over to Liverpool by the steamers; 151,382 of whom were deck passengers, apparently emigrants, labourers, &c., and 7,425 were apparently paupers. During the last five years, the almost incredible number of 1,159,294 persons have arrived in that port from Ireland. Of course, multitudes of these have passed to other places and countries, but other multitudes have remained in Liverpool. The effect is very disastrous. They not only reduce the market-price of labour, and thus throw the native population into straitened circumstances, which at once promote crime; but they directly lower the tone of morals by an example and influence which is all on the side of social degradation. Of 5,962 persons taken into custody in 1854, 2,527, being 42.3 per cent., were born in Ireland; and of the 1,207 prostitutes taken into custody, 604 were born in Ireland, being 50-3 per cent. Thus Liverpool has not at all a fair chance of moral and social elevation; but must, if from this cause alone, greatly deteriorate, unless the Churches rouse themselves, and bring to bear upon this mass of evil the full power of religious influences.

But there is another fearful aspect of the condition of our large towns, partly the result of physical, and partly of moral, causes; and they always re-act upon each other. The mortality is fearfully high in such districts as that we have described as a sample of many.

"From a table given in the last Report of the General Board of Health just issued, it appears that the average age of all who die in England is 31 years and 1 month. This fact should be carefully borne in mind. In 1847, it was 29 years and 4 months. But in the districts of St. German's and Liskeard, in Cornwall, the average rose to 42 years, 11 months; the highest to be found in any of our counties. In Lancashire, the highest average was at Ulverstone, where it reached 41 years, 8 months; and the lowest at Liverpool, where it was less than the half, being 20 years and 5 months. The lowest county in England was Lancashire, and the lowest district in Lancashire was Liverpool. The average for the whole county of Lancaster, 22 years and 10 months, was far below that of St. Giles's, in London, 28 years, 4 months; and scarcely reached that of the very lowest district in the metropolis, St. Luke's, 22 years, 8 months. Of about 320 districts in England and Wales, there were only 7 that fell below Liverpool, and these were all mining or manufacturing districts."*

Dr. Hume very properly argues, that as a large portion of Liverpool is undoubtedly very healthy, there must be a fearful amount of mortality somewhere in the town, to drag down the averages almost to the very bottom of the scale. The Report of St. Anne's Dispensary shows that the average of

“Evening Classes for Adult Pupils: How far desirable, possible, and sought for." By the Rev. A. Hume, D.C.C.

What is the Remedy?

197

life among those who died in one year, (1853,) who were patients of the institution, and of all ages, was less than 15 years; and this is not the worst portion of the town. That the morality which springs from religion has "length of days in her right hand," is evident from the consideration of the average of human life among various classes. "If we take the members of the Society of Friends, the average age at death of all who are born is upwards of 52 years, or nearly double the average for all England and Wales. In London, the average age at death of the gentry is 44; of the respectable middle classes, 28; of tradesmen, 25; and of artisans, 22."* But what fearful havoc vice, ignorance, improvidence, and poverty are making in our population, when the average is reduced, within a town like Liverpool, to less than 15 years! What an appeal do these facts contain! "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." Speaking of two districts, Dr. Hume says:

"If a Clergyman were to visit all the families in both districts at the rate of twenty per week, or more than one thousand per annum, he would be nearly five years and a half in completing one round. Within that period nearly six thousand individuals would have died, and more than six thousand would have been born; many thousands would have come and gone unknown to him; and long lines of houses would have changed their occupants eight, nine, or ten times."

How, then, is it possible for ministerial service alone to reach the necessities of our large towns? Ministers are overwhelmed, and cannot do all they might, but for the perplexity and sense of utter inadequacy to the duty. The public demands upon large numbers of them are fearful, and wear down the strongest. Town life to them is a cankering care, a constant strain, a complete exhaustion. We sometimes blame, when better knowledge would excite our pity.

Omitting statistics on the wear and tear of ministerial life, and only noticing the fact recorded by Mr. Stevens in his bold and faithful appeal to his brethren, that out of nearly seven hundred Ministers in America, about two-thirds died after twelve years' itinerant service; we observe, that the true remedy for this appalling Home Heathenism is a judicious and systematic combination of ministerial and lay agency.

Lay service has been required, and has been given to the Church in every age. Moses found the work of governing all Israel "too heavy for him;" and the wise counsel of Jethro was, that he should devolve some of the less important matters

"Tables of Vital Statistics," &c. 1847.

And yet, "in the worst part of the town, the reduction in mortality by sanitary measures has been from 35 to 32 per 1,000, or equivalent to a saving of 800 lives annually."-Report of the Medical Officer of Health, June 15th, 1854.

upon others, carefully chosen for their fitness to be helps to him. "The hard causes they brought unto Moses, but every small matter they judged themselves." In the service of the tabernacle and the temple, beside the Priests and the Levites, there were also the Nethinims, to attend to various subordinate matters. In the early Church, there were not only Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, and Pastors, but Deacons and Helps, or Helpers, whom the Apostle recognises with gratitude for their labours in the common cause. The Catechists were not Ministers; yet to them was committed the early religious training of the young. The nature and extent of these various lay services, are marked on the page of inspired Church history. In those primitive days, the brightest and most vigorous of Christianity, every Church was a missionary institution, every believer a Gospel seraph, charged with truths he burned to proclaim. Persecution scattered them, but only more widely to disperse the seeds of eternal life. Necessity brought them to great cities; but "there they spake unto the Grecians, preaching the Lord Jesus." The most remarkable pages of Church history and apostolical direction are those concerning the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit so abundantly showered upon the early believers, and given to sanction and qualify laymen for the service of the house of God; diversities of gifts, and administrations, and operations, from one Source, and for one end; and all implying trust, obligation, responsibility.

Although there are departments of labour into which a Minister cannot enter, if it were only for want of time and opportunity, and many services which he can only imperfectly perform, yet a strong prejudice has existed for ages against lay service in the Church. It may be traced to the pestilent influence of Popery, which has always endeavoured to limit the efficacy of grace to the channel of ministerial services. The blessed Reformation did not wholly emancipate the Churches from the fatal prejudice; the law, even in the time of Elizabeth, being "that none be allowed to preach, but such as had been regularly ordained;" while many of the Clergy were so ignorant as not to be able to write their own names, hundreds could not preach a sermon, and many of them were infamous in their lives. But, in the times of the Commonwealth, lay agency became more authorized, although it did not escape ribald wit and great persecution. Yet it was not until the last century that the principle was thoroughly understood, and practically recognised, that laymen are bound to serve the Church, and that their labours are eminently fitted to extend religion.

Nothing could exceed the prejudice and rancour with which lay agency was assailed, when first employed under the Wesleys and

Mr.

"Tho

Whitefield. Certain points of Church order were deemed of more importance than the salvation of men: order was made an end, and not a means. In the Church of Mr. Wesley, laymen scarcely conversed on religion, or prayed together. His own High-Church notions might have found a lesson and a rebuke in the circumstances of his conversion, which took place not in the beautiful service on which he attended at St. Paul's, but when assembled with some German Nonconformists in Aldersgate Street. But he could not long remain unimpressed with that lesson, who was the devout interpreter and docile servant of Divine Providence. His own labours produced fruit which had seed within itself; and when God made the necessity for lay labour, he learnt to call no man common or unclean. The work of religious revival increased beyond the extraordinary powers of these great and good men to overtake it. Maxfield began to preach, when only authorized to pray with, and advise, "the Society;" and Mr. Wesley hastened back to silence him. His noble mother, to whose judgment he ever listened with a just reverence, observed an expression of dissatisfaction on his countenance, and inquired the cause. mas Maxfield," said he, abruptly, "has turned preacher, I find." She looked attentively at him, and replied, "John, you know what my sentiments have been. You cannot suspect me of favouring readily any thing of this kind. But take care what you do with respect to that young man; for he is as surely called of God to preach as you are. Examine what have been the fruits of his preaching, and hear him also yourself." He did so, and the results are notorious. This first lay preaching among the Methodists struck an effectual blow against all notions of Church order that interfere with the interests of religion. This was the true beginning the foundation-stoneof that great system of lay agency which first among the Methodists, and now among other Churches, has given life to Christian zeal, and made the Protestant Churches generally working Churches. The early results were indisputably the seal of the divine approval, and justified the sound judgment at which Mr. Wesley arrived, although not without a struggle. These views and principles "operated in the hesitating mind of Mr. Wesley, and waged sharp, but happily successful, conflict with the habits of his order, and the prejudices of his education. In the dearth of clerical labourers, in so vast a field, he set open the door, under judicious control and superintendence, to lay administration. He encouraged the agency of the pious in every direction, in spreading the light through their respective neighbourhoods; and by this means, through the divine blessing, he increased his own usefulness a thousand-fold; and, instead of operating individually, powerful as that individual operation was, he became the director of a vast system, which remained at

work in his personal absence, and was continually pouring into the Church its contributions of conquest from the world."*

Happily, through the influence of such examples, a change of sentiment, as beneficial as it is great, has come upon the Christian Church. Subordinate and auxiliary help is not only tolerated, but encouraged. Even in the Establishment, a Minister is commended who avails himself of the divine fruit of his ministry, by systematically employing the laymen to visit the sick, care for the young, instruct and warn the vicious, and pray, exhort, and read the Scriptures in a given neighbourhood. Clergymen do not hesitate now to say, that "for this work lay help is no less valuable than clerical;" and dignitaries are found advocating, with an earnest, enlightened, and eloquent zeal, the claims of Societies for sustaining and directing such religious efforts. This is a great advance upon the feelings which imbued many even of the Evangelical Clergy less than fifty years ago, who maintained that in prayer-meetings none should officiate except Clergymen; "for it must destroy all ministerial authority and influence, for him to be present while one of his flock, a layman, is the mouth of God to the company, or of the company in addressing God!" That change has not been brought about by advocating any theory, but by the impulse of the example of John Wesley and George Whitefield. The great and acknowledged success of Methodism has induced other Churches to vindicate the principle of lay ministration, and often substantially to copy the very form in which it is practised among Methodists. "If none," says the excellent Archbishop of Canterbury, "except those who are solemnly set apart and devoted to the ministry are to advise and instruct their neighbours in religion, what multitudes must ever remain uninstructed and unadvised!" "My brethren," addressing his Clergy, "if we shut out from spiritual usefulness all who are not ordained to spiritual things,-if we do not rather excite and urge them to such duties, we contradict the plain commands of our religion."

The great want of the Church is a living agency. Theories, on every subject, are abundant; questions of Church government are practically settled, and will not easily become a great controversy again; institutions are pretty well perfected. What is wanted is men; men of soul, men of energy, who will do the real work of the Church,-some to labour, some to direct and inspire. The influence of those who pervade their sphere with their own buoyant and quietly determined spirit, is beyond calculation, and secures infinitely greater results than their immediate personal efforts. They are Generals of the army, and show

* Watson, vol. vii., p. 284.