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YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

THEEE LECTUEES,

ON THE

IMPOLICY AND INJUSTICE

OF

EELIGIOFS ESTABLISHMENTS,

OR THE

GRANTING OF MONEY FOR TBE SUPPORT Of RELIGION FROM
PUBLIC TREASURY;

IN THE

AUSTRALIAN COLONIES.

BY JOHN DUNMORE LANG, D.D., A.M.,.
MINISTER OF THE SCOTS OHTTECH, SYDNEY,
Botwrary Member of the African Institute of France, of the American Oriental Society, and
of the Literary Institute of Olinda, m the Br&sUs,

THIRD THOTTSAND.

PRINTED BY ROBERT BAER, No.^7, YORK STREET.
MDCCOLVI.

Price One Shilling' and Sixpence.

iiMtkraBiit.

The following Lectures were originally delivered in the School of
^rts, Sydney, in the month of April, 1842, shortly after the author had
withdrawn from the communion of the Presbyterian State Church of
New South Wales, and relinquished his Grovernment salary as the
Senior Minister of that Church. They are now republished, with nu
merous alterations and improvements, which the lapse of time and the
progress of the colonies have rendered expedient and necessary, with a
view to supply to all concerned the necessary information, which few
comparatively have the means of acquiring from other sources, on the
great question now 'at issue in the Colonies of New South Wales and
Victoria. The view given in the Second Lecture of the origin and
working of the Voluntary System in the United States of America is
from no second-hand authority ; the author having made it his business,
during a tour in not fewer than eleven of the United States in the year
1840, to ascertain these points for his own satisfaction, foreseeing that
the maintenance or discontinuance of the existing connexion of Church
and State in these Colonies would one day become the great question
in Australia. The humiliating results of the Hegium Donum in Ireland,
and of the actual system of State support for religion in New South
Wales, as exhibited in the Third Lecture, will speak for themselves.
Sydney, 7th May, 1866.

THREE LECTURES, &c.

LECTURE I.

SKETCH or THE HISTORY OF EELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS IS
EUROPE.
The object of the following Course of Lectures is to demonstrate
the Impolicy and Injustice of Religious Establishments, or the
granting of money for the support of Religion from the public
Treasury, in these Australian Colonies.
The question of the policy and justice of Religious Establish
ments generally is a very wide one, and one that may be consi
dered under a great variety of aspects. It is the inore necessary,
therefore, to state precisely the question for discussion on the
present occasion.
You are well aware, then, that while certain persons of almost
all Christian communions maintain that there ought to be an inti
mate connexion or alliance between Church and State, and that it
is the bounden duty of the civil Magistrate to support the profes
sion of religion in some form or other from the Public Treasury,
there are other persons, of all these communions also, who maintain
that there ought to be no such connexion, and that such a con
nexion is unscriptural and sinful.
Now this is doubtless a very interesting and important question,
and one well deserving of a long and serious discussion. But it is not
the question we ar6 now called upon to discuss ; for the lawfulness
of such a connexion in certain circumstances has not only been ac
knowledged and acted upon all along by the four principal denomi
nations of these Colonies, but has actually been admitted at one
time or other by every organised body of professed Christians in
our colonial community. The Episcbpalians are the most numerous
body of professing Christians in the Australian Colonies, and the
Episcopal Church has existed as a civil establishment since the
founding of these Colonies. The Roman Catholics rank next in
point of number ; and although it is said they have refused an
endowraeut in Ireland, they have nevertheless had one in Aus
tralia for the last thirty-five years. The Presbyterians are the next
largest in numerical amount, and their clergy — at least a portion

6
of them — have, in like manner, been supported by the State for
thirty years past. The Methodists come next, and they too have
enjoyed the benefits of a Religious Establishment, on precisely the
same terms as the denominations I have enumerated, ever since the
passing of the General. Church Act, in the year 1836. Nay, even
the Independents and Baptists, who are cortmonly understood to
be the sworn enemies of the principle of a religions establishment
at home, did not object tb that principle here in the first instance ; ,
the Independents having accepted assistance from the Public purse
for the erection of their' chapel at South Head in New South
Wales, and the Baptists having received similar assistance for
theirs in Sydney.* Now as a single instance of this kind is suffi
cient to determine either the adherence or the non-adherence of
any individual body to a great principle, no Independent or Baptist
in these Colonies who either directly or indirectly consented ; to
receive the assistance afforded by the Government in the cases
referred to, can ever consistetitly maintain eithei" the urdawfidness
or the antiscriptural character of the principle of a Religious
Establishment.f ,1
The question, therefore, of the lawfutness ot an Ecclesiastical
establishment in the abstraot^^the question as to whether such on
•establishment is defensible on scriptural principles or nOt^rthe
question as to whether it is allowable or sinful — is riot the question
in these Colonies. Episcopalians and Roman CatholicSj Presby
terians and Independents; Baptists and Methodists— havei. all
successively admitted that there is nothing positively sinful in suph
an alliance between Church and State as is imjplied in receiving
money from the State for ecclesiastical purposes ; that it is not
contrary to Scripture-rule for a minister of religion to receive a
salary^ or for a community of professing Christians to receive assist
ance for the erection of a place of worship from the public Treasury.
Individual members of all these communions may be of a different
* An Independent minister at Geelohg, in Victoria, has accepted ah allot
ment of ground from the State, for the erection of a place of worship for his
-parlicuiar denomination, and a Baptist minister in Melbourne has done the same
there. Whether they have also put in for salaries vinder the New Constitution
Act, I have ndt yet learned.
t The Baptist minister at Launceston, Van Diemen's Land, received a salary
from the Local Government at one time, whatever may have been the case after-
Wards ; but the Independents of that Colony have lilways assumed higher
ground, and have never accepted anything from the State for the supjiort of
religion in that form. On oue occasion the Legislative Council of that settle
ment, at the instance, I believe, of the late !<ir George Arthur, who was then
Governor of Van Diemen's Land, testified their high sense of the important
services rendered to the cause of morality and religion in the Island by the Hev.
Mr. Miller, the Independent minister of Hobart Town, by voting him a donation
of £200 from the puolio Treasury. Mr. M. however, to the great honour of his
( consistency, respectfully but firmly declined it. But I have recently ascertained,
from an indubitable source, that the Independents of Hobart Town did receiy*
•Bsistanoe from the State for the erection of their chapel.

opinion,' urid have doubtless been of a different opinion all along,
holding the alliance of Church and State to be unscriptural, un
lawful, and sinful; but no organised body of professing Christians
of any communion have yet maintained any such principle from
the first in these Colonies.*
. The Apostle Paul, however, lays it down as a maxim in Christian
polity, that although " all things are lawful, all things are not
expedient." There are many things that may be done without
contracting guilt, without committing sin, but which there may be,
nevertheless, a thousand good and valid reasons for not doing. For
example, there .is. nothing in the law or practice of Christianity
to prevent -fevery unmarried person, whether male- or femaie,*in
these colonies, from taking an oath of celibacy, and acting up to it
in future: there is no law oil the subject, and "where there is no
law, there can be no transgression." ButJyou will all perceive that
although this might be lawful, it would be anything butexpedieiit.
There are a thousand good and valid 'reasons against it, and these
reasons may amount, ; in the estimation of all persons of common
sense, to a real although virtual prohibition. In like manner.
Episcopalians, Presbyterians, i Roman Catholics, Methodists,
Baptists, and Independents in these Colonies, have all, in their
turn, recognised the principle that there is nothing positively sinful
in receiving the money of the State for religious purposes;^ or, in
other words, that an alliance of. Church and State is lawful in
certain circumstances. But the question still remains — Is such an
akWance expedient in these Colonics? Now there may,, perhaps,' be
just as many good and valid reasons against such an alliance, as
there are why every unmarried persun in these Colonies should not
forthwith take an oath of celibacy, and become a monk or a nun.
In short,, although^ looking at the past practice of the different
religious bodies I have enumerated, there are evidently but few
• voluntaries dejure in these Colonies, there may nevertheless be in
all these communions many. voluntaries de facto — there maybe few
who maintain the Voluntary System on the principle of Christian
law, but there may be many who maintain it on the principle of Chris
tian expediency. In practice, however, both of these parties are atone.
* The Presbyterian Dissenters of Scotland never made the " principle of
•I Keligious establishment," as it is called, the ground of their dissent ; they
simply protested against the abuses of the existing system.. And even in the
United States of America, the Presbyterian Church merely omitted, in their
editinn of the Confession of Faith, the ambiguous passage of the Westminster
Confession, referring to the Civil Power , without putting, forth any decision
either tor or against the lawfulness oi Ecclesiastical Bstablishments. All I
desire, therefore, in the present controversy, is that this should be considered an
open question in these colonies, and that it should be distinctly understood that
no dictatorial authority is assumed on the subject in these Lectures. In point
of practice, the United Presbyterians, a section of the Presbyterian Church in
the province of Victoria, have acted consistently from the first, uniformly de
clining all State sUpporVin whatever form.

8
Now, it is my intention to demonstrate the inexpediency-fusing
the word in the sense in which it is used by the Apostle Paul —
of any alliance between Church and State, or of any grantsof money
for religious purposes from the public Treasury, in these Colonies —
1st. From a rapid sketch of the History and Results of Religious
Establishments in Europe ; 2nd. From an equally rapid sketch of
the History and Results of the System of No Religious Establish
ments in America ; and 3rd., From the peculiar circumstances of
these Colonies. On the last of these topics, indeed, I propose to
take higher ground, and to show, from the peculiar circumstances
of the Australian Colonies, that a religious establishment in these
Colonies is not only unnecessary and impolitic, but positively
unjust and oppressive.
It is allowed then,, on all hands, that during the first three centuries
of the existence of the Christian Church^the three bet.t, perhaps,
in its, whole history — there was no religious establishment. For ¦
three hundred years after the birth of Christ, no Christian minister
of any grade, or in any country, ever received a farthing from the
State; On the contrary, Christianity had then to struggle for
existence with the gods of Greece and of Rome — with the gods of
A^ia, of Africa, and of Europe. But in this memorable struggle it
had uniformly the victory: insomuch that, in the memorable
language of Cae.«ar, it might have been said of Christianity in refer
ence to her short but sharp contest with all these heathen divinities,
even before the close of the first century of the Christian era,
Veni, vidi, vici — " I came among them ; I lo6ked upon them '; I
conquered them all !" The fishermen of Galilee and the men of a
kindred spirit whom they sent forth, over the length and breadth
of the Roman Empire, to proclaim the glad tidinga of salvation
through Jesus Christj had to struggle with the principalities and
powers of an Empire strong as iron, which had successively extin
guished every opposing power in the civilised world, and caused its
imperial banner to float triumphantly, and, in the fond estimation
of the poets and orators of^ the period, to float for ever, over the
whole of Europe, over a vast portion of Asia, and over a far larger
extent of Northern Africa than is yet known to modern Europeans.
But in this apparently unequal struggle, Christianity proved vic
torious; and " the blood of the" ten thousand " martyrs," who fell
successively in that glorious struggle, became, in the language of
the Christian fathers, " the seed of the Church," and produced
a plenteous and glorious harvest : for, although a medal was osten
tatiously struck, towards the close of the last heathen persecution,
in the reign of the emperor Dioclesian, shortly after the commence
ment of the fourth century, with the following inscription, Nomine
thrutimiorvm deleto ; thatjs, "In honour of the utter extinction
ot the Christian name,"— -within seven years thereafter, when an
edict was published by the emperor Constantino, granting tolera-

tion to the Christians, the whole Roman empire . was suddenly
covered with their churches.
Such were the undoubted triumphs of the Voluntary System
during the first three centuries of the Christian Church ; and these,
it is universally acknowledged, are the ages to which we refer ex
clusively when we wish to speak of the Christian Church in the
most vigorous and healthy and holy and glorious state it ever
exhibited on earth. In short, it is & libel upon our holy religion —
it is an insult upon the common sense of mankind — it is a gross
and impudent falsehood, which the history of these three centuries '
belies — to' say that Christianity cannot subsist in the world withou]b
State-support. It not only subsisted, it subjected the whole
Xlomiin world without such support ; and no sooner 4i.d it obtain
that support than its youthful energies were suddenly paralysed—^
its beauty passed away like a morning cloud, arid its glory
departed !
The result of this sudden and remarkable change of circumstances
is thus described by Mr. Hallam, the able and judicious historian
of the middle ages; (for I prefer quoting the testimony of an in
telligent and unprejudiced layman to that of any ecclesiastical his
torian, of any communion :) " The liberality of Constantine and his.
successors set an example which did not want imitators. Passing
rapidly from a condition of distress and persecution to the, summit
of prosperity, the Church degenerated as rapidly from her ancient
purity, and forfeited the respect of future ages in the same propor
tion as she acquired the blind veneration of her own. Covetousnesa
became almost a characteristic vice of the clergy."
In illustration of the covetousness of the clergy and the raipid
corruption of the Christian Church under Constantine and his
immediate successors, Mr. Hallam adds : " Many of the peculiar
and prominent characteristjics in the faith and discipline of these
ages appear to have been either introduced or. sedulously promoted
for the purposes of pious fraud. To those purposes cotispired the
vetieration for relics, the worship of images, the idolatry of saints
and martyrs, the religious jnviolability of sanctuari^ s, the conse
cration of cemeteries;, but above all the doctrine of purgatqry and
masses for the relief of the dead."
Such then was the result of the rapid transition of the Chi'istian
Church fropi a state of persecution on the part of the Civil Go
vernment, to a state of alliance and incorporation with, the Empire.
It is worthy of remark, however, to use the words of Mr. Hallam,
that " the ecclesiastical hierarchy never received any territorial
endowment by law, either under the Roman Empire, or the king
doms erected upon its ruins." The fixed revenues of the clergy
were then derived either fiom estates conferred upon the Church
in all parts of the Empire both by the emperors themi-elves and
by private individuals, or from the revenues of the Heathen tern-

10
pies under the ancient Pagan Establishment of the empire, which
were thenceforth transferred to the Christian Chu,roh by Imperial
edicts, just as the, property of the Romish Church in England and
Irelan(^ was transferred by act of Parliament to the Protestant)
Episcopal Church at the Reformation. But there was neverthe
less a real and most intimate alliance between Chareh- and State
under the Roman Empire, from the eraof Constantine downwards;
for in the first assembly of the bishops or clergy of the period, that
emperor addressed them as follows : " Be you bishops fof the in
ternal government of the Church, and I shall be bishop for its
external." ; And it was unfortunately but too evident in the sequel
what; Constantine intended by this declaration ; for banishment,
imprisonment, and death, were thenceforth the civil penalties of
ecclesiastical disobedience, that is, of non-oompliance with the views
of the Church-party in alliance with the State.
The bitter consequences' of this alliance were speedily apparent
in the violent convulsions which it soon occasioned, throughout the
whole extent of the Roman Empire. Almost immediately after
the conversion of Constantine, Arius, a presbyter of the Church of
Alexandria, in Egypt, broached what has since been denominated
theArian heresy ; denying the supreme divinity of the Lord Jesus
Christ.. Now, had there .been no Civil Establishment of religion at
the time in the Roman Empire, this heretic would have been tried
and excommunicated as a ma,tter of course, and his heresy would,
in all likelihood, have died a natural death, like; the thousand other
heresies of a jSimilar kind that arose and disappeared during the
first three centuries of the Christian Church. For the truth is
mighty, and will ultimately prevail over all heresy. But the
Church, unfortunately, was now in alliance with the Empire, and
the Emperor was persuaded hj his spiritual counsellors that it was
necessary for its peace and preservation to interpose with the strong
hand of power to put down the pestilential heresy, or, in other
words, to have an Act of Uniformity passed and rigorously en-,
forced against all recusants. This demonstration of armed hostility
naturally fanned the heresy into a flame, and not fewer than twenty-
two bishops openly embraced it. For the .purpose of putting it
down effectually, however, the first (General Council of, the Church
was summoned by the Emperor, and held in th? year 3-25, in the
city of Nice, in, Bithynia ; the Emperor Constantine himself acting
as president. And so much was this Ecclesiastical Council re
garded by the Government of the period as a matter, of" State
policy, that the expenses of the clergy travelling to and from the
Counc'l, as well a# of their residence in Nice during its proceed
ings, were defrayed from, the Imperial Treasury. The Arian
heresy was almost unanimously condemned at this Council — a
proof that no assembly of the kind was necessary on the occasion—
and it3 adherents, delivered over to the secular power : by which

11
they were forthwith sentenced to banishment. This, then, was
the 'first Act of Uniformity passed for the Christian Church ; and
Arius, the arch-heretic, was, in virtue of its provisions, immediately
banished the city of Alexandria. Of the twenty-two bishops who
had openly embraced the heresy, there were only two, however,
found honest enough to avow their sentiments; that is not one in
ten. The remaining twenty subscribed the Acts of the Council,
and retained their livings. It is preposterous therefore to suppose
that the civil establishment of- any churchj and the enactment of
civil pains and penalties atgainst heresy, will promote uniformity of
sentiment. It may indeed promote uniformity of profession, uni
formity of subscription : but it will never promote uniformity of
sentiment. The hypocritej the formalist, the worldling — and such
characters will abound and in all likelihood constitute tlie majority
in all Established Churches — will swallow the camel and enjoy the
living. In proof of the truth of this statement, I may anticipate
an event of great importance in the history of the Church, as illus
trating the working of civil establishments of religion, that took
place long after the period we have arrived at. For we learn from
Dr. Southey, in what he calls the " Book of the Church," that
during the Reformation in England, and particularly in Queen
Elizabeth's time, " of nine thousand four hundred beneficed clergy,"
(previously adherents to the Papacy), "only one hundred and seven
ty-seven resigned their preferment rather than acknowledge the
Queen's supremacy."
The twenty Arian bishops, however, who had subscribed the
Articles of the Council of Nice, were able and artful men ; and
they soon managed, by their political address, to acquire influence
at Court, and were enabled at length to get that influence brought
to bear against the orthodox party themselves : insomuch that
Alhauasius, the orthodox bishop of Alexandria, the supposed
author of the famous Creed that bears his name, was in due time
tried and condemned in a second Council, held in the city of Tyre,
and banished to Prance.
Constantius, the son and successor of Constantine, was himself
an Arian by profession ; and through his influence, as temporal
Head of the Church, Gregory, an Arian, was, in pursuance of the
acts of a Third Council, held at An tioch, installed as successor to
Athanasius at Alexandria ; the friends of Athanasius being in
their turn publicly scourged and imprisoned by the Governor of
the.city, as the Representative of the Emperor, for refusing to
become Arians. We can scarcely blame these, heretics for im
proving upon the lesson that had been taught them go shortly
before by their orthodox brethren. They had obtained the upper
hand as a political party, and they just used their power as they
had been taught to use it by t^heir persecuting brethren, in op
pressing those who had so lately oppressed themselves.

12
The hisitory of the Roman Empire for the next century and a
half, till the final subversion of the Western Empire in the year
476, is a mere history of the, violent struggles for political ascend
ancy between these two powerful political factions— the Arians and
the Orthodox. The measures of the State during this period were
almost uniformly directed, or at least influenced, by ecclesiastics of
the party that had gained the upper hand for the time; and the
•onsequence was that the empire was exposed to the inroads of the
Barbarians on its frontier, who were enlisted in the cause of the
•pposite parties, and accordingly took sides as well as the Romans.
The Emperor in the mean time being thus ." reduced to the neces-
Bity of providing for his own safety, was obliged to trim to eccle
siastical factions, till at length, like a charioteer tbrowa from his
«eat, he resigned the reins,'' and the empire was forthwith over
thrown and annihilated.
Such then was the^r«( great result of the civil establishment of
the Christian Church under the Emperor Constantine. During
the reign of that Emperor, the Roman Empire was perhaps as
vigorous and powerful as ever ; but in little more than a hundred
and fifty years thereafter, the strugule of ecclesiastical factions-^
each contending for the honour of the holy alliance with the State,
and each obtaining that honour in its turn, and using it as a means
•f oppression and persecution against the opposite party — despoiled
it of its strength and precipitated its fall. That the destruction of
the Roman Empire was an enormous evil to the civilized world for
many centuries thereaftc all history testifies; and the misery and
darkness, the long anarchy and misgovernment of succeeding ages,
sufiiciently prove.
The decline of the Roman Empire in the East, and the loss of half
that empire to Mahomet and his successors, are attributable to'
precisely the same causes as the final su'iversion of the Western
Empire. No sootier had the Arian controversy been set at rest, by
the liberal use of those ancient and approved remedies for an un
sound creed under a civil establishment of religion. — I mean confis
cation, imprisonment, banishment,' and deaths — than another con
troversy arose to involve that empire in all the horrors of civil war.
In the progress of superstition, one large ecclesiastical faction in
the Greek Church were mad for the use of images in the churches,
while another numerous party Were equally opposed to them.
Sometimes the reigning emperor was of the one party and. some
times of the other; and according as the scale turned, whole pro
vinces were ravaged by the Imperial armies for the crime of heresy.
The strength of the empire was thus turned against itself, like a
snake biting its own tail ; and the consequence was, that its alien
ated and exhausted provinces, being always filled with numerous
heretics under the ban of the empire, fell an easy prey to the
resistless Saracens. Such then was the second great result of the

13
civil establishment of religion in the Roman Empire — the speedy
and entire loss of one half its whole extent in the East to the vota
ries of the Arabian Impostor, and the substitution of the Crescent,
over a large portion of the continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa,
for the dishonoured Cross. It is scarcely necessary to add, that
the provinces that were lost to Christendom on that occasion have
never yet' been recovered.
Mr. Hallam informs us that "the payment, of tithes was first
enjoined by the canons of a provincial council in France near the
end of the sixth century ;" but it was the emperor Charlemagne
who first "gave the confirmation of a civil statute to these eccle
siastical injunctions during the ninth century;" confirming at the
same time a law of Constantine, which directed the civil magistrate
to enforce the execution of episcopal awards. But the fat'al effects
of the secular influence and authority that were thus thrown into
the hands of the Clergy by the civil power, in its anxiety to ally
itself with the Church, were soon evinced. Wamba, a king of the
Visigoths in Spain, was deposed from his sovereignty during this
century by a council of bishops held in his own capital, the city of
Toledo ; and so also was Lothaire, king of Lorraine, the grandson
of Charlemagne himself. Voltaire tells us that the ninth century
in which these enormous results of a Religious Establishment — the
usurpation of sovereign power and the deposing of sovereign princes
by ambitious ecclesiastics^was the age ef Bishops, as the tenth and
eleventh were the age of Popes.
The tenth and eleventh centuries are famous, or rather infamous,
in the history of the dark ages, for the tremendous struggle for the
right of investiture, maintained between the Popes on the one hand,
and the emperor of Germany and the kings of France and England
on the other. It was commenced by the famous Hildebrand, or
Pope Gregory VII., who was elevated to the popedom in the year
1073,, and who, aspiring at universal monarchy, refused to allow
the bishops to receive the investiture of their office and dignity
from the temporal princes in whose states or kingdoms their dioceses
lay. Now I confess the Popes were so far in the right in this ques
tion, that a bishop, as a spiritual functionary, cannot rightly
receive the investiture of his office from any secular prince. But
under the monstrous alliance of Church and State, as it then stood,
these bishops were all temporal ipriuces themselves, peers of parlia
ment, barons of the empire; and in that capacity they held exten
sive estates, for which they were bound under the feudal system to
do homage to their liege lord, the emperor or king. The root and
spring of the evil, therefore, was the unholy alliance between
Church and State-^the attempt to join things which Christ has
separated, when he says " My kingdom is not of this world." " The
princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them,- and they that
arc great exercise authority upon them ; but it shall not be so

14
among you." With such a prohibition before his eyes, one would
scarcely believe that a bishop, a professed minister of Christ, would
ever be found exhibiting the anomalous character of a temporal
lord and peer of parliament, unless he saw the thing daily realised.
It was the union of Church and State, therefore, that occasioned
this famous quarrel about investitures, that transformed Europe
during the fifty-six years of its continuance into a field of blood.
It lasted during ^ix successive pontificates ; and the Dictionnaire des
Sciences, a Roman Catholic .publication, informs us that it occa
sioned not fewer than sixty pitched battles under the Emperor
Henry IV., and sixty-eight under his successor Henry V., of Ger-
mauy, in the course Of which at least two millions of men were
slain !
It was the civil establishment of religion, or the union of Church
and State, that repressed every attempt at reformation during the
dark -ages, and successively crushed and annihilated every reformer.
It was in this way that the sect of the Paulicians in the East, a
thoroughly Protestant people, as is evident from the imperfect
accounts of them that have been permitted to come down tc us,
was finally extirpated. It was in virtue of this union that
unheard-of cruelties were perpetrated from time to time in
almost every European State on the Albigenses and Waldenses,
and the so-called heretics, of various names, who had been instructed
by them in the way of salvation. It was the civil establishment of
religion in every European State that checked the progress of the
Protestant Reformation, so gloriously commenced in Germany and
Switzerland by Luther and, Zuingle. And it was the subsequent
alliance of the Reformation with the civil powers of Europe that
first arrested it in its glorious career, and completely paralysed it
in after-times in many a land.
It wa- owing entirely, for example, to the civil establishment of
the Romish religion that the light' of the Reformation was so soon
extinguished in Italy and Spain. It was the civil establishment
of the Romish religion in Prance that lighted up the flames of civil
war in that unhappy country during a long series of years, that
excited the bloody massacre of St. Bartholomew's, and that event
ually drove tnany hundred thousands of the most industrious and
best citizens of the .State into banishment in foreign lands. The
voice of truth was thus stifled in these three countries by the strong
hand of power under the system of Religious Establishments; and
the consequence has been the general prevalence of irreligion, of
infidelity, of immorality, ever since, to a degree almost incredible
in Protestant countries. The horrors of the first Revolution in
France, and the general demoralization of that country at the
present day — a fact admitted by the most unprejudiced observers —
are clearly traceable to the general proscription and banishment
of the Protestants of that kingdom on the revocation of' the edict

15
of Nantes, which guaranteed the religious liberties of the French
Protestants; and -the revocation of that edict of the illustrious
Henry IV. by his degenerate grandson Louis XIV. was owing
wholely and solely to the recognition and prevalence of a religious
establishment. Turn we now to our own father-lands. To what were the trou
bles of the whole reign of the unfortunate but unprincipled Queen
Mary of Scotland owing, but to the recognition of the principle of
a religious establishment by the Queen and her Romish adherents
on the one hand, and by the Protestant lords and the Scottish
people on the other? Had the imprescriptible and inalienable
right of every man to worship God according to the light of his
own conscience been then recognised in that country, the people of
Scotland might have lived long and happily together under their
Popish sovereign, just as the people of Saxony have done for more
than a century past under the successors of king Augustus, who
abjured Protestantism for the Crown of Poland. But, both parties
holding it their bounden duty to carry into effect the principle of
a religious establishment — of on exclusive Religious EstMishment —
civil war, and that a war of extermination, was the inevitable
result. In that war the Queen was entirely defeated ; and flying as
an exile into the territories of a rival princess, she there found a
prison and a scaffold, where she had a right to expect at least a
cordial welcome, and where she sought only a temporary asylum.
I am no advocate for Queen Mary : on the contrary I firmly belisve
her royal hands to have been deeply stained with the blood of her
murdered husband, as an accessary before the' fact. But to give
her her due, I have no hesitation in expressing my belief and con
viction that the crimes and troubles of her disastrous and dis
graceful reign are to be ascribed chiefly to the universal recogni
tion, in that stormy age, of the principle of a religious establish
ment — of an exclusive religious estahlishment.
Roman Catholics are fond of taunting Protestants with the
character and crimes of Henry VIII., and of representing that
blood-thirsty and relentless tyrant as the author and father of the
Protestant Reformation. On the contrary, Henry VIII. was the
great obstacle to the progress of the Reformation in England, just
from the manner in which he acted out the establishment principle.
Truth, in matters, of religion, ' was all along gagged and fettered
under that monarch, as well as under his famous daughter. Queen
Elizabeth ; and in both of their tyrannical reigns, it Was solely the
royal conscience, or rather the royal caprice, that dictated the form
and model of the Church — condemning to confiscation, itnprison-
ment, and death, all who chose to think and act for themselves in
matters of religion. Henry VIII., doubtless, did good service to
the Reformation in abolishing convents in England, and in confis
cating their property to the State; but he would have done in-

16
comparably more, had he only left his people in possession of their j
inalienable birthright, the right to worship God according to the
dictates of their own consciences. Nay, I have no hesitation in
expressing my belief and conviction that Henry VIIL would have
done incomparably, more service to the cause of the Reformation
had he confiscated every acre of Church-land in England, and left
religion from thenceforth to its own native and heavenly energies — ..
those energies that ensured its triumph throughout the civilised
world during the first three centuries of the Cliristian era. Tho
spirit of the Puritans, which all the tyranny of Elizabeth was
unable to eradicate, and which spread far and wide during the
reigns of her immediate successors, the First James and the First
Charles, was merely the spirit of men who were burning with an
ardent desire for that religious liberty of which they had been so
long and so cruelly deprived, in order that an unjust, tyrannical,
and persecuting Government might be enabled to carry out its
precious idea of a Religious establishment. In the course of the
long and arduous struggle that ensued, Charles the First was at
length brought to the scaffold — not, however, as we are told so
often, as a martyr for the constitution audthelibertiesof hiscountry
which he had sworn to defend, but as a traitor who had vilely be
trayed them. For under the British Constitution, which vests the
government of this great empire in ping. Lords, and Commons,'
the King who attempts to reign without Parliaments, and to
oppress his people by arbitrary exactions, as did Charles the First,.
is as much a traitor to that Constitution as the subject who wages
war against his Sovereign. In short, all the troubles of the reign
of Charles the First., — his disastrous career and his melancholy end
— are all distinctly traceable to the unholy alliance that then sub
sisted between Charch and State, an alliance of which an un
righteous Government attempted to enforce the exclusive claiiris,
with all the pains and penalties attachable to the most heinous
crimes, on an unwilling people.
In that stormy period the reins of Government in England were
held for a season by the Presbyterians — a numerous party at that
time who had been suffering for conscience' sake, and struggling
long and vainly for religious liberty, during . the grievous oppres
sion of three dreary reigns. In the course of that oppression they
had multiplied, like Israel in Egypt, till, they had filled the cities
of England with their overwhelming numbers, and commanded a
large majority in both Houses of Parliament. Now oue should
have thought beforehand that men who had thus been suffering for
conscience' sake for seventy years and upwards, under Elizabeth
and James and Charles— men who had been struggling for reli
gious liberty for half a century and upwards, under three tyran
nical monarchs— would have been contented with the precious
possession, when they had won it at length from the Amorite with

17
their sword and with their bow. But, alas! poor, miserable
humanity ! Instead of learning wisdom from the things they had
suffered themselves, the Presbyterians of that period were not satis
fied with entire liberty of conscience, with unbounded freedom of
worship. They must have an establishment, like the surrounding
nations; and that ei-tablishuient must be exclusive — refusini' tole
ration not only to Roman Catholics and Episcopalians, who, it
cannot be denied, had both refused it to them in the days of their
respective supremacy, but refusing it also to Baptists and Inde
pendents. Thi.S7— I mean their extravagant and exclusive ideas of
a religious establishment— this was the fatal rock on which the
English Presbyterians split ; this it was that caused the noble en
terprise of the Long Parliament, that assemblage of patriots and
heroes, to issue in nothing. Yea ! it was this injustice that nerved
the arm of Cromwell and his Independents, and that prostrated
the liberties of England afresh, first before a military usurper, and
afterwards before an unprincipled and worthless monarch. In short,
it was the universal recognition of the principle of religious estab
lishments that occasioned the Civil Wars of England in the first
instance, and that robbed the nation of the hard-earned fruit of
these wars in the sequel. I say the universal recognition of the
principle of religious establishments, exclusive religious esta'Msh-
ments : for let it not he supposed that the Independents, whom the
Presbyterians endeavoured unsuccessfully to put down, were any
exception to the general rule, were any better than their neigh
bours. Numbers of that denomination, it is well known, emigrated
to New England in America during the troubles in Great Britain.
But what did they do there in the matter of religious establish
ments ? Why, they banished the Baptists, and actually hanged
^certain Quakers because they would not conform to their own
exclusive establishment.*
The re-accession of the Stuarts, and the reign of that ill-fated
family till their final expulsion at the Revolution of 1688, only
furnish us with additional and lamentable illustrations of the bitter
fruits of ecclesiastical establishments — on the one hand, a nation
goaded to desperation with unheard-of persecutions was the edify
ing spectacle which all Scotland exhibited during the whole of this
• The Independents or (.^ongregationalists plume themselves on the uniform
opposition of their body to Religious Endowments. But Dr. Owen and the
other Independents of the glorious era of the Commonwealth of England, had
no objection to such Endowments under the Lord Protector Cromwell j and if
this should be disputed, it is at all events matter of history that the Congrega-
tionalists of New England, in America, were a State Church in that country
from the very first. They supported religion, according to the Standing Order
or Congregational Church, by a tax on the whole community. Nay, after the
Episcopal Establishment in Virginia and elsewhere in the United States had
been subverted and destroyed at the War of Independence, the Congregational
Establishment in New England still continued to maintain its existence, and
subsisted till the year IS.^Jl, when it was finally done away with.

18
gloomy period, simply because she could not bring her mind to the
profligate king's idea of what was good for her in the way of eccle
siastical establishments ; on the other, lamentable inefficiency, and
scandalous corruption characterizing that establishment whicb the
king supported and enforced with all the power and authority of
the empire.
I shall now conclude this lecture wifih a few brief remarks on the
existing religious establi.-'hments of Great Britain and Ireland. To
begin then with England — if it is the object of a leligious estab
lishment to promote the prevalence' of pure and undefiled religion,
the simple question to be asked on the subject of our. present en
quiry is whether there would not have been as much religion in
Engla'nd as there is now, if the Church of England had never
existed as a Religious E.stablisliment,; or,- in other words, had
never been connected with the State ? Now I have no hesitation
in expressing my belief and conviction, that there would not only have
been as much, but agreatdeal more religion in England than there
has been during the last three centuries, if the Church of England
had never been established, and if Henry VIII. had confiscated every
acre of church-land in the kingdom, and settled it as a maxim of
the British Constitution that the Church should thenceforth have
no connexion with the State. And lest this idea should be im
puted to sectarianism, or to a feeling of hostility towards the
Church of England, I have no hesitation in expressing the very same
belief and convlctioti in regard to the Church of Scotland also.
So far, indeed, from rsgarding the civil establishment of the Church
of Scotland as having been a blessing to that country in times
past, I consider it to have been the greatest misfortune that has
ever befallen it. The Churches of England and Scotland, have
no necessary connexion with their civil establishments. Their
establishment is a mere accident^ — it is no part of their essence.
They might exist independently altogether of their alliance with'
the State, as the Episcopal Church does at present in Scotland
and the Presbyterian Church in England, and as both of these
Churches do in the United States of America. Nay, I have no
hesitation in adding that it is the alliance of thes^ Churebes with
the State in England and Scotland respectively, that has rendered
them so inefficient as they have hitherto proved in extending the
knowledge and the practice of pure and undefiled religion among
the great body of the British people.
And how can it be otherwise ? An established Church is, to use
the approved language of the lawyers, the creature of the State, and
must, therefore, be the tool of Statesmen, to be used for the pur
poses of Statesmen, that is ior political purposes exclusively. There
are, doubtless, occasional instances of Church-preferment being
bestowed as a reward of merit; but these are the exceptions, the
other is the rule : and whoever is in the least acquainted with the

19
history of the Churches of England and Scotland for the last
century and a half must be cognizant of the fact.
Is it not the fact also that a large proportion of the religion both
of England and Scotland for a century past, has uniformly been
found among the Dissenters — the Methodists, the Independents,
and the Baptists in England; and the Presbytej-ian Dissenters in
Scotland ? And is it not the fact also, that the religion of these
Dissenters, self-originated, self-supported as it is, and unbought by
the State, has had a most beneficial effect even upon the Estab
lished Churches of both countries ; preventing them from becoming
greatly worse than they have actually been ? Will any man sup
pose, therefore, that there would have been less religion either in
England or in Scotland at this day, or during the last three cen
turies, if the National Churches of both of these kingdoms had
never been established, if there • had never been any alliance
between them and the State ?
And what has her wealthy establishment done, during the last
three centuries, for poor miserable Ireland ? Is there any man so
wroug-headed as to suppose that there would have been a single
Protestant fewer in that country at the present day, if its estab
lishment had never existed ? It is a well ascertained fact that the
proportion of Protestants has been decreasing in Ireland for nearly
two centuries past ; and that not merely from the more rapid
increase of the Romish population, but from the gradual decay and
the final extinction of Protestantism in many paits of the country
in consequence of its being left to the tender mercies of a wealthy
but inefficient establishment. Of the six millions of the, inhabit
ants of Ireland, only two are Protestants ; and of these, two millions,
nearly one half are Presbyterians, who, of course, do noii belong to
the E.stablished Church of that country. Of the four millions of
Roman Catholics, there are two who speak the Irish language;
but such are the tender mercies of a State Church, that no provi
sion is made for the spiritual destitution of this vast population, by
sending them ministers to declare to them the wonderful works of
God in their own tongue. In the year 18 12 there were only six
Protestant ministers in Ireland who spoke the language of two
millions of its inhabitants ; and of these six even not one was
either trained up or sent forth expressly to preach the Gospel in
the Irish tongue ! "Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the
Streets of Ashkelon ; lest the Philistines rejoice, lest the daugh
ters of the uncircumcised triumph."
Such, then, is a rapid sketch of the history of Religious Estab
lishments, from the era of the Emperor Constantine to the present
day : and when we survey the melancholy picture with a calm dis
passionate eye — when we think of the furious persecutions to which
these establishments have given rise in all the intervening ages ;
when we reckon up the wars and fightipgs they have occasioned,

20
and attempt to estimate the blood they have spilt, the misery they
have entailed on whole nations and the moral desolation they have
spread over the fairest provinces of the earth— whatever we may
think of the principle of a religious establishment, we shall not fail
to conclude that the practice has been uniformly ruiiious to the
peace of society, dangerous to the stability of government, and
disastrous in the extreme to the best interests of the Christian
religion.

LECTURE II.
THE ErriCIENCT OF THE VOLUNTAKT SYSTEM IN THE UNITED
STATES.
It cannot be denied that there is a strong hereditary prejudice
against the Voluntary System, and in favour of the union of
Church and State, throughout the British Empire. And the vis
inerticB of the British nation, the disposition to receive unques
tioned everything that comes down to us with the Impri
matur of our forefathers, and the strong disinclination to
regard with a favourable eye, anything that savours in the
slightest degree of change or innovation — these feelings, which are
all undoubtedly characteristic of the British people both at home
and abroad^teud very strongly to confirm and perpetuate this pre
judice, however strong the evidence, however convincing the argu
ments that may be brought forward on the opposite side. The
opinion that the alliance of Church and State is a holy alliance,
enjoined in Holy Scripture and profitable to society, is taken up
and preserved, and transmitted to posterity, with as much venera
tion as a precious heirloom that has come down to us from the
remotest antiquity — it bids defiance to reasoning, and treats ex.-
perience as a mocker.
I will just give an instance of this from the writings of a very
estimable person, the Rev. Joseph Milner, a clergyman, of the
Church of England, and the author of a well known and, valuable
history of the Church of Christ. In his Chapter on Ecclesiastical
Establishments in his history of the fourth century, Mr. Milner
issues the following oracular statements, which certainly appeared
to receive some confirmation from the events of the period in which
he lived ; for they were written during the heat of the first French
Revolution. " Without an establishment provided by the State,
the greater part will scarcely have any religion at all, wickedness
will be practised on the boldest scale; and if the form of Govern
ment have a large portion of liberty in its texture, the manners
will be egregiously dissolute. Democracy,, indeed, pure and un
qualified, is the system which will harmonise the most easily with
a polity altogether abstracted from religion, and this very consider
ation affords perhaps no inconsiderable argument against that
species of government."

22
Now, the prejudice that dictated such statements, in the case of
Mr. Milner, is precisely of the same kind with that which gives
rise to a thousand and me arguments, forsooth, of the inore modern
and thorough-going advocates of the alliance between Church and
State. It is a conclusion derived entirely from fancy and not trom
facts. These persons have a vision floating before their mind s eye
of something like one of the enormous extinct animals ot a tormer
world, which they call the State; and having conjured _ up this
imaginary being into life and motion, they assign it certain duties
to perform, the first of which is to provide salaries for the clergy .
from the Public Treasury ; and in default of the performance of
these-^uties in any particular country, in default of the payment of
these salaries, they 'consign the world, through all the elements of
its society, whether intellectual or moral, politica;l or religious, m
that country, to its original chaos, and represent it as nothing else
than a vast mass of anarchy and confusiop ! But what have argw
ments to do in this matter ? Or rather what are ten thousand such
imaginary arguments to one substantial fact? There is not a single
syllable in the New Testament about the alliance of Church and
State, or about the duty of the latter to provide livings or salaries
for the clergy ; and when such an alliance is to be placed on trial,
the touchstone or test to be used in the case is indicated in this
divine maxim, " By their fruits ye shall know them."
Now we have seen, in the course of our first Lecture, from a
rapid survey of the history and results of ecclesiastical establish
ments in Europe from the era of the Roman Emperor Constantine —
who first established Christianity, as it is called, or in other words
gave the Christian Church a civil establishment and took it into
alliance with tbe State — to the present day, that the /rwife of this
alliance have been evil, uniformly and exceedingly evil, evil to an
enormous and incalculable amount. Nay, when we survey, even
in the most cursory manner, the physicaly the intellectual, and the
moral evils that have, resulted, even, in «Europe alone, from this
alliance during the last fourteen hundred years, we are irresistibly
led to the conclusion that the grand master-device of Satan's policy
for the neutralising of Christianity, as a plan of God's devising for
the reformation of this fallen, world, and the moral renovation of
his creature man, has been the union of Church and State.
But we have only as yet looked at the one side of the picture,
although we have there found that the fruits of religious establish
ments have been only evil, evil continually. We have now to look
at the other side, to ascertain the results of the system of No Estab
lishments — that system which the advocates of the union of Church
and State so thoroughly abhor. And as the disciples of our Lord
replied, when asked contemptuously by the Church and State men
of their day, " Can any good thing come out of Nazareth ?" so we
reply, " Come and gee." And may God grant that the result in

23
the one ease, as we hope and trust ituUimately will be in all these
Australian Colonies, may be precisely the same as it was in the
«ther, " So they went and saw where Jesus dwelt !"
Let it not be supposed, however, that all who happen, from birth
and education, to be either members or ministers of Established
Churches, hold that the union of Church and State is either
founded in Scripture or warranted by the principle of expediency .
Oil the contrary, some of the most distinguished ornaments rof the
Church of England in particular, men of gigantic intellect apd
prodigious acquirements, have both held and published the con
trary opinion. The celebrated Dr. Paley gives up the alleged
argument from Scripture in favour of an alliance between Church
and Static — for which he candidly admits there is no scriptural
foundation — ^nd supports that alliance on the principle of political
•expediency alone. "We find," says that eminent writer, " in his
religion,'" that is, in the religion of Christ, "no scheme of building
up a hierarchy or of ministeririg to the views of human governments.
Our religion, as it came out of the hands of its Founder and his
apostles, exhibited a ixmplete abstraction from all views, either of
ecclesiastical or civil poUty" — Foley's Evidences of Christianity, II. 2.
But both Bishop Warburton and Bishop Hoadly, two of ttie
greatest men that have ever sat on the Episcopal Bench in England,
not to mention numeious other and less distinguished names, give
up Dr. Paley's principle of expediency also, and maintain that the
union of Church and State is not only unscriptural but inexpedient,
not only inexpedient but absurd. "The Rabbins," says Bishop
Warburton, in a letter to Bishop Hurd, another great man of a
kindred spirit, " make the giant Gog or Magog contemporary with
Noah, and convinced by his preaching, so that he was disposed to
take the benefit of the ark; but here lay the distress — it by no
means suited his dimensions ; therefore, as he could not enter in,
he contented himself to ride upon it astride. Imagine to yourself
this illustrious cavalier mounted on his hackney, and ^ee if hp does
not bring before you the Church, bestrid by some lumpish Minister
of State, who turns and winds it at his pleasure. The only differ
ence is that Gog believed the preacher of righteousness and religion."
" Religion," says the celebrated Charles James Fox, " should
remain distinct from the political constitution of a State. Inter
mingled with it, what purpose can it serve except the baneful
purpose 'of communicatingandof receiving contamination ?" " Otxr
grandees," says Bishop Warburton in oile of hia letters to Bishop
Hurd, when speaking of one of the English nobility who had been
induced to enter the Church of England from the attraction of its
great preferments — " Our grandees have at last found their way
back into the Church. I only wonder they have been so long
about it. But be assured, that nothing but a new religious revo
lution, to sweep away the fragments that Henry VIII. left, after

24
banqueting his courtiers, will drive them out again." Such a
revolution is now much nearer at hand than it was in the days of
Bishop Warburton, a century ago. The pressure from without
upon Ecclesiastical Establishments is at this moment prodigiously
greater than it was then. The revolutionary clock has struck one,
and the knell of Ecclesiastical Establishments in Europe has already
sounded. But let not the genuine disciples of Christ despair amid
the shaking of the nations. The days of the mourning of Christ's
church on earth are now nearly ended — the day of her redemption
draweth nigh !
But it is now high time to embark for America, to ascertain
whether the Voluntary System, or, in other words, the entire sepa
ration of Church and State, has produced the lamentable results
predicted by Mr. Milner, during the seventy-five years of its pre
valence in that country. Previous td the American Revolution,
the Congregational Church was established in all the New England
Colonies with the exception of the Baptist Colony of Rhode Island,
and the Episcopal Church in all the middle and southern Colonies
with the exception of the Quaker Colony of Pennsylvania. In
Rhode Island and Pennsylvania there was no establishment from
the first. Now during my tour in the United States of America,
in the year 1840, my attention was directed principally to
these two points, 1st., How the Voluntary System, which has since
universally superseded these Establishments, had been introduced
into that country, and 2nd., How it had wrought.*
In prosecuting my enquiries on the first of these points my
attention was naturally directed to the State of Virginia, through
which I had to pass and repass in my journey to and from South
Carolina ; from the circumstance of that State's having been, like
New South Wales, for no less a period than a hundred and fifty
years previous to the War of American Independence, the principal
convict-colony or penal settlement of Great Britain.. During the
whole of this period the Episcopal Church was the Established
Church, the exclusive established church of Virginia ; and the
parochial clergy of that church had each a salary of 16,000H)s. of
tobacco, the general staple of the country, from the Colonial Go-
vernmenit, together with certain fees and other perquisites, (in
cluding a manse and glebe) of uncertain value. At the commence-
* During my stay in America, T visited and partly traversed not fewer than
eleven, of the States, and the District of Columbia besides; viz., the three oldest
of the New England States, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Khode Island;
the thre^ Middle States, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania ; and the five
Southern or Slave States, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and
South Carolina. I preached, lectured, and addressed public meetings in New
York, and in the city of Troy, on the river Hudson, in that State-; in Phila
delphia, in Baltimore, in Wihnington, North Carolina, and- in Charleston, South
Carolina ; having had letters to men of the first standing, from the President
downwards, in all these cities.

25
ment of the revolutionary contest, however, this establishment was
forthwith discontinued, and all other denominations in the State
were thenceforth relieved of all future obligation to contribute
towards the maintenance and support of the Episcopal Church.
But on the restora,tion of peace, and the firm establishment of
their national independence, a Bill was introduced into the General
Assembly or Legislature of Virginia, of exactly the same character
and objects as Sir Richard Bourke's General Church Act of 1836;
proposing to place the Virginian clergy of all denominations on the
same footing, and to grant them all salaries from the Public Trea
sury in proportion to the number of their respective adherents.
And so strongly was this Bill supported in the Legislature of Vir
ginia, and so willing were the Representatives of the people of that
Statg to tax themselves for the support of religion, that it was not ,
only read a first and a second time, but engrossed for a third
reading ; the majority of the Legislature being strongly disposed
in its favour. At this important crisis, however, the Presbyterian
clergy of Virginia, having previously obtained from the Legislature
a brief postponement of the measure with a view to consult their
people on the subject, held an extraordinary meeting of their body,
and declared unanimously against the Bill : alleging that there
was no necessity for the interposition of Government for the sup
port of religion ; that their people had supported it all along, as
far as their own clergy were concerned, when oppressed besides
with forced contributions for the support of the Colonial Episcopal
Church, from which they neither asked nor received any benefit ;
and that they were a fortiori, both able and willing to do so still,
iafter having secured their freedom from all such arbitrary exac
tions in future, after having so gloriously achieved their national
independence. A memorial was accordingly drawn up by the
Presbyterian clergy ..against the proposed Bill, and the Rev. J. B.
Smith, one of the most eminent members of their body, was chosen
to present it to the Legislature. And so zealous was Mr. Smith in
the master that, in conjunction with Mr. Madison, then a member
of the Legislature of Virginia, but afterwards President of the
United States, he also drew up a general memorial against the Bill,
which was forthwith circulated throughout the State with all con
venient speed, and soon obtained not fewer than Ten Thousand
signatures. With both of these memorials Mr. Smith presented
himself before the Legislature of Virginia, and for three days in
succession he pleaded at the bar o^ the House against the measure.
The result was that the General Church Bill was thrown out in
the House of Assembly, after having arrived at its last stage, and
the Voluntary System became thenceforth the law of the land in
Virginia. Before I went to America I always entertained the idea that
the Voluntary System in that country had been forced upon the

26
clergy by an infidel Government. This is what young men are
uniformly taught in Scotland by the advocates of Religious Estab
lishments. But what was my astonishment to find— when searching
into the history of the period, in the city of Richmond, the capital
of Virginia, and in the library of the State-house m that eity,
where the memorable documents lay— that the Voluntary System
had in reality been forced upon an unwilling Government m
America through the efforts of a zealous, self denying, patriotic,
and Christian clergy! It has been asserted a thousand and a
thousand times, by the advocates of Religious Establishments, that
the unendowed Churches of any country would gladly accept of an
establishment if they could get it. But here was a whole body of
clergy, who had just' passed from nilder the yoke of ecclesiastical
oppression, and who, when offered at that critical period by the
Government of their country all the benefits of a Religious Estab
lishment, deliberately, firmly, and unanimously refused them I , It
was upwards of half a century after this memorable event — an
event as honourable to America as the achievement of their na
tional independence by the people of that country — that I visited
the city of Richmond ; which, although the capital of the State,
from its central- situation, is by no means a large city. There'
were then four Presbyterian Churches in it — two of them hand
some buildings— for I happened not to ascertain the, numbers
belonging io the Episcopalians, Bajitists, Stethbdists, and Ronian
Catholics in this instance ; and when I asked the pastor of one
of these .churches whether they had atiy reason to regret the mea
sure which their predecessors had taken for them, in' renounciiig
the benefits oif a civil establishment for the American Presbyterian
Church, the good man smiled at the siinplicity of a foreigner
at asking such a question iii America.
,At the time I refei? to, Virginia was the leading State. in Ame-,
rica, at least in the southern division of that great republic ; aiid,
in every great political movement its example was , eagerly looked
np to and faithfully followed by the rieigbbouring States of Mary'-r
land and Delaware on the north, and.by the t-i^o Carolinas knd
Georgia on the south. The great movement in Virginia, in regard
to the public support of religion, was therefore not likely to escape
the observation of these States ; and accordingly, when— contrary
to the apprehensions and prediction? of man,y, who prophesied
that the country would relapse into irreligion and infidelity, and
that Christianity would speedily disappear from the land — the new
system of leaving religion entirely to the voluntary support of its
professors was found to work far better for religion than its most
ardent advocates had anticipated, it was successively adopted by
them all. In some of the New England States the Religious
Establishment of the olden time, which was first exclusive and then
generally modified into something like our own General ChurcK

27
Act, maintained its existence against the progress of public opinion
much longer. But the obsolete system was at length overborne by
the weight of public opinion even there; and it is now many years
(about twenty-five) since the last vestige of a Religious Establish
ment disappeared in America. '
In regard to the general results of the Voluntary System in that
country, the opinion of the Americans themselves is most iinportant.
On mentioning the subject to an American Judge, in whose family
I resided during my stay in the city of Philadelphia, he observed,
" We are not of two opinions on that subject here ; we are all
agreed that religion requires no support from the State, and can
reap no benefit from connexion with the civil power." '
Nor is this the testimony of the Laity only. The American
Clergy of all denominations are equally decided on'- the subject —
Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Baptists, Congregationalists, Method
ists, Roman Catholics. M. de Tooqueville, one of the ablest writers
that has ever written on America, informs us that he had ascer
tained this point himself from the American Clergy of all denomi
nations. " They all," he tells us, " agreed' in regarding it as the
happiest circumstance imaginable for religion - in that country that
it had no connexion with the State ; and they all ascribed the great
influence which religion undoubtedly has in the United States, as
compared with most European countries, to tha,t circumstance
alone." The late Bishop Hobart, of New York, who had travelled
in Europe, and had carefully compared the ecclesiastipal institu
tions of the old world with those of the new, was one of the most
determined opponents of Religious Establishments.* And when I
* On the death of Governor De Witt Clinton, of the State of New York, who
died very suddenly in the year 1828j a resolution of the City Corporation of
New York was passed to the following effect, viz. "That the reverend the
Clergy in the City be respectfully requested to notice, in an appropriate and
solemn manner, in their respective churches to-morrow, the deep bereavement
sustained by our common country, by the death of our chief magistrate and
fellow-citizec De Witt Clinton." 'This i-esolution was forwarded by the Clerk of
the Corporation to the Clergy of the City; and as Mr. De Witt Clinton was not
merely universally respected in 'the State of New York, but had been a most
distinguished benefactor of the State through the important measures he had
reeomraended and carried in the Legislature, I am sure it will be'generally
alloired that apch a request was quite appropriate on the one haiid, and ought
to have been received in a coiresponding spiiit by .the clergy of al' denomina
tions on the other. ¦ Bishop Hobart, however, thought otherwise, and in a letter
to the Clerk of the Corporation in which- .he notified his refusal to
comply -srith the request of that Body, he assigned the following as his.
reason : —
" Paramount considerations of duty •(vill prevent my compliance with a request,
which, in the principle that it involves, and in the precedent which it will estab
lish, appears to me of dangerous' tendfency in regard to the spirit of our free
constitution, aind to the spirit of religion, and the character and influence of its
ministers. " The prostitution of religion to the purposes of secular policy has produced
the greatest mischiefs ; and, I conceive that the studious separation of the

28
asked the Rev. Dr. Miller, a distinguished Professor of Theology
in one of the Presbyterian Colleges of America, what were the sen
timents of his brethren on the subject :— " Sir," he replied, "if the
American Government were to propose to the Presbyterian Clergy
either to become an Establishled Church, or to be persecuted by the
State, I am sure they would choose rather to be persecuted than to
become an Established Church."
Let us now put the Voluntary System of America to the test, m
the three important points of Church-Accommodation, Ministerial
Efficiency, and Efforts for the extension of the Church of Christ,
and the general evangelization of the world.
I. CatTECH- Accommodation.
The three States of Massachusetts, Connecticut,^ and Rhode
Island, in New England, occupy a belt of land stretching along the
shores of Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean of 150 miles
in length and 100 in breadth — an extent of country nearly equal
to the half of Scotland. The land is for the most part of inferior
quality, like that of Scotland ; the principal exports of the country
being granite and ice. The population amounted at the period of
my visit in 1840, to 1,200,000, about half the population of Scot
land at that period, and the inhabitants of both countries are simi
larly employed ; — being partly engaged in agriculture, partly in
commerce, and partly in manufactures. Their educational Institu
tions also are remarkably similar to those of Scotland, and the in
habitants of the two countries resemble each other greatly in their
general character and habits. Now for this extent of territory and
population, the number of places of worship, exclusive of those, of
the Roman Catholics, who are by no means numerous in this part; ,
of the United States, is 1540. These are divided among the fol
lowing denominations, viz. : —
Congregationalists* ... ... ... 608
Baptists  ... 318
Church from the State, which characterizes our republican constitution, is de
signed to prevent religion and its ministers from being made subservient to the

request may be extended to every distinguished citizen who has filled a public
station, and thus the ministrations of the clergy may be made to advance the
,influence of political men and political measures — an evil from which, in the.
Old World, the most unhappy effects have resulted, and against which, in this
country, we should most sedulously guard."
* The Congregationalists of New England differ considerably from the English
Independents — a designation which they have all along repudiated. Their
lEcclesiastical system approaches nearly to Presbyteriaiiism ; the principal differ-
¦ Mice being that their Church Courts have no judicial, but merely an advisory
power. It will be observed that in the following Lists there are no Presby
terians in the New England States, and no Congregationalists in what are called

29
Methodists  215
Episcopalians ... ... ... ... 123
Quakers' Meetings  ... 46
Smaller Denominations ...  42
Unitarians ...  ... 142
Universalists ••• ... ... ... 66
There are therefore not fewer than 1300 places of orthodox worship,
independently of Roman Catholics, Unitarians and Universalists,
all supported under the Voluntary System, for an extent of country
and an amount of population in New England, equal to about half
the extent and population of Scotland. Many of these places of
worship, especially in the towns, are handsome edifices of stone or
brick, with neat spires and towers, or belfries. In the country
they are generally of wood, like those of the country-people in this
part of America, generally ; and I ascertained that a very neat
edifice of the kind, similar to many others I had seen in the New
England villages, and resembling a country parish-church in Scot
land, had cost only about £700 sterling ; the comparative cheap
ness of cost in the one country being compensated by the greater
durability of the ecclesiastical buildings in the other.
For the Congregationalists, who were formerly the Established
Church of the country in Massachusetts and Connecticut, the resi
dent clergy are in the proportion of 11 to 13, as compared with tha
number of churches. For the Episcopalians, the proportion is as 8-
to 9 : for the Baptists as 2 to 3. The salaries of the ministers in
the country average about five hundred dollars per annum ; which,
in a country so remarkable for the cheapness of living as New
England unquestionably is, is equivalent to from £150 to £200
per annum in Scotland. In Boston and the other cities, however,
in which the cost of living is much higher, the salaries of the clergy
vary from 1500 to SOOO dollars, or from £300'to £600 per annum.
In short, I have no hesitation in stating, that in this portion of
the United States, which in almost e^ery respect may be compared
with Scotland, the amount of Church-accommodation, and the num
ber of resident and well-educated clergy, under the Voluntary
System, are at least equal, if not greatly superior, to the propor-
the Middle States. This arises from a mutual agreement made by the two
bodies, immediately after the War of ludependence, to the effect that when any
Presbyterian minister or layman should settle in New England, he was not to
endeavour to organise a church of that communion, hut to be received into the
Congregational Church of the country ; and that- in like manner when any Con
gregational minister or layman settled in the Middle States, he was not to
attempt to form a Congregational Church, but to be received into the Presby
terian Church of the place. This eminently Christian arrangement was main
tained inviolable, to the great benefit of both bodies, for fifty years. Latterly,
attempts have been made to set it aside, chiefly through the sectarian influence
imported from the Mother Country,

30
tions in Scotland, under one of the best Religious Establishments
that has ever existed. , . .
I shall now exhibit the amount of Church-a,ccommodation m
twelve of the principal "cities and towns of the United States,-to
the eastward of the Alleghany mountains : from which a general
idea may be formed of the state, of things in this particular in the
other cities and towns of the American Union.
1. Boston, in Massachusetts; Population in 1840, 80,320.
Congregational Churches ... ...' 14
Unitarian ... ... ... ... 13
Episcopalian ... ... ... ... 7
Methodist  7
Baptist  5^
Roman Catholic ... ... ... 4
UniversalLst ... ... ... ... 3
Smaller Denominations ... ... 5
Total ... ...¦ '•;,... 58 „ :
That is, one place of worship for eyery 1384 persons : or, deducting,,
the Eoman Catholics and the heretical denominations, one place of
orthodox Protestant worship for every 2350 persons of the whole
population. ,
If it should be urged that there is an astounding proportion of
Unitarian and other heretical places of worship in this enumeration,
and that such a fact be^frs hard upon the very face of it, against
the Voluntary System, I would reply — Quite the reverse. For it
was under the exploded system of a religious establishment that
Unitarianism arose and prospered in New England ; and it is only
since that establishment was entirely done away with that orthodox
Christianity began to make rapid progress in that country and
Unitarianism to decline. It is now rapidly disappearing. "Wi^m
the Unitarians were obliged to separate themselves from the Ortho
dox Congregational Church in Massachusetts, about the year 1815,
and to form themselves into a separate body, which, they were very
unwilling to do, there was only one orthodox Congregational Church
in Boston. 2. Salem, Massachusetts ; Population in 1840, 16,000.
Congregational Churches ... ... 4

UnitarianBaptist Episcopalian ...
Smaller Denominations

42 14

15
That is, one place of worship for every 1066 persons.

31
f
3, New Haven, Connecticut; Population in 1840, 13,000.
Congregational Churches  5
Episcopalian ... ... ... ...  2
Methodist   2
Baptist, Roman Catholic, African, Bethel, one each 4
Total  13
That is, one place of worship for every thousand of the whole
population. 4. New Yoek; Population in 1840, 280,000.
Presbyterian Churches, including Dutch Presbyterians . ... 55
Episcopalian  27
Methodist  18
Baptist  18
Eoman Catholic... ...  ... '  8
African (Methodist, Episcopalian, Baptist, and Presbyterian —
for people of colour)  ,  9
Quakers' Meetings  ... ... ... ... 5
Lutheran ...•   ... 3
Moravian ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 2
Jews' Synagogues  ... ... 3
Unitarian ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 2
Universalist .••  3
Smaller Denominations (German and Welsh)  4
Mariners' Churches  2
159
That is, one for every 1886 persons of the whole population.
If it should be objected that there is a prodigious variety of
denominations in thislist, and that such a circumstance tells unfavour
ably for the Voluntary System, I would merely observe that New
York is a place of general concourse for people of all communions
and of all European nations. In so far as I could learn on the
spot, not one of "the numerous denominations in New York had
originated in America : they had all been imported originally from
Europe. But the great bulk of the population of the Middle States
of the American Union belong to one or other of the principal
denominations — the Presbyterians, the Episcopalians, the Method
ists, and the Baptists ; th_e numbers of the other denominations
being very small.
The ecclesiastical buildings of all denominations in New York
are at least equal in point of cost and architecture to those of the
same denominations in European cities ; and in general they are
much more expensively fitted up within. A considerable number

32
of the Presbyterian Churches in New -York are equal, in
these respects, to the best city-churches in Scotland. The ground
and building of Dr. M'Elroy's (Presbyterian) Church in Grand-
street, cost not less than £24,437 : and Mercer-street Church
(another. Presbyterian Church) was a perfect fac-gimile of the
Church erected for the celebrated Dr. Chalmers in the city of
Glasgow. I ascertained also, that the salaries of the Presbyterian
clergy in New York were generally from £400 to £600 per pnnum.
I met with one, however, whose salary was £800. The Episcopa
lian and Dutch Presbyterian Churches of that City, having both
extensive private property, are scarcely to be taken as unexception
able instances of the results of the Voluntary System ; but I may
add that while the Dutch Presbyterians had recently erected some
very handsome and costly edifices, the Episcopalians were preparing
to erect a Cathedral which was to cost £100,000.
5. PoDGHKEEPSiE, ou the banks of the Hudson River, New
York; Population 9,000.
Presbyterian Churches ... ... ... 3
Episcopalian ... ... ...• ... 2
Methodist  2
Quakers' Meetings ... ... ... ... 2
Baptist, Unitarian, African, one each ... 3,
12
That is, one for every 750 persons.
6. Troy, New York ; Population 20,000.
Presbyterian Churches ... ... 6
Episcopalian  ..3
Baptist  ... ... 2
Methodist  2
Roman Catholic ... ... . . 1
Quakers' Meeting  1
15
That is, one for every 1333 souls.
The City of Troy was only thirty years old at the period of my
visit. The first Presbyterian Church, in which I officiated, on the
Sabbath I spent in Troy, was originally of wood ; but the wooden
building had been taken down after having served its generation,
and a handsome brick building in the form of a Grecian Temple,
which had cost 40,000 dollars or £8500 steriing, had been erected'
m Its stead. The salary of the minister was 2000 dollars, or about
500 sterling.

33
7. Newark, New Jersey ; Population 17,000.
Presbyterian Churches  7
Methodist  3
Baptist  2
Episcopalian ' ... ... ... ... ... ... 1
Bethel, African, Roman Catholic, Universalist 1 each 4
17
That is, one place of worship for every thousand inhabitants.
New Jersey was colonised in the 17th century, during the reign of
Charles the Second, chiefly from Scotland and the North of
Ireland. 8. Philadelphia; Population in 1840, 180,000.
Presbyterian Churches ... ... ... 35
Episcopalian ... ... ... ... 19
Methodist-  26
Baptist  18
Quakers' Meetings ...  8
Roman Catholic  ... ... 9
Lutheran ... ... ... ... ... 4
Smaller denominations ... ... ... 12
128
That is, one place of worship for every 1400 of the whole popu
lation. And these numerous places of worship 'or churches are
served by not fewer than 124 resident ministers. Some of the
churches in this city are built entirely of marble. I attended
divine service in a Presbyterian Church of this kind, of which the
internal arrangements corresponded, in their costliness and ele
gance, with this handsome exterior; while others, in which I offi
ciated myself, were equal in their general character and appear
ance, as ecclesiastical buildings, to the city parish-churches in
Scotland. 9. Baitimoke, Maryland; Population 100,000. Of that popu
lation one fourth are Roman Qatholics, for whom there are six
places of worship, including a cathedral ; Maryland having been
originally colonised by Roman Catholics. Another fourth are
<3-ermans, but the number of their places of worship I did not
ascertain. The following is the proportion for the 50,000 Protest
ants and Americans. Methodist Churches ... ... ... 15
African Methodist ditto  4
Episcopalian ... ,  ... 6

34
Presbyterian ... ... ••¦ ••• «
Baptist ... ... ... .¦• ••• 4
Unitarian .,.' ... ... ... ••• 1
36
That is, one for every 1388 souls of the 4-merican Protestant
population. The Second Presbyterian Church of this city, in
which I officiated during my stay, had cost, including the manse
and the price of the allotment of ground, 100,000 dollars, or con
siderably upwards of £20,000» The First Presbyterian Church,
in which I attended divine service, appeared to have been a still
more costly building.
The next two 1 shall mention are comparatively small towns, and
I instance them to show that the Voluntary System is as efficient
in such towns as in large cities.
10. Fbedericksburgh, Virginia; Population 4000. One
Presbyterian Church, one Episcopalian, one Methodist, one Bap
tist ; or one for every thousand souls.
11. Wilmington, North Carolina; Population 4000. One
Episcopal Church, one Presbyterian, one Baptist, one Methodist ;
giving the same proportion to the general population. I have
always placed first in these lists the body that appeared to be the
most numerous or influential in the particular locali,ty.

. Charleston, South Carolina ;

Population 30,000.

Episcopal Churches

 6

Presbyterian 

 5

Methodist 

 4

Roman Catholics 

 3

Baptist

Lutheran ...

Unitarian ...

French Protestant 

Jews' Synagogue 
23
That is, one place of worship for every 1500 of the population.
It appears, therefore, that the proportion of places of worship to
the general population in the American towns and cities I have
enumerated, is one to from 1000 to 1500 souls. The following is
the proportion in six of the large cities of England.
In Liverpool  1 to 2242
Manchester
Birmingham
Leeds Sheffield
Nottingham
1 to 2726
1 to 2296
1 to 2055
1 to 1793
1 to 1988
35
In regard, therefore, to Church-accommodation, the results of
the Voluntary System in America are decidedly superior to those
of the system of Religious Establishments in Great Britain. And
although — to use the language of a late Episcopal clergyman in
New Southr Wales — ^there are no such " prizes " in the American
Ecclesiastical Lottery as there are in that of England, neither are
there any such " blanks " there ; the worhing dergy of America
being decidedly much better remunerated for their labour than the
great majority of the worhing clergy of England. Take the city of
Charleston as a specimen. I happened to ascertain the amount of
the salaries of most of the clergy of that city from one of their own
number — a Scotch clergyman — for whom I preached during my stay,
and who had himself been greatly prejudiced against the Voluntary
System till he went to America.
The Bishop of South Carolina, the Rev. Dr. Gadsden, who is
also pastor of one of the city churches in Charleston, has a salary
of 2800 dollars, or about £700 per annum. One of the other
Episcopal clergymen of the city has 2500 dollars, and two have
2000 dollars each ; the remaining two, whose churches are of
recent erection in the suburbs, having 1500 each.
The Scotch clergyman I have mentioned, and another of the
Presbyterian ministers of Charleston, have a salary of 2500 dollars
each : a third Presbyterian minister has 2000 dollars ; a fourth
1500 ; and the fifth, who officiates in the Mariners'' Church, and
whose salary is paid by subscription, has 1000, or about £250.
The Lutheran minister has 2500 dollars ; the Unitarian, 2250 ;
and the Baptist 2000.
The Methodist ministers are universally well supported in America ;
that is, they have moderate but sufficient salaries in all parts of the
country ; but I did not ascertain the particular amount of the
salaries of those in Charleston.
There is also a Romish Bishop in that city, and several priests ;
but my clerical friend was unable to inform me what salaries they
Teceived respectively from their people.
Now as the city of Charleston, (which is situated almost under
the same parallel of latitude as Sydney, in the opposite hemisphere,
and is, as nearly as possible, at the antipodes of Sydney), was a city
of exactly the «ame population as our own Colonial capital, in the
year 1840, and is moreover a maritime city and the commercial
capital of the wool-growing* State to which it belongs, while it
resembles Sydney also in having both a Protestant and a Roman
Catholic Bishop, with Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists and
Jews, in similar proportions — it is by no means unfair to institute
a comparison between the two cities in reference to the support of
religion. The only difference indeed between them is all in favour
of Sydney ; for while the climate of Charleston is a wretched
» Cotton wool, not sheeps' wool.

36
climate, compared with ours, thc-e is a large Negro and Slave
population in that city to compensate for the convicts and ticket-of
leave men of our late Penal System.
How is it then that the Episcopalians of Charleston can support
well and willingly their bishop, and five other Episcopal min
isters, while the Episcopalians of Sydney must have their bishop
and clergy supported principally " from the Public Treasury ?
And how is it that the lower Irish, who constitute the chief part
of the Roman Catholic population of Charleston, can support a
bishop and several priests in that deadly climate, while their country
men in Sydney must have their bishop and priests billetted upon
the Custom-house chest ? And how is it that the Presbyterians
and the Methodists respectively are either less able or less willing
to support their ministers here than they are there ?
At all events it is unquestionable that the city of Charleston,
with all its disadvantages, was far better supplied with church-accom
modation in 1840, than the city of Sydney; audi can add, moreover, as
the result of my own personal observation, that it was incomparably
better supplied with able, zealous, and faithful ministers of all de
nominations, under the Voluntary System, than we were, under the
system of an indiscriminate Religious Establishment.
In proof of this I would observe that it is almost universal among
the Protestant denominations in America for every church to have
a separate place of meeting or lecture-room, as it is called, as an
appendage to the church, for week-day evening services. In some
cases the lecture-room is a large room beneath the area of the
church in the same building : in others it is a separate building,
The lecture-room of the Second Presbyterian Church in Charleston,
for the Pastor of which I officiated during my stay in that city,
was situated neariy half a mile from the church, and in a much
more densely peopled portion of the city. It was a neat little
chapel, with a gallery, capable of containing four hundred persons,
having a large Sabbath-school beneath it ; and it had cost not less
than 10,000 dollars, or considerably upwards of £2000. The
church-property of the Second Presbyterian Church had cost alto^
gether 140,000 dollars— more than £30,000.
And let it not be said that Charleston is a much older city than
Sydney, and that some at least of its churches were erected before
the Voluntary System had come into operation. As a set-off in
this particular to the case of Charieston, I shall just mention that
of a much younger American city than Sydney^ I mean that of
Rochester, in the State of New York. Of that city the first house
was built in the year 1808, exactly twenty years after the founding
ofSydney; and in the year 1815, its population did not exceed
•": -i. population had increased to 17,000, and the
city then contained sixteen churches of various denominations, and
bad sent forth from these churches not fewer than fifteen mission
aries to the Heathen in foreign lands !

8T
It is commonly urged against the Voluntary System that it does
not " consider the case of the poor." The State Church is called
" the poor man's church," because, forsooth, -it contains certain
free seats in the passages that respectable people won't occupy, for
the parish-paupers. In the city of New York, however, there were
erected, under the Voluntary. System, during the fifteen years
previous to the year 1840, by the Presbyterian communion alone,
not fewer than seven churches called Free Churches, on the prin
ciple of throwing open their pews to all and sundry without pay
ment ; the salary of the clergyman being paid by certain benevo
lent persons who associate for the purpose. Arrangements of a
similar kind on behalf of the poor are common in all the other
great cities of America. In the city of Philadelphia, for example, I met
an Episcopal clergyman who had no stated cure or place of worship,
but who received a liberal salary, from funds supplied by the Chris
tian benevolence of his own denomination, to visit the poor and the
needy in that great city.
In short, the state of things in regard to Church-accommodation
in America, fully justifies the remark of M. de Tocqueville — " In
no country in the world do the citizens make such exertions for
the common weal ; and I am acquainted with no people which has
established schools as numerous and as efficient, places of worship
better suited for the wants of the inhabitants, or roads kept in
better repair." II. Ministerial Efficienct.
" The single end we ought to propose," observes Dr. Paley, " by
religious establishments is, the preservation and communication of
religious knowledge. Every other idea, and every other end that
has been mixed with this, as the ma3iing of the Church an engine,
and even an ally, of the State ; converting it into the means of
strengthening or diffusing influence ; or regarding it as a support
of regal, in opposition to popular forms of government, have served
only to debase the i/nstitution, and to introduce into it numerous cor
ruptions and abtises." — Foley's Moral and Political Fhilosophy,
vi. 10.
Now if the single end of a religious establishment — the preser
vation and communication of religious knowledge — ^is confessedly
better attained without an establishment than with one, the neces
sity for such an expensive and cumbersome apparatus is entirely
imaginary! But I appeal to the testimony of Captain Marryatt, a
most unexceptionable witness in such a case, as to whether an
apparatus of this kind can be necessary for the preservation and
communication of religious knowledge, or, in other words, for the
creation of an efficient ministry in America. " The American
clergy," says that writer, " are, in the mass, equal, if not superior
to any in the world ; they have to struggle with difficulties almost

insurmountable; and worthily do they perform their tasks.
"Never since the days of the apostles," says the Rev. Calvin
Cotton, whose testimony Captain Marryatt quotes with approbation,
" was a country blessed with so enlightened, pious, orthodox,
faithful, willing clergy as the United States at this moment.
All the Evangelical Churches, wherever I travelled m that
country, have meetings for divine service during the week as well
as on the Sabbath. Their Sabbath-schools and Bible-classes,
although not superior to many at home, are far more general, and
generally speaking, far more efficient : while instances of selfr
denial, on the part of the clergy, are frequent beyond all precedent
in the mother country— and not unworthy of the age of the-

The Rev. Dr. M'Crosky, a highly popular Episcopalian clergy
man in Philadelphia, who had a large congregation in that polished
city and a salary of 2600 dollars per annum, was invited- to accept
the office of Bishop in the new State of Michigan, where the salary
was to be only 800 dollars per annum, and that salary to be derived
from his pastoral office as minister of a particular church. Con
ceiving that it was a call of Providence, and that a wide and inter
esting field of labour was thereby opened up to him in a new
country, he demitted his charge in Philadelphia, disregarding all
pecuniary considerations, and accepted the call to Michigan.*
Bishop Griswold, the bishop of what is called the Eastern district
in New England, had for many years a salary of only £300 per
annum,, as pastor of a particular Church within his diocese; andift'
the discharge of his Episcopal duties, having long journeys to un
dertake every year, he performed them on foot, with his bundle?
slung on his umbrella over his shoulder.
The Rev. Dr. M'Auley, the highly popular minister of a highly
respectable Presbyterian congregation in Philadelphia, was invited-
to New York to build up a once flourishing Church there, which had
fallen into great dilapidation through unfortunate cireumstances,^
and was deeply encumbered at the time with debt. Conceiving
the call, like Dr. M'Crosky' s, a caH'of divine providence, he accepted
if at once, although at a great sacrifice of his personal income ; and
his ministry has since been exceedingly blessed to his people in
New York.
The Rev. Joel Parker, one of the ablest of the Presbyterian
Clergy in America, was settled over a large and flourishing congre-
* I was told this circumstance by the Kev. Pr. BethunCr of the Dutch Preshy
terian Church, Philadelphia, one ef the most dis^tinguished of the American
clerCT at the time. Dr. M'Crosky had actually consulted Dr. Bethune as to
whether he should accept the invitation to Michigan. Dr. B. told him that
supposing that he (Dr. B.) entertained the same views of Church Government
as Dr. M'C. did, he would consider himself in duty bennil to accept it, which
Dr. M'C. did accordingly, ¦ It was * case of coBscience nobly r^olved by hotb
parties-.

39
gation in New York ; but was invited by some of his people, who
were in the habit of spending the winter months every year in the
city of New Orleans, to undertake the formation of a Presbyterian
Church in that dissolute city. The climate of New Orleans is one
of the deadliest in the world ; and for the minister of such a con
gregation as Mr. Parker's in New York, to leave that congregation
to go to New Orleans, was as great a sacrifice and as remarkable an
instance of self denial as it would be for one of the city parish-
ministers of Edinburgh or Glasgow to leave his congregation there
to be settled as a minister in Demerara or Sierra Leone. But Mr-
Parker did not hesitate to go forth to that most unpromising portion
of his Master's vineyard ; and, I may add, that instances of the
same self-denial are numerous in all communions and of daily
occurrence in all parts of America.
But examples of extraordinary zeal for religion are not peculiar
to the American Clerg/. I was credibly informed, when in Wash
ington, by the pastor of the Church which the President was in the
habit of attending in that city, that there were not fewer than forty
of the members of the American Congress members of private Prayer
Meetings held regularly during the Session of Congress in the
Federal City. The whole number of the members of Congress at
that time was 240 ; therefore one in every six of the whole number
was in the habit of attending such meetings. And will any man
pretend to say that there is any such proportion of decidedly reli
gious men in any Legislature of the British Empire — either at
home or abroad ?
III. Efforts for the extension of the Christian Church,
AND the general EVANGELIZATION OF THE WoRLD.
Efforts of this kind, on the part of the American Churches, may
be classed under the three following heads — Education Societies,
Home Missions, and Foreign Missions.
The Education Societies of America originated about forty years
ago. It was then seen and felt by the friends of religion that the
supply of Ministers of the Gospel in the United States was not at
all adequate to the growing demand for them, and therefore that
it was necessary to make extraordinary efforts to ensure an adequate
supply. For this purpose a society was formed, among the Presby
terian denominations chiefly, to raise a fund for the education of
young men of promising parts, but in indigent circumstances, who
were unable to defray the cost of their own education. These
young men are supported at the charge of the Society, in acade
mies, colleges, and divinity halls, for three, seven, or nine years
successively, according to their previous state of advancement ; and
after the completion of their education they are ordained as minis
ters of religion, or .sent forth as missionaries to the Heathen. At
the time I visited America the Society had given assistance in thiS'

40
way to not fewer than 3000 young men, of whom upwards of 1400
were then labouring either as ordained ministers in the United
States, or as missionaries among the Heathen in foreign lands.
The annual subscription for this object, during the year previous
to my visit to America, had amounted to 51,307 dollars, or
£10,902. But although a large proportion of the contributors to this
Society are members of the Presbyterian Church, the General
Assembly of that Church have a separate and denominational society
for the same object which collects annually 33,930 dollars, or
£7120: The Episcopalians, the Baptists, and the Methodists, have all
societies respectively for the same object.
The Divinity Colleges of America, which are all denominational,
and of which each denomination has one or more, are institutions
of a similar kind. The Presbyterians have not fewer than twelve
of these Colleges — some of them handsomely endowed, by Volun
tary Contributions in the first instance, with extensive buildings,
large libraries, and numerous scholarships. The Divinity College
at Princeton, the oldest in the country, although formed so recently
as in the year 1811, besides four well endowed Professorships, has
.already twenty-seven Scholarships for poor students, affording each
a yearly income to the holder of £30.
The Home Missions of the American Churches, for supplying
the ministrations of religion to the recently settled and thinly in
habited districts of their own country, chiefly in the great valley of
the Mississippi, exhibit also the astonishing results of the Voluntary
System in a striking light. These Missions are not peculiar to
any one body of Christians ; the Episcopalian, the Baptist, and
the Methodist Churches of the United States having each their
separate societies and their distinct agencies. For the Home Mis
sions of the Presbyterian denominations alone, about 117,000 dol
lars, or considerably upwards of £25,000 sterling, were annually
collected in the Churches of that communion, while the number of
missionaries under th;e superintendence of the Presbyterian Boards
was not fewer than 936, who dispensed the ordinances of religion
either regularly or occasionally to 1446 congregations. Of these
Home Missionaries there were actually 22 in our colony of Canada,
labouring among the numerous Americans who had crossed the
British lines, and settled within the limits of the British jurisdic
tion. And in the year 1839 there were so many of these mission
aries, all regularly educated and ordained Presbyterian ministers,
in the newly formed Republic of Texas, as to form a Presbytery.
The procedure of the American Presbyterian Church towards the
emigrant population of that Republic, as compared with that oif
the Scotch General Assembly's Committee, ekhibits in striking
contrast the character and spirit of an Establisted Church aa

41
compared with the Christian spirit and apostolic enterprise
of the Voluntary System. A large number of American citizens
had at different times settled in Texas; and a considerable number
of emigrants had also proceeded thither from Scotland. On behalf
of the latter an application was addressed to the Assembly's Com
mittee in Ediuburgh for a Scotch Presbyterian minister for the
province of Texas ; but that body, not being sufficiently informed
on the subject, declined doing anything in the matter. The Ame
rican General Assembly, however, did not wait to be memorialized
on the subject of the spiritual destitution of Texas. Knowing that
many of their fellow-citizens had settled in that Territory, they
took it for granted that they were destitute of the ministrations of
religion, and accordingly commissioned one of the ablest of their
number — the Rev. Dr. Breckenridge, now of New Orleans — to visit
the country, and to report on the moral and religious state of its
inhabitants. And on that minister's report of the favourable
nature of the field for missionary labour, they immediately sent
forth one and then another missionary to Texas, till the mission
aries in that province were numerous enough to form a Presbytery,
and to constitute themselves an independent branch of the Presby
terian Church. It is in this way that the process of Church-exten
sion, as it is now designated in the mother-country, advances in
America, with a rapidity unknown in England. As an instance of
this, let the rapid progress of the Presbyterian Church in the
United States for the fifty years before 1840 Euffice. In the year 1789,
the General Assembly of that Church comprised only 177 minis
ters, who dispensed the ordinances of religion to 419 congregations.
But in the year 1839, exactly fifty years thereafter, that Assembly
comprised 2225 ministers, and 2807 congregations.
But the efforts of the American Churches in the field of Foreign
Missionary labour afford a still more convincing argument in favour
of the Voluntary System. The Episcopalians, the Baptists, and
the Methodists have each separate Societies, and separate agencies
for this truly Christian and benevolent object. There are two
Societies, however, supported — the one by Congregationalists and
Presbyterians combined, and the other by Presbyterians exclu
sively — whose operations for the year previous to my visit I shall
merely state. The former of these societies, or the American
Board for Foreign Missions, had collected during that year 244,169
dollars, or £51,883, and had employed 375 missionaries and 107
native preachers among the heathen in foreign lands. The latter,
or the General Assembly's Board, had collected 64,054 dollars, or
£13,610, and had six different missions, in India, in China, and in.
Western Africa.
The liberality of American Christians in their contributions for
these objects of Christian benevolence are beyond all parallel in
England. I was present during divine service in an Episcopal

42
Church in Philadelphia, when the pastoi-, a highly popular minister,
stated that his own and another Episcopal congregation in that
city had each collected during the preceding year 6000 dollars or
£1275 for religious objects, independently of the support of their
own pastors and the maintenance of the ordinances of religion
among themselves. And the' congregation of a Presbyterian Church
in which I officiated in New York were in the habit of raising
5500 dollars per annum, or £1168 for missionary objects, in addi
tion to nearly double that amount for charitable purposes. And
these are by no means solitary instances ; for in the year 1840,
when an appeal was made to the sympathies of the Christian public
in behalf of the American Board for Foreign Missions, the result of
that appeal, in the case of six of the evangelical churches of Boston,
was as follows, viz.: 3000 dollars; 2700;'1500; 1200; 900; 600;
or £375 10s. each, on an average.
In short, the efforts that are made under the Voluntary System
in America, for the general extension of the Christian Church and
the general evangelization of the world, far exceed the efforts of
any Church under the system of a Religious Establishment, whether
in Great Britain or in any other part of the world.
Whia,t, then, shall we think of the gratuitoiis statements of the
Rev. Mr. Milner, uttered more than half a century ago, viz. : that
religion could not siibsist in any country without the aid of ah
establishmen't — that Cbristianity and Republicanism or Democracy
coiild never agree ? In direct opposition to these statements we
find that religion flourishes under the Voluntary System in Ame
rica, where it is entirely disjoined from the State, to an extent
that might well put the wealthy establishments of Great Britain
¦and Ireland to the blush ? And we find, moreover, that in con
junction with what is termed the wildest democracy, religion has
free course and is glorified. In one word, there is nothing of which
I feel more confident, than I do, from my own personal observation
in America, of the entire sufficiency of the Voluntary System for the
maintenance and extension of the ordinances of religion in any land.
But I shall be told that the Voluntary System is the "bulwark
of slavery " in America.— Absurd I The population of the Free
States, in which slavery is unknown, is double that of the Slave
btates in which it still subsists. Besides, it was Great Britain
that forced slavery upon the American Colonies, when they were
all part and parcel of her empire, and had all established churches
like herself: and like the Old Man of the Sea, it has stuck so
7v . ^u^^T.",*^ ^°^I P°^^*^'' *" ^^^"^ it Ji^d tills attached itself,
that the Voluntary System has hitherto been unable to shake it off
Ihe real bulwark of Slavery in America is the purchase of Ame
rican blave-grown Cotton by the manufacturers of Great Britain ;
•.V V P! ^""^ f "^^ ""^ '•'^'^ ^'^^ l°"g ^^ able to supply them
with abundance of that commodity, at as cheap a rate and of as
..good quality, grown 'by free labour in Australia.

LECTURE m.
¦RELIGIO-as ESTABLISHMENTS IN THE AUSTRALIAN COLONIES
UNNECESSARY, IMPOLITIC, AND UNJUST.
In the present important crisis of our colonial history — with
Representative Legislatures coming into existence on the one hand,
and a revenue inadequate td meet the public expenditure, render
ing the imposition of direct taxation for certain public purposes a
measure of urgent necessity, on the other — it becomes a matter of
transcendent importance to the welfare of these Colonies for all time
coming, to ascertain whether the Colonial Governments have any
right to tax the public for the support of religion, under the present
politico-ecclesiastical system ; and taking it for granted that they
have such a, right, whether their exercising it is at all likely to
prove conducive to the public advantage. Now, the object of this
lecture is to show that the Colonial Governments have no right to
tax the public for the support of religion under the existing system ;
that taxation for the support of religion under that System is not
only unnecessary, but positively injurious to the interests of reli
gion, and that the imposition of any such tax in the present cir
cumstances of th«se Colonies is in the highest degree impolitic and
unjust. I observe, therefore, in the outset, that if Christianity is a divine
revelation, as we all profess to regard it, then it is unquestionably
the interest and the duty, not only of every government, but of
every man, woman, and child upon earth, to promote its influence
a,nd extension by every means in their power. The very existence
of such a revelation creates responsibilities, as well on the part of
governments as of individuals ; and if the obligations which these
responsibilities imply are not duly discharged, blame will infallibly
be incurred on (the one hand, and punishment inflicted on the other.
But the question is — whether a Government really does promote
'the influence and extension of the -Christian religion, by supporting
its ministers from the public treasury. It is uniformly taken for
granted, indeed, by the advocates of Religious Establishments, thart
Christianity is promoted in this way ; but the fact still remains to
be proved, and it may even be doubted whether religion has ever
been promoted in this way, even under the most unexceptionable
form of a Religious Establishment that has ever existed.

44
In the first of these Lectures I showed, at great length, that the
infiuence of Religious Establishments, ever since the days ot the
Emperor Constantine, had uniformly been destructive, in a remark
able degree, of the peace of society, injurious to the interests of
morality, and detrimental in the extreme to the prosperity and
advancement of the Christian religion. And in the second Lecture
I showed, from a long induction of particular instances, that in tbe
United States of America, where there has been no esta,blishment
of religion for the last seventy years, the peace of society is remark
ably preserved notwithstanding the diversity of religious denonai-
nations, while the public morals are eminently promoted and reli
gion has free course and is glorified. Now if the supposition that
religion is promoted by being supported by the State is thus either
altogether unfounded or at best exceedingly doubtful, it follows as
a necessary consequence, that no Government upon earth can have
a right to appropriate the public money for the payment of the
salaries of ministers of any religious denomination under the pre
tence of supporting religion.
It must ]k acknowledged that this question has a very different
aspect, according as it regards the case of an old country which has
had a Religious Establishment, with its multitude of vested rights
and intjerests, for many generations, and as it regards the case of a
new country where there is no such establishment at all.^ The
same reasons that might be sufficient to demonstrate the impro
priety of creating a Religious Establishment in the latter case,
might not be sufficient to demonstrate the necessity for annihilating
an existing establishment in the former. No man of common sense
would build his house now on the plan of those erected in the dark
ages ; but if any man had such a house on his estates in tolerable
repair, it might neither be necessary nor expedient to pull it down,
merely because it was not such as he would have erected himself
with the lights and improvements of the present age. To pull down
the Religious Establishments of the Mother Country would doubt
less occasion a national revolution ; but this is no reason why a
Religious Establishment should be entailed upon the people of this
country. There is no danger of a revolution from any such cause
here. The Religious Establishments of the Mother Country are sup
ported under the idea that Protestantism is the truth, and that it
is the duty of the Government to support the truth, and the truth
only. " I will never consent," says Sir Robert Inglis, one of the
most strenuous advocates of the existing establishments of Great
Britain, " to pay a single sixpence for the support of what I do not
consider the truth." On this principle Episcopalian Protestantism
is supported and established in England, Presbyterian Protestant
ism in Scotland, and both together in Ireland. The theory of the
British Government regards Popery or Romanism as a system of

45
error, superstition, and idolatry; and for this reason it is neither
supported nor established in any one of the three kingdoms. The
theory of the British Government may doubtless be wrong in this
particular. Protestantism may be a mere heresy and schism, and
Popery may be right, after all. This is not the qiiestion at present. '
But taking it for granted that Protestantism is the truth, and that
the principle of a Religious Establishment is aright principle, then
the British Government acts consistently and rightly in estab
lishing the truth only, and in refusing everything like support and
establishment to a system of error and delusion.
But how can the Governments of these Colonies be acting
rightly in their present procedure, on the principle of a Religious
Establishment, viz. : that it is the duty of the Government to sup
port and establish the truth, and the truth only ? The Colouial
Governments profess to make no distinction between truth and
error. Their theory is to let all share alike, and to give themselves
no concern which is truth and which is error. In short there has
been a total abandonment of the principle of a Religious Establish
ment by the Governments of these Colonies; and these,Governments
are therefore to all intents and purposes latitudinarian and infidel Go
vernments. I do not mean to say that the Colonial Governments
did wrong in a political sense, in placing all religious denomina
tions on the same footing. On the contrary I regard this as an act
of justice, an act of the wisest policy, an act of sheer necessity.
The Colonial Governments saw clearly that the principle of -a reli
gious establishment, viz. : that it is the duty of a Government to es
tablish the truth, and the truth only, was not applicable to the cir
cumstances of these Colonies, and that any attempt to carry such a
principle into operation here would have endangered the very exist
ence of the Government and ruined the peace of the country. They
accordingly threw the principle of a religious establishment over
board, and acted entirely on the principle of an imaginary political
expediency. The advocate for taxation for the support of religion in these
Colonies must, therefore, in like manner, abandon the principle of
a religious establishment altogether; otherwise, if a Protestant,
he must hold that it is right to establish and to support Popery,
or, if a Roman Catholic, that it is right to support and establish
Protestantism. Principle, in short, must be thrown out of view
altogether, and the continuance of the present politico-ecclesiastical
system defended on the low ground of political expediency. As
the case stands, considerations of religion and duty have been
left entirely out of the question by the Government : and con
sequently neither the Government nor the advocates for the con
tinuance of the system they have introduced, can have the least
shadow of right to urge such considerations in defence of it.
Viewing the matter therefore apart from such considerations

46
¦altogether, what right, I ask, can the Government have to take the
money of any Protestant in these Colonies, or, in other words, to
tax any Protestant for the support of Popery ? Or what right can
the Government have to take the money of any Roman Catholic, or
in other words, to tax him for the support of Protestantism ?
Whether I — a Protestant— am taxed a sixpence or a thousand
,j)ounds for the support of Popery ; or whether the Romish Bishqp
¦is taxed either of these amounts for the support of Protestantism,
the injustice is the same, the best feelings of conscientious and un
offending individuals are 'outraged by the Government, and the
grossest tyranny is perpetrated by the State.
I am not to be told, either by the Government or their advocates,
that they admit the existing system to be wrong in principle, but
that the interests of the State require its adoption. I am not to be
told, for example, by the leading Protestant State Churchmen of
these Colonies, whether Episcopalian, Presbyterian, or Methodist,
that " they know it to be grievously wrong to encourajge and sup
port Popery ; but the Roman Catholics are too numerous here to
be treated with safety as the Roman Catholics of Ireland have been
for the last three centuries, and therefore they must do wrong, in
the way of encouraging Popery, that the general interests of the
Colony may be promoted." I am not to be told by some zealous
functionary of the Romish communion that, " he knows it to he
¦exceedingly wrong to encourage and promote the Protestant heresy
by endowing it with the funds of the State ; but it cannot be
helped at present, as the Roman Catholics have not yet got the
upper hand in these Colonies, although they expect to have it some
of these days." I detest the reasoning alike in both cases; for it
is founded on the false and intolerable principle that State policy
requires a Government to do what is manifestly wrong in some
cases that the public interest may thereby be promoted. I main
tain, without fear of contradiction, that God has never placed either
a. Government or an individual since the creation of the world in
circumstances in which either that Government or that individual
was under the necessity of doing wrong. It can never be the in
terest of a State to require, to impose, or to do anything that will
outrage the conscientious feelings. Or trample upon the rights (X a
¦single individual. But it is an outrage upon my feelings, and a
wanton interference with my personal rights as an individual, to
tax me for the support of Popery ; and it is equally an outrage
upon the feelings, and an interference with the rights of a Romish
Bishop, to tax him for the support of Protestantism. I maintain,
therefore, that the Governments of these Colonies have no right to
impose a tax upon the people, either directly or indirectly, for the
support of religion under the present politico-ecclesiastical system,
•as such a tax cannot be imposed without injustice to individuals,
without doing what is manifestly wrong.

47
I shall be told, perhaps, that as it is the duty of a parent to pro
vide for the religious instruction of his children, so it is the duty
of a Government to provide for the religious instruction of its sub
jects. There is do analogy, however, between the two cases. Civil
government is "ordained of God," we are told in the Holy Scrip
tures, " for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise" or en
couragement and protection " of them that do well." It has no
thing to do with religion but to protect its professors while they
keep the peace, and to punish them when they break it. If the
civil magistrate had any other duties to discharge towards the
Church of Christ, then would Christ's kingdom be of this world,
which he tells us expressly it is not. Besides, if it be the duty of
a State to provide for the religious instruction of its people, as a
parent is bound to provide for that of his offspring, surely it cannot
be th-e duty of the State to provide that some of its people shall be
trained up Protestants and others Roman Catholics, as the Govern
ments of these Colonies are actually doing. Who ever heard of a
Christian parent training up one of his children a Protestant and
another a Roman Catholic ?
I shall be told also that men are naturally so disinclined to
everything of the nature of religion that if the State should not
provide it for them they would go without it and.become utterly
irreligious and immoral. But, bad as human nature is, this is a
libel upon it. Religion is one of the strongest necessities of human
nature, and, rather than go without it, men will take up the most
burdensome and the most debasing superstitions. Look at the
gorgeous and costly temples of Heathenism, both in ancient and
modern times — its numerous priesthood, its painful prescriptions,
its costly ceremonies — and then say whether man, when left to
himself, is naturally inclined to go without religion. Look at the
Roman Catholics of Ireland, who support a numerous priesthood
to teach them one religion, while the State compels them to support
a numerous body of clergy under the pretence of teaching them
another !
But I shall be told that these are false religions, and that the
truth has no such inherent power over the understandings and
hearts of men. Shame upon the Protestant, I say, who dares tc
utter such a libel upon our Holy Religion ! Was Protestantism so
utterly powerless at the era of the Reformation, when so many
thousands, and tens of thousands, in almost every European State,
willingly surrendered their property, their liberty, and their lives,
rather than belie their consciences or betray the cause of Protest-,
antism, the cause of God and of Truth ? The cry of the Reformers,
even in the midst of the flames, was " Mighty is the truth, and it
will ultimately prevail." They had no fear for the final prevalence
of the truth, if left to its own native energy. Whether it had to
contend with Popery on the one hand, or with irreligion and infi-

48
delity on the other. And how did the cause of the Reformation
come to lose this character and spirit, and to settle down at length
into a state of such comparative inefficiency that men of intelli
gence in every other respect have actually begun to doubt whether
Protestantism would have energy enough to subsist in the worid if
it were not supported by the State ! Why, whenever the Pro
testant princes of Europe took the cause of the Reformation under
their protection, forsooth, and endowed its ministers with the
revenues of the State ; from that moment its progress was checked,
its former energy gradually disappeared, and the disgraceful
opinions that are now so prevalent among professing Christians
throughout Protestant Christendom, as to the inability of Protest
antism to maiutain itself in the worid without State support, are
the melancholy result.
There is nothing, happily, in the constitution either of the
Romish or of any one of the Protestant Churches of these Colonies
that renders its alliance or incorporation with the State a matter
of necessity. Each of these Churches subsists in the United States
of America where there is no Church establishment, and where its
whole system of doctrine and discipline is carried out notwithstand
ing, as completely as under the European Establishments. There
is nothing, therefore, to prevent a member of the Church of
England, or a member of the Church of Scotland, or a member of
the Church of Rome from discussing the question as to whether
his particular Church should be an established Church, or whether
there should be any establishment at all, in any particular country.
The question is decidedly an open question as to all these parlies,
and it is peculiarly so in this country,' where the question is not.
Shall this or that Church be an Established Church ? but Whe
ther is it better for the interests of religion that all the churches
in the land should be established Churches and be supported
by the State, or that there should be no established Church at all ?
No man's religious principles can be at stake in discussing such a
question as this.
Now it can be shown, with the certainty almost of a mathematical
demonstration, that it would not only he incomparably better for the
interests of religion, but far safer, even in a pecuniary point of view,
for the Churches themselves, to be left entirely to the voluntary contri
butions of their respective members, than to continue to receive State
support under the system at present in operation in these Colonies,
For experience, both in the Mother Country and in the Colonies, clearly
shows that it is the uniform and never-failing result of such a system
of State support as is now prevalent in the Australian Colonies, that
the streams of public liberality are gradually dried up, under the
withering and blasting influence of such a system, to a far greater
extent than the bounty of the State will ever compensate. Of this
remarkable hut unquestionable fact there are two instances exactly in

49

point — the one that of the Regium Donum or State-support accorded
to the Presbyterian Church in the North of Ireland, and the other,
that of the results of the present system of State-support for religion
in New South Wales.
It appears from a Parliamentary Return, recently presented to the
House of Commons, at the instance of Mr. Hadfield, M.P. for Sheffield,
that there are 52 1 Presbyterian Ministers in Ireland receiving the
Regium Donum, or support from the State, to the extent respectively
of £92 6s. 2-^d., or £69 4s. 8d. each, according to the extent and
contributions of their respective congregations ; the whole amount
contributed by the State being £40,795 8s. 6d., or at the average rate
of £78 6s. for each minister. Now the withering and blasting effect
of this paltry Regium Donum on the congregations that enjoy it is
sufficiently evinced in the fact that these 521 congregations contribute
altogether for the support of their ministers not more than £21,471
12s. 9d., or £41 4s. 2jd. each ! Only 42 out of the whole number
of 521 congregations raise as much as £100 a year for their respec
tive ministers ! The rest are classified as those that raise £35 a year
and those that do not. The following list comprises, under the latter
of these divisions.
T. CONGREGATIONS AND MINISTERS CONNECTED -WITH THE GENERAL
ASSEMBLY, AND NOT DISTINGUISHED AS " SEOEDERS."

Ballibay— J. H. Morell
Ballycastle — Samuel Lyle
Ballylennon — George Hanson
Benburb — Hugh Montgomery
Cairnca,stle — James Carmiohael
Carrickmacklim— Thomas Gibson
Cavanaleck — James Phillips
Clady — James Budd
Corlea — ^John Parr
Crossroads-T-John Hamilton
Donegal — Samuel Thompson
Douglas — James Alexander
Pintona — Robert Chambers
Glaslry — B. Jameson
Glenarm — Hugh Waddell
Hilltown — Eobert Lockhart
Keady — Joseph Jenkins
Killetur — Joseph Love
Loughall — William Henry
Maguire's Bridge — James M'Williams
Moneydig — Patrick E. Killough
Moville — ^Andrew Clements
Newtown Crommelim — Mabolm Orr
Newtown Hamilton — ^Daniel G. Brown
Orritor — John G. Magowan
Poyntzpass — Samuel Priestly

£ s.

d.

. 32 0

2

. 30 0

0

27 15

0

. 27 4

5

. 25 0

0

. 28 12

6

. 28 16

9

. 17 16

0

. 11 0

0

. 22 0

0

. 14 0

0

. 21 0

0

. 25 1

2

. 29 18

0

. 28 10

0

. 27 0

0

. 30 0

0

. 29 5

0

. 12 9

9

. 10 7

0

. 29 6

7i

. 30 12

9

. 12 11

2

. 16 3

ei

. 16 8

3

. 9 8

1

50

KamuUan — Robert Anderson
Tanderagee — James Bell
Trenta — Sampson Jack
Turlough — John Hamilton
Vmecash — William Cromey

if s. d.
. 11 1 3
.28 1 4J
. 23 11 9
. 31 13 11
. 17 0 0

II. CONGREGATIONS AND MINISTERS DISTINGUISHED AS '
CONNECTED WITH THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY.

SECEDERS, BUT

Alt — ¦ Samuel Stewart
Anaghlone — David M'Khee ,
Ardstraw — Andrew Maxwell
Aughenteim — David Malcolmson
Ballinahinch — ^David Edgar
Ballylennon — John Leeky
Ballyrashane — James Mayne
Caledon — Andrew M'Cullagh
Oastleblaney— George B. Coulter
Castleoaulfleld — Joseph Atcheson
Lower Clenances— James Kinnear
Cremorne — Alexander Strain
Crievo — Martin M'Dowell
Fourtowns — Alexander Bryson
Killkeel — George Nesbitt
Kilraughts — Thomas Thompson
Kingsmills — Alexander Henry
Lame — Archibald Kennedy
Leitrim — John Henry
Letterkenny — Andrew Speatt
Lissara — Jos. Lowry
Magherahamlet— Thomas Clarke
Magheragall — John S. Brown
Middletown — Samuel Hendren
Newbliss — Andrew Johnston
Newtown Hamilton— John West
Newtown Stewart — Francis Little
Pomeroy David M'Kiuney
Fortglenone — James Knox
Bedrock — James Hervey
Eoseyard — William Muuniss
Soarva — William Eeid
Seafln — James Clarke
Smythborough— John Elliott
Stewartstcwn — Samuel M'Curdy
Stranorlor — John M'Aully
Tartaraghen — George Nesbitt
Toberkeigh — John Simpson

III. SECESSION SYNOD.

Clare — Eobert Hawthorne
Corronary— Samuel Crookshanks

. 27 3 5
. 30 0 0
. 22 0 0
. 10 14 0
. 25 0 0
. 17 4 2
. 30 0 0
.906
.32 4 10
. 18 4 4
. 16 15 0
. 22 12 3
.17 8 10
. 22 3 6
. 31 5 0
. 12 10 0
. 28 0 0
. 15 0 0
. 33 15 lOf
.10 0 0
,21 1 3
¦ 12 10 7
10 0 0
, 16 19 9
24 6 9
20 16 6
17 10 0
10 0 ej
20 13 9'
26 14 0
33 1 3
24 0 0
4 12 6
15 5 2
20 14 9i
18 10 0-
21 11 0
16, 2 7

16 2 0-
27 5 4

rV. EEMONSTEANT SYHOD OF UL'S-fEE.
n f r r X £ S-- (L
Carlmgfofd — JaSnes Lunn . , . .... 11 0 0
Kilmore — ^William Crozier . ,  30 0 C
Moria — James Mulligan  13 0 C
Narrow Water — Samuel Moore  14 14 0*
V. SYNOD OP MUNSTER, 2HD CLASS.
Bandon — William Hunter  2& 8 8
Well may the worthy Editor of the British Banner exclaim, while
contempfeing so mournful an exhibition of Christian apathy : —
" We remember nothing so humbling as this in the whole history of
British Protestantism. We speak it- not to reproach the Presbyterians
of Ireland, but the Government, for inflicting on a noble community a
cruel wrong. By this most baneful system of pauperising, a people of
goodly mien, athletic form, and vigorous limb, have beea utterly, miser
ably crippled, and then supplied with an unsightly, ill-foimed, and com
fortless crutch, on which they have been taught to lean, thus confirming
their decrepitude, and perpetuating their calamity f The thing may be
looked upon in the light of an experiment on a very great scale,
Ireland, in fact, is in all respects, a theatre of experiments ecclesiastical.
TherS an experiment has been made of the power of Popery to oontendr
for a lengthened period, with every difficulty ; tJiere an experiment has
been made of the power of Episcopacy, in the full enjoyment of State-
patronage, to make head against Popery unendov/ed, and, for a length
ened period, placed under the ban of high political disability ; tJiere an
experiment has been made of the power of Presbytery, to resist the. in
fluence of State pay, administered Homi3eopathically---fbr the sum, not'
-withstanding its deadly influence, is, after all, contemptibly small.-
There are two classes of churches, the first of which receives the annual
donum, or gift, of £92 6s. 2d. ; and the other, £69 4s. 8d. The number
of congregations is 518, that of the ministers is somewhat larger. Now
it is curious to inquire into the effect of the donum, and the following
table will throw some light upon this subject :—
There are only 42 who contribute more than £100.
„ 279 who do not contribute more than £35-
„ 176 who contribute less than £30.
„ 45 who contribute less than £20.
„ 11 who contribute less than £10.
Was there ever such an exhibition of the blighting effects of bounty t
But it may be said, Are not the people very poor ? So fat from being
very poor, the North of Ireland is a country which, taking it acre for
acre, mile for mile, and man for man, admits of advantageous comparison
with Scotland. The North' of Ireland is famous for its vigour, intelli
gence, and virtue.- It is the Goshen of the coimtry. It is the seat of
profitable manufactures. Belfast is one of the most thriving towns and
crowded harbours of its class in Europe- In this matter alone of sup
porting the Gospel does impotency manifest itself. It may, perhaps,
help the objeotor to aright concllision,.if •»« set before him^ a passage

52
from a valuable monthly publioatioii, the United Presbyterian Magazine,
one of the journals of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland. In
an excellent paper on the returns of Mr. Hadfield, speaking of the point
in hand, that journal proceeds : —
" Nor is it to be supposed, that the small sums are always contributed
by small congregations. Here is a case which has just met our eye. It
is the church at Corronary, whose minister is the Eev. Samuel Crook-
shanks. His congregation consists of 220 families, or 1100 persons
There ought to be about 500 persons in his place of worship every
Sabbath ; and the membership according to the usual calculations
should not be less than 400. What, then, does this congre,gation raise ?
— £27 4s. 5d., which is less than sixpence each person. Here is another
specimen of Christian liberality. The church is at Corlea ; the minister
is the Eev. John Parr. The congregation consists of fifty-eight families,
or 251 persons. The sum raised is £6 10s. The average is sixpence
each person. We must furnish a third specimen. The church is at
Loughall. The congregation consists of 140 families, or 700 persons.
The sum contributed by a church of this size is £12 9s. 9d., which is
little more than fourpence each person.
Now observe the remarkable contrast which the United Presbyte
rian Church of Scotland, liaving just about the same number of minis
ters, but receiving nothing from the State, presents, as compared with
the Endowed Irish Presbyterian Church. The number of ministers in
the United Presbyterian Church is 500, and the amount raised from
pew-rents alone, throughout this Church, is £54,000 per annum, or
at the rate of £100 for each minister. Nay, the amount raised by
collections at the Church-door in the United Presbyterian Church, viz.,
£48,000 per annum, is more than double the whole amount raised for
the support of the clergy, by the Endowed Irish Presbyterian. Church !
The average sum contributed by each member of the Scottish United
Presbyterian Church, for the support and extension of religious ordi
nances, is about one guinea per annum.
To quote again from the Banner; (May 23, 1855) : —
Let it not be supposed, that the case of Corronary is an exception.
It is, in fact, the rule ; and as this is a matter of the first moment, we
shall settle it at once by an appeal to the Eeturns. The following, then,
is a selection, not only not comprising, but excluding the whole of the
smaller, and most of the middle-sized Churches, but presenting almost
exclusively those, and nearly the whole of those of the first-class ; from
which it will be seen, that the contributions for the support of the min
isters are literally a thing of nought ; and that, upon the whole, there is
not a worse supported class of ministers in any part of the world than
those of the Irish Presbyterian Body in the receipt of the Begium •
JJonum : —

53
I. CONGREGATIONS AND .MINISTERS CONNECTED WITH THE GENElBAt
ASSEJIBLY, AND NOT DISTINGUISHED AS " SBCEDBES." Number Sums contM-
of butedby
Goiigregations. Individuals. Congrega-
' tron.
First Class : — £92 6s. 2d. per annum paid to each. £ s. d.
Ballykelly   1530 67 19 6
Burr  ... ... ... 1200 65 0 0
Clare   1400 50 0 0
Magherafelt  1685> 105 0 0
Moneymore, 1st ... ... ... 809 50 0 0
St. Johnstown ... ... ' ... ... 1200 64 2 1
' TuUylish ... ...  1000 57 12 4J
Second Class :— £69 4s. 8d. per annum each.
Anaghlone, 2nd   450 35 0 0
Bailieboro, 1st ... ... ... ... 1108 24 7 6
Ballinahinch, 3rd ... ... ... 600 38 2 3
Ballindreat   750 31 0 0
Ballssaim ... ... ... ... 500 « 24 0 0
Ballyjamesduff ... ... ... 450' 20 0 0
Balteagh . ... ... ... ... 560 36 0 C)
Banbridge ,... ... ... ... 950 50 0 0
Bel'laghy ' ...  ;., 700 35 0 0
Boveya ... ... ... ... 915 35 18 0
Ballyamett ... ... ... ... 730 58 0 0
Carndonough ... ... ... ... 500 35 0 0
CaStleWayney, 1st  787 25 10 0'
Ca'stlederg, 1st ... ... ... ... 701 30 0 0
Castledawson  1500 40 0 0
Clontibret, 1st  500 23 14 0-
Coleraiine, 2nd ... ... ... ... 1640 80 0 0
Comber, 2nd  1100 46 0 0
Convoy ... ' ... ... ... 1300 45 0 0
Donaghmore ... ... ... ... 1140 54 2 2.
DonoUghmore ...  , ... 1499 48 . 6 11
Drumachose ... ... ... ... 860 40' 0 0
Paughanvale ... ... ... ... 1450 60 0 0
Finvoy  2504 64 13 6-
Holywood ...  1700 60 0 0
Keady, 1st' ... ... ... ... 1000 38 0 0
Keady,. 2nd .- .... ... -.. 600 30 0 0
Kilrea, 1st  ... 1240 40 13 6
Knowhead ... ... ... ... 1260 64 12 6
Legacnrry ... -v. „..,. ... 700 35 9 10
Letterkenny, 1st ... .«.. ... 771. 40 0 O
Letterkenny, 3rd . , ^.< ... 740 42 0 0
- Loughbrickland  .,. ... 1170 51 0 0-
Maghera ...  1733 88 1 6
Magherhaily t.,. ... .., i.. 1600 30 0 O-
Malin ...  600 35 16 &•

54

.Malone Monreagh
Mourne Newto-wnards, 3rd, Eegent-street
Newto-wn Crommelin
Newto-wn *C!unningham ...
Portadown'Kamelton, 1st ... ... 't
Baphoe ...'
Kathfriland, 3rd ""'

t,i.

£ s.

d.

1000

60 0

.0

1000

48 18

„o;

2500

50 O"

'0*

1050 '

71 1

0

736

12 11

2

625

- 40 18

8

750

29 16

6

1391

57 18

IJ

1650

50 0

0

620

41 19

Qi

1200

30 0

0

682

44 3

10

1000

•'24 12

10

1000

'"70 0

0

Stranorlar, l-^^^*-
Tobermore ""•'...'
Whiteabbey '• :".. ... ..."¦?-
II. Congregations and Ministers distinguished as " Seceders," but
fit* ' connected with the General Assembly ; £69 4s. 8d. per annum
"*if paid to each minister.
Ballyeaston, 2nd
Belfast, Bglinton-street ...
Clontibret, 2nd ^.^...
Cootehill , ... ^ .....
Donaeloney ... ' ...
Drumgooland DriUmlee ... ...
Dungiven Gilford 
GlascarHill Hall  ,,::...
Ne-wtown, Limavady ... %l\-i.-
Eay, 2nd

IIL Secession Synod.— £«9 4s. 8d,

Corronary

Moneyrea

¦ Dromore
Kilmore

DownpatrickLame

Antrim Newtownards

1170

52 a

0

1600

50 0

0

541

35 0

0

800

35 14^

,0

1370

59 O'

0

1500

55 0

0

600

35 12

0

710

36 15

0

90O

35 0

0

1000

50 4

0

1100

40 0

0

900

39 0

0

1326

69 8

2

paid to each.

1100 27 4 5
IV. Eemonstrant Synod of (iiErister.
First Class :— £9^ 6s. 2id. each.

1645
Second Class;— £69 4s. 8d. each. * '*•

55 8 4

 1206 60 0-0
 530 30 0 0
y. Presbytery of Antrim. ^ '
First Class :— £92 6s. 2d. each.
 * ... 1042 69 10 6
1495 74 18 6
Second Class :— £69 4s. 8d. each.
•¦• '  616 23 19 0
 1150 30 0 0

u
'SucSi are spmeof the facts of this great question, and we now submit
to ^11 whom the matter does or may concern, whether it does not demand
¦pi-bmpt and serious Consideration. While none are gainers, all are losers
by it. The tendency is every way extensively mischievous.. The
¦itegium- Donum ministers, as already hinted, are the worst supported
body of pastors in the British Isles, and their poverty is injurious to the
best interests of their people. Speaking of the Churches generally, the
¦springs of benevolence are prevented frombreaking forth. Commencing
with neglect of their ministers, they naturally end with the neglectof
others whb have claims on their Christian benevolence. We maintain,
then, it is the duty alike of the Regium Donum ministers, and the
Regium Donum, congregations, voluntarily to surrender their pestilent
boon. We, hold that it is, further, the duty of their friends, in Great
Britain and elsewhere, to press upon them the necessity and the obliga
tion which rests upon them at once to sever themselves from the State
bounty.' Were they in England, and interspersed among the Dissenters
there, they would everywhere be ashamed of the reception of- this
Donum. Their former brethren in this miserable fellowship have all
washed their hands of it. The Do^um has ceased to disgrace the Dis
senters of England. Were they in Scotland, they' would feel it impos
sible, amid their noble host of Presbyterian brethren, to continue its
¦recipients. They would not only feel constrained to surrender, but they
would,' have the conviction forced upon them, tiiat it was at once the
politic and profitable course so to do.
The ministers of three of the Congregations indicated iTi the pre
ceding Lists came out to New South Wales at my pdtticular-instance,
in the year 1837 ;> viz., the Rev. James (now Drl) Fiillerton, of
Sydney, formerly of Benburb, in the North of Ireland ; the Rev.
Thomas Dugall, now of Sorell, Van Dieman's Land, formerly of Vine-
cash ; and the late Eev. Hugh Gilchrist, of Campbelltown, formerly of
Ballyjamesduff, in the Irish Presbyterian Church. The congregation
•of Benburb— and I am told it is not a small one in point of numbers —
contributes for its minister not less than £27 4s. 5d. per annum,
which, of course, he receives over and above the second class rate of
Regium Donum, or £69 4s. 8d. ! In such circumstances, it was
doubtless high time for the worthy pastor to come out to Australia, to
obtain a donum of £200 a year from the Colonial Government, and to
publish a trashy Sermon, entitled The National Duty of Chtistian
States, to induce the Christian State of New South Wales, forsooth,
to continue it. The late Mr. GilchrisCs original congregation of Bally
jamesduff, consisting of 450 adherents, contributed for their minister
£20 a year, or at the rate of lOd. per head ¦, while that of Vinecash,
Hof which Mr. Dugall was pastor, raised not less than £17 a year !
But the results of the State provision for the support of religion in
these Colonies — taking for an illustration the past twenty years' experi
ence of the existing -system in New South Wales — are in no respect
different from those exhibited in the Parliamentary Eeturn above cited,
in the case of the Regiwm Donum and the Irish Presbyterian Chiarch.
In the Session of 1854, a Select Committee of the late Legislative
Council of New South, Wales was appointed to take evidence as to the

50
condition and prospects of the Colonial Clergy under that system, anl
^the following are extracts from- the Appendix to their Eeport ; the
witne^^es^,bei,ng all clergymen of the Church of England.
The Eev. "James Walker, M-A., Liverpool, since deceased, examined: —
12. ' Do you consider the stipends granted for the support of Ministers
of Eeligion, under Sir Eichard Bourke's Act, inadeq-uate to their sup'
port ? Quite inadequate.
13. Have you considered in what way, consistently witb the- feelings
of educated gentlemen, their incomes could be augmented, so as not to-
lower their standing ? I consider that we have an equitable claim on
the Government, inasmuch as by the alteration in the cireumstances of
the Colony our incomes of £200 a year have been virtually reduced to
£70 or £80, a scale of maintenance which subjects a clergyman -with a
family, however reconciled to discomfort and privations, to all the dis
tressing anxieties of penury- He is compelled, during the winter
months, or upon-'a sudden advance in the price of flour and rice, to anti
cipate his pay, in order to secure a sufficiency of the necessaries of life,-
and becomes involved in pecuniary difficulties by any contingency eh^
tailing additional ex^ienditure for his household.- I felt the pressure
myself more severely in 1852 than I have since. In that year I was
obliged to apply to my friends in England, being at the time destitutOf
as were likewise all my family, of every necessary article of apparel j
and had I not received assistance from them I could not have gone on f
nor could I have' escaped from debt, while waiting for their assistance,
had not one of my parishioners presented me with ft dray-load of stores.
1*16. May I ask what family yon have ? I have eight in family at
pSBasent, atid my pay available) for its support is nine shillings a day,
deducting the wages of a servant, whom I brought* out from England
with me — the only servant I have. My actual pay is nearly eleven
shillings a day.
17. What fees do you receive ? 1% sfees in the year may amount to-
about £5 ; but from the time I took holy orders I have always devoted
them to charitable purposes, and do so still.
18. By Mr. Macleay : What may have been the amount of Easter
Offerings in your parish for the last two years ? I have had them but
for two years ; the first year the amount was £63, and the last year £82.
They were collected without my knowledge-
19. By Dr. Douglass : Supposing the Govemmenti*feIt themselveSr
under Sir Eichard Bourke's Act, precluded from increasing the stipends
oftheClergy, is there any other mode by which you think that object
could be attained? I think the Government could give us some tem
porary, relief, and then give us power to organise ourselves. I think
there is a sufficient body of persons belonging to the Church of England
in the Colony to raise a fund for clerical support,.if we had the power to
adopt some method of organization-
20. Do you propose that such a method should be general, or confined
toeach parish? A general measure, I should say, and the fund so
raised should be managed by a Central Board.
21. All the members of the Church of England should contribute
towards one general fund, out of which certain allowances should be
made ijro rata to the different Clergymen as required? Yes. But at
present there are a number of persons on the Census put down as mem-

57
bers of the Church of England -who really are not so. Now I would
make it a condition of belonging to the Church of England that they
really should subscribe to this fund. My opinion ou the matter is, that
we must give up the idea of having a large figure on the Census if we
come to voluntary support ; we <must confine ourselves, in the first
mstajice, only to those persons who really do support the Establishment.
It will then remain a question for the . Central Board how far they -will
extend their operations for the benefit of those whoJcannot subscribe.
But there are very few people in the Colony who could.not subscribe.
22. By Mr. Macarthur : If .1 understand you rightly, you would make
the support of the clergy of the Church of England^lepend on the con
tributions of the metabers of tie Church ? Tes. \ rnm*
23. Would you make these contributions voluntary or compulsory by
law ? Net compulsory by law in the shape of a rate. There should be
an enrolment in the first instance. If a person enrols his name and
agrees to pay a certain sum annually, then I think he ought to be forced
to pay, on the same principle that he would if he enterediinto a club, if"
26. The system you propose is similar to that adopted by the Wes-
leyans ? Tes, the same in principle, except that their system is governed
•entirely by the Clergy, whereas I think ours should be governed, as far
as temporal matters are concerned, by the laity. >'
27. flow would you have the distribution of that fund managed — in
whom.^ would you vest it ? In' a board to be chosen by the body of the
members of the Church. Call the body what you please. It should be
an incorporated society.
34. By the Chairman : Do you think it would be beneficial to the
¦Clergy of the Chuaroh of England that tiaey should be divorced altogether
from Sir Eichard Bourke's Act ? My opinion is that it would be bene
ficial, as far as I have been able to icons|der the matter. * ¦» *
Until some final arrangement of _th6 kind be made, I expect
Jiothing but dissension and division in the community.
45. By Dr. Douglass : You have spoken of a temporary allowance
being made by the Government to all clergymen — what scale of increase
to their stipends do you think would be sufficient? I think those who
Ihav^the lowest incomes aught to have the largest increase. The same
scale as that adopted for the Government Clerks would do. Whatever
the scale may be, it should have reference to the amount of the stipend
received by each Clergyman, because we. are not exactly in the same
position. I do not" know how others do, but I know I could not have
gone on without getting assistance from England, and it is an unpleasant
tning.(for a person at my age to be obliged, to apply for such assistance ;
but I must either haye done that or contracted debt for provisions. As
for clothing, my family has been entirely dependent on friends in Bng-'
land for that since the gold discovery. A 'Clergyman's salary of the
lowest scale will not maintain him, and if there is any illness in his
family it throws him back six or eight months. I had an illness in my
own family, and it took me a year^nd six months to re-adjust my affairs.
46. Then in point of fact the Clergy here are worse off than the
Curates in England? Yes, certainly since the gold discovery. No
Curate in Engltmd is in the same state that we are in, unless through
his own fault. We have no advantages such as English Curates have —
no chance of bettering our condition, or of availing ourselves of Collegiate
and ©iocesan Establishments for educating our sons and daughters. . No
¦Clergyman would think of coming here if he knew the circuihstances of
our case, and few would stop here if they cauld get back.

5S
47. By the Chairman: Independently of the pecuniary difficulty you
have had to contend with yourself, is it known to you that other Clergy
men have had to contend with similar difficulties? I am perfectly
well aware that they have, and have like myself, exhausted private funds
on which they had calculated for the benefit Of their famihes. I made a.
strong representation to the late Bishop on this very point ten years ago..
I am sure they could not have gone on for the last three years without
being involved in Sebt or getting assistance from some quartet or other.
54. By the Chairman.- Are there any other remarks or suggestions
that occur to you? ' It appears to me a favourablfe opportunity, now that
the question is forced upon the attention of the public, for,the Legisla-
lative Council to consider the expediency of passing- an Enabling Act,
whereby steps Alight be taken for maintaining «the existence of the
Church of England io this Colony by voluntary support.
The Eev. William Stack, B. A., Campbelltown, examined :—
15. By the Chairman :, Aie you aware that since the discovery of gold
the Clergymen of the Church of England, especially the country Clergy,
have experienced great difficulties from the want of pecuniary assist
ance? Clergym'en, as well as other gentlemen, are reserved in their
communications upon such personal subjects, so that I cannot speak
particularly of the difliculties which others have encountered;, but I
fancy if the whole truth were kno-wn, yo-n would find most of the country
Clergymen severely pressed, and some of them in great embarrassmen^.
Of my own case I -will speak frankly. My stipend from- Government is
£200 per annum, and I have £50 a year from the Society for the Propa
gation of the Gospel. 1 have a goodhouse and five acres of land round
the house. I have also a glebe of forty acres for which I recei-ve £8 a
year ; my fees in the course of the year may amount to something like-
£5, certainly iiot . more. Every year I receive from friends- in Ireland-
nearly all the clothing my family wear and other useful things. Thus I
was eiiabled before the gold discovery to go on from year to year -without
contracting debts. Last year I received from my parishioners £132 in-
money and other presents ; for example, I received, from a consider|te
person two acres of wheat. This year I have (received nothing anjLex-
peot nothing. I was convinced last year that the zeal of the pa^sl^ad
exhausted itself by an effort which surprised me, and the result has
shown that I was right in my conjecture. In addition to all this, I
received from a friend, not a parishioner, a presemt of £50. Yet at the
end of the year my bank account was much the same as at the begin
ning ; all these sums were sunk. I am far, however, from being in warit) as
the same friend gave me the otherday £120 j but these gifts I would be unwil
ling to accept if I were not a Clergyman under a kind of demi-voluntary sys
tem, and certainly treated unfairly by some one, whether Fy the Government,
who send me to the people for payment of part of my income, or by the
people, who do not pay it. My habits are simple and unexpensivei
Many of the country clergymen have smaller stipends than mine, and-
must be, in many respects, in a worse condition ; how they manage in
such times is a mystery to me.
The Eev. William Branwhite Clarke, M. A., St. Leonard's, North Shore,
Sydney, exaiqined : —
¦ 21. By the Attorney General: I find that by the Church Act it is.
necessary in. order to raise a Clergyman's income to £200 a year, that

59
five hundred adults should subscribe a declaration that they attend
the Church to which he is appointed. Have you any dqubt there are
five hundred in your district ? There may be twice five hundred.
22. If there were only five hundred, have you any doubt that .'those
five hundred would at least be able to pay £1 each during the year ?
The names appended to the declaration ?an question? amounted^ to 568.
Of these, 245 belonged to the Parish of WiEoughby, 270 to the Parish of
Gordon, and 44 to the Parishes of Manly Cove, Narirabine, and Broken
Bay. Many of these persons were members of the Church of Eome, of
the Church of Scotland, and of the Wesleyan denomination. Many have
left the district, some are dead, and of the 568 who declared their "desiro
and intention to attend Divine Service in the said church of St. Thomas,"
.340 to my knowledge have never once entered the Church to worship,
and only such of them as may have attended a funeral, or a marriage, or
other occasional service,*have entered it at all. Such persons can in no
sense be said to belong to the congregation there. And with respect to
the whole of the iiihabitants in the fotir Parishes of Gordon, Manly Cove,
Narrabine, and Broken Bay, not one of them' — dilring seven yearsat
which at my own expense I have visited th^m, officiating at Gordon
every month — ^has contributed ' a farthihg to any Church purpose what
ever, nor have i;he 279 persons of that parish who subsciabed the declara
tion assisted in paying my horse-hire, or in contributing e-ven a handful
of com, though I had on some occasions to visit the siek,. sixteen miles
.from my residence, at a heavy expense. I neverth,eless do not doubt
that many, if not all, the adults in that parish could contribute £1 per
annum. And I "must add in justice, that those who, when the subject
was mentioned lately, were foremost in iirging the necessity of dbmg
something, were chiefly members not of the communion of the Chiftch
of England. _ ^
30. By the Chairman ': Hkve you considered th^ subject sufficiently
to offer any suggestion as to the best course to be adopted for affording
relief to the Clergy ? It would be a difficult matter to offer suggestio-ns
in a case of the kind, where the unhappy' clergyman sits at the junction
of^wo stools. If the Government or Legislature say, " We cannot S^sist
you because we are tied up by the law," and the people say, " We cannot
or we will not, because you are supported by the Government already,"
what suggestion can be made ? If the people could be brought to act in
concert with the Government, and would guarantee a sufficient provision
for the Clergy,*lhat would be what I understand is desired.
The Eev.%enry Tarlton Stiles, M.A., Windsor, examined : —
4. What stipend had you when first appointed? £250 a year, with a
Parsonage and forage for one horse, besides a glebe and two assigned
glebe servants, rationed by Government, for its cultivation.
5. From what sources was that salary derived ? Prom the Govern
ment. I was appointed as a Colonial Chaplain. No other source of
income but the Gossgrnment was known in those days.
10. By the Chairman : Is the salary you now receive sufficient ts
meet your wants ? It is not. I cannot live upon it.
11. May I ask have you any family ? Yes, four sons and a daughter.
12. Can you give the Committee an idea of the amount of Easter Of
ferings, or anything which may have been presented to you -within the
last three years ? I have never had any Easter Offerings. Last year, in
the month of August, my parishioners, of their own accord, presented

60
me -with a purse containing one hundred and thirty sovereigns. Besides
that, I haiy.e had nothing extra. This year there has been nothing of
lj*e kind.' .j, , ' i
13. That is all you have ever recei-sjed from them ? Yes.
14. Many of the persons who reside in your district are in affluent-
circumstances, are they not ? Yes,.tllere are many rich men.
15. By Mr. Macarthur : Generally speaking, the popula,tion are in<
easy circumstances ? Yes, all the farmers are more than in easy cir-
ciwnstances — they are wealthy.
16. By the Attorney General : Can you give the Committee any idea
what number of members of the Church of England there are in your
fetrict ? There are, I believe, ir the parish of St. Matthew 1165 of .all
ages belonging to the Church pf England according to the Census, be
sides other churchmen in the" aistrict whose nurabers I have not the
meanp of ascertaining at hand.
22'. Do you not think some of these people Ajould afford to pay two'
guineas a year ? No doubt about it.
23. By the Attorney General : Have you any • doubt that there are
a thousand in your large parish that could afford £1 a year on the aver
age ? I should not like to say a thousand.
24. Have no steps been taken by the Churchwardens or leading people
of your congregations to raise funds in order to augment your income to
enable you to meet the increased expenses of living? ' Nothing more has
been done than what I have said. Several calls have been made on the '
people for Church purposes, such as repairs of the Church, and so on;4_
aind some of them have ¦ been pretty heavy. But nothing ''besides the "
£13,0 I mentioned, as a gift to me in August last year, has been done for
my benefit; nor do I think it likely anything effectual or permanent
beyond perhaps an occasional- expression of good will, will be done ;
because the people do not seem to consider it their duty.
25. Are they aware of the^altry amount of income you receive from
the Government ? Not gefeBHily. They are accustomed to look upon
the payment of aplergyman-v'ery much in the same light as that of ' a
Police MagistrStte — that is, thfey know he receives a stipend from the
Govttement, and they never take the trouble to enquire further. t
35. Are you not aware that it was contemplated that the salary .#•
lowed under the Church Act was merely a partial one — that it was
always intended that the laity of each ' denomination should contri
bute towards the support of their Clergy ? I am very glad you put that
question, because I have every reason to believe that soine such repre
sentation of the scope and intention of the Church Act was made to the
authorities in England ; but I speak of my own knowledge when I say
such was never known ,to be the intention among the people of this
Colony. No such impression was ever produced in the minds of the
people of the Colony by anything publicly stated. When the Church Act
-was passed a certain number of pounds were allowed as the stipend of a
Clergyman, pn the sole condition of a certain, number of persons ex
pressing their intention, in writing, to attend his'ministry. But the
people were never under the impression that they were expected to con
tribute an equal sum. The Act is positively silent on the point, and, as
a matter of fact, no such impression has been produced in their minds,
nor has such moiety ever been paid. There is an excepted case pro
vided for m the fifth clause of the Church Act, which exception only
proves the fact as I state it.

61
36. By the Attorney General : That must have been in consequence
of the Council being a close Council at that time, in 1836, and the de
bates not being published, because, 1 can answer for it, as a Member of
the Council and the person who drew the Church Act, that it was always
the intention of Sip Eichard Bourke, and those who supported that Act,
that the salary of £200 a year should be only a retaining fee, as it were,
a,nd that the five hundred persons, or upwards, who might subscribe the
list to obtain that income for the Clergyman, gave an implied promise
to the Government that they would support him decently and properly ?
In reply, I can assure you that there has been no such Impression among
the people ; from whatever cause that arose I do not know; but such is
the fact. As a proof of it, I am aware that several ignorant country
people have signed papers for different religious teachers of different de
nominations, as they^id not bfelieve. their signing implied a pledge that
they woald give money. I mentioned several cases to our late Bishop.
The reason why they signed was because they thought they were doing
a favour to the minister.
'• The Eev. George Edward Turner, S. C. L., Eyde, examined: —
11. By the Chairman : Are you aware whether th,eife is great distress
existing a4ong the Clergymen of the Church of England ? Common
reason tells kie that if a Clergyman has a family, and only £200 a year,
he, must be in distress.
**.
Supposing, therefore, that, instead of the present reservation, by
Act of Parliament, of £28,000 for New South Wales, and £50,000
for Victoria," under the New Constitution, a general tax for the
support of religion under the existing politico-ecclesiastical system
should be imposed upon both Colonies by the forthcoming Kepre-
sentative Legislatures, it may not be improper to enquire what would
be the probable result of such a tax in regard to its amount on the
one hand and its moral tendency on'' the other. Now, taking into
consideration the pastoral character of this country and the con
sequent dispersion of its population, conjoined with the fact that
thwe are at present not fewer than four established Churches, viz ;
thf^Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, the Roman Catholic, and the
Methodist, to be supported by the State, the amount of such a tax
under the existing politico-ecclesiastical system would very soon be
enormous and absolutely intolerable to the community. For wher
ever any one of these communions could find a hundred adults wil
ling to receive a minister in any locality, it would be sure to have
one settled in that locality very shortly, if not from a desire to
promote the influence of genuine Christianity among the dispersed
inhabitants of the Territory, at least from a spirit of rivalry and a
desire not to be outdone by the other communions. The Episco
palians are unquestionably the most numerous and the most wealthy
of the four favoured communions. The Roman Catholics rank next
in point of number. The Presbyterians come next; and the
Methodists bring up the rear. Now which of these bodies is likely
to lag behind in this contest for the predominance ? Which of
them is likely to be the last in putting in its claim for an additional

62
Government salary, under the General Church Act of 1836, wher
ever and whenever there is the slightest pretext for settling ano
ther minister ? Every petty district throughout the Territory^ in
both Colonies, would ere long havftlts Episcopalian minister, and
its Presbyterian minister, and its Roman Catholic minister, and
its Methodist minister, till the country would be absolutely-beaten
up with ministers, and till the tax for the support of religion would
become an intolerable burden to the community, and be at length thrown
off altogether by the public in some moment of public exasperation.
The amount contributed by the Colonial Governments for the sup
port of religion is at present £28,000 per annum for New South
Wales, and £50,000 for Victoria ; but when each of the four Colo
nial established Churches has an Institution of its own for the edu
cation of ministers, that amount will be increased fourfold ; for
there is not one of them that could not already settle a muoh
greater number of ministers than it can procure from the mother-
country, under theexisting system. Let the Colonists, therefore,
make up their minds to be oppressed for all time eoming with an
amount of ecclesiastical taxation, unequalled in any other country
under heaven, if they ever consent to be taxed by their Represen
tative Legislatures for the support of religion under the General
Church Act of 1836. Let thepi at once establish the Voluntary Sys^'
tem,now that such a measure can be effected with comparative facility,
and let them not entail upon th^ir offspring the necessity for revo
lutionizing the country at some future day to rid themselves of the
intolerable yoke of a general politico-ecclesiastical taxation.*
But what are the moral tendencies of the existing system ? Why,
when a minister of religion or home missionary, of any of the great
leading denominations in the United States of America, is sent
forth by his own communion to some recently settled district in the
Far West, he appears among the thinly-scattered population of tHat
district as a messenger of the Gospel of Peace;'. and, pitching his
tent among them to set up the Tabernacle of God in the Wilder
ness, he is in all likelihood welcomed in the language of Revelation
— " How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of hiin that
bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith
unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!" His moderate salary is entirely
derived from a society of Christian people, perhaps a thousand or
fifteen hundred miles off, who have no private interests to serve in
sending forth their missionary, but who are all earnestly desirous
to promote the extension of pure and undefiled religion among
* A largaproportion of the candidates for seats in the New Parliament of
New South Wales professed to he of opinion that the Voluntary System might
be fit enough for the towns, but would not suit for the country. But how can
the existing system ever su^i the country, if the amount of the State bounty is
to be regulated by the Census, and distributed among four or five different de
nominations? The idea is preposterous !

63
their fellow-countrymen, their fellow-men. And if a minister of
another denomination follows in the steps of this missionary, a tacit
and amicable division is made between them of the wide field of
labour, and each acknowledges the other as a Christian brother who
is labouring for the same high and holy object as himself, and with
whom he has consequently far more points of resemblance than of
dissimilarity. In short, the first time a minister of any denomi-
ijation appears in America, it is uniformly as a missionary sent out
lind supported by some Church or Society at a distance.
How different is the state of things under the General Church
Act of these Colonies ! Why, when a minister of any of the four
Colonial established Churches goes forth into any new settlement
in this Territory, his first business is to perambulate the district,
to get the names of as many of its adult inhabitants as possible to
a list to be submitted to the Government, to entitle him to a settle
ment and a salary of the largest possible amount, before thepeople
eanhnow anythingof his ministerial character, orhave ascertainedfivhe-
therhissermces are wor-th havingor not. Everyjlow publican in the dis
trict, every disreputable person, living perhaps in a state of concubinage
or adultery, is regularly canvassed for his name for the minister's
^Government List, as a member, forsooth, of his future congrega-
. tion ! The sacred office is thus degraded in the eye of the public
at the very outset of the minister's career, and a species of trickery
is practised upon the Government, utterly unworthy of the minis
ters of religion. But no sooner has the Episcopalian, or Presby
terian, or Roman Catholic, or Methodist minister set himself down
in the new locality, than a minist^pfone or other of -the three
remaining communions appears in^jiis^ wake — not to preach the
Gospel where it has never been preached before, and to set up the
ordinances of religion among a secluded and neglected population,
but to overhaul the other minister's list of names, to get a point or
two to windward of him with this or that disreputable person, by
proving to the satisfaction of the worthless creature that he had
been mistaken in allowing himself to be certified to Srovernment as
an Episcopalian, or Presbyterian, the fact being that he was either
a Roman Catholic or a Methodist ! For as if to demonstrate to
all the world how utterly unfit a Government is to legislate on the
subject of religion, or to have anything to do with religion in an
official capacity, the Collecrive Wisdom of New South Wales
enacted— at whose instance I shall not pretend to say— under the
old penal system, that a convict who had been rated in the Govern
ment Lists as an Episcopalian or Roman Catholic on his arrival in
that Colony was not to be rated to any other denomination there
after. The Church or communion whose utter neglect of him at
home had reduced him to the state of a convict was to be rewarded,
forsooth, by getting his reputable name to entitle it to a Govern
ment salary for the support of another minister in New Souta

64
Wales! In this way an unseemly rivalry is created between the
ministers of the different established Churches of the Colony, the
worst feelings are engendered, and the sacred offi^ce is brought into
contempt. In the United States of America, where a minister of religion
usually appears in a new settlement as a missionary, supported'by
some Church or Society at a distance, and where, in parts of the
country that have been settled for some time, every minister is supportec^
by the members of his own congregation, there is no room for the
bitter feelings which such a state of things necessarily engenders'
between the ministers and members of different denominations ;
although individually as strongly attached to their respective pe-
cuHajTities, as the corresponding denominations in Great "Britain.
I, am aware it is a very general opinion that a minister of reli
gion ought to be independent of his people in regard to his main
tenance. I have no hesitation, however, in asserting that, as a
general rule which,, however, admits of exceptions, it is the worst
thing possible to make a minister independent of his people. It is
the ordinance of God that they, to whom he ministers spiritual
things should minister to him carnal things ; and the Church of
Christ can never be either in a safe or in a healthy state when the '
observance of this ordinance becomes unnecessary through a State
endowment. But who, I ask, are the ministers, either at home or
abroad, that are ninifiarmly the most willingly supported by the^
people ? Is it the men who flatter their evil passions by concealing
the truth ? No ! on the contrary, it is the men who are known to
declare the truth' boldly, -^hatever offence it may give : for '.'the
common people sfe'ZZ hear the word gladly," and willingly support
those who preach it the mostfearlessly and with the least partiality.
Nay, it may safely be stated as a well-known and established truth,
that there is no class of ministers so generally sycophantish, and
so strongly addicted to the concealment of the truth, and to the
preaching of another Gospel than Paul preached, than the endowed
or Government clergy of whatftvier communion. " Aspiring clergy-
- men," says the Rev. Vicesimus Knox, him; elf a clergyman of the
Church of England, " wishing to avoid every doctrine which would
retard their advancement, were very little inclined to preach the
reality or necessity of divine influence." Christian Philosophy, p!
24. — "Regular divines of great virtue, learning, and apparent piety,
feared to preach the Holy Ghost and his operations, the main doc
trines of the Gospel, lest they should countenance the Puritan, the
Quaker, or the Methodist, and lose "the esteem of their own order
or of the higher powers." Id. p. 23.
Supposing then that the Christian and patriotic men of all com
munions in these Colonies were to resolve that there should be no
taxation imposed upon the Colonies for the suppoi-t of religion, but
that each communion should be left in future to maintain its own

6&
clergy, I proceed to ascertain what the probable result of such s
change in our politico-ecclesiastical system would be. I conceive
then that there is not a single individual of proper feeling in these
Colonies — whetherEpi3copalian,Pre3byterian, Methodist, or Roman
Catholic — who would not consider himself bound to do his utmost
to save- the country from the enormous amount of taxation which
the continuance of the present system will necessarily imply, pro
vided the Colonial clergy could be supported under the Voluntary
System, and the interests of religion sustained throughout the Ter
ritory. Now, I have no hesitation in expressing my belief that the
clergy would be atleast as well supported, and the interests of religion
sustained as effectually as at present, under that system. I shall
doubtless be told that on such a supposition the Colonies would be
no gainer, as they would just have to pay the same amount as at
present in another way. To this I reply that even in that case
the Colonists would pay the amount willingly, which they will
never do in the shape of a general tax ; for the payment would
then be self-imposed, while every particular communion would only
have to support its own Clergy. It is a prodigious grievance for
Protestants to be taxed for the support of Popery, or for Roman
Catholics to be taxed for the support of Protestantism. 'The injus
tice is as great in the one case as it is in the other, and no Govern
ment can ever be warranted in trifling in such a manner with the
best feelings of its sulsjects. ,, It is a great grievance even for a
Presbyterian to be taxed for the support of a Diocesan Bishop,
whether Protestant or Roman Catholic, when he believes, on the
evidence of Scripture and of all antiquity, that the primitive and
apostolic bishop was merely, like a Presbyterian bishop or minister,
the pastor of a single congregation. It is a still greater grievance
for the Independent or Baptist to be taxed for the support of reli
gion at all, when he holds every such' mode of supporting religion
unscriptural as well as impolitic, unjust as well as unnecessary.
And what right can any Government have to inflict snch a variety
of grievances on the very best members (for such conscientious men
always are) of the community ?
But I shall be told moreover that if the Government should not
impose a tax for the support of religion, many irreligious persons
would contribute nothing whatever. And what although they
should not contribute anything ? The cause of religion is sure te
suffer far more from the bad feeling occasioned by the obvious ia'
justice of forcing such men to pay for religion which they do not
care for, than it can ever gain from the mere amount of their com
pulsory contributions. The very circumstance of compelling such
men to pay for religion hardens them against it. It is the most
dangerous thing possible for religion to be identified, in the esti
mation of such men, with the tax-gatherer, who is usually the most
obnoxious character in the community. Religion should uniformly

be presented to, such men under the aspect of a heavenly beliefactot
conferring gifts' of infinite value, without money and without price.
It should never appear tinder the character of a dun, asking money,
or of a sheriff's officer, compelling payment, ' *
But the most, important result of such a change of system as
the one I recolnmend is that the standard of ministerial;, character
and duty would be greatly elevated, while religion would'be lie^d in
much higher estimation than it is at present, and the moral advance
ment of the community would be ootrespondingly promoted. In pro^
of this, however, I shall only refer to my last lecture, exhibitiM
the moral and religious influence of the Voluntary System.
Supposing, then, that the clergy of all communions in these Colo
nies should be thrown, for their future support, upon-,the Christian
people of their respective denominations, let us next enquire what
Would be the result respectively to the various Churches or deno
minations that are now supported by the Stale.
The first of these is the Episcopa.1 Church. In point of -wealth
and numbers this denomination unquestionably ranks highest in
these Colonies, there being almost uniformly a considerable.numbe^
of wealthy persons, as well as of free immigrants of a humbler
grade, of that communion, wherever an Episcopal Church is planted
thrbughout the Territory. Now I conceive that no minister of that
communion in the towns should have less than from £400 to £500
per annum, and that no minister in any settled district in the country
shouldhave less than from £250 to £300. Now does any man suppose
that inso wealthy andfldurishingaColony as either New South Wales
or Victoria, the Episcopalian communion would have any difficulty
in raising salaries of this amount, in the way of pew-rents and
voluntary contributions, for all the Episcopal clergy that Would be
required in these Colonies ? The idea that there would be any
difficulty in the case is out of, the question. It is a libel upon the
Episcopalians of New Sout^^ales and Victoria to suppose that'
they would not exert themselves to the extent required for the
accomplishment of such an object ; especially to deliver the Colo
nies from an odious and constantly increas'ing tax for the support
of all religions. Popery included. At present a considerable num
ber of the Episcopal clergy of both these Colonies have pensions of
£50 per annum each from the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel in England. Now I conceive it is anything but honourable
to the members of the Episcopal communion in such a Colony as
either New South Wales or Victoria, to allow their clergy to be
supported in such a maniier — to be supported from the penny
a-week subscriptions of Sabbath School children, factory girls, and
poor widows in England! It shows that they are lamentably desti
tute of self-respect, and of that, spirit of manly independence that
ought always to characterize and that always will characterize
Christian men ! What ! to allow their clergy to be supported as

67
paupers £iom the bounty of the benevolent in England, when the
Mother Country is actually ringing with the accountof their wealth I
Shame ! Shame ! The Episcopalians of America I know well are
people of a, different spirit ; but they, acquired that manly and
Christian spirit under the Voluntary System.
There are districts, however, in which there ought to be Epis
copal ministers settled, but in which, I acknowledge, it might be
difficult, if not impracticable, to raise a salary for a minister of that
communion, even of the smallest amount mentioned — new settle-
mgnts, for instance, either along the coast or in the interior. Now,
lareference to such cases, I would observe that ministers for places
of this kind ought decidedly to be supported in the first in
stance as missionary ministers, from funds collected in the wealthier
districts. This is the mode uniformly pursued by the Episcopal
Church in the United States. I have already mentioned that two
at least of the Episcopal Churches in the city Of Philadelphia raise
not less than 6000 dollars or £1275 per annum each for religious
purposes of this kind, besides supporting the ordinances of religion
in Aeir respective congregations. And what is there to hinder a
whole series of Episcopalian congregatioBg, in the cities of Sydney
and Melbourne, to do the same, and thus, besides maintaining their
own ministers, to assist in supporting half a dozen others each in
the new settlements on the frontier f This is the divine ordinance
for the extension of Christ's Church on earth. The language of
Holy Scripture on the point is " Freely ye have received ; freely
give." I have reason to belie-9-e that most of the Episcopalian con
gregations in our two Colonial Capitals are actually wealthier than
either of the American Episcopal Churches that raise the large
amount I have mentioned. But these American Episcopalians are
Christians in reality, and account it their boundeik duty to contri
bute liberally of their substance for the extension of the Christian
Church : whereas the congregations r allude to in these Colonial
Capitals expend perhaps a far larger proportion of their income in
vanity, luxury, and dissipation. The ancient patriarchs, when
under a far inferior dispensation, as •compared with ours, bound
themselves voluntarily to contribute > tenth of their substance for
the support of religion ; and if the wealthier Episcopalians of
these Colonies were only to do the same — ^nay, if they were only to
contribute one-fourth part of that proportion — there would be ample
funds and to spare for the support of every Episcopal minister that
should be required in both Colonies. 4
But the entire disjunction of Church and State in -these Colonies
would be of unspeakable advantage to the Colonial Episcopal
Church in various other and most important respects. From being
entirely unconnected with the State, the Episcopal Church in the
United- States has adopted various reforms upon the system of the
Church of England, which have assimilated it very much to the

68
primitive Church, and imparted to it an efficiency tenfold greater
than it ever exhibited when fostered and supported by the State
under the old Colonial System.
In the first place, popular election obtains universally in the
American Episcopal Church. Instead of being placed over the
Christian people, as in these Colonies, at the mere fiat or caprice of
the Bishop, exictly like the stock-keeper over a herd ofbla,ck
cattle, the Episcopal clergyman in America is uniformly elected by
the people. He is the man of their choice, and they therefote
support him willingly, and pay him all deference and respect, aVa
matter of inclination as well as of duty.
In the second place, lay- representation is a necessary part of the
constitution of the American Episcopal Church. Every church in
the body g^obses its lay-delegate who represents the people- in the
half-yearly Convention of the diocese, and whose vote is given in all
matters submitted to the deliberation of the Convention equally
with those of the clergy. This is m exact accordance with the
practice of the Presbyterian and primitive church, and is strikinglfy
in contrast with the arbitrary goiveriiment of the Churches of Rome
and of England, which.have btith robbed the Christian people of
their undoubted right to participate in the government of the
church. In the third place, the Bishop is uniformly elected by tte votes
of the clergy of his diocese. It is thus always the worthiest-— at
least in the estimation of amajority of his brethren — who is chbsen
to the office ; and when the clergy of any diocese conceive that
they can find a fitter person for that office in some neighbouring
diocese than any one of their own number, they elect that person
rather than one of themselves. In England, on the contrary, and
in the Coloiiies'also, the Bishop is not unfrequently appointed at
the caprice, perhaps, of some ungodly or even infidel minister of
State, to whose political party he is supposed to belong, and to
whose miserable politics he is expected to be subservient.
In the fourth and last place, the American Bishop's power is
very much contracted in comparison with that of English and
Colonial Bishops. He cannot ordain candidates for the ministry,
without the consent and co-operation of his clergy ; and if he sus
pends any clergyman for any alleged offence, that clergymsm can
appeal to the Convention — a Court consisting of all the clergy with
a lay-delegate from^ every congregation in the diocese, tlje Bishop
merely presiding as chairman. The Bishop cannot even make bye-
laws for the government of his own diocese. These laws must he
deliberated upon beforehand and adopted ty the Convention.
In short, , American Episcopacy is a prodigious improvement
upon the Episcopacy of the Church of England and the British
6olonies. It is a system incomparably more accordant with Holy
Scripture and the practice of primitive antiquity. It is a system

69
evidently adapted for the government of an enlightened and Chris
tian people — a system, moreover, to which those who are under it
cannot fail to be strongly attached. But the Episcopal system of
the Church of England and the Colonies, is an insult to the human
understanding. It does not leave even the shadow of freedom to
the Christian people. It treats them as " natural brute beasts,"
who are incapable alike of reason and feeling, and who are only to
be managed in the way of physical restraint and coercion. The
results of the two systems correspond with their respective charac
ters. In England, and I may add, in the British Colonies, Popery
is gaining upon the Church of England every day. In America, on
the contrary, the Episcopal Church gains many adherents every
year from the ranks of Popery. The Rev. Dr. Tyng, an Episcopal
clergyman in Philadelphia, told me, that during the eleven years
of his ministry, twenty-four Roman Catholics had joined his church.
How few Episcopal clergymen in England or in the Colonies can
say the same !
' In short, it would decidedly be the, interest of the Episcopal com
munion in these Colonies to raise any conceivable amount in the
way of annual subscription for the support of their clergy, to get
such important reforms introduced into their church as could im
mediately be effected with the utmost facility on the discontinu
ance of taxation for the support of religion. Should such taxation
be allowed, things will just continue as they are till the end of the
chapter, and the reforms I have enumerated will never be effected :
for to suppose that a State church, with Lord Bishops at its head,
can be thoroughly reformed, is something, to say the least of it, con
trary to all experience. Such men will never surrender one iota of
their power till they are compelled to do so. Besides, the Episcopal
communion of these Colonies will in the mean time be no gainer in
a pecuniary point of view : for as the Episcopalians are unquestion
ably the wealthiest and the most numerous section of the colonial po
pulation, they will have the largest proportion of the public taxes to
pay. And is it not consistent with common sense to suppose that
the Episcopalians of these Colonies would contribute their quota of
the expense necessary for the support of religion, far more willingly,
if the- were assured that the whole amount of their contributions
would be appropriated for the support of their own clergy exclu
sively, and no portion of it allotted for the support of Roman Ca
tholics, Presbyterians, or Methodists? By discontinuing the
present politico-ecclesiastical system, and by devolving the supporjt
of religion on the people without the interference of the State in
any way, this desirable object could be effectually secured. There
is no hope of securing it, however, by any other arrangement.
There is one other view of the sjabject, which I would earnesUy,
recommend to the serious attention of the influential Episcopalian
laity of both Colonies. No Colonial Protestant can be blind enough
not to perceive that the General Church Act of 1836 has given a

7(1
prodigiously greater degree of prominence and power to' the Romm
Catholic communion, than it could ever have acquired in Australia,
if left to the Voluntary System. And will Protestants---whether
Episcopalians or Presbyterians— make no sacrifice to bring so ob
noxious a state of things to an end ? Even if the discontinuance
of the existing system should subject the Protestant clergy, both
Episcopalian and Presbyterian, to great personal^ hardship, which I
do not believe it would do in a single instance, it would neverthe
less be the bounden duty of the Protestant clergy to sacrifice their
own personal ease and comfort to a great degree to deliver their
adopted country from the influence of this grand system of super
stition and delusion. I verily believe that the United States of
America is the only country in Christendom in which Protestantism
is at this moment gaining, ground upon Popery ; but, let it be re
membered, it is the only country in Christendom in which the
Church is entirely separate from the State. The Romish emigra
tion to the United States, from Ireland, from Germany, from
France, from Poland, from Italy, from Austria, is immense ; but I
was credibly informed in America, and facts in abundance were
given me in proof of, the assertion, that the converts from Popery
to Protestantism in that country were as 20 to 1, compared with
those from Protestantism to Popery.* In England I believe the
very reverse is the case.
After erecting such imposing ecclesiastical edifices as the Roman
Catholics have already erected and are now erecting in the cities of
Sydney and Melbourne, it would be absurd for any person of that
denomination to pretend that they could not support as many priests
as they require throughout the Australian Territory. When the
Roman Catholics can support a numerous priesthood in poverty-
stricken Ireland, where they are borne down and oppressed with a
Protestant Establishment, it would be absurd to pretend that they
could not subsist without a State endowment in the comparatively
wealthy Colonies of New South Wales and Victoria, where, in the
case supposed, there would be no religious establishment at all.
The Roman Catholic priesthood have ways and means of obtaining
a revenue from their people, even in the lowest ranks of society,
with which Protestant ministers are totally unacquainted. From
the moment a Roman Catholic enters the world till the hour he
leaves it — and long after, if his surviving relatives have a sixpence
to spare — he is a never-failing source of revenue to the Romish
priesthood !. His christening must be paid for, as well as the
churching of his mother. He must confess once a month when he
* The Eev. Dr. Breckenridge, of Baltimore, an eminent Presbyterian minister,
who had previously been a lawyer, and a member of the Legislature of his
' native State of Kentucky, observed to me, when talking on this subject, that
" if there was only a sea of fire, as there was of water, between them and
Europe, to put a stop to the Komish immigration from the Old World, Popery
would be extinct in America in fifty years."

71
grows np, and pay the priest for it ; otherwise he is publicly de
nounced as an evil-doer from the altar. There are regular and
accustomed fees to be paid at his confession, and every time he
receives the coinmunion. If he marries, he must pay for the
priestly benediction ; if he dies, he must pay for extreme unction ;
and if he goes to Purgatory, where the priest is sure to send him
for the good of the Church, if not for that of his soul, his surviving
relatives must pay the priest for his Ticket if leave or Certificate of
Frtedom, just as if he had been a convict in New South Wales.
It is absurd therefore to pretend that, with such a profitable .system
to administer, the Roman Catholic priesthood could be at any loss
in being thrown upon the Voluntary System in New South Wales
and Victoria.
The Presbyterians are less numerous than either the Episcopa
lians or Roman Catholics. In the towns they consist of merchants,
shopkeejiers, and mechanics ; in the country of land-holders, farm
'labourers, and shepherds. They are scattered all over the Terri
tory, and are necessarily more dispersed than either the Episco
palians or Roman Catholics. In their native country they have
generally — I mean those of them wno belong to the Scottish E.stab-
lishment — been as little accustomed to pay for the support of reli
gion, in the way of voluntary contribution, as the Episcopalians;
their clergy being established in Scotland, and enjoying a Regium
Donum or salary from Government in the North of Ireland. It
would therefore imply a great change of habits on the part of a
large prf>portion of tlie Presbyterians, as well as on that of the
Episcopalians of these Colonies, to have a general system of taxa
tion for the support of religion superseded by the Voluntary Sys
tem ; and individuals of that denomination, as in other commu
nions, would in all likelihood refuse to contribute anything for the
support of the Christian Ministry. But that the great body of the
Presbyterians of these Colonies would greatly prefer the Voluntary
Sy^tem to a general taxation for the support of religion, and would
willingly contribute for the maintenance of their clergy under that
System, I have no doubt whatever. The Presbyterians are a cal
culating, as well as an industrious and religious people ; and they
cannot fail to perceive that it would cost them far less in the end
to support their own clergy, in the way of a voluntary rate or con
tribution, than to contribute their quota to a general tax, to be
imposed and expended by the Government for the support of the
Colonial Clergy of all denominations indiscriminately. As such a
tax will fall the most heavily on the most industrious, the Presby
terians, as a body, will have to pay a much larger portion of it than
the corresponding proportion of benefit they will derive from it in
the way of support for their clergy, as compared with the proportion
received by certain other communions.
Besides, I am quite sure the Presbyterians of these Colonies will
sever consent with their eyes open to the imposition of a general

72
tax, of which a large proportion of the proceeds will be appropriated
for the support of Diocesan bishops and Romish priests ; provided
they can secure the deliverance of their adopted country from so
obnoxious a tax, at the small expense of supporting their own
clergy. The imposition of such a tax — whether it should take the
form of a poll-tax, or a property-tax — would imply the appointment
of a whole host of tax-gatherers, with the usual expensive apparatus
of Collectors, Auditors, and Treasurers : and in whatever manner
the Government might distribute the fund among the respective
claimants, there is not the least likelihood of their giving satisfac'
tion to any party. But the rate which a congregation voluntarily
imposes upon itself for the maintenance of public worship, is always
collected free of all cost, under the superintendenee of the Mana
gers or Trustees. In the American Churches, the pews are gene
rally the property of the seafholders, and the burden of supporting
the ordinances of religion — including the salaries of the minister,
precentor, organist, and other church-officers — is borne by a volun
tarily imposed rate, amounting generally to six per cent, on the
original cost and known value of the pew. This rate is usually
sufficient for the purpose for which it is intended, and it is always
cheerfully paid. Contributions for religious purposes unconnected
with the congregation, as for missionary efforts both at home and
abroad, in which it must be allowed the Americans leave us far
behind, are in all cases, made according to the zeal and ability
of the individual.
In the towns and the older settlements of the interior, the Pres
byterians would be quite as able and willing to support their own
cl'^rgy, in some such way as I have mentioned, as the Episcopalians ;
and if a suitable machinery could be brought into operation, con
gregations in the wealthier districts would not only be able to assist
others in the more recently settled, but to send forth a whole corps
of missionaries to the wilder parts of the territory, and to support
them entirely till they could organize congregations for themselves.
It is incredible to those who have no experience in the matter, at
how little sacrifice on the part of individuals all this can be
-cflected, when a proper system of management has once been intro
duced, and the Christian people been accustomed to " honour the
Lord with their substance." At all events, it is well known that
there were no other pecuniary means available for the extension of
the Christian Church during the first three centuries, thepurest period
of its existence ; and it is universally acknowledged that Chris
tianity has never made such progress since, as it did in these three
centuries. After the splendid triumphs achieved in the Mother Country by
the Free Church of Scotland, who could doubt for a moment that
the Presb^'terians of New South Wales and Victoria would be per
fectly able to support their own clergy, and to support them well,
on the Voluntary System ? I confess, indeed, I have just learned

73
with a mingled feeling of shame and regret, that the Free Church
of Victoria, instead of maintaining the lofty position of the Parent
Church, and thereby hastening on the consummation so devoutly to
be wished, the entire freedom of religion in Australia, has of late
been looking with a covetous eye to the Government wedge of gold,
and arraying herself in the Babylonish garment of State-counection.*
Hegesippus, the earliest ecclesiastical historian, informs us that the
Christian Church continued a pure virgin till the reign of the
Emperor Trajan, about the close of the first century ; intimating
that it thenceforth began to exhibit a growing resemblance to
certain frail and fallen daughters of Eve. It is melancholy to
reflect that the same change should be passing over the face and
fortunes of the Free Church in Victoria. Having begun in the
spirit, why is she now ending in the flesh ? Having landed a pure
virgin, with a clean bill of moral health, on our .shores, only a few
years ago, why has she condescended already to be taken into
keeping by the State, and to be pointed at on the streets of Mel
bourne and Geelong as one of the four or five concubines of the
Civil Power ? It is perhaps fortunate for the character of the Free
Church in New South Wales, that the whole of the £28,000 re
served for the support of religion in that Colony is already appro
priated. Who knows but there might otherwise have been exhi
bited the .same species of spiritual harlotry there also ?
The Presbyterians of New South Wales have a special reason for
desiring an immediate discontinuance of the present system of
supporting religion from the Public Treasury. They are at pre.sent
divided into three distinct bodies, and, in consequence of that divi-
* The following is the Government scheme in Victoria for the appropriation
of thf £.)0,000 reserved by Act of Parliament for the support of religion in that
Colony, for the year 1856 : — £ s. d.
Episcopalians ... .. .. ., ... 26,614 2 0
Roman Catholics  10,8S7 15 0
Presbyterians (Kstablished Church) .. .. 4,50.5 3 3
Ditto (Free Church)  3,203 3 7
Wesleyans  3,723 17 3
Lutherans  802 6 6
Unitarians . . . . . . . . . . 3 1 4 2 fi
Total  50,000 10 0
The Rev. Dr. Cairns, and hia brethren of the Free Church in Victoria, profess-
to be the genuine representatives and suecea.sor.s of that noble band of Christian
patriots and confessors who subscribed the National Covenant of Scotland in the
year Ifi )S, and afterwards adopted the Westminster Confession of Faith. But
these degenerate Free Churchmen, who have thus lent iheir aid to maintain and
perpetuate, as well as to participate in, a latitudinarian and infidel system of
State support for religion, would have been indignantly disowned and repu-
dSated by the very men whose undoubted representatives and successors they
pretend to be. These Christian men would sooner have thrust their right hSndlf
into the fire, like Cranmer, than condescend to receive sujiport from the Stite
for religion ou condition of sharing it on equal terms with certain sects anci
parties in this list. I need not point them out more particularly.

74
sion, a Presbyterian College, in connection with the University of
Sydney, which is at present a great, desideratum for the Pres^j
byterians of the Colony generally, and which they might
easily establish with their united means and efforts, must
remain in abeyance. Let the State support f)r religion, how
ever, be withdrawn — for this is the only ground of separation —
and these three bodies would in all likelihood coalesce, and a noble
Scots Ciillege would forthwith be inaugurated.
The Methodist Missionaries in these Colonies are all the agents
of a deneral Society, from whose funds they receive the whole
amount of their respective salaries,' and to whose Treasury they
transmit all the contributions of their people with whatever they
receive besides from the Colonial Government. The Methodist
missionary, therefore, is not likely to be affected in anyway,
whether religion is supported by the State, or not. The Govern
ment money awarded to the body he belongs to merely enables that
body to send an additional number of missionaries to Australia,
and to extend the operation of the system of proselytizing from
other commuuions, in which it has hitherto been so .successful.
Such, then, are the reasons for which, it appears to me, the
colonists of New South Wales and Victoria, of all denominations,
and more especially all Protestants, ought to resist to the uttermost
every attempt either toimposea general tax, or to continue the sy.-tem
of makinggrantsof money from the Public Treasury for the support of
religion in these Colonies. Such are the reasons that have induced me
individually to resolve,in humble dependence upon Divine a.ssistance,
to devote my personal influence and exertions to the utmost, as a
Christian minister, towards effecting a repeal of the General Church
Act of 1836, and an entire separation of Church and State in Aus
tralia. Thorouglily convinced as I am, from the very bottom of
my heart, that the peace and prosperity of these noble Colonies for
all time coming, and the general advancement of pure and unde
filed religion among all classes of their population, are indissolubly
connected with the attainment of this object, I shall not hesitate
to labour for its accomplishment at all hazards, and shall therefore
regard with perfect indifference the ban of the Civil Government
and the anathemas of the Church I belong to, if either the one or
the other should interfere with my undoubted right as a British
subject and a Protestant minister to advocate and urge on this
mighty reform.*
* They both did so in riyht earnest, but with indifferent success. Only a few
months after the original delivery of tlie.se Lectures, in the months of March
and April, IS*-/, the Presbyterian State Church of New South Wales, from
which 1 had shurtly before publicly and deliberately withdrawn — renouncing my
Government salary, the largest then given to any Presbyterian Minister, and all
future ecclesiavtic-.il connection with the State — pretended, after the approved
examples of the Vatican, to excommunicate me, and to depose me from the Cliristian
ministry, a proceeding ihat was perfectly futile in itself, and that excited only
the ridicule and contempt of all jiarties in the Colonies. It was this monstrous
proceeding that led me, quite unexpectedly on my own part, to become a some-

75
That that reform is not to be expected without a struggle
for their Government temporalities on the part of the clergy of all
the Established Churches of the Colonies, I know well. Such
men will doubtless be in great wrath for a time, exclaiming with
Micah the Jew, " Ye are taking away our gods, and what have we
more ?" That the struggle which is thus impending will also sub
ject those who may take the lead in this movement to hostility and
opposition, and perhaps even to personal hardship and privation, I
confidently expect. But when, I ask, has any great object for the
welfare and advancement of society, been ever attained in any
country without a correspondingly great effort and great sacrifice
in some quarter or other ? When, I ask, has the cause of civil and
religious liberty been ever advanced in a remarkable degree in any
country, without leaving some honourable victim
To paint the moral and adorn the tale ?
If even a Heathen poet could exclaim,
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori,
shall a Protestant minister hesitate for one moment to encounter
obloquy, opposition, hardship, and privation, if he believes that
the course he is pursuing will lead directly to the ultimate estab
lishment of entire religious freedom over a whole continent, a
whole hemisphere ? There are men, doubtless, who will affect to
ridicule such anticipations on the part of a solitary Presbyterian
minister ; but let such men recollect that it was the agitation of a
single Presbyterian minister, in the State of Virginia, eighty years
ago, that led to the universal establishment of the Voluntary
System in the thirty sovereign and independent States of North
America. The enemies of civil and religious liberty w'no have at
different times been instrumental in sending me home to England,
as well as in exposing me to much trouble and hardship in this
country, have doubtless been not a little gratified on such occasions
in wreaking their petty malignity against an unoffending but ob
noxious individual ; bnt they will find now, that under the over-
what prominent Colonial politician ; for, almost immediately thereafter, I was
elected (chiefly by the Scotch Presbyterians of Port Phillip, who thereby testi
fied, in a very significant manner, their opinion of the procedure of the
State Church towards me in Sydney), one of the six representatives
of that province in the late Colonial Legislature. I have since been
twice returned for the City of Sydney, and once for the County of
Stanley, at Moreton Bay. But as the enemies of Civil and Keligious Liberty
in New South Wales have recently got an Act of the Imperial Parlia
ment passed to keep me out of the New Provincial Parliament, I am happily
relieved for the present from all political duties as a Eepresentativeof the people,
and am thus enabled to make the present effort in their behalf in another capacity.
With only one or two verbal alterations, the concluding paragraphs of this
Lecture formed the concluding portion of the Lectures as delivered in 1842, and
refer more particularly to the state and' prospects of that period in regard to
religious liberty. My own withdrawal from the State Church, and the delivery
of these Lectures, shortly thereafter, were decidedly the first public move
ment in these Colonies against the existing system of State support for religion.

76
ruling providence of God, they have all tho while been only con
juring up, from the vasty deep, a spirit which all their future
exorcising will never be able to lay.
Of the filial result of the struggle which is thus impending, I
have not the least shadow of a doubt. There are fortunately no
tithes to be got rid of in this country, as in England, ere that
result can be realised ; there are no Clergy Reserves here to distuf b
the peace of the country, as in Canada; there is no church pro
perty and no vested rights of any kind to perplex the respective
Legislatures in their honest endeavours to promote the public
welfare and advancement. The government salaries of the clergy,
of all denominations, depend solely upon the annual vote of these
Legislatures ; and whenever the New Parliaments shall be suffi
ciently enlightened, as I flatter myself they will be very soon, to
perceive that the interests of the country and of religion would be
greatly promoted by having the clergy supported directly by their
people, that vote will of course be withheld.
To conclude, the struggle that is impending is pre-eminently a
struggle for freedom. It is a struggle for the freedom of the
Christiaa_Cthurch from the trammels of a latitudinarian and infidel
system, utfder which it is impossible that religion can ever flourish,
as well as from th^t thraldom and corruption to which it has ever
been subjected when connected with the State. It is a struggle for
liberty of conscience, in opposition to the tyranny that would
compel Protestants to contribute of their substance for the main
tenance of Popery, and Roman Catholics for that of Protestantism.
It is a struggle for the deliverance of these Colonies from the in
tolerable burden of a Government taxation, in comparison with
which even that of England would shortly be but a trifle. In
short, the struggle that is impending is pre-eminently a struggle
for freedom ; and let the enemies of civil and religious liberty
recollect that Freedom's battle once begun.
Bequeath' d from bleeding sire to son.
Though baffled oft, is ever won.

This great battle, therefore, is now begun. The Rubicon is
already past. The flag (which the enemies of civil and religious
liberty are qiiite welcome to call a revolutionary flag,, if they
please,) having for its motto " No taxation necessary for the sup
port of religion," is now unfurled on the shores of Australia. The
first blow in the contest is already struck. The first shot is
already fired; and, be assured, the report will reverberate
through every British Colony in this Hemisphere, till the last
vestige of the unholy alliance that now subsists between Church
and State in this continent has disappeared.

FIHIS,

PAMPHLET BINDER
= Syracuse, N. Y.
— — Siofkton, Cotlf.

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