202 Endowing Churches in private patronage defended.

My defence against the objection of endowing churches in private patronage is, that the statute 2 and 3 Anne, c. 20, which all are bound to respect, exhorts all outsiders to endow all poor churches in private patronage; that all livings, even those held by the very clergymen who oppose helping poor vicars, are taxed by law through Queen Anne's Bounty Office to endow poor livings in private patronage; and that, therefore, the objecting clergymen do endow them through that Office.

If giving a church in private patronage the sum of £1000, for instance, will so increase the value of it that the lay patron can get the extra sum of £500 by selling the advowson, I hold that the patron should be compelled by law to give the sum of £500 to endow that church, in order to give it the value of what others have given to his saleable property; or else I hold that he should by law be compelled to resign, in honesty and honour, the patronage of the church. This would be only fair legislation.

Most poor livings, numbering about 4,000, or one third of the whole number of livings in England and Wales, are poor, and very many of them are in lay hands; and if this treatment or objection were applied to them, it would be opposing the Scriptures, which direct ministers to be fed. We benefit heathen patrons now by sending money to missionaries in China, Japan, and in other places. Some clergyman must take a church in private patronage; and it is more manly to oppose lay-Rectors and their system than poor vicars. He is a narrow-minded being who leaves vice, poverty, misery, and degradation to reign in a

Attacking clergymen is un-ordaining them. 203

parish because its church has a lay patron, when the vicar has no control over this circumstance. The Church Priest and Levite left the bleeding man to the mercy of the Patron or Prince of the country; but the Nonconformist good Samaritan saved his life from the thieves, and paid his hotel expenses. Reader, go and do likewise.

I advise people never to make an enemy of a minister of religion, whether he be a Ritualist, Revivalist, Church Dignitary, or even a Dissenting Preacher. As ministers are defending themselves continually against the devil's attacks, they imagine that those must have the chief devil in them who oppose them, and that their soul and body are merely his cover. Strangely enough, Bishops attack clergymen, although opposing any ordained man is virtually un-ordaining him. On this account I can never join any Church Association party, or Persecution Company, to annoy clergymen for anything whatever, whether ritual, or church doctrine, or practice, or any failing in their lives. Opposing clergymen is backing up the devil in hatred and strife. It is overthrowing the Church of God, and encouraging the pride and tyranny of a Bishop over a minister, who, for honesty and humility, must be, in any case, far holier than the Bishop himself.

I know that one of the thirty-nine Articles of Religion (made by the Bishops to make princes of themselves, and to degrade clergymen under them) says, that "it appertains to the discipline of the Church that enquiry be made of evil ministers [but not of evil Bishops]." However, according to Holy

204 The exposer of even bad ministers is cursed.

Scripture, it appertains to the work of God's grace in the soul, and to its discipline and influence upon the character, to pray for evil ministers, and to forgive instead of injuring them: and God's grace is better than Church discipline, for the one comes from God, but the other comes, for the most part, from priestcraft. Even if a clergyman is really in fault, and undoubtedly guilty of anything contrary to the laws of God, yet attacking him is not justifiable, as he is God's servant, notwithstanding the Popish charm of Church discipline to befool men of sense. Let the discipline of the Church consist in giving the offending clergyman the censure of a "godly admonition."

Noah, a Preacher of righteousness, who had not much priestcraft, nor patriarchal episcopal trickery either, deliberately pursued the occupation of brewer or winepresser, as if to tempt himself to get drunk. He became actually guilty of the sin of drunkenness, and those who excused him were blessed and their posterity; whereas the man who exposed his badness was cursed and all that descended from him (Gen. ix. 20-26).

CHAPTER XXX.

The English not understanding the Irish arising from want of excitability -The "Reverend 'Jack-o'-the-Lantern'" and the "Ecclesiastical Will-o'-the-Wisp '"-Spiritual lessons drawn from bad treatment -David's confidence in God under similar trials-Christ our light, salvation, and the strength of our life.

RECEIVED all sorts of treatment and rebuffs, in my personal canvass from house to house to raise money for the permanent endowment of my church; for the English being slow and solid could not understand my being different from themselves. Any thing unusual takes away the Englishman's reason; whereas the Irishman, being excitable, is quickly made equal to the occasion, no matter how strange or sudden it may be. People made me Father Moses by day, turning an ozier rod into a shillelah serpent, and a wild Irishman by night, making old ladies speechless for asking help for my church. Many closed their doors when they saw me coming, on account of some reports that "old ladies were struck speechless with fright, when I had asked a few shillings for my church." I have often seen these creatures hopping away on their crutches with fear, crying out, "Here comes the wild Irish parson with his shillelah to get money."

I travelled fifty miles on foot one day, and I did not reach home for my duty on Sunday morning until

206

God's constancy in our trials.

four o'clock. At midnight, on the way, I alarmed people by a lantern which I carried for enabling me to read the sign-posts at the cross-roads, having never travelled that way before. For this I have been called "the Reverend 'Jack-o'-the-Lantern,'" but by some others "the Ecclesiastical 'Will-o'-the-Wisp.'" Like the prophet and minister of God, Elijah, who was called "Baldhead," I was now called all sorts of abusive names, because, like him, I was doing good.

The morning that I carried the lantern I gathered spiritual lessons from my treatment and circumstances; and, having entered my pulpit, I preached the following short sermon, upon Psalm xxvii., I.:—

"The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?"

Oh! poor sinful brethren, cried I, the miraculous holy life, which God had enabled David to live was, that his confidence in Him was as great, when in the dark valley of the shadow of death, as when he was in the green pastures. He knew that should the devil prevail upon him to bring him close to the gate of hell, the Holy Ghost, who was in him, would bring him back again to the fold; for he was at the gate of hell, when the Holy Ghost first took up His abode in him. Some say that God's way is to give us up when the devil overpowers us. Others think that His having promised "never to leave us nor forsake us" tempts people to wander from Him altogether. But what kept David from being afraid was knowing that the devil can never defeat God, or make Him deformed, by taking away any part or any blood-bought member out