Page:Preaching the Gospel to the working classes impossible under the pew system.djvu/8

 comb of a system so adverse, in my opinion, to the true interests of our national Church, which professes to have so much at heart the spiritual welfare of the poorer and humbler classes of our population. I am persuaded, indeed, that one of the prominent causes of dissent, as well as utter disregard and indifference to religion, manifested by too many of these classes, is attributable, in a great degree, to that exclusive system of pews which has for so many years prevailed. If you have not yet seen a Charge, delivered November, 1842, by Archdeacon Samuel Wilberforce, I would recommend it to your notice, as containing much valuable information and able remarks upon so important a subject. I remain, yours respectfully,

"Everybody," observes the late Professor Blount, in his 'Duties of the Parish Priest,' " must see that the Church of England had had its basis greatly narrowed by our pew system, till it was ceasing to be the Church of the people, with everything in it to fix itself in their affections the while; that the man in the goodly apparel and with the gold ring was pretty well securing to himself the whole area of the building."

Statements similar to these might be quoted to a very great extent, from writers of all kinds of theological opinion. The necessity for brevity here renders such quotation impossible; but I may refer those who care to see a great variety of testimony to the disastrous and deadly effects of the pew system, to a Letter to the Bishop of Ely, on the Evils of the Appropriation of Seats in Churches, published by Parker.

The matter with which we have now to deal is greatly simplified, and long argument rendered unnecessary, by the fact that the working and results of the system of "appropriation" are exactly what, from the nature of the case, we should expect them to be. Here the conclusions of reason and observation are found exactly to coincide.

This evil, which we have to expel from the Church, is a gigantic one, but so much the more need for assailing it with determination to subdue it, and not quailing and succumbing before it. If the greatness of an evil does not stimulate our efforts against it, we may as well at once give up all conflict with sin and the devil. Like all other evils, this will vanish before faithful and fearless men: many such there are; they only need to have it plainly exposed,