A Reply to Dr. Vaughan's "Letter on the Late Post-Office Agitation"

by James Roberts Pears

We must, indeed, be fearfully devoid of the best gift of God to man, if we do not feel compassion for men who, in a land of open bibles, and professed obedience to the Gospel, have been deprived, by a vicious education, a life of excitement, and the cold indifference of those about them, of the vast enjoyment realized by the spirit of man when it rests in communion with the Almighty.

But when I undertook the easy and pleasant task of replying to that opponent, I certainly thought that the sentiments of that gentleman were confined to men whose education had been so unhappily restricted.

It would have been to me utterly incredible, if I had been told that his views would find sympathy and support in a man educated in the most liberal course, and trained to the full exercise of intellectual energy, accepted as a popular instructor of the rising Aristocracy, and even accounted an able preacher of the Gospel of Him, who gave the day of rest and blessed it. And here you must accept the assurance of my unfeigned regret if the following remarks necessarily assume somewhat of a personal character. My own feelings would lead me to limit myself entirely to the discussion of facts, principles, causes, and results: but that period in the discussion is past. The nature, obligation, privilege, and blessing of the Lord’s day has been the subject of deep interest and enquiry to every temper of mind, with an infinite variety of views, among all classes of men from the palace to the workshop.

Nothing remains for us but to apply to individuals principles already admitted, and arguments no longer disputed. Nor is any exception to be made in favour of a disputant, who has contrived to escape from all perception of the various stages of the enquiry, and with feminine pertinacity repeats at the end the question which opened the discussion.

The debate has come to a close, and the question is now put to the vote. The multitude catch at every leading voice which authorizes their self-indulgence, and neglect of duty, and our only effort is to make such leaders retract their vote with honest repentance, or to make the many ashamed to follow them in palpable error.

Your name and reputation make it indeed imperative on us to notice, in the fulness of courtesy, the points you have brought forward; but I cannot conceal from myself that the only conceivable importance to be attached to the publication before me arises from your personal position and personal character: it begins and ends with yourself.

The letter itself would be a harmless echo of the minute of Mr. Rowland Hill but for the Preacher’s name on the title-page, and the advertisements of sermons, by the same Author, on the cover. To that sacred document, “the minute,” you are willing to be indebted for facts, principles, and arguments;—an implicit submission to the written word of authority, which in the sermons would be the wisdom of faith, but in the present instance savours more of the simplicity of credulity. “You could wish that that minute had been more generally studied by those who pronounced a judgment upon the question.”

A wish in which I heartily concur, under the fullest conviction, that every honest and intelligent mind would pronounce it to be as contemptible a piece of official mystification as ever proceeded from a public office.

We have in one paper a desultory reference to every part of the Post-office duties; facts the most unconnected in their nature united together; and conclusions arrived at by a process peculiar to those who know the credulity of the many; while the only thing which we learn with any degree of certainty, we ascertain from its ostentatious repetition, that to compensate for the contempt of the command of Jehovah, and the ruin of men’s souls, we shall have a saving of £148 per annum by the discontinuance of the Newport-Pagnell Mail-cart.

One principle, however, shows itself in something like a definite form, which you have yourself adopted—the principle of compensation in the matter of obedience to the word of God;—of striking a balance with Jehovah. It runs through the minute, it constitutes the only approach to an argument in your letter. Is it possible, Sir, that your mind was not startled by the train of thought which you permitted to pass through it? A man, whose whole energies have been unhappily devoted to secular business; whose affections are wrapped up in questions of profit and loss; who forgets the eternity which is to come in the contemplation of the saving of the Newport-Pagnell Mail-cart: such a man may, perhaps, think that “the Lord is even such an one as himself.” But you know that the Spirit of our Creator, and our Judge, has asked, “What is a man profited if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”