"I have no wish to leave the Church," replied another; "but I must hear the gospel. I am commanded to take heed what I hear; and if I disobey this injunction, how can I expect to enjoy the Divine blessing?" In this opinion they all concurred; and as they could attend the neighbouring church, it was proposed that they should sit under the ministry of the new Rector at Aston.
"But," said Mr. Lewellin, "though we who have vehicles can easily go three or four miles on the Sabbath-day, to enjoy a pure and an enlightened ministry, yet what are the poor and the infirm to do? They cannot attend; and shall we leave them to spend the remainder of their days in a state of spiritual destitution? Have they no claim on our benevolent feelings? Shall we, by deserting them in this their low estate, allow them to go and utter the mournful complaint at the footstool of the Divine throne, 'No man careth for our souls?' Shall we provide no spiritual comforter, but suffer them to live and die without having one near them to administer the consolations of religion? Shall we stand still and see this fine moral inheritance falling back into its original state of ignorance and vice; when, by acting that part which our deceased pastor more than once recommended, we may be the means of preserving it from decay? Did he not say, in the last sermon he preached to us, that he hoped the Lord would provide another minister, who would preach the gospel to us either in the church, or elsewhere? And in a private conversation, on the evening of his departure, he said, in reply to a question, 'The great Shepherd may pitch another fold, and lead you to another pasturage.'"
"If," said a gentleman, "I were to consult my own inclination, I should still attend with my family at Broadhurst; but I do not think we should act a generous or a Christian part if we were to make no effort to establish a gospel ministry in the parish. Cannot we do what Mr. Stevens did under similar circumstances? and then, if it should please God at any future time, to favour us with a Rector who will preach the same doctrines as those which we have been accustomed to hear, we can return to the Church, and live and die in her communion. And if not, we shall have this compensation for the sacrifice which we shall be called to make, that we have acted in accordance with the wishes of our deceased pastor, and, I trust, in accordance with the will of our Lord and Master." This suggestion was eagerly seized by several others; and it was finally determined to build a neat chapel, large enough to contain about 500 worshippers; and to obtain the permanent labours of some good minister of Jesus Christ. As soon as this decision was made known, the pious villagers expressed their gratitude in the most affecting terms; and offered to contribute, out of the depths of their poverty, towards the necessary expenses which would be incurred; but their more wealthy Christian brethren rather chose to bear the whole burden among themselves.
One gentleman gave a piece of freehold land, on which the chapel was erected; and adjoining it, a house for the minister, with a large garden attached. It was built within the space of six months; and by the exertions of Mr. Lewellin, Mr. Drew, a pious and intelligent young man, was appointed to take the pastoral charge of the people. Being of a catholic spirit, and wishing to render his public ministrations generally acceptable, he prudently consented to read the Liturgy of the Church of England. Though, at first, some of the people sighed, and others wept as they passed by the venerable building in which for so many years they had worshipped the God of their fathers, yet in process of time they felt an equal degree of attachment to this second temple, which, if less imposing in its appearance, contained the Shechinah of truth, which departed from the altar when the venerable Ingleby fell asleep in Jesus. Some years after, in a conversation with the intelligent clerk, who held the same office in the chapel as he had filled in the church, he informed me, that his pastor bore a near resemblance to the deceased Rector, in the amiability of his temper, and in the ardour of his zeal for the salvation of his hearers, though he differed from him in the manner and style of his preaching. "The Rector, Sir," he remarked, "was a son of consolation, from whose lips the words of mercy fell in soft and subduing accents on the ears of the congregation; Mr. Drew is a Boanerges, the thunder of whose eloquence awes us by its majesty; but when he has wrought up our feelings to the highest degree of terror, he suddenly shifts the scene, and exhibits to our view the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. Mr. Ingleby, I think, had the finest imagination, but Mr. Drew has the most powerful intellect; and though the former could enter into all the variations of Christian experience with the greatest ease, yet the latter applies the truth with equal force to the wounded conscience. Mr. Ingleby was distinguished by the gracefulness of his manner; Mr. Drew excels in the force and dignity of his delivery; and though we shall never cease to respect the memory of our former pastor, we are equally attached to our present. Under his ministry, no less than under that of his predecessor, many have been reclaimed from the error of their ways to the wisdom of the just; while the young and the more advanced Christian have been built up in the faith and the hope of the gospel. The poor are visited in their cottages; the dying have a spiritual comforter with them in their last moments; and over the whole parish a moral vigilance is exercised, which receives the sanction of all the wise and the good."
After witnessing the changes which a few years had made in the external establishment of religion in these two parishes, while the same moral process was going on in the salvation of the people, I felt how superior, in its nature and tendency, is the spirit of the gospel to that of religious bigotry. Had Mr. Stevens felt a bigoted attachment to the principle of dissent, he would have kept open his chapel after the settlement of Mr. Hartley at Aston, and thus have divided the people into two distinct societies; while the congregation at Broadhurst, if they had venerated the church in which the venerable Ingleby had so long preached, more than the truth which he delivered, would have been left without an evangelical ministry. But by acting the part of wisdom and of piety, they perpetuated the truth in each parish, without occasioning any division amongst those who were attached to it. Though in one village they sat to hear its enunciations on unconsecrated ground, while in the other it addressed them within the walls of the Establishment; yet as it derived none of its importance or worth from the places in which it is proclaimed, nor from the ministers who preached it, they mutually received it with meekness, as the engrafted word which is able to save the soul. Nor can I doubt that the Saviour visited with equal delight each congregation which assembled together in his name—that the Divine Spirit conveyed the same resistless energy to the Dissenting as to the Episcopal ministry—that the angels of heaven hovered over the village chapel with as much pleasure as over the village church; and that those who were made meet for glory on unconsecrated ground, were received with equal rapture by the spirits of the just made perfect, as their brethren who had worshipped within the pale of the Establishment. They differed in their relation to the external forms of Christianity, but possessing its pure and heavenly spirit, they stood in the same relation to Jesus Christ, who was their Saviour—to the Holy Ghost, who was their Comforter—and to heaven, which was their undefiled inheritance; and when, at the appointed time, any of them departed this life, they were neither commended nor censured for their denominative attachments while on earth, but admitted into the joy of their Lord as sinners redeemed by his blood. A friendly intercourse was kept up between the pious members of the two churches and their respective pastors, which demonstrated to the villagers that their religion was substantially the same in its nature and in its design, though it differed in a few external ceremonies. If they went to church, it was to worship God—to confess their sins—and to hear the glad tidings of salvation; and if they went to the village chapel, it was to engage in the same hallowed exercises, and listen to the same gospel of peace. As they felt no superstitious attachment to the places in which they assembled, nor imagined that the Episcopal form of ordination gave to the clergyman a degree of sanctity which the Dissenting minister did not possess, they intermingled in each other's society, not to wrangle or contend for superiority, but to cultivate the unity of their faith, and display the excellence of that grace which "teacheth us, that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world." Is it not to be regretted, that a similar spirit has not been uniformly cherished amongst the disciples of Jesus Christ? but, alas! they have in general caught the spirit of the mother of Zebedee's children, rather than that of their Master, and have been struggling for the ascendency, instead of living in harmony with each other. And is it not to this cause, more than any deficiency of evidence, that we may fairly account for the too general rejection of the gospel; for can we expect others to believe in its Divine origin, when they see those who embrace it with the greatest eagerness, displaying an intolerant temper, and refusing to hold communion with each other because they happen to differ on a few points of opinion, which they all acknowledge to be of secondary importance? Every Christian should examine the following prayer of Jesus Christ, and the reason which he assigned for presenting it:—"Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me" (John xvii. 20-23).
When the spirit of religious bigotry takes possession of the youthful breast, we naturally feel disposed to attribute it to the immaturity of the judgment, or a deficiency in Christian principles. We therefore conclude, that in more advanced life these unamiable qualities will disappear, and a cordial attachment will be formed for all of every denomination who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and in truth. This, I believe, is generally the case, though we sometimes see the evil spirit of bigotry souring the temper of aged Christians, contracting their benevolence, and rendering them more disposed to live apart from their brethren, than on terms of friendly intercourse; and if we venture to remonstrate with them, we are gravely told that they must preserve the consistency of their character. Consistency! And why not preserve the consistency of their character as Christians, who are required to love each other as brethren, rather than the consistency of their character as religious bigots, who neglect the weightier matters of the law, to cultivate the mint and cummin of ecclesiastical alienation and intolerance? Why not, when peculiar circumstances require it, overlook the little points of difference that exist between them; and unite as those who are endowed with the same spirit of faith—who are governed by the same authority, and who are moving on to the same state of blessedness and glory?
There were a few Dissenters who could not conscientiously worship within the walls of the Establishment, even though they revered the character of the new Rector at Aston, and approved of his ministry. Not being able to support a society of their own denomination, they subjected themselves to the inconvenience and expense of travelling several miles every Sabbath to enjoy the privilege of communion with their brethren at Broadhurst. But though they could not unite with their fellow-Christians at Aston in the exercises of public devotion, they were, nevertheless, zealous in co-operating with them in the execution of those plans of benevolence which related to the moral improvement and the temporal advantage of the hamlet in which they resided. A latitudinarian would be disposed to censure this unbending spirit in reference to public worship, and feel himself justified in holding it up to general reprobation; but a wise man will be sparing of his animadversions on conscientious scruples, when they are not suffered to disturb the harmony of friendly intercourse, and do not disqualify those who feel them from uniting with others of a different faith in the cultivation of the affections and charities of social life.
The Rev. Mr. Guion, who resided within a few miles of Broadhurst, and who had been for many years the devoted friend of the venerable Ingleby, was so much displeased when the pious members of the congregation seceded from the ministry of Mr. Porteous, that he broke off all intercourse with them, and not unfrequently expressed his censures in rather strong language. As they chose, in opposition to his advice, to withdraw from the pale of the Establishment, though he knew that their new Rector preached another gospel than that which they had heard from the lips of their deceased pastor, he looked upon them as schismatics, with whom he could not associate, even in the ordinary familiarities of friendship, without endangering his reputation as a clergyman of the Church of England. Though he admitted that some moral good might possibly result from the establishment of a Dissenting ministry in the village, yet he thought the evil would more than counter-balance it. He was a good man, but not a perfect man; a zealous minister of the everlasting gospel, but he wished that gospel to be preached only within the pale of the Established church; and though in private life he exhibited many traits of the Christian character, yet they were rather too strongly marked by the blemishes of a sectarian spirit.
He occasionally met Mr. Drew, the Dissenting clergyman at Broadhurst, at the anniversaries of the various Bible Societies in the country, and also at the houses of Mr. Stevens and Mr. Lewellin. On these occasions he behaved to him with all the courtesy of a gentleman, but for a long while he appeared more disposed to shun than to court his society. He spoke of Mr. Drew in terms of respect, but not with the warmth of a brotherly affection as one minister of Jesus Christ should speak of another. On one occasion, having spoken rather more unguardedly than usual, Miss Ryder, who was one of his own hearers, with a delicate severity of rebuke, said, "I presume, Sir, when an angel of the Lord reports to his fellow-angels that a sinner on earth is brought to repentance, they do not pause to inquire whether he is a Churchman or a Dissenter before their rejoicing begins."
"And I suppose," remarked Mrs. Stevens, "when they receive their appointment to minister to any of the heirs of salvation, they do not pause in their embassy, contending which shall have the honour of waiting on a Conformist, in preference to a Nonconformist."