SYNOPSIS OF THE SOCIETY.
Object.—The salvation of souls, with a single eye to the glory of God, and in humble dependence on His blessing, by granting aid toward maintaining faithful and devoted men to assist the Incumbents of Parishes in their pastoral charge.
Principles.—That, in a Christian land, a Church established should adequately provide for the spiritual instruction of all the people; and that it is part of the duty of a Christian Legislature to furnish the Church with means to this end: but that, if the Legislature should fail of this duty, then, rather than souls should perish, Christians must join together, to supply the deficiency, and make the Church as effective as it is in their power to do.
Plan.—The Church Pastoral-Aid Society strictly regards the wants of the Church on the one hand, and the order of the Church on the other. It would make the Church efficient; it would carry the Gospel, by means of the Church, to every man’s door, but it never intrudes its aid: the Incumbent must apply for aid, or sanction the application; and until this is done, the Society cannot move. When aid is sought and granted, the Parochial Minister must say how it is to be employed—he must nominate the persons to be employed—he must engage them, as well as superintend and entirely control them. All that the Society does, is to provide for their remuneration; and, while so doing, to ask satisfactory proof of their qualifications.
OPERATIONS. | RESULTS OF AID. | ||
Incumbents aided | 275 | Grants now in operation: | |
Population under their charge | 2,035,556 | for Clergymen | 230 |
Average population to each | 7,375 | Lay-Assistants | 40 |
Average income of Incumbents | £163 | Additional Churches and Chapels: | |
Without Parsonage-houses | 138 | Opened | 67 |
The Society’s aid is to provide | Proposed | 59 | |
for Clergymen | 293 | Addit. Licensed Places used as Chapels: | |
Lay-Assistants | 42 | Opened | 106 |
Total charge on the Society, when all are in operation,per annum | £26,198 | Proposed | 20 |
Charge of those now in operation | £20,908 | Additional full Services established: | |
Income of the Society for the year 1839–40 | £16,176 | On the Lord’s-Day | 401 |
On Week-days | 172 | ||
Additional Cottage Lectures | 161 | ||
LETTER &c. &c.
The Rev. Dr. Molesworth, a Clergyman favourably known for some time past by the publication of a periodical called the “Penny Sunday Reader,”—who is likewise (as I perceive by the Advertisement appended to his Pamphlet) Author of “Family Sermons for every Sunday in the Year,” and whose promotion from a small benefice in Canterbury to one of the largest in the North of England was not long ago announced to the public,—has lately signalized his zeal in another way, by coming forward in the character of public prosecutor [3] against the “Church Pastoral-Aid Society:”—this he does in a printed Letter addressed to his own Diocesan, and our respected Vice Patron, the Bishop of Chester, containing serious charges affecting the whole character and management of the Society.
The indictment sets forth, that the Society, in spite of professed attachment to the Church, is in reality doing it the greatest injury, and chiefly by the exercise of a veto upon the appointment of parties to be maintained upon its grants. Dr. Molesworth therefore calls upon the Society to put itself upon its defence,—to appear at his bar, and answer to his indictment, upon pain of sentence of outlawry to be pronounced against it by all the orthodox. He further presses upon the subscribers and friends of the Society, as yet more friends of the Church, the necessity of transferring their subscriptions from the “Church Pastoral-Aid Society,” to the “Society for promoting the employment of Additional Curates, &c.”[4]
This direct attempt to injure the Society, as well in its funds as more vitally in its character, will make apology needless on my part for following Dr. Molesworth in his appeal to the Society at large; little as I may think his statements calculated to effect their design of weakening your attachment to this tried instrument (under God) of so great an amount of good. And not suspecting that the Committee acting for the whole Society—a Society comprising in its members ten of the Episcopal order (including Dr. Molesworth’s own Diocesan), many Church Dignitaries, the Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, &c. &c.—is likely so to forget what is due to itself, as to descend into the arena of controversy at the challenge of an individual; I thought it open to any of the 1400 Clergy attached to the Society, against whom the sentence of outlawry is to be passed, to accept Dr. Molesworth’s challenge upon somewhat more equal terms.
The Society will naturally enough remark, upon a primâ-facie view of Dr. M.’s cry of alarm,—“We have all these learned and venerable Bishops amongst us, these esteemed and valued Dignitaries; they would have informed us, long ago, if we were justly chargeable with the evil Dr. Molesworth has imputed to us:”—but either these learned and venerable men must be far less careful for the interests of the Church than Dr. Molesworth, or else (not having sufficient discernment?) failed to discover, in the five years’ working of the Society, under all the advantages of their connection with it, those evils which a single observer at a distance, acting in the exercise of his private judgment, has found so clear. Happy for the Episcopal Bench, amidst all the mischief Dr. Molesworth has conjured up, not only in the Society, but in the Church, that there should be still left to them such a faithful adviser, such a controller, such a corrector of their inadvertencies and mistakes! We shall presently see what testimony is borne by these learned and venerable men to the character and services of the “Church Pastoral-Aid Society;” when it will be for Dr. Molesworth to decide, how far his statement can be made to tally with theirs; or otherwise, which of the two we shall prefer.