honors and all the ascendency 
 of an Establishment. It is, indeed, a most likely thing 
 that the Church would be put into motion; and this of 
 itself were an important good rendered to the country 
 by the industry and zeal of dissenters. But when we 
 look to the fearful deficiency of our ecclesiastical sys-
 
 ON SABBATH-SCHOOLS 179 
 
 tern there is no fear lest all the galley-boats of sectarian- 
 ism, with the slow and ponderous Establishment in tow, 
 will soon overtake the mighty extent of our yet unpro- 
 vided population. Xor do we know of any common 
 enterprise that would promise fairer, at length, for em- 
 bodying the Church and the dissenters together by some 
 such act of comprehensive union as has lately reflected 
 so much honor on the two most numerous classes of dis- 
 senters in our country. 
 
 END OF VOL. I
 
 VOLUME II 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 ON THE RELATION THAT SUBSISTS BETWEEN THE 
 CHRISTIAN AND THE CIVIC ECONOMY OF LARGE 
 TOWNS 
 
 [THE author here summarizes the preceding argument 
 and urges that in each parish the residents of that parish 
 be given the preference in letting vacant pews, so that 
 gradually all the attendants would be neighbors affected 
 by " the principle of locality." The churches would be 
 filled up by pastoral labor, and not merely by pulpit at- 
 traction. He is not sanguine that city officials will ap- 
 preciate the argument and take the wise and necessary 
 measures for improvement. The custom of giving the 
 preference to rich men outside of a parish, instead of to 
 the poor men in it, had already led to that neglect of 
 religion which menaced the Christianity and order of 
 Scottish cities. The danger in a State Church is that 
 " her best and dearest interests happen to lie at the dis- 
 posal of men who have neither the heart to care for the 
 success of a generous enterprise nor the talent to ap- 
 preciate it."] 
 
 It is much better for the right Christian economy of 
 a town when the rule of parochial equity in seat-letting 
 tends to the disappointment of capitalists than to the 
 disappointment of laborers. By the former disappoint- 
 ment an effective interest is created in behalf of more 
 
 181
 
 182 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 churches; and the inconvenience of a limited accom- 
 modation is made to fall upon those who are most able 
 to remedy and extend it; and these wealthy outcasts 
 can form into a powerful body of application for an 
 additional church, so that to reject the application of the 
 wealthy in favor of the poor is to walk in that direct line 
 which leads to the increase of our ecclesiastical provision 
 in great cities. Whereas to reject the applications of 
 the poor in favor of the wealthy is just, to reverse this 
 process. It is to make irrecoverable outcasts of those 
 who are without the means of at all helping themselves. 
 It is to damp into irrecoverable apathy the whole class 
 of society to which they belong. . . . It is thus 
 that men who are the very first to tremble at the out- 
 breakings of radicalism may lie the most deeply charge- 
 able with the guilt of having fed and sustained it in 
 principle; withholding, as they do, the best counter- 
 action to all the brooding elements of a fiery and mis- 
 chievous fermentation. . . . 
 
 [It is true that only a part of those who come under 
 the preaching of the ministry give clear evidence of a 
 real and vital Christianity in their lives; but, so far as 
 men are thus affected, it is exactly through the most 
 carefully devised and thoroughly administered local 
 agencies that this most desirable result is to be attained.] 
 
 By subdividing parishes we just 'multiply these path- 
 ways, and by localizing parishes we just make the 
 pathways shorter and more convenient and accessible 
 than before. We do not set aside the doctrine of a
 
 ON THEIR RELATIONS IN LARGE TOWNS 183 
 
 spiritual influence, for we believe that it is tliis which 
 will be the primary and the essential agent in that great 
 moral regeneration that awaits our species. But just as 
 in the irrigating processes of Egypt the reservoirs are 
 constructed, and the furrows are drawn, and every field 
 on the banks of the l^ile is put into readiness for the 
 coming inundation, so we, knowing that the spirit 
 maketh its passage into the human heart by the word 
 and the ordinances of the gospel, are just laboring at a 
 right process of spiritual irrigation when we provide such 
 arrangements as will bring the greatest number of hu- 
 man beings into broadest and most recurring contact 
 with this word and with these ordinances. 
 
 But at present we have it still more at heart to pro- 
 pitiate our mere civil and political philanthropists to the 
 cause of a right ecclesiastical system for cities. And 
 the argument we would urge upon them is that, under 
 such a system, the civic benefit which they most care 
 for is both anterior in regard of time, and greatly more 
 extended in regard of diffusion, than the Christian bene- 
 fit about which, we fear, they are much less solicitous. 
 . . . He who is most qualified for the Christian good 
 of turning some from darkness to spiritual light, is also 
 most qualified for the civic good of turning many from 
 their habits of Sabbath riot and Sabbath profanation to, 
 at least, a personal attendance on the services of Chris- 
 tianity. ... Conceive one family in humble and 
 operative life, trained, though it may only be to the out- 
 ward regularities of a Christian Sabbath, and taking 
 respectable occupancy of its own pew, where it exhibits
 
 184 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 the domestic group of well-doing parents and well-dis- 
 ciplined children, each exchanging on that day the garb 
 of citizenship for the becoming holiday attire, which 
 thrift and management have enabled them to provide; 
 and retained in constant attendance on the lessons of a 
 minister from whom, if they do not inhale the vital spirit, 
 they will at least imbibe, though perhaps insensibly, 
 somewhat of the sedate and moral tone of Christianity, 
 and be strengthened in their taste for the decencies of 
 even-going citizenship. May we not read on the very 
 aspect of such a family the indications of virtue and 
 order and industry through the week, and a manifest 
 superiority in all these attributes over another family 
 that spends its Sabbaths recklessly and at large? It is 
 certainly not from families of a right Sabbatical habit 
 that popular violence will draw the aliment by which 
 it is upholden, for it is a habit which holds no alliance 
 whatever with dissipation or idleness or discontent. 
 
 It is a sad contemplation to him whose heart is occu- 
 pied with the weight and reality of eternal things that 
 out of so vast a population a mere handful of converts 
 may be the whole fruit of a lengthened and laborious 
 incumbency. And yet it is an experimental truth, that 
 in respect of temporal and immediate good the whole 
 population may be sensibly bettered by the ever recur- 
 ring presence of an affectionate pastor in the midst of 
 them. The primary impulse, it is true, on which he sets 
 out among his people is the good of their immortality; 
 and in the occasional fulfilment of this high errand he 
 finds his encouragement and reward. But he scatters
 
 ON THEIR RELATIONS IN LARGE TOWNS 185 
 
 abroad, and far more largely, among the families an- 
 other good, which, though but of secondary and sub- 
 ordinate importance in his eyes, is enough to stamp him, 
 in the estimation of every civil and political ruler, as by 
 far the most useful servant of the community. There 
 is a substantial, though unnoticed, charm in the visit of 
 a superior. There is a felt compliment in his attentions, 
 which raises an emotion in the breast, the very opposite 
 of that disdainful sentiment toward the higher orders of 
 society that is now of such alarming prevalence among 
 our operative population. There is a real contribution 
 made to the earthly moralities of the poor man by the 
 consciousness of that friendly tie which unites him in 
 an acquaintanceship that is ever growing with the min- 
 ister of his parish. The very aim that is made by the 
 people to afford him a decent reception, in the cleanli- 
 ness of their houses and the dress of their children, is 
 not to be overlooked in our estimate of the bland and 
 beneficial influences that accompany his frequent reitera- 
 tions over the face of his allotted vineyard. 
 
 It both serves to spread this moral cement and forms 
 a mighty addition to its quantity when the minister, by 
 means of a well-appointed eldership, can multiply among 
 his people the number of their Christian friends who 
 enter their abodes and take a kindly interest in their 
 families. 
 
 [The building up of local centres of sympathy, ac- 
 quaintance, and interests would do much to assuage the 
 riotous tendencies which sometimes sweep over a city.]
 
 186 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 It is the distance between the ruler and his subjects 
 which, whether in the unwieldy State or in the unwieldy 
 metropolis, leaves room for those dark and brooding 
 imaginations that are so apt to fret and infuriate into a 
 storm. The more that this distance is alleviated by the 
 subdivisions of locality, the more do the charities of 
 a common companionship mingle in the commotion, 
 and exude an oil upon the waters, that assuages their 
 violence. 
 
 Sabbath-school teachers, above others, have a direct 
 opportunity to observe the refining and elevating effect 
 of intimate and friendly contact with the poor. 
 
 We must not omit the fine remark of Wilberforce re- 
 specting the power of Christianity to elevate the general 
 standard of morals, even in countries where it has failed 
 of positively converting more than a very small propor- 
 tion of the inhabitants. The direct good which Chris- 
 tianity does is when it stamps the impress of its doctrine 
 on the few whom it makes to be the living epistles of 
 Christ Jesus. But they are epistles which, to use the 
 language of Holy Writ, may be seen and read of all men. 
 Society at large may not be able to appreciate the hidden 
 principle of the evangelical life; but they can, at least, 
 peruse the inscription of its visible graces and virtues, 
 and can render them the homage both of their full es- 
 teem and of their partial imitation. . . . 
 
 This is a process the rationale of which might be ob- 
 vious enough, even to a mere earthly understanding, and 
 so might the power and the charm of locality; and so 
 might the effect of one Christian's example in raising
 
 ON THEIR RELATIONS IN LARGE TOWNS 187 
 
 the standard of morality among many who arc not Chris- 
 tians; and so might the tendency of Sabbath-schooling, 
 both to induce a more orderly and civilized habit among 
 the young and to strengthen the tie of kindliness between 
 the teachers and the taught, or between the higher and 
 lower ranks of the community. There is not surely of 
 the mystic or unsubstantial in any of these influences; 
 and if, nevertheless, they be the most faithful stewards 
 of the mysteries of God, from whom they are most ready 
 to descend on the families of our general population, 
 there ought to be an indication here to our men of po- 
 litical ascendency, whether in the State or city corpora- 
 tion, of what that is which forms our best and cheapest 
 defence against the evils of a rude and lawless and 
 profligate community.
 
 CHAPTEK X 
 
 ON THE BEARING WHICH A EIGHT CHRISTIAN ECONOMY 
 HAS UPON PAUPERISM 
 
 WE are able to affirm, on the highest of all authorities, 
 that the poor shall be with us always ; or, in other words, 
 that it is vain to look for the extinction of poverty 
 from the world. And yet we hold it both desirable and 
 practicable to accomplish the extinction of pauperism; 
 so that between the state of poverty and that of pauper- 
 ism there must be a distinction which, to save confusion, 
 ought to be kept in mind and to be clearly apprehended. 
 The epithet poor has a far wider range of application 
 than among the lower orders of the community. We 
 may speak, and speak rightly, of a poor nobleman, or a 
 poor bishop, or a poor baronet. It is enough to bring 
 down the epithet on any individual that out of his earn- 
 ings or property he is not able to maintain himself in 
 the average style of comfort that obtains throughout the 
 class of society to which he belongs. The earl who can- 
 not afford a carriage, and the laborer who cannot afford 
 the fare and the clothing of our general peasantry, how- 
 ever different their claims to our sympathy may be, by 
 being currently termed poor are both made to share alike 
 in this designation. 
 
 188
 
 CHRISTIAN ECONOMY AND PAUPERISM 189 
 
 To be poor is primarily to be in want; and even 
 though the want should be surely provided for by the 
 kindness of neighbors, yet is the epithet still made to 
 rest on the individual who originally wore it. ... 
 The condition of poverty, arising from a defect of power 
 or of means on the part of him who occupies it, will 
 ever, we apprehend, be a frequent circumstance in so- 
 ciety; while the wants of poverty, arising from a defect 
 in the care of relatives or in the humanity of friends and 
 observers, will, we trust, at length be exclusively done 
 away. . . 
 
 A poor man is a man in want of adequate means for 
 his own subsistence. A pauper is a man who lias this 
 want supplemented, in whole or part, out of a legal or 
 compulsory provision. He would not be a pauper by 
 having the whole want supplied to him out of the kind- 
 ness of neighbors, or from the gratuitous allowance of 
 an old master, or from any of the sources of voluntary 
 charity. It is by having relief legally awarded to 
 him, out of money legally raised, that he becomes a 
 pauper. . . 
 
 [This definition of pauperism calls attention to the 
 merely external legal relation. It does not suggest that 
 deep physical and spiritual degradation which marks 
 great numbers as a broken and degenerate class, para- 
 sites, and beggars. In this deeper sense many who re- 
 ceive legal aid are not paupers (in character), and some 
 who are supported by friends are actually paupers some 
 even in rich and respectable families. This distinction 
 goes deeper than the discussion of Chalmers, and is 
 brought out by biology and anthropology.]
 
 190 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 But the truth is that the invention of pauperism, had 
 it been successful, would have gone to annihilate the 
 state of poverty as well as its sufferings. A man cannot 
 be called poor who has a legal right, on the moment 
 that he touches the borders of indigence, to demand that 
 his descending progress shall be arrested and he shall 
 be upheld in a sufficiency of aliment for himself and his 
 family. The law, in fact, has vested him with a prop- 
 erty in the land which he can turn to account so soon 
 as he treads on the confines of poverty; and had this 
 desire been as effective as was hoped and intended, a 
 state of poverty would have been impossible. . . . 
 The truth is that pauperism has neither done away the 
 condition of poverty nor alleviated the evils of it. This 
 attempt of legislation to provide all with a right of pro- 
 tection from the miseries of want has proved vain and 
 impotent, and leaves a strong likelihood behind it that 
 a more real protection would have been afforded had the 
 case been abandoned to the unforced sympathies of our 
 nature, and had it been left to human compassion to 
 soften the wretchedness of a state against the existence 
 of which no artifice of human policy seems to be at all 
 available. 
 
 [While the influences of Christian faith are very 
 helpful in stimulating private benevolence and redeem- 
 ing the poor from degrading habits of dependence, yet 
 the mere abolition of a legal provision for poverty would 
 be enough of itself to call forth the charity of the pros- 
 perous and the resources of self-help among the un- 
 fortunate.]
 
 CHRISTIAN ECONOMY AND PAUPERISM 191 
 
 The first, and by far the most productive of these 
 fountains, is situated among the habits and economies 
 of the people themselves. It is impossible but that an 
 established system of pauperism must induce a great 
 relaxation on the frugality and providential habits of our 
 laboring classes. It is impossible but that it must un- 
 dermine the incentives to accumulation, and, by leading 
 the people to repose that interest on a public provision 
 which would else have been secured by the effects of 
 their own prudence and their own carefulness, it has 
 dried up far more abundant resources in one quarter 
 than it has opened in another. We know not a more 
 urgent principle of our constitution than self-preserva- 
 tion; and it is a principle which not only shrinks from 
 present suffering, but which looks onward to futurity 
 and holds up a defence against the apprehended wants 
 and difficulties of the years that are to come. Were the 
 great reservoir of public charity for the town at large 
 to be shut, there would soon be struck out many family 
 reservoirs, fed by the thrift and sobriety which necessity 
 would then stimulate, but which now the system of pau- 
 perism so long has superseded; and from these there 
 would emanate a more copious supply than is at present 
 ministered out of poor rates to aliment the evening of 
 plebeian life and to equalize all the vicissitudes of its 
 history. 
 
 The second fountain which pauperism has a tendency 
 to shut, and which its abolition would reopen, is the 
 kindness of relatives. One of the most palpable, and at 
 the same time most grievous, effects of this artificial
 
 192 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 system is the dissipation which it has made of the ties 
 and feelings of relationship. It is this which gives rise 
 to the melancholy list of runaway parents, wherewith 
 whole columns of the provincial newspapers of England 
 are oftentimes filled. And then, as if in retaliation, 
 there is the cruel abandonment of parents by their own 
 offspring to the cold and reluctant hand of public 
 charity. 
 
 A third fountain on which pauperism has set one of 
 its strongest seals, and which would instantly be un- 
 locked on the abolition of the system, is the sympathy 
 of the wealthier for the poorer classes of society. It 
 has transformed the whole character of charity by turn- 
 ing a matter of love into a matter of litigation, and so 
 has seared and shut many a heart out of which the spon- 
 taneous emanations of good-will would have gone plenti- 
 fully forth among the abodes of the destitute. We know 
 not how a more freezing arrest can be laid on the cur- 
 rent of benevolence than when it is met in the tone of 
 a rightful and, perhaps, indignant demand for that 
 wherewith it was ready, on its own proper impulse, to 
 pour refreshment and relief over the whole field of as- 
 certained wretchedness. There is a mighty difference 
 of effect between an imperative and an imploring ap- 
 plication. The one calls out the jealousy of our nature 
 and puts us upon the attitude of surly and determined 
 resistance. The other calls out the compassion of our 
 nature and inclines us to the free and willing movements 
 of generosity. . 
 
 But there is still another fountain that we hold to be
 
 CHRISTIAN ECONOMY AND PAUPERISM 193 
 
 greatly more productive even than the last, both in re- 
 spect to the amount of relief that is yielded by it and also 
 in respect to the more fit and timely accommodation 
 wherewith it suits itself to the ever varying accidents 
 and misfortunes of our common humanity. There is a 
 local distance between the wealthy and the poor which 
 is unfavorable to the operation of the last fountain, but 
 this is amply compensated in the one we are about to 
 specify; and some may be surprised when we intimate 
 that of far superior importance to the sympathy of the 
 rich for the poor do we hold to be the sympathy of the 
 poor for one another. In the veriest depths of unmixed 
 and extended plebeianism, and where, for many streets 
 together, not one house is to be seen which indicates 
 more than the rank of a common laborer, are there feel- 
 ings of mutual kindness and capabilities of mutual aid 
 that greatly outstrip the conceptions of a hurried and 
 superficial observer. And but for pauperism, which has 
 released immediate neighbors from the feeling they 
 would otherwise have had, that in truth the most im- 
 portant benefactors of the poor are the poor themselves, 
 there had been a busy internal operation of charity in 
 these crowded lanes and densely peopled recesses that 
 would have proved a more effectual guarantee against 
 the starvation of any individual than ever can be 
 reared by any of the artifices of human policy. One 
 who has narrowly looked to some of these vicinities and 
 witnessed the small but numerous contributions that 
 pour in upon a family whose distresses have attracted 
 observation, and seen how food, and service, and fuel 
 13
 
 194 CHKISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 are rendered in littles from neighbors that have been 
 drawn, by a kind of moral gravitation, to the spot where 
 disease and destitution hold out their most impressive 
 aspect; and has arithmetic withal for comparing the 
 amount of these unnoticed items with the whole produce 
 of that more visible beneficence which is imported from 
 abroad and scattered by the hand of affluence over the 
 district we say that such an observer will be sure to 
 conclude that, after all, the best safeguards against the 
 horrors of extreme poverty have been planted by the 
 hand of nature in the very region of poverty itself; 
 that the numerous though scanty rivulets, which have 
 their rise within its confines, do more for the refresh- 
 ment of its more desolate places than would the broad 
 streams that may be sent forth upon it from the great 
 reservoir of pauperism. . . . Should pauperism be 
 abolished, let but humanity abide in all the wonted at- 
 tributes and sympathies which belong to her, and we may 
 be sure that for the supplies which issued from the store- 
 house of public charity there would be ample compen- 
 sation in the breaking out of those manifold lesser chari- 
 ties that never fail to be evolved when human suffering 
 is brought into contact with human observation. . . . 
 
 [This word " observation " suggests one of the strong- 
 est objections to Chalmer's method. The rich do not 
 live near the poor, do not observe them, do not know or 
 feel their sufferings, and so escape the appeal of visible 
 misery. Therefore an undue and unjust part of the bur- 
 den of relief would fall precisely where the resources are 
 feeblest, on the poor neighbors. The present-day charity
 
 CHRISTIAN ECONOMY AND PAUPERISM 195 
 
 organization societies and social settlements are aware of 
 this difficulty, and seek to meet it, at least in part, by a 
 system of friendly visiting and actual residence among 
 the poor. The " principle of locality," especially in very 
 large cities, must not be carried to an absurd extreme. To 
 the touching illustration of noble kindness in humble 
 places may be added the fine passages in Charles Simmer's 
 oration, " The True Grandeur of Nations."] 
 
 There is a statement made by Mr. Buxton, in his 
 valuable work upon prisons, which is strongly illustrative 
 of the force of human sympathy. In the jail of Bristol, 
 the allowance of bread to the criminals is beneath the 
 fair rate of human subsistence, and to the debtors there 
 is no allowance at all, leaving these last to be provided 
 for by their own proper resources or by the random 
 charity of the town. It has occasionally happened that 
 both these securities have failed them, and that some of 
 their number would inevitably have perished of hunger 
 had not the criminals, rather than endure the spectacle 
 of so much agony, given a part of their own scanty al- 
 lowance, and so shared in the suffering along with them. 
 It is delightful to remark that the sympathy of humble 
 life, instead of the frail and imaginative child of poetry, 
 is a plant of such sturdy endurance as to survive even 
 the roughest of those processes by which a human being 
 is conducted to the last stages of depravity. Now if the 
 working of this good principle may thus be detected 
 among the veriest outcasts of human society, shall we 
 confide nothing to its operation among the people and 
 the families of ordinary life? . . .
 
 196 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 It will be seen, then, that we do not hold a good Chris- 
 tian economy to be indispensable to the negation of pau- 
 perism. We think that simply upon the absence of this 
 system from any country there will be in it less of un- 
 relieved poverty than when the system is in full estab- 
 lishment and operation. . . . 
 
 [For the actual facts in respect to suffering under the 
 voluntary and under the legal systems in Great Britain, 
 see Lamond, " The Scottish Poor Laws." Chalmers 
 seemed to be unable to consider legal relief as a true 
 expression of the benevolence of a community.] 
 
 We cannot affirm that never in any instance would 
 there be a remainder of want unprovided for, but we 
 are strongly persuaded that it would fall infinitely short 
 of the want which is now unreached and unrelieved by 
 all the ministrations of legalized charity. And we reckon 
 that this argument would hold, even apart from Chris- 
 tianity, on the mere play of those natural principles of 
 self-preservation and social and relative sympathy which 
 are inseparable from the human constitution. So that 
 in Constantinople the condition of the people would be 
 economically worse were pauperism introduced among 
 them, and in London the condition of the people would, 
 at this moment, have been economically better had pau- 
 perism never been instituted. . . . There may occur 
 a very rare instance of positive starvation ; but let it never 
 be forgotten that instances also occur in the British me- 
 tropolis, and we do think it more likely to happen there 
 just because of pauperism, which has substituted the tardy
 
 CHEISTIAN ECONOMY AND PAUPERISM 197 
 
 and circuitous process of a court of administration for 
 the prompt and timely compassions of an immediate 
 neighborhood. 
 
 But though it were utterly misconceiving the truth 
 and philosophy of the whole subject to affirm that Chris- 
 tianity was indispensable, yet there is a way in which 
 it acts as an element of mighty power and importance in 
 this department of human affairs. It is most true that 
 nature, when simply left to the development of her own 
 spontaneous and inborn principles, will render a better 
 service to humanity than can be done by the legal charity 
 of England; but it is also true that Christianity urges 
 this development still further, and so gives an augment- 
 ed and overpassing sufficiency to nature. . . . The 
 man who is a Christian will be the most ready to labor 
 with his own hands rather than be burdensome; and, if 
 he have dependent relatives, he will be the most ready 
 to provide for those of his own house and of his own 
 kindred ; and, if he be rich, he will be the most willing 
 to distribute and ready to communicate; and, if he be 
 poor, still, with his humble mite, will he aspire after the 
 blessing that is promised to a giver, and shun, to the utter- 
 most, the condition of a receiver. Christianity does not 
 originate the principles in society, but Christianity adds 
 prodigiously to the power and intenseness of their 
 operation. . . . 
 
 We have, under a good parochial economy, other and 
 perhaps more powerful securities for an ample compen- 
 sation being rendered to human want should pauperism 
 be done away. Out of the mingling and acquaintance-
 
 198 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 ship that would ensue among the various orders of so- 
 ciety, there were a greatly more honorable feeling that 
 would arise in the breasts of the poor and uphold them 
 in their generous stand against the humiliations of public 
 charity. The homage rendered to the dignity of each 
 household by the annual presence of the minister, and 
 the more frequent visitations of his parochial agents, 
 were not without its efficacy in rearing a preventive bar- 
 rier to stop the descent and the degradation of many 
 families. When the rich go forth on a plebeian terri- 
 tory, in the ostensible capacity of almoners, we are 
 aware what the character of that stout and clamorous 
 reaction is which is sure to come back upon them. But 
 let them go forth on those topics of our common nature 
 which tend to assimilate all the ranks of life; let edu- 
 cation, or piety, or friendship be the occasion of those 
 short but frequent interviews, where the inequalities of 
 condition are for the time forgotten; let Christian 
 philanthropy, for which a right parochial apparatus 
 would give such ample scope and exercise, guide the foot- 
 steps of our official men to the humblest of our city 
 habitations, and there suggest, in conversation, all that 
 sense and sympathy can devise for the immortal well- 
 being of the inmates; though these applications should 
 fail, in many thousand instances, of their direct and 
 primary design, yet let them be repeated and kept up 
 and one result will be sure to come out of them a more 
 erect, and honorable, and high-minded population, less 
 able than before to brook the exposure of their necessi- 
 ties to the observation of another, and more strenuous
 
 CHRISTIAN ECONOMY AND PAUPERISM 199 
 
 than before in sustaining their respectability on that 
 loftier platform to which they have been admitted by 
 the ennobling intercourse of their superiors in society. 
 . . . The system of locality, when carried into effect, 
 not only exposes the people to the view of their su- 
 periors, but it exposes them more fully and more fre- 
 quently to the view of each other. One sure result of 
 this system is that it supplies contiguous families with 
 common places of resort, as the parish church and the 
 parish schools; and furnishes them with objects of com- 
 mon interest and attention, as their minister or the 
 Sabbath-school teachers of their children; and groups 
 the inhabitants of small vicinities into occasional do- 
 mestic assemblages, as when the minister performs his 
 annual round of household ministrations, or, under the 
 fostering care of himself and his agents, the more re- 
 ligious of the district hold their weekly meetings for 
 the exercises of piety. It is unavoidable that, with such 
 processes as these, a closer and more manifold acquaint- 
 anceship shall grow up in every immediate neighbor- 
 hood, and that moral distance which now obtains, even 
 among families in a state of juxtaposition, shall be 
 greatly reduced; and the people will live more under 
 the view and within the observation of the little be- 
 setting public wherewith the ties of fellowship are now 
 more strengthened and multiplied than before; and this, 
 independently of all Christian and all civic virtue, will 
 bring the natural pride of character into alliance with 
 those various habits which go to counteract the vice and 
 the misery of pauperism. The consciousness of a nearer
 
 200 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 and more impending regard than is now directed toward 
 them would make them all more resolute to shun the 
 degradation of charity and the obloquy they would in- 
 cur by a shameful abandonment of their relatives, and 
 even that certain stigma which would be affixed to them 
 were the liberality of some open-hearted neighbor eulo- 
 gized in their hearing and they felt themselves to suffer 
 by the comparison. . . . 
 
 There is an utter inadvertency to the laws of our uni- 
 versal nature on the part of those who think that in 
 the humblest circles of plebeianism there is not the 
 operation of the very same principles which may be wit- 
 nessed in the higher circles of fashionable life. There 
 is a style of manner and appearance that is admired 
 among the poor, and which, when introduced by one of 
 the families, constitutes it the leader of a fashion that 
 is apt to be emulated by all the others. There is a cer- 
 tain bon ton by which the average feeling of every 
 district is represented; and nothing contributes more 
 powerfully to raise it than the residence of an individual 
 whose attention to the duties of his station has kept him 
 nobly and manfully afloat above the degradations of 
 charity. The infection of such an example spreads 
 among the neighbors. What he shuns from principle 
 they spurn at from pride; and thus the very envies and 
 jealousies of the human heart go to augment our con- 
 fidence, that should the economy of pauperism in our 
 cities give place to a right Christian economy there will, 
 in the spirit and capabilities of the people themselves, 
 be an ample compensation for all that is withdrawn from 
 them.
 
 CHRISTIAN ECONOMY AND PAUPERISM 201 
 
 We are most thoroughly aware of the incredulity 
 wherewith all such statements are listened to by men 
 hackneyed among the details of official business, and who 
 hold every argument that is couched in general language, 
 and is drawn from the principles of human nature, to 
 be abstract and theoretical. But they should be taught 
 that their institutional experience is not the experience 
 which throws any light upon the real and original merits 
 of this question; that though they have been working 
 for years, with their fingers, among the accounts and the 
 manipulations of city pauperism, their eyes may never, 
 all the while, have been upon the only relevant field of 
 observation; that, practitioners though they be, it is not 
 at all in the tract of their deliberations or their doings 
 where true practical wisdom is to be gotten; that the 
 likeliest counsellor upon this subject is not the man who 
 has travelled, however long and laboriously, over the 
 inner department of committeeship, but the man who 
 travels, and that on an errand distinct from common 
 charity, over the outer department of the actual and 
 living population. In one word, a local Sabbath teacher, 
 with ordinary shrewdness of observation, and who meets 
 the people free of all that disguise which is so readily 
 assumed on every occasion of mercenary intercourse be- 
 tween them and their superiors, from him would we ex- 
 pect a greatly sounder deliverance than from the mere 
 man of place or of penmanship, on the adequacy of the 
 lower orders to their own comfort and their own inde- 
 pendence. It is a sufficient reply to the charge of san- 
 guine or visionary, which is so often advanced against
 
 202 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 our confident affirmations upon this topic, that we invite 
 the testimonies of .all those with whom a district of 
 plebeianism is the scene of their daily, or at least fre- 
 quent, visitations. . . . 
 
 [He then shows, from actual trial in certain poor par- 
 ishes of Glasgow, that his plan of appealing to the re- 
 sources of the poor had been successful among Sabbath- 
 school teachers. He urges that " pauperism " stands in 
 the way of the moral ends of the Church.] 
 
 It is, indeed, a heavy incumbrance on the work of a 
 clergyman, whose office it is to substitute among his peo- 
 ple the graces of a new character for the hardness, and 
 the selfishness, and the depraved tendencies of nature, 
 that, in addition to the primary and essential evils of the 
 human constitution, he has to struggle, in his holy war- 
 fare, against a system so replete as pauperism is, with 
 all that can minister to the worst or that can wither up 
 the best affections of our species. 
 
 [The connection between moral regeneration and the 
 outward institutions of society he further illustrates from 
 the example of the excise laws which fostered smuggling 
 among a people normally honest and upright. Merely 
 by abolishing the tax, or by an important reduction of it, 
 this crime would disappear. Ultra-spiritualists overlook 
 the fact that character is influenced by bad institutions.] 
 
 We hold pauperism to be a still more deadly antag- 
 onist to the morality of our nation, . . . holding 
 forth a cup of seeming bounty, but which is charged
 
 CHRISTIAN ECONOMY AND PAUPERISM 203 
 
 with a slow and insinuating poison, wherewith it has 
 tainted the whole frame of society. . . . It is a fright- 
 ful spectacle; and the heart of the Christian as well as 
 of the civil philanthropist ought to be solemnized by it. 
 He, of all men, should not look on with indifference 
 while the vapor of this teeming exhalation so thickens 
 and spreads itself throughout the whole moral atmos- 
 phere of our land. And when he witnesses the fell 
 malignity of its operation, both on the graver and more 
 amiable virtues of our nature; when he sees how dili- 
 gence in the callings, and economy in the habits, of in- 
 dividuals are alike extinguished by it, and both the 
 tendernesses of relationship and the wider charities of 
 life are chilled and overborne, we should expect of this 
 friend, to the higher interests of our species, that he, 
 among all his fellows, would be most intent on the de- 
 struction of a system that so nips the best promises of 
 spiritual cultivation and under the balefulness of whose 
 shadow are now withering into arid decay and sure an- 
 nihilation the very fairest of the fruits of righteousness.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 ON THE BEARING WHICH A RIGHT CIVIC ECONOMY HAS 
 UPON PAUPERISM 
 
 [AFTER repeating his assertion that all public relief 
 is pernicious, and that charity should be left to free 
 private care:] 
 
 The public charity of Scotland is less pernicious than 
 that of England, only because less wide in its deviation 
 from nature, and less hostile to the operation of those 
 natural principles that prompt both to the care of self- 
 preservation and to the exercise of the social and relative 
 humanities of life. . . . The philanthropists of Eng- 
 land are looking in the wrong quarter when, convinced 
 of the superiority of our system, they try to discover it 
 in the constitution of our courts of supply, or in the 
 working and mechanism of that apparatus which they 
 regard as so skilfully adapted for the best and fittest 
 and most satisfying relief among the destitute. When 
 they read of the population of a Scottish parish upheld 
 in all the expenses of their pauperism for the sum of 
 twenty pounds yearly, and that in many a parish of Eng- 
 land the pauperism of an equal population costs fifteen 
 hundred pounds, they naturally ask by what strenuous- 
 ness of management it is, or by what sagacious accom- 
 
 204
 
 PAUPERISM 205 
 
 modation of means to an end, that a thing ^o marvellous 
 can be accomplished. The truth is that the administra- 
 tions for the poor in the Scottish parish are not distinctly 
 conscious of any great strenuousness or sagacity in the 
 business. The achievement is not due to any manage- 
 ment of theirs, but purely to the manageable nature of 
 the subject, which is a population whose habits and whose 
 hopes are accommodated to a state of matters where a 
 compulsory provision for the poor is unknown. 
 
 [Allusion is made to the Scottish system of relief by 
 the Kirk-Session from funds g'iven as legacies or as col- 
 lections at church services. The claim is made that the 
 destitute under the voluntary system are not more nu- 
 merous than where the compulsory tax system has been 
 introduced.] 
 
 In England the money that is expended on their poor 
 is not given, but levied. It is raised by the authority 
 of law, and the sum thus assessed upon each parish ad- 
 mits of being increased with the growing exigencies of 
 the people from whatever cause these exigencies may 
 have arisen. As the sure result of such an economy the 
 pauperism of England has swollen out to its present 
 alarming dimensions; and, in many instances, the ex- 
 penditure of its parishes bears the proportion of a hun- 
 dred to one with the expenditure of those parishes in 
 Scotland which are equally populous, but which still re- 
 main under the system of gratuitous administration. 
 
 Now, in most of the border parishes of Scotland, as 
 well as in many of its large towns, there is the conjunc-
 
 206 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 tion of these two methods. There is a fund raised by 
 voluntary contributions at the church doors ; and, to help 
 out the supposed deficiencies of this, there is, moreover, 
 a fund raised by legal assessment. We can thus, in 
 Great Britain, have the advantage of beholding pauper- 
 ism in all its stages, from the embryo of its first rudi- 
 ments in a northern parish, through the successive steps 
 of its progress as we travel southward, till we arrive at 
 parishes where the property is nearly overborne by the 
 weight of an imposition that is unknown in other coun- 
 tries; and where, in several instances, the property has 
 been reduced to utter worthlessness, and so been aban- 
 doned. We can, at the same time, the better judge from 
 this varied exhibition of the effect of pauperism on the 
 comfort and character of those for whose welfare it was 
 primarily instituted. 
 
 [He recommends a gradual return, by successive steps, 
 to the former system of voluntary charity administered 
 by parish officers. After stating the essential elements 
 of the new system, in which all the funds for districts 
 are heaped together in one widely advertised and con- 
 spicuous treasury, he adds:] 
 
 One evil consequence of thus uniting all the parishes 
 of a town under the authority of one general board is 
 that it brings out to greater ostensibility the whole econ- 
 omy of pauperism, and throws an air of greater magnifi- 
 cence and power over its administrations. . . . Pau- 
 perism would become less noxious simply by throwing 
 it into such a form as might make it less noticeable.
 
 PAUPERISM 207 
 
 For that relaxation of economy, and of the relative 
 duties which follows in the train of pauperism, is not 
 the proportion of what pauperism yields, but of what it 
 is expected to yield, and therefore it is of so much im- 
 portance that it be not set before the eye of the people 
 in such characters of promise or of power as might de- 
 ceive them into large and visionary expectations. . . . 
 And it were well, not merely for the purpose of moderat- 
 ing and restraining the sanguine arithmetic of our native 
 poor, that the before undivided pauperism should be 
 parcelled out into smaller and less observable jurisdic- 
 tions, but this would also have the happy effect of slack- 
 ening the importation of poor from abroad. It is not 
 by the actual produce of a public charity, but by the 
 report and semblance of it, that we are to estimate its 
 effect in drawing to its neighborhood those expectant 
 families who are barely able to subsist during the period 
 that is required to establish a legal residence and claim, 
 thus bringing the most injurious competition, not merely 
 on the charity itself, but overstocking the market with 
 laborers, and so causing a hurtful depression on the gen- 
 eral comfort of our operative population. 
 
 But, secondly, the more wide the field of superin- 
 tendence is, the greater must be the moral distance be- 
 tween the administrators of the charity and its recipients. 
 A separate and independent agency for each parish are 
 in likelier circumstances for a frequent intercourse and 
 acquaintanceship with the people of their own peculiar 
 charge than are the members and office-bearers of a great 
 municipal institution for the poor of a whole city. . . .
 
 208 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 The dispensers of relief, oppressed by the weight and 
 multiplicity of applications, and secretly conscious, at 
 the same time, of their inability to discern aright into 
 the merit and necessity of each of them, are apt to take 
 refuge either in an indiscriminate facility, which will 
 refuse nothing, or in an indiscriminate resistance, which 
 will suffer nothing but clamors and importunities to 
 overbear it. And, on the other hand, the claimants for 
 relief, whom the minute inquiries of a parochial agent 
 could easily have repressed, or his mild representations 
 and, perhaps, friendly attentions could easily have satis- 
 fied . . . they feel no such delicacies toward the mem- 
 bers of a stately and elevated board before whom they have 
 preferred their stout demand, and, in safety from whose 
 prying and patient inspection, they can make the hardy 
 asseveration both of their necessities and of their rights. 
 No power of scrutiny or of guardianship can make com- 
 pensation for this disadvantage. No multiplication what- 
 ever of agents and office-bearers on the part of the great 
 city establishment can raise the barrier of such an ef- 
 fectual vigilance against unworthy applications, as is 
 simply provided by the ecclesiastical police of a parish, 
 whose espionage is the fruit of a fair and frequent inter- 
 course with the families and can carry no jealousies or 
 heart-burnings along with it. The sure consequence of 
 those intimate and repeated minglings which take place 
 between the people of a parish and its deacons and elders 
 is that a growing shame on the one side will prevent 
 many applications which would else have been made, 
 and that a growing command on the other over all the
 
 PAUPERISM 2U9 
 
 details and difficulties of humble life will lead to the 
 easy disposal of many more applications which would 
 else have been acceded to. There may, in fact, be such 
 a close approximation to the poor on the part of local 
 overseers as will bring within their view those natural 
 and antecedent capabilities for their relief and sus- 
 tenance that ought, we think, to have superseded the 
 ministrations of pauperism altogether. By urging the 
 applicant to spirit and strenuousness in his own cause, 
 or by remonstrating with those of his own kindred, or 
 by the statement of his case to neighbors, or, finally, if 
 he thought it worthy of such an exertion, by interesting 
 a wealthy visitor in his behalf, may the Christian friend 
 of his manageable district easily bring down a sufficiency 
 for all its wants from those fountains of supply which 
 were long at work ere pauperism was invented, and will 
 again put forth their activity after pauperism is de- 
 stroyed. 
 
 But these fountains are too deep and internal for the 
 observation of legal or general overseers, nor could they 
 bring them to act though they would on the chaos of 
 interminable and widely scattered applications that come 
 before them. In these circumstances they have no other 
 resource than to meet them legally, which is tantamount, 
 in the vast majority of instances, to meeting them com- 
 batively. . . . The sure result of every additional 
 expenditure through the channels of an artificial pau- 
 perism do we behold the rich more desperate of doing ef- 
 fectual good, and the poor more dissatisfied with all that 
 is done than before. . . . 
 14
 
 210 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 The third objection against the system of a general 
 superintendence over the pauperism of all the parishes, 
 and of a general fund out of which each shall draw for 
 its own expenditure: The imagination of a mighty and 
 inexhaustible fund is not more sure to excite the appe- 
 tite, and so to relax the frugal and providential habits of 
 its receivers, than it is sure to relax the vigilance of its 
 dispensers. To leave to each Session the right of sitting 
 in judgment over the cases of its own parochial appli- 
 cants, after having wrested from it its own peculiar 
 revenue, and then to deal forth upon it from a joint 
 stock such supplies of money as it may require for its 
 expenditure, is the most likely arrangement that could 
 have been devised for establishing in each parish a most 
 lax and careless and improvident administration. . . . 
 If we wish to see, in the business of a Kirk-Session, 
 somewhat of the same alertness and quick-sightedness 
 and patient attention wherewith an individual in private 
 life looks after the business of his private affairs, we 
 must throw it upon its own resources, and so leave it to 
 square its own outgoings by its own incomings. It is 
 not in human nature that any one corporation can be 
 so tender of the funds of another as it would be of its 
 own; nor is there a more effectual method of encourag- 
 ing, in one set of administrators, a facility in the ad- 
 mission of new cases than to place with another set of 
 administrators the fund for supplying them. 
 
 [After reasserting his belief that natural forces would 
 care for all necessary relief, he turns from general theory 
 to a particular experience with the local system:]
 
 PAUPERISM 211 
 
 It were far more satisfactory that the thing be 
 tried than that the thing be argued. . . . It is on 
 this account that we feel disposed to estimate at so high 
 a value the experience of Glasgow; nor are we aware 
 of any given space on the whole domain, at least of 
 1 Scottish pauperism, where a touchstone so delicate and 
 decisive of the question could possibly be applied; and 
 we are most confidently persuaded that if the progress of 
 this city toward the English system could possibly be 
 arrested then it may also be arrested with equal or 
 greater facility in any parish of Scotland, judging that 
 to be indeed an experimentum crucis which is made 
 with such materials as an exclusively manufacturing 
 population, and at such a time too as that of the great- 
 est adversity which the trade of the place had ever to 
 sustain in the history of its many fluctuations. 
 
 But it will be necessary to premise a short general 
 account of the method in which its pauperism wont to 
 be administered. 
 
 Each parish is divided into districts, called propor- 
 tions, over which an elder is appointed, whose business 
 it is to receive from the people belonging to it, and who 
 are induced to become paupers, their first applications 
 for public relief. The fund, which principally arises 
 from the free-will offerings that are collected weekly 
 at the church doors of the different parishes, is kept 
 distinct from the fund that arises out of the legal as- 
 sessments; so that when any application was made to 
 the elder from his district, he had to judge whether the 
 case was of so light a nature as that it could be met
 
 212 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 and provided for out of the first and smallest of these 
 funds, or whether it was a case of such magnitude as 
 justified the immediate transmission of it to the admin- 
 istration of the second fund. It so happens that, except- 
 ing on rare occasions, the primary applications for relief 
 are brought upon the fund raised by collections, and 
 therefore come, in the first instance, under the cogni- 
 zance and control of the Kirk-Session of that parish out 
 of which the applications have arisen. So that generally 
 at the first stage in the history of the pauper he stands 
 connected with the Kirk-Session to which he belongs and 
 is enrolled as one of their paupers at the monthly allow- 
 ance of from two to five shillings. 
 
 It is here, however, proper to remark that the differ- 
 ent Kirk-Sessions did not retain their own proper col- 
 lections for a fund out of which they might issue their 
 own proper disbursements, but that all the collections 
 were thrown into one mass, subject to the control of a 
 body of administrators, named the General Session, and 
 made up of all the members of all the separate sessions 
 of the city. From this reservoir, thus fed by weekly 
 parochial contributions, there issued back again such 
 monthly supplies upon each subordinate Session as the 
 General Session judged to be requisite, on such regard 
 being had, as they were disposed to give to the number 
 and necessities of those poor that were actually on, the 
 roll of each parish. So that in as far as the administra- 
 tion of the voluntary fund for charity was concerned, 
 it was conducted according to a system that had all the 
 vices which we have already tried to enumerate, and the
 
 PAUPERISM 213 
 
 mischief of which was scarcely alleviated by the occa- 
 sional scrutinies that were made under the authority of 
 the General Session for the purpose of purifying and 
 reducing the rolls of all that pauperism which lay within 
 the scope of their jurisdiction. 
 
 But we have already stated that even in the first in- 
 stance some cases occurred of more aggravated necessity 
 and distress than a Kirk-Session felt itself able for or 
 would venture to undertake. These were transmitted 
 direct to the Town Hospital, a body vested with the ad- 
 ministration of the compulsory fund, raised by legal 
 assessment throughout the city for the purpose of sup- 
 plementing that revenue which is gathered at the church 
 door and which, with a few trifling additions from other 
 sources, constitutes the sole public aliment of the poor 
 in the great majority of our Scottish parishes. There 
 were only, however, a small number who found their 
 way to the Town Hospital without taking their middle 
 passage to it by the Kirk-Session; so that the main host 
 of that pauperism which made good its entry on the 
 compulsory fund came not directly and at once from the 
 population, but through those parochial bodies of admin- 
 istration for the voluntary fund, whose cases, as they 
 either multiplied in number or became more aggravated 
 in kind, were transferred from their own rolls to those 
 of this other institution. This transference took place 
 when the largest sum awarded by the Session was deemed 
 not sufficient for the pauper, who, as he became older 
 and more necessitous, was recommended for admittance 
 on their ampler fund to the weekly committee of the
 
 214 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 Town Hospital. So that each Session might have been 
 regarded as having two doors, one of them a door of 
 admittance from the population who stand at the mar- 
 gin of pauperism, and another of them a door of egress 
 to the Town Hospital, through which the occupiers of 
 the outer court made their way to the inner temple. 
 The Sessions, in fact, were the feeders or conductors by 
 which the Town Hospital received its pauperism, that, 
 after lingering awhile on this path of conveyance, 
 was impelled onward to the farther extremity, and 
 was at length thrust into the bosom of the wealthier 
 institution by the pressure that constantly accumulated 
 behind it. 
 
 [Under this system, which made access to the city 
 fund so easy, pauperism trebled in a few years. Chal- 
 mers thought that a better way w T ould be to leave to each 
 district Session the funds collected in its district and to 
 make that Session responsible alone for all its paupers. 
 This would simplify their duties and increase a sense 
 of their responsibility and power. All the old paupers 
 would be assisted, until their death, from the general 
 fund, and all new cases would be left to each local parish, 
 without assistance from the wealthy parishes. 
 
 The American reader will see at once that in our 
 cities this would mean that the rich residents of the 
 boulevards would be almost absolutely freed from the 
 duty of helping the families of the dependent poor, and 
 that this system would roll the entire burden upon those 
 who already have enough to do to keep the wolf from 
 entering their own homes. Evidently Dr. Chalmers be- 
 lieved that the time would soon come when there would 
 be very few of the poor who would need or ask for help,
 
 PAUPERISM 215 
 
 and that the burden would be comparatively light. lie 
 expressly resists the suggestion that the rich parishes 
 should send of their superfluity to the poorer parishes, lest 
 this method should excite a " rapacious expectancy on 
 the part of the people."] 
 
 Pauperism is a bugbear which shrinks and vanishes 
 almost into nothing before the touch of a stricter 
 inquiry and a closer personal intercourse with the 
 families. 
 
 They will find that by every new approach which they 
 make to the subjects of their care and guardianship the 
 capabilities of the people themselves rise upon their ob- 
 servation ; and that every utterance which has been made 
 about the stimulating and the reopening of the natural 
 sources for the relief of indigence, in proportion to the 
 closing of the artificial source, is the effusion, not of 
 fancy, but of experience. The task may look a little 
 formidable to them at its commencement. But they 
 may be assured of the facility and the pleasure in which 
 it will at length terminate, and that clamor and discon- 
 tent will subside among the poor, just according as they 
 are less allured from the expedients of nature and Provi- 
 dence for their relief by the glare and the magnitude of 
 city institutions. Along with the humbleness there will 
 also soon be felt the kindliness of a parochial economy 
 after the heartless generalities of the present system 
 have all been broken up and dissipated; and, bating a 
 few outcries of turbulence or menace, which would 
 have been far more frequent and more acrimonious 
 under the old economy than the new, will every Kirk-
 
 216 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 Session that enters fearlessly upon the undertaking 
 speedily make its way to the result of a parish better 
 served and better satisfied than ever. 
 
 There is not a parish so sunk in helplessness that 
 might not be upheld in public charity on the strength 
 of its own proper and inherent capabilities. And this 
 without harshness; without a tithe of those asperities and 
 heart-burnings among the people which are the sure at- 
 tendants on a profuse dispensation; without the aspect 
 at all of that repulsive disdain which frowns on the city 
 multitude from the great city institution. 
 
 [The author is sanguine that pauperism would melt 
 away in five years or a little more. He has in mind a 
 parish where the Establishment is largely supported by 
 endowments; where there are comparatively few help- 
 less and enfeebled families; and where the people are 
 protected against immigration of dependents.] 
 
 There is only one expedient, the use of which, on 
 every principle of equity and fair self-defence, must be 
 conceded to them. They should be protected against 
 the influx of poor from other parishes; and, if there be 
 no law of residence mutually applicable to the various 
 districts of the same city, then it is quite imperative on 
 the Session that is d-isengaged from the rest not to out- 
 strip in liberality of allowance the practice which ob- 
 tains under that prior and general management from 
 which it has separated, else there would be an over- 
 whelming importation of paupers from the contiguous 
 places. . . . With this single proviso, let a de-
 
 PAUPERISM 217 
 
 tached and emancipated Kirk-Session go forth upon its 
 task, and let it spare no labor on the requisite investiga- 
 tions, and let it ply all the right expedients of prevention, 
 the application of which is more for the interest of the 
 claimant than for the interest of the charitable fund; 
 let it examine not merely into his own proper and per- 
 sonal capabilities, but let it urge, and remonstrate, and 
 negotiate with his relatives and friends, and lay down 
 upon himself the lessons of economy and good conduct- 
 in a word, let it knock at the gate of all those natural 
 fountains of supply which we have so often insisted on 
 as being far more kindly and productive than is the 
 artificial fountain of pauperism, which it were well for 
 the population could it be conclusively sealed and shut 
 up altogether; let every attempt, by moral suasion and 
 the influence of a growing acquaintanceship with the 
 families, be made on the better and more effective sources 
 for the relief of want, ere the Session shall open its own 
 door and send forth supplies from its own storehouse on 
 the cases that have been submitted to it; and it will be 
 found, as the result of all this management, prosecuted 
 in the mere style of nature and common-sense, that the 
 people will at once become both more moderate in their 
 demands and, on the whole, more satisfied with the new 
 administration under which they have been placed. We 
 are really not aware how this question can be brought 
 more closely and decisively to the test of experiment 
 than by a body of men thus laying their immediate 
 hand upon it; and, surely, it were only equitable to 
 wait the trial and the failure of such an experiment ere
 
 218 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 the adversaries of pauperism shall be denounced either 
 as unpractised or as unfeeling spectators. 
 
 [It may be noted here that recent American experi- 
 ence has seemed to prove that Chalmers was not visionary 
 or unfeeling. Under the most difficult circumstances, 
 with the most concentrated and intense poverty, several 
 great cities have abolished outdoor relief and have found 
 that private charity was able to care for the poor more 
 tenderly and efficiently than public officers. Reference 
 is made to the cities of Brooklyn, New York, and Phila- 
 delphia. And in Chicago, gentlemen of high character 
 and long experience in the County Board have declared 
 that the poor would be better off if no aid were given 
 from funds raised by assessment.]
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 ON THE PRESENT STATE AND FUTURE PROSPECTS OF 
 PAUPERISM IN GLASGOW 
 
 [!N confirmation of his theory Chalmers appeals to 
 the experience of St. John's parish, Glasgow. Consid- 
 ering the number and character of its population, the 
 share of the city funds would have been twelve to four- 
 teen hundred pounds yearly. But the plan here advo- 
 cated was set in motion; the parish was cut off from 
 city aid; the Sunday-morning collection was made to 
 support the paupers already on the list, mostly aged and 
 rapidly passing away by death. The new cases \vere 
 assisted out of the collection from the evening congre- 
 gation, who were generally poor people themselves. 
 Under this system, after a trial of two and one-half years, 
 the meagre sum thus collected was found sufficient for 
 all the current appeals. There was a prospect that the 
 morning fund would soon be available for educational 
 and other enterprises of permanent local value.] 
 
 A result so gratifying has certainly exceeded our own 
 anticipations. . . . We have never thought that pub- 
 lic charity for the relief of indigence was at all called 
 for by the state and economy of social life, or that the 
 artificial mechanism of a legal and compulsory provision 
 for the poor had ever had any other effect than that of 
 deranging the better mechanism of nature. But we did 
 
 219
 
 220 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 not think that a population would have conformed so 
 speedily to the right system after that the poison and 
 perversion of the wrong system had been so long diffused 
 among them, or that when the great external reservoir 
 was shut, out of which the main stream of pauperism 
 wont to emanate, they would have found such an im- 
 mediate compensation by their immediate recourse to 
 those fountains of supply which exist within themselves 
 and lie imbosomed among their own families and their 
 own neighborhood. But so it is, and that without any 
 peculiarity of management on our part than a careful 
 and considerate and, we trust, humane examination of 
 every new claim that is preferred upon us. The suc- 
 cess of this enterprise, in fact, is not so much the doing 
 of the agency as it is of the people themselves; and it 
 hinges not so much on the number of applications re- 
 pressed by the one party as on the greatly superior num- 
 ber of applications that are foreborne or withheld by 
 the other party. We do not drive back the people, but 
 the people keep back themselves, and that simply be- 
 cause there is not the glare or magnificence of a great 
 city management to deceive their imaginations and allure 
 them from their natural shifts and resources, and be- 
 cause they are further aware that should they step for- 
 ward they will be met by men who can give them an 
 intelligent as well as a civil reception, who are thoroughly 
 prepared for appreciating the merits of every applica- 
 tion, and at the same time firmly determined to try every 
 right expedient of prevention ere the humiliating de- 
 scent to pauperism shall be taken by any family within
 
 PAUPERISM IN GLASGOW 221 
 
 the limits of their superintendence. The very frank- 
 ness with which this is announced is liked by the people, 
 and let there be but an easy and a frequent mingling 
 between the managers and the subjects of their admin- 
 istration and there will be no difficulty in establishing 
 a community of sentiment between them, the very tone 
 of hostility toward pauperism that is manifested by the 
 former being positively caught and sympathized with by 
 the latter, who, though of humblest rank in society, can, 
 when rightly treated, display a nobility of heart that 
 makes them the best coadjutors in this undertaking. 
 The truth is that there is not one application 
 for five that there wont to be under the old system. It 
 is unfair to deceive a population, and a population vastly 
 too generous to like one the worse for coming to an 
 open and decisive understanding with them. . . . Every 
 act of friendly intercourse on the part of any observant 
 philanthropist with the lower orders will serve to satisfy 
 him the more how much our distance from the people 
 has kept us in entire delusion regarding them, and led 
 us, more particularly, to underrate both their own suf- 
 ficiency for their own subsistence and the noble spirit 
 by which they are already actuated or which, under a 
 right system of attentions, can most speedily be infused 
 into them. . . . The efficacy of a near and vigilant 
 and local superintendence, operating independently and 
 within itself, and left to its own means and its own man- 
 agement, does not lie so much in the resistance which 
 it actually puts forth against advances which are actually 
 made, as in the powerful and almost immediate ten-
 
 222 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 dency of such an arrangement to beget a general quies- 
 cence among the families of that territory over which 
 it operates. 
 
 And, to prove that there is naught whatever of pe- 
 culiar might or mystery in our transactions beyond the 
 reach of most ordinary imitation, it may be right to state 
 the very plain steps and inquiries which take place when 
 any applicants come forward. . . . When one ap- 
 plies for admittance, through his deacon, upon our funds, 
 the first thing to be inquired into is if there be any kind 
 of work that he can yet do, so as to keep him altogether 
 off or as to make a partial allowance serve for his neces- 
 sities. The second, what his relations and friends are 
 willing to do for them. The third, whether he is a 
 hearer in any dissenting place of worship, and whether 
 its Session will contribute to his relief. And if, after 
 these previous inquiries, it be found that further relief 
 is necessary, then there must be a strict ascertainment 
 of his term of residence in Glasgow, and whether he be 
 yet on the funds of the Town Hospital or is obtaining 
 relief from any other parish. 
 
 If, upon all these points being ascertained, the dea- 
 con of the proportion where he resides still conceives 
 him an object for our assistance, he will inquire whether 
 a small temporary aid will meet the occasion, and states 
 this to the first ordinary meeting. But if, instead of this, 
 he conceives him a fit subject for a regular allowance, 
 he will receive the assistance of another deacon to com- 
 plete and confirm his inquiries by the next ordinary 
 meeting thereafter; at which time the applicant, if they
 
 PAUPERISM IN GLASGOW 223 
 
 still think him a fit object, is brought before us and re- 
 ceived upon the fund at such a rate of allowance as, 
 upon all the circumstances of the case, the meeting of 
 deacons shall judge proper. Of course, pending these 
 examinations, the deacon is empowered to grant the same 
 sort of discretionary aid that is customary in the other 
 parishes. 
 
 [This was done solely from the evening collections 
 from poor people 80 ($400) a year. In reply to the 
 objection that this system would require an amount of 
 time and labor which unofficial persons without salary 
 would be unwilling or unable to offer, he says:] 
 
 The task may look insuperable in the gross, but its 
 obstacles will vanish in the detail. When the territory 
 is once split into its several portions and assigned to the 
 several agents, each of them is sure to find that the 
 whole time and trouble of the requisite inquiries fall 
 marvellously short of his first anticipations. We deny 
 not that upon each particular application more of 
 care may be expended than under the lax and compli- 
 cated administration of other days; but this is amply 
 compensated by a great and immediate reduction in the 
 number of these applications, so, in fact, as almost to 
 reduce into a sinecure that office which, when regarded 
 from a distance, had been magnified into one of mighty 
 and almost insurmountable labor. We are the more 
 solicitous to do away this objection, for we, too, should 
 decry every plan to the uttermost, as bearing upon it 
 the character of Utopianism, that could not be accom-
 
 224 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 plished by every-day instruments, operating on every- 
 day materials. . . . 
 
 [In reply to the insinuation that St. John's parish had 
 reduced its burden by driving out paupers by its rigid 
 investigation to become a burden to neighboring parishes, 
 he replies:] 
 
 The truth is that on the first year of the reformed 
 pauperism in St. John's the importation of paupers from 
 the city into that parish just doubled the exportation of 
 paupers from the parish into the city, and ever since the 
 balance has been greatly to our disadvantage. 
 
 But the thought will recur again that the people can- 
 not be served under such an arrangement, and therefore 
 cannot be satisfied; that suffering and starvation must 
 be the necessary accompaniments of an abridged pauper- 
 ism; that one must bring a cold heart, as well as a cold 
 understanding, to this sort of administration; that a cer- 
 tain unrelenting hardness of temperament on the part 
 of those who preside over it is altogether indispensable 
 to its success ; and that, when the success is at length ob- 
 tained, it must be at the expense of pained and aggrieved 
 and neglected humanity. 
 
 Coldness and cruelty and hardihood are the insepa- 
 rable associates of legal charity, and it is under the weight 
 of its oppressive influence that all the opposite charac- 
 teristics of our nature, its tenderness and gentleness and 
 compassion, have been so grievously overborne. These, 
 however, are ready to burst forth again in all their old 
 and native efflorescence on the moment that this heavy
 
 PAUPERISM IN GLASGOW 225 
 
 incumbrance is cleared away from the soil of humanity. 
 It is indeed strange that the advocates of pauperism 
 should have so reproached its enemies for all those stern 
 qualities of the heart wherewith it is the direct tendency 
 of their own system to steel the bosoms of its hard and 
 hackneyed administrators; or, because the latter have af- 
 firmed that the cause of indigence may safely be confided 
 to those spontaneous sympathies which nature has im- 
 planted and which Christianity fosters in the bosom of 
 man, they should therefore have been charged by the for- 
 mer with a conspiracy to damp and to disparage these sym- 
 pathies with an attempt to eradicate those very prin- 
 ciples on which they repose so much of their dependence, 
 and to the power of which and the importance of which 
 they have rendered the award of a most high and hon- 
 orable testimony. 
 
 The difference between the administration of a great 
 public revenue for indigence and the administration of 
 a small one seems to be this: The dispensers of the for- 
 mer are not naturally or necessarily led to bethink them- 
 selves of any other way by which a case of poverty can 
 be disposed of than simply by the application of the 
 means wherewith they are intrusted. And as these 
 means, under a system of assessment, admit of being 
 augmented indefinitely, they are apt to conceive that 
 there is an adequacy in them to all the demands of all 
 the want that can be ascertained. At any rate they 
 seldom reckon on any other way of providing for human 
 need than by the positive discharge of legal aliment 
 thereupon. So that their only, or, at least, their chief, 
 15
 
 226 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 business in the intercourse they have with the applicants, 
 is simply to rectify or to dismiss their claim, on the in- 
 vestigation they have made into their palpable resources, 
 upon the one hand, compared with their palpable exi- 
 gencies, upon the other. In the whole of this process 
 there is much of the coldness and formality of a court of 
 law, and the very magnitude of the concern, along with 
 the unavoidable distance at which the members of such 
 an elevated board stand from those who venture to ap- 
 proach it, serves to infuse still more of this character into 
 all the large and general managements of pauperism. 
 All is precise, and rigorous and stately, or, if any human 
 feeling be admitted, it is not the warmth of kindness, but 
 the heat of irritation. The repeated experience of im- 
 position, and the consciousness of inability thoroughly to 
 protect themselves from the recurrence of it, and the 
 sensation of a growing pressure, against which no other 
 counteractive is known, or even put into operation,, than 
 that of a stern or a suspicious treatment, which only calls 
 forth a more resolute assertion on the part of the aggres- 
 sors upon public charity, these are what have instilled a 
 certain acerbity into all its ministrations. So that with 
 the thousands that are scattered over that multitude which 
 the great city institution hath drawn around it, there is 
 not one softening moral influence which is thereby carried 
 abroad among them, no exhibition of tenderness upon the 
 one hand, and no gratitude, that can only be awakened 
 by the perception of such tenderness, upon the other; no 
 heart-felt obligation among those whose plea hath been 
 sustained; while among those who are non-suited may
 
 PAUPERISM IN GLASGOW 227 
 
 be heard the curses of disappointment, the half-sup- 
 pressed murmurs of deep and sullen indignation. . . . 
 The scantiness of the means, it may be alleged, will 
 necessarily reduce the elder or the deacon to his shifts, 
 in the management of his district. And so it does. But 
 they are the very shifts by which the business of human 
 charity is transferred to its right principles, and, after 
 this is accomplished, there is both more of genuine satis- 
 faction among the poor, and more of genuine sympathy 
 among all those whose duty it is to succor or to uphold 
 them. . . . It is true that under this influence the ex- 
 penses of public charity may lessen every year, yet so far 
 from this being any indication of extinct tenderness or 
 frozen sensibilities, it may serve most authentically to 
 mark the growth of all those better habits, and of all those 
 neighborly regards which ensure to every parochial fam- 
 ily the greatest comfort and the greatest contentment that 
 in the present state of humanity are attainable. 
 
 [Most of the parishes of Glasgow were moving in the 
 direction which Chalmers advised at that time. He urged 
 them to break away entirely from the compulsory system 
 and to leave the care of all the poor to each parish. He 
 cites one of the suburban parishes of Glasgow, the Barony, 
 with a population of fifty thousand souls, where the as- 
 sessment system had been introduced in 1810. In seven 
 years the poor-rate increased fivefold. On the face of it 
 this fact seemed to indicate the tendency of the compul- 
 sory system to increase the public burden indefinitely, and 
 without increasing the security and comfort of the poor.]
 
 CHAPTEK XIII 
 
 ON THE DIFFICULTIES AND EVILS WHICH ADHERE 
 
 EVEN TO THE BEST CONDITION OF SCOTTISH 
 
 PAUPERISM 
 
 [ANOTHER type of parish is that of the Gorbals, a sub- 
 urb of Glasgow, with a population of about twenty-two 
 thousand persons. The people were working-folk who 
 had little wealth and no unusual sources of revenue. This 
 parish had never admitted an assessment, and the annual 
 expense for the poor was not over 400. The author 
 thinks it a fair inference that if such a poor parish could 
 get on without compulsory relief others might do as 
 well; that a tax is unnecessary. In 1817 this parish, in 
 a year of unusual hardship, when a fund of 10,000 was 
 raised for relief, received only about one-seventh of 
 that received by Glasgow, where the tax system was main- 
 tained. Part of the better administration was due to the 
 fact that the elders of Gorbals were resident among the 
 people and knew them personally. Dr. Chalmers regards 
 this as a sign that the voluntary system does not impose 
 special hardship on the almoners of relief. If the elders 
 were really in antagonism with the people they would 
 seek to dwell at a distance, " and we should behold the 
 elders of this parish, each skulking in distance and con- 
 cealment from the clamor of unappeased families, and 
 the remonstrance and outcry of their sympathizing neigh- 
 borhood. Instead of which, they place themselves fear- 
 lessly down in the very midst of all these possibilities, and 
 
 228
 
 DIFFICULTIES OF SCOTTISH PAUPERISM 229 
 
 on their slender means do they brave an encounter with 
 all the real or imagined poverty that is around them."] 
 
 The thing that has been found in consequence is that 
 the way of bringing pauperism down to its right dimen- 
 sions is to face and not to flee from it; that, instead of 
 starving it by immanfully running away the better 
 method of reducing it is by proximity and thorough in- 
 vestigation, to probe it to the uttermost; that the nearer 
 you come to it, it dwindles the more into insignificance 
 before you. . . . 
 
 [Even under the best conditions the system of public 
 relief tends to excite the greed of dependents and to dull 
 the charity of the rich by devolving a personal duty upon 
 a public officer.] 
 
 It is cruel first to raise a hope and then to disappoint it, 
 and there are two expedients by which this cruelty might 
 be done away. The first and most obvious expedient were 
 to meet the hope by a liberality more adequate to the high 
 pitch at which it is entertained. This has been attempted 
 in England, and we venture to affirm, as the consequence 
 of it, a tenfold amount of unappeased rapacity and of ran- 
 corous dissatisfaction and of all that distress which arises 
 where the expectation has greatly overshot the fulfilment. 
 The second expedient were utterly to extinguish the hope, 
 by the total abolition of public charity for the relief of 
 indigence. This has not been attempted in Scotland ; and 
 there are reasons, both of a prudential and of an absolute 
 character why we should deem the attempt to be not ad-
 
 230 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 visable. But, meanwhile, if the sessional charity of Scot- 
 land is to be kept up, it is but honesty to proclaim its utter 
 insignificance in the hearing of all the people. They 
 should be taught that in trusting in it they only trust to 
 a lying mockery. The way to neutralize the mischief of 
 our parochial dispensations is by a frank and open ex- 
 posure of their utter worthlessness ; for we know not how 
 a more grievous injury can be done to the poor than by 
 holding out such a semblance of aid to them as might 
 either reduce, by ever so little, their own economy, or 
 deaden, by ever so little, the sympathy of their fellows. 
 A full feeling of responsibility to the demands of human 
 want and human suffering should be kept alive among 
 the families of every neighborhood; and for this pur- 
 pose it ought to be a matter of broad understanding and 
 notoriety, that there is positively nothing done by any of 
 our Kirk-Sessions which should supersede the care of in- 
 dividuals for themselves or their keepership one for an- 
 other. The elder who effectually teaches this lesson in 
 his district, does more for the substantial relief of its 
 needy than by any multiplication whatever of public al- 
 lowances ; and even without one farthing ta bestow may 
 thus be the instrument of a great alleviation to the ills and 
 hardships of poverty. It is a downright fraud upon our 
 population to keep up the forms of a great public distribu- 
 tion without letting them know that the fruits of it are 
 so rareiand scanty as to be wholly undeserving of all notice 
 or regard from them. . . . 
 
 In the great majority of our Scottish parishes all which 
 the -administrators of the public charity profess to do is to
 
 DIFFICULTIES OF SCOTTISH PAUPERISM 231 
 
 " give in aid." They do not hold themselves responsible 
 for the entire subsistence of any of their paupers; they 
 presume in the general, on other resources, without in- 
 quiring specifically either into the nature or the amount 
 of them. It says much for the truth of our whole specu- 
 lation that in this presumption they are almost never dis- 
 appointed ; and that whether in the kindness of relatives, 
 or the sympathy of neighbors, or the many undefinable 
 shifts and capabilities of the pauper himself, there do cast 
 up to him the items of a maintenance. . . . 
 
 Let us advert to a few of those leading principles on 
 which we hold it a practicable thing to perfect the ad- 
 ministration of our Scottish pauperism. 
 
 And, first, we think that a great moral good would en- 
 sue and without violence done to humanity, were the Kirk- 
 Session to put a negative on all those demands that have 
 their direct and visible origin in profligacy of character. 
 We allude more particularly to the cases of illegitimate 
 children and of runaway parents. It should ever rank 
 among those decent proprieties of an ecclesiastical court 
 which can on no account be infringed, that it shall do 
 nothing which might extend a countenance or give a se- 
 curity to wickedness. " In the case of exposed infants a 
 necessity may be laid upon it. But sure we are that gen- 
 erally, and without outrage to any of our sympathies, the 
 criminal parties may be safely left to the whole weight of 
 a visitation that is at once the consequence and the cor- 
 rective of their own transgression. We know not a more 
 pitiable condition than that of a female who is at once 
 degraded and deserted; but many are the reasons why it
 
 232 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 should be altogether devolved on the secret and unob- 
 served pity which it is so well-fitted to inspire. And we 
 know not a more striking exhibition of the power of those 
 sympathies, that we have so often quoted as being ade- 
 quate, in themselves, to all the emergencies of human suf- 
 fering, than the unfailing aid, and service, and supply, 
 wherewith even the childbed of guilt is sure to be sur- 
 rounded. It is a better state of things when, instead of 
 the loud and impudent demand that is sometimes lifted 
 upon such occasions, the sufferer is left to a dependence 
 upon her own kinsfolk, and neighbors, and to the strong 
 moral corrective that lies in their very kindness to her. 
 We think that if every instance of a necessity which has 
 thus been created were understood to lie without the pale 
 of the sessional administration, and to be solely a draft on 
 the liberalities of the benevolent, we both think that these 
 liberalities would guarantee a subsistence to all who are 
 concerned, and that, at the same time, in a more intense 
 popular odium, there would arise a defensive barrier 
 against that licentiousness which the institutions of our 
 sister country have done so much to foster and to patron- 
 ize. It must shed a grievous blight over the delicacies 
 of a land when the shameless prostitute is vested with a 
 right, because of the very misdeeds which ought to have 
 humbled and abashed her, when she can plead her own 
 disgrace as the argument for being listened to, and, on 
 the strength of it, compel the jurisdictions of the country 
 to do homage to her claim, when crime is thus made the 
 passport to legal privileges, and the native unloveliness 
 of vice is somewhat glossed and overborne by the public
 
 DIFFICULTIES OF SCOTTISH PAUPERISM 233 
 
 recognition which has thus so unwisely been extended 
 to it. 
 
 In the case of a family that has been abandoned by its 
 regardless and unnatural father, and where there is no 
 suspected collusion between the parents, there is pity min- 
 gled with reproach to the helpless sufferers. And our 
 whole experience assures us that this pity would be avail- 
 able to a far larger and more important aid than is ren- 
 dered, on such occasions, by any of the public charities 
 in Scotland. 
 
 [He thinks that no one would be left to suffer, and 
 parents would be much less likely to desert their offspring, 
 if they knew that their own neighbors must directly bear 
 the burden. Family obligations would not be dissolved 
 under the voluntary plan as they are under the general 
 system. Instead of being a harsh and unfeeling sugges- 
 tion it is thought to be most merciful, since it tends to 
 reduce cruelty and desertion and immorality to the lowest 
 point.] 
 
 But, secondly, if that indigence which is the effect of 
 crime might be confined to the charities of private life, 
 we may be very sure that the indigence which is not as- 
 sociated with crime will be largely and liberally met by 
 these charities. ... One of our chief arguments for 
 re-committing the business of alms to a natural economy 
 is, that the wealthy and the poor would thereby come more 
 frequently into contact, and that would be made to issue 
 upon the destitute from the play of human feelings, which 
 is now extorted without good-will on the one side, or grati- 
 tude on the other, by the authority of human law. It
 
 234 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 were an incalculable good if, in this way, the breath 
 of a milder and happier spirit could be infused into 
 society. . . . 
 
 But, thirdly, there is a class of necessities in the relief 
 of which public charity is not at all deleterious, and which 
 she might be safely left to single out and support, both 
 as liberally and ostensibly as she may. We allude to all 
 those varieties, whether of mental or of bodily disease, 
 for which it is a wise and salutary thing to rear a public 
 institution. We hold it neither wise nor salutary to have 
 any such asylum for the impotency which springeth from 
 age; for this is not an unforeseen exigency, but one that, 
 in the vast majority of instances, could have been pro- 
 vided for, by the care of the individual. And neither is 
 it an exigency that is destitute of all resource in the claims 
 and obligations of nature, for what is more express, or 
 more clearly imperative than the duty of children? A 
 systematic provision for age in any land is tantamount 
 to a systematic hostility against its virtues, both of pru- 
 dence and of natural piety. But there are other infirmi- 
 ties and other visitations, to which our nature is liable, 
 and a provision for which stands clearly apart from all 
 that is exceptionable. We refer not to those current 
 household diseases which are incidental, on the average, 
 to every family, but to those more special inflictions of 
 distress by which in one or more of its members, a family 
 is sometimes set apart and signalized. A child who is 
 blind, or speechless, or sunk in helpless idiotism, puts into 
 this condition the family to which it belongs. No mis- 
 chief whatever can accrue from every such case being
 
 DIFFICULTIES OF SCOTTISH PAUPERISM 235 
 
 fully met and provided for, and it were the best vindica- 
 tion of a Kirk-Session, for the spareness of its allowances, 
 on all those occasions where the idle might work, or kins- 
 folk might interpose, that it gives succor to the uttermost 
 of its means in all those fatalities of nature which no pru- 
 dence could avert, and which being not chargeable as a 
 fault, ought neither to be chargeable as an expense on any 
 poor and struggling family. 
 
 It may be seen at once wherein lies the distinction be- 
 tween the necessities of signal and irremediable disease 
 and those merely of general indigence. A provision, how- 
 ever conspicuous, for the former, will not add one in- 
 stance of distress more to the already existing catalogue. 
 A provision for the latter, if regular and proclaimed, will 
 furthermore be counted on, and so be sure to multiply its 
 own objects, to create, in fact, more of general want than 
 it supplies. To qualify for the first kind of relief, one 
 must be blind, or deaf, or lunatic, or maimed, which no 
 man is wilfully, so that this walk of charity can be over- 
 taken, and without any corrupt influence on those who are 
 sustained by it. To qualify for the second kind of relief 
 one has only to be poor, which many become wilfully, 
 and always, too, in numbers which exceed the promise 
 and the power of public charity to uphold them; so that 
 this walk cannot only never be overtaken, but, by every 
 step of advancement upon it, it stretches forth to a more 
 hopeless distance than before, and is also more crowded 
 with the thriftless, and the beggarly and the immoral. 
 The former cases are put into our hand by nature, in a 
 certain definite amount, and she has further established
 
 236 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 in the human constitution such a recoil from pain, or from 
 the extinction of any of the senses, as to form a sure guar- 
 antee against the multiplication of them. The latter cases 
 are put into our hands by man, and his native love of in- 
 dolence or dissipation becomes a spontaneous and most 
 productive fountain of poverty, in every land where public 
 charity has interposed to disarm it of its terrors. It is 
 thus that while pauperism has most egregiously failed to 
 provide an asylum in which to harbor all the indigence 
 of a country, there is no such an impossibility in the at- 
 tempt to harbor derangement, or special impotency and 
 disease. The one enterprise must ever fall short of its 
 design, and, at the same time, carry a moral deterioration 
 in its train. The other may fulfil its design to the ut- 
 termost, and without the alloy of a single evil that either 
 patriot or economist can fear. 
 
 The doings of our Saviour in the world, after he entered 
 on his career as a minister, had in them much of the eclat 
 of public charity. Had he put his miraculous power of 
 feeding into full operation, it would have thrown the peo- 
 ple loose from all regular habits, and spread riot and dis- 
 order over the face of the land. But there was no such 
 drawback to his miraculous power of healing. And we 
 think it both marks the profoundness of his wisdom, and 
 might serve to guide the institutions and the schemes of 
 philanthropy, that while we read of but two occasions on 
 which he multiplied loaves for a people who had been 
 overtaken with hunger, and one on which he refused the 
 miracle to a people who crowded about him for the pur- 
 pose of being fed, he laid no limitation whatever on his
 
 DIFFICULTIES OF SCOTTISH PAUPERISM 23? 
 
 supernatural faculties, when they followed him for the 
 purpose of being cured. But it is recorded of him 
 again and again, that when the halt and the withered 
 and the blind and the impotent, and those afflicted 
 with divers diseases were brought unto him, he looked 
 to them, and he had compassion on them, and he healed 
 them all. 
 
 This, then, is one safe and salutary absorbent for the 
 revenue of a Kirk-Session. The dumb and the blind and 
 the insane of a parish may be freely alimented therewith, 
 to the great relief of those few families who have thus 
 been specially afflicted. Such a destination of the fund 
 could excite no beggarly spirit in other families, which, 
 wanting the peculiar claim, would feel that they had no 
 part or interest in the peculiar compassion. There is vast 
 comfort in every walk of philanthropy, where a distinct 
 and definite good is to be accomplished, and whereof, at 
 a certain given expense, we are sure to reach the consum- 
 mation. . . . There would be no harm in stimulating 
 the liberality of a congregation for the support of a parish 
 surgeon, who might be at the free command of the fam- 
 ilies. There w r ould be no harm in thus supporting a dis- 
 pensary for good medicines, or in purchasing an indefinite 
 right of admittance to a hospital for disease. . . . 
 
 The parochial charity of our land need not be ex- 
 tirpated. It is in the power of a wise and wholesome ad- 
 ministration to impress upon it a high moral subservi- 
 ency; to turn it, for example, to the endowment of 
 schools, or the establishment of parish libraries, or the 
 rearing of chapels for an unprovided population, who, by
 
 238 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 one and the same process, could have their moral wants 
 supplied, and be weaned from all that sordid dependence 
 of charity by which their physical wants have not been 
 abridged, but rather aggravated, both in their frequency 
 and their soreness.
 
 CHAPTEE XIV 
 
 ON THE LIKELIEST MEANS FOR THE ABOLITION OF 
 PAUPERISM IN ENGLAND 
 
 [AFTER referring to Chapter X for the argument 
 against " pauperism," the author proceeds with the as- 
 sertion that the evils of the English administration are 
 universally acknowledged and need no expanded illus- 
 tration. The law of pauperism in England had dried up 
 the streams of personal charity, had degraded the poor, 
 and had burdened the land with a tax which threatened 
 the national prosperity. To remove this state of things 
 nothing more was necessary than, by gradual and pru- 
 dent stages, to throw back the indigent on their own 
 exertions and on the natural kindness of their neighbors.] 
 
 It is just as if some diseased excrescence had gathered 
 upon the human frame, that stood connected with the use 
 of some palatable but pernicious liquor, to which the pa- 
 tient was addicted. All that the physician has to do in 
 this case is to interdict the liquor, when, without further 
 care or guardianship on his part, the excrescence will sub- 
 side, and from the vis medicatrix alone, that is inherent 
 in the patient's constitution, will health be restored to 
 him. . . . There might an unnecessary shock be given 
 by too sudden a change of regimen. There might be an 
 inconvenient rapidity of transition, which had as well be 
 
 239
 
 240 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 avoided, by wise and wary management. This considera- 
 tion affects the question of policy as to the most advisable 
 mode of carrying the cure into effect. But it does not 
 affect the question of principle, either as to the cause of 
 the disease, or as to the certainty of a good and wholesome 
 result when that cause is done away. . . . 
 
 And surely it cannot be questioned that all those prin- 
 ciples of our nature which, taken together, make out the 
 vis medicatrix, are just as firmly seated, and would in fit 
 and favorable circumstances be of as unfailing operation 
 in England as in any other country on the face of the 
 earth. . . . For, first, what malignant charm can 
 there be in the air or in the geography of England which 
 should lead us to conceive of its people, that they are ex- 
 empt from that most urgent principle of our nature the 
 law of self-preservation ? ... In spite of their pauper- 
 ism, and of its efficacy to lull them into a careless improvi- 
 dence, do we find that the prudential virtues, even of the 
 lower orders, are enfeebled only, and not destroyed. The 
 Saving Banks, and Benefit Societies, which are to be met 
 with in almost every district of the kingdom, are strong 
 ostensible indications of a right and reflecting selfishness, 
 which, if only kept on the alert, and unseduced from its 
 own objects, by the promise and the allurement of public 
 charity, would do more for the comfort of our peasantry 
 than all the offerings of parochial and private benevo- 
 lence put together. There is nought that would more re- 
 vive or re-invigorate the impulse to accumulation than 
 the abolition of the law of pauperism. Saving Banks 
 would be multiplied; and this, though the most palpable,
 
 THE ABOLITION OF PAUPERISM IN ENGLAND 241 
 
 would not be the only fruit of that sure and speedy resur- 
 rection that should then take place of an economic habit 
 among the people. 
 
 [In a note the author illustrates the evil effects of out- 
 door relief on the habit of thrift among laborers. He ob- 
 serves that the deposits in " Saving Banks " are largely 
 made by domestic servants and by persons in easy circum- 
 stances, and that common laborers neglect these institu- 
 tions. " The operation of public charity in lessening the 
 deposits must be quite obvious. The following anecdote 
 illustrates this. To prove it is not necessary. A poor 
 woman at Clapham, near London, whose daughter had 
 begun to put into the ' Saving Bank,' said to her, ' Why, 
 how foolish you are. It is all a contrivance of the rich to 
 save their own pockets. You had much better enjoy 
 your own money, and when you want they will take 
 care of you.' The daughter did withdraw from the 
 Saving Bank."] 
 
 But, secondly, the law of relative affection, in a nat- 
 ural state of things, we should imagine to be of just as 
 powerful operation in England as in any other country 
 of the world. . . . The advertisements which daily 
 meet our eye of runaway husbands, or abandoned chil- 
 dren, and those cases of aged parents who have been con- 
 signed, by their own offspring, to the cheerless atmosphere 
 of a poor's house, mark not the genuine developments of 
 nature in England, but those cruel deviations from it to 
 which its mistaken policy has given rise. . . . The 
 spectacle of venerable grandsires at the fireside of cottage 
 families will become as frequent and familiar in this as 
 
 in other lands. And a man's own children will be to him 
 16
 
 242 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 the best pledges that the evening of his days shall be spent 
 under a roof of kindlier protection than any prison-house 
 of charity can afford. Let pauperism be done away, and 
 it will be nobly followed up by a resurrection of the do- 
 mestic virtues. The national crime will disappear with 
 the national temptation; and England, when delivered 
 therefrom, will prove herself to be as tender and true 
 to nature as any other member of the great human 
 family. . . . 
 
 And, thirdly, who can doubt from the known generos- 
 ity of the English character, that nought but scope and 
 opportunity are wanting in order to evince both the force 
 and the fruitfulness of that sympathy which neighbors in 
 humble life have for each other. . . . Like the law of 
 relative affection, it is not capable of being verified from 
 the records or the registers of a general and combined 
 philanthropy, and can only be witnessed to its full extent 
 by those who are thoroughly conversant with the habits 
 of the poor, and have had much of close and frequent 
 observation among the intimacies of plebeian fellowship. 
 There is not one topic on which the higher orders of Eng- 
 land have so crude and unfurnished an apprehension, as 
 on the power and alertness of mutual sympathy among 
 the working classes. This, in some measure, arises from 
 its being in part stifled throughout the whole of their 
 land, because in part superseded by their public and 
 parochial institutions. But still it may be abundantly 
 recognized. . . . 
 
 But this disposition of the lower orders to befriend each 
 other were of little avail, in this question, without the
 
 THE ABOLITION OF PAUPERISM IN ENGLAND 243 
 
 power. . . . On this point, too, there is a world of in- 
 credulity to be met with; and it is difficult to find ac- 
 ceptance for that arithmetic which demonstrates the 
 might and the efficacy of those humble offerings which 
 so amply compensate by their number for the smallness 
 of each individually. The penny associations which have 
 been instituted for objects of Christian beneficence, afford 
 us a lesson as to the power and productiveness of littles. 
 Even the sums deposited with Saving Banks and Benefit 
 Societies point to the same conclusion. But perhaps 
 the most impressive, though melancholy, proof that can 
 be given of a capability in humble life, greatly beyond 
 all that is commonly imagined, may be gathered from 
 the vast sums which are annually expended in those 
 houses of public entertainment that are so frequented by 
 people of the laboring classes in society. . . . 
 
 The fourth and last counteractive against the evils that 
 might be apprehended to ensue on the abolition of pauper- 
 ism, is the freer and larger sympathy which would then 
 be exercised by the rich in behalf of the poor. This we 
 have placed last in the order of enumeration, because we 
 deem it least in. the order of importance. . . . There are 
 subscriptions and philanthropic societies innumerable. 
 There is not a parish of any great note or population in 
 England without them, and they prove how surely we 
 may count on a kind and copious descent of liberality over 
 all those places from which the dispensations of pauper- 
 ism shall be withdrawn. 
 
 [England had not been released from the necessity of 
 raising large sums by voluntary gifts because it had a
 
 244 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 compulsory poor-rate. The very fact that the rich are 
 compelled to aid the indigent tends to dimmish the mo- 
 tives which lead to generosity.] 
 
 That act of Elizabeth, which has been extolled as a 
 monument of English feeling and English wisdom, is a 
 monument of the legislature's fears, that neither feeling 
 nor wisdom were to be found in the land. It is, in fact, 
 the cruelest reproach which the government of a country 
 ever laid upon its subjects. It is an enactment founded 
 on a distrust of the national character, or an attempt to 
 supplement by law an apprehended deficiency in the 
 personal and the domestic and the social virtues of Eng- 
 lishmen. And never did an assembly of rulers make a 
 more unfortunate aberration across the rightful bounda- 
 ries of the province which belongs to them. Never did 
 legislation more hurtfully usurp the prerogatives of nat- 
 ure than when she stretched forth her hand to raise a 
 prop, by which she has pierced the side of charity, and 
 did that with an intent to foster, which has served only 
 to destroy. 
 
 [Allusion is made to various English efforts to reduce 
 the overwhelming burden of pauperism by a more rigid 
 administration, by strict investigation, refusal to aid those 
 who refused to seek or accept work, or whose relatives 
 were able to provide for them. But these attempts are 
 of comparatively slight consequence so long as the sys- 
 tem of compulsory legal relief remains. Its vices are deep 
 and belong to its essence.] 
 
 And there is reason to fear that even in those parishes 
 where a select vestry has been most successful, there may 
 be a speedy recurrence to the same lax and careless style
 
 THE ABOLITION OF PAUPERISM IN ENGLAND 245 
 
 of administration as before. . . . Even the very relief 
 that has been achieved, might lead to a satisfaction and a 
 repose, that would soon call back as great a host of appli- 
 cants as ever, for it is the very nature of pauperism, that, 
 at all times, there is the pressure of a tendency from with- 
 out, which will instantly force admittance so soon as there 
 is the slightest relaxation from that vigilance wherewith 
 its approaches have been guarded. 
 
 The marvels which have of late been effected by a 
 strict administration have suspended, in some places, the 
 desire that was at one time felt for a radical change of 
 system in the public charity of England. But we do not 
 think that this can last long, and have no doubt that after 
 various expedients have been tried and found wanting, 
 the final result will be a stronger experimental conviction 
 than ever of something wrong in the principle as well as 
 in the practice of the poor laws. There is, we believe, a 
 possible rigor in the execution of them, by which, if put 
 into operation, two-thirds of all the paupers now in the 
 country might be thrown back upon their own resources, 
 and yet be landed in a state of as great comfort and suf- 
 ficiency as, with their present allowances, they at present 
 enjoy. . . . But, then, this requisite degree of rigor 
 will, in the first place, not be adopted in most parishes; 
 and, secondly, in those parishes where under a strong 
 temporary impulse it has been resorted to, and with great 
 immediate success, it will not be persevered in. The very 
 success will lull the administration into its old apathy. 
 The pitch and the tension to which it has been wound up 
 will relax again. . . .
 
 246 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 But even though the force of resistance from within 
 was kept up in the utmost possible intensity, yet we can- 
 not imagine a state of things more injurious to the virtue 
 and peace of the commonwealth. Even though the dis- 
 cipline of the workhouse should at length be perfectly as- 
 similated to the discipline of a gaol, we fear that like 
 many others of the legal scarecrows which have been de- 
 vised, its only reaction would be in working down the 
 taste and character of the people to its own standard. In 
 proportion as the law multiplied its severities, would pau- 
 perism acquire a stouter stomach for the digestion of 
 them, and those regulations which at first might deter, 
 will, at length, be got over, because of a now fiercer and 
 hardier and more resolute population. We have, at all 
 times, exceedingly doubted the policy of those expedients 
 which are meant to operate in terrorem, and have ever 
 thought of them as most fearfully hazardous experiments 
 on the principle and feeling of the lower orders. They 
 may repel some of those who are of a better and finer 
 temperament than their neighbors; but, in by far the 
 greater number of instances, will they blunt the delica- 
 cies which are thus handled too rudely; and the very 
 instrument which they thought to lay hold of for driving 
 applicants away, will vanish before their grasp. . . . 
 
 The badges, and the publication of names, and the 
 posting of them in conspicuous places, may all work a re- 
 coil from pauperism for a time, but only to come back 
 with accumulated force, and with a more sturdy and un- 
 manageable character than before. . . . The practical 
 effect of the whole has been to form two distinct classes
 
 THE ABOLITION OF PAUPERISM IX ENGLAND 247 
 
 or characters of population, which stand more widely and 
 remotely contrasted in England than they do, we helieve, 
 in any other country of Europe. The one is a pure, and 
 a noble, and a high-minded class, who, of course, would 
 be revolted by the severities of pauperism. The other 
 yield to her temptations, and, by weathering the brunt of 
 her severities, their meanness and corruption have only 
 been rendered more inveterate. The spirit of education 
 and of moral enterprise that is now abroad in England 
 must extend the one class. But while the law of pauper- 
 ism continues, the other class too must increase and mul- 
 tiply. They are the in-field gypsies of the land ; and they 
 transmit their habit to their descendants; and this is the 
 reason that pauperism is so apt to fix, as if by hereditary 
 settlement, in families. There is thus a mass of corrup- 
 tion that never will be got rid of but with the extinction 
 of this boasted charity by law. Until a blow be given to 
 the root of the mischief, it will be found, in the long run, 
 that there is a noxiousness in its antidotes, as well as in 
 its bane. Its severities, in fact, are alike hurtful with its 
 temptations. It is not by playing one against another 
 that any substantial or abiding reformation will be gained. 
 There must be a way devised by which to cancel both. 
 
 Believing then, as we do, that no general or abiding 
 good will ever be effectuated by a stricter administration 
 of the law of pauperism, we feel our decided preference 
 to be for the gradual abolition of it. ... The question 
 now resolves itself into two parts. There is first the parli- 
 amentary treatment of it, and then the parochial treat- 
 ment of it, after that the legislature has done its office.
 
 248 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 J . . The splendid visionary is precipitated from his 
 aerial flight, because he overlooked the utter pathlessness 
 of that space which lay between him and the impossi- 
 bility that he aspired after. . . . The fixed and ob- 
 stinate practitioner refuses to move one single footstep, 
 because he equally overlooks that continuous way which 
 leads through the intervening distance to some great, yet 
 practicable achievement. But give him time, and the 
 mere length of a journey ought not to repel the traveller 
 from his undertaking, nor will he resign the advantage 
 for which he looks at its further extremity, till you have 
 demonstrated that one or more of its stages is utterly im- 
 passable. In other words, there is a blind infidelity, as 
 well as a blinded imagination, and it is difficult to say 
 whether the cause of philanthropy has suffered more from 
 the temerity of projectors, or from the phlegmatic inert- 
 ness of men, who, unable to discriminate between the ex- 
 perimental and the visionary, are alike determined to de- 
 spise all and to resist all.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 ON THE LIKELIEST PARLIAMENTARY MEANS FOR THE 
 ABOLITION OF PAUPERISM IN ENGLAND 
 
 A GENTLEMAN who is now bestowing much of his atten- 
 tion on the poor laws, when informed of the speed and 
 facility wherewith all its compulsory pauperism had been 
 extinguished in a certain parish, replied, that it might 
 be easy to effect the deliverance of one parish, but that it 
 was not so easy to legislate for the deliverance of all Eng- 
 land. But if an easy and applicable method can be de- 
 vised for the parish, what is it that the legislature has to 
 do? Simply to remove the legal obstructions that may 
 now stand in the way of the method in question. Simply 
 to authorize each parish that so wills to avail itself there- 
 of. And should many, or should all of them at length 
 go forth upon the enterprise, and succeed in it, then the 
 extinction of this sore evil over the country at large, in- 
 stead of being immediately referable to the impetus of 
 that one blow, which has been struck against it by the 
 lifting up of the arm of parliament, should be referred to 
 a cause that is far more commensurate with the vastness 
 of the achievement, even to the power of those multiplied 
 energies that have been set at work throughout the land, 
 
 each of which, however, has only its own separate and 
 
 249
 
 250 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 limited object to overtake, and each of which acteth in- 
 dependently of all the rest. 
 
 However obvious this may be, yet we have often 
 thought that the overlooking of it is one main cause of 
 that despair and helplessness which are felt by many of 
 our legislators on the subject of this great national dis- 
 temper. . . . He who has a place and an authority 
 in the councils of the empire, takes a wide and extended 
 survey over the whole of it, and by a sort of fancied 
 ubiquity he brings himself into contact with all the strug- 
 gles and difficulties of all the parishes, and he sometimes 
 feels as if the weight and the labor of what is indeed a 
 very operose concern were wholly accumulated upon his 
 own person, and, instead of regarding pauperism as that 
 which can only be put to death by inches, and with the 
 help of many separate hands, he sees it as standing forth 
 in single combat, a hydra of dread and direful encounter, 
 at the sight of whom every heart fails, and every arm is 
 paralyzed. 
 
 And akin to this delusion is the imagination on the part, 
 we believe, of many, that the only way of proceeding 
 against pauperism is by imperative enactments, which be- 
 hoved to be instantly and simultaneously followed up by 
 a change of administration all over the country. . . . 
 And so it is that an attempt on the poor laws is dreaded by 
 many as the sure precursor of a revolution; nor is it seen 
 what the possible way is by which this question can be 
 prosecuted with the same wisdom, and withal in the same 
 calmness, and with the same happy results, as have often 
 been experienced in the treatment of other questions, and
 
 PARLIAMENT AND PAUPERISM 251 
 
 that through a long era of peaceful and progressive im- 
 provement in the domestic policy of England. 
 
 We should hold it to be highly advisable, that any 
 enactment which might be made on the subject of pauper- 
 ism shall not be one that brings a certain force upon all of 
 the parishes, but simply one that allows a certain freedom 
 to any of the parishes; not one that puts forth a law, but 
 one that holds out a leave; and a leave, too, only to be 
 granted on such a free and extended concurrence of house- 
 holders in the application for it, as to be itself a guarantee, 
 that however odious a general movement against pauper- 
 ism may be over the country at large, yet that each par- 
 ticular movement is, within the limits of its own sepa- 
 rate parish, abundantly popular. 
 
 [An illustration is given from the permissive legisla- 
 tion, by which the commons of England were gradually 
 enclosed for more perfect culture. But it should be noted 
 that in Scotland, according to Lamond, under such a per- 
 missive system, the parishes gradually introduced out- 
 door relief, " pauperism," as our author calls it.] 
 
 There are three distinct objects that should be compre- 
 hended in the provisions of the general act. . . . The 
 first relates to the act of concurrence that should be re- 
 quired of any parish ere that parish shall be empowered 
 to make a radical change in its management of the poor. 
 The second relates to the nature of the change. And the 
 third, to the way in which the Parliament and-the people 
 of England are to be satisfied, both at the outset, and 
 through all the subsequent stages of this retracing move-
 
 252 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 merit, that its effects are so beneficial, and more particu- 
 larly to the poor themselves, as to be altogether worthy of 
 a humane and civilized nation. 
 
 To grant allowance for the enclosure of a parish com- 
 mon, Parliament expects the consent of four-fifths of 
 the proprietors, in number and value. To grant leave 
 for the new-modelling of its pauperism, we should not 
 object to the consent of a larger proportion than this of 
 all the parish householders, who are not paupers them- 
 selves, being required by Parliament. 
 
 [Reference is made to several acts which permitted 
 local changes on a similar principle.] 
 
 It is obvious that the larger the consent is that shall 
 be required by the general act, the fewer will be the par- 
 ishes who can avail themselves of its provisions. . . . 
 It were well that this act was loaded on purpose with a 
 condition that is not easily satisfied; and thus trials will 
 be restricted, in the first instance, to a few of the easiest 
 and likeliest of the parishes. We do not want the whole 
 of England to be thrown adrift, at the bidding of a yet 
 untried hypothesis. But we want England to put herself 
 to school. We think that she needs to go to school, and 
 when looking attentively at those trial parishes she is, in 
 fact, learning the first lessons, and acquiring the sound 
 rudiments of a sound education. . . . 
 
 There are many distinct advantages in a very large 
 concurrence of householders being required at the out- 
 set. . . . 
 
 First, it confines the operation of the proposed act to
 
 PAKLIAMENT AND PAUPERISM 253 
 
 those parishes where the experiment is most popular, and 
 so removes it altogether from those regions where its very 
 obnoxiousness to the community at large would be a seri- 
 ous impediment in the way of its success. . . . 
 
 But, secondly, a large concurrence in favor of the new 
 method is our best guarantee for a resolute and powerful 
 agency to carry on the execution of it. We should not 
 despair of a most efficient vestry in any parish for con- 
 ducting aright the business of its gratuitous charity where 
 there had been a nearly unanimous consent to the abolition 
 of its legal charity. There is no fear of any parish which 
 has thus singled out, and made a spectacle of itself, that 
 it will not acquit itself well, and at length demonstrate 
 to all its neighbors that without a poor-rate, and without 
 any painful sacrifice at all, it can boast a happier and 
 better population than any of those who are around 
 it. ... 
 
 And, thirdly, . . . this does not eventually exclude 
 the great body and majority of England from the pro- 
 posed reformation. It only prepares the way for it. The 
 truth is, that should so few as twenty parishes come for- 
 ward, under the first general act, and should their experi- 
 ment prosper, it will do more to assure the hearts and the 
 hopes of the people of England than a thousand disserta- 
 tions. . . . 
 
 It is thus by a series of general acts, as by a series of 
 stepping-stones, England may emerge out of all the dif- 
 ficulties of her present pauperism. The very first foot- 
 step that she takes is on a firm basis, and all along she 
 moves by a way that is strictly experimental. Through-
 
 254 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 out every inch of her wary progress she never needs to 
 abandon the light of observation; and on the whole of 
 this interesting walk over her provinces, and, at length, 
 till she reaches her own mighty metropolis in triumph, is 
 she guided from one achievement to another, and by the 
 way she best loves, because the way that is most eminently 
 congenial with the sober and practical character of her 
 undertaking. 
 
 In regard to the nature of the change, we should 
 leave untouched the condition and the rights of all who, 
 at the time of its being entered upon, are permanent pau- 
 pers. There should be no dismissal of any who would not 
 have been dismissed under the old regimen. It is, of 
 course, quite fair to scrutinize their means and resources 
 to the uttermost, and on any discovery of their being ade- 
 quate to their own support, or on any actual improvement 
 that may have taken place in their circumstances, by 
 which they are enabled to provide for themselves, it is 
 perfectly right that their names should be expunged from 
 the roll. . . . The change of treatment, whatever it 
 may be, should apply exclusively to those who apply for 
 parochial relief, either for the first time, or apply for it 
 anew, after they have been made to do without it for a 
 period. . . . 
 
 The first change that we should propose in the parochial 
 system, for the management of the poor, is that in refer- 
 ence to every new applicant the special power of jus- 
 tices to order relief should be altogether taken away. 
 The parish vestry would, in this case, be the ultimate 
 and the only place of application, and their decision,
 
 PARLIAMENT AND PAUPERISM 255 
 
 both as to relief and as to the amount of it, should be 
 final. . . . 
 
 The second change that we should propose relates to 
 the fund out of which the new applicants shall be met. 
 . . . Now we hold it essential to a sound and abiding 
 reformation of pauperism . . . that the power which 
 the church-wardens and overseers have of making a rate, 
 either with or without the concurrence of the inhabitants, 
 for the purpose of meeting any fresh applications, shall 
 henceforth cease, and that, if any fund be judged neces- 
 sary in order to provide for new cases, it shall, under a 
 public and parochial administration, be altogether a gratu- 
 itous, and in no shape a legal or compulsory, one. For the 
 purpose of constituting such a fund, the minister and 
 church-wardens may be empowered to have a weekly col- 
 lection at the church-doors, or what is now gathered in 
 the shape of sacrament money may be made over to it, 
 or donations may be received from individuals in all 
 which ways the revenue of a Kirk-Session in Scotland 
 is mainly upheld. . . . 
 
 The third change that would be required should be in 
 the constitution of the vestry. 
 
 [The recommendation is that the vestry be enlarged to 
 include the minister, church-wardens, and even large con- 
 tributors. . . .] 
 
 But what is this rational principle? Have we a right 
 to fancy it, and go abroad with the phantasy over the 
 land? Is it not possible that after all it may be a 
 wrong onset that we make ? and how are we to know that
 
 256 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 under the operation of this boasted panacea we might not 
 add to the number and sorely aggravate the wretchedness 
 of our suffering families? 
 
 Xow to meet these questions, we affirm of the process 
 that it is strictly a tentative one. It is not the dictatorial 
 imposition of a method on the part of one who bids an 
 implicit acquiescence therein. It is the confident recom- 
 mendation of a method, on the part of one who asks that 
 it may be submitted to the touchstone of experience, and 
 who is willing to submit himself to the guidance and the 
 correction of this safe school-master. There is all the dif- 
 ference in the world between rashly presuming on the 
 truth and respectfully feeling our way to it. A very few 
 initial attempts will decide the question and set it at rest. 
 It is a question between the free and gratuitous and the 
 compulsory or legal systems of charity. The latter has 
 been tried all over England and has been found wanting. 
 Let the former be fairly and fully tried in a few parishes 
 of England, and abandoned if they become sensibly worse, 
 and do not become sensibly better. It is our own belief 
 that every year will witness an addition to her trophies 
 and her triumphs. . . . But should her career not be 
 a prosperous one, she will share the fate of her many pred- 
 ecessors she will vanish, with other expedients, into 
 oblivion, and the Parliament of England can withdraw its 
 sanction when the people of England have ceased from 
 their demand for her. . . . 
 
 There ought to be parliamentary commissioners, not 
 for the purpose of receiving appeals on the question of 
 relief, for this would be reviving the present system in an-
 
 PARLIAMENT AND PAUPERISM 257 
 
 other form, but for the purpose of noting and reporting 
 how it is that those parochial communities really do thrive, 
 where the parochial managers have been left to their own 
 unfettered discretion, how it fares with the families, and 
 whether the charity of law be so replaced by sobriety 
 among the poor, and sympathy among the rich, that the 
 charity of nature is more than enough to meet all those 
 apprehended deficiencies which, in the distance, look so 
 big and fearful. If they can report any abuse more fla- 
 grant in the trial parishes than now occur on the average 
 throughout the parishes of England; if they can quote 
 instances there of shameful neglect and cruelty which 
 under the present style of administration would not have 
 been realized; if they can speak adversely of the scheme, 
 either because of the particular evils of it which it shall 
 be in their power to specify, or because of that darker 
 aspect of misery which stands visibly out on those paro- 
 chial families that are under its operation, then let such 
 testimony to the effects of the gratuitous system be its 
 condemnation. But if, instead of this, they can allege, 
 as the fruits of it, an increased contentment, and cheerful- 
 ness and good-will, a more manifest kindliness of heart 
 on the part of the higher orders; and this returned by a 
 kindness and gratitude on the part of the lower orders, 
 that had been before unknown, a more frequent inter- 
 course between the various classes of society ; and withal, 
 such an impulse on the side of popular education, as to 
 be sensibly raising the mind and the habits of the peas- 
 antry; if they can further attest, that never had they been 
 
 called to witness the spectacle of distress left to suffer for 
 17
 
 258 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 a season, except in the cases of guilt or of idleness, when 
 it was wise that nature should be left to her own correc- 
 tives and her own cures; and that even then starvation 
 was a bugbear, which, with all their most diligent search 
 after it they had in no one instance been able to embody ; 
 surely, if such shall be their testimony, the voice of Parlia- 
 ment will soon be at one with the voice of the people, and 
 both must unite in stamping their acceptance on a system 
 so fully tried, and so nobly vindicated. 
 
 It is not wrong to demand proof for the soundness or 
 efficacy of any expedient, but surely it is wrong to refuse 
 the demand of him who seeks that a proof shall be led. 
 . . . Every experiment lands in experience. An ex- 
 periment may be just as instructive by its failure as by 
 its success; and if there be parishes in England that are 
 sanguine enough to encounter its difficulties, or willing 
 to brave the hazards of an eventual disgrace, on what 
 possible grounds of reason or expediency should the op- 
 portunity be withheld from them? It interferes with 
 nothing. It hinders nothing. Those who desire it not 
 are not disturbed by it ; and each corporation, whether of 
 parish or township, is left to the repose of its own settled 
 prejudices, till the light of ocular demonstration may 
 chance to awaken it. ... Meanwhile all the other de- 
 vices of reform and regulation might go on as busily as 
 before. 
 
 And nothing it appears to us, can be more simple than 
 how to suit the law of settlement to a parish which shall 
 come under the new system. A stranger acquires no right 
 in such a parish, though he should fulfil all those condi-
 
 PARLIAMENT AND PAUPERISM 259 
 
 tions on which a settlement is acquired in other parishes. 
 He may, or he may not, share with the other parishioners 
 in the gratuitous ministrations of the vestry, but neither 
 he nor they should have any right to relief, after that the 
 human care had been devolved on the free sympathies of 
 our nature. It is thus that a trial parish would not import 
 any burden by the influx of strangers from the country at 
 large, and the fair reciprocity therefore is, that the country 
 should not be burdened by any efflux from the parish. As 
 there can be no right acquired by one removing to a trial 
 parish, neither should there be any right acquired by one 
 removing from it. And let us not, therefore, look upon 
 him as an unprivileged outcast from the securities of civil- 
 ized life. He moves at his own choice, and with his eye 
 open to his circumstances; and he is richer far by trusting 
 to his own resources, and by knowing that he has nothing 
 else to trust to, than he, who, along with the rights, has 
 also the temptations of pauperism. Such a man will find 
 his way, and it, on the whole, will be a way of greater suf- 
 ficiency and comfort than any which law provides for the 
 nurslings of her artificial charity. The emigrants from a 
 trial parish into any other part of England, will exem- 
 plify the general habit of those who have acquired no 
 settlement in the place of their residence, yet choose 
 not to leave it; a habit, it has oft been remarked, of 
 greater industry and virtue than is averaged in the mass 
 of the population.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 ON THE LIKELIEST PAROCHIAL MEANS FOR THE 
 ABOLITION OF PAUPERISM IN ENGLAND 
 
 THE first obstacle in the way of entering upon a process 
 for the extirpation of pauperism in any parish is that the 
 difficulty of it will be greatly overrated. The present 
 and the palpable thing is a large annual sum that needs to 
 be levied for the support of the existing generation of 
 paupers, besides the very ponderous establishment that has 
 been raised and which continues to be required for their 
 accommodation. It is quite obvious what an unwieldy 
 concern it would be were the assessment forthwith to 
 cease, and provision to be made on the instant for all those 
 actual poor from whom their accustomed supplies had 
 thus been suddenly withdrawn. There is scarcely a body 
 of parochial managers in England that would not shrink 
 from such an undertaking; and without reflecting for a 
 time on the real difference that there is between this under- 
 taking and the one which we have suggested, they look 
 upon both with the same kind of fearfulness and almost 
 with nearly equal degrees of it. They measure the weight 
 and labor of the new enterprise by the weight of the pres- 
 ent pauperism that is now before their eyes; though, in 
 fact, there is not one fraction of it with which the new sys- 
 
 260
 
 THE PARISH AND PAUPERISM 2G1 
 
 tern has necessarily anything to do. ... It is only with 
 new applicants for relief that the new system has any 
 task to perform, not with the full-grown pauperism of the 
 present generation^ but with the embryo pauperism of 
 the next. . . ,<^, ''With the management that is set up 
 to meet and to anticipate the eventual pauperism the busi- 
 ness comes on gradually. At first there is none. It does 
 not begin but with the first applicant who offers himself, 
 and he finds you at perfect leisure to attend to him; to 
 take up his case, and most thoroughly to investigate it; 
 to calculate his means and his facilities; to make inquiry 
 after his relatives; to ascertain what work might be pro- 
 vided for him; to arrange, perhaps, some method with a 
 neighbor, as cordially disposed against pauperism as you, 
 for taking him into employment, and making his industry 
 available still to his maintenance ; to shift away his appli- 
 cation by some temporary aid from the purse of unseen 
 charity; in a word, to ply every expedient for disposing of 
 him better than by admitting him on the roll of your new 
 pauperism, under that new economy which it is now your 
 earnest concern to administer well./^ After the first has 
 been disposed of, a second comes at 'a longer or shorter in- 
 terval, and he finds you still better prepared for him than 
 before ; more skilled in the treatment of such applications ; 
 more intelligent about the resources of humble life ; more 
 able to acquit yourselves prudently and even popularly, 
 by every new act of intercourse with the poor; more 
 rich in experience and knowledge, and, withal, more dex- 
 terous in the talent, not of so shifting the request away 
 from you, as that your petitioner shall starve, but of so
 
 262 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 shifting it away from you as that he shall be in a better 
 condition than if he had been made a pensioner of yours. 
 . . . Both the facility and the success will very much 
 astonish yourselves; and by the time the pauperism on 
 the poor-rate has all died away, you will find it replaced 
 by a pauperism both so mild in character and so moderate 
 in the amount of it, that out of free-will offerings, and of 
 these alone, all its expenses will be cheerfully borne. 
 
 And there is a very important difference between the 
 old and the new administration, the practical operation 
 of which you are not able to appreciate now, but in which 
 you will soon experience that there is really all the might 
 and marvellous efficacy of a charm. "What is now de- 
 manded as a right will then be preferred as a request. 
 . . . Now the use which you ought to make of this 
 difference is not to bid any one parochial applicant sternly 
 away from you, because now you have the power; but to 
 give courteous entertainment to them all. When a fellow 
 man comes into your presence, and tells you of want or of 
 disease in his family, you are not to " hide yourself from 
 your own flesh." It will always be your part, and more 
 especially at the moment of transition to a system of char- 
 ity which is yet untried, patiently to listen to every case, 
 and calmly to investigate, and mildly to advise, and to 
 mix up the utmost civility and temper with your wise and 
 firm prosecution of the matter which has been submitted to 
 you. Now it is when so employed that you will come 
 to feel, and that very speedily, too, the breath of another 
 spirit altogether, in your intercourse and dealings with the 
 poor, than that by which they wont to be formerly ani-
 
 THE PARISH AND PAUPERISM 263 
 
 mated. At present there is a jealousy between the two 
 classes, upholden by a sense of right upon the one side, 
 and by a dread of rapacity upon the other. But very soon, 
 under the new regimen, will the one party come down 
 from their insolence, and the other party from that dis- 
 tant and defensive attitude which they now think it nec- 
 essary to maintain. . . . 
 
 And it should be adverted to here that agreeably to 
 the scheme which we have ventured to recommend, no 
 parish at the first can embark on this retracing process 
 from legal to gratuitous charity, without a very large con- 
 currence of householders in its favor. . . . There will 
 be more both of power and willingness among the rich. 
 There will be less both of need and of expectancy among 
 the poor. The vestry, in fact, might very easily so man- 
 age as at length to find, that even their office, as the ad- 
 ministrators of the parochial fund, shall be wellnigh 
 superseded; and that in regard at least to the affairs of 
 parochial indigence, the whole economy of a parish can 
 be well and prosperously conducted, not only without any 
 legal charity but without even the semblance of it, in any 
 public charity at all. 
 
 But another fear is, that however sufficient the means 
 may turn out under the proposed system, the management 
 will be so very laborious as to leave no room for hoping 
 that it can long be persevered in. Now this, too, is a bug- 
 bear, and, if possible, a still more airy and unsubstantial 
 one than the former. The only strenuous management 
 that is at all required will be at the outset, where each 
 case ought to be fearlessly met, and sifted to the utter-
 
 264 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 most, and every right expedient bethought of and tried, 
 that, if possible, it may be shifted aside from the parochial 
 fund, and devolved in a better way on the thrift and labor 
 of the applicant himself, on the duty of his relatives, or 
 on the charities of private benevolence. . . . When 
 the people come to perceive that this is the way in which 
 their applications are met, they simply, in by far the 
 greater number of instances, cease to apply. Those who 
 are conscious of means which they know that it is in the 
 power of a careful scrutiny to detect, will forbear to offer 
 themselves. They who are idly disposed will shrink from 
 the hazard of having their plea refuted by some employ- 
 ment being put into their hands, which they would rather 
 decline. Some who have kind relatives or neighbors will 
 rather continue to draw from them in secret than subject 
 their private matters to the inquisition of a vestry. . . . 
 
 If the experiment shall prosper it will not be because 
 of the great supplies which are raised, but because of the 
 great care which has been observed in the administration 
 of them. . . . 
 
 Though the private liberality of the rich in a parish 
 to its poor ranks as one of those expedients, and is much 
 to be preferred over that open and visible distribution 
 that is so fitted both to corrupt and degrade the objects 
 of it, yet may the rich also be, to a certain degree, the 
 instruments of the very same mischief that we have now 
 charged on an incautious public administration. They 
 ought never to forget that the best economic gift which 
 can possibly be rendered to the lower orders is a habit of 
 self-respect ami self-dependence; and for this purpose
 
 THE PARISH AND PAUPERISM 265 
 
 they ought not to disdain a free and frequent intercourse 
 with them. This of itself will go far to elevate the mind 
 and the manners of our peasantry ; and it is a very great 
 mistake that the visit of rank or affluence to a poor man's 
 cottage is not welcomed unless it be followed up by some 
 beggarly ministration. AVherever a case of obvious and 
 ascertained distress meets the philanthropist on his walk 
 it is his part to approve that his benevolence is real by 
 " willingness to distribute," by " readiness to communi- 
 cate." But he should recollect that there are also other 
 topics than those of mere almsgiving upon which he 
 might most pertinently and most profitably hold fellow- 
 ship with his humbler brethren of the species, and shortly 
 earn the confidence and regard of all his neighborhood. 
 The education of their families; the good order of their 
 houses; the little schemes of economy and management 
 in which he requests their co-operation ; the parish bank, 
 for which he has to solicit their agency and their con- 
 tributions; the counsel, the service, the little presents of 
 courtesy, by which he does not sink but signalize them; 
 the cheap and simple attentions by which the cottage chil- 
 dren can be made happy, and their parents grateful ; those 
 thousand nameless graces and benignities by which the 
 accomplished female can light up a moral gladness in the 
 hamlet which she has selected as the theatre, both of many 
 duties and of many friendships. There is a way of prose- 
 cuting all these without alimenting the rapacity or the 
 sordidness of our laboring classes, a way that is best learned 
 in the school of experience ; and after, perhaps, the many 
 blunders which have been committed, and the many mor-
 
 266 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 tifying disappointments which have been sustained by the 
 young practitioner in the art of well-doing. It is not by 
 money alone that he is to manifest his kindness. There 
 are innumerable other ways, and better ways of doing it, 
 and in the prosecution of which he might, in truth, refine 
 and heighten that delicacy which he else would overbear. 
 Let there be but good-will in his heart; and this, amid 
 all his forbearance in giving, nay, amid all his refusals, 
 when he apprehends a cunning or a corruption in the ob- 
 ject of them this will at length shine forth upon the 
 people, in the lustre of its own moral evidence, and will 
 give for him an ascendency that might be convertible to 
 the fine result of their permanent amelioration. . . . 
 
 The truth is that under a good management, though 
 with very slender means, the first difficulty which shall 
 meet the vestry will not be how to find the adequate sup- 
 plies, but how to dispose of the unappropriated and ac- 
 cumulating surplus. . . . In these circumstances the 
 clergyman who is aware of the mischiefs of public charity 
 might be tempted to lay an arrest on the liberality of his 
 parishioners and hearers. But better far would it be that 
 he kept this liberality agoing, nay, stimulated it the more, 
 and then impressed such a direction on the produce of it 
 as went not to corrupt the people, but to elevate and to 
 moralize them. He might do them harm by a large public 
 distribution for the relief of indigence, whether the means 
 of it were provided by a poor-rate or free-will offerings. 
 But there is no harm in thus meeting certain of the help- 
 less and involuntary sufferings of our nature. There is 
 none in so signalizing the dumb, and the blind, and the
 
 THE PARISH AND PAUPERISM 267 
 
 lunatic of the parish. There is none, but quite the con- 
 trary, in bestowing of this spare and superfluous revenue 
 in the erection or the support of village schools, and so 
 adding still to your securities against pauperism by widen- 
 ing, through education, the moral distance between the 
 habits of the people and a condition so degrading. 
 
 And there is something more to be taken into account 
 than the eventual good of such a destination. It lends 
 a most important facility to your present administration. 
 It enables you to meet every applicant for relief with an 
 argument that will moderate the tone of his demand and 
 perhaps shame him altogether away from it. You can 
 then tell him that by his forbearance, he leaves you in bet- 
 ter condition for the relief of families still more helpless 
 than his own; that he, in fact, will be a virtual contributor 
 to the good of humanity, and to the interest of the rising 
 generation, simply by shifting for himself and leaving 
 your fund entire and untouched for higher charities; that 
 he ought, on this ground, to make common cause with you, 
 and that he renders a most important co-operation when 
 he ceases to be burdensome and ministers with his own 
 hands to his own necessities. . . . 
 
 [The recommendation of subdivision of parishes and 
 the careful personal work of individual visitors is re- 
 peated.] 
 
 That member of the vestry does his business best, not 
 who transmits the greatest number of applications from 
 his territory, but who intercepts the greatest number; and 
 who intercepts them not by his stern and haughty nega-
 
 268 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 tive, but by his patient inquiry, and his friendly argu- 
 ment, and his kind offers of work, or of interest on behalf 
 of the family. . . . 
 
 His work ceases because now the vis medicatrix works 
 for him with all that primitive liberty and vigor which be- 
 longs to her. His office becomes at length a sinecure, and 
 should he choose to lay it down, he may retire with the 
 character of having best done the duties of a vestryman, 
 because he gave the vestry nothing to do. 
 
 END OF VOL. H
 
 PREFACE 
 
 NEAULY three years have now elapsed since the publica- 
 tion of the second volume of this work, during which time 
 circumstances have occurred that have induced its author 
 somewhat to change the plan of the concluding volume, 
 and that have had the effect, furthermore, to retard, and 
 he fears also to enfeeble the execution of it. What he 
 more particularly alludes to is the recent history of those 
 popular combinations which have taken place all over the 
 country, for a rise of wages. The truth is that he had 
 scarcely begun to investigate the connection between a 
 poor-rate and the price of labor, when the latter of these 
 two elements, although in a different connection, became 
 the subject of a most interesting practical treatment by 
 Parliament on the one hand, and by the population on the 
 other. He has long regarded it as one of the most mis- 
 chievous effects of the English pauperism that it depresses 
 the wages of labor, and that, beneath the rate of its own 
 compensations; and, of course, as one of the chief bless- 
 ings to society that would follow in the train of its abo- 
 lition that we should forthwith behold a better paid as 
 well as a better principled class of workmen than before. 
 He has ever been on the side of a more liberal remunera- 
 tion for industry. But when the people took this cause 
 into their own hands and proceeded to enforce it in their 
 own peculiar way, he could not but regret that a cause so 
 
 269
 
 270 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 worthy of the highest efforts, both of philanthropy and 
 patriotism, should have been dishonored by the outrage 
 and the violence wherewith it was associated. He has not, 
 therefore, stepped out of his course in order to treat of 
 combinations. The subject has been thrown across his 
 path, and he must have turned aside if he had shunned 
 the encounter with it. The workmen of England have 
 aggravated, by their own misconduct, the prejudices of 
 the more affluent orders against the cause of their ad- 
 vancement in society. And it might serve to appease 
 these prejudices of the wealthy, as w r ell as to tranquillize 
 the feelings and to elevate the habits of the poor, if, in- 
 stead of that way of turbulence which they have tried and 
 found so ineffectual, they could be made to understand 
 that more excellent way upon which, without noise, or up- 
 roar, or rebellion, they might raise the comfort and the 
 sufficiency of their own condition, and at length attain to 
 a permanently higher status in the commonwealth. 
 
 [The author explains his desire to be understood by the 
 working people, and at the same time to remove erroneous 
 opinions of the rich. " There is a certain prevalent im- 
 agination among the higher classes that the cheapness of 
 British labor lies at the very foundation of our country's 
 prosperity and strength. Now, in advocating the cause of 
 a higher remuneration for industry, we have to combat 
 this imagination." 
 
 At this point he alludes to the continued trial of his 
 parish principles in Glasgow under his successors. Their 
 success proved that the working of his theory did not rest 
 on his own personal direction and ability of administra- 
 tion, but on the soundness of the principle itself.]
 
 VOLUME III 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE difficulties of removing such a great national evil 
 as pauperism are of two classes, which are wholly distinct 
 the one from the other. . . . The first difficulties are 
 those which are presented by the economic condition of 
 the lower orders. They are such difficulties as have their 
 seat among the circumstances of the people. It is the 
 imagination of many that to do away a legal provision for 
 indigence would be to abandon a large population to a 
 destitution and distress that were most revolting to hu- 
 manity, and, in as far as this imagination is true, it offers 
 a most formidable difficulty, and one, indeed, which 
 should foreclose the question altogether. The population 
 ought not to be so abandoned; and if, in virtue of the 
 abolition of pauperism, they shall become worse either in 
 comfort or character than before, then this abolition ceases 
 to be desirable. We happen to think that no such con- 
 sequence would ensue, and that on the supplies of public 
 charity being withdrawn there would not only be much 
 less of actual want in the country, but that this want 
 would be sure to find relief, and in a way greatly more 
 consistent both with the comfort and virtue of families. 
 
 271
 
 272 CHEISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 [The second class of difficulties arises in the minds of 
 members of the ruling classes. The reformer must en- 
 counter the prejudices of educated men.] 
 
 They who have the constitutional right, either to arrest 
 his proceedings or to allow of them, must first be satisfied; 
 and whether from honest conviction or from the tenacity 
 of a wedded adherence to old and existing methods, they 
 may stand in the way of all innovation. Ere he come into 
 contact with the human nature of the question among the 
 poor themselves, he may have far greater obstacles against 
 him in the law of the question, and in the obstinate preju- 
 dice or wilfulness of those men with whom the right is 
 vested of adjudging or administering for the poor. . . . 
 It may be true that there is a system of utmost facility 
 which, if adopted, shall be of omnipotent effect to expel 
 pauperism from a parish, and with less want and wretched- 
 ness among its families than before; and also true, that 
 there shall be a weary struggle with the incredulity and 
 perverse misconceptions of influential men, ere the sys- 
 tem shall be suffered to have a trial. . . . 
 
 At the same time it ought to be remembered that if the 
 natural difficulties of the problem be so very light and 
 conquerable, its political difficulties must, of necessity, 
 subside, and at length vanish altogether. It is the imag- 
 ination, in fact, of the greatness of its essential difficulties 
 that mainly gives rise to the opposition of our influential 
 men, or what is still more hopeless than their active oppo- 
 sition, the listlessness and apathy of their despair. Could 
 we succeed in proving that there is really nothing in the 
 condition of the lower orders which presents an insuper-
 
 ON THE WAGES OF LABOR 273 
 
 able barrier to the abolition of pauperism, the barrier of 
 prejudice and dislike, on the part of the higher orders, to 
 any radical change, must finally give way. Truth may 
 be withstood long, but it cannot be withstood eternally. 
 The provisions of law will at length be made to accord 
 with the principles of nature; and whatever shall be 
 found by experience, in the human nature of the question, 
 to be most wholesome for the people, the law of the ques- 
 tion must, in time, be moulded into conformity therewith. 
 
 [Here is repeated the argument of the previous volume : 
 that the vastness of the problem frightens men from im- 
 perial legislation, while if the task were undertaken by 
 gradual stages the difficulties would melt away.] 
 
 But no sooner do we get rid of one antipathy than we 
 are instantly met by another. The very men who have no 
 credit for what is great may have no value for what is 
 gradual. When to get the better of their incredulity 
 about the efficacy of our process we tell them how slow it 
 is, then we have just as hard an encounter as before with 
 their indifference. ... In the first instance there is 
 the same unbelief in the possibility of all pauperism being 
 done away as they would have in a magical performance ; 
 and in the second instance, whatever is to be done in the 
 way of reformation has no charm for them unless it can 
 be done with a rapidity that would be altogether magical. 
 . . . We cannot devise for them a scheme that shall at 
 once be moderate enough in its aim to suit the narrowness 
 of their apprehensions and at the same time speedy enough 
 in its operation to suit the extravagance of their wishes. 
 18
 
 274 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 When they hear the promise of a total deliverance, they 
 spurn it away from them as romantic. When the ro- 
 mance is mitigated by the proposal that the deliverance 
 shall be very gradual, they spurn it away from them 
 as tardy. . . . It is between those who are hopeless 
 and those who are precipitate that it is so difficult 
 to extricate a nation from the evils of a wrong domestic 
 economy. . . 
 
 It is to be observed that indigence may arise from two 
 sources either from inability for work, or from the in- 
 adequacy of its wages. The original pauperism of Eng- 
 land, it is said, was restricted to those who were poor from 
 impotency, and it is regarded by many as an abuse or cor- 
 ruption of it, that it should ever have been extended to 
 able-bodied laborers in order to make up any deficiency 
 in their wages. Now the great aim at present is to repress 
 pauperism within its original limits by putting an end 
 altogether to this latter application of the poor's fund, 
 thus separating between the distress which age and im- 
 potency bring upon the laboring classes, and the distress 
 which is occasionally brought upon them by the fluctua- 
 tions in the price of labor. There are some who would 
 be satisfied with the lopping off of this last excrescence 
 from the system of poor laws in England, while others 
 contemplate the possibility and admit the desirableness 
 of an ulterior reformation. We think that there is a 
 gradual process for the extermination of the system in 
 both its branches, which is alike applicable, and from the 
 outset of it, to each of them. Yet this does not supersede 
 the importance of discussing the effects of a poor-rate
 
 ON THE WAGES OF LABOR 275 
 
 when applied in aid of defective wages. We feel, how- 
 ever, that this will require a few preliminary explana- 
 tions. 
 
 The first thing to be attended to is the way in which 
 the price of any article brought to market is affected by 
 the variations of its supply on the one hand, and of the 
 demand for it on the other. The holders of sugar, for 
 example, after having reserved what they need for their 
 own use, bring the whole surplus to market, where they 
 dispose of it in return for those other things which they 
 do need. It must be quite obvious that if there be more 
 of this sugar exposed than there is a demand for, the great 
 force of the competition will be among the sellers to get 
 it off their hands. Each will try to outstrip the others by 
 holding out a greater inducement for purchasers to buy 
 from him, and this he can only do by holding it out to 
 them on cheaper terms. It is thus that each tries to under- 
 sell the rest, or, in other words, the great supply of any 
 article of exchange is always sure to bring down the price 
 of it. 
 
 On the other hand, let the same article have been spar- 
 ingly brought into the market, insomuch that, among the 
 buyers, there is a demand for it to a greater extent than 
 it is to be had. The force of the competition now changes 
 place. It is among the purchasers instead of the sellers. 
 Each will try to outstrip his neighbors by holding out a 
 larger inducement to the holders of a commodity now 
 rare, and, therefore, in more urgent request than usual. 
 This he can only do by offering a greater price for it. It 
 is thus that each tries to overbid the other, or, in other
 
 276 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 words, the small supply of any article of exchange is al- 
 ways sure to bring up the price of it. . . . 
 
 There is nought in the interposition of money to affect 
 this process. Its office is merely to facilitate the exchange 
 of commodities. . . . 
 
 [Some articles of consumption are more liable to ex- 
 treme fluctuations of price than others. Generally speak- 
 ing, the necessaries of life are far more powerfully af- 
 fected in the price of them by a variation in their quantity 
 than are the luxuries of life. If grain is supplied in dimin- 
 ished quantity the price will rise much more rapidly than 
 that of rum or wine, which are luxuries. If the standard 
 of life is high in a population, the people can weather a 
 season of high prices for food by cutting off luxuries in 
 drink and dress and ornament. They will still have food, 
 although they delay the purchase of articles not entirely 
 necessary to existence. Higher prices of food tend to 
 draw away supplies from more distant markets, and thus 
 the want in one country may be met by the superfluity in 
 another. In exchange for this importation of food the 
 products of manufacture are exported, and foreign com- 
 merce is stimulated.] 
 
 Wages form the price of labor; and this price, like that 
 of every other commodity, is determined by the propor- 
 tion which obtains between the supply of it in the market 
 and the effective demand for it. Should the supply be 
 diminished, or the demand increase, the price rises. 
 Should the supply be increased, or the demand slacken, 
 the price falls. . . . 
 
 Now, labor might be considered in the light of a mar- 
 ketable commodity, the supply of which is measured by
 
 ON THE WAGES OF LABOR 277 
 
 the number of laborers, and the price of which is regu- 
 lated, as in other instances, by the proportion between 
 this supply and the demand. This price partakes with 
 that of the necessaries of life in being liable to great fluctu- 
 ation; and, on the same principle, too, but in a sort of re- 
 verse direction. It is the urgent need of subsistence which 
 so raises articles of the first necessity, even upon a very 
 slight shortcoming from their usual quantity in the mar- 
 ket, and it is the same urgent need of subsistence which 
 so lowers the price of labor, and that upon a very slight 
 overplus'in the number of laborers. What, in fact, look- 
 ing to one side of the negotiation, may be called the de- 
 mand of the capitalists for labor when looking to the 
 other side of it may be called the demand of the laborers 
 for employment; and, in this latter demand, there may 
 be all the importunity and vehemence of a demand for the 
 necessaries of life. . . . Men must have subsistence; 
 and if employment be the essential stepping-stone to this, 
 men must have employment ; and thus it is that capitalists 
 have the same control over workmen, when there is an 
 excess in their number, which the holders of the neces- 
 saries of life have over their customers, when there is a de- 
 ficiency in the crop. And so the price of labor, too, is a 
 most tremulously variable element, and has as wide a 
 range of fluctuation as the price of corn. A very small 
 excess in the number of laborers will create a much greater 
 proportional reduction in their wages. Should twenty 
 thousand weavers of muslin be adequate, on a fair recom- 
 pense for their work, to meet the natural demand that 
 there is in that branch of manufacture, an additional thou-
 
 278 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 sand of these unemployed, and going about with their 
 solicitations and offers among the master-manufacturers, 
 would bring a fearful distress and deficiency on the cir- 
 cumstances of the whole body. The wages would fall by 
 much more than a twentieth part of what they were orig- 
 inally; and thus by a very trifling excess in the number 
 of workmen might a very sore and widely felt depression 
 be brought upon the comfort and sufficiency of the lower 
 orders. 
 
 Now, however melancholy this contemplation might 
 be in the first instance, yet, by dwelling upon it a little 
 further, we shall be led to discover certain outlets and 
 reparations that might cause us to look more hopefully 
 than ever on the future destinies of our species. One 
 thing is clear, that if so small a fractional excess in the 
 supply of labor over its demand is enough to account for 
 a very great deficiency in its remuneration, then, after 
 all, it may lie within the compass of a small fractional re- 
 lief to bring back the remuneration to its proper level, and 
 so restore the desirable equilibrium between the wages 
 of a workman and the wants of his family. . . . Could 
 any expedient be devised by which the number of laborers 
 might be more equalized to the need that there is for 
 them, then, instead of the manufacturers having so op- 
 pressive control over the workmen, workmen might in 
 some degree have a control over manufacturers. We 
 should certainly regard it as a far more healthful state 
 of the community if our workmen, instead of having to 
 seek employment, were to be sought after, and that mas- 
 ters had to go in quest of service, rather than that labor-
 
 ON THE WAGES OF LABOR 279 
 
 ers had to go a-begging for it. It is most piteous to soo a 
 population lying prostrate and overwhelmed under the 
 weight of their own numbers; nor are we aware of a 
 finer object, both for the wisdom and benevolence of pa- 
 triotism, than to devise a method by which the lower orders 
 might be rescued from this state of apparent hopelessness. 
 This would be done if they were only relieved from the 
 pressure of that competition by which they now elbow 
 out, or beat down each other; but nothing more certain, 
 than that not till the number of workmen bears a less 
 proportion to the need which there is for them, will they 
 be able to treat more independently with their employers, 
 or make a stand against all such terms of remuneration as 
 would degrade their families beneath the par of human 
 comfort. . . . 
 
 We cannot enter upon this argument without advert- 
 ing, in the first instance, to the celebrated theory of Mr. 
 Malthus on the subject of population. And one thing at 
 least is manifest, that the very comprehension of his views 
 has retarded the practical application of them to any ques- 
 tion of political or domestic economy. lie writes in ref- 
 erence to the species and the world; and the mind of his 
 reader, by being constantly directed to the population of 
 the whole globe, and to the relative capacities for their 
 subsistence, that are diffused over the surface of it, can 
 make escape from his conclusions by roaming in imagina- 
 tion over the vast regions that are yet unpeopled and the 
 wilds that, however rich in nature's luxuriance, have been 
 yet untrodden by human footsteps. The speculation is 
 admitted by many to be true who, nevertheless, would
 
 280 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 lie upon their oars till the last acre on the face of the earth 
 was brought to its highest possible cultivation. The reply 
 to an alleged excess of population in Britain, is, that New 
 Holland offers a space equal to twenty Britains, which 
 lias yet been unentered upon, and that till this space be 
 fully occupied there is only one expedient which we have 
 to do with, even that of emigration ; that, meanwhile, the 
 other expedient, or a preventive check upon the increase 
 of population, is wholly uncalled for, that it may lie in 
 reserve for that futurity which is still at an indefinite dis- 
 tance from us; and that when agriculture has done its 
 uttermost upon all lands it will be fully soon enough to 
 think of keeping the human species within that maxi- 
 mum of human subsistence which shall then have been 
 arrived at. 
 
 But, after all, it does not necessarily follow that the 
 pressure of the world's population upon the world's food 
 will remain unfelt till the latter has attained its maxi- 
 mum. It is quite enough for this effect that the tendency 
 to an increase of population is greater than the tendency 
 to an increase of food. . . . It is quite an imaginary 
 comfort to the suffering families of England that there 
 are tracts in New Holland capable of maintaining a ten- 
 fold population to that of the British empire. They can- 
 not transport themselves there in an instant. They cannot 
 raise at once the means, either for their own emigration or 
 for the cultivation of this unbroken territory; and if not 
 at once, then it must take a time ere this consummation is 
 gained; and it is simple enough, for the upholding of a 
 continuous pressure, that during that time there is a
 
 ON THE WAGES OF LABOR 281 
 
 greater force of progress in the world's population than 
 in the world's food. 
 
 It were sure a better and a blander community at home, 
 if instead of the people being urged on to the very margin 
 of the country's capabilities to maintain them, they had 
 rather ease and amplitude and sufficiency in their own 
 native land, and were kept a good way within the point 
 of emigration. 
 
 It says much for the soundness of the principles of Mr. 
 Malthus, that they always become more evident the nar- 
 rower the field is on which they are exemplified ; and, con- 
 sequently, the nearer the inspection is to which they are 
 submitted. When he affirms, in reference to the whole 
 species, that there is an evil in premature marriages, for 
 that the population of the world are thereby caused to 
 press inconveniently on the food of the world, one finds 
 a refuge from his conclusions in the imagination of many 
 fertile but yet uncultivated tracts that might yield the 
 greatest possible scope to the outlet of families for cen- 
 turies to come. . . . But one needs not his philosophy 
 to feel the whole force of his principle within the limits 
 of a family, where the premature marriage of a son, who 
 had rashly and previously to any right establishment of 
 himself in the world, entered upon this engagement, 
 would be deplored by all the members of it as a most 
 calamitous visitation; and that, too, both on account of 
 the present expense, and also the eventual expense of a 
 rising progeny. It would be no consolation in these cir- 
 cumstances to be told of the millions of acres, both at 
 home and abroad, that could be turned to the sustenance 
 of millions of human beings. . . .
 
 282 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 In like manner would we plead for an exemption from 
 the obloquy that attaches to this theory when, instead of 
 speculating and providing for the whole world, we con- 
 centrate our views on a single parish and recall our scat- 
 tered imagination from other continents and other climes 
 to that which lies directly and familiarly before us, among 
 the population of our own little vicinity. And the truth 
 is that the poor laws of England tend to isolate each of 
 its parishes from the rest of the world, and so to bring 
 it more clearly and definitely before us as a separate 
 object of contemplation. More particularly do they 
 throw a barrier around each, which, though not alto- 
 gether insuperable, has yet been of great efficacy in hem- 
 ming each population within its own boundaries and clos- 
 ing up the outlets to emigration. It is in this way that the 
 most encouraging offers of a settlement in distant lands 
 are often resisted by the English peasantry. They are 
 aware of a certain right by the law of pauperism upon 
 their own native soil, and this they are not willing to 
 forego. They feel that they have a property at home 
 which they would relinquish by the measure, and that 
 reasoning, therefore, which blinds the eye of the reader 
 against the truth of the general speculation is not applica- 
 ble in present circumstances to the case that is before us. 
 And the poor laws not only check the egress of the re- 
 dundant population to our distant colonies, they go a cer- 
 tain way to impede and to lessen the free interchange of 
 people from one parish to another, both by begetting in 
 each a jealousy of new settlers and augmenting the nat- 
 ural preference for home by the superadded tie, that then
 
 ON THE WAGES OF LABOR 283 
 
 they have their proper and their rightful inheritance, the 
 benefit of which can be got far more directly and conveni- 
 ently when on the spot than when they remove themselves 
 to a distant part of the country. But even when so re- 
 moved they still hold on their parish, and, like non-resi- 
 dent proprietors, can have their rent transmitted to them, 
 and may, in fact, be as burdensome as if they still resided 
 within its limits. It is thus that the vestry, whence the 
 dispensations of pauperism proceed, may be regarded as 
 a kind of adhesive nucleus around which the people of 
 each parish accumulate and settle and so present us with as 
 distinct an exemplification of the theory of Mr. Malthus as 
 if each were in itself a little world, the affairs and difficul- 
 ties of which may, at the same time, be considered without 
 his theory being in our heads at all. . . . We happen 
 to regard Mr. Malthus's Theory of Population as incon- 
 trovertible. Yet we do not link with it our reprobation of 
 English pauperism any more than we would link with it 
 our reprobation of a precipitate marriage in a destitute 
 and unprepared family. Let his theory be execrated as it 
 may, let it even be out-argued by its adversaries, this will 
 not overthrow any of those maxims of domestic prudence 
 that might be learned at the mouth of every ordinary 
 housewife, and neither will it overthrow any demonstra- 
 tion of those evils in pauperism which, with or without 
 a philosophical treatise, are quite obvious to the home- 
 bred sagacity of country squires and parish overseers.
 
 CHAPTER XVIH 
 
 ON THE EFFECT OF A POOR-KATE, WHEN APPLIED IN 
 AID OF DEFECTIVE WAGES 
 
 IN every parish there is a certain quantity of work to 
 be done, and a certain number of laborers would suffice 
 for the doing of it. Some of them may be imported from 
 abroad, and, on the other hand, some of the native work- 
 men may have gone beyond their own parochial limits in 
 quest of employment. Still, with or without these move- 
 ments, there is a certain number in the parish of able or 
 available laborers who, if barely adequate to the labor 
 that is required, will be hired upon a fair remuneration, 
 but who, if they exceed, will be glad to accept of an in- 
 ferior remuneration rather than want employment alto- 
 gether. It is this competition which brings down the 
 wages of labor; and, on the principle that is already un- 
 folded, a very small excess in the number of laborers may 
 give rise to a very large reduction in the price of labor. 
 It is in vain to say that this excess will naturally discharge 
 itself upon other places. So it would in a natural state of 
 things. So it always does in those parishes of Scotland 
 where a compulsory provision is unknown. But in Eng- 
 land, where the practice is now established of ministering 
 
 from the poor-rate not merely to the indigence of age 
 
 284
 
 POOR-RATES AND DEFECTIVE WAGES 285 
 
 and sickness and impotency, but to the indigence of able- 
 bodied, though ill-paid, industry, this excess is not so easily 
 disposed of. There is a principle of adherence in the sys- 
 tem which detains and fastens it upon the parish where 
 once this excess has been formed, and we hold it very in- 
 structive to look at the various expedients by which it 
 has been met, and at the uniform failure which has at- 
 tended them. 
 
 The distress of inferior w r ages is, in the first instance, 
 felt by the fathers of large families; and, accordingly, 
 they are the first who have been benefited by the exten- 
 sion of the legal charity of England beyond those cases 
 for which it has been alleged by the defenders of the 
 system as established by the act of Elizabeth that it was 
 strictly and originally intended. Certain it is that if there 
 really was any such limitation designed in the primary 
 construction of the statute it is now very generally dis- 
 regarded, and there is nought more common, particularly 
 in the southern counties, than a composition of \vages and 
 poor-rate, both of which are made to enter into the main- 
 tenance of an able-bodied laborer. There are two ques- 
 tions generally asked of the applicant for parish relief, 
 and which may be regarded as furnishing the data that 
 fix the parish allowance: "What do you earn?" and 
 " What is the number of the family that you have to main- 
 tain? " and if the wages be held inadequate to the family, 
 the deficiency, in most instances, is held to be as firm a 
 ground of application as the utter helplessness of impo- 
 tency or disease. The defect in wages is eked out by a 
 weekly allowance from the poor-rate; and he who in other
 
 286 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 circumstances would have been left as an independent 
 workman upon his own resources, becomes, under this sys- 
 tem, a dependent upon legal charity. 
 
 This, then, is the first application of poor-rate to wages 
 which claims our regard. Before that single and able- 
 bodied men can have the benefit of this poor-rate, the 
 parents of families must have been visited by its allow- 
 ances, and that just in proportion to the number of their 
 offspring. It is a premium on population and must serve 
 to perpetuate the cause of that mischief which it is de- 
 signed to alleviate. There is a general feeling all over 
 England of something wrong in this composition of wages 
 with the parish allowance; and along with it a sort of 
 anxiety in some places to vindicate their management 
 from the imputation of a practice that is felt to be dis- 
 creditable; so that when the question is put, whether it 
 be the habit of the place to supplement defective wages 
 out of the poor-rate, a very frequent reply is that it is 
 never done by them, and that nothing is even given in 
 consideration of a low wage, but only in consideration of 
 a large family. This way of shifting it from one ground 
 to another, though practically it makes no difference as 
 to the effect of the regimen, yet is very instructive as to 
 the rationale of its operation. Though Malthus had never 
 written there could not be a more complete exposition 
 than is given by the answers of unlettered and unsophisti- 
 cated men, of the bearing that English pauperism has 
 upon population. . . . Here we have parents paid out 
 of a legal and compulsory fund because of the largeness 
 of their families, and we may safely appeal to the common-
 
 POOR-RATES AND DEFECTIVE WAGES 28? 
 
 sense and sagacity of the most unspeculative minds, 
 whether this must not add to the number of marriages in 
 a parish; whether it does not slacken all those prudential 
 restraints that else would have operated as a check upon 
 their frequency; whether the hesitation and delay that, 
 in a natural state of things, are associated with this step 
 are not in a great measure overborne by the prospect thus 
 held out, of a defence and a guarantee against the worst 
 consequences of many a rash and misguided adventure. 
 Must not marriages come earlier and therefore be more 
 productive under such a system than they otherwise would 
 be? Or, in other words, is not this remedy for the low 
 wages, induced by an excess of people, the likeliest instru- 
 ment that could be devised, not only for keeping up the 
 excess, but for causing it to press still more on the already 
 urged and overburdened resources of this small parochial 
 community? 
 
 Sometimes the formal parish allowance begins im- 
 mediately with the event of matrimony, insomuch that 
 single men, on being refused the parochial aid for eking 
 out their miserable wages, have threatened to marry, have 
 put their threat into execution and been instantly pre- 
 ferred in consequence to a place on the vestry roll among 
 those who have qualified in like manner. When marriage 
 is thus made a qualification for an allowance from the 
 poor-rate, one does not see how the poor-rate can escape the 
 charge of being a bounty upon marriage. And, accord- 
 ingly, this evil is so much felt and deprecated that in cer- 
 tain places they have resolved to abolish the distinction 
 between the allowances to single and married men and
 
 288 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 actually pay all alike, though at a great additional expense 
 in the meantime ; and this to arrest and lighten, if possi- 
 ble, that coming tide of population wherewith they fear 
 to be overwhelmed. 
 
 But we are not to suppose that by this compromise be- 
 tween the payers of charity and the payers of labor all 
 the able-bodied of a parish are admitted to employment. 
 There is a limit to the work of a parish, but while this 
 economy lasts there can be no limit to the number of the 
 workmen, who, of course, after various expediencies and 
 ingenuities have been practised for the purpose of inter- 
 cepting them with something to do, at length overflow 
 into a state of total idleness. One of these expedients is 
 to send round the men who have not fallen into employ- 
 ment in the regular and customary way among the farmers 
 with the lure of getting their work on very cheap terms, 
 as the parish will pay the difference between their low 
 wages and the sum that might be deemed necessary for 
 their entire maintenance. It is no doubt an advantage to 
 the farmer to have his work done cheaply, but where is 
 the advantage if he have no work for them to do ? Every 
 one department may be already filled and supersaturated 
 with labor. For the accommodation of idle hands thresh- 
 ing machines may be put down, and a ruder and clumsier 
 agriculture may have been perpetuated, and all ingenious 
 devices by which the human mind could contrive to 
 abridge labor may have been prescribed, and just that 
 human muscles may be kept in as full requisition as pos- 
 sible. Yet all is ineffectual; and many a weary circuit 
 often have these roundsmen to make, knocking at every
 
 POOR-EATES AND DEFECTIVE WAGES 289 
 
 door for admittance, yet everywhere refused, till at length, 
 after all their attempts are exhausted, they devolve the 
 whole burden of their existence on the parish, and gather 
 into a band of supernumeraries. 
 
 And exceedingly various have been the devices for their 
 employment. Sometimes they have been congregated into 
 workhouses where they are provided with any employ- 
 ment that can be got for them by the parish overseers. At 
 other times they have been farmed out to a speculator, 
 who has turned the workhouse into a factory, and pos- 
 sesses himself of their services at a rate exceedingly be- 
 neath the market price of labor. At other times they 
 may be seen in a kind of disorderly band, laboring either 
 upon parish roads or in sand and gravel pits. The value 
 of what they render in this way for their subsistence is 
 in a general way very insignificant. The truth is that an 
 increasing population can no more be supplied indefinite- 
 ly with profitable work than they can be supplied indefi- 
 nitely with money or with food. It is more for a moral 
 effect than for the worth of the labor that these various 
 modes of industry are laid upon them. Better give them 
 something to do than that they should be wholly idle. 
 Though even this object is not always accomplished, and 
 in many of the agricultural parishes they may be seen 
 lounging out a kind of lazzaroni life, upon a weekly pit- 
 tance from the vestry, in the fields or on the highway. 
 
 There is one very sore evil in this system. It has dis- 
 tempered altogether the relationship between a master 
 and his servants. The latter feel less obligation to the for- 
 mer for being taken into his employment, seeing that they 
 19
 
 290 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 have a refuge in poor-rates from the destitution which 
 in other countries attaches to a state of idleness. They 
 are not so careful in seeking work for themselves, as the 
 law has rendered them in some measure independent of 
 it. ... They care little though they should be dis- 
 missed, and this has often the effect of making them idle 
 and insolent. . . . 
 
 After all, the employment which is given for the pur- 
 pose of mitigating the rate is little better than idleness in 
 disguise. In the case of roundsmen the whole remunera- 
 tion is made up partly of wages from the master and partly 
 of an allowance from the parish; and there is nothing 
 more common than when they have wrought to a certain 
 amount, or for so many hours in the day, to take the rest 
 of the day very much to themselves; and though still 
 under the semblance of doing something at an allotted 
 task, literally to do nothing. It is a familiar saying 
 amongst them that " Our master has now got all that time 
 in the day from us which he has paid for; what the 
 parish pays for is our own." And this proportion, even 
 though fair and accurately struck, leaves a sad vacancy 
 in their hands, which is often filled up with positive mis- 
 chief. At all events it wholly corrupts and relaxes them 
 as laborers. . . . 
 
 It is further a most grievous necessity in their state 
 that they should be forced to commence their life as pau- 
 pers; that they should be familiarized from a tender age 
 to the allowances of the parish vestry; that all generous 
 and aspiring independence should be smothered when in 
 embryo within them, and a new race should arise so fos-
 
 POOR-KATES AND DEFECTIVE WAGES 291 
 
 tered and so prepared as to outstrip their predecessors in 
 the rapacity and the meanness and all the sordid or de- 
 grading habits of pauperism. 
 
 It comes to the same result whether they are sent as 
 roundsmen or are wholly paid and employed by the parish 
 as supernumeraries. In the latter case they may give 
 their labor either in a workhouse or out of doors; but 
 both from the difficulty of supplying work, and from the 
 lax superintendence into which the whole system is so 
 apt to degenerate, it may be regarded as a vast nursery 
 both of idleness and vice all over England. We do not 
 hesitate to charge on the pauperism of England the vast 
 majority of its crimes, detaining by its promises within 
 the borders of every parish a greater number of families 
 than it can well and comfortably provide for, luring, as it 
 were, more into existence than it can meet with right and 
 requisite supplies, and after conducting them onward 
 toward manhood leaving them in a state of unsated ap- 
 petency, and withal in leisure for the exercise of their 
 ingenuities by which to devise its gratification. We can- 
 not conceive of a state of society more fermentative of 
 crime, from the thousand unnoticed and unnoticeable pil- 
 ferments that we fear are in daily and very extended 
 operation among the laboring classes, to the higher feats 
 of villany, the midnight enterprise, the rapine, sealed, 
 if necessary, with blood, the house assault, the highway 
 depredation. 
 
 Simply if labor were better paid it would not be so. 
 
 [Repeating the argument that wages are depressed be- 
 cause there is an excess of population of laboring men
 
 292 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 offering their service in competition with each other, he 
 goes on:] 
 
 In this view of the matter we may see at once the 
 cruelty of a poor-rate; how, in the first instance, by the 
 encouragement which it gives to precipitate marriage it 
 multiplies the people beyond the rate at which they would 
 otherwise have multiplied; how, in the second instance, 
 by holding out to all of them a right and property in their 
 native parish it detains the people and closes up, at it were, 
 those outlets of emigration by which relief might have 
 been obtained from the competition of a most hurtful ex- 
 cess; how, in the third instance, it provides for this sur- 
 plus of laborers, but on terms which lie at the arbitration 
 of the upper classes in society; how, in the fourth in- 
 stance, it gives to the masters a mighty advantage over 
 their regular laborers and enables them to bring the gen- 
 eral wages of husbandry indefinitely near to the parish 
 allowance for roundsmen and supernumeraries; thus, in 
 fact, under the guise of kindness to the stragglers of the 
 community operating a most injurious reduction on the 
 state and comfort of the whole body, grinding down the 
 lower orders to the very point of starvation, and with a 
 malignity not the less provoking that it works by a system 
 on the face of which there are constantly playing the 
 smiles of mercy, and in the support of which the sweetest 
 poesy hath been heard to pour forth her dulcet strains 
 into the ear of weeping sentimentalism. 
 
 "We do not need anything half so ponderous as the 
 theory of population for the whole species to be assured
 
 POOR-RATES AND DEFECTIVE WAGES 293 
 
 that at this moment there are more people than can be 
 maintained with comfort in our agricultural parishes. 
 The thing is plainly felt all over England, and this feel- 
 ing cannot be overborne by any argument either for or 
 against a theory. . . . And, along with the palpable 
 exhibition of an over-peopled parish, there is the equally 
 palpable habit, both of most abandoned licentiousness and 
 most improvident marriages. The number of illegitimate 
 children alone superinduces such an excess upon the other 
 population as is quite adequate to a great and general re- 
 duction in the price of labor. . . . 
 
 It were a very crude legislation for giving effect to the 
 speculation of Mr. Malthus to define the earliest age at 
 which people should marry. ... It were striving to 
 bring about a right result by a compensation of errors. 
 . . . The law of pauperism has given undue encourage- 
 ment to matrimony; and it has been proposed by a law of 
 matrimony to repress the encouragement. It is the ex- 
 cess of legislation which has done the mischief, and the 
 best method of doing it away is simply to lop off the 
 excess, and not to counteract one foolish law by an- 
 other. . . . 
 
 There can be no doubt that the abolition of the law of 
 pauperism would bring on a somewhat later average of 
 matrimony among the people. Should this abolition ever 
 take place, and the consequent period of marriage become 
 the subject of political arithmetic, there can be no doubt 
 that its tables will exhibit a more advanced age, on the 
 whole, at which females marry under the new system 
 than under the present one. . . . There would even
 
 294 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 without the law of pauperism be a premature entry upon 
 this alliance, but not so premature on the whole. . . . 
 Many still would be the outbreakings of irregularity and 
 folly, but if at all diminished there would necessarily 
 be a certain shift for the better in the average of matri- 
 mony, and it were in the face of all arithmetic . . . 
 to deny that this must tell on the births of a parish and 
 its population. We do not say that profligacy would be 
 exterminated with the law of pauperism, but it would be 
 checked; and, we venture to affirm, that were the sup- 
 plies of pauperism withdrawn from all future illegiti- 
 mates there would be an instantaneous diminution of their 
 number. In all these ways the market for labor would 
 be less crowded than it is now, and laborers would stand on 
 a higher vantage-ground in the negotiations between them 
 and their employers. There would be some fewer work- 
 men than before, and this is enough to cause much higher 
 wages. This is a most important compensation that awaits 
 the lower classes of England, after that the dispensations 
 of pauperism have been withdrawn from them. 
 
 [Here is repeated at some length the statement of the 
 method for gradual abolition of pauperism and the sub- 
 stitution of the system of voluntary parish charity.] 
 
 Emigration to our colonies is worthy of the utmost sup- 
 port from Government, if connected with a process for 
 the abolition of pauperism. But should the system of 
 pauperism continue, it will operate no sensible relief in 
 England. It has been likened to a safety-valve, but it is 
 a valve, the very lifting and opening of which implies the
 
 POOR-RATES AND DEFECTIVE WAGES 295 
 
 elasticity within of a state of compression and violence; 
 and up to this state it will remain, notwithstanding the 
 successive escapes of a redundant population. The crea- 
 tive process will always maintain a balance with the re- 
 lieving process; and a people must be in distress when 
 the difficulties of home are so nearly in equilibrium with 
 its charms as to place them on the eve of desire and de- 
 liberation to renounce it forever. And besides, the poor 
 laws act in an opposite direction to the offers and the en- 
 couragements of emigration; though, if connected with 
 any plan for the abolition of them, we cannot conceive a 
 better way, both of smoothing the transition and of keep- 
 ing the country in a clear and healthful state after the 
 transition has been effected. But it is to the reaction at 
 home that we look for our best securities against any 
 shock or disaster that might be apprehended to our fam- 
 ilies from the overthrow of pauperism. When charity is 
 altogether detached from the remuneration of labor, this 
 of itself will keep off a very wide and wasting contamina- 
 tion from the spirit of our peasantry, and they will again 
 recover the honest pride of independence. Still more 
 would this feeling grow in strength and sensibility were 
 they trained to the habit of small but constant accumula- 
 tion. It is at this crisis that a parish savings-bank might 
 achieve a wondrous transformation on the state of the 
 people, by begetting a sense of property among laborers. 
 . . . Once that the turning-point has been made from 
 being a pauper to being a possessor, a new ambition is 
 felt, and a new object comes to be intensely prosecuted. 
 This is a better expedient for postponing the date of
 
 296 CHJI1ST1AN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 marriage than any act of Parliament. The days were 
 in Scotland, when it was customary, during the virtuous 
 attachment of years, for the parties to fill up the interval 
 with those frugalities and labors by which they made 
 a provision for their future household, and there is no 
 doubt that a savings-bank is fitted to inspire with a 
 similar purpose those who repair to it. ... 
 
 [Here are added a few technical suggestions in respect 
 to ways of avoiding evils arising out of the conflict of 
 settlement laws as applied to various districts. It is rec- 
 ommended, in justice to the trial parishes, that if laborers 
 having settlement elsewhere invade these favored districts 
 they lose their legal claim to relief. But the author 
 thinks there would be comparatively little abuse, since the 
 trial parishes would be averse to giving employment to 
 strangers so long as any at home asked work.]
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 ON SAVINGS-BANKS 
 
 WITHOUT the co-operation of their own virtuous en- 
 deavors there seems no possible way of doing good to the 
 laboring classes, or of helping them upward from a lower 
 to a more secure and elevated place in the commonwealth. 
 But we can see a very patent way to it in such habits and 
 resources as, generally speaking, are within their reach. 
 It is for them, and for them only, to regulate the supply 
 of laborers. . . . The frugality of a workman might 
 length, through a means of a savings-bank, land him in a 
 small capital, and there is one effect of a capital in the 
 hands of the laboring classes which must be quite obvious. 
 It were a barrier between them and that urgent immediate 
 necessity which gives such advantage to their employers 
 in the question of wages. A man on the brink of starva- 
 tion has no command in this negotiation. He will gladly 
 accept of such terms as are offered rather than perish of 
 hunger; and it is thus, by their improvidence and their 
 reckless expenditure in prosperous times, that on the evil 
 day they lie so much at the mercy and dictation of their 
 superiors. The possession of a capital, and that not a very 
 great one, by each individual laborer, or rather by each 
 
 of a considerable number of laborers, would reverse the 
 
 297
 
 298 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 character of the negotiation entirely. They could stand 
 out against miserable wages. They could afford to be 
 idle; and, while so, the stock of the commodity which 
 they .work, and wherewith the market is for the present 
 glutted, would soon melt away, and the price of their labor 
 be speedily restored to its fair and comfortable level. 
 . . . The whole platform of humble life would take 
 a higher level than at present; and we repeat that, to 
 every man who felt aright, it were a satisfaction and a 
 triumph then to recognize a hale and well-conditioned 
 peasantry. 
 
 We are aware of a jealousy here, and how much it is 
 that capitalists have suffered by unlooked-for conspiracies 
 on the part of the workmen. We are also aware of the 
 sums that have been subscribed by the latter for the ex- 
 press purpose of maintaining all the members of the con- 
 spiracy in idleness, and so of holding out till masters 
 should surrender to their terms. It is on these considera- 
 tions that an apprehension has been felt, in certain quar- 
 ters, lest savings-banks should arm the mechanics and 
 workmen of our land with a dangerous power, and place 
 at the mercy of their caprice the interest of all the other 
 orders in society. This, at least, is a concession of the ef- 
 ficacy of these institutions for all the purposes on account 
 of which we would argue in their favor, and they who 
 fear lest provident banks should make the lower orders 
 too rich, must at all events allow, that with care and con- 
 duct on their part, there is a capability amongst them for 
 becoming rich enough to be wholly independent of the 
 supplies of pauperism. While we have no doubt that the
 
 ON SAVINGS-BANKS 299 
 
 power of becoming rich enough is in their own hands, we 
 cannot sympathize with the feelings of those who fear 
 lest they should be too rich. We should like to see them 
 invested with a certain power of dictation as to their own 
 wages. We should like to see them taking full advantage 
 of all that they have fairly earned in the negotiation with 
 their employers. We should like to see a great stable 
 independent property in the hands of the laboring classes, 
 and their interest elevated to one of the high co-ordinate 
 interests of the state. It were well, we think, if, by dint 
 of education and virtue, they at length secured a more 
 generous remuneration for labor so as that wages should 
 bear a much higher proportion than they do now to the 
 rent of land and the profit of stock, which form the other 
 two ingredients in the value of a commodity. In this 
 competition between capitalists and workmen we profess 
 ourselves to be on the side of the latter, and would re- 
 joice in every advantage which their own industry and 
 their own sobriety had won for them. Rather than that, 
 at the basis of society, we should have a heartless, profli- 
 gate, and misthriven crew, on the brink of starvation, and 
 crouching under all the humiliations of pauperism, we 
 should vastly prefer an erect and sturdy and withal well- 
 paid and well-principled peasantry, even though they 
 should be occasionally able to strike their tools and to in- 
 commode their superiors by bringing industry to a stand. 
 We have no doubt at the same time that the fear is an al- 
 together extravagant one ; that the two classes would soon 
 come to a right adjustment, and that in particular the em- 
 ployers of labor would find it a far more comfortable
 
 300 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 management when they had to do with a set of prosperous 
 and respectable workmen, than when they have to do with 
 the fiery and unreasonable spirits that so abound among 
 a dissipated, ill-taught, and ill-conditioned population. In 
 the strength of the principle of population, nature has 
 provided a sufficient security against the prudential re- 
 straint upon marriages being carried too far, and we may, 
 therefore, always be sure of an adequate supply of labor- 
 ers for all the essential or important business of the land. 
 But, through the law of pauperism, the restraint is not 
 carried far enough, and now we are oppressed, in conse- 
 quence, by a redundancy of numbers. By abolishing this 
 law we simply leave the adjustment of the balance to nat- 
 ure. Legislators vacillate and are uncertain about the 
 alternative of the people being either too rich or too 
 poor. But nature, if unmeddled with by their inter- 
 ference, will so manage between the animal instincts on 
 the one hand, and the urgencies of self-preservation, or 
 the higher principles of the mind, upon the other, as 
 that they shall neither be richer nor poorer than they 
 ought to be. 
 
 This prejudice, however, against savings-banks, and 
 this alarm for the independence of the lower orders, are 
 very much confined to capitalists of narrow views and nar- 
 row circumstances. There is a delightful experience 
 upon this subject that is multiplying and becoming more 
 manifest every day, and which goes to prove how much 
 the interest of the employer and that of the workman is 
 at one. It is, that the expense of a well-paid laborer is 
 in general more than made up by the superior worth and
 
 ON SAVINGS-BANKS 3U1 
 
 quality of his service. The farmer, in those parishes 
 where there is a composition of poor-rate with wages, does 
 not find his account in that system. The labor is cheaper, 
 but far less valuable in proportion; the work that is 
 underpaid being done in a way so much more slovenly as 
 to annihilate any advantage that might otherwise have 
 accrued to the master. It is an advantage grasped at by 
 men of limited means, and who find a saving in their 
 immediate outlay to be of some consequence to them. But 
 in the large and liberal scale, either of a great manufac- 
 tory, or of any agricultural operation in which a sufficient 
 capital is embarked, it is found that, with well-paid and 
 well-principled workmen, the prosperity, both of masters 
 and servants, is most effectually consulted. . . . 
 
 We are quite aware that it is not by the operation of but 
 a few savings-banks, and a consequent capital in the hands 
 of fractionally a very small number of our people, that a 
 higher rate of wages will become general in the country. 
 To work this effect there must be a corresponding general- 
 ity in the cause. There will not be this general elevation 
 in the status of laborers till there be a general habit of ac- 
 cumulation amongst them; and however much the in- 
 dividuals who do accumulate may benefit themselves, they 
 must bear a certain proportion to the whole mass of the 
 community ere they can work a sensible advancement 
 upon the whole in the circumstances of the lower orders. 
 Suppose a district of the land where the peasantry had by 
 economy and good management attained a measure of in- 
 dependence, yet, if surrounded by other over-peopled dis- 
 tricts, teeming with reckless and improvident families,
 
 302 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 this were enough to keep down the remuneration of labor, 
 even in that place where laborers had universally become 
 little capitalists. It is thus that the neighborhood of Ire- 
 land will retard the progress of the lower orders in Britain 
 toward a permanently higher state of comfort and suf- 
 ficiency than they now enjoy. And the only way of neu- 
 tralizing the competition from that quarter is just by 
 carrying to them, too, the beneficent influences of educa- 
 tion and training the people to that style and habit of en- 
 joyment which will at length bring later marriages and a 
 less oppressive weight of population along with it. We 
 are abundantly sensible that the enlargement which we 
 now contemplate as awaiting our operative classes must 
 be the slow result of a moral improvement among them- 
 selves, which we fear will come on very gradually. But 
 certain it is that, tardy as this way may be of a people's 
 amelioration, it is the only way; and, at all events, there 
 is nothing in the tumult and stir of those popular com- 
 binations which have so recently arisen in all parts of the 
 land, that in the least degree is fitted to hasten it. 
 
 The whole philosophy of a subject may be exemplified 
 within a narrow space. In its practical effects, pauperism 
 is coextensive with our empire. In its principles, and in 
 the whole rationale of its operation, it may be effectually 
 studied even on the limited field of a small parochial 
 community. . . . It is on this account that we prize so 
 much the following little narrative by the overseer of 
 Long Burton, in Dorsetshire, a parish with a population 
 of only three hundred and twenty-seven, and therefore 
 peculiarly adapted for the distinct exhibition of any in-
 
 ON SAVINGS-BANKS 303 
 
 fluence which its parochial economy might have on the 
 state of its inhabitants. 
 
 The overseer had three able-bodied men out of em- 
 ployment, and whom it fell of him to dispose of. The 
 farmers all saturated with workmen could not take them 
 in, and rather than send them to work upon the roads, he 
 applied to a master-mason in the neighborhood, who en- 
 gaged to take their services at the low rate of six shillings 
 in the week, the parish to make up the deficiency to the 
 three men, so as that they should, on the whole, have 
 fifteen pence a week for each member of their families. 
 The mason had previously in his employment from seven 
 to ten men, at the weekly wage of eight or nine shillings 
 each. But no sooner did he take in these three super- 
 numeraries from the parish at six shillings than he began 
 to treat anew with his old workmen, and threatened to 
 discharge them if they would not consent to a lower wage. 
 This of course would have thrown them all upon the par- 
 ish, for the difference between their reduced and their 
 present wages, upon perceiving which, the overseer in- 
 stantly drew back his three men from the mason, and at 
 length contrived to dispose of them otherwise. Upon 
 this the wages of the journeymen masons reverted to what 
 they were before. 
 
 Now this exemplifies the state of many agricultural 
 parishes in England. There is a reserve of supernumer- 
 aries constantly on the eve of pouring forth over all the 
 departments of regular labor, and on the instant of their 
 doing so, forcing one and all of the regular workmen 
 within the margin of pauperism. . . .
 
 304 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 An overstocked market is either prevented or more 
 speedily relieved simply by so many of the workmen 
 ceasing to work, or by a great many working moderately. 
 It is thus that a savings-bank is the happiest of all ex- 
 pedients for filling up the gaps and equalizing the de- 
 ficiencies and shortening those dreary intervals of ill- 
 paid work, which now occur so frequently to the great 
 degradation and distress of every manufacturing popu- 
 lation. We have always been of opinion that the 
 main use of a savings-bank was not to elevate laborers 
 into the class of capitalists, but to equalize and improve 
 their condition as laborers. We should like them to 
 have each a small capital, not wherewith to become 
 manufacturers, but wherewith to control manufacturers. 
 . . . The overplus of manufactured goods, which is 
 the cause of miserable wages, would soon clear away 
 under that restriction of work which would naturally 
 follow on the part of men who did not choose, because 
 they did not need, to work for miserable wages. What 
 is now a protracted season of suffering and discontent 
 to the lower orders, would, in these circumstances, be- 
 come to them a short but brilliant career of holiday 
 enjoyment. The report of a heavy downfall of wages, 
 instead of sounding like a knell of despair in their ears, 
 would be their signal for rising up to play. We have 
 heard that there does not exist in our empire a more 
 intellectual and accomplished order of workmen than 
 the weavers of Paisley. It was their habit, we under- 
 stand, to abandon their looms throughout the half or 
 nearly the whole of each Saturday, and to spend this
 
 ON SAVINGS-BANKS 305 
 
 time in gardening, or in the enjoyment of a country walk. 
 It is true that such time might sometimes be viciously 
 spent, but still we should rejoice in such a degree of suf- 
 ficiency among our operatives as that they could afford a 
 lawful day of every week for their amusement, and still 
 more, that they could afford whole months of relaxed and 
 diminished industry, when industry was under-paid. 
 . . . The very habits which helped them to accumulate 
 in the season of well-paid work would form the best guar- 
 antee against the vicious and immoral abuse of this ac- 
 cumulation in the season either of entire or comparative 
 inactivity. We would expect an increase of reading, and 
 the growth of literary cultivation, and the steady advance- 
 ment of virtuous and religious habits, and, altogether, a 
 greater weight of character and influence among the labor- 
 ing classes as the permanent results of such a system. 
 Instead of being the victims of every adverse movement 
 in trade, they would become its most effective regulators. 
 
 20
 
 CHAPTEE XX 
 
 ON THE COMBINATIONS OF WORKMEN FOR THE PUR- 
 POSE OF RAISING WAGES 
 
 WE fear that the cause of Savings-Banks may have sus- 
 tained a temporary discredit from the recent conduct of 
 workmen all over the country. The apprehension is, that, 
 by a large united capital amongst them, they might get 
 the upper hand of their employers altogether; that, in 
 possession of means which could enable them to be idle, 
 they may exercise a power most capriciously and most in- 
 conveniently for the other classes of society; that they 
 may lay manufacturers under bondage by their impreg- 
 nable combinations ; and, striking work at the most criti- 
 cal and unexpected junctures, they may subject the whole 
 economy of human life to jolts and sudden derangements 
 which might be enough for its overthrow. These fears, 
 enhanced though they have been of late by the outrages 
 of workmen in various parts of the country, would speed- 
 ily be dissipated, we believe, under the light of growing 
 experience. The repeal of the combination laws has not 
 even yet been adequately tried. The effervescence which 
 has followed on that repeal is the natural and, we believe, 
 the temporary effect of the anterior state of things. There 
 was nothing more likely than that the people, when put in 
 
 possession of a power which they felt to be altogether new, 
 
 306
 
 COMBINATIONS FOR RAISING WAGES 307 
 
 would take a delight in the exercise of it, and break forth 
 into misplaced and most extravagant manifestations. But 
 if the conduct of the one party have been extravagant, 
 the alarm of the other party we conceive to have been 
 equally extravagant. We trust that the alarm may have 
 been in part dissipated, ere Government shall be induced 
 to legislate any further upon the subject, or to trench by 
 any of its acts on the great principle of every man being 
 entitled to make the most of his own labor, and also of 
 acting in concert with his fellows for the production of 
 a general benefit, as great as they can possibly make out 
 to the whole body of laborers. 
 
 The repeal of the combination laws in England has 
 been attended with consequences which strongly remind 
 us of the consequences that ensued, after the Revolution, 
 from the repeal of the game laws in France. The whole 
 population, thrown agog by their new privilege, poured 
 forth upon the country, and, variously accoutred, made 
 war, in grotesque and unpractised style, upon the fowls 
 of the air and the beasts of the field. In a few months, 
 however, the extravagance subsided, and the people re- 
 turned to their old quiescent habits and natural occupa- 
 tions. . . . We feel assured that, in like manner, this 
 delirium of a newly awakened faculty among our British 
 workmen will speedily pass away. They will at length 
 become wise and temperate in the use of it. Neither 
 party, in fact, well understand how to proceed in the un- 
 wonted relation wherein they now stand to each other. 
 There is indefinite demand upon the one side ; upon the 
 other there are distrust and a most sensitive dread of en-
 
 308 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 croachment. They have not yet completed their trial of 
 strength, and just because in ignorance of each other's 
 powers there are yet the effort and the excitation and the 
 busy rivalship of a still undetermined conflict. 
 
 First, for the question, " What were the right enact- 
 ment in regard to combinations, on the pure and abstract 
 principles of law ? ". . . The great principle of law upon 
 this, and upon every other subject is, that it should quad- 
 rate as much as it can possibly be made to do, with obvious 
 morality. It is most desirable that whatever the legislat- 
 ure shall ordain to be a crime, and liable to punishment, 
 should be felt as a crime by man's natural conscience. 
 In every case, when there is a want of sympathy between 
 the enactments of the statute-book and the dictates of nat- 
 ural virtue, there is an expenditure and loss of strength 
 incurred by the government of a country, when it either 
 ordains such enactments or carries them into effect. It is 
 sure to lose ground thereby in public or popular estima- 
 tion; and when the arbitrary regulations of a state are 
 thus made to thwart and run counter to the independent 
 feelings and judgments of men, this is certain to infuse 
 an element of weakness into the body politic. The heart- 
 burnings of him who suffers the penalty meet with power- 
 ful re-enforcement in the sympathy of all his fellows. 
 He feels himself to be a martyr or a hero, and not a crim- 
 inal ; and, if treated as a criminal, this only puts a gener- 
 ous indignancy into his heart, in which he is supported by 
 a kindred sentiment among all the free and noble spirits 
 of the land. . . . 
 
 On the other hand, let law . . . be at one with the
 
 COMBINATIONS FOR RAISING WAGES 309 
 
 voice of the heart, insomuch that all the denunciations of 
 the statute-book are echoed to by the universal sense of 
 justice in society, and every act of such a legislation will 
 inconceivably strengthen the authority from which it 
 emanates. . . . 
 
 Now we fear that there have been times when both 
 these principles were traversed by Government in its man- 
 agement of combinations. For first, there seems nothing 
 criminal in the act of a man ceasing to work at the expiry 
 of his engagement, because not satisfied with his present 
 wage, and desirous of a higher, or in the act of men con- 
 federated and doing jointly, or together, the same thing. 
 On the contrary, it seems altogether fair that each should 
 make as much as he can of his own labor, and that just as 
 dealers of the same description meet and hold consulta- 
 tions for the purpose of enhancing the price of their com- 
 modity, so it should be equally competent for workmen 
 to deliberate, and fix on any common, if it be not a crim- 
 inal agreement, and that to enhance, if they can, the price 
 of their own services. 
 
 There really is nothing morally wrong in all this ; and, 
 however a man may be treated on account of it as a delin- 
 quent by the law, he certainly is not regarded as a de- 
 linquent in the eye of natural conscience. It was because 
 of this discrepancy, between nature and law, that we 
 held it a good thing when, by the repeal act, it was ex- 
 punged from the statute-book, and we hope that no sub- 
 sequent act will again restore it. ... 
 
 But, secondly, while Government on the one hand, by 
 its penalties against the simple act of combination, put
 
 310 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 forth a vigor far beyond the natural dimensions of this 
 alleged enormity, they, on the other hand, have not been 
 declared and rigorous enough against those real enormi- 
 ties, which are often attendant on combinations. . . . 
 The members of a combination proceed to a very great 
 and undeniable crime when they put forth a hand, or 
 even utter dark and terrifying threats of violence to those 
 who are willing to work. This is the point against which 
 the whole force of legislation ought to be directed. . . . 
 In consistency with their own great and glorious principle 
 of freedom, they should guard to the uttermost the free- 
 dom of those who are willing from the tyranny and vio- 
 lence of those who are not willing to work. . . . 
 
 We must pass from the abstract jurisprudence of the 
 question to the gross and living experience of the question. 
 . . . It is not by the mere categories of ethical science 
 that such a question ought to be determined. ... It 
 is only by a survey abroad, and over the domain of busi- 
 ness and familiar life that he learns to modify, when 
 needful, the generalizations of abstract thought by the 
 demands of a felt and urgent expediency. . . . The 
 complex workings of what may be termed the economic 
 mechanism are altogether at one with the simplicities of 
 theory. We hold that there are certain natural securities 
 for a right adjustment between masters and servants, in 
 the very relationship itself, which ought to supersede the 
 interference of Government we mean its interference 
 for any other object than the enforcement of justice be- 
 tween the parties, and the protection of both from all 
 sorts of personal violence. . . .
 
 COMBINATIONS FOR RAISING WAGES 311 
 
 The great compensation for the evils of a strike is the 
 power which masters have of replacing those who have 
 struck by other hands. . . . 
 
 [Here follow illustrations of the success of masters re- 
 placing the striking workmen, and so bringing them to 
 terms. Among the examples given, apparently without 
 realizing the horror of the situation for the workmen, he 
 complacently describes the importation of cheap work- 
 men, which made the English workmen the slaves of the 
 beggars of other countries. A capitalist tells his story 
 thus:] 
 
 The men whom we employed were mostly Irishmen, 
 but were picked up by us about the place. Had we not 
 succeeded in getting them in that way we had determined 
 to send a person to Ireland to recruit there. Our old 
 hands, at least, such as we have chosen to employ, have 
 returned to their work, and have, in a submissive manner, 
 renounced the system of associations. Our new colliers 
 continue with us, and are doing well. 
 
 These . . . examples, selected almost at random, 
 from the mass that lies before us, . . . which serve 
 to demonstrate the facility wherewith raw and unpractised 
 laborers can be rendered effective at least in this impor- 
 tant branch of industry. 
 
 We are aware that, in the greater number of trades, a 
 laborer from the general population is not so speedily 
 convertible to use as in collieries, and that, therefore, with 
 even full security for the new workmen a time must 
 elapse, and loss must be incurred, and a most inconvenient 
 suspension of the manufacture must take place, ere it can
 
 312 CHKISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 again be set a-going in the same effective way as before. 
 The old workmen who have struck cannot all at once be 
 replaced by the same number, and the new workmen who 
 succeed them cannot all at once acquire the habit and 
 skill of their predecessors. It is certainly relieving to 
 observe how soon an ordinary laborer can be transformed 
 into a good collier, and even made serviceable in many 
 of the branches of cotton-spinning. Yet there can be no 
 doubt that in all those crafts and occupations which re- 
 quire a long apprenticeship to be accomplished in their 
 mysteries there might be a cessation of work which, if 
 persisted in beyond a certain length, might be inconven- 
 ient to master manufacturers, and still more inconvenient 
 ' to their customers. To look fairly and openly at all the 
 possibilities, one can conceive a great extent of inconven- 
 ience from a universal strike of shipwrights, or house-car- 
 penters, and still more, perhaps, of clothiers and shoe- 
 makers, all classes of workmen that cannot be so instantly 
 replaced, as some others, out of the general population. 
 
 Now in the nature of the case itself, there is a sufficient 
 protection even against this evil, alarming as it may ap- 
 pear, and that without any express interference of Parlia- 
 ment in the matter. We mean the certainty, that, sooner 
 or later, the workmen who have struck must surrender 
 themselves to terms of agreement with their employers. 
 They cannot hold out against this self-inflicted blockade 
 beyond a certain period. There must, of course, be a rapid 
 expenditure of their means, and, if living without work, 
 and therefore without wages, their resources must soon 
 melt away. . . .
 
 COMBINATIONS FOR RAISING WAGES 313 
 
 And what we hold to be of prime importance in this 
 argument is that the result brought about in this natural 
 way has a far more permanent and pacifying effect upon 
 the workmen than when overborne out of their combina- 
 tion by the force of legal restraints and the terror of legal 
 penalties. . . . They will be greatly more manageable 
 after having themselves made full trial of their own im- 
 potency, than when festering under a sense of the injus- 
 tice and hostility wherewith, under the old combination 
 laws, they conceived that the hand of government was 
 lifted up against the interests and natural rights of their 
 order. It was quite to be expected that there should be 
 frequent and even fierce outbreakings on their part, 
 after the repeal of these laws, but, most assuredly, this 
 general experience of the upshot will be of far more heal- 
 ing influence than anything so fitted to exasperate and 
 tantalize, as the re-enactment of them. . . . 
 
 It is really not for the interest of the masters that there 
 should be a revival of these laws. Greatly better for 
 them, too, that there should have been a trial of strength, 
 after which both parties are landed in that state of settle- 
 ment and repose which comes after a battle that has been 
 decisively terminated. . . .
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED 
 
 IT is competent for masters, too, to frame such articles 
 of agreement with their workmen, as shall protect them 
 in a great measure from any sudden or unlooked-for ces- 
 sations; and for the violation of which these workmen 
 shall bring down upon themselves not the arbitrary, but 
 the rightful penalties of law, and which penalties, should 
 it be found necessary, might be still further aggravated 
 without any offence to the principles of an obvious or nat- 
 ural morality. They could engage their laborers for a 
 service of months instead of weeks or days, and then put 
 forth a most legitimate strength to compel their fulfil- 
 ment of the stipulated period. To make the security more 
 effectual they could hire their workmen in separate classes 
 at all separate periods, so that, at worst, it could only be 
 a partial, and never a universal strike at any one time. 
 They could further ascertain beforehand, as in domestic 
 service, whether any of them mean to leave their employ- 
 ment at the termination of their bargain; and thus mas- 
 ters, with time to look about for new workmen, could 
 never be caught unprepared. . . . Masters and manu- 
 facturers can lay an assessment on the wages of the re- 
 admitted workmen, or, which is the same thing, can take 
 
 m
 
 COMBINATIONS AND WAGES 315 
 
 them in again upon reduced wages till they have re- 
 covered, by the difference, a complete indemnification 
 for all that they have suffered by the interruption of the 
 manufacture. . . . 
 
 At the very worst, and though masters should not be 
 wholly able to protect themselves from inconvenience and 
 loss by combination, this should just be regarded as one 
 out of many other hazards to which their business is ex- 
 posed. Manifold are the casualties to which they are sub- 
 jected, whether from fire or shipwreck, or unlooked-for 
 fluctuations in the state of the market. It is not more the 
 part of Government to interfere for their defence against 
 the uncertainties of the market for labor, than against 
 the uncertainties of the market for those commodities in 
 which they deal ; against the fitful elements of discontent 
 or cupidity in the minds of their workmen than against 
 the fitful agitations of the weather or of the ocean. It is 
 for them to lay their account with the chances and the 
 changes in the price of labor as well as in the price, 
 whether of their raw material or of their finished com- 
 modity, and just to charge or to calculate accordingly. 
 
 The master, in truth, is only the ostensible, or, at worst, 
 the temporary sufferer by this conspiracy of his workmen ; 
 and if there be any sufferer at all in the long run it is not 
 he, but the customer. He loses profit for a season, but it 
 is all made up to him by the eventual rise of profit that 
 ensues on the production of his commodity being sus- 
 pended. This is the well-known effect of a general strike 
 among operatives. It relieves the overladen market of 
 the glut under which it labors, and, by the time that work-
 
 316 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 men at length give in, the manufacturer enters upon 
 what to him is the most enriching of all harvests, the 
 harvest of a brisk demand upon empty warehouses. . . . 
 Would they but withhold that perpetual interference 
 by which they are ever cramping and constraining the 
 liberty of things, they would find how much better the 
 laws of nature, and the laws of political economy, pro- 
 vide for the great interests of human life when unchecked 
 by the laws of Parliament. 
 
 [After a repetition of the argument that laws and com- 
 binations cannot affect prices of labor or profits; that 
 natural economic laws will have their way in spite of ar- 
 tificial arrangements; that labor will be paid low wages 
 if the number of laborers is too great for the demand ; the 
 author proceeds to show the laborers how, under natural 
 laws, wages will rise if the supply of laborers is not exces- 
 sive.] 
 
 And certain it is that this will avail them without the 
 expedient of any organized association at all. For the 
 sake of simplicity, let us confine the argument to any 
 one branch of manufacture which we might suppose to be 
 in the hands of a certain number of capitalists, and that 
 it is somewhat straitened for a supply of laborers. In 
 consequence, the commodity will be produced in some- 
 what less abundance than can fully meet the demand for it 
 in the market, and its price inevitably rises. This incre- 
 ment of price, in the first instance, raises the profits of the 
 masters, but its final landing-place is among the workmen, 
 for, in the second instance, and without combinations, it 
 will go to the raising of the wages. The rise of profits
 
 COMBINATIONS AND WAGES 317 
 
 in any trade tends both to create more of capital within 
 the trade, and to allure to it more of capital from without. 
 In other words, master manufacturers will not long be 
 permitted to enjoy this additional profit; for out of it 
 there will almost instantly emerge a busier competition, 
 either among themselves, or from new adventurers, en- 
 ticed to this more hopeful walk of speculation. The pros- 
 perity of any trade is ever followed up both with the means 
 and the efforts to extend it ; but this cannot be done with- 
 out a call for more operatives than before. Each individ- 
 ual master, while the demand is brisker than the supply, 
 and therefore profits encouraging, will try to widen and 
 enlarge his own establishment, and, as the effect of this 
 competition among all, a higher \vage will be held out 
 than before to laborers. Let there be an endeavor on 
 the part of every capitalist to make out a full complement 
 of workmen, and .nothing more is necessary than a diffi- 
 culty in doing so, from the smallness of the numbers to 
 be had, in order to secure for those workmen a liberal 
 remuneration. Apart from any association on the side 
 of the operatives, their object is gained by a competition 
 on the side of their masters. And all which they have to 
 do is to cultivate, each in his own family, those habits of 
 foresight and sobriety, without which it is utterly impos- 
 sible, either by device or by violence, to save them from 
 the miseries of an over-peopled land. 
 
 This of itself will elevate the condition of the working 
 classes. Let there be somewhat more of virtue in their 
 conduct, and somewhat more of prudence and delay in 
 their marriages, and there will forthwith commence that
 
 318 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 progress by which, silently and gradually and indefinitely, 
 the price of their services must rise, and themselves must 
 ascend to a higher status in the commonwealth. And all 
 this without the turmoil and effervescence of combina- 
 tions. These can never permanently raise the price of 
 labor. There is one precise point at which this price set- 
 tles, and this point is altogether determined by the pro- 
 portion which obtains between the work to be done, and 
 the number of workmen that are to be had for the doing 
 of it. . . . 
 
 Everything in the state and history of the commercial 
 world announces how little capitalists have it in their 
 power to sustain an extravagant rate of profit, for any 
 length of time, at the expense of their customers or of 
 their workmen. It is a prevalent impression among work- 
 men that they are too much at the mercy of capitalists. If 
 they only knew the whole truth they would soon perceive 
 that capitalists are wholly at the mercy of each other ; and 
 in such a way that without being able to help it they are 
 very much at the mercy of their workmen. At least, if it 
 be not so, it is altogether the fault of the workmen them- 
 selves, who, by the simple regulation of their numbers 
 might, not in a way of turbulence, but in a way of order 
 and peace, become the effectual dictators in every ques- 
 tion between them and their employers. 
 
 These employers cannot, though they would, reserve 
 in profit to themselves any part of that, which, in the 
 state of the labor market, must go in wages to their labor- 
 ers. They cannot keep up their profits beyond a certain 
 rate at the expense of their workmen, and in the progress
 
 COMBINATIONS AND WAGES 319 
 
 of things, too, this rate is constantly falling. For how 
 short a time can any lucrative branch of trade be upheld 
 in its lucrativeness ! In a few months the rush of capital 
 fills it to an overflow. Let but a stage-coach upon any 
 road, or a steamboat upon any river, have realized the 
 smallest centage of excess above the ordinary profits of 
 the country, and, in a moment, by other coaches and 
 other boats, the excess, or perhaps the whole profit alto- 
 gether is annihilated. The same holds true of every other 
 department. Each is crowded with capital, and profit, all 
 over the land, is rapidly verging to a minimum. This is 
 satisfactorily demonstrated by the fall in the interest of 
 money; and perhaps a still more striking exhibition of it 
 is the way in which capital is going about among all the 
 schemes and possibilities of investiture that are now afloat, 
 and absolutely begging for employment. With such a 
 creative and accumulating force in capital the laboring 
 classes may be in perfect security, that any hostile com- 
 bination of their masters against them must speedily be 
 neutralized, by competition among themselves. . . . 
 
 And, for ourselves, we confess it to be a cheering an- 
 ticipation, that the laboring classes shall, not by a midway 
 passage of anarchy and misrule, but by a tranquil process 
 of amelioration in their character and habits, make steady 
 amelioration at the same time in their outward circum- 
 stances. We believe it to be in reserve for society, that, 
 of the three component ingredients of value, the wages 
 of labor shall at length rise to a permanently higher pro- 
 portion than they now have, either to the profit of stock 
 or the rent of land, and that thus, workmen will share
 
 320 CHBISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 more equally than they do at present, with capitalists 
 and proprietors of the soil, in the comforts and even the 
 elegancies of life. But this will not be the achievement 
 of desperadoes. It will be come at through a more peace- 
 ful medium, through the medium of a growing worth and 
 growing intelligence among the people. It will bless 
 and beautify that coming period, when a generation, hu- 
 manized by letters, and elevated by the light of Chris- 
 tianity, shall, in virtue of a higher taste and a larger ca- 
 pacity than they now possess, cease to grovel as they do at 
 present among the sensualities of a reckless dissipation. 
 
 This dissipation stands often associated with a stout and 
 sullen defiance, and the two together characterize a large 
 class of the mechanics of our present day. But these are 
 not the men who are to accomplish the enlargement of 
 that order to which they belong ; at one time on the brink 
 of starvation by their own extravagance, and then lying 
 prostrate at the dictation of their employers; at another, 
 in some season of fitful prosperity, made giddy with am- 
 bition, and breaking forth in the complaints and the 
 clamors of an appetency which is never satisfied. It is 
 not by such a process of starts and convulsions as this that 
 our working classes are to be borne upward to that place 
 of security and strength, which, nevertheless, we believe 
 to be awaiting them. But there is no other foundation 
 than that of their own sobriety and good principle on 
 which it can solidly be reared. And the process in this 
 way may easily be apprehended. In proportion as man 
 becomes more reflective and virtuous, in that proportion 
 does he seek something higher than the mere gratifica-
 
 COMBINATIONS AND WAGES 321 
 
 tions of his animal nature. His desires take a wider range, 
 and he will not be satisfied but with a wider range of en- 
 joyment. There is a growing demand for certain objects 
 of taste and decency; and even the mind will come to re- 
 quire a leisure and a literature for the indulgence of its 
 nobler appetites, now brought into play by means of a 
 diffused education. Altogether, under such a regimen as 
 this, the heart of a workman is made to aspire after greater 
 things than before, and in perfect keeping and harmony 
 with a soul now awakened to the charms of that philos- 
 ophy which is brought down to his understanding in a 
 mechanic school, is it that he should hold as indispen- 
 sable to his comfort a better style of accommodations than 
 his forefathers, whether in apparel, or furniture, or lodg- 
 ing. And it is just by means of a more elevated standard 
 than before, that marriages become later and less fre- 
 quent than before. . . . The man who counts it enough 
 for himself and his family that they have rags, and pota- 
 toes, and a hovel, will rush more improvidently, and there- 
 fore more early, into the married state, than he who feels 
 that, without a better provision and a better prospect than 
 these, he should offend his own self-respect, and com- 
 promise all his notions of what is decent, or dignified, or 
 desirable. . . . 
 
 If we except the state of still youthful colonies, we 
 shall be sure to find that, corresponding to the differenqe 
 in the average standard of enjoyment, is there a difference 
 in the average period of marriage. The higher the one 
 is the later the other is. . . . 
 
 In the act of dealing equally with the various classes 
 21
 
 322 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 of society it is perhaps impossible to avoid saying what 
 might occasionally be offensive to them all. And if, on 
 the one hand, there are laborers who need to be rebuked 
 out of their turbulence and unjust discontent, so, on the 
 other hand, there are still a few of the British aristocracy 
 who eye with jealousy and dread all the advances that are 
 making by the people in knowledge, and even in the suf- 
 ficiency and style of their enjoyments. More especially 
 have recent outbreakings of workmen engendered in cer- 
 tain quarters a dislike of savings-banks, as the likely or- 
 gans of building up a capital for the lower orders, as 
 might be the instrument at length of a popular despotism, 
 at once the most fearful in itself, and the most destructive 
 of all the great political and economic interests in our 
 land. 
 
 [The workmen who save a little property will not rashly 
 rush into strikes under the lead of demagogues. Chalmers 
 forgets that an associated fund is protected from hasty 
 action by exactly the same motives, and that a strike which 
 must be discussed in labor parliaments is the fruit of a 
 mental process of reflection and consideration which has 
 immense educative value.] 
 
 And there is a very substantial, and, at the same time, 
 a very pure compensation, awaiting the higher classes of 
 society, for this encroachment that is made upon them by 
 the increased wages of the lower. It is founded upon 
 this: the greater amount and value of the services that 
 will then be rendered. . . . There are a power and a 
 charm, in a certain generous style of remuneration, the
 
 COMBINATIONS AND WAGES 323 
 
 whole benefit of which will come to be realized in that 
 better state of things to which W T C believe that society is 
 fast tending. We are aware of the union which often ob- 
 tains in large manufacturing establishments, between the 
 enormous wage, and the reckless, loathsome dissipation 
 of its workmen. But, ere the higher wage that we con- 
 template shall obtain throughout the country at large, 
 this recklessness must have very generally disappeared, 
 and a sober, reflective, and well-principled character sub- 
 stituted in its place. . . . 
 
 The same lesson is afforded by the reverse experience 
 of those farmers who employ a set of worthless, degraded, 
 and half -paid paupers, in the business of their agriculture. 
 They are far more unprofitable as workmen than the 
 regular servants who obtain a full and respectable allow- 
 ance.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 ON CERTAIN PREVALENT ERRORS AND MISCONCEP- 
 TIONS WHICH ARE FOSTERED BY ECONOMIC THE- 
 ORIES, AND WHICH ARE FITTED TO MISLEAD THE 
 LEGISLATURE IN REGARD TO LABOR AND THE 
 LABORING CLASSES 
 
 [THE author asserts that the obstacles to reform are 
 found in the prejudices of the rich and educated classes 
 as truly as in the minds of the laborers. Many merchants 
 and manufacturers lose sight of the end of business, and 
 consider the means as vital. The end of all production 
 is consumption. Trade and manufactures have all their 
 worth and significancy as subservient to, and none what- 
 ever apart from, the enjoyment of consumers. Adherents 
 of the fast-disappearing mercantile system seem to think 
 that the stoppage of commerce or factories is the evil, 
 whereas the real evil lies in the rise in price of food and 
 coal, necessaries of life for the people. The real good of 
 shawls lies in the wearing of them, not in the weaving of 
 them. The factory or the ship is not an end but a means 
 to the production of commodities which satisfy wants. 
 If trade is left free the people will purchase out of their 
 possessions what they desire to enjoy. Consumers thus 
 determine the direction of employment. It will not be 
 necessary for the government to punish laborers for com- 
 bining; if left to themselves they will work or starve, 
 and in addition to fear of hunger no other compulsion 
 is needed. 
 
 If the articles manufactured are luxuries the consumer 
 
 324
 
 CERTAIN ERRORS AND MISCONCEPTIONS 325 
 
 can reduce the price merely by abstaining- from tlicir use 
 until the price has fallen. This is largely true even of 
 more necessary commodities, as shoes. Even here the 
 consumers may compel the producers to be reasonable 
 in price by doing without until the goods are within their 
 reach. Chalmers is arguing here against legal suppres- 
 sion of trade-unions, and his argument is based on the idea 
 that workmen can be brought to terms by consumers in 
 another way and without violence or police force, merely 
 by refusing to buy their products until the price is reason- 
 able. A combination of farmers is next to impossible, and 
 it is they who produce the most necessary articles.] 
 
 We have just as little to apprehend for the destruction 
 of a nation's capital from these combinations as for the ul- 
 timate disappearance or diminution of a nation's industry. 
 The one delusive fear, however, is fully as inveterate as 
 the other, and, accordingly, in the report by the Select 
 Committee on the Combination Laws we find a strongly 
 expressed alarm lest " capital be withdrawn or trans- 
 ported ; " and so, lest " the source of every branch of our 
 industry should gradually be cut off, and the whole labor- 
 ing population of the country consigned to the distress 
 and misery, which it is the tendency of the ill-advised 
 combinations, in which so great a portion of it is im- 
 plicated, rapidly and inevitably to produce." 
 
 This introduction of capital into the argument sug- 
 gests a new topic of alarm. It serves to complicate, and so 
 to cast an obscurity over the whole subject. We know 
 how closely associated fear is with indistinct vision; and 
 in as far as the import and the precise function of capital 
 are dimly apprehended, in so far is the mind liable to
 
 326 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 dread and to disturbance from the imagination of any 
 hazard to which it may be exposed. 
 
 [The wasted capital, from whatever cause the waste oc- 
 curs, is soon replaced at a temporary inconvenience of 
 wage earners and the consuming public. 
 
 It is possible to imagine such a total destruction of capi- 
 tal that the population would perish. But, practically, 
 modern peoples are not alarmed at this prospect. After 
 the death of a large number of people by war or pestilence 
 the number speedily rises from increase of births. So 
 the destruction of wealth is rapidly followed by augment- 
 ed production, and soon capital is so plentiful as to go 
 begging for investment. We do not think it necessary 
 to offer premiums for large families, as was once thought 
 desirable; the fear is rather that numbers will grow too 
 rapidly. And capital will grow, under natural conditions, 
 without legislation and simply by the action of natural 
 desires working in freedom. " Capital does not suffer, 
 though there are many spendthrifts; just as the popula- 
 tion does not suffer in extent, though there are many old 
 bachelors."] 
 
 So that capital, like population, is one of those self- 
 regulating interests, the care of which does not properly 
 belong to the legislature. The fear lest it should depart 
 from our kingdom by successive removals is altogether 
 chimerical. The very first portion that went abroad, if 
 only large enough for the effect, would cause a larger 
 profit at home, which should act first by a detaining power 
 on the capital that was left behind, and then, by an extend- 
 ing power, again to fill up the vacancy. It is not for 
 government to concern itself about an interest which the
 
 CERTAIN ERRORS AND MISCONCEPTIONS 327 
 
 laws of political economy have abundantly provided for. 
 There may be a call upon its justice when the rights of 
 any one order of men are encroached upon by the ag- 
 gression of another, but let not this be complicated with 
 other objects, as on the occasion before us; nor let it im- 
 agine any call upon its wisdom or its authority for the 
 protection of an economic interest that is abundantly 
 safe without its interference. 
 
 The intimidation of new or strange workmen by others, 
 who, either by wealth, or by numbers, are more powerful 
 than themselves, is not to be borne with, and no expense, 
 whether of agency or treasure, should be spared to put it 
 down. We should rather that half the British navy were 
 put into requisition to insure the manning of our mer- 
 chant vessels by the sailors who would, than that any ob- 
 struction should remain impracticable, which may have 
 been thrown in their way by the sailors who would not. 
 At a hundredth part, we believe, of this exertion, all that 
 is needed or that is desirable in this way could be accom- 
 plished. But still, while the fermentation lasts, and ere 
 that full experience, so tranquillizing to workmen them- 
 selves, is not yet completed, it should be the distinct ob- 
 ject of our nation's policy and of our nation's police to 
 protect the independence of all persecuted workmen. 
 And, for such an object, we are sure that the voice of the 
 nation would go most thoroughly along with it. Con- 
 nected with a purpose like this, a strong executive would 
 be hailed by all the true patriots of our land ; employed, 
 as it would be, not in fastening the chains of a universal 
 oppression, but in unlocking those chains, and so acting
 
 328 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 as the guarantee and the guardian of a universal liberty. 
 It seems an axiom in the rights of men that none shall 
 be forced to work who is unwilling. But surely it is an 
 axiom as indisputable that all shall be suffered to work 
 who are willing. The line of equity between them is on 
 the one hand, to permit the combination, and, on the 
 other, to protect all who do not belong to them from the 
 terror and the tyranny of combinations. So long as they 
 are not permitted, the popular mind will continue to fester 
 under a sense of provocation, that will have much of the 
 semblance and somewhat, perhaps, of the reality of jus- 
 tice in it. And this will be further influenced by the 
 imaginary virtue which they will still ascribe to an expedi- 
 ent not yet fully tried, and from which they will con- 
 ceive themselves to be debarred by the hand of arbitrary 
 power. But, with the permission to them, and the pro- 
 tection to all others, not one shadow of complaint will be 
 left to them. They will have leave to try their own 
 boasted expedient, and it will be a pacific experience, both 
 to the country and to themselves: for sooner far than 
 our fears will allow us to think, they will make full proof 
 of its impotency. We feel persuaded that, in a few 
 months, this feverishness would subside, and at length 
 give way to the sound and the settled conviction, that, 
 after all, by the turbulence of their politics and associated 
 plans, nothing is to be gained. And so we should look 
 for a tranquillity more solid than our land has ever yet 
 enjoyed, as the precious fruit of that temperate, yet firm 
 legislation, which can at once be tolerant of combinations, 
 yet most sternly intolerant of crimes,
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 ON THE EFFECT WHICH THE HIGH PRICE OF LABOR 
 IN A COUNTRY HAS UPON ITS FOREIGN TRADE 
 
 THERE can be no doubt of that impartial spirit which 
 so honorably signalizes the rulers of our country, and in 
 virtue of which they have the unquestionable inclination 
 to deal fairly and equally with all. We do not think that 
 the most enthusiastic friends of the lower orders can re- 
 proach our Government with an undue bias to the other 
 classes of society, or, if ever, in arbitrating between them, 
 there is a seeming preference of masters to servants, that 
 they have been led to it, either by a partiality of affection 
 toward the rich, or by any lordly indifference to the rights 
 and interests of the poor. There is a principle of even- 
 handed justice which runs throughout nearly all the pub- 
 lic administrations of our land, and when at any time 
 bewildered from this rectilinear path, it is, generally 
 speaking, not a favoritism toward one order of the com- 
 munity, but a false imagination of what is best for the 
 interests of all the orders that leads them astray. In 
 other words, theirs is an honest, though at times a mis- 
 taken legislation, and to this naught has contributed more 
 than a dim-sighted political economy, a science through 
 
 the opacities of which, when Parliament does attempt to 
 
 329
 
 330 CHEISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 flounder, it is almost purely and uprightly for the best. 
 . . . We think that there are certain economic dogmata 
 which do sway our politicians against the cause and in- 
 terest of the working classes, and which dispose them to 
 look adversely and fearfully to that higher status toward 
 which a virtuous and intelligent peasantry must at length 
 make their way. 
 
 This proceeds from the association, in their minds, be- 
 tween a rise in the price of British labor, and a propor- 
 tional fall in the extent and prosperity of British com- 
 merce. It will bring down, it is thought, our ascendency 
 in foreign markets ; and the introduction of this new ele- 
 ment, like the problem of the three bodies in physics, has 
 thickened the perplexities of the whole speculation. Its 
 general effect is to give a hostile feeling toward a liberal 
 remuneration for the industry of workmen at home, lest 
 this should proceed so far as to limit, and perhaps destroy, 
 our merchandise abroad, and so bereave our nation of the 
 gains of that merchandise. It is thus conceived that the 
 avenues may be closed of that trade which binds us to 
 the surrounding world, and by which the whole world, it 
 is thought, becomes tributary to the wealth and impor- 
 tance of our empire. The price of labor forms one main 
 ingredient of the price of every commodity which labor is 
 brought up into. Should this price then become too high 
 at home the price of its produce may become too high for 
 being disposed of abroad. . . . 
 
 [Here follows the author's theory of foreign trade. 
 The only inconvenience from the loss of foreign trade,
 
 HIGH WAGES AND FOREIGN TRADE 331 
 
 in wine, for example, would be that the consumers of 
 that article would have to do without it and substitute 
 some other means of enjoyment in its place. Capital and 
 labor would, with some temporary loss, find occupation 
 and produce commodities to support the population, even 
 if all foreign trade were lost. The conclusion is:] 
 
 There is no country whose clear and substantial in- 
 terests would be less endangered by a high standard of 
 enjoyment among our workmen, and a consequent high 
 remuneration for their work, than those of Great Britain. 
 Such are her natural advantages, that even with a great 
 comparative dearness of labor, she could maintain that 
 superiority, or rather that equality in foreign markets, 
 which is really all that is desirable. So that without let 
 or hinderance from any apprehension in this quarter, she 
 may give herself indefinitely up to the pure and patriotic 
 task of raising the condition by raising the character of 
 her peasantry. 
 
 We are abundantly sensible that the argument of this 
 chapter is altogether superfluous to those who, with Ricar- 
 do and his followers, maintain the doctrine that profits 
 fall just to the extent that wages rise. It were out of 
 place to offer here any estimate of this doctrine, nor is it 
 necessary for any present or practical object of ours, see- 
 ing that the economists of this school can have no such 
 alarm as it is the purpose of our foregoing observations 
 to dissipate. They, on the contrary, must regard the high 
 price of British labor as forming, not a prohibition, but 
 a passport for British commodities into foreign markets. 
 The truth is that, according to this view, any rise in the
 
 332 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 element of labor must be more than compensated from the 
 element of a reduced profit, for this last will tell on each 
 successive transfer of the commodity from one dealer to 
 another; so that, on the last sale which it undergoes in 
 the market, it will turn out to be all the cheaper for the 
 work of preparing it, having become dearer than before. 
 . . . In their apprehension a liberal remuneration for 
 the work of British hands must extend the sale of British 
 manufactures. We can scarcely persuade ourselves of 
 such a result, and we count it enough of vindication for 
 the cause, that, with a far more liberal remuneration 
 than laborers at present enjoy, there might still be such 
 an export of manufactures as would save the exportation 
 of food, and so maintain the entireness of our natural 
 population.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 ON MECHANIC SCHOOLS, AND ON POLITICAL ECONOMY 
 AS A BRANCH OF POPULAR EDUCATION 
 
 THE mechanic schools which are now spreading so 
 widely and so rapidly over the face of our land must be 
 regarded as a mighty contribution to those other causes 
 which are all working together for the elevation of the 
 popular mind. But it should not be forgotten that the 
 scientific education which they provide for those who 
 choose it forms only one of these causes, and that ere we 
 can prevail upon all, or even upon a majority in the work- 
 ing classes of society so to choose, there must have been 
 anterior causes, both of a preparatory and of a pervading 
 nature, in previous operation. We can scarcely expect 
 any demand for a higher scholarship from those who have 
 not been furnished, in some tolerable degree, with ele- 
 mentary learning, and we might further affirm, with all 
 safety, that the most willing attendants on the ministra- 
 tions of a Sabbath, are also the most willing attendants 
 on the ministrations of a week-day, instructor. However 
 little it may have been reflected upon, it is not the less 
 true, that there obtains a very close affinity between a 
 taste for science and a taste for sacredness. They are 
 both of them refined abstractions from the grossness of 
 
 333
 
 334 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 the familiar and ordinary world, and the mind which 
 relishes either has achieves a certain victory of the spirit- 
 ual or the intellectual over the animal part of our nature. 
 The two resemble in this, that they make man a more re- 
 flective and a less sensual being than before, and, alto- 
 gether, impress a higher cast of respectability on all his 
 habits and on all his ways. It does occasionally happen, 
 that, on entering the house of a mechanic, the eye is 
 pleased with the agreeable spectacle of a well-stored book- 
 case. . . . It is generally the unfailing index of a 
 well-conditioned family; and this, whether it be loaded 
 with the puritanic theology of our forefathers, or with the 
 popular science of the present day. Now, we are sure 
 that this never can, from an occasional, become a common 
 or a frequent exhibition, but by a progress through which 
 our peasantry must ascend to a higher style of outward 
 comfort as well as to a higher state of mental cultivation. 
 We, therefore, hail the scientific education of the people 
 as being a most powerful auxiliary toward a translation 
 so desirable, and we are sure, on the other hand, that the 
 cause of mechanic schools will be most powerfully aided 
 by a greater efficiency being given, both to the methods 
 of common and of Christian education, in parishes. How 
 this can best be accomplished in cities of overgrown popu- 
 lation we have already, with all amplitude, endeavored 
 to explain, and we barely refer to former chapters of this 
 work for our description of those processes by which we 
 conceive that the lessons both of religion and of ordinary 
 scholarship may most effectually be served out to plebeian 
 families.
 
 ON MECHANIC SCHOOLS 335 
 
 [It is not necessary that people should know the laws 
 of economics in order to be induced to follow them. Edu- 
 cation of any kind gives higher wants and desires, and 
 this leads to reflection and forecasting, and thus to later 
 marriages and smaller families, with relatively increased 
 wages.] 
 
 This stands very palpably out in the custom, at one 
 time nearly universal, of our Scottish peasantry, when, 
 after the virtuous attachment had been formed, and the 
 matrimonial promises had been exchanged, even years of 
 delay were incurred, ere the matrimonial state was en- 
 tered upon. These years formed an interval of economy 
 and exertion with each of the parties, whose aim it was 
 to provide respectably in furniture, and in all sorts of 
 " plenishing " for their future household. Here the con- 
 nection is quite distinct between a higher standard of en- 
 joyment and a later period of marriages. And it was cer- 
 tainly then by another tuition than that of any economic 
 theory that a habit in every way so wholesome found its 
 establishment among our population. And the exposi- 
 tion of such a theory to the understanding of the people 
 is just as little needed now for the purpose either of re- 
 storing or of raising this practical habit amongst them. 
 The thing is brought about not by means of imparting a 
 skill or an intelligence in political economy, but simply 
 by those influences which give a higher tone to the char- 
 acter, and of which influences education may certainly be 
 regarded as one of the most powerful. . . . Though 
 in deference to a general, but ill-founded alarm, the edu- 
 cation of workmen in political economy should be kept out
 
 336 CHEISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 of these schools, another education can be devised which 
 shall be fully as effectual for the accomplishment of the 
 most desirable processes in political economy. They 
 might be made to exemplify the principles in which they 
 are not enlightened, and, without being taught the bear- 
 ing which a higher taste and style of enjoyment have 
 upon the circumstances of our peasantry, they can be led 
 to imbibe this taste, and so to realize all its eventual bene- 
 fits. For this purpose, it is not one, but many kinds of 
 scholarship that are effectual. Whatever may stimulate 
 the powers of the understanding, or may regale the appe- 
 tite for speculation, by even that glimmering and imper- 
 fect light which is made to play, in a mechanic school, 
 among the mysteries of nature; or may unveil, though 
 but partially, the great characteristics of wisdom and 
 goodness that lie so profusely scattered over the face of 
 visible things, or may both exalt and give a wider com- 
 pass to the imagination, or may awaken a sense that 
 before was dormant to the beauties of the divine work- 
 manship and to the charms of that argument, or of 
 that eloquence, by which they are expounded each 
 and all of these might be pressed into the service of 
 forming to ourselves a loftier population. Every hour 
 that a workman can reclaim from the mere drudgeries 
 of bone and muscle will send him back to his workshop 
 and his home a more erect and high-minded individual 
 than before. With his growing affinity to the upper 
 classes of life in mental cultivation, there will spring up 
 an affinity of taste and habit, and a growing desire of en- 
 largement from those various necessities by which the
 
 ON MECHANIC SCHOOLS 337 
 
 condition of a laborer may now be straitened and de- 
 graded. There will be an aspiration after greater things, 
 and the more that he is fitted by education for intercourse 
 with his superiors in rank, the more will he be assimilated 
 to them in taste for the comforts and the decencies of life. 
 In the very converse that he holds with the lecturer, who 
 one day expounds to him the truths of science, and another 
 day examines and takes account of his proficiency, there 
 is a charm that not only helps to conciliate him to better 
 society, but that also familiarizes him in some measure 
 to the tone of it. This might only proceed a certain way ; 
 and yet, however little this way is, it must be obvious 
 that such a man will not so aptly or so heedlessly rush into 
 marriage, with no other prospect before him than a po- 
 tato diet for his constant regimen, and one closely huddled 
 apartment for his home. Now, this is all that we want to 
 relieve the labor market of the glut which oppresses it, 
 and so to secure a higher wage for our laborers. Toward 
 this result the mechanic schools lend a most important 
 contribution, and they will speed a most desirable process 
 in political economy, even though they should never 
 initiate so much as one disciple into the principles of the 
 science. 
 
 Still, however, we hold it desirable that this science 
 should be admitted, with others, into our schemes of popu- 
 lar education, and that for the purpose of averting the 
 very mischief which many have dreaded, and which they 
 apprehend still from the introduction of it. To this they 
 have been led by the very title of our science, giving rise 
 
 to a fancied alliance in their mind with politics, and in 
 22
 
 338 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 virtue of which they would liken a lecturer upon this 
 subject, in a school of arts, to a demagogue in the midst 
 of his radical auditory. Now the truth is that the eco- 
 nomical science which enables its disciples to assign the 
 causes of wealth is as distinct from politics as is the arith- 
 metical science which enables its disciples to compute the 
 amount of it, and there is just as much reason to fear 
 an approaching democracy because the people are now 
 taught to calculate prices as there will be when people are 
 taught soundly to estimate and to reason upon the fluctu- 
 ation of prices. We do not happen to participate in the 
 alarm of those who should, above all things, depreciate, 
 from our mechanic institutions, what might strictly and 
 properly be termed the science of politics, believing, as 
 we do, that all truth is innocent, and that the greatest 
 safety lies in its widest circulation. But we confess a 
 more special affection for the truths and the doctrines of 
 political economy, and, so far from dreading, do greatly 
 desiderate the introduction of its lessons into all those 
 seminaries which have been instituted for the behoof of 
 our common people. It is utterly a mistake that it can- 
 not be taught there without the hazard of exciting a dan- 
 gerous fermentation. Instead of this, we are not aware 
 of a likelier instrument than a judicious course of eco- 
 nomical doctrine, for tranquillizing the popular mind, and 
 removing from it all those delusions which are the main 
 causes of popular disaffection and discontent. We are 
 fully persuaded that the understanding of the leading 
 principles of economical science is attainable by the great 
 body of the people, and that when actually attained it
 
 ON MECHANIC SCHOOLS 339 
 
 will prove not a stimulant, but a sedative to all sorts of 
 turbulence and disorder; more particularly that it will 
 soften and at length do away those unhappy and malig- 
 nant prejudices which alienate from each other the vari- 
 ous orders of the community, and spread abroad this salu- 
 tary conviction that neither government, nor the higher 
 classes of the state, have any share in those economical 
 distresses to which every trading and manufacturing na- 
 tion is exposed ; but that, in fact, the high road to the se- 
 cure and permanent prosperity of laborers is through the 
 medium of their own sobriety and intelligence and virtue. 
 
 But, in confirmation of this our sentiment, we must go 
 somewhat into detail, and, in so doing, shall have to de- 
 scribe the rapid sketch of what we deem to be a right 
 course of popular economics. 
 
 It, in the first place, can be made abundantly obvious 
 to the general understanding, that the price of an article 
 has a certain and necessary dependence on the two ele- 
 ments of demand and supply. 
 
 [Here is a repetition of his former teachings: that if 
 the supply of labor is small, in relation to demand for 
 laborers, the price of wages will certainly rise; that the 
 rise in the price of an article or service shows where that 
 article or service is most needed by the community ; that 
 utmost freedom of competition will secure the interests 
 of all classes.] 
 
 The exemplification of this last doctrine, in which the 
 attendants of a mechanic school have the greatest interest, 
 is that which regards the price of labor. It is not a tangi-
 
 340 CHRISTIAN AND CI\IC ECONOMY 
 
 ble commodity, but liable to the same laws of variation in 
 price with every other commodity which is brought to 
 market, or which can be made in any way the subject of a 
 bargain. It is exposed to the fluctuations of a greater or 
 a less demand, and it might be furnished at a greater or 
 less rate of supply. The laborers of our land are the sell- 
 ers of this article, and it is virtually they who fix and de- 
 termine the price of it. The buyers are those who employ 
 them, and they are not to blame because of the miserable 
 price which they give for labor, for this is the price at 
 which the other party have offered it. The true cause, 
 at any time, of a depression in the wages, or the price 
 of labor, is not that masters have resolutely determined 
 to give no more, but that servants have agreed to take so 
 little. The infuriated operatives, instead of looking to 
 capitalists as the cause of their distress, should look at one 
 another. They would have greatly more reason, at a time 
 of well-paid labor, to look to capitalists as the cause of 
 their high wages, than to look to them as the cause of 
 their low wages, at a time of ill-paid labor. In the one 
 season it is the overbidding of each other for labor, by 
 the masters, which is the efficient cause of its high prices. 
 In the other season, it is the underselling of each other, 
 by the laborers, which is the efficient cause of its low price. 
 Whatever be the external complexion, this is the sub- 
 stantial character of these transactions, and this might 
 easily be made to appear to the disciples of a popular 
 economic course, among the foremost revelations of the 
 science. It is a science through the arcana of which the 
 ordinary attendants on a school of arts are abundantly
 
 ON MECHANIC SCHOOLS 341 
 
 capable of being led, and we should confidently look 
 for patience and peace and charity as the practical fruits 
 of it. . . . 
 
 There could, after this, be explained the cause of those 
 periodic depressions which take place in the wages of 
 manufacturing labor, and the way of averting it even 
 by an accumulated capital in the hands of workmen. 
 And, even although the economical lecturer could point 
 out no remedy for this state of things, there would be 
 a salutary and pacific influence in his demonstration of 
 the causes which produced it. It is well when workmen 
 are convinced that the low price of labor is not what they 
 at first sight imagine, the doing of their proud oppressors, 
 but the fruit of a necessity over which masters have no 
 control. If wages were at the fiat of their employers 
 why are they ever permitted to rise at all, and often to 
 treble at one time their amount at another? But these 
 tides of fluctuation, at one time adverse, and at another 
 favorable for one or other of the parties, are set a-going 
 by different forces altogether from the arbitrary will of 
 capitalists, and it must serve to disarm the hostility of the 
 humbler for the higher classes when they are made to 
 understand that the ebbs and flows of a laborer's pros- 
 perity depend upon the laws of a mechanism for which 
 their masters are as little responsible as they are for the 
 laws of the planetary system. 
 
 But what should make an acquaintance with political 
 economy so valuable to the working classes is that a rem- 
 edy can be pointed out. The low price of labor is as much 
 the doing of the laborers themselves as the low price of a
 
 342 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 commodity is the doing of the dealers, who, in the case 
 of an excessive supply, undersell each other. Their only 
 relief is in the limitation of the supply, and there is pos- 
 itively no other permanent or effectual relief for the low 
 wages of labor. All that combination can affect in this 
 way is but partial and temporary, and it is only by lessen- 
 ing the proportion between the number of laborers and the 
 demand for labor that the working classes will ever find 
 themselves on a stable and secure vantage-ground. . . . 
 Now all this might be set forth with enough clear and 
 commanding evidence for the understandings of the com- 
 mon people. With all the incredulity they feel about the 
 philosophy of Malthus, they recognize the whole truth 
 and application of it in particular trades, and when they 
 combine, as they have often done, to limit and restrain 
 the admission of apprentices into their own craft, they are 
 just lending their testimony to the obnoxious theory of 
 population. A smaller general population will supply 
 fewer apprentices, and this favorite object of theirs, and 
 which they have tried to effectuate by forcible exclusions, 
 can be rightly arrived at in no other way than by that 
 which the philosophy of Malthus has expounded. And 
 here may be exposed with effect the odious and unjust 
 character of many of their combinations in that, by dic- 
 tating the number of apprentices, they are acting in the 
 unfair and illiberal spirit of monopoly. They are quite 
 vehement against the alleged tyranny of masters, yet, in 
 this instance, they may well be charged with having be- 
 come the tyrants and the oppressors themselves. They 
 would enact corporation laws in their own ( favor, and,
 
 ON MECHANIC SCHOOLS 343 
 
 under the pretext of obtaining security against the ag- 
 gression of their hostile employers, they would, in fact, 
 by the restrictions which they propose upon the employ- 
 ment, commit an act of most glaring hostility against the 
 families of all other workmen save their own. It is thus 
 that each distinct trade would form itself into its own lib 
 tie oligarchy, and in no possible way could a system be 
 devised more fatal to real liberty and more full of annoy- 
 ance to the general population. We are confident that a 
 lecturer of any talent at all might, upon this subject, 
 carry the most crowded amphitheatre of plebeian scholars 
 along with him. He might, in the first instance, gain 
 their compliance with the whole of Smith's argument on 
 the subject of free trade. He might enlist them on the 
 side of competition, and make them partake in his own 
 indignation against the hatefulness of monopoly. He 
 might thus prepare his way for entering upon the subject 
 of combinations, and, however fair and innocent he might 
 allow them to be in themselves, yet, on the strength of 
 the principles he had just expounded, he might feel him- 
 self on high vantage-ground for disarming them of all 
 their evil, by denouncing whatever is wrong or mischiev- 
 ous in their practices. All the terror and outrage and 
 forcible exclusion, which they have at any time directed, 
 whether against new apprentices or workmen the enor- 
 mity of these he could make quite palpable to the popular 
 understanding, and would, I am persuaded, be borne along 
 on the tide of popular sympathy when, in the midst of his 
 applauding hearers, he lifted, against dictation in all its 
 forms, the honest remonstrances of justice and liberty,
 
 344 CHK1STIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 and advocated the general rights of the population, 
 whether against the now exploded oppressions of the 
 statute-book, or the still sorer oppression of upstart and 
 recently organized bodies among themselves. It is not 
 through bearing down the passions by the force of law, 
 but through forming and enlightening the principles of 
 the commonalty by the force of instruction, that the pres- 
 ent fermentations are to be allayed. And we despair not 
 of the day when the science of political economy, instead 
 of being dreaded as the instrument of a dangerous excita- 
 tion, will be found, like all other truth, to be of powerful 
 efficiency in stilling the violence of the people. 
 
 On this branch of the subject there is one invaluable 
 result that might be obtained from the demonstrations 
 of a lecturer, and that is a conviction, on the part of his 
 hearers, that pauperism was, in truth, their worst enemy, 
 though their enemy in disguise, and that it had a most 
 depressing effect on the wages of labor and the comfort of 
 the laborers. 
 
 After having discussed the causes which influence 
 wages, the explanation of those causes which influence 
 profits would lead to another and a most interesting branch 
 of a popular course. And here it must be obvious how 
 easy it were, on the strength of a few plain and intelligible 
 simplicities, to infuse, even into the hearts of workmen, a 
 spirit of candor and of conciliation toward their employers. 
 More particularly could they be made to apprehend how 
 impossible it is, in a state of freedom, for profits to sub- 
 sist, during any length of time, at a higher rate than 
 they ought to do. When profits are high, capital accumu-
 
 ON MECHANIC SCHOOLS 345 
 
 lates, and when capital is accumulated, profits fall. 
 Again, when, in virtue of some accidental influence, prof- 
 its are very unequal, so as to be unreasonably high in one 
 trade, there is, in a state of liberty, a rush of capital from 
 all other trades, so as to bring all down to a general level. 
 In this increase of capital, and competition of capitalists, 
 laborers will at length be made to perceive that their se- 
 curity lies, and that, if they so far respect themselves, as 
 that their high standard of enjoyment shall have the in- 
 fluence already explained, in restraining the increase of 
 population, a high wage for work will be the inevitable 
 consequence, and such a wage as is alike independent, 
 either of illegal enactments or of illegal combinations. It 
 would have been greatly more gratifying to us had the 
 legislature not felt it necessary to assume even the sem- 
 blance of hostility to the working classes. Certain it is 
 that no real hostility is felt, and that, even if it were, it 
 would be wholly ineffectual. It could not depress the 
 wages of labor a single farthing beneath the rate at which 
 it would have settled, in virtue of those economic laws over 
 which the government of a country has no control. . . . 
 It is thus that without any effort, certainly without any 
 combined effort, and without even their looking for it, 
 there may, purely by a change of general habit, on the 
 part of our workmen, be a gradual but sure elevation in 
 the price of their labor. Capitalists cannot, though they 
 would, long realize an extravagant profit at the expense 
 of wages. The same competition among laborers which 
 brings down wages operates also among capitalists to bring 
 down profits. What laborers have to do is to slacken the
 
 346 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 former competition by keeping down the supply of labor- 
 ers, and leave the latter competition to operate. Let them 
 but restrain the increase of population, and then make 
 their harvest of the increase of capital. Masters, however 
 willing, have it not in their power to realize, for any time, 
 an excess of profits to the prejudice of the servants; for 
 excess of profits gives rise to the exuberance of capital, 
 and so to a keener competition for more laborers. Other 
 capitalists will plant themselves in their neighborhood, 
 and, either by outbidding, wrest from them their work- 
 men, or force them to give a higher wage than before. 
 There is no organization of laborers required to bring 
 about this result nothing, in fact, but that higher style of 
 comfort and decency, which it is the effect both of Chris- 
 tian and common education to spread over the land. The 
 foolish but impotent outbreakings of the last year will 
 end in no permanent result whatever. A busy process of 
 moral and mental culture would, in a very few years, tell, 
 and permanently tell, on the condition of our general 
 peasantry. The market is overstocked with capital. Let 
 not the advantages of this to the working classes be neu- 
 tralized by the market being also overstocked with labor. 
 Then, instead of men seeking after masters, we shall have 
 masters seeking after men. Instead of workmen under- 
 selling their labor, we shall have capitalists overbidding 
 for it. For this blissful consummation workmen do not 
 need to step abroad and form themselves into grotesque 
 committees, and frame laborious articles, and make their 
 cunning inventions of sign and countersign. They will 
 gain nothing by all this so long as they suffer them-
 
 ON MECHANIC SCHOOLS 347 
 
 selves to be oppressed by the weight of their own 
 numbers. 
 
 This [gain of workmen by restricting supply] we 
 should rejoice in as a consummation devoutly to be 
 wished. It were a great economic revolution brought 
 about by the peaceful operation of moral instruments. 
 Laborers would share more equally with landholders and 
 traders than before, insomuch as wages would bear a 
 higher proportion both to rent and profit. The social 
 fabric would still have its orders and its gradations and 
 its blazing pinnacles. But it would present a more ele- 
 vated basis. At least, the ground-floor would be higher, 
 while, in the augmented worth and respectability of the 
 people, it would have a far deeper and surer foundation. 
 
 One great object of a wisely conducted economic school, 
 whose presiding spirit would be that of loyalty to the 
 state and love to the population, were to labor well the 
 proposition, that it is not in the power of master manu- 
 facturers to realize, for any length of time, any undue 
 advantage over their workmen. And here it might be 
 well to expound the relation which there is between the 
 profit of capital and the interest of money, after which 
 the fall of interest might be alleged as affording patent 
 exhibition of the universal decline that has taken place in 
 profits. This would lead to some other cause for any de- 
 pression in the wages of operatives than the extravagant 
 gains of their employers, and would enable even the home- 
 liest of the disciples to perceive that they are deprived of 
 the advantage which they might have gotten from the 
 competition of a now greatly increased capital, just be-
 
 348 CHRISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 cause it was outdone by the stronger competition of a still 
 more greatly increased population. In other words, that 
 it was an advantage of which the population had deprived 
 themselves. At all events the capitalists are quite inno- 
 cent. They cannot help themselves as the laborers can. 
 It is well for the spread of peace and charity among the 
 working classes that they should be delivered from the 
 false imagination that their masters are their oppressors. 
 And it is further well for the spread among them of 
 virtuous, temperate, and elevated habits, that they should 
 be thoroughly possessed with the true doctrine of wages, 
 that they are themselves their own deadliest oppressors, 
 and that without the co-operation of their own moral en- 
 deavors, no benevolence on the part of the affluent, and no 
 paternal kindness or care on the part of their rulers can 
 raise them from the degradation into which a reckless or 
 unprincipled peasantry shall have fallen. 
 
 It is needless, at present, to inquire how much farther 
 mechanics could be raised in the scale of doctrine and 
 information, on the subject of economical science. This 
 would better be ascertained afterward. But we are thor- 
 oughly persuaded that these few elementary truths, along 
 with their obvious and popular applications which we 
 have now specified, could not only be received by the 
 popular understanding, but would go far to dissipate all 
 those crudities of imagination which excite the fiercest 
 passions of the vulgar, and are, in fact, the chief elements 
 of every popular effervescence. To make the multitude 
 rational we have only to treat them as if they were fit 
 subjects for being discoursed with rationally. Now this,
 
 ON MECHANIC SCHOOLS 349 
 
 in reference to the great topics of misunderstanding be- 
 tween them and their employers, has scarcely ever yet 
 been done, and the experiment remains to be made, of 
 holding conference with the people on the great principles 
 of that economic relation in which they stand to the other 
 orders of society. We anticipate nothing from such a 
 process but a milder and more manageable community, 
 and feel confident that the frankest explanations of the 
 mechanic teacher would be received by his scholars in the 
 spirit of kindness. He may be in no dread of the ut- 
 most explicitness, or lest those truths, which bear severely 
 either upon the sordidness or the violence of the people, 
 should fall unwelcomely upon their ears. They will bear 
 to be told both of the worthlessness of pauperism, and the 
 gross injustice of those workmen who would infringe on 
 the liberty of their fellows. Even those truths which go 
 to vindicate their masters, and which look hardly or re- 
 proachfully upon the operatives, ought in no way to be 
 withheld from them. 
 
 We affirm that reason will make anything palatable to 
 the lower orders; and, if only permitted to lift her voice 
 in some cool place, as in the classroom of a school of arts, 
 she will attain as firm authority over the popular mind 
 as she wields now within the walls of Parliament. And 
 political economy, the introduction of which into our 
 popular courses has been so much deprecated, will be 
 found to have pre-eminence over the other sciences in act- 
 ing as a sedative, and not as a stimulant, to all sorts of 
 turbulence and disorder. It will afford another example 
 of the affinity which subsists between the cause of popular
 
 350 CHKISTIAN AND CIVIC ECONOMY 
 
 education and that of public tranquillity. Of all the 
 branches of that education there is none which will con- 
 tribute more to the quiescence of the multitude than the 
 one for whose admittance into our mechanic schools we 
 are now pleading. They will learn from it what be the 
 difficulties by which the condition of the working classes 
 is straitened, and how impossible it is to obtain enlarge- 
 ment therefrom while they labor under a redundancy of 
 numbers. It will at least help to appease their discontent 
 when given to understand that with this redundancy, any 
 solid or stable amelioration of their circumstances is im- 
 practicable; and that without this redundancy the ame- 
 lioration would follow of itself, and that to bring this 
 about, the countenance of legislators, and the combination 
 of laborers, were alike unnecessary. The lessons of such 
 an institution would be all on the side of sobriety and 
 good order. They would at length see that for the suf- 
 ficiency of their own state, themselves were alone responsi- 
 ble, and, after bidding adieu to all their restlessness, they 
 would be finally shut up to that way of peace and of pru- 
 dence, by which, and by no other, they can reach a secure 
 independence. 
 
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