LIQUIDATION OF DEBTS ON CHAPELS.

To the Editor of the Baptist Magazine.

Having seen an article some months since in your Magazine on the above subject, signed Murus, and thinking the following plan an improvement upon Murus’s, I shall feel much obliged by your giving it insertion in your valuable and extensively circulated periodical. And I hope I shall not be too presuming in stating that, if it is put into operation in every county, in a very few years it will entirely liquidate all the debts now existing on chapels, without any increased exertions on the part of the friends. The plan, if entered into, which I humbly trust it will be, will do away entirely with begging cases, will not require the minister to leave his church, will lessen the calls on his people, will enable them to raise their ministers’ incomes, and eventually confer much happiness on the churches, and relieve them from pressing difficulties; whereas the systems now adopted are very inefficient, and will take three times as long to get rid of the existing burdens. I would also suggest, for the prevention of debts being again accumulated, that no chapel be allowed to be erected without advancing half the money required for building it, nor be allowed to partake of the privileges arising from this plan until the whole of the present churches are out of debt. I would also recommend the churches who adopt this plan, to give no countenance to any church begging, as the same system can be adopted in every county with certain success. There is a difficulty in Murus’s plan in that of increased exertions, whereas in this, none are required.

Prop. 1. That all the churches make an annual collection, which shall be brought to the Association, and that the total amount shall be applied to the liquidation of the debt on one chapel, as shall be then and there agreed.

Prop. 2. That the chapel whose debt is so paid off shall contribute the interest of its debt every year, till it amounts to half the sum paid off, when it shall not be required to pay its interest money, for so I will call it.

Prop. 3. That, in addition to the interest money of the chapel so paid off, it shall not contribute less than ten shillings for every £100. of debt, till the whole of the debts are paid off the chapels in the county; by which means the deficiency of ten shillings in the pound will be made up without distressing the churches.

Prop. 4. That any church whose lot it may fall to, at the Association, to have its debt paid, who shall the next year pay the half of its debt, shall be considered to have fulfilled its agreement, and shall be liable only to its small contribution at the rate of ten shillings for every £100 debt so redeemed.

Prop. 5. That every church whose debt shall be paid off, shall bring forward sufficient and satisfactory security for the fulfilment of its contract, which may be done by four or five persons joining together for that purpose.

EXPLANATION.

Suppose the debt of a chapel which is paid off to be £600; the responsible agents above referred to shall contribute annually, till it arrives to £300, half the debt, when they will have fulfilled their agreement. But they must, from the first payment of interest till all the chapels are out of debt, contribute ten shillings for every £100 of debt, which sum, with the united exertions of the churches, will liquidate the other ten shillings in the pound. For instance: Suppose the churches in one county to be thirty, an annual contribution of three pounds from each will produce £90; this, added to the interest of the chapel so cleared, will make £120, to pay off the debt of another chapel, which shall also contribute to its interests, and small annual contribution; and so on, till all the churches are out of debt. This plan is similar to lending money without interest, as the interest paid clears the principal, and the principal they will only have to pay at ten shillings in the pound, the small annual contributions making up the deficiency. A list of the churches and their debts should be placed every year in the Magazines, with an account of the debts so reduced.

A Baptist.
Nov. 12, 1834.

P.S Since writing the above, I have seen an article in the Magazine for this month, which only confirms my opinion that something must be done, and that speedily, to effect this great and desirable object.

REMARKS ON A PAPER, ENTITLED
“ON THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE TERM MORAL.”

To the Editor of the Baptist Magazine.

The paper of W. N. in your November number, whilst it contains some very valuable remarks on the abuse of the term moral, appears to aim at overthrowing one particular instance of a very general abuse, and to strike at the branch, whilst it leaves the root to flourish with the same vigour as before. The expression “moral approbation and disapprobation” cannot be deemed an unnecessary application of the term moral, because approbation and disapprobation are frequently excited in the mind by physical agents; and although Dr. Wardlaw, in the passage quoted above by W. N., refers the approbation and disapprobation to “moral agents,” yet the phrase in question precedes that application, and therefore the term “moral” renders the sentence more clear than it would be, were it needful for the reader to employ the conclusion of the sentence to explain the commencement. The instance quoted from the Quarterly Review is so gross an abuse of language, that little apprehension need be entertained of its repetition. The passage stands like the topmast of a ship-wrecked vessel, to warn others of the shoal on which she was stranded. All the other instances used as illustrations in W. N.’s paper are examples of the evil attendant upon a departure from one principle, viz.: That a simile should never be explained. Of course, this principle presupposes another: That a simile should never require explanation. In the two first instances adduced—“The Lord God is a sun and shield,” and “Jesus said, I am the door”—the beauty of the similes would be entirely destroyed by the use of the adjective moral, and the only reason why the fourth instance, “A moral blight,” is not so glaring an abuse of language as the two former is, that the term blight is so frequently used in a figurative sense, that, when it is so used, we are liable to forget that the expression is figurative. But for this circumstance, the ridiculous character of the phrase would be quite as obvious as the absurdity of speaking of a moral apple, or moral plum. Another instance of the inelegance of explaining a simile is met with in the prayers of those who quote from the Liturgy the passage “We have done that which we ought not to have done, and have left undone that which we ought to have done, and there is no health in us;” but distort the original to “there is no spiritual health in us;” thus destroying at once the strength and harmony of one of the finest specimens of forcible and beautiful composition which decorates English literature. In this case also, as in that of “moral blight,” health is so often used in a figurative sense, that we are apt to forget that the expression is a simile; or the phrase “spiritual health” would sound as disagreeably as the commencement of the same portion of the Liturgy, were it altered to “We have erred and strayed from thy spiritual ways, like lost spiritual sheep.” All these inaccuracies in composition proceed from attempts to explain similes, an attempt which ought to be cautiously avoided; because a simile is an endeavour to explain or illustrate a subject by means of some analogy subsisting between it and another subject; and it is evident, that an explanation or illustration which requires a further explanation to make it intelligible, is much better omitted; and that an explanation of that which is already clear, is a glaring instance of tautology, and, therefore, a gross defect in style.

A.
November 20th, 1834