He purchased his pew at auction for seven hundred and fifty dollars, it being one of the best in the church. The salaries of the most popular ministers vary from fifteen hundred to three or four thousand dollars. The organist receives about five hundred; the vocalists from two to three hundred dollars each. To meet his share of these and the other expenses, the assessment of this gentleman is sixty-three dollars per annum. Now, the interest of seven hundred and fifty dollars in America is forty-five dollars, and the assessment being sixty-three—one hundred and eight dollars per annum, or twenty-two pounds ten shillings sterling for his yearly expenses under the voluntary system. This, of course, does not include the offerings of the plate, charity sermons, etcetera, all of which are to be added, and which will swell the sum, according to my friend’s statement, to about thirty pounds per annum. (“A great evil of our American churches is, their great respectability or exclusiveness. Here, being of a large size and paid by Government, the church is open to all the citizens, with an equal right and equal chance of accommodation. In ours, the dearness of pew-rent, especially in Episcopal and Presbyterian, turns poverty out of doors. Poor people have a sense of shame, and I know many a one, who, because he cannot go to Heaven decently, will not go at all.”—Sketches of Paris by an American Gentleman.)
It does not appear by the above calculations that the voluntary system has cheapness to recommend it, when people worship in a respectable manner, as you might hire a house and farm of fifty acres in that State for the same rent which this gentleman pays for going to church; but it must also be recollected that it is quite optional and that those who do not go to church need not pay at all.
It was not, however, until late years that such was the case. In Massachusetts, and in most of the Eastern States, the system was not voluntary, and it is to this cause that may be ascribed the superior morality and reverence for religion still existing, although decaying, in these States. By former enactments in Massachusetts, landowners in the country were compelled to contribute to the support of the church.
Pews in cities or towns are mentioned in all deeds and wills as personal property; but in the country, before the late Act, they were considered as real estate.
A pew was allotted each farm, and whether the proprietor occupied it or not, he was obliged to pay for it; but by an Act of the Massachusetts State legislature, passed within these few years, it was decided that no man should be compelled to pay for religion. The consequence has been, that the farmers now refuse to pay for their pews, the churches are empty, and a portion of the clergy have been reduced to the greatest distress. An itinerant ranter, who will preach in the open air, and send his hat round for cents, suits the farmers much better as it is much cheaper. Certainly this does not argue much for the progressive advancement of religion, even in the moral State of Massachusetts.
In other points the cause of morality has, till lately, been upheld in these Eastern States. It was but the other day that a man was discharged from prison, who had been confined for disseminating atheistical doctrines. It was, however, said at the time, that that was the last attempt that would ever be made by the authorities to imprison a man for liberty of conscience; and I believe that such will be the case.
The Boston Advocate says—“Abner Kneeland came out of prison yesterday, where he has been for sixty days, under the barbarous and bigoted law of Massachusetts, which imprisons men for freedom of opinions. As was to have been expected, Kneeland’s liberation was made a sort of triumph. About three hundred persons assembled, and were addressed by him at the jail, and he was conveyed home in a barouche. During his persecution in prison, liberal sums of money have been sent to him. How much has Christianity gained by this foul blot on the escutcheon of Massachusetts?”
It is however worthy of remark, that those States that have enforced religion and morality, and have punished infidelity, (Miss Martineau complains of this as contrary to the unalienable rights of man:—“Instead of this we find laws framed against speculative atheists; opprobrium directed against such as embrace natural religion otherwise than through Christianity, and a yet more bitter oppression exercised by those who view Christianity in one way over those who regard it in another.”) are now the most virtuous, the most refined, and the most intellectual, and are quoted as such by American authors, like Mr Carey, who by the help of Massachusetts alone can bring out his statistics to anything near the mark requisite to support his theories.
It is my opinion that the voluntary system will never work well under any form of government, and still less so under a democracy.
Those who live under a democracy have but one pursuit, but one object to gain, which is wealth. No one can serve God and Mammon. To suppose that a man who has been in such ardent pursuit of wealth, as is the American for six days in the week, can recall his attention and thoughts to serious points on the seventh, is absurd; you might as well expect him to forget his tobacco on Sunday.